The 90s: Worst Decade for Pop Music

[Guybrush]

In terms of popular music, the 90s sucked. Aside from the rare quality of, say, the Rage Against the Machine debut, Massive Attack's Mezzanine or OK Computer (yes, it is good), what I remember mostly from the hit lists were a drudgery of boring ass RnB hits, boy bands and god awful dance music like DJ Bobo, Aqua, Wigfield.

It's like this was new music and it was gonna be popular no matter how shitty it was or how little effort actually went into making it.

Do you agree? Show me some examples of boring ass 90s music!

Like what is a papaya coconut and why does it deserve a song? Yech!

[tristan_geoff]

What about Blue by Eiffel 65???  That song was a bop

[Lexi Darling]

Pop music in any era has always been overrun with corny crap. Take the 70s for example. Afternoon Delight, Disco Duck, the Pina Colada Song, Muskrat Love, Do You Think I'm Sexy, Barry Manilow's entire career, I rest my case.

90s pop was at least formative on my childhood and so I can't bring myself to truly hate stuff like boy bands and eurodance.

That being said, the 90s did curse us with Achy Breaky Heart and I'm Too Sexy and Puff Daddy and Smash Mouth and LFO, so I get you. But it's not unique in having terrible fads and pop music. Every decade has its crap that rises to the top.

[Janszoon]

god awful dance music like DJ Bobo, Aqua, Wigfield.

I'm sorry, but I love "Barbie Girl".

[tristan_geoff]

That being said, the 90s did curse us with Achy Breaky Heart and I'm Too Sexy and Puff Daddy and Smash Mouth and LFO, so I get you. But it's not unique in having terrible fads and pop music. Every decade has its crap that rises to the top.

This LFO?

[Lexi Darling]

Nope, this LFO. Corny white boy rapping abound.

I remember when this came out and even back then I thought it sucked.

[Janszoon]

That being said, the 90s did curse us with Achy Breaky Heart and I'm Too Sexy and Puff Daddy and Smash Mouth and LFO, so I get you. But it's not unique in having terrible fads and pop music. Every decade has its crap that rises to the top.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! "Walkin' on the Sun" is a decent song!

[Janszoon]

As a general response to this thread: I spent all of my teens and the early part of my 20s in the 90s as an artsy—then art school-attending—pop music hater, but even I have to acknowledge that there was plenty of great pop music during that time. "Barbie Girl" is great fun and so is "Cotton Eyed Joe". Ace of Base and Deee-Lite were brilliant. "Wicked Game" was the sexiest song ever. "Ray of Light" was mind-blowing. "Boys & Girls" was, at least for me, a first tentative step into understanding my own fundamental queerness. And, of course, "Bittersweet Symphony" was the anthem to end all anthems.

[Lexi Darling]

That being said, the 90s did curse us with Achy Breaky Heart and I'm Too Sexy and Puff Daddy and Smash Mouth and LFO, so I get you. But it's not unique in having terrible fads and pop music. Every decade has its crap that rises to the top.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! "Walkin' on the Sun" is a decent song!

Fair enough! Doesn't really do much for me but it's better than a lot of their other hits. I suppose they didn't start getting really obnoxious until the early 2000s when children's film soundtracks consumed their career, haha.

[Janszoon]

Fair enough! Doesn't really do much for me but it's better than a lot of their other hits. I suppose they didn't start getting really obnoxious until the early 2000s when children's film soundtracks consumed their career, haha.

They did children's films soundtracks? Damn.

[Lexi Darling]

Fair enough! Doesn't really do much for me but it's better than a lot of their other hits. I suppose they didn't start getting really obnoxious until the early 2000s when children's film soundtracks consumed their career, haha.

They did children's films soundtracks? Damn.

Well, not entire soundtracks, but they did do a lot of songs for kids' movies back then. Allow me to share with you this nugget, from the 2003 Cat in the Hat movie, a film I swear I only saw in theaters because my little sister dragged me to it.

[Rubber Soul]

To me, the 90s weren't all that bad, but then again, I didn't listen to top 40 in the 90s, which was indeed godawful. I mean if I had to hear My Heart Will Go On one more time...

But, I'm an indie guy so I listened to bands like Nirvana and Radiohead. Later I would get into Elliott Smith and Wilco among others.

And I'd argue the 90's and 00's are both way better than the music we hear today (outside the top 40 anyway)

[Guybrush]

I think you guys are focusing too much on the good memories and not enough on the bad.

It's a weird decade because, as someone interested in electronic music at the time, I couldn't quite understand why we had ground breaking artists like Aphex Twin breaking through to the mainstream with complex, organic, multi-layered music and at the same time, we had artists and producers who made basic shit like this:

You have like 5 goddamn tracks here. Vocal, drums, awful house chord samples, this dumb melodic bass sample counter melody and for some reason this stupid jawharp (?) sample that they've smeared over the thing.

Other decades have their shitty pop, but Barry Manilow was never this cheap. I definitely think the 90s, early 90s in particular, has a bad case of these very cheaply produced cash grabs being able to gain significant popularity.

God dangit, now I'm agitated again. I need another break from this awful 90s music.

edit:

What about Blue by Eiffel 65???  That song was a bop

It's a travesty, argh.

As a general response to this thread: I spent all of my teens and the early part of my 20s in the 90s as an artsy—then art school-attending—pop music hater, but even I have to acknowledge that there was plenty of great pop music during that time. "Barbie Girl" is great fun and so is "Cotton Eyed Joe". Ace of Base and Deee-Lite were brilliant. "Wicked Game" was the sexiest song ever. "Ray of Light" was mind-blowing. "Boys & Girls" was, at least for me, a first tentative step into understanding my own fundamental queerness. And, of course, "Bittersweet Symphony" was the anthem to end all anthems.

Out of those, Wicked Game was a very sexy ballad and it's a good song. However, for every Wicked Game, there was something like this (since you mentioned Rednex):

And about Cotton Eye Joe, I guess it was decent - or at least Rednex must have thought so as they repackaged and resold that song an additional two times as The Way I Mate and Old Pop In An Oak.  Check out the similarities.. and they also both charted here. It was so much about the cash grabs.

[Janszoon]

I think you guys are focusing too much on the good memories and not enough on the bad...

I have never heard either of the songs you posted before, so even though they're not great, I don't think they were really part of the pop landscape over here in the 90s. To me, the shitty pop music of the 90s was the pop R&B garbage churned out by the likes of Mariah Carey and Color Me Badd. I like R&B, but I feel like the late 80s and early 90s were its artistic nadir.

[fire]

Do you agree?
Not really, but I understand and respect your point of view.
my favourite decade is the 90s 
 
Show me some examples of boring ass 90s music!
I still don't like Britney music, her song "baby one more time" in my opinion it was so annoying and boring even back then.