The 90s: Worst Decade for Pop Music

[Janszoon]

Sure, lots of great music. Nowhere near the 70's, nowhere near the 90's.

To me those three decades are equally good, even if they each have their own things they excel at. 

[Guybrush]

I was reminded of The Kelly family recently. A girl I was friends with for a little while in the late 90s had them as her favorite band.

This song she played over and over.

I dunno 😐 I can see the hit potential, but the 90sness of the production and the layer of cheese is just too thick.

Here's a song I actually like a lot, but the video brings up a lot of 90s tropes that, when put together, do seem ridiculous to me.

They seem to live in a shack with gaps in the paneling. They got cockroaches. He's a long-haired, troubled hunk with dark moods and a cross on a chain. It's so rough and dramatic.

Yet I find it hard to describe in s concise manner what's wrong with this. Is it the way this style seems so unironic and self-unaware? Maybe it has to do with the way the 90s told these kind of stories and the way they liked to express big emotions at that time 🤔 it's kinda solemn and ridiculous at the same time.

[ribbons]

Can't believe Hynde ever agreed to make that video.      

I'd be out the door at first sight of those massive cockroaches.   

Nice song, though.

[Meatwad]

Although the 90's did have most of the KLFs more noteworthy output ............

KLF - Last train to trancentral

[Lexi Darling]

This piece of pretty awful 90sness popped into my head recently. I generally have a pretty high tolerance for cheesy boyband music, but stuff like this makes me glad that it's not popular anymore. Pretty cool bassline though at least.

[Meatwad]

yeah that song does have a decent bassline but the rest of it just feels like they're going through the motions. Cant remember too many boy bands from the 90's but I did once trade an East 17 CD single for a friends cassette copy of REM - Out of Time so I remember them at least. I still dont mind this song.

East 17 - Its Alright

[Lexi Darling]

yeah that song does have a decent bassline but the rest of it just feels like they're going through the motions. Cant remember too many boy bands from the 90's but I did once trade an East 17 CD single for a friends cassette copy of REM - Out of Time so I remember them at least. I still dont mind this song.

East 17 - Its Alright

Yeah, for sure. I was exposed to a lot of boybands between 1997 and 2002 since my sister was obsessed with them. They also played a lot of that stuff on Radio Disney, which she listened to a lot. I was more into pop punk and nu-metal back then, but I also liked some of the boyband stuff, at the time I did anyway. Some of it still hits that nostalgic sweet spot but there were a lot of derivative songs from that era that have aged like milk as well.

[jimmy jazz]

This piece of pretty awful 90sness popped into my head recently. I generally have a pretty high tolerance for cheesy boyband music, but stuff like this makes me glad that it's not popular anymore. Pretty cool bassline though at least.

This comes on the radio when I'm training if I have the 90s station on.

Agree with everything you said. It's painful to listen to. What makes it worse is those accents.

The one guy (Ritchie) is a cool guy though, from near me and is good on Twitter.

[Meatwad]

I think its the perception that the 80's was this golden era for popular music (lacking significant rock music output) with Michael Jackson reigning as the king of pop may impact on the 90's unfavourably, but I couldn't disagree more that the 90's was the worst decade for pop music. It was better than the 00's, the 10's, and honestly could well be better than the 80's.

JX - You belong to me

[Guybrush]

When you're looking back through the mists of time, you are probably cherry picking things from that decade that you like.

But take a random 90s week and look at whatever the Top 20 hits are that week and it's probably gonna be turd after dookie. And the number 1 might be something like this:

So while there were good songs, the low points were so low.

[Meatwad]

When you're looking back through the mists of time, you are probably cherry picking things from that decade that you like.

But take a random 90s week and look at whatever the Top 20 hits are that week and it's probably gonna be turd after dookie. And the number 1 might be something like this:

So while there were good songs, the low points were so low.

Everyones cherrypicking songs here to make their point. Thats how debate goes.

Not sure Limp Bizkit's "Faith" is all that random and truly emblematic of pop from the 90's.

Do you believe that the 00's and the 10's haven't pumped out their fair share of aural pop turds too ?

The 00's did feature the abomination known as Crazy Frog and that obscenely annoying Axel F cover. Would much rather listen to Limp Bizkit than Crazy Frog.

[Guybrush]

Everyones cherrypicking songs here to make their point. Thats how debate goes.

Not sure Limp Bizkit's "Faith" is all that random and truly emblematic of pop from the 90's.

Do you believe that the 00's and the 10's haven't pumped out their fair share of aural pop turds too ?

The 00's did feature the abomination known as Crazy Frog and that obscenely annoying Axel F cover. Would much rather listen to Limp Bizkit than Crazy Frog.

As it is, the entire Eurodance genre is hot turd AND was massively popular, so I could cherry pick forever. The 00s and 10s are gonna run out of contenders before the 90s does.

[Lexi Darling]

Crazy frog is the absolute worst. I was in high school when it came out, hated it back then and still hate it.

The 2010s were far worse than the 90s. Eurodance and Limp Bizkit are at least fun. The 10s gave us Imagine Dragons, Tekashi 69, Justin Bieber, Meghan Trainor, Ed Sheeran, Lil Pump, the list goes on.

Eurodance was corny but it wasn't as ubiquitously inescapable as some of those artists and their impact on culture. Though I admit I am American so I understand the European experience is likely different.

[Guybrush]

Eurodance was corny but it wasn't as ubiquitously inescapable as some of those artists and their impact on culture. Though I admit I am American so I understand the European experience is likely different.

Yes, it probably was because Eurodance was inescapable here throughout the decade. Early on, we had artists like DJ Bobo, Haddaway, 2Unlimited and Dr. Alban. Towards the end of the decade, there was artists like Vengaboys, Toybox, Dr. Bombay, E-Type, Aqua and 666. It just seemed like it would never go away - unlike the often fondly remembered grunge which didn't last long at all.

On the more spiritual side of things, the 90s was also kinda awful at times.

I assume Eva Cassidy might have been instrumental in cementing the kind of soulful slow cover that really can suck the soul right out of anything remotely fun.

I'm just gonna partly blame her for songs like this.


Then we got new age electronic music like this which, despite its good intentions, I just find kinda ridiculous 😅 indigenous culturally inspired music doesn't seem more genuine or cool if you add a breakbeat to it.

Combine the two and add a dash of Enya's reverbs and you get the awful, awful 90s junk that is Gregorian and their Masters of Chant albums.

A real hit with 90s spas and massage parlours, I'm sure.

[Meatwad]

Crazy frog is the absolute worst. I was in high school when it came out, hated it back then and still hate it.

The 2010s were far worse than the 90s. Eurodance and Limp Bizkit are at least fun. The 10s gave us Imagine Dragons, Tekashi 69, Justin Bieber, Meghan Trainor, Ed Sheeran, Lil Pump, the list goes on.

Eurodance was corny but it wasn't as ubiquitously inescapable as some of those artists and their impact on culture. Though I admit I am American so I understand the European experience is likely different.

We didn't really get too swamped with Eurodance in the 90's here in OZ either. I mean we did get that awful Eiffel 65 song "Blue" with the excruciating autotune, Aqua (I actually like "Barbie Girl" if you enjoy it ironically, but the rest of their stuff was rather forgettable) and the supremely appalling Vengaboys, but we still had plenty of local music charting and other pop from the US and UK.

Even the Eurodance hits that did chart well out here (like Snap) is stuff I enjoy more than not. Maybe its just a case of not being swamped with a certain genre too much. As you say, Eurodance and Limp Bizkit are at least fun (even if Fred has always come across as a massive douche lol). And I agree with you that all of those from the 2010's you mention are      . 

If anybody really has to hate on a song from the 90's Id rather it be Cher's "Believe" than Eurodance since it seems to have started the whole autotune nonsense and is possibly the worst pop songs from the 90's.

Snap - The Power