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A Malaise of Meaning: What’s with ’90s music?
Before the rise of atheism and Communism, there was Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Both men managed to pick what would come after the retreat of religious faith, and fans of both authors point to them as nearly having ESP with regard to the future zeitgeist.
I was thinking of the predictive power of art while listening to horrible punk and emo music from the late 1990s and early 2000s. I think it explains the increase in government corruption, the rising suicide rate, and the opioid epidemic. Almost all the songs are musically repetitive and very few could… how I put it… sing? They yell in a manner related to the musical instrument about how they find school boring, society unfair, and their attempts at coitus unsuccessful.
All these topics are fine sources of artistic inspiration, but these songs seem devoid of any depth. However, like Michel Houellebecq’s novels, the emptiness seems to paint a fascinating picture of ennui, though with far less artistic skill.
Like the upper-class Frenchman, Houellebecq, the picture of life depicted by angry white kids from the suburbs is undeniably comfortable. They do not suffer from any serious material deprivations. For the most part, they have dads even if they hate them. They are not afeared being shot by a criminal over a drug deal as in hip-hop. Nor do they sing about getting shot while being an outlaw like in darker country songs. ’90s songs praise getting high, but they seem to lack the bleak sadness of country or blues songs about the depression associated with whiskey and cocaine. As self-indulgent as all those ’60s drug songs were, there was a sincere attempt to expand the human consciousness.
In the 1990s there was so much peace and prosperity that it was boring. People seemed less sensitive to race than we are today. China was backward and, besides, they’d give up Communism eventually. Islamism wasn’t anything to worry about, and the internet wasn’t destroying our mental health.
There was nothing to rebel against. To paraphrase John Lennon, there was nothing to kill or die for, but there was no brotherhood of man.” In addition to this malaise of meaning, or perhaps because of it, the musicians at the time didn’t feel the need to explore other musical traditions or to further delve into the Western Tradition of classical music. I know painfully little about music theory. But I can sort of notice when a talented artist is trying to expand his repertoire. I suspect that if Kurt Cobain continued to live, he would have expanded it. But it seemed like many artists were comfortable with generic angry garage punk.
Now I am oversimplifying things a bit. As Franco has mentioned, there are rivers, streams, lakes, seas, and oceans in music called genres, and within those genres are sub-genres. But I am limiting my focus to the most popular music and asking why it was the most popular. My cousin who used to be in a band mentioned that sad music sells because young people want to listen to people who are sad like them, but they don’t want to expand their minds. So if you are targeting a younger audience you have to dumb it down. That makes sense as far as it goes, but it doesn’t explain why teenagers were so into sadness and anger in the 1990s compared to other decades.
As far as I can reckon, I cannot help but notice a certain existential emptiness in the late 1990s and early 2000s music. I think that emptiness comes from a peace and prosperity without purpose. But what do my fellow Ricochetti think?
Published in General
Thought-provoking OP on something I already think a lot about and need to think much more about. I think about it so much because I am shocked that music is so unimportant to me now when it always was, especially during this period mentioned. I was in my late 20s, a recent divorcee and my life was kind of falling apart. I was listening a lot to Neutral Milk Hotel, Guided By Voices and some others from the same and similar record labels. Seam and Chokebore were others I was listening to a lot. I identified with the music a lot back then. I too have the occasional relapse and quite frankly am always disgusted I was so moved back then. I literally get sick to my stomach. The whole thing just fed my depression and kept me in contact with a group of people that only wanted me to be “sad and angry” with them.
Now with all that said, I’m not sure it was any worse than any other period. If I do listen to music now, it’s usually 80s. I can still appreciate many of my favorites but can see now I’m not such a fan of the lyrics. Tenderness by General Public comes to mind. I’d been a Beatles fan since high school but during this period I got into poetry and was looking at their lyrics, especially the stuff John and George were writing. I thought it was so deep at the time but am far less impressed now. Whether it’s the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s or later, I find most of the songs to have a really bad message. I don’t tend to find these deep, real, creative and insightful artists so many claim they are. I see a lot of lost, really really lost people who actually offer very little that truly feeds the soul. Not all, of course, but the great majority.
Hmmm… I didn’t really intend to get all ranty and grouchy. There will always be these songs that instantly spark a memory and it’s nice but remember a time when I felt about music like the last couple of young people talking (at 4:57) and now I just don’t. I remember I was teaching teenagers when this song came out and they were absolutely crazy about it. I was intensely sad.
https://youtu.be/mLqHDhF-O28
Elliot Smith had some good songs. I would have been aware of something called Lo-fi but I can’t remember anything about it. I still enjoy a lot of the same music today but I tend only to listen to it when I’m driving but that’s more to do with technology having moved on without me. I can play my New Order cds in the car but I don’t have any way of conveniently playing music in my house. I used to have an IPod but that died and I never got used to using a phone for anything more than phone stuff.
Or fatal . . .
Just to be clear, I don’t think Cobain’s suicide was during a “Hole” concert…
When a society becomes atheist, it immediately adopts another religion. Wokism, Communism and some more lefty forms of Nationalism seem to be the go-to replacements. Check out Russian literature.
Atheism is not the natural state of mankind. There were always atheists (more like anti-theists) in every society but they were a minority.
There is always a pendulum. People get bored with what they’ve heard before and want something different. But something seems different nowadays. As Mark Twain put it, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes.” This modern era doesn’t seem to rhyme to me. Kurt Cobain’s sadness totally rhymed with, “Gloomy Sunday” but the modern stuff seems almost innovate in it’s emptiness.
I was referring to the theory by a PI that Love had Cobain killed. Here’s the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Death-Murder-Kurt-Cobain/dp/0743484843/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=love+and+death&qid=1639764978&s=books&sr=1-1
There’s also a documentary:
https://www.amazon.com/Soaked-Bleach-Daniel-Roebuck/dp/B00YAZNBTI/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=soaked+in+bleach&qid=1639765046&s=movies-tv&sr=1-2
This was the song that convinced me Madonna could sing