I’m 22 years old, and when I go to a college bar where there’s a jukebox, what do I hear? It’s not rap. It’s not indie rock or pop punk. It’s Better Than Ezra, Weezer, Blues Traveler, Sugar Ray, The Wallflowers, Third Eye Blind, and Matchbox 20.
People get drunk, they get nostalgic, and they play music that they liked when they were kids.
I have to say I am really enjoying it. I myself have been nostalgic for late-90s music ever since rap started to dominate in 2000, and I have very fond memories of all of that stuff from 1996 and 1997 that was big on the radio. I’m glad other people of my generation are starting to get into it again also.
I’m not talking about the Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, Pavement, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, or any of that early to mid 90s alt-rock. This is a different generation we’re dealing with - kids who grew up not on the heavy alternative music of the early 90s, but the light hearted radio pop of the late 90s.
I haven’t really noticed this, but I’m not surprised - the class of '98 is having their ten year reunion, so they’re feeling nostalgic.
I was in college at the time and I can’t say I was overly fond of most Top 40 artists. There must have been a million Matchbox 20’s and Third Eye Blinds, and they all blended together into one bland and forgettable frat party playlist. This was also the time when Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys were dominating the airwaves, and I’m not particularly nostalgic about them yet either.
When you compare it to some of the crap on the radio today, okay. But if I’m feeling nostalgic I’ll stick to the grunge and alternative rock I listened to in high school.
Well, my 10-year reunion was in '95, and I’d say the nostalgia for '85 was near zero. But nostalgia may set in faster these days, or maybe there was just nothing Better Than Ezra back then.
Anyway, we have:
Nostalgia for 1998.
Pop tunes from 1998 available, through some sort of jukebox-licensing agreement (admittedly I know nothing about this), for another public exposure – since they presumably wouldn’t hit the Top 40 a second time.
Not to rain on your parade man, but almost all of those bands were at their biggest in the mid-90s. Post-Nirvana, but pre-late 90s pop rock resurgence.
Justin_Bailey, Class of '99 and a big fan of 90s pop-rock
Shouldn’t late, not early, twentysomethings be the ones nostalgic for this music? This is the music of our high school days. I can’t remember getting nostalgic for music I listened to in middle school. Actually, scratch that. I was in middle school in the early '90’s, the time of Nirvana and the “grunge revolution.” I still sometimes listen to that.
Granted, there’s an ad for every genre album under the sun but my wife and I were watching a TV ad for “Buzzcuts!” last night, filled with just this music. Third Eye Blind, Better than Ezra, Eve6, Oasis, etc. I made the same remark: “I guess this is nostalgia these days, huh?”
Wait a second. At 22 years old you’re a little young to be getting nostalgic about ANYTHING. I would think you would still be listening to new music. Really you shouldn’t be getting all music nostalgic until you are around your ten year reunion.
Actually, I find it horribly depressing that young 20-somethings are getting nostalgic over music I listened to when I was that age. Weezer and Blues Traveler were bands I listened to when I was in college (91-95). Better Than Ezra, Sugar Ray, The Wallflowers, Third Eye Blind, and Matchbox 20 was the music I listened to when I was in my early to mid-20s after college.
I’ve responded to this exact same line of reasoning before, and I’ll do it again.
I’m 22. We’re talking about half my fucking life here. 10 years may not seem like a long time to you, but it is a very long time to me, because again, it’s just about half of my entire life. That is a long time. The difference between 12 and 22 is a big one. Very big. Huge. Colossal.
Definitely a wide enough gap to have nostalgia.
Also, it’s very easy to be nostalgic for the radio pop of the past when everything on the radio now is CRAP! I can turn on the same exact radio station that I used to listen to in my room on my boom box after hockey practice when I was 12 years old, that would play The Sundays and Better Than Ezra and The Wallflowers, I can turn on that same radio station now and all that’s on is hump-and-bump repetitive trash rap and talentless pop-punk acts. It’s very easy to get nostalgic when that’s the situation you have.
And anyway who says you can’t be listening to new music and still be nostalgic for old music at the same time?
I remember when I heard that song for the first time, I was riding with my friend Jordan in his mom’s Expedition and it came on the radio and he said, “a BRITISH rap group?”
He thought Third Eye Blind was British, and a rap group.
Admittedly, the lyrical style on that specific song is kind of similar to rap. And I guess he does sort of sound like he has a half-British sort of accent.
Smash Mouth is playing at the middle of nowhere country fair that we always used to go to in middle/high school with the distinct hope of making out with someone on the ferris wheel.
And you bet your ass I am heading back to “visit my parents” that weekend… and I’m not going to hear anything they’ve recorded in the past decade or so. Let’s get Walkin’ on the Sun already!
So in the answer to your OP… yes, yes I have both seen and felt this a lot among our age group (23 here).
All of this music directly coincided with the release of Goldeneye for N64, so most of it is burned into my brain along with images of that video game accompanying it. Tubthumping is great background music for running over Russian soldiers with a tank.
Okay, actually being, like, serious here. I have the following in heavy rotation in my iTunes/on my iPod:
“Come to My Window” --Melissa Etheridge
All of Alanis’s Jagged Little Pill
“Lovefool” --The Cartigans
“Macarena” --Los Del Rio
“Another Night” --Real McCoy
“The Mummers’ Dance” --Loreena McKennit
“I Want You” --Savage Garden
“Bittersweet Symphony” --The Verve
“Iris” --The Goo Goo Dolls
“Here With Me” --Dido
“Take a Picture” --Filter
“Angels Would Fall” --Melissa Etheridge
“Livin’ la Vida Loca” --Ricky Martin
“She’s So High” --Tal Bachman.
All off Third Eye Blind’s first album.
“Tubthumping” --Chumbawamba (to be fair, I have a LOT of other stuff by them)
“She Likes Me for Me (Hey, Leonardo)” --Blessid Union of Souls
“Steal My Sunshine” --Len
“I Don’t Wanna Wait” --Paula Cole
“It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” --Céline Dion
“Can’t Change Me” --Chris Cornell
“Kryptonite” --Three Doors Down
“I Love You Always Forever” --Donna Lewis
“Learn to Fly” --Foo Fighters
“Push” --Matchbox Twenty
“Don’t Speak” --No Doubt
“Wonderwall” --Oasis
All of Californication by The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
“You Get What You Give” --New Radicals
Fuck. . .I guess you could say nostalgia hit me hard (though a few of those are more mid-90s, and one or two might be 2000). I’m 25.
What, you mean Matchbox 20, Three Doors Down, and the Foo Fighters are nostalgic??
I consider these bands relatively current, even their early albums.
Mind you, ten years ago, I was 25…
You shouldn’t have to defend your sense of nostalgia to anyone. At your age, I rediscovered the music of my youth – mostly late 70s AOR radio. That remains my favorite genre to this day.
All that said … the music being mentioned in this thread all seems like brand-new music to me But academically, I know things really do change fast.
There seems to be this “musical event horizon” for most people, at which point music relevant to one’s own experiences quits getting made. Once that happens, everything past the horizon kind of gets thrown into the same bin.
The Fray? The Strokes? The Killers? The Shins? The Bravery? The Arctic Monkeys? The Franz Ferdinand? The Modest Mouse?
Look kid, I shouldn’t be having to tell you where to find good music.
Actually, we had a similar problem growing up in the 80s. Most 80s music, besides it’s nostalgic value for people over 30, pretty much sucks. It was cheesy, pretentious and overly commercial (remind you of anything?). We mostly listened to 70s classic rock radio when we wanted a break from Debbie Gibson and New Kids on the Block.
I was fortunate to go off to college the same year Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten was released, ushering in the alt-rock age. But pretty much all though college and my 20s, people just did not listen to music from 1980-1989.
When I hear late 90s music, I am alarmed to realise it was from over ten years ago. I tend to think of 1995 as “recent”. This is because, at 38 yrs, I am now officially old.
But academically, I know things really do change fast.