Is there a name for that genre of turn-of-the-90s pop-rock with the positive vibes, huge guitar leads, and gated drums?

i bought a rawkus hoodie?

That's pretty good going, considering the label wasn't founded until 1996.

best episode of quantum leap ever

Al, there's all kinds of pockets and zips on my pants, and they're way too big for me...

"In fact, it's great, as there is no other country that has such a great legacy and such a great typical style."

ouch. completely discounting the land mass that gave birth to the blues, and jazz. nice

I consider Germany a much more important country in the history of music than the US.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Tovenaarsleerling_S_Barth.png

hongro may you be a ho that goes forever unsaved

I'll never know whether to blame Dom or Geir more for derailing what was previously my favorite thread I ever started.

Also, several years late and not really in the genre at all.... but germane to any discussion of Post-Cold-War Rock: Phil Collins's ridiculously upbeat "Dance Into The Light." We are one world - we have-a one voice!

(The production is closer to the overstuffed world-beat of "Circle of Light" than anything on this thread.)

I thought Skynyrd was anti-Wallace. "Boo boo boo!"

Will anyone ever do like a loving, detail-obsessed revival/pastiche record for this sound?

I saw Dada live open up for Uncle Tupelo on the tour after Anodyne came out. I seem to remember them being pretty good actually, but I don't ever remember hearing one of their CDs.

I don't quite know about the huge guitar part as they were a bit more subdued, but I think Del Amtri's "Kiss This Thing Goodbye" fit into this genre. They got brighters and sunnier as they went on, but I think Toad the Wet Sprocket might fit into this too.

actually I think this blows "Black and White" away...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fquGNHiEG-4

Doesn't really fit at all (more I guess period "college rock" generically) but the vibes are so positive! Like a mellowed-out "Dizz Knee Land."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keRmOs3PqK0

Freddy Jones Band - In A Daydream

I'm on like three hours of sleep and can't turn it up loud enough to actually hear anything but I'm pretty sure Rod Stewart's "Forever Young" is involved somehow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGEe_zpddNI

Hrrrrmrmrmr, yeah, I dunno. Much fuller sound than these other things, and no chunky/scratchy rhythm guitar up front. On the other hand, the solo is exactly the kind of legible, arcing sound I hear on these other records, and the clobbering drums come in on the second chorus but good. And overall it's got the same kind of propulsive, "Edge of Seventeen" feeling as some of these.

Great song IMO.

1988 and a bit more countryfried but I love Jerry Harrison's "Rev It Up" for this vibe.

I like many Rod Stewart songs from this period ("Crazy About Her," "Downtown Train," "Lost in You") but "Forever Young" -- ick. And it hasn't gone away.

Never heard that before! Yeah, I buy it.

Euler made the "New Country" connection above and I think that whole area would be interesting to explore. In general (and I am out of my depth here) but it seems like country tries to avoid sounding like it was made by studio robots, as a rule - there's the faith/image that at some point there was a hard-playin', tight backing band that gets together and records. So something like Travis Tritt's "T.R.O.U.B.L.E." starts out sounding like it's going to totally be one of these songs; there's a huge thudding WHAMMMO drum like two seconds in - but then the rest of the band shows up and starts to boogie.

At the same time, I think traces of this whole thing may have survived longer in country than anywhere else - rock went through various phases of sludge and wash and guitars-in-the-red, but clean, bright, super-shiny sounds never entirely went away in country. And you have people like Mutt Lange doing their biggest records way later - "Man! I Feel Like A Woman" is totally the heir of this sound, to the point where they decided to do a Robert Palmer pastiche for the video even though it's not actually a "retro"-styled song.

(that's an xpost)

I love "Forever Young" - but in the way of a song I remember hearing a fair number of times as a kid and then never again until, like, last week. Where are you hearing it? I must go to different dentist's offices or something.

I hear it at least twice a week on A/C and oldie stations.

Oh yeah -- country is where rock's been at since at least the nineties

Wow, had no idea it had any shelf life at all. Crazy how much variety there still is in those things in the Clear Channel age.

I think Sheryl Crow's second album had a through-line from this stuff (though the percussion is more '90s americana).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khrx-zrG460

Hmmm, not entirely hearing that one, but maybe someone more up on Mitchell Froom can piece together the arc there?

Mitchell Froom's trick is to create "unconventional" sounds in a pop context.

Belinda Carlisle's hits or Bryan Adams' Waking Up The Neighbours material to thread

Teenage Fanclub's "Star Sign" would fit this mold, rite?

Also, perhaps, Jellyfish - "That Is Why", maybe the La's "There She Goes". If it had arrived a few years later, I'd include XTC's "Mayor of Simpleton" (their biggest US hit, despite the lyric about not being able to write a big hit song). If it had arrived a few years earlier, Hootie's "Time".

I've always liked this microgenre, whatever it may be called.

Wow, right on about Bryan Adams. "Can't Stop This Thing We Started" and "All I Want Is You" are definitely right in there. Trending a little rootsier but yeah. Will have to dig into the other last couple things, not familiar with 'em.

Would this count?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sOjdusDUzE

Right on!

Richard Marx is one of those guys that was really popular and all over the radio for few years, yet I can't remember any of his songs

This was one of those things, no? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCy13kjj13M

Wow, never heard this before. I think it fits. Sounds like another one that started out as a different kind of band and found themselves sounding Post-Cold-War in the studio. Some overlap with the clean-sounding, poppier side of college/alt rock, e.g. Gin Blossoms.

It's nowhere near the "Joyride" / "Life Is A Highway" sound, but another entry in the "college bands ending up with a way boxier sound than you'd expect" category: The Pursuit of Happiness. "Cigarette Dangles," from 1993, sounds like a total throwback next to the general palette of grunge and "alternative" by that point, especially compared to the 1989 "I'm An Adult Now" and "Hard to Laugh" (as "produced" as those are). Sure, it gets a little less machinic once the bass shows up, and the solo feels "live" - but that whittled-down riff, that loud snare, the flanged backing vocals... weird, weird sound.

Obviously there are a million college/underground bands that got kind of unsympathetic recordings in the late 80s/early 90s, and I wouldn't lump them all in here (esp. as the "That Eighties Drum Sound" thread already gets into this a lot more). Was just listening to Pylon's Chain for example, which is what got me thinking about this again.

You know, there were two versions of "I'm an Adult Now"--(or does your specifying date mean you know that?)--& the first was a lot, well, rawer: at least my poseur 16-yr-old self strongly preferred it...

The mean streets of mid-80s Toronto; no doubt the authenticity-response was triggered in my still vulnerable, malleable brain...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6zMtTQix28

https://youtu.be/J6zMtTQix28

One more try; yeah, I don't post here much...

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/J6zMtTQix28?rel=0"; frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Ha, yeah, I did read that there was an earlier version but foolishly didn't even bother to go look it up and listen to it.

it's not 90s, but quite possibly my least favorite song ever is Timbuk 3 - "gotta wear shades" or whatever it's called

so glad i didn't graduate high school in the late 80s

*from*

this is the best genre, are there contemporary bands reviving this sound yet?

does U2's "Mysterious Ways" fit this?

Redd Kross's brilliant album Third Eye meets the criteria perfectly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad2HWkH7FDY

I don’t know who Bob Standard is, but good posts ITT. Also, tipsy mothra’s long post re: r&b crossover (“without pushing it too hard…”) is terrific.

Don’t think I saw the Cranberries mentioned, but their debut seems pretty obviously to fit the trend… as does R.E.M.’s Out of Time album.