1990: Was it really that bad of a year for music?

back from which I'd never come back

this ever changing world in which we live in

1990 definitely has its very own aesthetic that seems quite apart from 89 and 91. You had those sort of festival-goth people with velvet stovepipe hats and tinted Lennon specs; and the music videos were either shot in a city in black and white or in a studio with the most lurid, frenzied superimposed backdrops ever seen. Bring back the ITV Chart Show

that reminds me, i think that both the best Fields of The Nephilim album and maybe the worst Sisters of Mercy album were from 1990

The only 1990 album in my entire iTunes library is Neil Young's Ragged Glory. I guess there has to be a couple more that I'm forgetting.

Let's not forget The La's.

Never understood why people rate that Black Box single over any of their others from the same album.

1990 was an amazing year for music and I don't know who'd say otherwise

Seriously, genuinely not aware of any particular consensus otherwise (other than maybe based on some pathetic idea that Nevermind was more important than anything from the previous eighteen months) but the question is more why pay attention to that nonsense rather than where is it even coming from.

1990 was a transition year for me - in the fall I moved to Boston and finally had access to 'alternative' radio stations like WFNX, WBCN and all the great college stations. Not to mention all the record stores a quick T ride away. It really opened up my musical world. Shoegaze was big for me - Lush, Ride, Pale Saints, etc. And the whole Flying Nun stable was off the charts great - The Chills, Straitjacket Fits, Able Tasmans, etc all released great albums in 1990. Looking at the Rate Your Music lists, I'd guess a retroactive top ten / most listened to in 1990 would be:

The Chills - Submarine Bells
Robyn Hitchcock - Eye
Prefab Sprout - Jordan: The Comeback
The Blue Aeroplanes - Swagger
The Jazz Butcher - Cult Of The Basement
The La's - The La's
Ride - Nowhere
Killing Joke - Extremities, Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions
Lloyd Cole - Lloyd Cole
The Fatima Mansions - Viva Dead Ponies

It's pretty easy to come up with a handful of great albums for any particular year. I think the original question asks if it was memorable, impactful or otherwise felt like music was consistently engaging. And to all of those it's clearly 'yes' for me.

yeah I think the good year/bad year stuff is totally bogus, there's always great and good and mediocre and bad music being made in quantities that would be impossible to even listen to it all

so any judging of a year as good or better is just some amalgamation of received wisdom/press narratives, your own life circumstances and age at that time, etc

come on, man. Just for the Hip Hop releases:

Amerikkka's Most Wanted
One For All
The Devil Made Me Do It
To the East, Blackward
Wanted: Dead Or Alive
Funky Technician

ANd then there was

Daniel Johnston- 1990
The Clean- Vehicle
Superchunk- s/t
Dwight Yoakum- If there Was a Way
Blue Rodeo- Casino

I don't think it's so much that people talk about 1990 as a 'bad year', it just doesn't get brought up so much in the same way a lot of people will wax nostalgic about, say 1994, 1991, 1977, 1968 etc. It's an overlooked year really.

'Nothing Compares 2 U' remains a great single, but how often do folks listen to the album these days?

A few times a year at least. A perfect album if such a thing exists.

I don't think it's so much that people talk about 1990 as a 'bad year', it just doesn't get brought up so much in the same way a lot of people will wax nostalgic about, say 1994, 1991, 1977, 1968 etc. It's an overlooked year really.

― Shat Parp (dog latin), Friday, November 3, 2017 2:11 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup, precisely!

Musically, 1990 in many ways feels more like the very tail end of the '80s to me than the beginning of the '90s.

Anyway, there's some great stuff coming up un this thread... some obvious classics, but also quite a few things that seldom get talked about.

*in

https://www.fantasiescometrue.com/images/medium/fct_28cfc991c0fcf04.jpg

Never understood why people rate that Black Box single over any of their others from the same album.

It may partly be because it was pretty ubiquitous at the time, in a way the others weren't (at least in my corner of the world). I very strongly associate that particular moment with that song.

Surely Ride on Time is the most celebrated / overplayed Black Box single?

Yeah, the moment anyone mentions Black Box, I think "WHOOOOOOOA HO! WHOOOOOAAAA HO! WA WHOOOOOOA HO! WA WA WA WHOOOOOOOAAAA HO!"

The premise of this thread is pretty dumb, it's not like we're talking about 1975 or 1986 or 1998 or another one of those weird in-between years, 1990 had several huge and pivotal scenes absolutely booming, I don't think anyone seriously makes the case for it being a bad year.

x-post to dog latin

It may be a difference between UK and US. US chart for

Everybody Everybody:

UK Singles (The Official Charts Company)[10] 16
US Billboard Hot 100[11] 8
US Billboard R&B Singles [11] 2
US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play[11] 1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Everybody_(song)#Charts

UK Singles (Official Charts Company)[5] 1
US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play[29] 39
US Billboard Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales[29] 44

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ride_on_Time#Charts_and_certifications

I do like Everybody Everybody better though, for whatever reason.

(x-post)

Okay, then maybe instead of being snarky, you could come up with some theory as to why it remains one of the lesser talked about years? Even '75, '86 and '98 get talked about more. I can't actually think of a year more overlooked post 1962. If so many scenes were indeed booming, why isn't the year spoken about to the same degree as other years where the same thing was happening?

Personally, I cluster 1989-1991 together, when it comes to what I was listening to. It seems like trends shifted in 1992 (and at the very least my listening habits shifted). New music in 1989-1991 for me was mostly hip-hop, some R&B, the occasional house crossover hit in the US, and Psychic TV (and to some extent Coil).

xp transitional year. better known for singles than albums maybe? Do people think of 2000, 1980, 1970, 2010 as particularly remarkable years for music? Yes, blah blah, no such thing as a bad year etc, but is there a psychological effect at play where the first year of a decade feels like the closing of one door and the opening of another, therefore making that period harder to define as typically 'of its time'? Like you were saying, rather than feeling like the beginning of a new era, 1990 could be seen as more of a victory lap of the eighties. Sometimes it takes a few years into a decade to really get what it's all about and what defines it. Like the idea that there were 'two eighties' the one that spanned 1978-1985 and the one that lasted 1986-1992). This is all very conjectural and subjective of course, and buys into the idea that people are subliminally affected by the idea of years and decades..

Because unless it's the Summer of Love or coinciding with some huge moment in history, most people don't really talk about years when they talk about music? They talk about things that were happening at the time, and 1990 was hip-hop getting bigger and bigger, plus acid house and baggy and Pacific NW rock and a load of other stuff. Maybe because it's a plateau year rather than a pivotal year?

1987-94 is a bit of a mini-era in itself really.

I think Rudipherous and Matt are OTM; 1990 and 1991 feel like extensions of 1989 to me so whenever I wax nostalgic about '89, I'm really talking about a 3-year period of awesome music.

xp for dance music definitely.

1989-1992 ... about as good as it got for pop-house dance music

I think it's interesting, the distinction between musical years that you can say empirically were good or bad and years that you were either too young or not yet alive to appreciate.1990 was an exciting year for me musically but can I really say that 1975 was a good year or not?

For one, I was 3 years old and who knows if I would have bought Hissing Of Summer Lawns or Another Green World and nerded out on them if I had been old enough to.
But if I had done, it would have made my musical year for sure.

goes without saying that this all depends on your age, where you were living and what interests you kept. I have a real blind-spot for late-80s music because I came to pop right at the beginning of 1990, so from my POV it's a year zero in terms of developing a taste for music. To this day, music from the years prior feel like warming-up.

Yep, I was 11 in 1990. Everything sounded so good.

Well, hardly anyone seems to bring up 1990 as some sort of gold standard year for music, hence the thread, which isn't designed to criticise the year, but to discuss the music that came out that year.

Many people aren't saying that 1990 was some sort of gold standard year for music. That's what I'm not hearing. Sad! DO SOMETHING

yeah this 'a lot of people' thing...what exactly is she source for this?

Seems like it's just based on the dullest possible rock canon consensus of pre-Grunge myopia. Why dignify it? Worth it for reading the 1990 / Time For The Souffle linked upthread tho with the same immediate 'why this again?!' responses ha.

My favorite house track ever was released in 1990 - Earth People (aka Pal Joey) - "Dance"

also RON TRENT - ALTERED STATES

Joey Beltram - “Energy Flash”
Bobby Konders - “The Poem”
Eon - “Spice”
808 State - “Cubik” and U.S. LP ‘Utd. State 90’
49-ers “Touch Me” “Don’t You Love Me”
Double Dee feat. Dany - “found Love”
Psychotropic - Hypnosis
Technotronic - “Pump Up the Jam”

Touch Me and Pump Up The Jam were 1989 /pedant

Logic - "The Warning"
The Underground Solution (aka Roger Sanchez) - "Luv Dancin'"

xpost, my bad - I respect pedantry

UNIQUE 3 - THE THEME

Yes, sic, god forbid we talk about music on a music forum. If you don't like the discussion then don't participate. Simples.

Seems like it's just based on the dullest possible rock canon consensus of pre-Grunge myopia.

It actually isn't.

Touch Me and Pump Up The Jam were 1989 /pedant

This just proves that 1989-1991 is one big block of time.

I got a walkman for my 13th birthday in 1989 and the music I was most into at the time was house, mostly what was in the charts, especially hip-house and acid. And Queen, but I think it was some kind of rule that 13 year old boys had to be into Queen in 1989.

If you don't like the discussion then don't participate. Simples.

you should take your own advice sometimes

f you don't like the discussion then don't participate.
It actually isn't.

Criticism of the thread/question is part of the discussion. You didn't cite anything regarding the assertion of 1990 as a lesser time for critically acclaimed music or whatever. If you gave examples of where this was decided or who needs to be convinced otherwise it would create a better discussion.

I love the music that came out in 1990. That was a great year for music. So exciting for someone who loved UK indie and early house/techno and hip hop. Those genres blended together and hit the charts fairly often. Forgive me for not frequently coming out to wave the flag for that particular year. Nice job getting people to name their favorites though. I'm reminded of tons of great stuff. 1990 was my first year as a college radio DJ. No one has mentioned Every Beat of the Heart by Railway Children yet, so i'll add that to the pile of singles that were on heavy rotation. Also not ashamed to say I wore out my copy of the Lightning Seeds album that year (i'm from the US, so it was released in 1990 here - 89 in the UK).

Valuable contribution to the discussion from brimstead there!

Nashwan, the point is that it's a lesser spoken about year, not a lesser year, which would have been clear if you'd read the opening post instead of just the title. At least dog latin gets it.

And numerous others have managed to talk about it without a degree of snark, too. I mean, if you guys want this place to be more pleasant, then be pleasant - and I'm obviously including myself in that too.

the point is that it's a lesser spoken about year,

You've missed my point again which is asking for at least some evidence of these claims beyond Trump-style 'a lot of people reckon'.

These songs are a much different animal (no pun intended). It makes me wonder if Joe Frank just started to blow up around then.

I heard punk broke, not sure if anybody fixed it.

A corporation did

I'm sorry to have to report that it died