Music of the Decade

Art reflects life. The gloom-to-bloom story of the economy in the 1990s is mirrored by the decade's musical offerings, which ran the gamut from grunge to gloss in a span of ten years. As factories closed and pessimism reigned over the earlier part of the decade, Nirvana and like-minded bands ushered in a wave of authenticity, shredding the slick images and hyperproduced fluff of bands whose glitter didn't match the general melancholy of the moment. In a breath and a scream, Cobain shook rock music to its knees with a blaring, punk-informed brand of music that tore away everything but the essentials. The band's success opened a window into the life of the man who became the world's greatest anti-rock star-an anti-macho punk, an articulate high school dropout with a gnawing pain in both his stomach and his soul. Kurt Cobain turned flannel to gold, but true to his ethos, he didn't want to live to see his work become fodder for mindless TV commercials.

"Grunge," as the often murky, distortion-heavy early-90s rock sound became known, was as short-lived as the recession, obliterated by a surging boom cycle unprecedented in recent history. Although its demise left us with an era in which even hardcore bands sing about tennis shoes, grunge proved that ethics can have a place in popular music and that being genuine is harder-and better-than being rich. The movement's major-label signing explosion also kept a host of dedicated smaller labels afloat, allowing another great rock movement-indie rock-to keep its late-80s stride going.

Though marked by the death of Jerry Garcia, rock music also experienced a resurgence of the Dead's jam-based aesthetic. None of the newcomers-including Phish (who finally got some notice in the 90s), Widespread Panic and the Dave Matthews Band-had any album output worth a mention, but their huge concert followings attested to the staying power of happier, hippier sounds that didn't belong at Lollapalooza.

Korn's emergence from the underground with their second record, 1996's Life is Peachy, defined the post-Cobain paradigm in 90s rock. Korn's sartorial and occasional musical nods to hip-hop, coupled with their propulsive, grinding guitar sound, gave disaffected teens something new to snarl about. Later entries like Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock took cues from both Korn and 1992 breakouts Rage Against the Machine, combining Korn's hip-hop-esque image with a bad imitation of Rage's hell-raising rock-rap sound. Unlike Rage, the newer bands' work turned mainstream rock into a hokey "rip-hop" mishmash whose pecuniary fixations and macho posturing echo late-80s stinkers like Skid Row and Poison.

Hip-hop's progression largely mirrored that of rock, as dismayed fans watched old-school influences gave way to an almost unrecognizable reincarnation of disco that predicated itself on image rather than acumen. Nothing marked the transition more than the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace (a.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G.), whose assassinations punctuated three years of gangsta rap's reign on the charts. Nonetheless, hip-hop has proven to be the more consistent art form in the 1990s, producing monumental works by creative artists both early (De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy) and late (Lauryn Hill, Outkast) in the decade.

While artists like the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy failed to make electronic music a mainstream success, DJ-based dance continues to hold the attention of the underground. DJ and rave culture, without any recognizable stars, seems blessed with the possibility of remaining an underground movement in this country, with an ever-evolving mix of styles. The mainstream never got closer to electro sounds than Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson's keyboard rock, and DJ music is the better for it-it may have won true independence from corporate-influenced strife.

Just before 1997's two big "electronica" debuts failed to take off, another bombshell had dropped. With the success of 1996's Spice, the Spice Girls brought back the promise of good old-fashioned dance pop. Since '96, popsters like Hanson, Savage Garden, the Backstreet Boys, N 'Sync and Britney Spears have kept a virtual chokehold on the top of the charts (America, you are living in the age of the teenage girl and you shall suffer).

At the close of the decade, the world seems ripe for another Kurt Cobain. 1999's charts are dominated by the same candy-rap, pop fluff and glam metal that ruled in 1989. Beck and others have proven that listeners are willing to cross traditional pop boundaries. Whatever the "Next Big Thing" may be, there can be little doubt that somewhere in America, someone has picked up a guitar-or sampler or turntable or microphone-and is ready to change the world all over again.