The Case for 1997

Ah, to be sixteen again. Well, not really. But I've got to support The Onion AV Club's efforts to convince us that 1997 is the new 1967:

1967 is rightfully—though overly, especially during its 40th anniversary—revered as a watershed year for pop music: It saw the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Songs Of Leonard Cohen, Are You Experienced?, The Velvet Underground & Nico, Forever Changes, and many other incredible and/or important albums. 1997, though lacking the benefit of as much hindsight, packed a pretty earth-shaking musical punch, too, clearly led by Radiohead's already-canonized OK Computer.

I hope this nineties rock renaissance really takes off because I've been ahead of the curve on this one. Here's "Why Did We Ever Meet" by The Promise Ring:

Indeed.

Comments

Whew, the stink. Radiohead is the English Patient of bands. Maudlin, self-absorbed, interminable, and insanely overrated.

Magnetic Fields all the way.

Posted by HeavyJ | September 19, 2007 2:46 PM

You can pick pretty much any year and there will have been some good albums that year, so yeah, 1997 had some good albums. But the idea that it was a watershed year like 1967 seems pretty ridiculous to me. I remember that the late 90s were dominated by some pretty awful music on the airwaves, like Matchbox 20 and Seven Mary Three and what have you. Of course, there's always good underground music, but if we're talking about what the vast majority of people were listening to at the time, 1997 is nowhere near as vintage as 1967. Popular music was in a funk from about 1995 to 2001, when the White Stripes and the Strokes livened things up at least a little.

Posted by Gabriel | September 19, 2007 2:53 PM

Having now lived through several "nostalgia cycles" in my life, I'm inclined to wonder what people in 2017 will look back on fondly from 2007. I'm having a really tough time coming up with anything.

Posted by James Gary | September 19, 2007 2:56 PM

A lot of good discussion about this in this MetaFilter thread.

For what it's worth, I'm going with a write-in vote for 1991. Nirvana - Nevermind, Pearl Jam - Ten, Smashing Pumpkins - Gish, U2 - Achtung Baby, RHCP - Blood Sugar Sex Magik, R.E.M. Out of Time, just to name a few of the more popular ones.

Posted by Tony | September 19, 2007 2:58 PM

Heavy J, I'm with you all the way.

Also, no love for Sex and Candy? That's the ultimate 1997 one hit wonder.

Posted by Henry | September 19, 2007 2:59 PM

You're nuts, and understandably nostalgic. We all are.

I agree heartily with Gabriel, and even more heartily with Tony, though I was 20 in 1991 and those were musical formative years for most of us.

40 years from now all those 1997 bands except Radiohead will be footnotes (and Radiohead wouldn't be Radiohead without Creep - thank you 1993) despite being great bands/albums. They are not seminal moments in music like Sgt Pepper or VU and Nico - no way no how.

Posted by Pat | September 19, 2007 3:09 PM

I love Can Ox and Elliot Smith as much as anyone and I know they're trying to be provocative but come on...most of those aren't even the best (or most innovative) albums by the artists they listed. I feel like you could pick almost any year and find a better list of albums. This is pretty much an attempt to compare a watershed year for music with a lame one on the basis of one album.

Posted by Benjy Sarlin | September 19, 2007 3:11 PM

Here is one reason I know 1997 is not the new 1967: I hadn't heard of 80+% of the stuff on their list, and I was actually alive in 1997 (unlike 1967). And I am utterly unconvinced that you could not pick another random year in the 1990s and list another bunch of stuff that is probably pretty good but that I have never heard.

Which to me is further evidence in support of the observation that historically speaking, the album only had a limited run as the most relevant unit of pop music, one which peaked in the 1960s with the maturation of the stereo LP, went into decline starting in the late 1970s as a result of the widespread adoption of the audio cassette, briefly leveled off in the late 1980s with the widespread introduction of the CD, and today is in a death spiral because of downloads.

Which is why the fuddy-duddies are not wrong when they disproportionately pick albums from the 1960s and early 1970s for their best album lists--that is the brief period in which the album itself peaked in relevance.

Posted by DTM | September 19, 2007 3:12 PM

After 10 years, emo is still terrible. However, 1997 may be the last time I can think of in which the Brits actually mattered. Despite the naysayers, OK Computer is a stonecold classic. For some reason Dig Your Own Hole seemed to signal the tipping point in which rave was relevant to suburban prep school students (this guy included). Of course that period lasted all of about 18 months. The Belle and Sebastian EPs of that era are still the standard to which I judge all indie pop.

Posted by lh | September 19, 2007 3:13 PM

Promise Ring never really qualified as influential in "pop music," either.

Posted by Kevin Sullivan | September 19, 2007 3:17 PM

Agree with Tony - 1991 was better. Add Blue Lines and Low End Thoery, to his list.

Posted by Al | September 19, 2007 3:18 PM

Any case that relies on OK Computer being a seminal album has some pretty fundamental weaknesses.

Posted by Petey | September 19, 2007 3:22 PM

Another vote for 1967 here. Thanks to psychedelic drugs, there was a ridiculous amount of experimentation going on. Naturally this led to a lot of embarrassing moments as well as sublime ones, but I doubt there will ever be a time to compete with the late sixties as far as achievement in rock music.

Posted by Gus | September 19, 2007 3:25 PM

Pick a year. Any year. There are 10 great albums from that year. Were they watershed years? Probably not. I suspect you could track the major stylistic changes as the watershed years.

Elvis beats Pat Boone - 195?
Sgt Pepper et al - 1967
Disco dies for good - long live Duran Duran - 1982
Hair bands killed by grunge - 1991

And since then? The radio has been killed by economics. The top 40 is almost universally shit, unlike before when it was just mostly shit. Music has broken from the original top down model to a bottom up model both in distribution and demand. There is more variety, but unlike in the past, top 40 seems to be genetically engineered and completely immune to revolution.

Posted by Pat | September 19, 2007 3:27 PM

There was some pretty solid music coming out from about 1991-1994. By 1997, Modern Rock Radio had descended to the seventh level of hell, swill like Third Eye Blind was in heavy rotation, and the pop music scene was being overrun by talentless schoolgirl porn stars.

Comparing 1967 to 1997 makes about as much sense as the song lyric "I've never been to heaven, but I've been to Oklahoma." Oklahoma isn't hell, exactly, but it's pretty damned close.

I would go so far as to date 1997 as the year the music died. At minimum, it's the year I became a grumpy old man when it comes to music.

The Onion AV Club is dead to me now. Dead, I say!

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | September 19, 2007 3:28 PM

Here's "Why Did We Ever Meet" by The Promise Ring.

Uhhh, yeah, I can see Lou Reed holding a seance with John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix where they all smack their foreheads and say, "Damn, how come we never thought of THAT?!"

Two guitars, bass, and drums, minimal soloing, fronted by a guy who can't sing very well, playing a passable post-punk melody. If that seemed fresh to you in 1997, maybe it's because the genre was largely abandoned after being played out in the early 1980s...

Posted by Swopa | September 19, 2007 3:30 PM

Absolutely agree on 1991. What made 1991 and 1967 so memorable was that an entire new understanding of what popular music came to be, and was the reigning popular music amongst not just critics and hipsters, but also the general public. I mean, there are rarely periods in the music industry where critics and the public agree on musical taste. And these periods only occur when a new musical trend emerges which is revolutionary or at least challenges the status quo. This is why 1991 was so important. Prior to that, rock music had lost all sense of passion. 1991 allowed the artist to take over from the entertainers who had control of music since 1983.

Essentially, the period 1991 - 1995 was the last great period in music. After that, we have essentially had Teenie dance band and bad hip-hop rule the airwaves.

If I recall, 1997 began the period known for Britney Spears, Backstreet Boysna and the Spice Girls for heaven's sake.

I think Matt longs for this to be considered classic, because for him, anything prior to 1997 and he was too young to really experience the music of 1991 - 1995 in real time.

Posted by Brad | September 19, 2007 3:31 PM

"What made 1991 and 1967 so memorable was that an entire new understanding of what popular music came to be, and was the reigning popular music amongst not just critics and hipsters, but also the general public. I mean, there are rarely periods in the music industry where critics and the public agree on musical taste."

Yup.

"Prior to that, rock music had lost all sense of passion."

Well, no. Punk / New Wave had a helluva lot of passion in the decade preceding '91. But, of course, that stuff never reached the general public in this country.

Posted by Petey | September 19, 2007 3:35 PM

The "already canonized" OK Computer? Ten years from now, you might still hear "High and Dry" or "Fake Plastic Trees" from Radiohead's "The Bends" album while you're hanging out at Starbucks, or when you're flipping through a satellite alt-rock channel. I'd be really surprised if you still heard anything from Radiohead's later "we're reinventing rock 'n' roll!" phase, which started with the lamentable "OK Computer".

Posted by Fred | September 19, 2007 3:35 PM

Let's hear it for 1993. In Utero by Nirvana, vs. by Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins' last good record, Wu-Tang Clan's debut, Liz Phair's debut, Bjork's debut, PJ Harvey's debut, Radiohead's debut (which was just ok), Tool's debut, Snoop Dog's debut, Whiskey for the Holy Ghost (a criminally underrated Mark Lanegan record), a good record from Cypress Hill which has aged very poorly, great stuff by Fugazi, Primus, Tupac, U2, Matthew Sweet, the Breeders, Dinosaur Jr., Flaming Lips, etc. etc. You could fill out an entire alt rock station's playlist with stuff from 1993 alone.

Posted by Spokeytown | September 19, 2007 3:40 PM

In terms of albums I actually put on and listen to, "I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One" has been the most consistent choice of mine for pretty much all of the past ten years. "Lonesome Crowded West" is not far off.

Still, I think the rationale for this list was more like, "let's make a list!" "Well, it's been 10 years since 1997, what albums came out then?" I'm admittedly right in this list's target demographic (graduated high school in 1997). If the editors had been 10 years older they would have written a list about "Sign O' the Times" and "Frank's Wild Years" this week.

Posted by SDM | September 19, 2007 3:51 PM

I'm with the commenters here and at OnionAV - 1991-3 was far more important for indie, alt, hip-hop, metal, electronic, etc... The late '90s were a joke.

And none of it gets anywhere close to the revolutionary changes of 1967.

Posted by EthanS | September 19, 2007 3:51 PM

Of any year in the last two or three decades, 1991 is seminal because "Nevermind" paved the way for a lot of other post-classic rock to get radio play. Not that there wasn't some good stuff in the 1980's (e.g., The Cult, The Smiths, etc., etc.), but if you turned to most rock radio stations in the 1980's the play list was dominated by bands that had broken up in the 1970's.

Posted by Fred | September 19, 2007 3:54 PM

I gotta agree with the dissenters. Radiohead? Are there really people who still listen to Radiohead? 10 years later hasn't Pavement really proven to be more influential and relevant? I'll take Brighten the Corners over OK Computer any day of the week. I think Radiohead is to 1997 what the Doors were to 1967 - a band that seemed fresh, exciting and intellectually sophisticated at the time, but which never lived up to the early promise and whose pretensions look increasingly silly as the years pass.

Posted by vanya | September 19, 2007 3:58 PM

God, you oldsters, stuck on grunge. Grunge was absolutely awful - for four years underground music was defined by faux-depressive bawlers strangling anything innovative and fun out of the Pixies. The eighties had good stuff; the late nineties and zeroes have had good stuff; the early nineties was a wasteland of homogeneity.

Posted by Christmas | September 19, 2007 4:03 PM

"Are there really people who still listen to Radiohead?"

Creep remains a great single. OK Computer remains a pretty awful album, made all the more awful by the attempts of stupid people to canonize it.

Posted by Petey | September 19, 2007 4:04 PM

I think we've had the discussion about the meaning of Nirvana around here before. I've come to the conclusion that people who didn't experience listening to popular music through the 80s just can't know how signficant the change was.

Posted by Al | September 19, 2007 4:09 PM

I think the problem in labelling any year post 1991 great is that since then what is "Top 40" has precipitously declined in cultural relevance. The music market is so segmented that it is trully rare for any album/artist/song to have any relevancy outside its target market. I'm failry music obsessed, but I haven't listened to the radio in years. What is "popular music" doesn't mean shit to me. 1997, whether because of or despite of the music that particular year, is a pretty good beginning point of where labels like Matador (ie the Belle and Sebastian EPs, Pavement, Yo la, etc) mattered as much as the big boys. Perhaps 1997 doesn't have to cultural cache of 1967, but it may have been the death of when music could have any real mass culture relevance.

Posted by lh | September 19, 2007 4:20 PM

Al's right on.

What radio station you listen to (over the air - not in a college town) would play Lithium or Come As You Are - or their equivalent today?

You can not like them (and lots of people don't understand what's so amazing about Sgt Pepper) and still acknowledge their revolutionary nature.

Liking music is subjective, this discussion isn't about liking the music.

Late 80's radio airplay was dominated by nothing mentioned here - namely treacly power ballads from superficially kick-ass hair bands (Warrant Winger Skid Row jesus it makes me nauseous remembering their names). Hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit every hour on my local FM station was like, well, nirvana.

You young punks that have matured in an era of instant musical gratification will never understand the tiny spigot from which music flowed prior to the intertubes.

Posted by Pat | September 19, 2007 4:24 PM

A couple of responses here:

The importance of 1991:
I agree that 1991 for rock music was the equivalent of 1967, in so far as 1991 changed the popular music scene completely. If you want to know why 1991 was so seminal, please look through the play-list and popular bands in 1990 and 1989. Seriously, you could argue that 1989 was the lowest point in rock music.

However, I am sympathetic to the understanding that 1967 was still more influential, because as some posters have alluded, prior to 1991, there was lots and lots of indie music being played and available, it just received no attention from the mainstream. But prior to 1967, it was not as if there were a bunch of great bands in 1963 playing music which was the equivalent of the Beatles, Pink Floyd or the Velvet Underground. This is what made 1967 so amazing, is that it was not as if there was a decade of underground music building up to 1967. 1967 just happened with essentially two influences: The Beatles Revolver and Bob Dylan, each proving that music was an art, not just entertainment.

In that vein, I think then that a much more influential year in music (again if you include more than rock music) has to be 1985, when rap music took off, and really, the years from 1985 to 1991 (period includes Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” as well as the best rap album of all time: Public Enemies “Fear of a Black Planet”.). But of course, this would disturb our white hipster sensibilities. I am not even a fan of rap, but it seems to me that rap has been even more influential to music since 1985 than Nirvana was in 1991. What happened to rap was that it unfortunately came of age and was a cultural phenomenon where art was not the main point. It is sad, because rap has devolved into the same place rock music was in 1990, and unfortunately, there really have not been any 1991 style revolutions in the rap world to displace idiots like 50-cent.

Posted by Brad | September 19, 2007 4:28 PM

I'll grudgingly go along with 1991 being the last "significant year," mainly because the grunge movement started started the flow away from the late-80's top 40 vapidness, toward something that sounded more meaningful, or at least more interesting. However, for those of us who wouldn't bear to listen to top-40 in the late 80's, 1991 Seattle sounded a lot like what had been passing for punk, in the underground scene, for a good 8 years. This is a roundabout way of saying that 1967 was even more significant than 1991, as the scene that surrounded it wasn't a rehash of something else that came earlier. Now, for THAT, if I had only been 16 years old in 1977, I would have been privy to seeing something really interesting that was coming along in the form of punk/new wave. Sadly, I missed it.

Posted by DC | September 19, 2007 4:55 PM

Might I just note that 1977 blows away either 1967 or 1997 - See for example:

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/justarunner/25_best_albums_of_1977/

None of that hippie shit.

I've never really gotten Radiohead. They seem like the most overrated band in memory -- whiney and self-indulgent.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | September 19, 2007 5:00 PM

I didn't read that list carefully enough -- please forgive the Steve Miller and Billy Joel --but a lot of priceless stuff in the mix -- Television, Ramones, Elvis, the Clash, the Jam, Iggy, etc.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | September 19, 2007 5:04 PM

Brad,

I'm pretty sure 1974 was the nadir of rock music. Even as a 14 year old I knew everything on the radio sucked. Really, really horrible. You can look it up, as they say.

DC,

I was 17 in 1977 and the new things were just starting to trickle into the consciousness of a few misfit high schoolers. But by 1979, I got to see the Clash, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, and Graham Parker and the Rumor within a span of a few months, all in pretty small venues. Incredible music and incredible performers all. It was like the world changed in a flash.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | September 19, 2007 5:25 PM

In that vein, I think then that a much more influential year in music (again if you include more than rock music) has to be 1985, when rap music took off, and really, the years from 1985 to 1991 (period includes Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” as well as the best rap album of all time: Public Enemies “Fear of a Black Planet”.).

I was going to write something similar. The two most important things that happened with respect to popular music during the period I've been listening to music - since, say, about 1981 - have been the mainstreaming of rap/hip-hop and the mainstreaming of alternative/indie music. I think 1991 is the right year for the latter. For the former, I'd say 1986 -- Raisin' Hell.

Posted by Al | September 19, 2007 5:32 PM

Not to be pedantic, but I think The Chronic is a 1992 release.

Or "Nine-deuce" as they say. Followed by "Doggystyle" in 1993.

I think I'd go with "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back" as my all time favorite, although the former two are rather impressive in a sonic and somewhat sociopathic way.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | September 19, 2007 5:42 PM

milwaukee's finest right there. i'm going to have to go with 1996, though, the year of korn's ground-breaking record, "life is peachy". disaffected post-cobain youth were desperately looking for a nu-savior, and found it in a young jonathan davis. and james "munky" shaffer, to a lesser but still notable extent.

Posted by JasonC | September 19, 2007 5:56 PM

I've never heard one song off of OK Computer. I've heard all those 67 albums. Modern rock is a niche.

Posted by PeteN | September 19, 2007 6:35 PM

I see Spin has a 1977 issue out - Not to be a nostalgic oldster, but the stuff is pretty compelling.

And, yes, I do listen to new stuff. Just don't care for the Radiohead lads.

Posted by Klein's tiny left nut | September 19, 2007 6:44 PM

You guys seem to equate rap with the now-dominant genre of angry, hostile rap. The surly rappers of the mid-80's and later would never have gotten on the radio if it weren't for the earlier happy rappers such as The Sugar Hill Gang in the early '80's.

In any case, the whole genre of rap is overrated, and has little redeeming artistic value. Take away the faux-intellectual apparatus of criticism written by sheltered Jewish nerds and there isn't much to comment on.

Posted by Fred | September 19, 2007 7:00 PM

If you are basing ANY part of your opinion of 1997 pop music on American radio or MTV, you are missing the point. With a few exceptions, that year was about a British phenomenon - it was about some bands actually living up to the NME hype.

To-wit: OK Computer, Urban Hymns, the Belle & Sebastian EPs, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. Also add to the list In It For The Money by Supergrass, and Songs From Northern Britain by Teenage Fanclub.

Posted by Tractarian | September 19, 2007 7:14 PM

I'm with those who lean toward 1991 as a seminal year. But it's important to remember that Nirvana didn't come out of nowhere and that Nevermind wasn't their first album. They were part of a pretty large movement (that was hidden from the mainstream in a way that kids today really can't imagine). Certainly the late 80's were the high point for alt/indie rock. Of course, this stuff is my bread and butter and I'm kind of falling into the fallacy that the stuff I like the best REALLY REALLY IS the best. Still, I can't see anything like the flowering of creativity that happened in that era any time after say 1991.

Nn the late 80's the alt movement really was huge and it produced the best work of bands like the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Flaming Lips (phase 1), the Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, and on and on. These bands got zero mainstream coverage in the 80s. There was no equivalent to the way that bands like the Decemberits and so on get mainstream acknowledgment without actually being mainstream. Nirvana was just sort of the dumbed-down tip of this iceberg.

Bjork, by the way, did not debut in 1993, though she released an album with that name. She'd already released 2 albums as the singer of the Sugarcubes, one of which, "Life's Too Good", came out in 1988 and is awesome!

I sometimes look back on the incredible musical creativity of the 80s as a whole and am amazed when I compare it to what goes on today. And actually, you can look back to the 70s and the 60s and do the same thing. Perhaps I'm just more aware of the nuance of music from the 80s but I don't think that's the case. The 80s brought us some genuinely new musical forms, including thrash metal, house/electronica/industrial. The seventies brought even more with funk, hip-hop, and punk. Since the 80s I'd argue that there haven't been any new musical form, just mixes and rehashes of what's come before. Kids today are into punk and hip hop. Both forms are over 30 years old!

Anyway, calling 1997 an epochal year in music is just a joke. OK Computer was a great record, but that alone does not make an era.

Posted by Rob Mac | September 19, 2007 7:22 PM

Dig Me Out and I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One are utterly fantastic, but arguably not the best albums by either band. (I'll back Dig Me Out, but I think Electr-O-Static wins by a nose.)

1987 has Ice-T, KRS-One, and Eric B. & Rakim debuting; DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince making the first hip-hop album that I, as a white suburban grade schooler, bought; Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me hitting the Top 40; Come On Pilgrim and Sister setting the stage for grunge; and the last albums by Rites of Spring and the Smiths. Also, Appetite for Destruction, the pinnacle of Western culture. While I don't think anyone would say 1987 was a watershed year like 1967 or 1978, I think it stacks up against 1997, which you could have guessed by the fact that they needed to pad out the list with Wu-Tang Forever.

Posted by Steve | September 19, 2007 7:33 PM

1991 is obviously more comparable than 1997. I mean, it's not even close.

That said, and speaking of the Promise Ring, everyone be on the lookout for the new Maritime record, and the new Maritime tour.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | September 19, 2007 7:43 PM

Electr-O-Pura, of course.

In 1978, you have "Ever Fallen In Love"; "Suspect Device"; This Year's Model; the dawn of New Wave with the Cars, Blondie, and Pere Ubu; Big Star's last album; Afrika Bambaataa starting to perform with Zulu Nation; The Man-Machine; More Songs About Buildings and Food; the last decent album by the Stones; and Linda McCartney killing Keith Moon. (I'd accept 1977 or 1975 in lieu of 1978, although I think I'm right on this one.)

Posted by Steve | September 19, 2007 7:45 PM

Another problem I have with the AV Club list. They list a bunch of dull and/or twee records from that year and also list Blur, Pavement, Portishead (no, they're not kidding), and the freakin' Spice Girls but make no mention of the strangest and least (no, that's not a typo) influential record of the year--Ziareeka by the Flaming Lips.

Posted by Rob Mac | September 19, 2007 7:52 PM

Brad,

In defense of 1989, see below

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/justarunner/25_best_albums_of_1989/

Some very good stuff here as well. Pixies, New Order, NIN, Neil Young, XTC, B-52s, Jesus and Mary Chain, Nirvana -- it's a pretty impressive group.

As I recall, 1989 is when I saw a tour with Sugar Cubes and PIL opening for New Order. It was a pretty nice line up for one show. Young Bjork and Johnny Rotten on the same stage.

Posted by Klein's tiny left nut | September 19, 2007 7:52 PM

While I don't think it was necessarily an "important" year, I'm inclined to argue '97 produced more very good albums than '67, which was a more important year, but also marked a turn towards pretentiousness and grandiosity that would come back to haunt pop music. But '97 was just another blip on the radar, and I think it's hard to argue it ushered in some paradigm shift in the pop music world, like '67 or '91. And I makes these observations as someone who counts Yo La Tengo's I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One as one of his ten favorite albums of all time. The only possible watershed event of the year was the arrival of The Spice Girls, whose brand of catchy, shallow, zombie-pop really helped set the paradigm for the last ten years of pop music. But I think '99, the year of Britney Spears' breakthrough, was the moment of that pop paradigm's true arrival. And since we seem intent on comparing decennary '7's, I think 1977 blows all these years away for the sheer number of flat out great albums released. And since I wasn't even born in '77, so that's not nostalgia talking either.

Posted by PJ N. | September 19, 2007 7:56 PM

I left Chairs Missing, one of my personal favorites, off the 1978 list. Screw 1997.

Posted by Steve | September 19, 2007 8:13 PM

This is, of course, another one of those "my dad can beat up your dad" discussions, but it's still fun.

I think there will never another consensus on another watershed year in popular music after 1967. The reason for this is the same as the reason that there will never be another consensus all time great band after the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones. People will continue to have their preferences and arguments, but the consensus will never add to this very short list.

The reason for this is that there will likely never be another generation that has the kind of pretentious self-regard that the baby boomers have. Everything the baby boomers did in their youth was iconic and eternal because they saw it that way and they were able to inflict that sentiment upon popular culture.

What other generation could produce a movie like American Graffiti, which, in 1973, produced a deeply nostalgic and un-ironic paean to the year 1962! Just 11 years before! Imagine a similar movie today that took place in 1998. (We were all so innocent then.) Or a movie like the Big Chill, which came out in 1983 and is about how wild it is that a bunch of folks from the sixties (which ended 13 years prior) are now in (omigod) their 30s! The scene where "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is played on the organ at a funeral just says so much. Oh, you baby boomers. How you set the world on its ear.

No other generation could ever take itself so seriously.

Posted by Rob Mac | September 19, 2007 8:15 PM

This is, of course, another one of those "my dad can beat up your dad" discussions, but it's still fun.

Except it isn't because the Radiohead defenders haven't made any effort at all. Maybe there really aren't any left.

Posted by vanya | September 19, 2007 8:30 PM

Rob,

As a member of the blank generation, a lot of us came to despise the baby boomers and their smug sense of superiority regarding music. Yes, they had Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones and the Who (all of whom of course I loved as a kid), but they gave way to the self indulgent crap that defined a lot of the mid-1970s. We viewed our own misfits of the late 1970s and early 1980s as every bit the musical equals of their idols.

I have tried desperately not to become one of those people who stopped listening to new things upon reaching age 30. One of the benefits of having a teenager and satellite radio is that I can get some exposure to worthwhile new things.

I remain firmly unimpressed by Radiohead (not that they are au courant), however, and want them off of my lawn.

Posted by Klein's tiny left nut | September 19, 2007 8:43 PM

A couple of responses here:

1989 ~ I agree that in 1989 there was good music being produced. But as we have argued for 1991 and 1967, rarely is the popular opinion on music in line with what critics are touting. You have to remember, that prior to the internet, the access and exposure to this music was difficult unless you either (a) lived in an urban area with decent independent music stores or (b) lived in a College town where there was a decent music scene. Most of America however was exposed to music through two ways: MTV or Top 40 radio. In 1989, all of the actually great albums of 1989 were not regularly played on either MTV or Top 40. Instead, it was a steady supply of Def Leppard, Warrant and Posion (I feel sick).

This was the entire point we were making about 1991 and 1967. Those were periods where even those listening to Top 40 were listening to what critics considered great music and as time as gone on, even if the music can sound dated, it still is influential.

Boomer Self-Indulgence:
American Graffiti may have been presenting a time period 11 years earlier, but it was not self-indulgence that led to someone making a movie reminiscing about an era gone-by. Keep in mind, that 1962 was worlds away from 1973 in both culture and politics. In 1962, America had not experienced the fruition of the Civil Rights era, the sexual revolution, and as 1967 proves, a complete revolution in the entire idea and understanding of what music can provide. 1962 is far different from 1973 than 1996 is different from 2007. In fact, as someone else asserted, since 1991, there has not been much of a change in indie music, and honestly, the clothes from 1996 could likely pass okay even today. Not so in 1962.

I am at the very trail end of Gen X and very beginning of Gen Y, so I really do not have a generation I call my own. I missed out on the entire irreverent early 90’s culture that defined Gen X, and I missed out completely on the Gen Y fascination with texting, iPods and My Space. So since I am from an age group which is not defined by any generation, I do not have a horse in this race. As an independent observer, as much as it may pain you to hear this, the Boomers really were the most influential (for better or for worse) in terms of culture, economics and politics.

Posted by Brad | September 19, 2007 9:12 PM

Brad,

Can't disagree with your last point -- but it doesn't mean we have to like it.

With respect to the idea of quality music being part of mass culture, I thought that had in many ways gone out the window around 1971-72 when I was a kid. Then you could listen to Top 40 music and hear the Rolling Stones, Al Green, the Temptation, Creedence, the Doors -- and it was all weirdly heterogeneous. No narrowcasting. It was pretty cool.

By the time I was in college (1978-82), mass marketed music was total tripe and we listened to college and indy stations available in places like Boston and New York. There was a strong sense of being apart -- both good and bad. You felt cooler than others, but also couldn't believe that this amazing music wasn't being heard.

Of course the moment any one of our heroes got substantial airplay, a certain number of my set would dismiss them outright. To quote Pete Townshend --"sadly ecstatic that their heroes are news."

Posted by Klein's tiny left nut | September 19, 2007 9:30 PM

that Promise Ring is just shockingly unimpressive; not only is it not exactly a compelling argument for the rock-historical status of 1997, it wouldn't even be the 3rd best song on the mixtape you found on the floor of your car after driving those kids from the other high school home.....

Posted by metaleptic | September 19, 2007 10:33 PM

I think we might have missed a bit of the topic. Was 1997 special, or not? I think that if you were in high school or college at that time, in retrospect it had better be, because that was all you had, self-respectively speaking. But will it stand the test of time? I dunno, I think "OK Computer" got me through a lot of long months, so I guess I say yes. It was a really good effort by Radiohead. But as an older guy, 38, I say absolutely not is it "great." The electronica scene was much more interesting then. But in order to describe how cool that was, we would have to digress into how much better the drugs made it sound.

Posted by DC | September 20, 2007 12:27 AM

DK:

I think we actually settled that 1997 was not special in any sense at all. I was in college at the time (I am 30), but in no way did I find the music then to be any greater than the previous 6 years since 1991. In fact, I actually found myself thinking that the music was becoming too over-produced by that point and verging on too many artists all sounding the same at that point.

Regardless - I find it interesting that the majority of the music played at the 24 Hour Fitness I go to is basically from around 1996 to 2000. The wierd thing is that if I close my eyes, I cannot really tell the difference between the 24 Hour Fitness now or the Rec Center at the University of Arizona then. The good thing, is it has allowed me to re-experience college every time I go in there (minus the beer, drugs and tailgates).

Posted by Brad | September 20, 2007 1:26 AM

Here is another point about great musical periods.

As I stated earlier, people around age 27 - 32 really do not have a generation to call their own. Ironic that "our" time (from the age of 18 - 25) came about during 1997, when, amazingly, the music scene lost its way. I will grant you that later Boomers (i.e. - those who grew up in the 1970's are really seperate from the hippie Boomers and quite frankly are in the same boat as I am in terms of not really having anything defining our age group (unless Disco for them and Boy Bands for us count). But who wants to openly use discredited musical forms as the defining genre of music for their age group/generation.

The Boomers had 1967 and Gen X'rs had 1991. I think you could safely say that Gen Y does not necessarily have any defined musical style or year that defines their generation, but, interestingly, they are defined by the lack of definition, which has been brought on by their use of the internet to completely take down the old musical supply chains which often times dictated taste. Add to that the Gen Y is far more culturally diverse, and I think it is safe to say that future generations likely will not have periods of time of intense musical creativity which binds that generation.

Or we could just blame the Gen Y crowd for bringing on the demise of the music industry as we know it.

Posted by Brad | September 20, 2007 1:35 AM

To be sixteen again?

That was what, last week for you, wasn't it?

I listen to stuff that goes from recent to thirty years ago. I listen to very little from the '60s' except a couple Elvis tunes from one of his movies. I listen to whatever I consider to be "expansive" music. I don't care if it's from a band, a solo artist, a movie soundtrack, classical, New Age, heavy metal, rock, whatever.

However, almost nothing of rap, R&B, soul, jazz, punk, country/western and the like is "expansive". What is "R&B" if it isn't "disco music and sappy sentimental love songs"? What is rap except punks bitchin' and moanin' about how hard life is? How is punk different from rap except the punks are white? Jazz in some cases is okay. Country/western is just "white R&B with a twang".

Then of course we have "pop rock": which consists of bimbos, boy bands, girl bands - and a few straight bands like my favorite, The Corrs, and a few straight artists like Jewel (although she's gone bimbo, too, lately - no more "folk singer" jeans crap from her - it's micro-minies and hot legs!)

I wouldn't presume to take a year and say, "Gee, that was awesome! It was a watershed!"

That would just make me sound like a "Very Serious Music Critic" - which is about one step below "Very Serious Person" in foreign policy...and one step over "Very Serious Used Car Salesman"...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 20, 2007 2:16 AM

Richard Hack:

What is rock then but White R&B with reverb?

And Elvis? You have got to be kidding me. He was the original Boy Band archtype.

Posted by Brad | September 20, 2007 2:20 AM

I haven't really liked a new band since The Blasters.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 20, 2007 9:41 AM

Klein's tln, some might define '78 to '82 as a real flowering of popular music. Here are some of the acts that were getting lots of radio play at that time:

Blondie, Talking Heads, Sugar Hill Gang (the birth of hip-hop, dude), David Bowie, Pink Floyd (maybe not hip enough for some), Devo, and so on. There was also a lot of Country and R & B crossover on pop radio with Kenny Rogers and Dianna Ross and many others. Radio didn't really hit its major suck period until about 1983, I'd argue.

Posted by Rob Mac | September 20, 2007 12:03 PM

Or we could just blame the Gen Y crowd for bringing on the demise of the music industry as we know it.

Probably the simplest solution; let's do that.

Some might define '78 to '82 as a real flowering of popular music. Here are some of the acts that were getting lots of radio play at that time...

That was an interesting time. As Brad alluded to above, the defining criterion here is the ability to be commercial and on the leading edge aesthetically at the same time. The unique thing about the post-punk period is that you had an entire class of acts previously defined as uncommercial suddenly becoming commercial. (This couldn't have happened in '67, because the whole notion of avant-garde/anti-commercial rock didn't exist until the Velvet Underground.)

I still remember a top-40 DJ circa 1982 expressing his amazement that he was playing the "Psychedelic Furs" on his station.

... you could listen to Top 40 music and hear the Rolling Stones, Al Green, the Temptation, Creedence, the Doors -- and it was all weirdly heterogeneous. No narrowcasting. It was pretty cool.

That was a good thing about the early post-punk days, too. The first club gig I went to, in 1980 in L.A., was Wall of Voodoo (with rhythm machine and Moog synthesizers) opening for the Go-Gos.

Even a couple of years later, when things had started to settle into mini-scenes such as the "Paisley Underground" of 60's-based bands, I saw the Bangles (in their first show under that name) second on a bill headlined by the VU-influenced Dream Syndicate (whose first album, "Days of Wine and Roses," is worth tracking down for anyone who hasn't heard them).

Posted by Swopa | September 20, 2007 3:06 PM

Elvis was an individual artist - hardly a "boy band"...

Now maybe some of the 50's and 60's "guy groups" could be considered the progenitors of the "boy bands".

Basically it's an issue of quality, though. Problem is - nobody really knows what "quality" means.

Which is why I don't pretend to be a music critic. I just know what elements I like and what genres tend to produce that kind of music.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 20, 2007 10:29 PM

Nobody really knows what expansive means either. Jazz isn't expansive? WTF does that even mean?

Posted by Gus | September 21, 2007 3:51 PM