Plenty of that’s tethered to reality, to Supreme Court decisions that revert us to a pre-1960 s standard, of global warming, unrelenting gun violence, a government that’s too old, too rich and too selfish to do much about any of it.īut that’s magnified by how sickeningly in-your-face all of this is. Today, there is this persistent feeling of daily doom this notion that we’re reaching the end of whatever this grand U.S.A. It turns out the reality’s a bit more dour than we imagined. Who knew what the internet could bring, what phones and technology would become? Korn, Godsmack, Slipknot, Disturbed, Papa Roach, Linkin Park, anyone?īut even with those anxieties, there was a sense of possibility. Grunge was the clearest example of youthful rebellion, and it held hands with the nu-metal scene that took hold in the early 2000s.

You could hear it in those acid house beats, the all-night escapism of the 90s rave culture. There was still an anxiousness back then. It just seemed like a more curious time, and decidedly less burdened without the 24/7 media onslaught we have today.

I was a toddler for the end of the 90s, so my impressions of that time are largely through old photos, media, some cursory research and what folks have told me.īut I grew up listening to and have a soft spot in my heart for the music of that era, especially “Lost and Gone Forever,” by Guster, the heaviest-played album on my Discman.

I keep wanting to describe it as somehow defined by optimism, or a time of increased inspiration, but neither seem like totally fair characterizations. Looking back on those scenes above and the thumping, bass-heavy, acid house tracks that accompanied them made me think deeper about the inspirations of the 90s and where we’ve gone from there.

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