Prunge and Gop

SBD '93: Probably Tony Toni Tone, but I think instead I'll count the grunge hangover tie between Juliana Hatfield and Urge Overkill (not derogatory, I like the grunge-hangover better than most grunge as I understand it, even had the Gin Blossoms ticked initially, along with almost everything else. Not that any of this necessarily has to do with "grunge," at the time it was "alternative" and I was (soon to be -- or maybe, at the time, vicariously through friends/siblings) listening to "alternative rock radio"...it's funny, I only listened to "alternative" after it was no longer pretending to be an alternative for anything, when it was basically just grungy chart-pop. [EDIT: Koganbot sez: "There's a school of thought (don't know if I'm part of it, as I've not really gone back to listen in the intervening years) that says alternative got way BETTER - briefly - when it broke onto the charts in the early '90s because then all these wannabes and pretenders came along and turned it into pop music." I don't have much of a personal frame of reference here, because the "alternative story" (e.g. the lead-up to Nirvana in Our Band Could Be Your Life or the retroactive canonization of better-than-(or-at-least-as-good-or-"important"-as-)Beatles Nirvana in VH1 polls, etc.) had been so puffed up and mythologized by the time I actually went back to the music that predated mainstream alternative that it's hard to listen "fresh," as if I'd been paying attention as it was happening. Another major benefit of hanging out around Poptimists during these polls. Listening now, though, I'd probably rather listen to a given song by Juliana Hatfield or the Gin Blossoms than, say, Mudhoney or the Melvins.]

HSR '93: Digable Planets, Robyn S, Shaggy, Ice Cube, US3 (I dunno, I hear this pretty frequently still, but not the whole song.)

Still don't really understand the appeal of Pet Shop Boys. Does that get me kicked out?

For some reason the '93 entries seem "older" to me than the '92 memories. Maybe "older" amounts to something like "more familiar" (initially ticked something like sixteen songs!), meaning I associated with these songs strongly when they came out, with fewer discoveries a year or so too late...RD staples thrive on the trickle-down younger sibling effect, too. If it were a different "Show Me Love" by a different Robyn I'd be even more excited...proto-Britney! (This version isn't bad neither but didn't tick.)

Remember less of '93 than '92...we moved and my dad got remarried toward the end of the year, so the '94-'95 school year was my first at a new school. But I was living away from most of my friends and still going to my old school, so it was a strange year personally. And yet I remember most of this music, my memories of the songs persist when personal memories fade. Probably because I've had repeated exposure to (most of) them...but no, I remember watching Jim Carrey's parody of Snow, I remember both Janet Jackson videos playing non-stop (didn't tick either, a lot of my first choices had to go). I remember liking "Creep" (whose performer I wouldn't have been able to identify along with everyone else) and "Cantaloop," being CREEPED THE HELL OUT by the "Heart Shaped Box" video (this might be the first Nirvana song I sort of embraced as a Nirvana song, if that makes sense. This or "Lithium," but I actually heard them both for the first time this year (8-9 y/o). Next summer marks the beginning my Weird Al phase, which will take me through to '96 and "Amish Paradise." Lots of mixtapes called "FUNNY STUFF #1, etc" that are like Weird Al/Adam Sandler split EPs.

My step-brother was a huge Metallica fan and had every record, so most of my musical experiences from this time revolve around sitting in front of the speakers in the basement listening to METALLICA and imagining things that COOL PEOPLE who LISTENED TO METALLICA and were INVINCIBLE KILLING MACHINES did for fun, like posing and making menacing grimaces to themselves in the mirror and pretending to fight inexhaustible ninja monsters a la Power Rangers. This began toward the end of '93, obsession in '94, by '95 there is documented footage of me (w/ shroom-cut) lip-syncing to "Seek and Destroy" in jeans with holes torn in the knees. I was also forced to choreograph a dance routine to "Daisy Dukes" ("come on baby kick them daisies") with my sisters but I think I was spared video documentation.

The roller rink is as good a place as any to do some tween anthropology, and if I remember correctly, Tag Team dominated in '93. Skater-pop (er, "rollerskater-pop") was a good lead-up to teenpop-as-genre (post-Spice Girls/Hanson), I guess. Lotsa Mariah.

On MTV I was listening to Dr. Dre little by little, but I was into Dre/Snoop more when Snoop started his solo career and "Gin and Juice" came out. I think at one point in '94 I became a "rap guy" for about five minutes, which for me meant wearing a baseball cap backwards and listening to the radio and trying to learn the words to "Regulate." At the time, I remember there being very distinct social categories...there was skater and prep (not sure if it was called "prep," it was whatever you'd call the style I resisted when my sisters tried to dress me nicely) and for a while, although it went out of style by the time I was in fifth grade or so when everyone became a skater, you could join the Whig party. (I really loathe that word, and it got me into a lot of trouble a year or two later because I didn't understand where it came from, but that's what it was called at the time.)

Other memories...my friend Jimmmy loved the Spin Doctors around that time (don't know why I remember that, since I definitely don't remember the music). Judging from the Billboard results for '93, Mariah, Boyz II Men ('93 wasn't their year), and Whitney Houston are all conspicuously absent. "Dream Lover" was a (roller)skate-pop staple (my sister was probably into this when it came out, don't remember). And pretending to ignore "I Will Always Love You" is admirable but impossible.