Idk if this is relevant here but it feels like it is and has been swimming around in my mind for a while now. I feel like a lot of these barriers and born from peer groups and if you'd grown up around a different set of people in a different place you (Luka) could easily be a huge hair metal fan or whatever. As a kid of the very late 90s I wasn't around to know what the right shit to be into was for say, jungle. Very few reference points apart from 1 in the jungle, but that was way back when I was 11 or so. So I love ltj with conrad as much as I like SS - Black. There's no politics dividing me on any of it. It's binary taste. Like or not. No beefs, critiques from those in the know. In fact it was only on here that I discovered how deep the bitterness towards ltj can be. Same goes for hip-hop, or rock. I'm a Johnny come lately and I think this frees me up of a whole load of unnecessary baggage. I don't want approval or validation due to what I listen to. I just like what I like.
However, being a 90s kid, idk where or how or what it was but there was definitely a hex put on the 80s and without even really questioning or caring why I'd written that shit off without giving it a chance. And that lasted until the last 10 or so years when getting into boogie, p funk, post punk, post disco through djs like Theo parrish. I remember always using the boogie tracks at GP's bar rumba sessions as drink breaks because it just didn't do anything to me. Sacharrine, syrupy, totally camp. No thanks. Now it's some of my favourite shit for all of those things. Funny ain't it. Part of growing up I guess. The thing I care about now is not missing out on things based on dumb prejudices.
So while yeah I would have loved to grow up in London circa 89-94 or New York 79-94, I didn't, and get to enjoy a whole load of music the purists from those times would never dare be known for liking.
Just thinkin out loud