The Meaning of the '90s

T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
pattycakes_ said:
that's what came to mind for me too. optimism in the air. the future just around the corner and everything's going to be alright. you hear it in the music - a sense of journey, moving forward, exploration. hints of uncertainty, but the collective conscious hasn't been contaminated yet. hope reigns. good will overcome. earnestness was legal tender.

edit: at least that's how it feels to me, but i grew up in the 90s so it's probably rose tinted.
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I mean this is why I think a lot of 80s electronic music sounds more futuristic than 90s electronic music, 92-93 darkside jungle, hard acid/gabber/dirty electro excluded.

You listen to what Severed Heads or SPK were doing in the 80s and its miles above like Future Sound of London or Biosphere, even above most garage in terms of its angular alienating textures. Not that I don't have a soft spot for the biosphere substrata album, just noting that hindsight problematises the futurism we like to gush about on here.

For me darkness isn't a satanic pose or whatever, it's not even necessarily an aesthetic pose, it's just the every day reality. For me the problem with escapist music isn't that it is bourgeois or whatever (I'm not an SWP hack) but paradoxically that the shiney surfaces sound cheap, they sound like something recyclable. Paradoxically a lo fi acid jam feels more like a lushly orchestrated 70s disco production to me, because we've pushed expansive clean production to its material limit. In that sense I agree with barty that future can only now be dystopia because we saught utopia prematurely. We killed that future with our own hands.
 
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T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
version said:
Yeah, I'm wary of this too. I mean darkside came out of the 90s and so did Nick Land...
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Nick Land was a pussy, he couldn't handle his speed and could never go really dark. he got stuck in cyberpunk nonsense. Marc Acardipaine really got it though. Imagine surveying earth after nuclear destruction and enjoying what you see. no supra-human intelligence, just the facade unmasked.
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Benny B said:
My teenage years, which were pretty stressful, but looking back I'm just so happy I lived them pre-internet time. The internet spoiled everything really.
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No it spoilt your exclusivity, just be frank about it. I get extremely irritated with 90s nostalgics propounding this line and then in the same breath cussing out Legowelt or whoever. That ain't how it works fam. You can't say the 90s was this great futuristic decade and then the noughties/tens/twenties are not because the hoy polloy and sharon n tracies spoilt your utopia.
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
sadmanbarty said:
In the 70’s the future was a dream. ‘Europe endless’.

in the 80’s it was a gimmick. Towards the end of the decade it became fleeting utopia with rave

in the 90’s the culture had a horrifying premonition that the future belonged to The Man and the underground mounted a hi tech resistance like John Connor

in the 2000’s the future enraged The Man

in the last 10 years the future has retreated into amniotic cul de sacs of madness and fiendish shamanic chatter. The future has become the mutant offspring of dystopia.

so what does the 90’s mean? It was the last flicker of resistance; that’s why the 70’s (reggae, civil rights soul, etc.) was so crucial to its mythology.
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excellent post. What do you mean by 80s gimmics exactly though? A technology fetishism? I must admit whilst that unmediated fetishism would be horrifying to us today the products it produced were really pushing at the limits of the possible - what we heard was the impossible (as Kodwo would have put it.)
 
pattycakes_

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
thirdform said:
I mean this is why I think a lot of 80s electronic music sounds more futuristic than 90s electronic music, 92-93 darkside jungle, hard acid/gabber/dirty electro excluded.

You listen to what Severed Heads or SPK were doing in the 80s and its miles above like Future Sound of London or Biosphere, even above most garage in terms of its angular alienating textures. Not that I don't have a soft spot for the biosphere substrata album, just noting that hindsight problematises the futurism we like to gush about on here.

For me darkness isn't a satanic pose or whatever, it's not even necessarily an aesthetic pose, it's just the every day reality. For me the problem with escapist music isn't that it is bourgeois or whatever (I'm not an SWP hack) but paradoxically that the shiney surfaces sound cheap, they sound like something recyclable. Paradoxically a lo fi acid jam feels more like a lushly orchestrated 70s disco production to me, because we've pushed expansive clean production to its material limit. In that sense I agree with barty that future can only now be dystopia because we saught utopia prematurely. We killed that future with our own hands.
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Reminds me of Adorno on poetry after Auschwitz. I happen to love a bit of sweet escapism though, and it doesn't have to signify ignorance. More the ability to remain loving in the face of adversity. Required nutrients for a balanced diet. The 90s had plenty of darkness. I just think as a collective the human spirit was more durable back then and therefore sang a sweeter song. For me the real dystopia is now where contemporary songs intended to be sweet are just not that convincing and end up having the opposite effect.
 
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version

version

Well-known member
Linebaugh said:
would you call ketamine a downer, or tending towards it? I think lots of the future minded electronic music to come after the 90's correlates either to downers or no drugs at all. music for lurid sobriety

(apologies for having you explain ketamine to me for the tenth time)
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It's a dissociative.

Dissociatives are a class of hallucinogen which distort perception of sight and sound and produce feelings of detachment – dissociation – from the environment and/or self. Although many kinds of drugs are capable of such action, dissociatives are unique in that they do so in such a way that they produce hallucinogenic effects, which may include sensory deprivation, dissociation, hallucinations, and dream-like states or trances.[1] Some, which are nonselective in action and affect the dopamine[2] and/or opioid[3] systems, may be capable of inducing euphoria. Many dissociatives have general depressant effects and can produce sedation, respiratory depression, analgesia, anesthesia, and ataxia, as well as cognitive and memory impairment and amnesia.
 
version

version

Well-known member
thirdform said:
I mean this is why I think a lot of 80s electronic music sounds more futuristic than 90s electronic music, 92-93 darkside jungle, hard acid/gabber/dirty electro excluded.

You listen to what Severed Heads or SPK were doing in the 80s and its miles above like Future Sound of London or Biosphere, even above most garage in terms of its angular alienating textures. Not that I don't have a soft spot for the biosphere substrata album, just noting that hindsight problematises the futurism we like to gush about on here.

For me darkness isn't a satanic pose or whatever, it's not even necessarily an aesthetic pose, it's just the every day reality. For me the problem with escapist music isn't that it is bourgeois or whatever (I'm not an SWP hack) but paradoxically that the shiney surfaces sound cheap, they sound like something recyclable. Paradoxically a lo fi acid jam feels more like a lushly orchestrated 70s disco production to me, because we've pushed expansive clean production to its material limit. In that sense I agree with barty that future can only now be dystopia because we saught utopia prematurely. We killed that future with our own hands.
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I remember a Kuedo interview round the time of Severant where he talked about certain sounds having an inherent sense of the future about them and I tend to agree. That gleaming, expansive 90s sound still sounds futuristic to me. Kraftwerk still sounds futuristic to me. I instantly start thinking of robots, of traveling through space or underwater in gleaming vehicles, of flying through cyberspace when I hear those tunes.

There's some stuff, some of the darker, grittier jungle, which gives me the same sort of feel as the rugged hardware you get in, say, the original Star Wars or Silent Running, but that feels less futuristic to me than the twinkling smoothness of that Peshay mix.

The "true" future, to me, seems to be completely weightless and frictionless, gliding through space at high speed.
 
version

version

Well-known member
luka said:
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HIGGLESTAFF 3 months ago
you gotta burn this to a cd and play it on your dreamcast to get the full vibe

There's something potent about the Dreamcast. The name alone has magic to it. The failed promise only emphasizes the dream.

Sonic-Adventure.jpg.optimal.jpg
 
slackk

slackk

-
version said:
HIGGLESTAFF 3 months ago
you gotta burn this to a cd and play it on your dreamcast to get the full vibe

There's something potent about the Dreamcast. The name alone has magic to it. The failed promise only emphasizes the dream.

Sonic-Adventure.jpg.optimal.jpg
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Yes, excellent observation. Sega were trying to tap into this 90s semi-future mythology but blew it by not being able to play DVDs

I still think this is the most futuristic game of all time

 
shiels

shiels

_
Jet grind radio, Ecco the dolphin, soul calibur, crazy taxi, SHENMU. All brilliant games. Chipped it and then 3 for a tenner in the market
 
shiels

shiels

_
That’s the first time third has given a compliment on the forum. Then slackk too. Barty returns. Luka starts speaking in tongues. What’s happening?
 
slackk

slackk

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Yes love Rez too. Would like to try the VR version as well but I'm not buying a headset it seems well over the top just for that.

I think as I didn't get to go to a club till 1999 probably that most of this music just seems like my childhood as opposed to the future. But the computer games still resonate.

2000s were infinitely more claustrophobic
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
version said:
I remember a Kuedo interview round the time of Severant where he talked about certain sounds having an inherent sense of the future about them and I tend to agree. That gleaming, expansive 90s sound still sounds futuristic to me. Kraftwerk still sounds futuristic to me. I instantly start thinking of robots, of traveling through space or underwater in gleaming vehicles, of flying through cyberspace when I hear those tunes.

There's some stuff, some of the darker, grittier jungle, which gives me the same sort of feel as the rugged hardware you get in, say, the original Star Wars or Silent Running, but that feels less futuristic to me than the twinkling smoothness of that Peshay mix.

The "true" future, to me, seems to be completely weightless and frictionless, gliding through space at high speed.
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yeah, you're a closetted trancehead then. For me the future is all about the fear of the cosmos, not floating away on a beanbag.
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
probably why I found Kuedo boring at the time, but then again i was in a creel pone rabithole, having my mind zapped into shards of electricity and then reintegrated.
 
version

version

Well-known member
thirdform said:
yeah, you're a closetted trancehead then. For me the future is all about the fear of the cosmos, not floating away on a beanbag.
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I do like trance, although haven't listened to a lot of it. I love Xpander. Always seemed to me like if Basic Channel made trance. One idea looping round, riding the mixing desk.
 
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