Commenting on 90s nostalgia

Photo courtesy of Peacefulbean (good karma) via Flickr and Creative Commons

Steve Waksman, one of my former professors at Smith College is a scholar of popular culture, music in particular, and has started a blog to experiment with the promotion of his upcoming book The Metal/Punk Continuum. Consistently following my own tendency to post comments only to locations where I have some tangible connection to the author, I replied to one of his posts this evening (see below).

I realize that my patten of entering the public discourse in such cautious and calculated moves does detract from some of the intentions we have laid out -- either explicitly through class discussions or the course materials or even implicitly -- regarding deliberative democracy and the public sphere. But it does bring me to think about the networks in which I travel and the unintentional connections made and webs spun. I remembered to visit Steve's blog when I saw Scott's post on Van Morrison. I'm unintentionally building links between these two posts through my digital footprints.

Anyhow, here's my commentary in response to Steve's post on hating 80s nostalgia. Since I can't speak with too much authority on distaste for a decade that I remember for colorful clothing, synthesizers, music videos, and Fisher Price tape recorders, I opted to talk about my personal favorite decade so far -- at least for music -- the 90s.

The 90s are completely under appreciated. Especially musically. But I recognize that part of the love I feel for the music of this decade is nostalgia. Some of it might even be ironic. But even the music that was bad -- even the height of the corporate posturing of grunge -- was better than the Clear Channel hard rock of today. I often wonder if this is merely my own skewed perception of the years I spent in high school or if somehow that decade was actually in some way "better" musically... I too have great love for punk bands of the 80s (based on my own narrow definition of what "punk" is). I didn't discover the best of it until I was much older (great albums by The Pixies, Sonic Youth, et. al.). All I remember actually listening to in this first decade of my life was Prince. Who is incredible in his own right. (I recently watched Purple Rain. Still amazing. On many levels. But perhaps irony is the highest).