2023 Rock & Roll HOF screechfest

I'm biased b/c I was a teenager in the late '80s but I liked the randomness and, yes, the cheese. Sort of like the pre-MTV days where the charts had everything (sans country in the late '80s). It got even wilder and more random over the next three years. Fucking Queensyrche had a top 10 hit about sleeping!! And on the year-end 1991 charts, it was surrounded by the first hit by Prince protege Tevin Campbell and Will To Power's SECOND hit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1991

Then SoundScan and grunge arrived and that was the end of that.

 

'88's getting a bad rap.

17-year-old Songbird didn't like it but it grew on me over the year last several years.

One other thing about '88 ...

 

I remember driving to the Astrodome in an old van with Stevie Winwood on a crackled radio. Them's the days. I didn't get on the field to play the Houston Toros, though.

 

I humbly submit 1999. Garbage. Absolute garbage.

 

'99 did suck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1999

... but it did give us this:

 

I just spent the past couple of minutes ... the whole late-'90s sucked musically. Pretty much everything after 1995. Few exceptions.

 

I can’t believe all the INXS love on here. When a song of theirs came on the radio, I’d hit the presets to see what else was playing and only go back if the other stations were on commercials.

They’re … fine.

 

Ooo wee ooo

 

Yeah, I didn’t realize how much the bottom fell out after grunge died down. Lots of poppy, bubblegummy awfulness, even in rock.

It did have the rise of Outkast, and the Foo Fighters, and …

 

Pearl Jam had some good stuff, and by far their least-popular commercially.

 

You're right as far as popular or inde stuff. There is non-popular stuff that was good (Air's Moon Safari is a personal fave, but how many people were listening at the time?), but it's all niche. Beck is probably a lone exception in terms of quality and some semblance of a decent following.

The grunge and early-to-mid 90s inde band vacuum was filled by disappointing shit, which is why for many, including me, it was never really filled at all.

California punk, horrific rap rock, fucking nu metal, "swing" bands (Christ), the shittiest UK pop, boy bands. All boring or outright shit.

Hip-hop began to fragment too.

Established bands fell way off. Pearl Jam began repeating themselves. Same with the Beastie Boys. Older bands, like U2 and REM, began to fall off badly.

I'll even include the Foo Fighters. They aren't bad, I liked them at first, but they aren't very original, and they basically did the same album repeatedly, but partly because the bar was set so low by their peers, people ate it up anyway.

Same for Green Day. Fuck Green Day, even if they did "improve" in the 2000s. Their rise might be a line of demarcation where things took a turn for the shit. Fake punk poseurs that tipped the axis of tastes just enough to send alternative music and how it was listened to (remember, radio and MTV were still important) into a terminal decline.

I think the rot set in about '95-ish when goofy ass shit like the Presidents Of The United States Of America came to prominence. Where outlets like MTV refused to separate the bullshit they were peddling from legitimately good inde bands.

Here's a Spotify alternative playlist from 1995. Definitely some good shit in this, but you can see where the cancerous shit was beginning to bubble up too.

Billboard 1995 Year-End Alternative Songs Chart

Now here's 1996. The dropoff is dramatic. I mean ... the fucking Primitive Radio Gods? How the hell was that a hit? I think there might be two songs I'd play by choice.

Billboard 1996 Year-End Alternative Songs Chart

Then, to Regan's point, here's 1999. Again, I find two songs I'd listen to by choice, but they are surrounded by dreck on a scale much worse than 1996.

Billboard 1999 Year-End Alternative Songs Chart

Fuck the late 90s.