U Remind Me of a Year That I Once Knew...

July 23, 2014 8:35 AM

Throwing a theme party? Need some background music whilst checking out your ex's facebook pics? Do you pine for times gone by? Step into the Nostalgia Machine!
posted by stinkfoot (101 comments total)

1995 was a good year for The Real McCoy's female-vocals-growly-man vocals combo.
posted by codacorolla at 8:47 AM on July 23, 2014 [4 favorites]

They lived in a very different 1993 than me.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:48 AM on July 23, 2014 [13 favorites]

Aw, hello, Year I Graduated High School!

(though I have to say I now feel quite old knowing that that Dionne Farris song was much earlier than I thought as well as Annie Lennox's 2nd solo album...)
posted by Kitteh at 8:52 AM on July 23, 2014

1995 was a good year for The Real McCoy's female-vocals-growly-man vocals combo.

"I tawlk, tawlk... I tawlk to yooo..."
posted by Navelgazer at 8:54 AM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

the early 00s was a confusing and upsetting time for pop music
posted by The Whelk at 8:55 AM on July 23, 2014 [4 favorites]

Sheryl Crow is an unstoppable killing machine, is the sense I'm getting here.
posted by The Whelk at 8:58 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT I was like "I'll put in 1998 the year I graduated from middle school good idea me!" OH SHIT JESUS I did NOT expect the weird combination of nostalgia and misery that this would inspire this thing contains creepy dark majicks holy SHIT.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 9:01 AM on July 23, 2014 [10 favorites]

Counting Blue Cars from 96! Yesss
posted by curious nu at 9:01 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Is it supposed to play a video of the song that you click on? I just get moving diagonal stripes.
posted by Daddy-O at 9:01 AM on July 23, 2014

Actually this is making me feel pretty nostalgic for last summer too but it's way less problematically tinged with PTSD than memories from being thirteen. Like, when I don't remember stuff from last summer it's mostly because I drank a ton, not because I'm repressing everything.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 9:05 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I can't get it to play anything. Did we break it already?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:08 AM on July 23, 2014

The basic problem with all of these kinds of things is that just because a song was on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in a given year does NOT mean that song is fondly remembered or liked currently. In fact, in recent history it appears the inverse may be true more often than not.
posted by Curious Artificer at 9:09 AM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

It doesn't work for me! So i'm singing Warren G's Regulate to my cat. The internet rules.
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 9:11 AM on July 23, 2014 [6 favorites]

It's so reassuring to see that I was not incorrect about my senior year of HS being a hideous wasteland of awful.

Except for "Where My Girls At." That song is still in regular rotation.
posted by like_a_friend at 9:12 AM on July 23, 2014

Oh my god the gin blossoms

I probably haven't thought about them in years yet still know every word. (looks up gin blossoms on wikipedia) YAAA the lead singer is fucking old looking what happened ahhhhhh! ahhhhh!

On the plus side, I can pinpoint the exact year I got old myself developed my own taste, because I don't recognize most of the songs versus the year before when I do.
posted by barchan at 9:21 AM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

So i'm singing Warren G's Regulate to my cat.

I can never hear that song without thinking of this. I remember when that song came out, there was something to that hook, but I just could never place it. I searched a bit, but never did figure it out, and eventually forgot about it.

Then came Yacht Rock.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 9:23 AM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

The basic problem with all of these kinds of things is that just because a song was on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in a given year does NOT mean that song is fondly remembered or liked currently.

Exactly; I know if I put the summer I graduated high school in there it is going to cough up the song "Mercedes Boy" at some point, and that is a song I disliked with such intensity I once threatened to disconnect the speakers at my summer job just to not have to listen to it ever again.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:24 AM on July 23, 2014

Oh my god the gin blossoms

They play almost every year in our town's free summer concert series. I'm not going to lie, it's fun if you want to sing "found out about pooooooooooo" really loudly.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:25 AM on July 23, 2014 [4 favorites]

I put in the year I was a sophomore in high school (2000) and it would have made me super nostalgic, except that I still listen to half those songs all the time. Actually, I heard three of them ("Bye, Bye, Bye", "I Want It That Way", and "Blue (Da Ba Dee)") all at the same strip club last week, but the rest I'm choosing to listen to.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:26 AM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

1986 was not a bad year for pop music. Even if it had Lionel Richie, Berlin and Peter Cetera on the charts. There was also Prince, Madonna and James Brown. And Falco.
posted by chavenet at 9:26 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Lately I've been getting into Third Eye Blind, I don't say "getting back into" because I wasn't into them the first time around.
posted by 2bucksplus at 9:27 AM on July 23, 2014

I put in the year I graduated high school (1991). It was...not a banner year for the art form.
posted by The Gooch at 9:31 AM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

It won't play the Natalie Merchant videos. More like CRUELstalgia machine.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:33 AM on July 23, 2014

2bucksplus: Lately I've been getting into Third Eye Blind, I don't say "getting back into" because I wasn't into them the first time around.

This happened to me with Toad the Wet Sprocket. I didn't care for them at all when I was in college and they were on the radio -- I was more into the heavier side of 90s alternative at the time -- but I did keep a few of their more enjoyable singles in my MP3 collection for nostalgia purposes.

Then a couple years ago I started digging into their back catalog and realized that, hey, they were pretty good! And now I guess they're back together and just put out an album, but I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:34 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

There is a cut off from me too from when I stopped taking family car journeys with the radio on a top-40 station.
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 9:44 AM on July 23, 2014

I'm just now realizing how much my clothing choices in high school and early college were heavily influenced by NIN and the like music videos and....Jewell. So yes, I dressed like Jewell had just stepped out of the Matrix. I'm flabbergasted that I managed to get asked out on even a single date.
posted by barchan at 9:44 AM on July 23, 2014 [6 favorites]

1982 was not as awful as I thought it would be, though there were a lot of things in there that I'm pretty sure I've never heard (but really I've probably suppressed because of the trauma of overplay). 1983 was pretty awesome.
posted by rtha at 9:45 AM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

I'm flabbergasted that I managed to get asked out on even a single date.

I had MacGyver's Mullet.

(and very, very few dates)
posted by DigDoug at 9:47 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Perfect Drug and Frozen and color correction to blue! That's nostalgia, right there. Also, isn't Chris Cunningham just the best music video director ever? Just watched windowlicker for an extra dose of nostalgia.
posted by bfranklin at 9:50 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

bfranklin's definition of nostalgia involves more nightmares than mine usually does.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:52 AM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

> Yeah, I can't get it to play anything. Did we break it already?

Looks like whoever wrote this is using some kind of preposterous "content surfacing" embedding library and went over their quota or something.

why use regular HTML when you could use ridiculous third-party tools instead?
posted by xbonesgt at 9:53 AM on July 23, 2014

The fact that mentioning Real McCoy in the first comment didn't derail this entire thread almost disappoints me.

(The idea that I've never done "Another Night" at karaoke is also disappointing since I like to think "female-vocals-growly-man vocals combo" as kinda my wheelhouse.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:01 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I put in 1993, and it entirely failed to provide me with Bratmobile, so I question its nostalgia value.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:02 AM on July 23, 2014

I KNEW IT

I KNEW IT

TYPING IN 1988 GIVES YOU MERCEDES BOY AS ONE OF THE SONGS

I KNEW IT

MUST DESTROY THIS
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:10 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

OH MY GOD WHY DID I LOOK

why do I want to listen to so many of these songs again when I hated them the first time around

save me
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:15 AM on July 23, 2014 [6 favorites]

why do I want to listen to so many of these songs again when I hated them the first time around

Nostalgia is an awesome sort of bastard that way.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:16 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Nostalgia is an awesome sort of bastard that way.

Something I wrote years ago, but relevant.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:18 AM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

I now have MMMBop and Wannabe dueling in my head

no no no please no more
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:19 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

(no no, no no no no, no no no no, THERE'S NO LIMIT)

you're welcome
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:20 AM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

but feckless, how then will we ever get with your friends.

I have this cultural tape delay cause my only real experience hearing pop music was the Always ON TV at my friend's house which was just non-top VH1 pop-up video marathons, which of course all showed videos from the mid 80s, so I associate music from a few years before my actual birth with my pre-teenhod.
posted by The Whelk at 10:21 AM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

1989. A number. Another summer.

Another goddamn year with Debbie Gibson and Richard Marx.
posted by anthom at 10:26 AM on July 23, 2014 [6 favorites]

Corollary to Sturgeon's Law: 90% of all nostalgia is crap.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:31 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ooh, setting it to 1998-2001 returns a mix of songs that could easily make up 1/3rd of the playlist on Denver's radio stations.

Why are you so stuck in the 90s, Denver?

Don't pretend like you aren't, I've seen your Train posters, watched you get all giddy over the Goo Goo Dolls coming to town, and heard your many, many Sublime covers.
posted by deludingmyself at 10:33 AM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

so Denver is the center of hell.

just like i always suspected.
posted by The Whelk at 10:33 AM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

1994 is like the most frequent playlist in my head. I pretty much hum any one of those songs on a daily basis...to realize that they all happened in 1994 is amazing. It is also worth noting that the early 90s was just an incredible incredible time for hip hop music. Hot damn.
posted by jnnla at 10:34 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Wow, 2001 is a year full of terrible, shameful gems. No wonder the 8th Grade Dance (June 2002) was secretly awesome.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:39 AM on July 23, 2014

They lived in a very different 1993 than me

I graduated almost two decades before and it was frightening to see what this algorithm came up with. None of the music that you heard in a high school parking lot, or a college dorm. Just a lot of top 40 crap that no one with even a scintilla of taste would ever want to hear again. Even if I showed this to my pop princess spouse she'd throw a fit at the utter lack of great music.
posted by Ber at 10:40 AM on July 23, 2014

1995 marked the first year I lived in a country with multiple English language radio stations and shops where you could actually buy music. There is a lot of my teenaged years right there in that playlist.
Also reminding me that damn, I need to listen to my TLC albums again.
posted by halcyonday at 10:43 AM on July 23, 2014

Man, this is making me want to find the mix CDs my husband made early in our courtship. 2003, maybe? They were rejects from a name-that-tune game he'd put together for a pop culture quizbowl (TRASH) event, and were universally terrible, except when you listened to them together, in which case your will to live was slowly broken down and replaced with a strange, bubbly feeling of knowing all the lyrics to Rico Suave.
posted by deludingmyself at 10:46 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Deluding myself - you may want to listen to this supercut. It was similarly created for a trivia event- it's a clip of hit songs throughout the entire 20th Century, with one song from each of the 100 years of that century. It's really fascinating as an overall thing, listening to the styles of music change with time.

(I think you also get the contest creators' intro on that clip too - in case you don't, the listeners were required to correctly name 85 songs for a "perfect" score, as naming all 100 just seemed cruel. And yes, there's an answer key.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:50 AM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

heard your many, many Sublime covers.

I know a guy who has paid real, US dollars that he has worked to earn to see a Sublime tribute band. At least half a dozen times. He's sort of a maniac.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:55 AM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

Deluding myself - you may want to listen to this supercut. It was similarly created for a trivia event- it's a clip of hit songs throughout the entire 20th Century, with one song from each of the 100 years of that century. It's really fascinating as an overall thing, listening to the styles of music change with time.

Okay okay, we're going through this now. There's no way they did this without pauses, right? Right?
posted by deludingmyself at 11:12 AM on July 23, 2014

This thing would be great if it could generate a playlist.
posted by evil otto at 11:13 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

2000 was a year jam-packed with terrible music that has unfortunately become incredibly evocative for me due to context.

This website really underestimates Tori Amos' role in my 1992-3.
posted by obfuscation at 11:15 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

uncleozzy, Gin Blossoms played that same park a few years back. Good show!

1997 got me Spice Girls' Wannabe. I never knew I wanted to zig-a-zig-ahhhhh until I heard that song.
posted by dr_dank at 11:19 AM on July 23, 2014

Two things:
1. I didn't realize how much younger this site is trending. Good lord. Some of you people were still in school when this site was born? Wow.

2. The more enjoyable game for me is to figure out which of these years is the best. And then look to see if there is a correlation between what each person picks and where they were in life. (E.g., do people like 8th grade music better than graduation music, etc)
posted by dios at 11:27 AM on July 23, 2014 [5 favorites]

Also, this thread is making me realize that I'm older than a lot of you people. I don't like that one bit.

i *just* found out Mallory Ortberg is like three years younger than me and it's making me all itchy and wizened-feeling for no damn reason
posted by The Whelk at 11:27 AM on July 23, 2014

If I'd known '80s music was going to be around so long I would have hated it more.
posted by randomkeystrike at 11:28 AM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

Ok, I made the cut by four years. What is older than nostalgia?
posted by vapidave at 11:35 AM on July 23, 2014

Thanks for reminding me why I stopped listening to radio.

I did not need reminding
posted by ckape at 11:38 AM on July 23, 2014

What is older than nostalgia?

Paleontology?
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:38 AM on July 23, 2014 [7 favorites]

Sadly there is nothing prior to 1960.

Silenced all my life.
posted by Pudhoho at 11:40 AM on July 23, 2014

Going back through the years I saw a few songs I didn't particularly care for, but the only that gave me a palpable reaction was Wonderwall.

I hate that song so fucking much. I am still mad at my freshman roommate for buying What's the Story? (Morning Glory) with the intent of playing it every single fucking day, and then actually doing so.

No music was actually playing, but I still had to close the page.
posted by aubilenon at 11:42 AM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

There's no way they did this without pauses, right? Right?

Nope, what you hear is what they played. Williams trivia audio bonii were awesome.

(I think we did hand out mix tapes.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:42 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Peeking at 1989 (high school graduation) reminds me vividly of why I stopped listening to the radio and became a devout Deadhead.
posted by Daily Alice at 11:44 AM on July 23, 2014

There are Sublime cover bands? I always thought that Sublime was one of the few bands that sounded like they were covering themselves.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:47 AM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

IN THE YEAR 2077, PRISONERS ARE SENT BACK 100 YEARS TO THE YEAR 1977 AND DO 1 YEAR OF HARD LABOR BY LISTENING TO THE LIKES OF ANDY GIBB, SHAUN CASSIDY, ENGLEBERT HUMPERDINCK AND BREAD. AN IMPLANTED MICROCHIP PREVENTS ANY MUSIC ORIGINATING FROM THE ISLAND OF MANHATTAN OR THE UNITED KINGDOM TO BE PROCESSED.

IN THE YEAR 2078, CONGRESS WILL OUTLAW THIS PRACTICE, CALLING IT 'CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT'.
posted by jeremias at 11:56 AM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

They play almost every year in our town's free summer concert series. I'm not going to lie, it's fun if you want to sing "found out about pooooooooooo" really loudly.

I went to visit my parents two weeks ago. They live in a community with a bunch of timeshares run by RCI, in a somewhat obscure town in the middle of PA. The Gin Blossoms were playing at the community's music festival that weekend. Seriously tempted, but ultimately we passed on attending.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 11:58 AM on July 23, 2014

uncleozzy, Gin Blossoms played that same park a few years back. Good show!


I can't remember who at the moment, but one of the hosts/guests of the Low Times Podcasts has a story about going to an Applebees in Tempe with his mom in, like, 2002, and being waited on by the guy from Gin Blossoms.
posted by like_a_friend at 12:07 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

uncleozzy, Gin Blossoms played that same park a few years back. Good show!

Yeah, I actually missed this year's show, but I was at the last one. Or the one before that, maybe. I would swear there were at least two others. Although I might be thinking of seeing fake Journey. Don't you judge me.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:13 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Some of you people were still in school when this site was born?

I finished high school two years before MeFi was born.

And I guess I'm pretty much the only one here who will unabashedly and unironically admit to a love of Gin Blossoms. Hey Jealousy is one of my favourite songs ever.

Don't judge.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:13 PM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

Oh no, I should make it clear that I love Hey Jealousy. And Follow You Down. And Found Out About You. Oh yeah.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:16 PM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

Evolution? They threw caution to the wind and played Steve Perry's Sherry in the middle of their set when they played the Dublin years ago.

They almost had a riot on their hands.
posted by dr_dank at 12:18 PM on July 23, 2014

I saw Gin Blossoms a couple years ago in one of those touring bands of the 90s concerts with Marcy Playground, Lit, Sugar Ray, and Everclear. I will say without reservation or shame that I had a great time.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:18 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

FFFM, you'll appreciate the Archive.org treasure trove of live Gin Blossoms.
posted by dr_dank at 12:21 PM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

I will say without shame that I saw Gin Blossoms with The Spin Doctors of all people opening (as well as two went-nowhere bands called Cracker and Vinx) at Canada's Wonderland when I was about 14-15, with an extraordinarily pretty girl, and had an amazing time. Everyone was bopping around like fools.

The pot probably helped.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:22 PM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

Evolution?

With Hugo... who looks startlingly like 1985 Steve Perry.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:24 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Oh man, I'm pretty sure the first thing I'm going to do when I get home is go buy some (legal!) pot and sit in my basement and smoke it while listening to the Gin Blossoms on CD. Then I might let my husband get to second base, but only if he promises not to tell. Let's ride this nostalgia train allll the way.
posted by barchan at 12:29 PM on July 23, 2014 [6 favorites]

VH1 pop-up video marathons, which of course all showed videos from the mid 80s

Every time I turned this on as a kid it was playing Garth Brooks's "The Thunder Rolls."
posted by sallybrown at 12:32 PM on July 23, 2014

I will say without shame that I saw Gin Blossoms with The Spin Doctors of all people opening (as well as two went-nowhere bands called Cracker and Vinx) at Canada's Wonderland when I was about 14-15, with an extraordinarily pretty girl, and had an amazing time. Everyone was bopping around like fools.

The pot probably helped.



Oh crap- I think I was at that show. I might have even supplied you with the pot.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:35 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Let's ride this nostalgia train allll the way.

I didn't get asked out on dates until I was in college. Reliving my high school years would be amazingly dull.

Although the cooling of relations between the US and Russia is giving the current news a familiar Cold-War tone...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:35 PM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

1984's list ended with "Ya Mo Be There." We suffered worse than any of you.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:40 PM on July 23, 2014 [5 favorites]

... because that song was never topped...
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:41 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

ha, EmpressCallipygos, it was the exact opposite for me. I only got asked out because I was the only girl on the academic teams/clubs. I was in for a shock when I got to college.

also I had a car
posted by barchan at 12:42 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Daily Alice: Peeking at 1989 (high school graduation) reminds me vividly of why I stopped listening to the radio and became a devout Deadhead.

"Touch of Grey" was a great song, wasn't it?
posted by jferg at 12:46 PM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

just because a song was on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in a given year does NOT mean that song is fondly remembered or liked currently

It also skews it quite heavily towards US culture. Their version of 1983 has more gruesome soft-rock and less awesome new-wave than I remember as a British teenager. A version based on UK charts -- or that allowed a choice of both year and territory -- would be interesting.

(I'll accept that this might be wishful thinking and rose-tinted nostalgia on my part; although Wikipedia's list of the UK's top 60 singles of 1983 does bear it out. Look, no Journey! no Hall and Oates! But yes, Toto.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:51 PM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh crap- I think I was at that show. I might have even supplied you with the pot

Yeah would have been summer of 93 or 94, can't remember.

We brought our own though :P
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:54 PM on July 23, 2014

I kind of love 1983. Also, I am old.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:55 PM on July 23, 2014 [4 favorites]

I'm not old; I'm vintage.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:56 PM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

I will say without shame that I saw Gin Blossoms with The Spin Doctors of all people opening (as well as two went-nowhere bands called Cracker and Vinx)...

Oh, yeah? Well if memory serves, I saw Sting twice -- Boston, I think, and Minneapolis -- in the same year (1991) because a good opening act was touring with him, and a really shabby "musician" opened the whole bill named Vinx. Both times this guy's patter was the same: he made lame jokes while he pounded a big drum. For example, he pretended to start singing a song with the words, "I'm dreaming/ Of a whiiite girlfriend" and it fell flat in both cities. Buh-bye, 1991.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:16 PM on July 23, 2014

Nope, what you hear is what they played. Williams trivia audio bonii were awesome.

(I think we did hand out mix tapes.)

Tau_ceti and I are suitably awed and horrified. There's barely enough time to go "oh, oh THAT!" much less scribble it down before the next snippet rolls. And the next. And the next.

Also: chrisssstmas, chrisssstmas is gonna haunt my dreams.
posted by deludingmyself at 1:29 PM on July 23, 2014

Deludingmyself: I've dug up the rules and can elaborate a bit.

* Yes, we did hand out mix tapes with this supercut on it, so teams could replay as many times as they liked (or stop in the middle and rewind or whatever).
* Teams had 4 hours to work on this before submitting their answers to the judges.
* This is but one small part of an 8-hour contest with multiple extra-credit sections which at the time was broadcast over a college radio station, but is now on streaming audio off a web page. So teams were all used to a "very small clips of songs" audio component.

A master list of all such supercut-type things from past contests is here - I think my favorite one was when they played a random selection of clips but said we also had to identify the theme for even more extra credit. After a couple of plays through, it hit me that they'd selected clips which, when compiled, recited the opening sentence of Catcher In The Rye.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:36 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Almost everything from the mid-'90s sounds like it was recorded in the hope that it would accompany a montage on Friends (probably because it was).
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:53 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah would have been summer of 93 or 94, can't remember.

We brought our own though :P



Probably for the best- the stuff I had was pretty schwaggy.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:33 PM on July 23, 2014

shabby "musician" opened the whole bill named Vinx. Both times this guy's patter was the same: he made lame jokes while he pounded a big drum

Yes! That's the guy!

I've only seen sting 1/2 a time. Mercury Rising tour, Sarah McLachlan opening.

We went to see Sarah, tried to suffer through sting, and noped right outta there.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:56 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

You guys don't have to scroll down very far, do ya? [1962]
posted by maggieb at 4:26 PM on July 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

The '62 list kicks ass, maggieb!
posted by stinkfoot at 4:28 PM on July 23, 2014

Cracker was pretty good, actually.

Also, to make my fellow olds feel better: this Gen Xer's prom theme was "I Remember You" by Skid Row.
posted by persona au gratin at 4:39 PM on July 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

1979 was A LOT of Disco! 1980, not so much.
posted by QueerAngel28 at 5:46 PM on July 23, 2014

Pop music is possibly the best way to distinguish between micro-generations. When I feel like being a jerk, I'll tell my slightly older friends that their favorite songs are "before my time."

Songs from junior high and freshman/sophomore dance playlists (late 1980s/early 1990s) are that sweet spot of squirming recollection of awkwardness and fond delight. For my bachelorette party I discovered that even the die-hard anti-karaoke friends will break down and sing Bell Biv Devoe's Poison and Young MC's Bust a Move because they have the lyrics forever engrained in the brain.

I am waiting for the internet to know everything about me so if I put 1995 into the Nostalgia Machine, it can reproduce the mixtape in my high school boyfriend's car which consisted of 99 Luftballoons (Nena) and a whole lot of Erasure.
posted by spamandkimchi at 6:29 PM on July 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

I know we didn't date, but I had to check your profile just to make sure.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:14 AM on July 24, 2014 [1 favorite]