1980s, 1990s: Iconic Bands & Music Culture

     Music, like it did in the 1950s and 60s, had a significant impact on the culture of the 1980s up to the 2000s. While in the former decades, rock and roll, Elvis, and a black radio presence added to a more politically and socially diverse generation. Rock and roll music was edgy and effective, and being denounced in society, youth were only more attracted to it. Parents believed that rock and roll would ruin their kids, but this new musical counterculture movement only created a new generation of American youth. Similarly, bands emerged in the 1980s and 1990s who proved vital to a new underground punk movement, and catered to teens and young people who were unhappy with the political climate. Bands of the 1980s and 1990s channeled their emotions to call out the technological boom, political movements, economic recessions, and question what it meant to be an American. Here are some of the most popular bands of the time.


1) Nirvana: (1987-1994)
Kurt Cobain was an influential leader in the grunge movement, and Nirvana is regarded as one of the most influential alternative bands in history. Although after the death of Kurt Cobain in 1994, the band, to this day, remains popular with hits like "Heart Shaped Box", "Smells like Teen Spirit", and "Come As You Are". Dissimilar from previous bands, Nirvana relied on "dynamic contrasts" between "quiet verses and loud, heavy choruses". Their success made alternative rock a popular genre, and Cobain also found himself popular as the "spokesman" of Generation X. Generation X was perceived to be the "directionless and disaffected" generation; many seemed to align themselves with Kurt's "yuppie dream" lifestyle. The grunge movement followed the integration of Nirvana into the mainstream, and this "Seattle Sound" became popular in the Northwest US. Grunge bands started to appear in the California music scene, and then other parts of the US and even in Australia. Although grunge bands had vaded away by the end of the 1990s, modern rock music has been influenced by the sounds, and created even a post grunge era. 



2) Green Day: (1986-present)
Green Day is a fairly local band; lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong and bassist Mike Dirnt were born and raised in Rodeo, California (about an hour form Berkeley) where they came together and formed the band "Sweet Children" when they were teens in the early '80s. Changing their name to "Green Day" in the following years & picking up Tre Cool on drums, they gained popularity in the East Bay, playing at the popular Berkeley venue "924 Gilman". 924 Gilman was formed as a nonprofit music venue for all ages in 1986, and since has made bands like Operation Ivy, The Dead Kennedy's and Green Day easy to be sought out by record companies. After signing with major label Reprise Records, Green Day was virtually shunned from the Gilman scene, being called "sellouts" and isolated from even their closest of friends. Forced to leave the area and even forbidden to play at Gilman, they toured the United States in the following years. "Punk Purists" looked at Green Day's switch from independent record label Lookout! Records as untrue to their punk roots. With Dookie being released in 1994, the band became famous on an international level- even playing at the enormous Woodstock '94 music festival. Not later, they released albums including Insomniac, Nimrod (Good Riddance: Time of Your Life), Warning, and then most famously- their 2004 album American Idiot. American Idiot questioned the Bush administration's choice to invade Iraq- as many of the lyrics in "American Idiot" refer to Bush's inability to be president. I  think the line "I'm not a part of a redneck agenda" highlights many of the popular sentiments of the time; punk was starting to address the American political climate and not just teen angst. 



3) Blink-182:
By now, I have mentioned the grunge Seattle movement brought down the coast and around the US by Nirvana, who gained international popularity. Green Day emerged as one of the leaders of the punk movement, shattering the underground punk scene which left them isolated from the smaller grassroots bands. Blink-182 emerged from the "skate parks of Socal" and soon became thrust into the mainstream with their most famous album "Enema of the State". The album, appealing to the Generation X, included hit songs like "What's my Age Again?" which "became a frantic anthem for anyone unwilling to go gracefully into adulthood". The interesting thing about Blink was that the band was considered influential in developing pop punk- the interaction of pop music into the fast pace punk rock. This new genre was more "radio friendly" and "accessible" than prior pure punk bands. In 2011, the New York Times said "no punk band of the 1990s has been more influential than blink 182". Although I disagree, to an extent, many of their stylistic choices and tendencies can be "heard in Fall out Boy... All Time Low & The Maine" . Ultimately, Blink appealed to Generation X, and created a culture of pop punk that has, to this day, remained popular.


Other bands like The Cranberries, Weezer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blind Melon also emerged during the 1990s/1980s- which altered the musical landscape of the United States. While some groups like The Offspring and Green Day stayed true to their punk roots, bands like Blink-182 combined pop melodies to create a "newer" medium of music. Looking at how Rock and Roll, an offset of the Blues/jazz influenced 1950s/60s counterculture, I think it is interesting to see the degree of similarity in '90s.









Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Yohannan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/924_Gilman_Street
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_(band)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge
https://www.theguardian.com/music/from-the-archive-blog/2014/apr/05/kurt-cobain-an-icon-of-alienation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink-182
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/reviving-the-pop-punk-innocence-of-blink-182