In the last couple of weeks, I’ve come across two very different approaches to completing a retrospective about music in the 1990s. They clearly indicate why it’s a bad idea to half-ass the structure of a retrospective.
The first was a 10 part series on A.V. Club called “Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation?” It was published over a number of weeks, written by a single individual, and set to track a particular genre over a 10 year period with some reference to his personal life as it informed his reaction to the evolution of the genre. There’s a clear logical and narrative arc, and for me at least the pleasure of both recognizing what he was describing in some cases and having a reaction of “never thought of it that way, but of course!” to others. The time spent getting through all the articles never once felt like seconds off my life that I will never get back.
The second was a 90 minute broadcast / podcase of NPR’s All Songs Considered entitled “The 90s Are Back, or Whatever…” Despite the repeated disclaimers that it wasn’t supposed to be comprehensive, and that they encouraged listeners to respond online with the phrase “Hey idiots,” I have rarely been as irritated as I was after the first 30 minutes - and it was because they just half-assed their preparation for “Album of the Decade” and were making no sense at all.
It’s a given that using the decade as a construct is going to create some challenges - 1988 to 1993, for example, might be a more logical time frame for grouping music than 1991 - 2000, just because of the influence of bands on one another, prevailing trends, etc. But that doesn’t excuse making sweeping claims that even a musical dilettante like your (not) humble correspondent can recognize as bilge. “Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” was groundbreaking for sonic and gender reasons? Maybe if you hadn’t been listening to hip hop previously - it was a good album, to be sure, but let’s not oversell it. Chemical Brothers looking like the breakthrough that was going to make electronica huge in the US? Only if you hadn’t been listening to the music coming from the UK for the preceding 5 - 10 years and feigned ignorance of the US market for that style of music.
Again: I’m a dilettante and I recognized this. They’re paid to listen to music and write about it.
And yet… the balance of the podcast was perfectly interesting, if not completely surprising - because once the presenters stopped flailing around trying to sound like they could come up with a unifying theme, and just explained the appeal of a given song for them either in context or in retrospect, their passion for music came through. If they had just stuck with that approach from the beginning they would have been much better off.
It’s not life or death. Better to be a scattered and credible enthusiast than claim authority and flail. That’s the appeal of blogs and podcasts and amateur media… isn’t it?
