The 90's have been called by some, including but not limited to my father, as being "a decade without an identity". This expression is most often used in reference to the 90's music industry. There is a general understanding of what someone means when they say "I love seventies music" or "I love eighties music", however, there is absolutely no clarity in what someone means when they say "I love nineties music". This said, I don't think it is fair to describe the era as having no identity. I love nineties music, which is why I am so unhappy with that description being used. It suggests, or maybe is just used to suggest, that 90's music had no character - that it was droll, forgettable and didn't pioneer any new sounds or movements. On the contrary, I feel that if anything can be said for this era it would be that it had too much to offer. In past decades, "usually only a few types of music dominated the Top 40, but in the nineties you can find rock, rap, gangsta rap, alternative, punk, country, R&B, adult contemporary, ska, and classic rock." (1) There was a broader spectrum of music to accomodate an ever-fragmenting audience. Back in the 60's artists could get a mass audience and achieve mass hysteria (think 'Beatlesmania'), but in the 90's audiences showed signs of becoming less 'mass' and more 'niche'. Today we are experiencing the full effects of this. 00's music rarely has had a 'mass audience'; we're all savvy music consumers who know how to seek out the music we like. When was the last time an artist has 'mania' in the 00's? Never to my recollection. Rather than a decade without an identity, I'd call the 90's a decade with multiple-identities. And every decade from now will probably continue further with this trend - becoming more and more fragmented. The perceived "lack of identity" hence stems from the audience and not from the standard of music.
It would be ignorant of me to write blog entry after blog entry on 90’s pop without making mention of the highest selling artist of that decade... Mariah Carey. Achieving a Billboard #1 in every year of the 90’s (1) and selling upwards of 130 million in that decade alone, she is in many respects the face of 90’s pop music. Much like the Madonna to Lady Gaga comparison, it is highly likely that there will never be a ‘new Mariah’ as long as the ‘old Mariah’ reigns. However new international chart-topper Leona Lewis looks set to test that theory.
Winning UK X-Factor in 2006, Leona Lewis has had her debut album, Spirit, chart at #1 in the UK, US, Europe and Australia and sell upwards of 8 million copies worldwide (2). If Leona isn’t the ‘new Mariah’, then she’s certainly a new chart rival. Something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the press. In an article for the New York Daily News, Jim Farber writes: “Lewis has towered over the European charts for months with her song "Bleeding Love." In her home country - the U.K. - the single became the biggest-selling song of '07, even though it could just as easily have been the follow-up to Mariah's very first single from 1990, "Vision of Love”” (3)
Leona has roughly the same timbre as Mariah in her nascent days, as well as the same soulful way of forming and indulging phrases. Being that their voices are so similar, they are naturally tailored to make the same kinds of music. They both have the kind of power-house vocals that can execute a Whitney Houston Ballad and make it look effortless. They’re the kind of exceptional pop artist whose voice is actually their strongest asset; as opposed to other pop stars whose central draw is their image, stage performance or the creative collective behind them. It has been said that “popular music singers of the past thirty-five years have eschewed the classical perfection of the voice in favor of expressing the emotionality and personality of the voice.” (4) Leona and Mariah are rare treats who demonstrate that it isn’t an either-or situation; both being technically brilliant, but never wooden, singers. Their coy persona’s and enormous voices place them at the opposite end of the spectrum to the stripped-down, revved-up popettes of the industry. They rely on a fine-tuned voice for media attention rather than controversy or exhibitionism. Whether or not this makes them more deserving artists is up for contention; what is does show is that they are cut from the same cloth.
In terms of interview demeanor, song selections, and especially voice Leona Lewis has carved out the same niche’ in music today that Mariah occupied in the 90’s – which places her on a fairly certain road to success.
References
(4) Marshall, P.D. 1997. 'The Meaning of the Popular Music Celebrity: The Construction of Distinctive Authenticity'. Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. University of Minneapolis. pg 155.
The idea of music in television isn’t a new one. From its inception, television used music used to create moods, fill spaces, provide rhythm and link the production to other cultural texts (1). However this music was traditionally just that – music. There was no artist, no lyrics, no autonomy for that music – it was simply a part of the program. However the 90’s changed all that. It was the first decade where ‘what to listen for’ was, in fact, your television.
“Recent years have seen an increase in pop music on television, replacing its more traditional incidental music. It is now dominant as stock music on television, filling expanding continuity and advertising spaces. The licensing of pop music for screen use is increasingly important for the music industry, spawning a new form of ‘multipurpose music’ which, as well as being music in its own right, can also be resold as stock music for television. While in the 1980s there was a rush to tie-in pop music with films, in the 1990s, it increasingly was to tie pop music with television.” (2)
The 90’s, especially late 90’s, saw the rise of this trend. Shows I grew up with such as Charmed and Roswell gave particular consideration to the songs they selected and their placement in the episode. They used popular music to achieve a measure of control over their audience’s emotional response. When the right song was chosen it enhanced the emotion of the narrative; and can years later still remind me of the scene in which it was used and the emotions therein. For example, one of the most memorable uses of music for me was Sarah McLaughlin’s ‘Full of Grace’, used in a 1998 episode of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer (see below). Even after eleven years, I still think of it as the ‘Buffy-gives-up-on-everything-and-leaves-Sunnydale song’. 90’s television demonstrated one of the many functions of music—which is to manipulate mood—in a brand new, televisional context.
The legacy of this is hugely apparent in 00’s television. Every ‘hip’ show, from Skins to 90210, has to have a ‘hip’ sound; ‘hip’ enough that it will warrant a soundtrack release. Recently, there has been a boom in TV soundtracks and in websites devoted to the use of popular music in television shows (3). Of this, blogger Garrett Kamps wrote:
“Last year The O.C. popularized the trick of laying indie music over the histrionic exchanges of hollow characters so as to lend real pathos to an otherwise loathsome TV show. This year the rest of Hollywood caught up, and now we've got programs like Grey's Anatomy, Gilmore Girls, and One Tree Hill paying Tegan and Sara's rent.” (4)
While suggests that the 00’s popularized the music-in-TV movement, I would counter-suggest that all the 00’s have really done is capitalize on it and take it to the next level. For example in 2006, an episode of One Tree Hill allowed the audience to decide which song would be played at Nathan and Hayley’s wedding (5). Song selection has clearly become an integral part of the TV audience’s experience.
While this can be perceived as a good thing, it also comes with some bad. Namely what I mean is when dialogue in a scene has to compete with the background music because it’s so loud and so obvious. Songs have gone from enriching the scene to sometimes dominating it. Because of this, an episode can be robbed of its quiet moments and end up feeling like a 40 minute music video. One Tree Hill can be particularly guilty of this. Music in television is most effective when it is used sparingly and appropriately; the final minutes of Six Feet Under surely being the most brilliant and well-executed example of this (see below).
The 90’s saw a transition in the use of music in television; from instrumental, lyric-less background noise to the recognizable, purchasable and sometimes incessant music of today. For many (myself included), this revelation means that television has displaced the radio as the best medium to discover new music. Rather than listen to a particular radio station, I just watch Gossip Girl weekly. If you want to know what to listen to in the 90’s, then start by watching TV.
Music in 90's TV: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Evolution: the last 6 minutes of HBO's Six Feet Under
References
(2) Donelly, K.J. 2002. 'Tracking British television: pop music as stock soundtrack to the small screen'Popular Music 21 : 331-343 Cambridge University Press.
The Spice Girls were certainly something to listen for in the 90’s. The question is has the 00’s provided a worthy successor? Is there a girlband with enough celebrity and shine to be for the now what they were for the 90’s? The short answer is ‘yes’, and it comes in the form of U.K mega-success Girls Aloud.
Girls Aloud are a five-piece girlband who were formed in 2002 on the UK talent search Popstars: the Rivals, and who on the surface appeared quite similar to the Spice Girls. This was articulated in an article for The Independent, which suggested that: “In cherry-picking a redhead from Runcorn, two blondes from Ascot and Derry, and two similarly pretty brunettes from Newcastle and Bradford, Popstars' creators were mindful of the "catch-all" template that proved so fruitful for the Spice Girls. Give every boy his "type" and every young girl a look they might aspire to, runs the theory, and you've one hand on the prize.” (1)
In their early years especially, Girls Aloud were constantly subject to these comparisons. Both groups comprised of five young and different girls who made as many headlines as they did infectious pop songs. They represented a similar philosophy on friendship, stood tall as gay icons and placed just as much emphasis on spectacle as they did sound. Both were also hugely popular right away – with Girls Aloud debuting at #1 on the British charts like “a five headed Kylie Minogue”(2).
Despite Mel C’s claims that they’d “never be the next Spice Girls”(3), the girls were soon breaking music industry records and being branded as “the new Spice Girls”. However the comparison to, or adorations of, the Spice Girls has never been welcome in the Girls Aloud camp. In an interview with gay magazine Attitude, band member Cheryl Cole said:
“We recognize what the Spice Girls did …But it really annoys me when you meet girls who go, 'We wannabe the next Spice Girls’, I think 'piss off'. We've been around for six years, they were around 18 months. Yes, they had worldwide domination, but they fell out, bitched about each other and went their separate ways. We've been around for all this time, fighting to climb each step of the ladder, putting our hearts into everything, and you say you want to be the Spice Girls? Piss off! Six Years!” (November 2008, pg. 59)
These comments aren't without substance. It is difficult to compare the two groups, especially commercially, because of their vastly different contexts. The former were international stars in a pre-digital downloads world, whereas the latter are national treasures in the age of digital downloads. What can be said, I think, is that Girls Aloudhave surpassed their predecessor in terms of creativity, maturity and longetivity. They have had 5 studio albums, a greatest hits, 20 consecutive top ten singles, won a BRIT award and are on their third sold-out arena tour. While the Spice Girls were more or less a guilty pleasure with vast amounts of fun-factor; Girls Aloud have managed to both entertain and build a credible reputation on top of that fun-factor. They’ve won praise from a whole host of industry figures including the Pet Shop Boys (who co-write their hit The Loving Kind); Bono, who tagged them as “the cutting edge of pop music”(4); and Coldplay frontman, Chris Martin, who described them quite accurately as “the ultimate form of life”(5). And have been covered by artists such as the Arctic Monkeys and Bloc Party. The Spice Girls got a long way on their own hype, media buzz and the 90’s “girl power” craze. Girls Aloud, on the other hand, have officially ‘made it’ through talent, dedication, charisma and group chemistry (as well as a little buzz admittedly).
Because of this they are the “Spice Girls of today”. Not because they are a carbon copy, or the next best thing. On the contrary, the only remaining link between the girlbands is the enormous contributions they have made to the pop music of their respective decades.
Between her kick-start in the eighties and the pop royalty status she has today, Madonna had a great many hits, costumes and reinventions – I call this period the “nineties”. She stormed into the nineties with her classic anthem Vogue, then went on to release some thirty other singles including some of my favourite nineties tracks: Frozen, Ray of Light, and The Power of Goodbye.
Arguably, today’s Madonna is ... Madonna!!! Any pop fanatic knows that as long as she lives she’ll be back and forth between the studio and the stage. This being said, many have already named her successor to be none other than current pop sensation Lady Gaga.
The divas show off their unusual styles.
Critics and fans alike have drawn the comparison, with Kanye West recently joining the bandwagon, saying: “I look at our current superstars like legends in the making … Like Justin is the new Mike, Beyoncé’s the new Tina Turner, [Lady] Gaga’s Madonna ...these are the champions and should be documented as such.” (1)
This flattering and fairly monumental comparison might seem premature; Lady Gaga only has one album under her belt and has been on the charts for little more than a year. However, they aren’t entirely unfounded. After all the two performers are highly expressive figures, both giving candid interviews and promoting sexual liberation. Both also seem to have an affinity for spectacular stage production and above all else elaborate and revealing outfits. With her Erotica period (1992 - 1993), Madonna pioneered the unusual and hyper-sexualized stage costumes that Gaga now sports (often as every-day wear). Perhaps not coincidental to all of these similarities, both pop artists have amassed huge gay followings.
Lady Gaga - the new Madonna?
Lady Gaga and the First Lady of nineties pop also share a genuine commitment to longetivity. Gaga has said that Madonna and fellow popette Cyndi Lauper are an inspiration as long-standing pop survivors. "It's an aspiration of mine," Gaga says of their decades-long careers. "Whether anybody still buys my records only the future will tell, but I will still be making music." Commenting more directly on the assertion that she is the “new Madonna”, Gaga says: "We're both Italian-American women, we both started out in the New York underground scene - and we both became famous when we dyed our hair blonde,” she continues: “I think what Madonna and I share is that we are both fearless... We both have a lot of nerve." (2)
This “nerve” is the only downside they share. Regarded as an expert in “pushing buttons”, many of Madonna’s stunts I’ve interpreted as obvious bids to be provocative and garner attention. Gaga has already started treading down this road, her teacup anyone?? I find nothing more off-putting than when a pop star becomes too calculated, too thought out and overall tries too hard. With this kind of premeditation they inevitably become inauthentic, pretentious and more like performing ‘characters’ than real artists. This minor problem of authenticity aside, Lady Gaga does seem a promising artist with much of Madonna’s flair and showmanship.
“I want to be the person who changes what pop music means for my generation, because somebody shot it in the face,” Lady Gaga says. “I don’t know who, but I want to bring it back.” (3)
If the buzz is right, she will do for the now what Madonna did for the nineties.
