Herbert Walker Memories

Eventually, as all things must, the '80s came to an end.

But despite what a glance at the calendar might indicate, it did not, in fact, end overnight. What I'm trying to say is that there is such a thing as "time," and then there is such a thing as "pop music time." And "pop music time," you see, is slightly more elastic, more elusive, more elliptical. It ignores the clean divisions of astronomy - at least for a year or so. For instance, when people talk about the pop music of "the '60s," aren't they really talking about the era between 1964 and 1970? In a sense, the pop music of 1960-1963 almost belongs more to the '50s. It was that double whammy of the JFK assassination and the British Invasion that truly launched "the '60s," right? What? What's that you say? Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, and several Motown artists had already released significant recordings by then? Doesn't fit the narrative! Shoo! Be gone!

All right, fine. All definitions of eras in art are basically bullshit. And yet.

I can't help but think of the years 1989 and 1990 as an era of its own - a transitional phase in pop music, a period that, like the reign of our recently departed former president, was not quite fully '80s and not quite fully '90s. On a Venn diagram, it would register as that grayed-out crap in the middle. That said, it was definitely more '80s than '90s. In the Little Earl History of Popular Music, the '90s didn't truly evolve into the '90s until 1991. I look back at the artists who were dominating the charts in 1990, and they were either holdover acts from the '80s, or acts who, for the most part, would wither and crumble to dust in a year or so (Wilson Phillips, anybody?). But when I look back at the artists who were dominating the charts in 1991, I see the '90s. Let me amend that slightly. When I look back at the artists who were dominating the album charts in 1991, I see the '90s. Several albums from the more "alternative" end of the spectrum came out in 1991 and managed to top the charts, or come very close to it: Nevermind, Metallica, Achtung Baby, Out Of Time, Ten, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. This, as far as I'm concerned, was the true start of the '90s.

As for the Billboard Hot 100, I don't know what I see. Lots of Amy Grant and Cathy Dennis. But honestly, that was just another element of the transition: I don't know what byzantine methodology Billboard was employing at this point, but I feel like, in the '90s, the Hot 100 ceased to be an accurate reflection of the music that people in the '90s were actually listening to. Radio began fragmenting into subcategories like hip-hop, modern rock, and ... whatever the hell Amy Grant and Cathy Dennis were. There really was no true "Top 40 radio" any longer. There are several rap and alternative rock singles from the '90s that those who were following music at the time might remember as having been "huge" hits (such as "C.R.E.A.M." or "Closer"), but if you go look up their actual chart positions, you'll see that they barely dented the Hot 100 (#60 and #41, respectively). Sure, they were huge hits on the Rap chart, or the Modern Rock chart, but not on what had apparently become the Suburban Housewives' Chart. Whereas when I look at the Hot 100 charts from the '80s, I think to myself, "Yeah! That's exactly all the cheesy shit that was being played to death on the radio!"

There's a bit more at play here. In terms of my own biography, the period of 1989-1990 was the last period of pop music I actively followed and devoted actual attention to as it was occurring. Here, if you will, is what happened. In March of 1991, my favorite Top 40 station, 99.7 X100, suddenly, decisively, without warning, became 99.7 KFRC - an oldies station. "Oldies"? You mean there was music that came out ... before the '80s? I was shocked, stunned, aghast, appalled. Up to this point in my existence, unlike many of my peers, I had received virtually no exposure to oldies. So it turned out that oldies and me were meant to be. I became an instant convert and never looked back. For some reason, I decided I preferred this band called the Beatles to acts such as Milli Vanilli and Paula Abdul. Sure, I lingered around for a couple of months or so - I vividly remember a school mate lustily crooning "I Want to Sex You Up" on the playground, to the consternation of the yard attendant - but all I know is that, by about September of 1991, I had checked out of contemporary pop music entirely. Split the scene, flew the coop. When I recall that period, I could almost swear that I had literally traveled back in time to England circa 1967. You know that pastoral, vaguely Victorian landscape that the Beatles are seen frolicking around in while sporting their new and yet strangely ageless mustaches in the "Strawberry Fields" promotional film? I think that is literally where I spent the early '90s.

In other words, I missed it. Flat-out missed it. I missed all the moments that my peers tend to discuss these days as universally-experienced early '90s cultural touchstones. The "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video? Missed it. Kurt Cobain's suicide? Missed it. I mean yeah, I vaguely remember somebody mentioning that Kurt Cobain had killed himself, but it meant absolutely squat to me at the time. "Guy was probably an asshole anyway," is what I'm guessing I thought. Frankly, I didn't even know the difference between Nirvana and Metallica. As far as I was concerned, they were both really loud, angry, guitar-heavy bands that had just released albums that consisted of 12 tracks each, with the first song on each album being the big "hit" song with the catchy guitar riff. Grunge? Metal? Same diff.

Here's how I know that all those albums from 1991 I listed above represent the "real" start of the '90s: I have almost no recollection of hearing them. I remember my classmates talking about them. I remember feeling that this new music was "not my thing," in the same sense that dating girls was "not my thing." I did not feel "cool" enough or "hip" enough to relate to this new music. In retrospect, '80s music, overall, was quite dorky. Really dorky. I had no trouble relating to '80s music. But in March of 1991, I fell down the oldies rabbit hole and didn't claw my way out for years. I think in September of 1993, the cable company in my town accidentally included MTV and VH1 in my family's cable package for roughly two weeks. It was like a glimpse into another era - one far removed from my own. What was this "Blind Melon" and "Soul Asylum"? You mean Janet Jackson was still making music? So confusing. I didn't genuinely listen to those big "alternative" albums from 1991 until about 1998, toward the end of high school and the beginning of college. (Long story short: I'm all caught up now!) My point is, maybe this shift between 1990 and 1991 wasn't much of a shift at all. But when I hear a song from 1989 or 1990, as opposed to a song from slightly later, all sorts of associations from that era fill my spherical ol' cranium, whereas when I hear a song that came out after 1990, I associate it with some guy in college telling me how "awesome this video was when it first premiered on MTV!" I could not blog about the pop music of 1991. I simply wasn't there. Herbert Walker Memories is the end of the line.

So, 1989-1990. In retrospect, this period was whack. Alternative music genuinely began peaking through the layers of Top 40 gauze, but only here and there, and only the more palatable, streamlined strands. Maybe mainstream radio could handle the Cure and Depeche Mode at this juncture, but it wasn't quite ready for, say, the Pixies or the Jesus and Mary Chain (wouldn't have been prudent). Still, as I reflect on the era with my increased level of rock scholarliness, I can't help but be impressed by how many artists with a vague whiff of "alternative" about them managed to score hits so massive that even nine-year-old me could get caught up in the buzz. Did I, at that tender age, pick up on the difference between, say, Roxette and the B-52's? Did I realize that one act was an unapologetically chart-humping duo from Sweden, and the other act a queer-friendly outgrowth of the Athens, GA scene? How about the difference between Paula Abdul and the Fine Young Cannibals? Did I realize that one artist was a choreographer with a whiny voice who decided to give dance-pop a shot because why the fuck not, and that the other artist was a Northern soul-flavored splinter group of the English Beat (with origins stretching back to the British ska revival of 1979)?

Oh heyyyyyll no.

And that is precisely my point. Sitting here in 2019, I have to ask myself, "What the fuck kind of an era was this?" But see, at the time, these were just the hits on the radio. There wasn't anything odd about it. Only now can I pick out all the strange cross-currents and unexpected artistic bedfellows. For example, it's interesting to observe the manner in which rap began its lengthy trickle into the upper reaches of the charts during these years - but not the Public Enemy, N.W.A., Slick Rick kind of rap. Oh no. It was more like the Technotronic, Snap!, Young MC, Tone Loc, Biz Markie, "We Didn't Start the Fire" kind of rap. There were non-rap songs that would suddenly feature a verse of rap without warning. Artists would use a dash of rap as flavoring, not serve it up as the main course. People couldn't handle that yet.

I'm tempted to say that the 1989-1990 era of mainstream pop has been "critically underappreciated" or "overlooked," but let me clarify. About eight years ago, as my obsession with '80s music grew to a borderline unhealthy degree, I downloaded every Billboard Year-End Top 100 list from 1980 through 1990, and then proceeded to listen to those lists straight through, from the #1 song of the year down to the #100 song. As far as I was concerned, the year-end lists from 1980 through 1988 offered up some fairly solid listening, even toward the back end of each year. But when I got to 1989 and 1990, I noticed an interesting trend. Each list contained, I would say, about 25 to 30 tracks that I was inclined to categorize as first-rate, artistically inventive, melodically arresting songs that have held up well and still sound great today, and then about 70 to 75 songs that may have been popular at the time but, in my opinion, do not really merit repeat listening and might even be songs that I actively dislike. I'm talking about the soggy residue of hair metal, adult contemporary pop, and new jack R&B. What I'm saying is that if you separate the wheat from the chaff and only listen to the wheat (suddenly I'm in the mood to play a Bread album), you would think that this was an incredibly rich and rewarding era of pop music! But a comprehensive analysis of the era does not, I think, bear this view out. I feel like, in that 1989-1990 period, the great songs were great, and the crappy songs were crappy. There was no in-between.

But boy, that minority of excellence sure paints an evocative picture. Follow me, now, on a journey I would like to dub "Herbert Walker Memories."