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A Feature About Nothing: The 1990s in Lists
November 14, 1991: MJ, now about 50% whiter than he was five years earlier, premieres the full batshit crazy version of the "Black and White" video on FOX after an episode of "The Simpsons". Axl Rose seems to take this shit as a dare.
1992: MJ creates the Heal the World Foundation. Part of "healing the world" turns out to be inviting underprivileged kids to hang out at his ranch. What could go wrong?
February 1993: MJ appears on Oprah and opens up in a 90-minute interview, denying that he bleaches his skin or owns the Elephant Man.
Summer 1993: MJ faces child sexual abuse charges, which he eventually settles out of court for $22 million. In a taped statement, the world uncomfortably hears MJ uncomfortably say "penis."
1994: MJ marries Lisa Marie Presley, kisses her on the VMAs. (Well, technically on the lips.)
1995: MJ celebrates the release of his new LP, HIStory, by erecting statues of himself around the world, including floating one down the Thames. He doesn't understand why "jew me, sue me" wasn't a very clever line on the record.
1996: MJ performs the most megolomanical TV performance in music history, casting himself as a Jesus figure who heals the world in a marathon version of "Earth Song". It's also for notable for new lows of hilarity in child acting, and Pulp's Jarvis Cocker invading the stage to mock the performance.
1996: MJ knocks up a dermatology nurse, Debbie Rowe; they marry, she produces another child. Today she gets supervised visits with her children.
Five songs about the death of Kurt Cobain
- Neil Young: "Sleeps with Angels"
- For Squirrels: "The Mighty KC"
- Foo Fighters: "My Hero"
- R.E.M.: "Let Me In"
- Bikini Kill: "R.I.P."
Six memorable Internet 1.0 sounds
- Brian Eno's deathless Windows startup sound
- "You've Got Mail!"
- The Five-note Intel theme
- Whirring CD burners
- The chime of a completed transfer
- Angelfire MIDIs
Twenty-five great remixes
Five indie rock bands that actually got better after signing to a major
- The Flaming Lips
- Afghan Whigs
- Built to Spill
- Cornershop
- Teenage Fanclub
The 10 most expensive videos of the 90s (thx Wikipedia!)
Seven things played by OJ in Al Cowlings' Ford Bronco
- Sammy Hagar: "I Can't Drive 55"
- Deep Purple: "Highway Star"
- The Smiths: "Hand in Glove"
- Bryan Adams: "Cuts Like a Knife"
- Manic Street Preachers: "Suicide Is Painless"
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Murder Ballads
- Nirvana: "I Hate Myself and Want to Die"
Ten famous ’90s music couples
- Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield
- Notorious B.I.G. and Faith Evans
- Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love
- Madonna and Dennis Rodman
- Adam Horovitz and Ione Skye
- Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley
- Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker
- Winona Ryder and Evan Dando
- Winona Ryder and Dave Pirner
- Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp
Ten memorable hip-hop fashion moments
- The Fresh Prince flips his school blazer inside-out
- Kid's hi-top fade
- Coogi sweaters
- Biggie teams with Versace
- Beastie Boys' skater/thrift-store aesthetic
- Kriss Kross' backwards pants
- Karl Kani
- Starter jackets
- Timberland boots
- Hockey jerseys
- The L.A. Kings and Chicago White Sox changing their colors to take advantage of gang culture
Defunct music festivals
- H.O.R.D.E.
- Family Values
- Lilith Fair
- WOMAD
- ROAR
- Gathering of Tribes
Ten actually good ’90s Jock Jams
The seven worst U.S. No. 1 singles of the 90s
The seven worst UK No. 1 singles of the ’90s
Twelve female bass players
- Josephine Wiggs (Breeders)
- Gail Greenwood (Belly)
- Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth)
- Kim Deal (Pixies)
- Debbie Googe (My Bloody Valentine)
- D'Arcy (Smashing Pumpkins)
- Naomi Yang (Galaxie 500)
- Laura Ballance (Superchunk)
- Kim Coletta (Jawbox)
- Juliana Hatfield (Blake Babies)
- Kazu Makino (Blonde Redhead)
- Melissa Auf der Maur (Hole)
Five great hidden tracks
Artists that played Woodstock 99's "Emerging Artists Stage"
- Ben Lee, who was already sort of a has been at age 21 at that point
- Bijou Phillips, who was famous since birth
- About 50 bands nobody actually ended up caring about (yes, even you 2 Skinnee J's)
- Muse (even a stopped clock, etc...)
- John Entwistle from the Who...uh WTF?
How did we get here? Digital music milestones
1993: MP3 Standard Finalized. Very few people were online when the Moving Picture Experts Group nailed down the mp3 compression standard, and they were rocking the 14.4k dial-up. But our current world of music was on its way.
1995: First Affordable CD-R Burner. A Hewlett-Packard model retailed for $995.
1996: First Portable Digital Audio Player. "Audio Highway today announced the Listen Up(TM) Player, a small, portable device which delivers personalized audio content to 'information-hungry, on-the-go consumers.'" That's from the press release; you had to download the music files from their website, and they had ads.
1997: Release of WinAmp. All of a sudden, listening to mp3s on your computer was easy.
1999: Release of Napster. All of a sudden, illegally downloading mp3s to your computer was easy.
Best Pavement songs that were on compilations
Things Meat Loaf would do for love
- Take you out of this godforsaken town
- Cater to every fantasy you've got
- Make it all a little less cold
- Never do it better than he does it with you
- Hose you down with holy water if you get too hot
Spice Girls, ranked best to worst
- Ginger: Her brassiness and Union Jack dress best articulated what the hell the Spice Girls were supposed to be about.
- Baby: By far the most likable and most respectable one these days.
- Sporty: Aka the one who could sing.
- Scary: As loud and brassy as Ginger but nobody cared what she said.
- Posh: Obviously.
Ten songs about heroin (possibly)
Five novelty hits
Twelve ’90s songs that sampled films
- Primal Scream: "Loaded" (The Wild Angels)
- Saint Etienne: "You're in a Bad Way" (Billy Liar)
- Fun Lovin Criminals: "Scooby Snacks" (Pulp Fiction)
- DJ Shadow: "Stem" (Heat)
- UNKLE: "Rabbit in Your Headlights" (Jacob's Ladder)
- A Guy Called Gerald: "Cyberjazz" (Robocop)
- The Future Sound of London: "My Kingdom" (Blade Runner)
- Orbital: "Out There Somewhere (Part One)" (THX-1138)
- Flowered Up: "Weekender" (Quadrophenia)
- Fatboy Slim: "Right Here Right Now" (Strange Days)
- Dimitri From Paris: "Une Very Stylish Girl" (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
- Every Wu-Tang Clan song ever
Ten unlikely beneficiaries of ’90s alt-rock major-label feeding frenzy
- Boredoms
- Daniel Johnston
- Boss Hog
- Gorky's Zygotic Mynci
- Royal Trux
- Wesley Willis
- Melvins
- The Flaming Lips (cf Zaireeka)
- Steel Pole Bath Tub
- Ween
MTV's ’90s on-air personalities: Where are they now?
- Serena Altschul: The MTV News reporter scored a cameo in the film versions of Josie and the Pussycats (!) and Queen of the Damned (!!), a guest appearance on Jay-Z's "Dope Man"( !!!), and journalistic work for CNN and CBS. (She also won the Edward R. Murrow Award for sports reporting in 2007.)
- Bill Bellamy: The star of such cinematic gems as Fled, How to Be a Player, and Any Given Sunday, the former "MTV Jamz" host now has his own stand-up-comedy-competition reality series, Bill Bellamy's Who's Got Jokes?
- "Downtown" Julie Brown: The "Club MTV" host has been out of the limelight for a while. Her IMDB page says she just wrapped a movie called Spring Break '83, which is...fitting.
- Karyn Bryant: The host of where-were-they-ever MTV shows like "Weekend Blastoff" and "Like We Care", Bryant is now an extreme fighting commentator who also co-owns a Mixed Martial Arts website.
- Jesse Camp: After winning a one-year VJ contract and releasing a truly terrible hair-metal album as a punishment to all that voted for him, Camp basically vanished from the public eye. He was last allegedly sighted about three years ago working in a pet store in Los Angeles (not kidding).
- Dan Cortese: MTV's resident sports bro did time on a host of mediocre TV sitcoms ("Veronica's Close"t, "The Single Guy", motherfucking "Joey") and was "Seinfeld"'s mimbo, before, uh, doing time on more TV shows ("What I Like About You", "Castle").
- Carson Daly: You know his late-night show? No? Good.
- Doctor Dre: The legendary producer has spent the last decade toiling over his long-awaited-- oh, you meant Doctor Dre? The guy who co-hosted Yo! MTV Raps? Well, he was on an episode of "The People's Court" once.
- Karen Duffy: In the mid-1990s, the model-cum-MTV-VJ-cum-acress was stricken with a rare paralysis-related disease, sarcidosis. Since then, she's worked with Michael Moore on his now-defunct documentary series "The Awful Truth" and lent her voice to one of the otters in Wes Anderson's stop-motion animated adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
- Ed Lover: Doctor Dre's foil on "Yo! MTV Raps" went on to get called out by Oprah for using the word "bitches" way too many times on his radio show on New York hip-hop radio station Power 105. He also did a guest spot in "According to Jim", which is pretty much the exact opposite of the previous fact.
- Daisy Fuentes: Still a household name, Fuentes released her own Wii game last year, Daisy Fuentes Pilates, which is a lot more than Thalia DeCosta can say for herself.
- Chris Hardwick: The former host of the MTV dating show "Singled Out" has been all over the place in the last decade, hosting numerous radio shows and the PBS show "Wired Science" and performing as part of the music-comedy duo Hard 'n Phirm (yes, you read that right).
- Dave Holmes: Losing the inaugural Wanna Be a VJ contest to Jesse Camp turned out to be a good career move for Holmes. Besides making the circuit of cable TV hosting gigs and celebrity commentary shows, Holmes has found a new outlet for fame via the Internet, where he maintains two good Tumblr blogs (My Year of Everything and American Aquarium Drinker).
- Dave Kendall: After hosting "120 Minutes" throughout part of the 1990s, Kendall's been doing DJ gigs in the U.S. and the UK, hosting his own Sirius Satellite Radio show ("Party 360 with Dave Kendall") as well.
- Kennedy: What's more surprising than learning that this cooler-than-most-on-the-network VJ is a Republican? How about the fact that she appeared on the nobody-watches-it Fox Business network to discuss her political views with judge-turned-pundit Andrew Napolitano? We'll give you a moment to collect yourself.
- Lewis Largent: Working behind the scenes, spending time as a A&R guy for Def Jam.
- Jenny McCarthy: The former "Singled Out" co-host and MTV's gross-out queen hasn't had any prominent film or TV roles for a while, but a recent stint dating Jim Carrey and her controversial activism regarding vaccinations (hey, whooping cough is back! Thanks, anti-vaccine crowd!) keep her in the tabloid news.
- Brian McFadden: Former VJ now co-hosts a morning talk show in California and is apparently rendered speechless and brainless for minutes on end at just the thought of Christina Hendricks pulling a bath.
- Eric Nies: The former "Real World" housemate and frequently shirtless host of dance show "The Grind", developed an exercise product with his brother called the "Abaratus", which didn't sell well. In 2008, he appeared on VH1's celebrity-rehab show "Confessions of a Teen Idol", despite the fact that he was in his twenties at the peak of his MTV fame.
- John Norris: Norris' long tenure with the network came to a close in 2008, when he was let go due to massive layoffs at Viacom, MTV's parent company. He now works with the website NoiseVox (he recently appeared in the video for Wavves' "Post Acid" too, which is pretty cool).
- Matt Pinfield: Pinfield did pretty well for himself for a while, becoming an A&R man at Columbia in the beginning of the decade and interviewing all of the Rolling Stones in what was their first interview together in 35 years. In 2009, he took a leave of absence from his radio show at WRXP to head to rehab for "dependency"; he returned to his show later that year.
- Riki Rachtman: Nirvana killed hair metal, but the former "Headbangers Ball" host found a new legion of Aqua Netted viewers in the past decade, as he was involved in Poison frontman Bret Michaels' "Rock of Love" VH1 reality show, as well as its spinoff "Daisy of Love".
- Simon Rex: After the revelation of his starring in masturbation-focused pornography killed his VJ career, Rex hung around with Mickey Avalon (yuck), appeared on the MTV reality show"Paris Hilton's My New BFF" as someone named "Dirt Nasty" (huh?), and made a cameo in the clip for Ke$ha's "Tik Tok" (...okay). Oh, and he had a sex scene with Paris Hilton in National Lampoon's Pledge This!, which is somehow not the most embarrassing fact listed in this paragraph.
The Grand Royal universe: Stuff the Beastie Boys helped make cool
- Mullets
- The ABA
- Lee "Scratch" Perry
- Skateboarding
- Kung Fu
- Pinball
- Vintage sneakers
- Lucha Libre
- Spike Jonze
- Miami bass
- Walt "Clyde" Frazier
- Blaxploitation films
- Kid Rock and Ted Nugent
- Demolition derbies
- Vincent Gallo
- Moogs
- Buddhism
Worst band names
- Pearl Jam
- Cherry Poppin' Daddies
- Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine
- Ned's Atomic Dustbin
- Big Head Todd and Monsters (OK, all jam bands)
- Hoobastank
- Insane Clown Posse
- G. Love and Special Sauce
- Fun Lovin Criminals
- Elf Power
- Gorky's Zygotic Mynci
- Toad the Wet Sprocket (and Deep Blue Something, and Sixpence None the Richer), Staind, Phish, Puddle of Mudd, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Linkin Park and other wacky mispellings
- ...Radiohead!
Best band names
- My Bloody Valentine
- The Jesus Lizard
- Stereolab
- Spiritualized
- Guided by Voices
- Pizzicato 5
- ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead
- Ol' Dirty Bastard
- Heavenly
- Ween
- Yo La Tengo
- Primal Scream
- Arab Strap
- Brian Jonestown Massacre
- ...Nirvana!
Five prophetic songs
- Aaliyah: "Age Ain't Nothin But a Number", written by...R. Kelly
- Nirvana: "I Hate Myself and Want to Die" (see also: Notorious B.I.G.: Ready to Die)
- Michael Jackson: "Black or White"
- Pearl Jam: "Jeremy"
- Notorious B.I.G.: "Juicy"
Ten career-killing albums
- Blind Melon: Soup
- Hootie and the Blowfish: Fairweather Johnson
- Candlebox: Lucy
- Spin Doctors: Turn It Upside Down
- Terence Trent D'Arby: Neither Fish Nor Flesh
- Arrested Development: Zingalamaduni
- Veruca Salt: Eight Arms to Hold You
- Jesus Jones: Perverse
- Happy Mondays: Yes, Please
- The Stone Roses: Second Coming
Ten unusual CD-era gimmicks
- Ash puking at the end of 1977
- Laika the dog news report ending Laika's Sounds of the Satellites
- Kool Keith rants about his record label at the end of Matthew
- The Magnetic Fields add a song's worth of silence in the gap between the CD reissue of The Wayward Bus / Distant Plastic Trees
- Gescom's Minidisc release
- Ciccone Youth, track 2 is silence
- Spiritualized's Lazer Guided Melodies, originally releasedas four tracks
- Mercury Rev's Yerself Is Steam's fake countdown on "Very Sleepy River"
- Autechre's EP7 has a Track 0
- The Flaming Lips' Zaireeka
Greatest urban legends
- Kool Keith spent his entire DreamWorks advance on porn
- Michael Stipe and Morrissey were secret lovers
- Billy Corgan was on "Small Wonder"
- Marilyn Manson played Paul on "The Wonder Years"
- Marilyn Manson had a rib removed so he could suck his own dick
- Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, Tabitha Soren, and a pencil
- Courtney killed Kurt
America's forgotten electronic imprint: Matador
- Burger/Ink: Las Vegas (1996)
- Cornelius: Fantasma (1997)
- Boards of Canada: Music Has the Right to Children (1998)
- Red Snapper: Making Bones (1998)
- 2 Lone Swordsmen: Stay Down (1998)
- Solex: Solex vs. the Hitmeister (1998)
- Jega: Spectrum (1998)
- Pole: 1 and 2 (1998, 1999)
- Nightmares on Wax: Carboot Soul (1999)
- Plone: For Beginner Piano (1999)
Ten (of the many) bands the UK press overhyped that amounted to nothing
- Terris
- Gay Dad
- Fluffy
- My Vitriol
- Symposium
- Serafin
- Heavy Stereo
- Ultrasound
- Campag Velocet
- Space
Five memorable "MTV Unplugged" performances
Ten other memorable TV moments
Three Children's TV characters who had hit songs in Europe for some damn reason
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