My Heart Aches for Nineties Music. Admit it — Yours Does too.

Nostalgia is a strong emotion. Perhaps now more than ever, the era(s) of our youth speaks to us. For me, the nineties were that time of vital energy and possibility. Sometimes, when the music of that era comes on the radio I pause and, for a moment, my mouth curls into one of those grimaces that forms before the tears. I’d like to say that it brings me total catharsis, but it always comes up short. After the first five or six notes of deluge, the gates are slammed shut and I am back in the now.

Beyond the simple and tiresome nostalgia, I believe — ok I want to believe — that there was something more, something special about the soundscape of those times. I swear there was a particular chord of that era that rang like a bell; clear and bright. I’m not very good at music theory and can’t name it, but it was — is — there, if you listen. Whether it was played by a couple of “whiny white guys” or behind Mariah Carey’s full and luscious voice, it was there promising something akin to hope.

I can tell you exactly when the 90’s started and ended, calendar be damned. The fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 were its bookends. That says a lot. I read yesterday that there is a reputable theory that the Scorpions’ post-Cold War hit “Winds of Change” was penned by the CIA. If that’s true, it’s their best work; Abu Ghraib, not so much.

The songs were seared with emotion. For the artists, belting out those songs was their therapy. They held nothing back and it was healing for all of us. When many of today’s artists sing, I feel empty, or worse. When the talented Billy Eilish voices — her flat whisper, I shudder. I don’t know what that emotion is. I really don’t. I mean that I have a small metaphysical crisis when I hear it. Sure, the beat’s good, for what that’s worth.

My beef with the now common autotune is not that it made poor singers good, but that it took away the heartfelt crack in the mediocre voices, and made the perfect notes less special.

For young men, especially, the songs spoke to their youthful raw passion as well, and sometimes exposed the other side of the coin, their raw anguish. We have words for it now; toxic masculinity comes to mind. But the power of a couple of guitars and a drum set in the hands of those teenagers and twenty-somethings gave them a powerful, but beautiful and ultimately life-affirming outlet.

The shootings at Columbine happened in 1999 — I looked it up — but it wasn’t yet the norm and it seemed like a freak psychopathy at the time, not a societally manifested virus picked up in some Reddit forum.

Some didn’t take so well to the melodic medicine. Kurt Cobain, for example, died of an overdose, I am told. Nirvana, I’ll admit, never really did it for me, but they brought alternative music out of the shadows and helped diversify music on the air (until the age of uber-corporate radio.)

I liked nearly all the songs, and still love many of them. The bad ass R&B girl groups like En Vogue or TLC, and even, sometimes especially, the bubble gum pop. My friends pretended we didn’t like the Backstreet Boys or N’Sync, but you know we secretly did. I distinctly remember stumbling upon my normally sullen 10-year old cousin rocking out to “Backstreet’s Back” and sharing a moment of “you too?”

The nineties were not perfect. Many of the issues we face, and coming to terms with varying degrees of success were there in plain sight if we had only looked — or listened. It was the era of primo gangster rap, but those gangs and drive-by shootings in South Central were no fantasy; they were brutal and good kids died. White privilege allowed me to experience the only good thing that came out of all that pain.

Even still, I feel a pang of disappointment when I am told that “it feels so good in my hood, tonight” and that “the party’s here on the Westside.” Being a recent denizen of LA and its Westside, I know that I am too late. Tonight, the party (that really shouldn’t be happening now — social distancing and everything) is probably in the Hills, out east, an hour in traffic — at least, and basketball great Kobe Bryant, who I saw strolling the Santa Monica Promenade with his signature grin in his rookie year, 1996 — is dead.

Some songs to get you started down the rabbit hole:

New Radicals — You Get What You Give (if hope was bottled in a song)

Mack Morrison — Return of the Mack (the best party song of all time)

Primitive Radio Gods — Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth (the saddest but possibly the most touching song of the era)

Donna Lewis — I Love You Always Forever (the best driving beat ever)

Sheryl Crow — Everyday is a Winding Road (she understands)

Matchbox Twenty — Real World (the guitar sings in this one)

Lisa Loeb — Stay (think of a comforting episode of Friends)

Alanis Morissette — Ironic (masterpiece of the badass bitch)

TLC — Waterfalls (R&B has never been more profound)

Rusted Root — Send me on my Way (timeless new age melody)

Len — Steal My Sunshine (the best summer song of all time)

Wilson Phillips — Hold On (cheesy as f**k but damn uplifting)

Spin Doctors — Two Princes (fast and feeling good)

Pearl Jam — Better Man (grunge at its pinnacle)

Michael Jackson — Black or White (this is the M.J. I choose to remember)

Dave Matthews Band — Crash Into Me (a boy’s dream)

Toni Braxton — Breathe Again (perfectly tragic)

The Cranberries — Linger (the best Irish Band of the Decade)

Backstreet Boys — I want it that way (because why not?)

And finally, Run — Collective Soul

One of their other hits, “The World I know” was one of the unofficial post-911 anthems because of its eerily on point but hopeful lyrics. “Run” is equally prescient to these difficult times. Bonus: the strings are heartbreaking in the best way.

“Are these times contagious? I’ve never been this bored before. Is this the prize I’ve waited for? Now as the hours passing, there’s nothing left here to insure. I long to find a messenger. Have I got a long way to run. Yeah, I run…Is there a cure among us? From this processed sanity, I weaken with each voice that sings. Now in this world of purchase I’m going to buy back memories, to awaken some old qualities…”