There’s a channel on my TV that only shows rock music videos from the ‘90s. I put it on when I can’t think of what to watch, or if I need something on in the background while I doomscroll after a long day. You never know if you’ll get a nostalgia hit from Buddy Holly by Weezer, Give It Away by Red Hot Chili Peppers, or Smells Like Teen Spirt by Nirvana. I’ve had a running line with my wife about how it seemed like almost every other rock song in the ’90s was about someone’s absent father. Obviously a generalization, but the more I began to watch and think about those songs, the more I noticed that the ’90s were one of the most intense and darkest times in popular music.
The decade is often spoken of in naive hindsight as a “blissful era of Pax Americana.” The Clinton years, no major wars, low inflation, the end of communism, the birth of the internet, a record-breaking stock market. With so much supposedly going so well on the surface, it struck me as odd that so many of the hit rock/alternative songs that dominated the era were so incredibly dark and depressing. I began to make a list of all the songs I could remember from growing up — videos that were on heavy rotation on MTV, songs from the radio — and then began to dig deeper into the lyrics and into the themes that these songs were actually about. What I found surprised me. So many hits and MTV classics about suicide, drug abuse, sexual assault, violence, isolation and trauma.
So I made a list. I originally thought I would post a few examples, but the more I researched, the more examples I found, so I decided the sheer scale would make more of an impact (feel free to skip over as I’m sure you’ll get the point quickly). Keep in mind all of these songs were massively successful:
Temple Of The Dog - Hunger Strike January 14, 1991 - A song about class warfare from a band formed after the heroin overdose of Mother Love Bone singer, Andrew Wood
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under The Bridge March 2, 1992 - A song about singer Anthony Kiedis’ drug abuse
Alice In Chains - Would? June 30, 1992 - A song about the heroin overdose of Andrew Wood
Pearl Jam - Jeremy August 17, 1992 (Europe Only) - A song about a true story of a 15-year-old student who killed himself in school in front of his classmates
Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name November 2, 1992 - A song about police brutality in the Rodney King riots in LA in 1992
STP - Sex Type Thing March 15, 1993 - A song told from the point of view of a rapist
R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts April 5, 1993 - A song written to help those struggling with suicide ideation
Soul Asylum - Runaway Train June 12, 1993 - A song about depression with a music video highlighting child abduction
Blind Melon - No Rain June 8, 1993 - A song about not being able to get out of bed and having nothing to live for. The singer died of a cocaine overdose 3 years later
Smashing Pumpkins - Today September 13, 1993 - A song written in response to Billy Corgan’s struggle with suicide ideation
Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm October 1, 1993 - A song depicting the isolation and suffering of different children due to physical abnormalities
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mary Jane’s Last Dance November 16, 1993 - A song about self-numbing to avoid pain. Petty ultimately died of an accidental overdose of opioids
Candlebox - Far Behind November 30, 1993 - Yet another song about the heroin overdose of Andrew Wood
Nirvana - Rape Me December 6, 1993 - A protest song about sexual assault
Tori Amos - Cornflake Girl January 10, 1994 - A song inspired by stories of female genital mutilation in Africa
Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Philadelphia February 2, 1994 - A song written for a movie dealing with the Aids epidemic in the 1980s
Cracker - Low April 12, 1994 - A song about heroin use
Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun May 13, 1994 - Another song about heroin use
Toadies - Possum Kingdom August 23, 1994 - A song about a cult member luring his next victim
Cranberries - Zombie September 19, 1994 - A song in response to two people killed during an IRA bombing in Northern Ireland
Live - Lightning Crashes September 24, 1994 - A song about the transfer of life from a dying woman to a struggling newborn
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand October 24, 1994 - A song about a unhinged protagonist stalking the land, possibly a serial killer
Nine Inch Nails - Hurt April 17, 1995 - A song about self-harm and suicide ideation
Filter - Hey Man, Nice Shot April 25, 1995 - A song about the public suicide of a Pennsylvania State Treasurer
Goo Goo Dolls - Name September 25, 1995 - A song about Jonny Rzeznik growing up orphaned and being raised by his older sisters
Collective Soul - The World I Know October 23, 1995 - A song about class disparity, the unhoused, and late stage capitalism with a music video depicting a suicide attempt
Butthole Surfers - Pepper April 11, 1996 - A song with a psychedelic fever dream of a Texas high school, filled with shootings, alcohol abuse, a football playing rapist, etc
Counting Crows - Round Here April 11, 1996 - A song about depression and isolation, retreating from society
The Wallflowers - 6th Ave Heartbreak April 26, 1996 - A song about a singing unhoused man who lived under Jakob Dylan’s window in NYC, who one day disappeared leaving all his belongings behind
Marylin Manson - The Beautiful People September 22, 1996 - A song which serves as an early incel anthem with a cocktail of Nietzsche, anti-capitalism, and Nazi philosophy mixed in
The Verve Pipe - The Freshman January 21, 1997 - A song about a love triangle where a woman got pregnant and didn’t know who the father was, then got an abortion
Sublime - Wrong Way May 25, 1997 - A song about a 12-year-old prostitute and the song protagonist sleeping with her. The singer, Bradley Nowell, ultimately died of a heroin overdose
Shawn Colvin - Sunny Came Home June 24, 1997 - A song about a woman burning her house down to escape her past
Ben Folds Five - Brick November 21, 1997 - A song about Ben Folds and his girlfriend getting an abortion
Matchbox 20 - 3am November 23, 1997 - A song about Rob Thomas caring for his mother when she had cancer
Fastball - The Way January 7, 1998 - A song based on the true story of an elderly couple, one with Alzheimer’s, who disappeared and were found 13 days later dead in their car
Foo Fighters - My Hero January 19, 1998 - A song mourning the suicide death of Kurt Cobain
Everclear - Father Of Mine July 6, 1998 - A song about singer Art Alexakis’ absent father
Third Eye Blind - Jumper August 4, 1998 - A song inspired by a friend who committed suicide due to bullying over his sexuality
Sarah McLachlan - Angel September 28, 1998 - A song written in response to the heroin overdose of Smashing Pumpkins touring pianist, Jonathan Melvoin
Besides the songs rooted in more obvious trauma and intense life experiences, there were also those utilizing the same themes and attitudes, but with more irony and distance (another major trait of the era):
Radiohead - Creep September 21, 1992 - A sarcastic song of self loathing
Beck - Loser March 8, 1993 - A slacker anthem
Green Day - Longview February 1, 1994 - A song about depression, lack of self actualization… and naturally, masturbation
Weezer - Undone - The Sweater Song June 24, 1994 - A song about mental health struggles
The Offspring - Self Esteem December 22, 1994 - A song about about self-loathing
Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains September 18, 1995 - A song told from the view of a defeatist and cynical attitude
Joan Osborne - One Of Us November 21, 1995 - A song contemplating the possibility of higher metaphysical realities with a dose of cynicism
Alanis Morissette - You Oughta Know July 6, 1995 - A revenge song about her past relationship with Full House’s Dave Coulier aka Uncle Joey
Nada Surf - Popular June 18, 1996 - A song about the devastating social politics of the American school system
Eels - Novacaine For The Soul August 13, 1996 - A song about someone wanting to numb the pain of their life
Dandy Warhols - Not if you were The Last Junkie On Earth June 16, 1997 - A song savaging the singer’s ex-girlfriend after she developed a heroin addiction
See what I mean? What was going on with Gen X, the generation of most of the artists in this list, and why were so many artists — predominantly white men — having mental health crises in broad daylight? And why was there so much heroin? (more on that later)
Before I go on, I want to acknowledge that this list is almost exclusively white and cis/het male. But by certain benchmarks, so was the mainstream musical landscape of the early '90s. Because of that, I want to hone in on that particular demographic, but not without acknowledging the experiences that Hip hop was addressing in terms of income inequality, police brutality, and drug abuse as well. Listening to many of the songs of Biggie, Tupac, Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, NWA, Dr. Dre and Snoop et al., you see similar themes, told from their unique perspectives. There was also the rising feminist punk Riot Grrrl movement coming out the early ’90s punk scene, most noticeably with Kathleen Hanna and Bikini Kill, and the female empowerment and sexual liberation of Salt-N-Pepa, Queen Latifah and TLC, plus the underground Queer art spaces, particularly in NYC. These movements were the streams that eventually would join the rivers of the #metoo movement, Black Lives Matter, and LGBTQIA+ in addressing huge societal ills.
It is well-trod territory, but the term ‘Generation X’ largely took hold with the release of Douglas Coupland’s book of the same name. It was his attempt to put language around his age group, and their shared experience of the world as they were entering in to their 20s and 30s. Here’s an early interview with him on Charlie Rose (Rose was later de-platformed after numerous sexual misconduct allegations) from October 3rd, 1991 talking about what distinguishes his generation:
“I suspect it's expectations and reality, perception of reality. I think in some senses there's no difference between someone born in 1965 and 1945. However those born about '45 or '65 encountered a different world than the people born afterwards… There's a sense within the group - most people within this generation don't feel that they're a member of a generation… I get really mad when people say this is an apathetic group, or one that doesn't care. It's having a very tough time right now recalibrating, readjusting its own expectations for the world with reality. What we're trained to believe in… what we were trained to believe is not what happened. The Beaver Cleaver lifestyle is no longer economically or environmentally sustainable. We're figuring out what's new and it takes time. It's confusing… the strange thing is when I wrote this book I wrote it -- it was just about my own experience and I was expecting maybe a handful of freaks here and there to maybe be able to identify it. And I'm really amazed at the mainstream response to what I thought was going to be a very small fringe book.”
I many ways, Gen X’rs were the lost generation — too late for the idealism and prosperousness of the post-WWII era, yet too early for the mental health awareness and understanding of the mid-00s to now. William Strauss and Neil Howe discuss Gen X in their book, The Fourth Turning, as a “Nomad” generation, the common traits being independence, self reliance and pragmatism. Another term was ‘latchkey kids’, used to describe a generation of children who raised themselves as a result of the wide availability of birth control and the diversification of the workforce. As this generation grew up, they became characterized by cynicism and discontentment — the result of a turbulent world in upheaval where, broadly, children were left to raise themselves in ways they hadn’t been in previous times. This turbulence was further influenced by social shiftings around race, gender roles and sexuality, corruption of once stable political entities, and the fallout of post-boomer idealism.
Despite years of social upheaval, as they came of age, Gen X was lacking in any generation-defining event. No hippie movement, no Vietnam, no 9/11. They fell right into the gap in between, and poured their apathy and discontentment into their art and music. Where they reached for meaning, it was coded in cynicism and suspicion, funneling their energy more into being anti-corporate, fighting the negative effects of globalization and having an overall negative view of the world and its direction. All of this contributed to a generation that arrived on the scene as young adults already world-weary, disaffected and in desperate need of a mental health support system that had not yet arrived.
One of the first arrivals was of course, Nirvana. Nevermind sold 6,000 copies its first week in September of 1991. Within a couple months, they were selling 300,000 a week. They were the first truly Gen X voice to fully break through into the mainstream, and in quick succession behind them came an explosion of others: Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, STP, Red Hot Chili Peppers. Nine Inch Nails soon filled the airwaves and TV screens nationwide. It’s hard to fully state how culturally dominant these groups were.
But with the success came the shadow side, and one of the issues that seemed particularly specific to the rock and alternative world in that time was heroin. There have been a number of heroin epidemics in the US over the years — the 1950s, the past 10 years and then of course, the early ’90s. In the ’90s, heroin was heavily associated with grunge and the Pacific Northwest in general (though Seattle was no anomaly in a time when all major US cities were dealing with the same issues surrounding narcotics). Though heroin is so closely associated with the scene, it was more a matter of happenstance that a small segment of musicians who hung out together and got addicted together, all ended up getting worldwide famous together. This gave the impression that heroin was particularly out of control in Seattle, when in reality, it was out of control in most US cities at the time, the West Coast being more privy to the Mexican-sourced ‘Black tar’ variety. Of the big four grunge bands (Nirvana, Sound Garden, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam), each group had one (or more) members with heroin addictions at one point. Pearl Jam is the only group of the four whose full lineup is still alive and didn’t die from suicide or overdosing. The deaths of Andrew Wood, Kurt Cobain, Layne Stanley, Mark Lanegan, Chris Cornell, Scott Weiland — while not all the result of heroin specifically — are poignant reminders that stand out from the scene.
It also spilled over into fashion with the trend of ‘Heroin chic’ and popular movies (Trainspotting, Requiem For A Dream, The Basketball Diaries, Basquiat). And even as early as 1989, there was Gus Van Zandt’s Drugstore Cowboy, dealing with amateur thieves who were also addicts. Incidentally, Van Zandt would later go on to direct films about the death of Kurt Cobain as well as the Columbine shooting — cultural landmarks that seem prescient in hindsight.
When Kurt Cobain committed suicide on April 5th, 1994, it had not even been three years since Nirvana exploded into the mainstream. The flag bearers of Gen X were done, and for the next few years, the torch was passed around other rock bands all attempting to continue along the path Kurt had opened up for them in their own way. Similar lyrical themes spilled out, but they were gradually being carried out further beyond the borders of Grunge and into most areas of popular music. By 1996, the wear was beginning to show, and it wouldn’t be too long before the scene was lost in a deluge of imitators, with the sludge of bands like Creed, Puddle of Mudd, Godsmack, Nickelback and the burgeoning emotional juvenility of Nu metal.
AOL Instant Messenger was released in May 1997. TRL debuted on September 14th, 1998. Britney Spears unveiled the video ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ on November 26, 1998. MTV had been a part of culture since the ’80s, but its cultural dominance ascended to new heights around the turn of the millennium. This was its heyday, and TRL was required after-school viewing for anyone in middle or high school. It was the first time that genres began to dissolve on a national level. A Kid Rock music video would play into Eminem, then Backstreet Boys and P. Diddy, followed by Britney Spears, and on to Korn or Marilyn Manson. Seeing the mix of such varied artists back to back had a jarring effect that prophesied the broader mind-bending cultural juxtapositions that were to come. It all seemed to represent the chaos of a culture and world order that was folding in on itself, rapidly changing, with everyone holding on for dear life whether they were aware of it or not.
I mentioned Gus Van Zandt’s documentation of both the heroin epidemic and the music scene of Seattle, but also of Columbine. Most historical pieces refer to 9/11 as the real beginning of the millennium — the hard line in the sand between the world we knew before and after. But I would argue, at least for America, that perhaps it was Columbine. I still remember the horror on my mom’s face, coming home from school and seeing blood-soaked children (my age) climbing out of broken windows, running for their lives as helicopters circled over head. There had been school shootings — but not like this, not in the internet age, not in the 24-hour news cycle age. It arrived with TRL, the internet, the Bush era, and it was the first sign that we were entering uncharted territory.
One of the Columbine assailants was a Marilyn Manson fan, and because of that, Manson became persona non grata in a way that he probably relished at the time. In Michael Moore’s documentary Bowling For Columbine, he interviews Manson and asks him about the shooting:
Moore: If you were to talk directly to the kids at Columbine or the people in that community, what would you say to them if they were here right now?
Manson: I wouldn't say a single word to them. I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did.
A moment of brief clarity from an artist who would later go on to be accused of horrific sexual assault and abuse.
In some ways, I wonder if Gen X is the ‘unlistened to’ generation — one that was uniquely gifted with empathy, having been left to fend for themselves as children, with a broad scope trend towards the underdog, but one that was never given a skillset from which to move out of their own suffering. I think it’s telling that so many of the tech companies and social media apps that now dominate our lives were created by predominately Gen X’rs and elder millennials (with a few exceptions). I imagine this lost, isolated, unlistened to generation throwing themselves into the promise of the internet, of connection, of never having to ever feel alone again. Trying to belong in the world in a way they could only ever dream of when they were kids. The ultimate irony of course being that, in an effort to make their world more connected and small, they have helped unleash a whole new era of social problems and mental health crises that make the ’90s almost pale in comparison.
These days, when I’m listening to the radio in the car and a song from this era comes on, I’m dumbfounded to think that these were the hit songs of my childhood in the same way Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter or Kendrick Lamar top the billboard charts now. So much pain and trauma presented so casually — not questioned — it was just good ole pop music. It’s very telling to realize that this is what the culture wanted from their art in a time that is largely viewed as the “Golden Age of America.” Perhaps the art knew better.
There are remnants of the era still around. Pearl Jam still tour and regularly release new music, Dave Grohl’s post-Nirvana group, Foo Fighters, enjoy a status usually reserved for classic rock icons. STP, Alice In Chains and others found new lead singers and continue to perform as much of the music is still played on traditional radio. Hearing and seeing how these groups have evolved and aged into the present day, it’s easy to forget how culturally impactful they once were. They are the few survivors of a brief era that served as a prophetic signal flare — that all was not right in America. Though they are largely sidelined from any meaningful modern impact and influence, they at least serve as a reminder to continue to look deeper below the surface to what is really going on.
But in the end, it’s just music right?
Super interesting read! Especially with how music & fashion industry go hand in hand by the influences of themes in the lyrics. Thanks for sharing