I would definitely call the 90s lame overall. I grew up in that decade...so is it just a coincidence that I became a huge fan of 80s hair metal (and metal in general)? No, it was precisely a reaction against 90s grunge and the musical landscape it spawned: earnest, boring singer-songwriters who dressed like average Joes, cut their hair and wrote songs about their feelings. With no guitar solos, of course ('cause "it's all about the song, man!" That, and they don't know how to play them). Nirvana and Radiohead are the two most overrated bands of all time. The former were at the right place at the right time, and if Cobain hadn't shot himself he'd be in approximately the same position as Eddie Vedder is right now. The latter, I have never really understood the appeal (aside from a few good songs...this does NOT include "Creep" or "Paranoid Android"). It's no wonder that in the face of growing up with mostly bland 90s music, I turned to the larger-than-life, over-the-top bravado and face-melting instrumental virtuosity of the 70s and 80s metal gods.
Everybody made fun of the 80s without realizing that, at least in terms of politics and economics, the 90s were just a continuation of the "decade of greed". The 80s saw the Reagan Revolution, but it was Clinton who really kicked the neoliberal agenda into gear by taking deregulation further and directly leading to the Great Recession we still have yet to emerge from. People always used to say the 80s were all about image. But the great economic boom everybody remembers from the 90s was just such an illusion. It was all fake, a boom built on credit, which as we saw in 2008 would eventually collapse like a house of cards. All the gains from this economic "boom" went to a tiny number of wealthy people at the top, while wages for the vast majority stagnated.
I will admit that Seinfeld was a great show. But overall, the 90s were a decade that thought itself too cool and ironic for its own good. After a while that "cooler-than-thou" arrogance really got under my skin.
