My first two CDs were Nirvana’s Nevermind (1991) and Aerosmith’s Get A Grip (1993). I played them nonstop on the boombox they came with at Christmas. It was 1994, I was 13, and music was about to matter more than everything else. It was around then I first heard Led Zeppelin I (1969) and thought “I can’t believe things can sound like this''1 and The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and thought “maybe my parents aren’t wrong about everything.” Jerry and James Brown were still alive. So was Ella Fitzgerald. We were only 19 years out from the end of Vietnam (1975), and five from the fall of The Berlin Wall (1989) and the end of Reaganism (1989). All three would influence much of what’s below this paragraph.
Record stores still reigned supreme. We had two nearby where I grew up; Merle’s Record Rack (RIP) and Exile on Main Street (still kicking).2 In 1994 they were on the verge of being the center of my universe. I think my purchase-to-visit ratio was probably 10:1 at Merle’s ($15 for a CD) and 5:1 at Exile (they sold used for $8). I was living my own driven-by-my-mom-to-the-record-store version of Empire Records (1995 - so out of scope).
Nineteen ninety four seems recent, but it’s not. Bands that debuted that year and are still touring have toured longer than The Grateful Dead did. Green Day has toured longer than the Grateful Dead.
Movies that came out that year were released on VHS because the DVD wouldn’t be invented for another year. If you wanted to know any of this in 1994 you could technically look it up on Yahoo.com which had launched on New Year’s Day of that year but realistically you’d have asked your parents (they’d have guessed and been wrong and you’d have never known).
It was this time, this specific 12 months, that was a pop cultural epoch unmatched in music, movies, and television before or since.
Music
There’s just no chance I can do 1994’s musical contributions justice here - so I’m just going to type until it feels silly to keep going, but check this out to be mind blown by the sheer volume of incredible music that came out in this one year.
Jeff Buckley released Grace on August 23, 1994. It was his only studio album and it included his version of “Hallelujah.” Leonard Cohen is a genius but with all due respect; that is a Jeff Buckely song.3 If you can listen to it, I mean really hear it, and not get just a little teary, you’re a fucking robot.
Circa 1994 Seattle gave us Pearl Jam’s third album (Vitalogy), Alice in Chains’ third (Jar of Flies), Soundgarden’s fourth (Superunknown), and Nirvana’s last; Unplugged from New York - probably the greatest album of the 90s. It was recorded in November 1993 and released almost a year later to the day and in that span Cobain died at 27 and Nirvana disbanded for good.
Southern California gave us Weezer’s first major release, Green Day’s debut, and Stone Temple Pilots’ second. Dave Matthews Band's first album had us all Under the Table and Dreaming, so did Ben Harper’s, and so did Marilyn Manson’s - that might have been nightmares actually. Toadies first single off their first album asked “Do You Wanna Die,” and The Notorious BIG said he was ready three weeks later when he released his.
Speaking of Hip Hop; in addition to Biggie debuting, so did Nas, and so did Method Man with his first solo album. What was in the air in NYC in the lead up to Ready to Die and Illmatic (two contenders for greatest rap album of all time) coming out in the same year?
New York might have won 1994 Hip Hop (and most years before and since for that matter) but it wasn’t alone. Warren G debuted that same year with Regulate, Coolio with It Takes A Thief,4 and you know who else, fucking Outkast. You were shaking it like a polaroid picture nine years after Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik but in 1994 you were slack jawed as you first heard the sound of Atlanta.
Beastie Boys dropped Ill Communication and you heard “Sabotage” for the first time and thought:
“What the hell was that? Is it rock, rap, something new I’d never even considered?”
We didn’t know it would lead to Linkin Park (2000) or God help us, Limp Bizkit (1997), so all we could do was sit down and be mind blown by the audacity of a rap group transforming from “Fight for your right to party” into a full force rock band.
Remember “Waterfalls” from TLC? CrazySexyCool was 1994 RnB fire. Remember when the single “Creep” came out, and you, me, and every adolescent boy in America watched the MTV top 20 video countdown waiting for the pajama music video to see the original nipple slip?
We were introduced to Bush and Rusted Root, Blues Traveler released their fourth album, Four, which gave us “Run Around”, Hook, and the general gift of the rock harmonica. Hootie and the Blowfish’s first album, Cracked Rear View, came out and sold 10 million copies. Tom Petty gave us Wildflowers, REM gave us Monster, Live gave us Throwing Copper, and Phish released Hoist. This paragraph was brought to you by the HORDE fest.
Everyone showed up in 1994. Everyone. The Rolling Stones put out an album, Eric Clapton made a blues album, Pink Floyd put out an album. And then NIN defined a decade with “Closer” off of The Downward Spiral. I remember hearing someone say how did we go from “I want to hold your hand,” to “I want to fuck you like an animal,” in the course of one generation? Well, that generation was the Baby Boomers and after they finished pillaging all that was left was for Trent Reznor to acknowledge the one thing left that got him closer to God.
And we all owned all of these albums because Columbia House and BMG sold them to us for a penny each.
PS - You know what album you didn’t own but what single came out on November 1st and took over every December of your life since? “All I Want For Christmas” by Mariah Carey. She’s made over $60m (and counting) off of that one song.
Movies
Despite being the top rated movie of all time on IMDB Shawshank Redemption didn’t win the Oscar for best movie the year it came out. Neither did Pulp Fiction the year it came out despite being the 8th highest rated. The reason; because Forrest Gump, the 11th highest rated, did. Shawshank and Pulp Fiction had the decidedly bad fortune of being released the same year as the movie that gave us the (second?) greatest movie soundtrack of 1994 (and of all time for that matter).
Tom Hanks had just won the Oscar the year before for Philadelphia and was on his way to winning it again for Gump and neither Andy Dufresne nor Vincent Vega could stand in the way. Putting aside which of those movies was “better,” the real debate is “are you kidding me?”
Blockbusters not your thing, no problem - you saw Reality Bites (the actual best soundtrack of (1994/all time),5 Natural Born Killers, and Clerks. “In a row?!”6
The Crow, and more specifically, Brandon Lee’s death during its filming (like…during its filming) turned the movie itself into pop culture. Was it a conspiracy? A curse?
More of an animation kind of guy? No sweat, you saw Lion King - the movie that launched the second great era of Disney films (one that has yet to ebb).7 A movie so iconic the Broadway show based on it has been running for 25 years!
And then there’s comedy and Jim Carrey. “Allllrighty then!” “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?” Jim Carey. He didn’t just dominate, he was 1994 comedy. Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb & Dumber, came out in February, July, and December respectively and grossed over $650m collectively. Ten years earlier he decided he would be the first actor to get paid $10m to star in a movie and he wrote himself a $10m check that he carried around with him everywhere. Cue 1994’s role as Lloyd Christmas and he did it. He landed cinema’s first ever eight figure payday. Talk about calling your fucking shot.
Books
I said pop culture.
TV
When you turned on the TV in 1994 you watched what was on. You might have had 100 channels in theory, but really you had maybe ten and then 90 nonsense channels that were jammed down your throat by the cable company.
When you turned on NBC in 1994 do you know which show’s first season you watched? Friends. Friends is American culture. Sure it’s not perfect, but everyone watched Friends. It became such a juggernaut of American culture that it dictated haircuts and fashion, created coffee culture, and when it finished ten years later the finale had 80% of the viewership of the Super Bowl. Friends is the most American TV show with the most American speech patterns ever. The body language follows the plot and context so closely that it's also how countless immigrants have learned to speak English. Go turn on the tv in any country where people yearn to speak English and go to America and you’ll find Friends playing on it.
Seinfield was at the peak of its “Must See TV” powers in 1994 and it traded the #1 spot on television with Friends back and forth all year. And because when you're winning the way to keep it going is pile on, NBC debuted ER that same year and introduced us to future trophy husband, George Clooney.
If you put on FOX you watched the first season of Party of Five. They can’t all be winners…
And when you put on MTV - and you know you put on MTV - you watched My So Called Life.
My So Called Life’s one glorious season. My So Called Life was to teens in the 90s what oxygen is on a submarine; the only thing that matters when you really get down to it. Without question this was MTV at it’s finest, blending the kind of drama and the kind of music its very specific demographic was looking for. Put on “Late at Night” by Buffalo Tom right now and close your eyes and you will immediately transport back to exactly how you felt in your teens.
If you, like me, were born in 1981 you face a critical identity question - are Generation X or are you a Millennial . The answer lives in how you watched My So Called Life; if you watched and accurately saw yourself as Brian Krakow you are a reasonable person and you are Gen X. If you convinced yourself that you were Jordan Catalano (of course you did, Millennial) you are absolutely the latter. Of all the things worth saying about My So Called Life and its capturing of 90’s teenage angst it can’t be overstated how deeply in love every adolescent male was with…Jared Leto. I kid, I of course mean Claire Danes - but while we’re on the topic, Leto looks exactly the same THIRTY YEARS LATER. I think the QANON crazies should take a look at that 52 year old.
Reality TV didn’t exist yet. Think about that - just think about that. I mean there were things like Candid Camera (1948) and America’s Funniest Home Videos (1989) and Cops (1989). The Real World (1992) had had one season but it hadn’t inspired anything yet. No reality TV, so you never had to watch people descend to their worst impulses in pursuit of empty fame. The moniker real housewives was delivered absent any irony and you’d only ever heard the name Kardashian for one reason;
On June 17, 1994 you put on the TV - literally any channel - you ran to the TV and what you were watching was a white Ford Bronco driving down the 91 Freeway in LA. If you feel bad that you were glued to the 90 minute 60 mph chase don’t - it had the highest viewership of anything on television in 1994. In January 89 million people watched the Super Bowl. In June 95 million people watched OJ get driven by his friend to his house where police let him call his mom, drink a glass of OJ8, and then agree to get arrested. Until that point only the moon landing (1969) had been watched by more people at once.
On November 9th the OJ trial began after Simpson criminally didn’t and civilly did murder his wife and her boyfriend. Ironically, OJ was the first choice for the Terminator (1984) but James Cameron didn’t ultimately think he was believable as a killing machine. Twelve of his peers agreed.
Fox News didn’t exist yet (can you imagine the field day Roger Ailes would have had with above). Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw were the voices of the nightly news. And you know what the said about The Chase? They said what was happening as it was happening and they didn’t say anything else. No false correlations, no rage porn. As the biggest most controversial story played out in real time 1994, the news’ instinct was to report…the news.
Another way of saying that is that the news wasn’t primarily in place as entertainment. Another way of saying that is that the news still had integrity. And the most honest way to say that is; it was almost certainly the moment that created modern “news.”
In 1994 we were captivated by everything going on around us. Great art, great storytelling, unbelievable spectacle.
So what’s to take from this?
It could be that American pop culture peaked in 1994. Good, bad, and ugly. I think that’s a way to look at it, but since having kids my tilt toward cynicism has felt unproductive.
I think it’s more that the times were rare, not singular, but rare in their ability to bring out everything everyone had.
I think to get to what happened in 1994 we have to go back to 1991, a year that could easily lay claim to the best year in music. Nirvana and Pearl Jam came out of nowhere (Seattle), both Use Your Illusions from Guns and Roses, Metallica’s black album, RHCP Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic, U2’s Achtung Baby, REM Out of Time, Tribe Called Quest’s, The Low End Theory were all released. The list keeps going on another insane year for music.
The 80s had just ended - this might be the most important part. Decades are artificial to the creative process but looking back they’re representative. Pop culture in the 80s was…fun. Rambo, Top Gun, Back to the Future - fun to watch. “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” is fun to listen to and you cannot listen to Hall & Oates without moving your feet. It was fun. With exceptions for Prince, NWA, The Talking Heads, and the like 80s music didn’t have much to say or much to offer beyond a dance party. A GREAT dance party, but a dance party all the same.
Then the 80s ended with a collective “is that really all there is?” Remember what I said earlier about The Wall, the Cold War, and Regan? If the 80s had been a reaction to how hard and tense the preceding decades had been, the 90s would shape up to be a response to how indulgent and frivolous the preceding one had been. It wasn’t a time to party, it was a time to lay claim.
The last mainstream album released in 1989 was Deep by Peter Murphy from Bauhaus. That album’s las song “Roll Call,” ends with:
On a long and winding grey paved street
Your breath the only friend
Chattering others surrounding you
You're going out again
It's a laugh and a gas new crowd
You tell yourself
While buttoning up your new red shirt
It's been a twenty years of doing this
Just the same night into night
Day into day
Forget your preset mind
Roll
A song about one never ending night out.
The first mainstream album released in 1990 was Flood by They Might Be Giants and the first track was “Birdhouse in Your Soul” that starts:
I'm your only friend
I'm not your only friend
But I'm a little glowing friend
But really I'm not actually your friend
But I am
The 80s ended with “this is getting boring” and the 90s started with “it’s time to wake up.”
Artificial to the creative process or not, a page had turned. Then twelve months later a barrage of insane music hit. I’d argue that 1991 was the gauntlet being thrown down, the 90s had arrived and art, in all its forms, was on notice. So what was 1994 then? It was the response to a call to action.
Through that lens it’s easy enough to imagine a world where Soundgarden was sitting around listening to Pearl Jam’s Ten and Nirvana’s Nevermind and became a mix of inspired and terrified and that gave us Superunknown. Or Biggie hearing A Tribe Called Quest and knowing it would take an unprecedented vulnerability to catapult hip hop forward with a debut that many consider the greatest rap album of all time.
I can almost feel what Tarantino must have thought after getting everyone’s attention with Reservoir Dogs and knowing a sophomore slump wouldn’t cut it. I don’t know if Frank Darabont and Robert Zemeckis were friends or knew what each other were working on but from everything I learned from Entourage (2004) everyone in Hollywood knows what everyone else is doing all the time. So they knew and knowing must have elevated each other’s work.
What really solidifies this for me is that with a few exceptions 1994’s greatness came out of two places, New York and Los Angeles. Two massive cities that never feel that big when you’re living and breathing and getting shit done in them. Two places where it’s easy to imagine all of these artists running into one another and seeing other perform. Feeding off of one another.
How important was being in one of those places? Who knows but Nirvana, the most Seattle band imaginable added “…In New York,” to the title of their Unplugged album.9 It’s almost like they wanted to make sure posterity knew what that recording was part of.
Other than this being interesting, what’s the point? For me it’s this; if you want to do great things surround yourself with other people doing great things in environments where great things are expected. It’s the people and it’s the place. Maybe most importantly - definitely most importantly - inspiration comes from tangibility, it’s not the stuff of virtual conveniences or home offices.
I still can’t.
It was a decade before I’d know where the name came from.
In case you’re wondering, yes “All Along the Watchtower” is a Jimi Hendrix song.
Say what you will but you know you knew every word to Fantastic Voyage.
I didn’t even mention Pulp Fiction’s soundtrack, which is probably number three.
Not to mention the second great era of Elton John with “Can You Feel The Love Tonight.”
Seriously.
There are roughly 30 Unplugged albums - it’s the only one that calls out where it was recorded.
Dude. This was a fantastic fucking read. Nostalgic but also put together all these moments so well. 1994 was truly a generational defining moment and full of amazing talent and results.
Life before algorithms was indeed a special thing. If you haven't watched any of Rick Beato's stuff, definitely check him out as you and he agree on the 90's as being a pretty important era. In fact, while this video focuses on the super bowl, he does get into how special 90's artists were/are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQsrJfrKthA Great post!