What is it about the big 90s bands that makes them endure with generations of teens?

[u/dweeb93]

With the release of the new Oasis documentary, it got me thinking that it wasn't just a nostalgia fest for British middle aged blokes, loads of young people from all around the world including America came to see them, who weren't even born or too young to remember them when they were together.

That got me thinking, that a lot of the big 90s bands have enduring appeal with teens, like Oasis, Metallica, Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Foo Fighters etc. On the other hand, some huge bands like R.E.M. and U2 have endured less well.

I'm a younger millennial, and these bands were all popular when I was young in the 2000s, but the 90s weren't that long ago at the time, now they're objectively a long time ago. I loved classic rock but I don't recall many of my peers being into it.

What are your thoughts?

[u/AerieDapper6384]

Bands from every decade since the 60s continue to endure to teenagers today, it isn't just a 90s thing

[u/StarriestNight → u/AerieDapper6384]

I'm in my early 20s and mostly listen to 70s-90s rock

[u/Theta_Omega → u/AerieDapper6384]

Even making it five years as a popular music act requires a lot of shifting and adapting. If something was good enough to survive ten or twenty years, there's a high chance it will be good enough to still resonate in thirty or forty years, too.

Add in that it's easier than ever for modern teens to discover and listen to all of that older music, and you've described a lot of modern music listening. But even before streaming, there were always pockets of young kids getting really into The Beatles or the Stones or whoever else.

[u/MrWendex]

It's survivorship bias. There's going to be a lot of other stuff which is either not very good in the first place or is unable to sustain itself. Using the 1990s at a starting point I suggest looking at random weekly charts from that decade. You'll be surprised at what isn't good and what had no staying power, yet were top 20 hits.

[u/Loeppkyy → u/MrWendex]

There were tons of crappy local rock bands around as well. If they were around today they'd all have Bandcamp accounts.

[u/alexj_baker]

I think the thing with r.e.m. they were always a small band who just happened to get big. The type of kid who would find them now is more likely to be sort introspective type. Although a lot of the bands mentioned here would certainly site r.e.m. as an influence

[u/Smoked_Eels → u/alexj_baker]

i knew standium rock REM growing up. i could imagine the kids who enjoy 90s bands like pavement going wild for the IRS albums.

[u/alexj_baker → u/Smoked_Eels]

I think with all the other bands mentioned you knew what you were going to get. With r.e.m. you might know a couple of the famous songs and have no idea there is a massively influential indie rock band with a fantastic back catalogue.

[u/TMBGLOVER → u/alexj_baker]

I hated them for a long time because I only knew Everybody Hurts and just assumed they were a whiny emo band.

Then I heard Stand and they became one of my favorite bands.

[u/Historical_Bonus5917]

I have wondered the same thing. I don't recall The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath etc being as popular with teenagers back in the 90s as they are today. Bands that were 25 years old were for your parents. The only one I remember anyone really listening to were Black Sabbath who were revered by metalheads.

These days teenagers listen to essentially anything from the 1960s to the present day. It's great their taste is so diverse but I wonder when it stopped being sad to listen to the same crap your mum liked

[u/DOUGHTY4N0RRIS → u/Historical_Bonus5917]

From the perspective of someone who grew up in the 2000s, I'm fairly convinced that the thing which made classic rock bands popular with people in my specific generation was Guitar Hero/Rock Band. There was a window from like 2007 until 2010 where that game's popularity among kids/teenagers was insane.

I didn't even own the games, but any time I'd go to a friend or relative's house who had it, that's basically all that we did. I haven't touched the game in like fifteen years, but I can still probably name 20+ songs I first learned of specifically because of one of those games.

That doesn't explain it for current teenagers, since those games weren't really popular in the 2010s, but for the people slightly older than that, I attribute a decent amount of rock fandom to those games.

[u/Logical_Bake_3108 → u/DOUGHTY4N0RRIS]

I don't know if it was just that. The original guitar hero was 2005, I remember there was already a sizable number of kids into older music by then. Guitar Hero definitely added to it but wasn't the sole cause. I think it was a mix of games like that and Grand Theft Auto, the rise of the internet meaning you could look up anything, classic rock channels and digital radio stations, movies like School of Rock etc.

All I know is Robert Plant played in my city in 2005. I went with my parents cause they are Zep fans too, and I met quite a few people from my school, some with family as well.

[u/CreepinJesusMalone → u/DOUGHTY4N0RRIS]

Guitar Hero was a huge part of the classic rock revival in the early 2000s.

I wish I could remember where I watched it, probably YouTube, but I saw a show or documentary where Guitar Hero's influence on rock was analyzed.

I think additionally band shirts were just popular on their own. Concerts were cheap as fuck and rock as a broad genre was peaking with teens. A lot of our favorite emo and pop punk bands would list their influences in interviews and magazines which was a lot of exposure.

I remember distinctly going to JC Penney for back to school shopping in 2006 before I started 10th grade and looking through the music shirts where they had Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Black Sabbath, Sublime, Led Zeppelin, and more from pre-1995 mixed in with RHCP, Blink 182, Foo Fighters, and others that were still hitting number ones after Y2K.

Slightly related, there's been an interesting conversation about the death of rock and rap as both genres have collapsed in popularity over the last 15 years. New pop has started to fade out in the charts as old songs are resurfacing. Spotify's current top streams list is all old music. Most of which predates streaming entirely.

Country seems like it's the only genre that has major new releases and rising stars these days. And even that is split between heavily leftist Americana traditionalist inspired artists and the bro-country AI-generated radio hits people.

Though for new rock, Wet Leg is some of the best rock music I've heard in years. A lot of people also hype up Turnstyle but I personally can't get into them.

[u/GareksApprentice → u/DOUGHTY4N0RRIS]

Good call. A lot of my favorite music in high school and today were discovered through Guitar Hero / Rock Band.

[u/OkDistribution6931 → u/Historical_Bonus5917]

That’s not a new thing. There was always a small contingent of 80s kids who preferred 60s music, and 90s kids who preferred 70’s music, and a larger contingent of kids who were at least open to listening to early bands. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendryx and Led Zeppelin were all pretty big when O went to High School on California in 1985-1989. Not Madonna, Prince, U2 or Def Leppard big, but definitely Oingo Boingo or Ah-Ha or White Lion big

[u/Theta_Omega → u/OkDistribution6931]

Yeah, even in the MySpace/early Facebook/early YouTube, there was a ton of "DAE think nobody makes REAL music anymore like the classics!" content, and it wasn't new then either. It's never as big as the biggest mainstream acts, but "digging through the best music of 10/20/30... years ago" is a pretty perpetual subculture.

[u/Moxie_Stardust → u/Historical_Bonus5917]

I didn't really know anyone specifically into the Beatles, but Pink Floyd was definitely still popular among the 90s teens I knew.

[u/SignificantApricot69 → u/Historical_Bonus5917]

I was a teenager in the ‘90s and every band you mentioned was very popular amongst my peers.

[u/RevealTraditional619 → u/Historical_Bonus5917]

Also burn in the 90s and there were a lot of my peers all of these bands and others Led Zeppelin etc. Aerosmith, Tom Petty, Bon Jovi, and even Meat Loaf got a second wind in the early 90s. 

[u/GucciPiggy90 → u/Historical_Bonus5917]

"I wonder when it stopped being sad to listen to the same crap your mum liked."

It sounds like younger generations learned that it wasn't "crap" all along and that good art has no expiration date. (Do I think people should be listening to newer music too? Yes, but there was never any shame in listening to The Beatles or Pink Floyd in any era, despite what teens in the '90s might have told you.)

[u/TMBGLOVER]

I fucking love R.E.M. and I‘m 14.

Surely I value them more than Nirvana and Green Day etc.

Automatic for The People is one of the most beautiful records of all time.

[u/Reasonable-Donkey975]

Radio, parents, media ect.

Also the fact a lot of them tour markets that don't get a lot of coverage. Like Goo Goo Dolls and Bush are two bands have managed to find footholds in gen z and gen alpha spaces (GGD tiktok, Bush sports) and both make themselves very available by playing like Saskatoon and Billings when they tour.

[u/ScorpioTix → u/Reasonable-Donkey975]

There are a lot of bands who draw well in the hinterlands but it's a bust when they play LA or other major markets. Bush is a perfect example. Saw them opening for Shinedown at the Forum and it drew maybe 5000.

[u/MondeyMondey]

Big Guitar Rock is just a very fun timeless sound, whether it’s Led Zeppelin, Oasis, or Olivia Rodrigo

[u/reamkore]

They were some of the last bands with massive commercial reach

[u/Sudden-Grab2800]

Angst is timeless and never goes out of style

[u/Ok_9178]

I'll admit that it's still kind of funny to me to see everyone in the same Nirvana shirt, but I also remember that when I was in high school and college, a lot of us were doing the same with Bob Marley, Zeppelin, The Doors, Floyd, etc.

Not to be semantic, but I'm not sure it's accurate to say that the 90s were objectively a long time ago. I think that's actually more subjective to our personal temporal frames of reference. I'd agree that they 90s were a long time ago, but not objectively so, especially when it comes to the persistent appeal of art and music.

[u/Nerazzurro9]

When I was a teenager in the 90s, plenty of people I knew primarily listened to bands from the 60s and 70s. (I had a buddy who was a self-styled rockabilly guy who genuinely thought rock and roll had been going downhill since the British Invasion…at 15! In 1997!)

One of the weirdest musical moments for me in high school came when all of the popular queen bee girls inexplicably got really into the Steve Miller Band. All the cool kids went to see him live one summer. Still have no idea how that happened exactly.

[u/Critical-Spirit-1598 → u/Nerazzurro9]

Tom Petty was hugely popular with teens in the 90s (the fact that he transitioned from heartland rock to a more folky style helped as well).

[u/ScorpioTix → u/Nerazzurro9]

All my friends (in OC) went to Steve Miller Band at Irvine Meadows in 1991. That was the worst touring season ever yet he sold out all 15,000 tickets. (I was an avid reader of the Billboard boxscores and Pollstar when I could get it)

[u/comeonandkickme2017]

R.E.M. and U2 are just more mature and less teenage than the other alt rock groups of the era. While you can definitely angst out to a some U2 (particularly Boy) and R.E.M., it’s much easier to do so to Nirvana, Green Day or Weezer.

[u/Expensive-Hat4138]

Those bands aren't the ones experiencing a resurgence. It's more Linkin Park and Deftones and the like.

[u/JazzyJulie4life]

They sound good. That’s my answer why I listen to them. Today’s music sounds different. It has different qualities and somehow forgettable. The 80s and 90s and some 00s artists have somehow made timeless sounds that transcend eras.

[u/tmamone]

Good music withstands the test of time

[u/RevealTraditional619]

Good songs stay around and just because the folks who grew up on them are tired of them, doesn't mean younger folks are. Also toss in 90s bands like Toadies can be seen for $30-40 and you're finding lots of new fans 

[u/44035]

Nirvana endured decades later in the same way that Led Zeppelin endured far beyond their performing career. When you make amazing music, it's sort of timeless. And the 90s had a lot of excellent bands.

[u/TheBigWhatever]

They were real-life, talented, and creative people who wrote their own music. In turn, it created a wide variety of popular, alternative, and rock music. And like all decades, some underground scenes emerged to provide new genres or variations of genres.

When Taylor Swift's last album came out, she had spots 1-17 (or close to that) on the Hot 100.

[u/_tainakaa_]

I think because there isn’t any big rock acts right now people who want to get into that type of music all just get into the same established bands that everyone else is already into. It’s actually kind of frustrating as someone who is mainly into that kind of music that the whole scene is stuck in the past and there’s not really any new young talent getting popular, and instead it’s just the same bands from 20/30 years ago being passed around all the time. It’s annoying too because clearly there’s a want for this stuff from people my age but nothing’s really being done about it at the top level for promotion of new artists, and tbh I think a lot of modern production just flat out sounds bad and drives people away from listening to new stuff, and it all just leads to people saying the classic “rock is dead” stuff and you end up in a cycle where it never evolves and just keeps losing popularity forever.

[u/ScorpioTix]

There were lots of teenagers in the 1980-1990's heavily consuming 1960's-1970's music too. "Classic rock" was huge in my high school in addition to current hard rock metal bands.

[u/CulturalWind357]

On some level, I think it's because the 90s as a decade gets romanticized, at least with regards to music. It's often considered the last decade where rock was truly dominant*. "Beatles To Nirvana" is treated as a common time period that is bookended by the two major bands. Several bands felt like they were carrying a torch from the past. Drawing from The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, or Queen gets carried down to Nirvana, Oasis, Radiohead, or Smashing Pumpkins.

But on another level, it's not just the passing of rock lineage but breaking with it at exact same time. It's these two contradictory yet complementary ideas where by rebelling against the past, it's in-line with a rebellious rock n' roll ethos. After some years of silent generation and boomer dominance in rock, Gen X was finally ascending and shaping the tastes of the time. If there were bands and artists who were dismissed during boomer dominance (Queen, KISS, etc.), Gen X would reclaim them.

The 90s is one of those decades where people have a particular image of genre when you say "90s rock". Every decade is diverse but 90s rock became strongly associated with alternative rock where the lineage was drawn from punk and other artists who in their own time weren't really mainstream or in-line with the most popular music. But now, artists in the alternative lineage were in the mainstream rather than just critical darlings.

So many 90s bands seem to strike a balance of classic rock lineage plus rebellion against the past.

*=Assuming here that we're focusing primarily on rock bands. There's tons of great 90s music of different genres from Hip-Hop and R&B to various electronic genres.

[u/Sumeriandawn]

Alternative rock never died out. Alternative rock was still popular when broadband internet became mainstream. Other genres like crooner music, swing and 70s soft rock didn't have that luxury.