History: (Evaluation at the bottom)
In the 90s Hip-Hop continues to rapidly expand in influence with diversity spreading further - sales exploding with the success of artists such as Dr.Dre, Tupac, Ice T, Eminem, The Notorious B.I.G, Salt 'n' Pepa and others, aswell as alternative Rock and it's sub-genres of Grunge and Pop Punk starting to rapidly evolve in popularity with bands such as The Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Smiths and later grunge bands such as Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam.
Heavy metal reaches a turning point in innovation with sub-genres such as nu-metal and industrial metal becoming ever so more popular, nu-metal particularly with younger audiences, encooperating elements of angst with upbeat tempos. Pop and teen-pop continues to appease younger audiences with new emerging boybands and girlbands with the likes of The Backstreet Boys, NSYNC and The Spice Girls reaching commercial success.
East Coast vs West Coast rivalry in 90s Hip-Hop became a rising tension between not only artists and labels but communities and culture too with the East Coast being represented by the likes of Biggie and Nas representing with the gritty, lyric-heavy style of rap whilst the West Coast had been represented with the likes of Tupac and Dr.Dre with the contrast of a more mellow and funky tonality of sound. This rivalry reaching visceral nature with gang violence pursuing, both Tupac and Biggie being murdered in its legacy, causing social uproar particularly in urban communities.
Another tragedy of an artists death during this time period had also been in the grunge scene with Kurt Cobain's suicide marking the end of Nirvana and the grunge movement, solidifying the cultural shift towards the end of the decade in a more diverse music scene.
Globalisation of music had developed with the rise of the internet - Western pop, hip-hop and R&B becoming widely accepted worldwide with non-Western genres such as Latin music exploding in the U.S with Ricky Martin, Shakira and Gloria Estefan etc...
Artists: (The top 30 of the 1990s)
1: Mariah Carey 11. Bryan Adams 21. Spice Girls
2: Madonna 12. Michael Jackson 22. Red Hot Chili Peppers
3: Celine Dion 13. Elton John 23. Sting
4: REM 14. Bon Jovi 24. Roxette
5: U2 15. Oasis 25. Michael Bolton
6: Nirvana 16. Garth Brooks 26. Queen
7: Whitney Houston 17. Janet Jackson 27. The Smashing Pumpkins
8: Pearl Jam 18. The Backstreet Boys 28. Bruce Springsteen
9: Metallica 19. Eric Clapton 29. Guns n' Roses
10: Prince 20. Alanis Morissette 30. Depeche Mode
Analysis, technologies and production.
(Compositional Techniques and song writing):
The verse-chorus-verse song structure dominated most of the 90s - the classic songwriting structure consisting of alternating verses and choruses - with many iconic hooks of songs still being memorable even today.
Sampling played a crucial role in the songwriting process for many producers and artists, particularly in genres such as hip-hop etc. Hip-hop artists such as Dr.Dre, The Notorious B.I.G and Tupac being known for using samples from soul, disco and funk songs.
Chord progression in both alternative rock and grunge often had been set in minor keys - accounting for the angsty dark, rebellious tone of the music at the time. With many chords in guitar-driven songs being distorted and saturated power chords.
Many 90s indie and alternative rock bands subverted traditional song structures such as following an unpredictable verse-chorus pattern. In songs like Radiohead's "Creep"' whereby the verse-chorus structure would sometimes break down with unexpected changes in tempo and melody for listeners.
Narrative lyricism and personal expression became significant with artists - particularly in hip-hop with the likes of Pac, Biggie and Eminem using their music as a form of poetic and narrative story telling, this had also been seen in the grunge movement with Kurt Cobain's songwriting in Nirvana capturing themes of alienation and melancholy.
(Technological developments):
Most mix engineers in the 90s mixed using Yamaha NS10s.
Virtual studio technology (VST) was introduced by Steinberg in 1996 - leading to the emergence of software synthesisers and multi - effects in DAWs.
DAWs such as logic gained popularity offering MIDI sequencing and audio editing capabilities.
Digital music distribution had emerged online through the rise of the internet aswell as through platforms such as Napster which had been founded in 1999 before leading to the rise of independant artists as result. MP3 formatting for music had also emerged allowing for easy and accessible forms of sharing music.
Music had started to be more commonly heard in different forms of media itself such as in video games whereby in the 90s it had become increasingly more popular to the extent of setting the standard, game compositions using advanced MIDI technology, synthesisers and soundscapes for player experience. Such as in Final Fantasy VI - one of the first examples of an ochestra composition being used in games at the time - composed by Nobuo Uematsu.
(Production techniques):
The studios of the 90s was largely a 100% analog workflow, recording being mostly mixing through mastering as ultimately an analog process.
Compression applied to drums - the sound jumping out the speakers, the big roomy reverbs of the 80s was dialled back significantly.
Distortion and saturation was pushed to the limit from guitar pedals to amplifiers to pre-amps and console pre-amps. The sound of natural harmonics under heavy distortion and saturation being a key element to the sound.
High-pass filters had been aggressively used in mixes.
Sampling became significantly used by producers - particularly in hip-hop, electronic and pop.
Evaluation:
Overall, I would say that I had a comfortable experience with the 90s - its grungy raw nature - I had already been close with the decade itself - heavily inspired by it's music, art, culture and style, listening to music from the decade arguably more-so than with the decade as of now 2020's.
The 1990s for musicality - is a decade that I was extremely excited for with experience in listening and performing a lot of different genres and songs- in which I enjoyed the experience, just as a result of the sheer freedom and raw creation of music in a somewhat romantic rebellious perspective in the form of grunge and black metal. Fundamentally the genre that I resonate most with from this decade could be many - however I focused on atmospheric black metal, inspired by the likes of Xasthur etc.
As a guitarist I was now fairly free in my choices - I focused on creating a heavy dreadful piece using vocal phrasings I created to be performed on guitar instrumentation and using heavy SFX to embed a throaty-scream tone to my guitar.