The early 90s appeared to have a very distinct, but not often-talked about, alternative/experimental vibe that I find very similar to 60s counterculture. It seemed to be a backlash to the banality of 80s culture, and how corporate it felt. I'd say this counterculture lasted from 1989 to 1994. I'd say the release of Nirvana's Bleach and The Simpsons was the start, both being direct reactions against 80s music and 80s TV respectively. The counterculture really got big in 1991 with Nirvana's Nevermind, which pretty much killed the 80s. 1994 saw the end with Kurt Cobain's death, but grunge was still popular, and the counter-culture was still very much alive with Clerks being released.

Here are some other aspects of early 90s counterculture to discuss.

Music:
Nirvana (The entire discography. They started with Bleach, which was very aggressive, but not popular yet. Then Nevermind was better and exploded in popularity. The album seemed too mainstream to him, so he wanted to alienate his fanbase with the incredibly abrasive and harsh In Utero, but ended up releasing another hit. Sadly, Cobain killed himself in April 1994, which helped end the early 90s counterculture)
Faith No More (Gave birth to alternative metal. Their Chuck Mosley stuff was great, but it was 1989's The Real Thing that made an impact, as well as being more experimental. This album gave rise to many other artists on here.)
Primus (The only band on Winamp to have its own genre. Primus is a band known for their experimentation and humorous lyrics. Perfectly exudes that early 90s absurd humor that was so popular.)
Mr Bungle (The only band that can beat Primus in a weirdness contest is Mr Bungle. They're technically classified as "metal", but they're actually every genre of music in existence in just one song. They're so bizarre you actually laugh at their music. IMO this is better comedy music than almost all self-proclaimed "comedy musicians")
Rage Against the Machine (This band hates capitalism and the United States, and they'll show you with aggression. Lyrics have aged really well. Also pioneered rap metal, and were actually competent at both parts unlike most rap metal bands.)

TV:
The Simpsons (The most popular show of the era. The show was a reaction against banal family sitcoms with laugh tracks. The Simpsons was completely different in humor, and showcased a dysfunctional family.)
Ren and Stimpy Show (Very absurdist show with lots of gross-out humor and black comedy. It was supposed to be a revival of 30s-50s cartoons but ended up practically CREATING 90s culture alongside Nirvana's Nevermind.)
Twin Peaks (Made by David Lynch. Very absurdist mystery show that garned a cult following. Nothing like it has aired since, and probably never will.)
Rocko's Modern Life (Similar to Ren and Stimpy, maybe not AS absurd, but still very absurd, and probably couldn't have been made outside the early 90s counter-culture climate.)

Film:
Slacker (Many Gen Xers were referred to as slackers, and many people in this subculture had a slacker attitude. Embraced the apathetic lazy attitude of the decade. Helped birth the 90s indie film movement.)
Wayne's World (IMO this is the ultimate Gen X comedy. For crying out loud they're listening to Queen, which is pretty much universally associated with Gen X. Not only that, it's also actually a clever satire of corporate culture and advertising.)
Clerks (The pinnacle of the 90s indie film boom. I really can't describe it in words but just go watch it.)

However, the counterculture ended in 1995 following the death of Kurt Cobain, decline of grunge, and rise of banal post-grunge and pop rock in the mid-90s followed by EVEN MORE banal teen pop and nu metal in the late 90s, which directly countered the anti-corporate vibe of the early 90s. Likewise, the absurdist media of the early 90s that made it so great was replaced by bland teen sitcoms and predictable action movies in the late 90s. There are a few exceptions to this rule, great movies like The Matrix and Office Space from 1999 that have hints of the early 90s counter-culture (particularly The Matrix, which has a Rage Against the Machine song in the end credits), but otherwise, the era is more banal and formulaic.

Few things I've noticed about this era are a strong anti-censorship attitude (the rise of gangsta rap, vulgar cartoons, and violent video games all came because of this), slacker mentality (all the films listed above, ESPECIALLY Clerks), anti-corporate attitude (CEOs were often villains in early 90s media, and the most obvious examples are Rage Against the Machine and Wayne's World), a love for absurd humor (Ren and Stimpy pretty much gave rise to the bizarre cartoons we know and love today), and generally high experimentation (just the entire alt-rock and indie boom of this era is impressively experimental and avant-garde, so much of it is called "weird" by normies but the early 90s counter-culture adored it). It's very much like the late 60s, only instead of actively wanting to make a change, they're instead apathetic slackers who don't care for anything, but KNOW that capitalism is soulless.

What are your thoughts? Do you think this counterculture is real? What other works do you think define this era? What other characteristics should I have mentioned?

For television, how about "Friends"?

Mid 90s I think of things like My So Called Life, Beavis and Butthead. The Real World starting the reality TV craze. Seinfeld started in the late 80s with the show about nothing. I think the arrival of Friends put the nail in the coffin for traditional family TV.

Alanis Morissette failed in the US as a pop star but hit it big in the mid 90s with angry girl grunge.

I remember when Nevermind came out and shook up the music scene. But until at least 1993 we had that light airy pop and hair metal leftovers. The mid 90s coincided with my college years exactly and were a depressing time. Which continued through the late 90. We had bubble gum boy bands and Hanson which was technically skilled but made cheesy material. Which brightened the sound somewhat, but everything else seemed to have a hazy film left over from the mid 90s. Stuff like Goo Goo dolls, etc.

How could I have forgotten about Seinfeld?
A boundary-breaking show celebrating early 90s apathy. The shows forewent many sitcom tropes in favor of ironic meta-humor, which was new at the time.
Friends put the final nail in the coffin for traditional family sitcoms by focusing on, well, friends. The idea that friends mattered just as much as family became a popular concept in the 90s, and in some cases, even more.
Of course, once sitcoms began copying Friends, it sort of marked the end for early 90s counter-culture. Really, much of the end of early 90s counter-culture was imitating the success of early 90s material without ever matching it, ironically feeling corporate by comparison. Musically you'd get the occasional Radiohead, and movie-wise you'd get the occasional The Matrix, but I think 2001 is really when anything akin to this sort of counter-culture is matched again with the rise of indie rock, Adult Swim, and online content (e.g. Homestar Runner)

Mid 90s I think of things like My So Called Life, Beavis and Butthead. The Real World starting the reality TV craze. Seinfeld started in the late 80s with the show about nothing. I think the arrival of Friends put the nail in the coffin for traditional family TV.

Alanis Morissette failed in the US as a pop star but hit it big in the mid 90s with angry girl grunge.

I remember when Nevermind came out and shook up the music scene. But until at least 1993 we had that light airy pop and hair metal leftovers. The mid 90s coincided with my college years exactly and were a depressing time. Which continued through the late 90. We had bubble gum boy bands and Hanson which was technically skilled but made cheesy material. Which brightened the sound somewhat, but everything else seemed to have a hazy film left over from the mid 90s. Stuff like Goo Goo dolls, etc.


Hair metal became a joke by the mid-90s though. Bands like Winger and Bon Jovi were ruthlessly mocked in Beavis and Butthead. Even in like 1990 or so, people were getting sick of it, and were getting more into grunge and alt-rock like Nirvana, Primus, and Sonic Youth. Remember this is when Twin Peaks came out. I doubt the average Twin Peaks fan was into New Kids on the Block or Cinderella or whatever.

Also, thinking about teen pop and Hanson, yes, their material was technically very well-done and polished, but also cheesy, inauthentic, and lighthearted. Sound familiar?
Because if it does, those are the exact same things said about hair metal of the 80s. Looking at Motley Crue for example, their music is very well-performed. Mick Mars is an incredibly talented guitarist, and Tommy Lee is one of the best drummers of all time. HOWEVER, it reeked of cheese and felt fake. Note that I like Motley Crue, way more than most hair metal bands actually, but that's just my thoughts on them. Incredibly talented band, but cheesy as all heck.
Nirvana was the total opposite. Musically, Kurt Cobain was not an amazing guitarist. His chords were simple. Nirvana is musically a rather simple three-chord band. However, they felt authentic, anti-corporate, and dark.
The indie culture of the early 2000s is another swing back toward simplistic but experimental media like we saw in the early 90s. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is a prime example (badly animated, but incredibly surreal and experimental), and three-chord rock was cool again.

Mid 90s I think of things like My So Called Life, Beavis and Butthead. The Real World starting the reality TV craze. Seinfeld started in the late 80s with the show about nothing. I think the arrival of Friends put the nail in the coffin for traditional family TV.

Alanis Morissette failed in the US as a pop star but hit it big in the mid 90s with angry girl grunge.

I remember when Nevermind came out and shook up the music scene. But until at least 1993 we had that light airy pop and hair metal leftovers. The mid 90s coincided with my college years exactly and were a depressing time. Which continued through the late 90. We had bubble gum boy bands and Hanson which was technically skilled but made cheesy material. Which brightened the sound somewhat, but everything else seemed to have a hazy film left over from the mid 90s. Stuff like Goo Goo dolls, etc.


The mid-late 90s also had endless TV commercials featuring fake psychic "Miss Cleo" who had a (presumably) Jamaican accent that kept coming and going. Turns out she was born and raised in Los Angeles. There were also endless commercials for the "Psychic Friends Network" whose spokesperson was Dionne Warwick.  These were both ripoff companies that were eventually shut down.

I forgot one band in my early 90s counterculture retrospective, The Butthole Surfers.
They were very avant-garde, and released their biggest album in 1987. As you can tell by the year, they weren't very successful in a conformist climate of hair metal and teen pop artists, but proved to be very popular with early 90s counterculture musicians, like Orbital, Kid Rock (late 90s was his peak but he emerged from the early 90s counterculture), Melvins, and biggest of all, Red Hot Chili Peppers.
NWA's Straight Outta Compton provides another great example of a prelude to early 90s counterculture. It's rebellious, Anti-American, and very vulgar, all of which are things the early 90s counterculture embraced. It gave rise to gangsta rap.

The early 90s appeared to have a very distinct, but not often-talked about, alternative/experimental vibe that I find very similar to 60s counterculture.

Actually, it's been discussed obliquely quite a bit, at least on this website.  It's one of those subjects that keeps popping up every once in a while in some disguise or another.


It seemed to be a backlash to the banality of 80s culture, and how corporate it felt. I'd say this counterculture lasted from 1989 to 1994.

I think it actually started a little bit before that.  Perhaps around 1986, plus or minus a couple of years.  The backlash against what people stereotypically think of as 1980s culture and politics actually started in the 80s.

Also, I think at least some aspects of it (indie film, e.g.) extended beyond the 90s.


What are your thoughts? Do you think this counterculture is real?

I think the problem is that most people perceive this "Grunge Era" (for lack of a better term) as some short-lived passing fad that just "came out of nowhere".

By contrast, the 60s counterculture is perceived as having lasted more than a decade, and had roots going back into the 50s beatnik subculture and had impacts that lasted long after the early70s.

I think the idea of a late-80s/early-90s counterculture would be taken more seriously if it were similarly expanded and if it were perceived in a wider context.

That's why I keep suggesting, whenever this subject comes up, that we ought to move the start date earlier into the mid-80s, analogous to how the 60s counterculture starts long before Woodstock.  But nobody seems to take the hint.


What other works do you think define this era? What other characteristics should I have mentioned?



Like I said, I think we need to extend the date range, so from the late 1980s we have:


River's Edge (1986)

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As Richard Linklater says, it takes places at a high school that a young Kurt Cobain might have attended.



"Husker Du did it before us." - Krist Novoselic

Zen Arcade (1984) and Candy Apple Grey (1986)

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Possibly also connected to the general reaction against the dominant Reagan Era culture:

Grateful Dead revival of the late 1980s.

and

Leftward shift in political beliefs among young people starting in the mid 80s.

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