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Friday, July 16, 2010

Last Night / History / Video I Now Know How My Parents Felt Watching Happy Days in the 1970s

Posted by David Schmader on Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 12:19 PM

...because last night I attended the 120 Minutes extravaganza at Central Cinema, featuring two full hours of "alternative rock" music videos from the '80s/early '90s. Along with a bunch of young 'uns there to groove on some hot alternarock "oldies," the audience included several groups of 30/40-something adults taking (sometimes bittersweet) video tours of their teens/early 20s. Some observations:

*Neither Bauhaus nor Love & Rockets have aged well (and may have always sucked)

*The vast majority of the night's most powerful moments were supplied by women, including but not limited to Kim Gordon humping the air in "Kool Thing," PJ Harvey attempting to drown herself in a gown and high heels in "Down by the Water," freaking baby Bjork playing a kinky crash-gawker in the Sugarcubes' "Motorcrash," and Sinead O'Connor prancing around with a glittery guitar in the awesome "Mandinka."

*Nearly everything from '89-'90—Ministry, Sonic Youth, Pixies—now lands with the weight (however much it may be) of "This is what alternative music was like in the last few minutes before Nevermind."

Here's one of last night's strange highlights, featuring two people I typically don't much care for: Nick Cave (for whom every day is Halloween) and Kylie Minogue (who seems sweet and catchy but I'm busy). Enjoy.

(If you want to see the best video shown last night, go here.)

Comments (3) RSS

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"Neither Bauhaus nor Love & Rockets have aged well (and may have always sucked)"

Blasphemy! They were both great in their hey day and I love listening to their older stuff still today.

"Sinead O'Connor prancing around with a glittery guitar in the awesome "Mandinka."

Yay, I loved this era of Sinead, she was so bold and fresh at the time and I still think holds up quite well.

"Nearly everything from '89-'90—Ministry, Sonic Youth, Pixies—now lands with the weight (however much it may be) of "This is what alternative music was like in the last few minutes before Nevermind."

Was Nirvana really alternative music? It's not like NIN and a bunch of other bands continued on making that type of pre-Nirvana music throughout the '90s.

Posted by dan10things