I make things that go on the Internet. I live in Brooklyn and design at Review of NOW! That’s What I Call Music Vol. 2
This is a (admittedly long) fantastic critique of pop music in the late 90s written by The Onion’s AV Club. I highly recommend you fight through your “TL:DR” impulse and give this a chance. Load it up before you get on the subway and you’ll be done by the time you hit Brooklyn.
Pieces I like the most:
On Britney Spears in the …Baby, One More Time era:
Spears coos, pants, and purrs the song’s come-ons in a crazed libidinal frenzy. She embodies the aphorism I just made up that if you can’t sing well, sing sexy.
Regarding Semisonic, their lead singer Dan Wilson who I’m a huge fan of, and the meaning of the song Closing Time:
On the surface, the song finds the romance in barflies scrambling for a closing-time hookup, but according to So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star, the likeable memoir of Semisonic drummer Jacob Slichter, it was written about the birth of Wilson’s first child. The song’s key line is purloined from the Roman philosopher Seneca, who originally wrote, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” It’s a line with multiple meanings; there’s the end of life in the womb and the beginning of life outside, but also a father and mother forsaking the pleasures of youth for the responsibilities of parenthood.
The rest of the article is just as good. It’s an interesting take on such a memorable period of pop music when…holy shit I’m old enough to be nostalgic.
