The Josh Innes Show - 90's Music Sucked..or did it?

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

I really have no clue how this happened, but I am discussing how the 90's was the worst era in modern music. In reality, this is just a giant musical knowledge dick swinging podcast. Enjoy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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A cold, miserable, terrible Wednesday in St. Louis. We are in like day 11, 12, whatever day we are, of there being nonstop snow on the ground. It's too cold for it to disappear. One of our cars is still buried in snow. That's not really the snow's fault. I just didn't want to go unbury the car. It's parked on the street. So like when the plow came through, all the snow piled up on it, I don't want to do it. All right. I did not care to move one of our cars. So I'm just waiting for it to melt because now it's like ice everywhere you walk out there in our yard. It's no longer like snow. It's like walking on shards of glass, little Annie Lennox for you walking on, walking on

broken glass. By the way, that is not a rhythmicurythmics song. That is a solo Annie Lennox early 90s banger on the same album that featured a song called Why. That's like the whole song. I don't know what that album was called but annie lennox did have a solo album in the early 90s that produced those two fucking jam walking on broken glass is an elite level early 90s jam and speaking of the early 90s i don't know what made me think of this the other i was listening to the radio in st louis on one of the radio stations here in town and they were doing the nothing but 90s weekend. So of course, all the music you're going to hear is from the 90s. And I've made the decision that the worst era, at least in the modern era of music,

like I'm not going to count the 60s, I guess. Maybe I will. 60s to now. Because that's the kind of music you could still possibly hear on the radio like you're not going to hear you know the andrews sisters boogie woogie bugle boy and drinking rum and coca-cola you're not going to hear that on the radio right so we go 60s to now the worst era of music period in the last 60 plus years of music consumption in the modern era and we're gonna go 60 so we're going like since the Beatles came like 62 63 right since the Kennedy assassination 63 since then the absolute worst era of music bar none is the 1990s fucking awful and it was a weird era too because the 90s more so than any other era top 40 if we look at it top 40 which is the most popular music that's out there

right consumed by everybody top 40 pop radio was such a hodgepodge clusterfuck of everything. Like in the early 90s, if you turned on a Top 40 radio station in 1990, the odds are you would hear, these are the things you could possibly hear. You'd probably hear like Bobby Brown, because like 89 was Don't Be Cruel, which is one of the greatest albums of all time, and had like seven hit singles on it. So you'd get like New Jack Swing. So you get a little bit of that kind of like, you know, you'd get Don't Be Cruel. You'd get Every Little Step. You'd get On Our Own from Ghostbusters 2.

Like you'd get like New Jack Swing. And then like right after that, you'd get New Kids on the Block. And then right after that, you'd get like poison, talk dirty to me, or you'd probably still get the remnants of hair metal too, because you'd be getting some of the stuff probably from Motley Crue. There was a great format. I don't know how many of you care about this. Maybe many of you enjoy when I go on these radio diatribes because I consider myself to be a bit of a radio historian. I consider myself to be a brilliant radio mind. I'm clearly the only person that thinks that right now, given I can't find a job, but that doesn't matter.

I know what I know and I am what I am like Mr. Popeye, the sailor man. And I will tell you this, there was a great format of music and it only lasted for like a year, maybe a little longer. They called it Rock 40. And if you go back to like 1988, 1989, 1990, and not even all three of those years in full, probably like a year and a half or so of that, the hair metal boom, and I'm talking like poppy glam metal, hit its zenith, right? Because you're talking like if you're going 1988 you're talking

like that's that's you're getting guns and roses which is heavier than your typical glam metal but it falls into the category so you're getting like guns and roses you're getting two mega bon jovi albums in there but particularly you're getting slippery when wet which is closer to the mid 80s then in 1989 you get new jersey which is a huge hair metal metal album you're getting Slippery When Wet, which is closer to the mid-80s. Then in 1989, you get New Jersey, which is a huge hair metal album. You're getting Poison, look what the cat dragged in, and Flesh and Blood and all that shit. Then you're getting what I think is the best hair metal album of all time. If you are looking for the greatest example of hair metal at its absolute most glorious you get 1989's uh dr feel good which is an incredible motley crew album which has dr feel good which has don't go away mad just go away

uh which has uh same old situation i mean it kicks start my heart it is a it is the most glorious example of the decadence and awesomeness of hair metal but particularly the late 80s hair metal which was at its most glamorous most hair sprayed out like that's when a lot of these acts that were like big rock acts of like the 70s that's when even a lot of those guys kind of popped in and threw their hat in the ring for like 80s hair metal glory right so Alice Cooper released an album in 1989 called Trash it's an album produced by a guy who wrote like every one of the like when you think of an epic 80s power ballad or like hair metal jam this guy wrote half of them his name's Desmond Child I interviewed him at 105.9 The Rock I got to talk with him for like two fucking hours this guy fuck half of them his name's Desmond Child I interviewed him at 105.9 The Rock I got

to talk with him for like two fucking hours this guy fucks okay I mean incredible wrote I bet he resurrected Cher he resurrected uh um uh Aerosmith he launched Bon fucking Jovi and he produced and wrote the songs uh for an album called I don he produce the album? No, actually he produced an album by Rat that features a song called Love and Use a Dirty Job. But he wrote some of the songs, I believe, might've produced the Alice Cooper album. But the album was called Trash and a song called Poison. Your lips are venomous poison. 89 was an epic, epic year for music, but it was also an epic year for hair metal where it hit its zenith. And radio stations started adopting this format that was dubbed Rock 40. So it was like, you know,

you'd turn on the radio and while you might hear like The Look by Roxette or you might hear like Richard Marks, then right after that you'd get Guns N' Roses or Motley Crue or Poison or Warrant. Fuck, Warrant. To me, Warrant is the most underappreciated of the hair metal bands of the 80s. I am a gigantic fucking Warrant guy, but Dirty, Rotten, Filthy, Stinkin' Rich is a great album. The song Dirty, Rotten, Stinky, Filthy, and Rich is good, but you got Heaven and you got Where the Down Boys Go. I mean, just good quality shit. And 89 was kind of in that epic world. But even then, you would turn on Top 40 Radio and you would go like, here's Heaven by Warrant, and then you'd get like Debbie Gibson. So Top 40 music's always been weird and kind of eclectic. But if you get into the 90s, the 90s were a really weird time for top 40 radio.

Why? Because, again, there was just like a change in the vibe. Like in the late 80s, why did I bring up all the hair metal, rock 40 stuff? That was a very brief moment in time that that was the biggest shit on the planet. And then right after that, after you started getting the kind of Seattle sound, those hair metal bands faded away. Like everybody knows this story. Like all the bands that were making big time albums weren't selling albums anymore. Poison wasn't selling albums anymore.

Let's, I mean, just go down the list of Motley Crue. They had the big album with, I mean, dude, fucking as I mentioned, Dr. Feelgood's an incredible album. Tesla, all these bands that had were huge they all started to fade away because grunge came in in the early 90s well grunge was so big that it usurped just playing it was bigger than just playing on rock radio it was top 40 shit so it was very common that you would flip on the radio in like 1993 and here's Nirvana come as you are and here's Pearl Jam but here's also Mariah Carey Vision of Love like it's a very very strange era for music a very just coked out like not

literally but like a fucking strung out coked out wild fever dream of a musical era that's not to say that all the music of the 1990s was bad but as a collective the music of the 1990s was bad, but as a collective, the music of the 1990s I think is the worst. Let's play a couple commercials and we'll continue our conversation. All right, if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs, you got to check out Pick 6 from DraftKings. When it comes to basketball payouts, DraftKings Pick 6 posterizes the competition, including prize picks. It's a very simple concept. Hit all your picks and score higher minimum payouts on Pick 6, plus even more cash if you outscore the competition. Pick 6 is available in most states, including Missouri,

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kind of shit. You get into what is called, uh, there's post grunge and you know, bands that fall into the post grunge category would be kind of like your nickelbacks, right? Like they came in late nineties. Creed falls into the post grunge. Then the late 90s, early 2000s was also the boom of not just boy bands and like teen pop, which had its first big resurgence in a decade. And that was huge. But you also had the, what is called new metal, which is the kind of shit that like my Philly people fucking love, like, you know, Lincoln parks and, um, really actually more so than Lincoln park, you would throw like Korn in there. You would throw in Kid Rock.

He would fall into the Nu Metal, N-U-M-E-T-A-L, Nu Metal category. That would be, you know, really the biggest one or the most famous that you get, like Fred Durst, Limp Bizkit, like all those. You would also get Eminem, who was doing like shit talking like, God, see, I miss when people talk shit about each other and people had enemies. Fuck, that was a good time, man. Like I watched the Jerry Springer documentary on Netflix that came out last week. It was fine. Nothing earth shattering. It was a two parter. Each episode was like an hour or something like that was pretty good. Like I thought it was a solid little documentary. There was some shit I didn't know know but you go back to that era and people talk about how awful we were

as a people then and we were watching smut on television and it was it was adding to the rot of society and I'm like the fuck it was that's entertainment what's wrong what is wrong with putting stupid people on tv and making fun of stupid people for being stupid people that's what we should be doing more of that's why stupid people exist to make fun of stupid people for being stupid people. That's what we should be doing more of. That's why stupid people exist, to make fun of them. And by the way, they all went on TV and wanted to be fucking stupid. I don't believe that we as a society were worse because Jerry Springer was on TV and he's talking to some guy who was fucking a horse, which he was married to the horse.

Let's assume they had relations. But like the late 90s was kind of the epic like apex of shit talking and you had Eminem talking shit and dissing everybody you had Howard Stern it really that wasn't quite the height of Stern his height came a couple years before that in terms of like his cultural relevance right but like it was still that shit talking era it was people like verbally fighting with each other all the time it was diss tracks it was like that shit-talking era. It was people verbally fighting with each other all the time. It was diss tracks. It was like, that was the shit.

We're too goddamn lame now. We're just a lame people. Everybody's got to be friends with everybody. There's nothing wrong with people disliking other people and talking a little shit and having competition. I enjoy that, man. And I get it. It's not the way of the world now. I totally understand the way the world works now.

Like, it's not like that. But in that era, like, a little smut on TV was fine. Little Girls Gone Wild. You'd get your jollies just watching the Girls Gone Wild commercials at 2 in the morning. And, of course, every time the chick would flash her tits, there'd be, like, a little graphic over the tit that says, Too hot for TV. You'd be like, tough shit.

I want to watch this anyway. This is the most I can get this, the Sears catalog and a, and fuzzy Skinamax. Like that's what you would get. But like, I know I'm now I'm reminiscing and going down memory lane here. And this all started because I think the music of the nineties is for the most part, terrible, like sixties music. You had like, now I'm all over the place. Sorry. But like sixties, there was like a change. There was like a revolution in music. That was when you came out of the era of like the kind of rockabilly Elvis 50 shit and Bill Haley and his Comets and Buddy Holly,

and you got a new era, the Beatles. And that led to like the psychedelic Woodstock era of music and the Jimi Hendrix's and the Byrds and shit like that. Like something new and it was in the middle of time of upheaval and that's important like culturally there was upheaval kennedy is shot the other kennedy is shot mlk is shot uh uh malcolm x is shot so there were so many different things there was vietnam and that kind of led to a thing me i love the fucking 70s i love the soul music of the 70s i love the fucking disco of the 70s i love the fucking 70s. I love the soul music of the 70s. I love the fucking disco of the 70s.

I love the singer-songwriter shit of the 70s. Little Fire and Fucking Rain. A little Jim Croce. I love that shit. 80s, I love the glam and the excess. I love 80s R&B. I love Peebo Bryson and Jeffrey Osbourne. If ever you're in my arms again, this time I'll love you forever.

Like I love that shit. The other day I was sitting there, I don't know what made me think of this, but I started singing the song Shake You Down. Here in the night, oh I to shake you down And I'll give you all the loving you need And then I had to go through a step-by-step process to try to remember who sang the song. And when I do that, sometimes, and I don't know the answer to something, I'll just recite the ABCs, and then somehow it'll come to me.

So I was like, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Greg is the guy's name, Greg. I'm like, Greg what greg what and then I forgot that I always related him to greg abbott who is the roller governor of texas well roller governor is greg abbott this guy was gregory abbott no relation but like shake you down and like I love all then you get into like the the new jack swing Jack swing of like later new edition and Bobby Brown and all that shit. I love it. But like the 90s, I can't think of 90s music that I truly just look back on fondly and go, fuck, you know what?

I really love that 90s music. There's music I like. Like to me, my favorite era of 90s music or my favorite genre of 90s music was kind of like the pop rock of the 90s because like I talked about how weird radio was in the 90s for the music you played so you would get like you know um snoop and then right out of snoop you'd get like dishwalla right like a lot of these kind of pop rock bands many of whom only had had one hit, right? So you'd get like a Dishwalla. Their hit was called Counting Blue Cars. Tell me all your thoughts on God, because I'm on my way to see her. You'd get like bands like that. Then you'd get ones that like broke

out and had a couple of hits. That would be kind of like your, to me, actually, really one of the top five bands of the 1990s was the Gin Blossoms, who had four hit songs, and they all sounded like the same song, but they were fantastic, right? But you would also then move on to that, and you'd get bands that had more than just a couple of hit songs. You'd get like a Goo Goo Dolls, who are like a panzeer version of Matchbox 20, who is one of the greatest fucking bands of all time. And I say that because I'm a lame now nearing middle-aged white guy matchbox 20 fucks but if you go look at a lot of those those kind of acts of like 1995 to the end of that decade you got a lot of one and two hit wonder type bands uh that made really good like the um uh the uh the wallflowers the wallflowers only had like two hits, really one big hit.

And the song was called One Headlight. Good song, Jacob Dillon, all that. The other song they had that was a big song was called Sixth Avenue Heartache, which I think is a better song. I am a big Sixth Avenue Heartache guy. You got like lesbian rock of the 90s, right? Like that was the era of Lilith Fair. So you get a bunch of kind of one and two hit wonders. I was really into Fiona Apple in the 90s. I don't know why. Not musically, although criminal, solid song. But I loved how like cracked out and meth-y she looked in the criminal video

where she's rolling around in her underpants and looks like she weighs like 13 pounds. And I'm like, this is hot. Like, you know, like 11, 12 year old-old me is like, oh, yeah, this is what I'm here for. You do need a good defense because you are a criminal, you dirty skank. I liked it. And that's what I was into. So I would watch like Fiona Apple, Criminal. Then you would get like into your like real lesbo rock shit of like Jan Arden. Or you would get into your, who else?

Oh, like, oh, dude, let us not forget about the greatest of Melissa Etheridge. Little I'm the only one, little come to my window. Dude, come to my window is a banger, right? So you get like Lilith Fairrock. It was a very wild mix of music in that era. You get Sarah McLachlan. Hey, I do believe I found you. You get that? Oheryl crow like my god cheryl crow in the in the 90s and early 2000s when cheryl crow was banging kid rock she was peak fucking smoking

hot cheryl crow i caught you last night with your old friend it was the same old same where have you been? Since you've been gone, my world's been dark and gray. But she had some bangers, man. God. So all that to say, like, I started this by telling you how shitty 90s music was. And now I've, like, basically culminated by singing 30 90s songs that I think are great. Dude. And then in the 90s, you had this weird resurgence of dudes and chicks that were big hit singers of the 70s and 80s who had disappeared.

And then boom. It was wild that you'd be able to turn on top 40 radio. And you'd hear regulators. Like, all right, here's regulators on Z100. Mount up, right? And then out of that, you'd be like hearing, I don't know, Elton John in like Candle in the Wind or something about the way you look tonight, which also coincidentally fucking banger, right? But like that's how weird that era was. Like Cher's research and started in the 1990s with Believe.

She was the first person to ever use autotune. These are like, I don't know what to tell you. They're just fucking like, it was such a weird era of music. I'm trying to think of other people that kind of were, Phil Collins. Now, Phil Collins never went away, but Phil Collins was huge in the early 90s, man. Like, something happened on the way to heaven. We had a love, we had a love. Something happened on the way to heaven.

How many times can I say I'm sorry? So, Madonna kind of bounced. She never really went away, but Madonna bounced back in the 90s too. Like, oh, there were some solid jams from her. Remember Paula Abdul in the early 90s after she had that big album that had like straight up. I think the album was called Forever Your Girl. But like it had Forever Your Girl and straight up and opposites attract and all that good shit. She had another album that came out in the early 90s and there was a song called Rush Rush. Fuck, Keanu Reeves was in the video.

Fucking great. Maybe the 90s didn't suck as much as I think, but every song I heard when I was listening to the radio for that half hour was a shitty song. So I'm like, maybe the 90s sucked. Come to think of it, upon further review, maybe the 90s didn't suck as much. I don't know. I have no idea how this became a 20 minute discussion about the history of music and 90s music and me just really just showing you my vast musical knowledge, which should impress all of you. And now you've learned a little bit today. We'll get into some other stuff.