Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.12.2011, Page 26

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2011
Some decades arrive late, in a pop
cultural sense at least. The ‘50s
started in 1955 with the simulta-
neous advent of james dean and
rock’n’roll. The ‘60s came swing-
ing in britain with the beatles first
album in 1963, a year later in the
States. As if to compensate, they
spilled over well into the ‘70s which
first found its own voice in the hey-
day of disco and punk. In Iceland,
things happen even later. Arguably,
the ‘60s here didn’t really get going
until the ‘70s and 1980 was the year
that punk broke.
The 1990s, however, arrived just on
time. And why not? It was the decade
that brought the global infiltration of
the internet and the low-cost airline.
Admittedly, these things only really got
going later in the decade, but in a musi-
cal sense the ‘90s took off in 1991.
R.b.I. (ROCK bEFORE IRONy)
The year saw a slew of albums that
were to dominate the first half of the
decade and which remain among its
best. The most eagerly awaited albums
were by Guns’n’Roses, which the band
spent the next three years touring be-
fore imploding. The ‘Use Your Illusion’
albums were probably popular music’s
last attempt to rock out without any
sense of irony attached. Bare-chested
gentlemen in snakeskin boots and very
tight leather trousers (ok, stretchy bike-
pants by this stage) may have become
easy targets for ridicule just a few years
later, but the albums still, well, rock.
Metallica’s ‘black album’ was pop-
pier than their previous outings, and
reached a much larger audience. Die-
hard fans may have felt betrayed, but
the album still, for the lack of a better
word, rocked. The band’s ability to stick
together, even allowing the drummer to
have his say (if not necessarily the bass
player) later led to them sailing past Axl
and co. (ok, just Axl by then) in the su-
pergroup sweepstakes.
FROM bARE CHESTS TO FULL
NUdITy
In 1991 too, three young men from
Seattle made themselves known to
the world at large and bare chests,
whether adjoined to leather trousers
or stretchy pants, would not be as ac-
ceptable again for a long time. Instead,
torn jeans (if sometimes designer-
made) and lumberjack shirts became
the order of the day. Mickey Rourke’s
character in the movie The Wrestler
later laments this moment as the end of
the glory days of longhaired beefcakes.
Be that as it may, ‘Nevermind’ remains,
along with Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer,’
perhaps the most seminal album of the
‘90s. To say that it simply rocked would
not do it justice.
Radiohead were themselves signing
their first record contract before years’
end, but the single ‘Creep’ would not
emerge until 1992.
Nirvana may have put bare-chested
men temporarily out of business, but
the Red Hot Chili Peppers were not
afraid to bare all. They also had other
attributes.
‘BloodSugarSexMagic’ rocked, but
being somewhat more funky managed
to be more contemporary than the
Gunners who seemingly neither knew
nor cared that the ‘70s were long over.
ROCK VS. POP, AGAIN
It can, in fact, be amusing to muse over
how teenage influences manifest them-
selves a decade or so later. Axl Rose
was entering his teens in 1975, when
stadium rock was at its apogee. Kurt
Cobain was 13 in 1980, when punk was
the cool thing to be. In 1991, these two
worlds would clash again, more or less
with the same results.
Around this time, the music itself
was undergoing one of its periodic
re-brandings. In the ‘50s it was known
as rock’n’roll, in the ‘70s the moniker
was shortened to just rock, but by the
1990s, guitar driven bands now became
known as “alternative.”
One established guitar band that
tried hard to be accepted as alterna-
tive in 1991 was U2, who made their last
truly great album with ‘Achtung Baby.’
They sampled some of the dance ori-
ented music that most other old-style
rock groups saw as threatening to their
existence, in much the same way that
the Rolling Stones incorporated disco
and punk on their last great album,
‘Some Girls.’ Massive Attack, however,
were the real deal and emerged with
their debut album ‘Blue Lines,’ which
would lead the way to their later mas-
terpieces, ‘Protection’ and ‘Mezzanine.’
WHATEVER HAPPENEd TO
HIP-HOP?
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
In 1991, when rock was becoming alter-
native, one is tempted to ask: Alterna-
tive to what?
Pop music continued the decline
that had started in the late 80s. Before
the Beatles (who were both rock and
pop), most pop bands were disposable
product controlled by their producers,
record companies and/or managers.
Lennon and McCartney, seizing con-
trol and writing their own material,
changed all that, but Stock/Aitken/Wa-
terman took the power back (away from
the artists) by writing and producing
forgettable ditties for interchangeable
teen heartthrobs. Pop music has never
really recovered.
Before the days of gangsta and
macho posturing that made even the
headbangers look meek, rap was the
most dynamic new kid on the block.
Its golden age was coming to an end
in 1991, but still had a few punches
left. One its foremost exponents, NWA,
released their last album ‘Efil4zag-
gin’ (Niggaz4Life). The album took
pot shots at former member Ice Cube,
while Cube shot back on his ‘Death
Certificate’ album. Cubes’ near name-
sake, Ice-T, scored a career highlight
with the album ‘O.G: Original Gangster’
and toured with rock band Body Count
which was to make one of the most
hilarious albums of 1992. It’s hard to
remember that before their movie ca-
reers, Ices Cube and T were the kings
of cool.
The greatest hip-hop band of them
all, Public Enemy, crossed over into
rock with thrash metal band Anthrax
guesting on ‘Bring the Noise’ on the
album ‘Apocalypse 91...The Enemy
Strikes Black.’ At the time, it sounded
like it might open up new and exciting
directions for both art forms. No one
could have predicted Limp Bizkit.
Meanwhile, with rap fully entering
and even taking over the mainstream,
A Tribe Called Quest were making their
own form of alternative rap with ‘The
Low-End Theory,’ reflecting the divi-
sions which had already taken place in
other genres.
THE ENd OF ISOLATION
In 1991, Iceland was still largely outside
the musical mainstream. No Icelandic
Music | Hindsight
It Was Twenty years Ago Today:
1991 And The year The ‘90s broke
Do y'all miss the '90s and all its wonderful go-getty upbeatness? Weren't we
about to eliminate world poverty and conquer global warming and sexism?
Also, almost all food had sun-dried tomatoes in it. Yum!
Available
in English,
Chinese
and Japanese
Iceland’s dramatic landscape clad in a veil of mystery.
The forces of nature, silenced in the moment as the
artist, Kristján Ingi, captures the roar of the
waterfall and the desolate highlands
clad in ash gray fog.
Iceland’s Veil
of Mystery!
www.salka.is
Eyrarbraut 3, 825 Stokkseyri, Iceland · Tel. +354 483 1550
Fax. +354 483 1545 · info@fjorubordid.is · www.fjorubordid.is
At the Restaurant Fjöruborðið in Stokkseyri
> Only 45 minutes drive from Reykjavík
By the
sea and
lobster
a delicios
Words
Valur Gunnarsson
Photos
Gúndi and Skari