Tag / 1990s music

by Lexine

Strike A Pose For June

Madonna, photographed by Herb Ritts for Interview magazine, June 1990

Once upon a time, magazine covers featured celebrities with some actual talent and substance, and everyone and their grandparents knew who they were. Some celebs got bold in their portraits, and no one took more brazen pics than Madonna herself. This could very well be my favorite mag cover of hers. It just POPS. You don’t get more in-your-face than grabbing your crotch. That a female celeb did *that* made it more ballsy; I bet the incels and prudes in 1990 sent hate mail to Interview then. I can’t imagine what the reaction would be if, say, Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter struck the same pose on a mag cover these days. Although it would be pretty cool if either of them did that.

The editorial and her interview is also worth a look! 

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #33

90s Dance/House Megamixes! It’s Saturday night, so let’s party.

I touched on this in an old entry, and if you’re wondering why I’d rather rave at home instead of a club these days, it’s because of these hours-long mixes of 90s dance/house/rave music. There’s something to that era of dance music (mid-late 90s) that always hooks me in. It’s probably because when that music was happening, life seemed to be more socio-politically sane. The Gen Xers that were partying to all that were partying–no cell phones, no social media, and no taking selfies of yourself every other minute (because cameras were bulky back then). There was also no pandemic and the fashions from that time were lit. I was born a decade late to experience all that in real time (I was a preteen/teen when those mixes played in the clubs), so if you see rave lights coming from my studio apartment on a Saturday night, that’s just me clumsily raving like an X-er to one of those fun megamixes.

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #37

1980s/90s R&B and Rap!

What a time to have been alive for this golden era of R&B and rap. If you remember watching MTV Jams, Yo MTV Raps, or/and BET’s Video Vibrations, you know! The beats were beating, the vocals were vocaling, and the remixes remixed (especially Mariah’s remixes). Almost every hot artist then had either a gold single or platinum album (what streams?), bridges were present, and the top hits were over three minutes, TikTok be damned.

(By the way, I’m very aware that the era also had its problematic figures. *cough*RKelly*cough*Diddy*cough* I’ll replace any of the vids above if I find any bad tea on the artists featured.)