For Example, here is how the 90's kicked off. (Off-Topic)

by Earendil, Thursday, March 19, 2015, 18:03 (3540 days ago) @ Claude Errera

That's really interesting - because for me, those are epitomes of 90s music. :)

Rarely do we mean "music created in the 1980's" when we say "80's music".

Heh... disagree. (I know I said I understood what Dr. B said... but understanding and agreeing are different. For me, music has always been rooted in chronological time; when I hear a song, one of the first pieces of information that comes to mind is "where I was when I first heard this" - and that is almost ALWAYS linked to a specific place/time. It's a skill (? maybe trait?)

That only works if
1. You lived through the entire decade in question.
2. You listened to the song/artist in question.

If either one of those isn't true, than you are left without a personal memory association, and are simply left with the sound of the music, and how music sounds is what really defines a genera. "80's music" may not be a widely recognized genera, or even one that has some of the most clear boundries, but I was talking about how music sounds.

For me personally, I wasn't recording too many memories in the 80s, and wasn't alive at the beginning of it, so most of my hardcore memories of music come from the 90s. To me, MC Hammer sounds nothing like "80's music", if only because it doesn't sound like 90's music.

But I'll be the first to admit that what we're talking about are the "sounds of the decade", which is really just a theme that a lot of popular music adopted. The themes that are adopted may or may not last 10 years, and they certainly aren't adopted by all bands at the same time, right on the turn of the decade. This is why, to me, MC Hammer sounds like 80s, because the last of that artists music stemmed from 80's themes, while a band like Nirvana were among those that were creating themes that would be adopted in the 90s. Nirvana to me "sounds" more modern than they really are, only because their sound is associated with a decade of music that came after them.

And of course, some bands can get associated with a decade not because of how they sound, but because of how they looked. See Big Hair Bands (hair/glam rock) as an example. They certainly wouldn't be confused with 80's folk, but I also couldn't mistake a concert of theirs for being 90's :)

Sorry if I went too academic/philosophic when we really just wanted to reminisce :)

As an aside, I spent a months in Guatemala in the late 90s, right before the country really hit the shitter. Sadly, I don't think I'd go back there today as I don't have enough contacts to feel safe :(