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The 90's and 2000's were VERY different and the original poster was dead wrong on several main points.
First, Grunge music does not exist anymore. It was invented in the late 80's by bands like REM, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam, and was most popular from 1991 to 1997. After '97, Grunge largely faded and ceased to exist at all by 2000. Very few of the original Grunge bands are still around. Nirvana, Sublime, Soundgarten, Alice in Chains, Pantera, STP, Chili Peppers, Oasis, etc have all broken up, died, or retired. Green Day may be a rare exception, but I don't hear any of their music in top 100 charts anymore.
Second, Hip Hop was NOT popular during most of the 90's. Only in the very early 90's from '90 to '91 or so. By 1992, we had Gangsta Rap music dominating MTV. This would include artists such as Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dog, Ice Cube, Notorious B.I.G., and Tupac. Gangsta Rap is very different than Hip Hop. Gangsta Rap is about 187's on cops, ridin around your hood in a '64 Impala on 20 inch rims, and carrying a loaded pistol. Hip Hop is mostly about "The Club", spraying bottles of champaign on women, driving Mercedes Benz's, and wearing fancy jewelry and Italian suits. Gangsta Rap was most popular from 1992-1998, then faded out. By 2000, Hip Hop made a comeback.
Other huge differences between the 90's and 2000's is politics, the economy, 9/11, and the general attitudes of people. Cell phones also were a revolution around 2001 or so. While cell phones had been invented long before, it was around the year 2001 that it hit critical mass and everybody began having cell phones.
I like Grunge Pop, but your post has me thinking. Do I like it because it is good, or simply because it was popular when I was a teenager?
A young person's first 20 years are always the most memorable. Everything is new all the time. But after 20, one year becomes more like the last, and as a person grows older this sameness becomes stronger.
I think that the events of 9/11 and it's aftermath put the country in a weird time warp where most things just froze in place until the 2000's were almost over. Then, around 2009, it was as if the country was snapped suddenly into the 21st century, a decade late.
The 90's had very similar wars. In 1991, we went into Iraq for the first time. It took longer to organize and go in than it took to win that war, and I tend to think that Americans expected Afghanistan to be similar when we went after Al quida there in 2002. And then we invaded Iraq a second time. Both of those wars lasted years and years, not weeks as most of the adults thought they would in 2002. Now, over 10 years later, we are still trying to exit Afghanistan.
More than any other events, I believe this is what kept us frozen for so long in the time warp. We went into those wars very much the same as a decade before- same weaponry, technology, and attitudes as the first go-round. Neither was the war we thought we'd fight, and both were huge distractions that kept all our attention on them.
I remember the same time warp happening in the 60's. Viet Nam was a similar war, but we drifted in and drifted out of that one. The time warp didn't happen until mid-1970's, as we were pulling out of Nam. Back then, it didn't last as long; by 1980, America had an entirely new set of problems and change started happening quickly for the next decade that followed.
A young person's first 20 years are always the most memorable. Everything is new all the time. But after 20, one year becomes more like the last, and as a person grows older this sameness becomes stronger.
I think that the events of 9/11 and it's aftermath put the country in a weird time warp where most things just froze in place until the 2000's were almost over. Then, around 2009, it was as if the country was snapped suddenly into the 21st century, a decade late.
The 90's had very similar wars. In 1991, we went into Iraq for the first time. It took longer to organize and go in than it took to win that war, and I tend to think that Americans expected Afghanistan to be similar when we went after Al quida there in 2002. And then we invaded Iraq a second time. Both of those wars lasted years and years, not weeks as most of the adults thought they would in 2002. Now, over 10 years later, we are still trying to exit Afghanistan.
More than any other events, I believe this is what kept us frozen for so long in the time warp. We went into those wars very much the same as a decade before- same weaponry, technology, and attitudes as the first go-round. Neither was the war we thought we'd fight, and both were huge distractions that kept all our attention on them.
I remember the same time warp happening in the 60's. Viet Nam was a similar war, but we drifted in and drifted out of that one. The time warp didn't happen until mid-1970's, as we were pulling out of Nam. Back then, it didn't last as long; by 1980, America had an entirely new set of problems and change started happening quickly for the next decade that followed.
You are missing a key difference when comparing the Gulf War of 1991 to the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the first Gulf War we did not invade or occupy Iraq. We simply drove the Iraqi army back out of Kuwait. Once that happened, the war was over. The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are occupations where we are attempting to rebuild their nations from inside out. The primary combat phase of these wars was also very brief; we defeated Iraq pretty swiftly during the first few weeks of the war. The reason why we're bogged down for over a decade is because we're intent on staying there and hunting down every last cockroach insurgent. Had we just gotten out after the initial few weeks of the war, and left the Iraqi's to rebuild their own country, the war would have been a spectacular success and we wouldn't be sitting here complaining 12 years later about how we're in 10 trillion dollars of debt.
In Vietnam, we had similar issues, but our biggest flaw was we couldn't invade other countries surrounding Vietnam. This allowed the Vietcong to hide in Cambodia in relative safety and launch frequent attacks against Vietnam.
The 90's and 2000's were VERY different and the original poster was dead wrong on several main points.
First, Grunge music does not exist anymore. It was invented in the late 80's by bands like REM, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam, and was most popular from 1991 to 1997. After '97, Grunge largely faded and ceased to exist at all by 2000. Very few of the original Grunge bands are still around. Nirvana, Sublime, Soundgarten, Alice in Chains, Pantera, STP, Chili Peppers, Oasis, etc have all broken up, died, or retired. Green Day may be a rare exception but I don't hear any of their music in top 100 charts anymore.
Alice In Chains released two albums in the last five years (one in 2009, one in 2013) with the latter reaching #2 on the Billboard Albums Chart
Soundgarden released an album (that one in 2012) that went to #5 on the Billboard Albums Chart.
To answer the question, the 1990s and 2000s are NOT "equal" or even as similar as some may suggest.
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