We just launched our new Friday music theme! The Nuclear 90’s were a decade of two US presidents, a dot com explosion and fall-out, a Desert Storm, and some incredible music! The Nuclear 90’s were a lifestyle of 20-year old millionaires and some great prosperity through something called New Media, or the Internet. As the last decade of the 20th Century, the Nuclear 90’s ushered us into a postmodern society lush with opportunity and promise.
The Nuclear 90’s were also riddled with many wars and conflicts across the globe. Starting with the Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq attacked Kuwait. During the 90’s through 2003, Iraq was cut off from most of the world. Other wars happened in Chechnya, the Yugoslav regions, and Kosovo. 1994 brought the Rwandan Genocide.
Stateside, we had the LA Riots in 1992 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. We also saw David Koresh’s Branch Davidian standoff and siege in Waco, TX in Spring of 1993.
Technology boomed in the Nuclear 90’s! Apple launched the iMac. Intel released the first Pentium processor. The first CD-RW drives are introduced. In 1991, the first public release of a plan to create a World Wide Web was announced. Pagers are popular at first and cell phones explode into the market. Microsoft acquires Hotmail and releases Windows 95 and later, Windows 98 to enormous response and success. Mac OS X is released soon before the Y2K scare puts the entire world on alert of a technological crash. In the UK, Dolly the sheep became the world’s first cloned animal. We saw the launch in 1990 of the Hubble space telescope which has enabled us to photograph far distant objects in space. The GPS system was also brought to the public for navigation and location use. The Nuclear 90’s were an incredible decade!
President George Herbert Walker Bush took office as the 41st US President in 1989 after serving as Ronald Reagan’s Vice President from 1981 to 1989. He was party to the fall of the Berlin Wall and of the Soviet Union. He had a record high approval rating of 89% until his promise of “no new taxes” had to be broken due to economic recession. He would never regain his high ratings and was defeated in 1992 by Bill Clinton.
President William Jefferson Clinton took office in 1992 as the 42nd US President. He saw the end of the Cold War during his first term and due to the US having the longest period of peacetime economic expansion, he was re-elected for a second term. His presidency wasn’t perfect. You may recall one Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. He was impeached for perjury and was later acquitted by the Senate.
Musically, the US saw a big shift from guitar-driven rock into a more rhythmic or dance-oriented style. We saw the Seattle music scene, or Grunge, start to wildly expand into contemporary music. We saw the continuation of teen-pop with boy and girl bands gain huge popularity. Hip Hop, Rap and R&B surged with huge hits and a lot of radio support. MTV had pretty much gone away from music by the Nuclear 90’s and music videos declined in importance. We also saw a massive uprising in the acceptance and availability of Country music.
We wanted to capture the feel of the decade with a musical portrait that envelopes all things that the Nuclear 90’s gave us. Each Friday you’ll hear the biggest radio hits of the 90’s! From Vanilla Ice and Backstreet Boys to Britney Spears to Natalie Imbruglia to Metallica to Boyz II Men to Warrant to Phil Collins to Candyman to Alice in Chains and on and on and on. We will also be able to guarantee a huge variety as we will not repeat any songs for the entire day.
The Nuclear 90’s were a decade of transition. Politically and musically, we were shaking off the dust of the 80’s and preparing for the new enterprise of mass technology of the next millennium. We hope we help you remember those great years by sending your minds backwards to the Nuclear 90’s!
-Timmy
