In the past several years, it’s become more and more common to “celebrate” (or mourn) the passing of milestone anniversaries for films and albums. This year, the sudden trend has evolved into also taking note of which songs were released, specifically, twenty-five years ago. A.k.a. singles that came out in 1998. Some of the more pronounced callouts in media have been Madonna’s “Ray of Light,” Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time,” Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing),” Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine,” Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody?,” Cher’s “Believe,” Christina Aguilera’s “Reflection” and Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic.”
In 1998’s defense, of course, it was a particularly momentous year for music. And, as usual, it has to be said, Madonna was the one to set the tone for mainstreaming the genre of the moment—electronica—by releasing Ray of Light in March. Cher would follow auditory suit (likely to Madonna’s eye roll) in October of that year with the release of “Believe” and the album of the same name. Where Madonna stopped at suffusing her music with William Orbit-helmed electronica sounds, Cher pushed further by being among the first to incorporate Auto-Tune in a manner antithetical to its original purpose (which was to disguise being off-key). With her unapologetically warped voice singing the “I Will Survive” of the 90s, Cher rang in a new era of musical manipulation.
Elsewhere, Brandy and Monica relied on the tried-and-true duet method for their chart success (as did Mariah and Whitney with The Prince of Egypt’s “When You Believe,” for that matter—it was an animated movie soundtrack kind of year, what with Xtina’s “Reflection” being from the Mulan Soundtrack, to boot). But perhaps what stood out more than anything about “The Boy Is Mine” was its totally implausible video, wherein we’re supposed to believe The Boy (Mekhi Phifer) was able to carry off the logistical nightmare of fucking two women who lived next door to each other in the same building.
“…Baby One More Time,” needless to say, stood out for its sound and visual, with Britney notoriously catering to every man’s Nabokovian fetish for schoolgirls by dressing in a Catholic school uniform throughout most of the Nigel Dick-directed video. It was this moment in pop culture history that perhaps signaled the biggest sea change of all from one decade into another. For, although Britney burst onto the scene (and caused men’s pants to burst in so doing) in the 90s, she was a decidedly 00s pop star. The leading example of what that entailed sonically and visually, with the likes of Jessica Simpson, Willa Ford, Mandy Moore, Hilary Duff and, later, even Taylor Swift emulating what Britney had perfected. That is to say, being a “pop tart.” Prancing around in sequined leotards with fishnets and singing “subtly” about sex. Because, in 1998, the United States was still in love with the idea of losing more of its innocence, a desire immediately established in January of that year, when the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke. For not since “Dick” Nixon had the nation been forced to see how little trust they should place in the “highest office in the world.” And all because, like most men, he couldn’t resist a blow J.
So as America continued to deflower itself in a post-internet existence that was further punctuated by the release of The Matrix in 1999, the music and the videos that came with it seemed to reflect this period in American pop culture history more than any other. Even Next’s “Too Close” was a 1998 hit that talked exclusively about a man’s issues with concealing his boner because a woman dared to get “too close” to him. Therefore, “asking for it,” etc. (or, “You know I can’t help it,” as Next insists). This prompting Vee of Koffee Brown to demand, “Step back, you’re dancin’ kinda close/I feel a little poke comin’ through on you.” It’s a song that encapsulates many a junior high dance of the day, when “freaking” was all the rage among the preadolescent set.
As mentioned, more than the songs that were about sexual awakenings/yearnings, the music of 1998 was dead-set on innovating. This included the aforementioned “Are You That Somebody?” and “Intergalactic,” as well as Fatboy Slim’s “The Rockafeller Skank,” all awash in sounds that would become a retrospective “time stamp” for the era. In general, that’s part of the reason why many people so love to mark time through pop culture. More than one’s own personal life (with memories triggered by certain songs), it is far likelier to offer a historical snapshot of a particular epoch lost to the quicksand of minutes and then years and then decades. The obsession to mark time as a whole, however, stems not from nostalgia, so much as being part of a capitalistic society in which time is literally money.
If you look up, “Why do people keep track of time passing?” one of the top answers is extremely telling: “Time tracking is key to understanding how you spend your time, personally and in business. It is key to productivity, insight and a healthy workflow. This is equally important to everybody in an organization, or society.” In other words, if you aren’t productive within the capitalistic machine (complete with the purchasing power to support entertainment industries), then what good are you? Do you even exist? That pop culture is also a buttress for capitalism, thus, makes it inextricably linked to that system. Further solidified by how these anniversaries of album and song releases can provide the catalyst for re-releases that will prompt fans and even casual listeners alike to buy the same product again, whether digitally or as a result of being enticed by some “collector’s edition”-type presentation.
Underlying capitalistic-driven motivations aside, maybe the reason why some are especially gung-ho about marking the passage of time this year by looking back on 1998 in music is because it was arguably the last time a pioneering shift occurred in said medium. With the dawning of the 2000s, hauntology would come to dominate the musical landscape more than anywhere else, complete with musicians like Amy Winehouse and Arctic Monkeys sounding as though they were pulled straight out of the 1960s rather than the twenty-first century. The same could also later be said of such acts as The Raveonettes, Duffy, Adele and Lana Del Rey.
And when next year rolls around to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of songs that include Smash Mouth’s “All Star,” Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” Bloodhound Gang’s “The Bad Touch,” Sugar Ray’s “Every Morning” and Crazy Town’s “Butterfly,” we’ll perhaps more fully understand the pinpointable instant when things started to take a dive (compounded by 1999 also being the year Napster was launched).
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