Book Review: Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation? by Steven Hyden

I'm beginning to believe that Generation X is really the worst generation of all.

Let me explain.

It's been sticking in my craw since reading Chuck Klosterman's surprisingly downbeat The Nineties, which posited that the rebelliousness and self-righteousness of the paramount Gen X decade played a large role in the way society changed after 9/11. In thinking about 90s music and culture (because out of any art form, the 90s were about music), I realized that Millennials and Gen Zs are correct in the aspersions they cast on us...technically.

See, 90s alternative music and rap was a direct reaction to the Reagan 80s, where everything was smiley and happy and sussudio, and anything that would upset the apple cart was shuttled off to the side. So it was like a lightening bolt to turn on MTV in 1991 and see a video from Nirvana indicating that all wasn't right in the world - and a thunderclap to find out everyone at school was impacted the same way. From grunge to gangster rap up through Britpop and electronica - recognizing the limits of society and self became an obsession.

But without the context of the Reagan 80s? To Millenials and Gen Zs, we're just a bunch of folks wearing backwards baseball caps, thinking EVERYTHING SUCKS AND I'M DEPRESSED, and self-destructing on a regular basis. And they're not wrong...from a certain point of view.

So I was interested in seeing how Steven Hyden's Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation? would impact my thinking. This book is a collection originally written as a series for The AV Club where he writes one essay per year focusing on pivotal artists/events (but jumping around as needed).

So how did it compare to my thinking? His 1990 essay is about Nirvana. And 1999 is about Woodstock 99.

Hyden is one of the only music critics I read (shoutout to Rob Sheffield), not only because he's a fellow Gen Xer and was influenced by much of the same music that I was, but also he is adept at writing in a way that makes the songs and experiences come alive and, more than anything, sound fun. I don't agree with everything he writes (I definitely think he's too dismissive of Stone Temple Pilots - they really became more than Pearl Jam knockoffs - and I think he overstates the impact of Napster), but his analysis of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and Oasis was spot-on. He also makes points I never thought about even having lived through the era. His 1991 essay on Guns N Roses highlighted how the very act of putting out both Use Your Illusion albums on the same day started the path to the band's own self-destruction (he also brings up the Axl/Kurt confrontation backstage at the VMAs - I really hope Hyden gets to write his book about the history of the VMAs one day!).

And the essays bring you through the early 90s, when recognizing and accepting weaknesses were mainstream, to the late 90s, when weak behavior was encouraged through popular bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit, culminating in the violence and destruction at the biggest concert of the late 90s.

Overall this is a worthwhile book - I'd give it eight out of ten hot dogs. But I wish it helped me feel better about my generation.