Millennials Grew Up on Boybands, Rap Gods, and Rock Stars

Every decade is known for its sound and style. The '80s gave us synthetic percussion, followed by an introduction to hip-hop and turntables. In the early '90s grunge took over, making Kurt Cobain a household name. By the mid-'90s rap stormed the airwaves, replacing the dedicated electric guitar sounds of Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers with MC-ing and lyrical rhyming from Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G.

As a Millennial, I was fortunate enough to live through grunge and hip hop, but that was only the beginning of the expansion to my music-loving brain. The late '90s and early 2000s overloaded us musically in a way we never saw coming. The music that had been gifted to us came from multiple genres. It was an overload of combinations, and fushions that then went on to create new genres of music. I'm going to take you on the insanely diverse journey of the music that we were blessed with.

Boybands and Puberty

In 1998 the ultimate phenomena began with pop music exploding through our TVs and speakers. My 12-year-old self was going through some real hardships like middle school and learning that boys weren't so gross after all. This new interest in the opposite sex is where it all started for me. Enter the rising star of the boybands. Backstreet Boys, Hanson, 98 Degrees, and *NSYNC came at us full speed. They seduced us with their perfectly choreographed dance moves and upbeat pop sounds. It also helped that the majority of them were easy on the eyes. Boybands filled our heads and hearts with unforgettable ballads and dance songs. Bubblegum pop as it was called took over all our senses with those sticky sweet lyrics.

There I was 12 and minding my own business when the music video for Tearin' Up My Heart came on my TV. A young 15-year-old Justin Timberlake in a white tank top, as he posed on a single bed, immediately turned something on in me that I hadn't realized existed. As he sang those lyrics "let it go if you want me girl let me know." I immediately found myself nodding and whispering 'yes'. From that moment on there was no escaping the boyband hysteria as it surged through all our teenage hearts. These songs burned into our memories and the dance moves became our second nature. It's because of this time in our lives that we can't get through the chorus of Bye Bye Bye without doing the choreography to it. Like I said these things are forever engraved in our brains.

Pop Princesses Take Over

On the heels of the boyband craze came female pop world royalty. Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, and Jessica Simpson annihilated the music charts. If the boybands were dancing hard then the women of pop music were dancing harder and in platform shoes too. Their suggestive and sexy songs made us embrace our sexuality as teenage girls. They were our new role models whether they intended to be or not. Christina slayed all day with her vocal power, and Britney inspired us to wear knee-high socks and pigtails while we sang into our hairbrushes.

It’s nearly impossible to say the word ‘oops’ without adding an ‘I did it again’. The hit songs that these ladies put out became our anthem’s and feel-good jams. Blasting their CDs while we got dressed for a school dance or begging our mom to turn the radio up as we heard that familiar opening of Mandy Moore’s Candy, are still actions we take today. Playing Genie in a Bottle while I get ready for work is a mood booster, and if my girl Britney isn’t getting me through some bad rush hour traffic then I’m definitely setting myself up for a bad day.

Destiny Meets New Hip Hop, and Limp Bizkits?

As the '90s came to an end we entered a new millennium. Will Smith set the tone for us with the song Will 2K. “What’s gonna happen? Don’t nobody know. We’ll see when the clock gets to 12-0-0. Chaos, the cops gonna block the street, man who the hell cares just don’t stop the beat.” The clock struck 12, surprise! No black out! We survived the transition into Y2K and the music industry continued to feed us from their buffet. We needed it after the paranoia that came with entering the year 2000. The internet didn’t collapse, but something else did happen. Music began to change again.

Even though pop was still dominating, the early 2000s brought us some intense new sounds. Eminem showed us that we didn’t always have to play by the rules and introduced us to the Real Slim Shady. Linkin Park brought out an inner rocker we didn’t know we even had inside of us, while Jay-Z, Ludacris, Nelly and 50 Cent put our newly entering high school selves through the wringer with all their catchy hip hop classics. This was when the confusion started to seep in for us. The boybands were still on our walls, and Britney was still our girl, but Ashanti and Destinys Child brought a fusion of pop and R&B music that was impossible for us not to like.

Eminem and Jay-Z took on these fusions, mixing pop with hip hop became a trend that led to Jay-Z and Link Park gifting us with the genius combination of Numb/Encore. A perfect mix of rock and hip hop living in harmony through our stereos and headphones. The songs that hit the TRL top 10 was a mixed bag of pop, rock, hip hop and R&B. Even Carson Daly couldn’t predict who would take the number one spot of the day. It was Christina Aguilera one day and Limp Bizkit or Korn the next day. The countdown changed just as quickly as we did, ditching our pig tails and knee socks for low rise jeans and tube tops.

The Death of a Boyband Brings a Rise in Rock Bands

I won’t even go into the devastation I felt when *NSYNC went on hiatus. It was the beginning of the end for the boybands as the 2000s began to shift the needle in the music world again. We were graduating high school soon and maturing more as we began to prepare for our futures. Some of us barely noticed as the boyband era slowly faded into the background, and the rise in alternative rock started to take over. Pop was finally taking a back seat, while rock and hip hop/R&B continued to thrive. We rocked out to Papa Roach, Staind, and 3 Doors Down by day, then got our groove on to Usher, Missy Elliot, and Outkast at night. Britney and Christina hung on by threads, while Pink found her sound in the middle of pop and rock. The fusions of genres didn’t slow down as they continued to give us pop mixed with R&B, and rock.

The constant combos sent us so many endorphins that we didn’t care if all the genres were bleeding into one another. They were mixing together and making some pretty amazing song babies. It was like caterpillars becoming butterflies. Speaking of butterflies, the time had come to take those clips out of our hair too. A whole other fusion of music was about to break out thanks to All the Small Things, and a Sk8ter Boi. I would also like to give thanks to Stacy’s Mom, without her the pop punk take over could never have been complete.

Skinny Jeans, MySpace, and Electric Guitars

When we moved into this new genre of punk pop music, the remnants of bubble gum pop died out, while only the strong continued to survive in the revolutionary change that was taking over. Gone were the boybands, for now, making way for the boys in bands. Good Charlotte, The Killers, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, and Panic! At the Disco showed us the familiarity of upbeat catchy pop sounds with a bit of grit and dirt to them. We flooded our MySpace pages with emo rock songs by bands that made us want to wear studded belts to the side, and jeans so tight they cut off a bit of circulation. Though we considered Britney and Beyonce royalty, we grew a respect for Avril and Hayley from Paramore. Two women who weren’t afraid to be different and not fit the typical mold the Princesses of Pop had laid out for them. Why wear stilettos when you could be sexy in Converse?

Fresh out of high school and finally making our way into the world on our own, we held onto the comfort of pop and R&B, while exploring new and exciting songs about somebody’s boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend? The guys in these bands were a nice reminder of the boybands we grew up with, except these guys weren’t all in matching outfits with perfectly frosted tips. They were different, exciting, and bad. Our parents wouldn’t approve of us dating them, but that’s what made them even more appealing. They played instruments and blew out speakers while we danced at house parties, solo cups in hand, filled to the brim with Jungle Juice. They gave us anthem’s about rebellion, and rebel we did. In the words of the famous lyricist Pete Wentz, we 'sang until our lungs gave out.' Our beloved boybands hand abandoned us, and the punk pop bands scooped us up and made us feel less alone in a forever changing world of music.

Diversity Becomes Us

Making playlists on Spotify with a theme or specific genre of music is difficult for a Millennial like me. I create a melting pot of all the genres that I lived through. One minute I’m deep in my feels with a ballad by the Backstreet Boys promising to never break my heart, then the next thing I know 50 Cent is welcoming me to the candy shop. The constant switching between genres in my playlists drives my Gen-Z daughter a little insane, but sadly she does not know the power of a homemade mixed CD. I would like to hold the entire music industry responsible for some of my flaws when it comes to decision making. Just when we thought we found a genre that defined us, they went in and changed it into a hybrid of some sort.

Music is always transforming and evolving, but its impact continues to be life changing. I am who I am today because of the songs and artists that became the soundtrack to the most important times in my teenage existence. I grew up on pop, hip hop/R&B, rock, and even some country that I didn’t get a chance to mention, but yes country music and pop music had a baby as well. That’s another story though!

To wrap this all up, I realize I missed a TON of amazing artists and bands. (Don’t come for me!) Classics like Shaggy, Black Eyed Peas, Lou Bega, of course the king of all pop Michael Jackson, and many many more. I’ll make it up to you by linking you to some playlists by Throwback Tracks where you can live in complete nostalgia like I do, and relive every good, bad, and embarrassing moment that these songs trigger for you. Enjoy!