Wednesday, April 4, 2007

I Love the 90s--Birthday Edition

Birthday before last, my friends threw me an 80s-themed birthday party. It was a blast. They put together an 80s trivia game (complete with quick-recall buzzers!), hours and hours of 80s tunes, and a basket full of fad items from the decade that brought us jelly bracelets and the Rubic's Cube. It was so much fun that I brought up the possibility of another 80s party sometime soon with that same group of friends. Not for a birthday, mind you; just for a night of nostalgia and fun music (we couldn't party long enough to get through all the music my librarian friend burned for us.)

But then my husband had to get snarky. See, I am a devoted fan of Entertainment Weekly's columnist and blogger Whitney Pastorek and her Chart Flashbacks (see the most recent entry here.) In one of her Chart Flashbacks, she discusses how hard it has been to find "good" songs in the charts she has picked from the 1990s. Her Flashback from 1984, however, contains so many gems that it's a little awe-inspiring. This got us talking one night--which decade had the best music? I am firmly on the side of the 80s, at least as far as music that cracked the Billboard charts and got airplay on the radio. Jason strongly disagrees. He doesn't have particularly nice things to say about 80s music.

So, in honor of his affection for 90s music (and perhaps, too, to remind him of all the Spice Girls/Macarena/Backstreet Boys/I'm Too Sexy crap that topped the charts in that decade and how inferior I feel that garbage is to my beloved 80s pop) I want to have a little birthday party for him with a 90s theme. But since I spent most of the 90s on college campuses living on student loan money and watching Army of Darkness and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. in an obsessive thirst for all things Bruce Campbell (yep, I have issues), I can't think of very many distinctive things about the 90s. What did we wear? (Besides the flannel-shirt-unbuttoned-over-a-t-shirt thing.) What were the fads? What did people who weren't obsessed with Bruce Campbell do for fun?

Post your ideas below. Suggestions for music, clothing, games, and decorations are all welcome. Have fun!

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