perception of past musical eras/fads, and the cringe

I grew up listening to '60s and '70s country and classic rock, some on AM radio, and hit my college-years broadening of my musical horizons around the time Nirvana came along. I got pretty swept up in the Soundgarden/Alice in Chains/Nirvana approaches to rock, and suddenly it seemed hard to relate to, say, Whitesnake or anything wearing spandex, hair spray and singing about sexual prowess. Those cavernous snare reverbs, super-compressed high-gain guitar lines whammied within an inch of their lives, all that plodding dull rhythm trying to support all those histrionics...I did not want to talk about having listened to that stuff! I would be perceived as a classic-rock or metal hick!

Now in my later 40s, I find that some of the '90s stuff seems dated and hard to relate to (although I still like Soundgarden and the way the vocal harmonies were arranged Alice in Chains' stuff). And I find when certain '80s stuff comes on that I am smiling and turning it up and thinking, "you know, this has some really cool stuff going on in it."

A few examples...Cutting Crew's "Died in Your Arms Tonight" always struck me as kind of overwrought sappy pop rock, but hearing it now, it's got some hard-hitting drums and really slick guitar work:



And I always thought the Stabilizers' "One Simple Thing" was a cool song..



...though the video is still a little bit ick for me...those outfits seem impractical and uncomfortable, if nothing else. Then again, it's sometimes more fun to hear synths being played than see them being played, and they had to show something in the video.

And Donny Iris' "Ah Leah"...I never got to thinking that song didn't rock.



Thoughts? Reactions? Please discuss.

 

"Mindless crotch metal" just got added to my vocabulary, and I thank you.

I saw Steel Panther about a month ago with a friend. I wish I'd had heard that term that night!