Years, decades and 'micro-eras'
Though this thread isn't strictly music-related, I was looking at a thread on Digital Spy yesterday evening about TOTP episodes from 1991, the year in which I was 14 on my birthday, with some very interesting comments, good, not-so-good, and outright amusing, though (thankfully) there has been no venomous comments in said thread so far (thank god)!
Elsewhere on DS, there's another thread (in the now-read only 'General Discussion' sub-section) with the title 'Was 2006 the year when the 90s finally ended?', and there was discussion about certain 'micro-eras' in said thread, such as where two or more consecutive years seemed to merge into one, in terms of fashions and cultural trends.
In my own personal view, starting with the 21st Century alone so far, the following 'micro-eras' have been;
2000 & 2001 (both fairly distinct years)
2002-04
2005-07
2008-11 (Global Financial Crisis period)
2012-14
2015-17
2018-19
2020-22 (Covid period).
What does anyone think?
Re: Years, decades and 'micro-eras'
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lencoboy
Though this thread isn't strictly music-related, I was looking at a thread on Digital Spy yesterday evening about TOTP episodes from 1991, the year in which I was 14 on my birthday, with some very interesting comments, good, not-so-good, and outright amusing, though (thankfully) there has been no venomous comments in said thread so far (thank god)!
Elsewhere on DS, there's another thread (in the now-read only 'General Discussion' sub-section) with the title 'Was 2006 the year when the 90s finally ended?', and there was discussion about certain 'micro-eras' in said thread, such as where two or more consecutive years seemed to merge into one, in terms of fashions and cultural trends.
In my own personal view, starting with the 21st Century alone so far, the following 'micro-eras' have been;
2000 & 2001 (both fairly distinct years)
2002-04
2005-07
2008-11 (Global Financial Crisis period)
2012-14
2015-17
2018-19
2020-22 (Covid period).
What does anyone think?
From a popular music sense, a lot of people consider ravey-type music to be one of the 'staple' genres of the 90s, but I seem to recall said genre just starting to break through into the mainstream by about mid-1988 or so, then commonly referred to variously as (acid) house music.
So in that particular sense, the 90s had already started prematurely by 1988-89.
Re: Years, decades and 'micro-eras'
I have also been musing this morning while out walking the dog over when people split given decades into three distinct parts; early, mid and late.
I've always struggled to define each part of a decade precisely, for example, the year ending with the digit '3' basically being the 'crossover' year from the early to mid decade (e.g, 2023), followed by the year ending with the digit '6' (e.g, 2026) being the 'crossover' year from the mid to late decade.
As far as the decade of the 80s was concerned at least, (I was born in 1977), I often personally regard (from a musical, technological and cultural point of view) the period 1980-82 as the early 80s, 1983-85 as the mid 80s, and finally 1986-89 as the late 80s, though 1983-86 may be better defined as the mid 80s as it covers four calendar years, whereas 1980-82 and 1987-89 periods only cover three calendar years respectively, so therefore more evened out.
Another equal combo might instead regard 1980-83 as the early 80s, 1984-85 as the mid 80s and finally 1986-89 as the late 80s, which would probably be my preferred option.
