What do you think of the rock/metal 1990's? Really such a bad & boring decade?

I think the 90's metal scene was as interesting as the 80's one. Better is another question, but it is full of cool, unique, good, heavier, interesting and different (maybe more than the 80's) releases. Some masterpiece albums too.
 
Quite the opposite for me. Fantastic Norwegian black metal albums, some great death / post death stuff from Sweden and Finland too.
 
No, there were plenty of great music in the 90’s if you had an open mind. I grew up in the 90’s, so that was awesome. Not so good for typical 80’s heavy metal and glam metal, but great for the alternative scene/grunge. Also lot of activities in the underground, think american/swedish death metal, scandinavian black metal, european power metal, european doom metal.
 
Magnus said:
Quite the opposite for me. Fantastic Norwegian black metal albums, some great death / post death stuff from Sweden and Finland too.
Click to expand...
... and Dark Millennium's legendary first 2 albums, and Primordial's, and two great by Bathory, etc, etc...
 
I disagree with the usual narrative. The was plenty of good metal in the 90s and in the Netherlands we had two metal festivals (Waldrock and Dynamo).
 
You guys know I'm more of a "Top... List" guy, so I will name some of my favourite albums from the 1990s (a great and an important decade for both Metal and Rock).

Pantera - Cowboys From Hell, Vulgar Display Of Power
Death - Human, Symbolic, The Sound Of Perseverance
Alice In Chains - Facelift, Dirt
Symphony X - The Damnation Game, The Divine Wings Of Tragedy, Twilight In Olympus
Dream Theater - Images & Words, Awake, Metropolis Pt. 2
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Megadeth - Rust In Peace, Countdown To Extinction, Youthanasia, Cryptic Writings
Mercyful Fate - Time (basically their entire 90s run)
KoRn - KoRn, Follow The Leader, Issues
Stone Temple Pilots - Core, Purple
Prong - The Cleansing
Bruce Dickinson - Accident Of Birth, The Chemical Wedding
Corrosion Of Conformity - Deliverance (their entire 90s run)
Crowbar - Odd Fellows Rest (their entire 90s run)
Down - NOLA
Green Day - Dookie, Insomniac, Nimrod
Nirvana - Nevermind
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
Faith No More - Angel Dust
Extreme - Pornograffiti
Sepultura - Arise, Chaos A.D.
Suffocation - Effigy Of The Forgotten, Pierced From Within
Bolt Thrower - The IVth Crusade, ...For Victory, Mercenary
Cynic - Focus
Carcass - Heartwork, Swansong
Heathen - Victims Of Deception
Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion I & II
Slash's Snakepit - It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere
Van Halen - For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, Balance
Black Sabbath - Dehumanizer, Cross Purposes
AC/DC - The Razor's Edge, Ballbreaker
 
Hehe, I kinda forgot about these:

Judas Priest – Painkiller
Megadeth – Rust in Peace, Countdown to Extinction
Sepultura – Arise, Chaos A.D.

And of course, Metallica’s Black Album.

Nevertheless, I — like some others — see the ’90s as the years of metal’s decline, a sort of "dark ages."
 
The 90's were every bit as groundbreaking and exciting a decade for metal as the 80's, if not more so. It saw great diversification and experimentation. Declining commercial attention together with an increasing awareness of the genre's legacy towards the end of the 90's had a positive effect on the artistic development. You didn't make big bucks with metal anymore, so if you were in it, you were in it for the music.

Consequently, the 90's were the decade of Scandinavian black metal, of Florida death metal, of the Gothenburg scene and German power metal. It saw a greater global dispersement not just in audience attendances, but in the emergence of scenes and artists. 90's metal was not as commercial as in the 80's, and not as devoured by nostalgia as that of the last ten years. If you ask me, the years between 1995 and 2010 were the best years in metal history. Of course, that's probably also because they were my years - there is a lot of personal nostalgia involved in that assessment. But I'm not pretending to be objective here anyway.

How anyone could shun a decade that brought us masterpieces such as Imaginations from the Other Side, Transilvanian Hunger, Burnt Offerings, At the Heart of Winter, Twilight of the Gods, De Profundis, Storm of the Light's Bane, The House of Atreus or Panzer Division Marduk, to name just the albums that spring to mind immediately, is absolutely beyond me.
 
The 90s only took a bit of wrong turn for established traditional metal bands, and even those bands released some of their best work at the start of the decade.

Despite some of the pushback about "bad" albums, the 90s are probably the most important decade for the evolution of heavy metal.
 
I am not a fan of the bouncy “ker-floing” or “flunk duu dunk fa flunk duu dunk” sound of much of the 90s Nü Metal. Edit: wait, it’s more like “Fluump da dikump ka fluump da dikump da flum. Dink dink dink donk doink dank dink. Flump da flikump, duump da dikump (some kind of staccato singing that’s more like talking) duuump gluplinldump.” Anyway, you get the idea.

Stuff like Korn or the Deftones or, adjacently, Limp Bizkit just didn’t land for me. Great for jumping up and down in mosh pits, though.

However, RATM and Tool, while not pure metal acts, IMO (RATM was a sort of rap/metal fusion, and Tool evolved into prog metal) were redeeming bands from that era.

Going into the 90s, the Big 5 Thrash bands and stuff like Suicidal Tendencies held the fort until Grunge had its day. As the decade progressed, the Big 5 thrash bands either went commercial (Metallica, to a lesser extent Megadeth), stayed the course (Slayer), or began to fade (Anthrax, Exodus).

And, of course, Maiden hit their decade long low point.

Overall, I grade the 90s a C+ for metal but RATM and Tool prop it up from being about a D grade otherwise.

For other music, RHCP had two great albums (notice I said 2, BSSM and Californication but not OHM), Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, 1 Pearl Jam
Album (Vs ), the Cranberries, Smashing Pumpkins, some Oasis, etc. were all music that could be enjoyed.

Lots of folky or artsy feminist stuff like Ani Di’Franco, Tori Amos, Jewel, Belly, etc, that I liked in context that I was into dating folky artsy feminist women during that era and that’s what they listened to.
 
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