those baggy things were hideous
for me the era bin talk talk, sonic boom, Detroit/berlin(late to early 90s till 2005-6)Burial
This is actually a generational thing in terms of art and culture. I hope I explain it right.
It’s that the younger generation still has context to how the sound progressed. Art and culture evolve, and always takes notes from the times they are created in. As newer generations come to the forefront, they are still exposed to the same art or music or design, and they’ve been exposed to it their entire life, but not actively pursuing it, so that’s why it feels dated to some, because it’s being abandoned for the new. It really applied to everything.
It’s why advertising is marketed mostly to the 18-29 or so demographic.
Then what happens, is that there is a last bloom of nostalgia from the exiting generation.
Then it skips a generation.
Then it becomes classic as it rediscovered be the generation after that.
In the 80’s, the 50’s were nostalgic. Think the Outsiders and Stand by Me.
In the late 90s, it was 60’s/70’s that got repopularized. It was the reintroduction of the new Volkswagen Beetle, and Austin Powers.
In the last decade, it’s the 80s. With Stranger Things.
The lines are getting blurred more though with the internet allowing for anything to be referenced, where before, you had to really look for it.
It’s the same argument with contemporary/popular art vs. classic art.
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Slate or something should of paid you to explain this.
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That’s kind of you to say.
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nobody ever spun the single mixes of those hip-house tracks. i’d still spin this mix today (even though the production is clearly of the era, holds up)
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Bad news: they are here again.
Demo szene channel, a pleasant surprise 
I think often the dated feel comes from tracks having recognizable “gimmicks” that people generally used in a specific time period. There is the cyclical nature of what’s in also that kind of cancels that out for brief time periods.
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I don’t think that’s how it werks. I haven’t listened to the radio since the emergence of CDs.
Some stuff fits a time, a place, a vibe…that for some date the music. Like some examples given, as much as I liked Massive Attacks Mezzanine, to me, that album fully sounds dated. While I feel like Blue Lines is timeless.
But that’s to my ears. I’m sure it’s different for someone else.
But just as some music so definitely dated, there certainly is music that a timeless.
I think I’ll be listening to Ae Incunabula forever 
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For me personally: I grew up on the music of the club scene through the 90’s with lots of parties in forests, castles, and parking structures in the early days. That music still influences me today.
Those cheesy 90’s house vocals and horns give me strong nostalgia still but it’s not something I try to replicate or even looked for back in the day.
Darker, dirty 90’s style techno though has aged well for me & that’s the rhythm my drum still beats to.
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It was a bold move from Goldie to name his first album Timeless in 1995.
For a few years it truly felt timeless or ahead of it’s times. It was the most futuristic thing I had ever heard. Fitting for those times of reading Gibson’s Neuromancer etc.
Then came a 20 year period of Timeless sounding really really dated and the title of the album became a joke. It felt really tied to it’s own period. Even more so than many other albums produced in the 90s.
Now the tides have turned again, and I feel that Timeless once again truly sounds timeless. Hard to pin down why.
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Everything revolves in a circle
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I think Endtroducing sounds more lo-fi than dated. Maybe that was the feeling the friend’s OP was having but phrasing it differently.
Also what feel dated today may feel more modern later. I mean early 80’s songs from New Order, Joy Division, whatever felt pretty much dated by the late 90’s. And in the last 5 years I’ve heard Blue Monday everywhere, from ads to DJ sets and radio.
Definitely agree with you on Mezzanine/Blue Lines. Was into massive attack a lot when i was first finding my feet with electronic music in the late 90’s/early 2000, and at the time mezzanine seemed like the cool edgy one that i tended to prefer as a teenager, and indeed it sounded ‘current’ at the time. But now i find it largely unlistenable, as i can’t separate its sonic footprint from the dross that it spawned in that tedious post trip-hop/chillout period that gave us abominations like morcheeba and zero 7… Whereas i can revisit blue lines any time and its always in a league of its own, and not attached (sonically) to any particular period in time.
For me, ‘dated’ refers to something that hasn’t stood the test of time particularly well, rather than something that simply displays the technical/stylistic characteristics of the time that it was produced. For e.g, Disintegration by The Cure is (IMO) a near-perfect, monumental album in terms of songwriting and production. It was made in 1988/9, and very much sounds like it. But i wouldnt personally refer to it as sounding ‘dated’. It does however sound unabashedly like a product of its time, and i dont think it would work if it had been made at any point before or after. On the other hand, Protection by Massive Attack sounds very dated. I still love it (tho rarely/never play it these days), but always feel like it sounds generically mid-90’s in the same way i feel about Dummy, Maxinquaye and all that lot. I have a fondness for them all but its really just nostalgia now and nothing more. Ditto Lifeforms by FSOL. Ive a lot of very fond memories of that album and in some ways it still kind of works for me, sort of… but listening to it now, the heavy use of panpipe/‘exotic flute’ type sounds throughout makes me cringe pretty hard.
Interesting you say Incunabula- (ive almost certainly said this before on this forum, but) ive always found that album and Amber to be outliers in Ae’s back catalogue in that they very much sound of their time and pretty much in step with their early 90’s peers- not a judgement at all, but after 1994 Ae never did this again, from Tri Repetae onwards every one of their productions is completely timeless. Again, IMO, obvs
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more like a helix.
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That’s just how neoliberal capitalism works. It constantly requires something new, because how else do you motivate people to spend their money? But as you already pointed out, what’s new typically isn’t actually different. It’s more like a kind of variation. Just endless variations on the same basic structure. Same form, different content. Another word for that is standardization, and that’s why music(really culture in general) is an “industry”.
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As a musician, you are hardly part of the mainstream, even though one way or the other you are contributing to it. That said, I do also listen to and write music way beyond the mainstream, or so I like to think
I’ve had a problematic relationship with this friend in part over music. At the time she said that to me, which was like 10 years ago, I don’t think she really listened to all that music as strange as that is to say. She would often tell me she’s into progressive music not knowing that prog rock was a genera. She came into money a few years ago so I don’t talk to her much anymore but did introduce her to Underworld this year and 8-Ball is apparently her young kids favorite track at the moment. I asked her the last week if she likes Prefab Sprout and she told me that it sounds like Disney music and I didn’t even bother to write back… her favorite artist is the Fall who sound dated as hell to me and the older I get the more I think of Mark E. Smith as a sad bitter sack RIP.
Funny… when I think about her comment on Entroducting which is one of those errant thoughts that sort of pops into my head out of nowhere it sounds like Robert Wyatt’s Pigs is narrating my thoughts hmm…Entroducing…dated?
Pigs doesn’t sound dated at all to me btw…
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There’s always a date printed on CDs Vinyl covers. etc. Its usually on the back at the bottom. Im working on this theory
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