Empire Records - 15 Years Later and Why the 90s Were Important to Me

Have you ever screamed out "Damn the man!  Save the Empire!" or hummed the tune Sugar High in detention in high school?   Admit it - we all loved this movie - be us the nerdy loser, the cool chick, the jock or the bully.  It was our Gen X Breakfast Club,  and it was good...it was sooo good.

Written by a Tower Records employee at an Arizona store and based somewhat on their experiences there.  The movie used music, quoted lyrics, planted homages to flicks like Dazed and Confused and basically just kicked ass as a window into the mind of a 90s teenager and what was important to us.  The theme was clear, corporations are taking over...and we were challenged with trying to stop it from happening.  Though sadly, it was always a losing fight.

Not to sound cliche, but the 90s were a very different time, it was a pre-Colombine, pre-September 11th world where our biggest fight was against globalization and we were notorious for having a big old fuck you attitude towards the establishment rivaling the 60s and 70s in it's heart though sometimes it was mistaken for apathy and laziness.  We wanted the government to pay attention to us - be it in terms of taking the environment more seriously as a global issue or stopping corporate assholes from taking over...well, everything.  To us, social networking involved having to leave the house and not just updating your status on a computer.

Empire Records was about a record store being bought out by "the man" and being turned into a cookie-cutter, corporate sell-out establishment.  It was a symbolic theme at the time and one that was delivered to us via quotes from The Doors and Liv Tyler's belly button bearing shirt...and so we turned off our Nirvana albums and watched the movie with gawk-eyed glee...

About fifteen years after Empire Records premiered to a less than stellar reception at the box office the stars of the movie are still shining in their own rite.  So, where are they now?  Some are effing huge bona fide movie stars - some are bit players on our prime time faves.

Us, as a generation seem to have split off into two paths as well.  Some of us still fight for anti-corporate ideals and some work for the very companies they claimed animosity towards while listening to punk rock on their Walkmans.  I'm not judging and there ain't no shame or blame in any of it...like I said - it was just a very different time.

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