Originally Posted by
WillieMorgan
No it isn't. Musical artists and genres, or many other forms of mainstream pop culture for that matter, are inherently defined by the periods in which they attained peak popularity and acclaim. It doesn't even have to be a specific decade as such. The Beatles and Pat Boone were certainly very different recording artists during the 1960's but it was the former that came to symbolise and define that decade's music and cultural trends more than anyone else did. Bob Dylan is also still mainly defined by his work from the 1960's in the eyes of many. Dylan has recorded many albums since then, some of them very good indeed, but it's his 60's work which still remains his most celebrated. When people think of disco music what decade normally springs to mind first for most of them? The 1970's. There's a reason for that.
There was an enormous cultural change that took place in the rock music scene in the early 1990's. With hindsight it was something that had been building up from the underground for a few years by that point. You can see it in the success of The Real Thing album by Faith No More, an admittedly brilliant record that was totally out of step with the likes of Poison and Skid Row. Or Nothing's Shocking by Jane's Addiction. Or the gradual rise in popularity of R.E.M.. The release of Nevermind in 1991 was a real catalyst though. It helped to shape the rest of the decade in a way that gave the music of that period a completely different tone and character from the one that preceded it. The 1990's music scene was such a polar opposite of the 1980's that 'defining' them as such is perfectly valid.
Nevermind released in 1991. Kurt Cobain dead by 1994. If Nirvana don't define the 1990's then I don't know who does.