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Awesome 1990s

Projects CD Watch

Projects CD Watch
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This clever wristwatch from Projects lets you rewind to the 1990s every time you check the time. Designed in collaboration with pop artist Riki Prosper, the 40mm watch has a spinning holographic effect layer that makes it look like a Compact Disc. The Play button indicates the hour, while Pause shows the minutes. Watch the disc spin on Instagram.

311 Tiny Desk Concert

311 Tiny Desk Concert

On 3.11.2024, NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert dropped this excellent short performance by alt-rock band 311. Lead singer Nick Hexum and his bandmates sound as good as ever, with a four-song set that includes Beautiful Disaster, All Mixed Up, Amber, and Down. We always loved the way they blened rock, reggae, and funk sounds.

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Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story (Trailer)

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story (Trailer)

Jeff Minter is the mind behind video game classics like Gridrunner, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Tempest 2000, and Polybius. Known for his offbeat and psychedelic style, 42 of his games have been collected into this interactive documentary, which lets you learn about their creator then play the games. Coming to Switch, Xbox, PS4, PS5, and PC 3.13.2024.

Bitter Sweet Symphony: ’80s Edition

Bitter Sweet Symphony: ’80s Edition

UK band Deco took The Verve’s 1997 hit Bitter Sweet Symphony and imagined what it might have sounded like if it came out a decade earlier. Their version replaces the violins with a synth-pop sound inspired by bands like The Human League, OMD, and Pet Shop Boys. Also, their Soft Cell-ized take on Smells Like Teen Spirit is so wrong, it’s right.

Synth Sounds of the ’90s

Synth Sounds of the ’90s

CLMC Music takes us on a trip back to the 1990s with a medley of synthesizer riffs from hit tracks of the era. His performance packs in familiar bits of 18 tunes from bands like C+C Music Factory, Snap, Eiffel 65, Haddaway, Technotronic, and MC Hammer. If this doesn’t get you dancing at your desk, nothing will.

The History of Dinosaurs (the TV Series)

The History of Dinosaurs (the TV Series)

The 1990s TV show Dinosaurs was a breath of fresh air from other sitcoms, imagining a prehistoric world where dinos lived in a modern civilization. Secret Galaxy looks back at the show, its origins, the depth of its messages, and how it ended with one of the darkest finalés of all time… mass extinction.

Famous Music Intros: 1963 to 2023

Famous Music Intros: 1963 to 2023

A lot has changed with music over the past 60 years, but memorable melodies will always be a thing. Music teacher Milo Andreo sat down at his electric piano and synthesizer to play the introductions to a single famous song from each year since 1963. Close your eyes and see how many you can name without looking at the titles.

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The Strange History of Mac Tonight

The Strange History of Mac Tonight

(PG-13: Language) 80s and 90s kids might recall McDonald’s weirdly entrancing Mac Tonight ad campaign. Portrayed by award-winning actor Doug Jones, the moon-headed crooner made several comebacks over the years before becoming an internet meme and an odd symbol of hate. Doplex and ManyKudos teamed up to recap Mac Tonight’s strange history.

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby: All Mixed Up

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby: All Mixed Up

Fatboy Slim dropped this awesome 27-minute DJ mix celebrating the 25th anniversary of his 1998 album You’ve Come a Long Way, BabyThe mix incorporates excerpts from Right Here, Right Now, Praise You, and The Rockafeller Skank, as well as music from Gorillaz, Eminem, The Rolling Stones, Ramones, and more.

The Guy Who Created Clippy

The Guy Who Created Clippy

Back in the 1990s, Microsoft dropped its first virtual assistant onto PCs with Clippy, a talking paperclip designed to help guide us in the use of our computers. Instead, Clippy was annoying, and most of us looked for a quick way to disable the feature. Great Big Story sat down for a few minutes with illustrator Kevan Atteberry, the man who designed the character.

Discmaster Classic Computing Archive

Discmaster Classic Computing Archive

Created by Jason Scott and a team of dedicated tech archivists, Discmaster provides online access to more than 91 million files from CD-ROMs and floppy disks collected by the Internet Archive. The retro-style search interface lets you directly view images and play video and audio files from the disks.

All Blue Star

All Blue Star

When There I Ruined It isn’t laying waste to popular songs, he’s experimenting with them like Victor Frankenstein in his laboratory. He created this lovable monster by grafting the DNA of Smashmouth’s All Star onto Eiffel 65’s Blue (Da Ba Dee). Get ready for a bad case of earworms.

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Low-Budget Practical Movie Effects

Low-Budget Practical Movie Effects

These days, many visual effects are produced using computer animation. Artist and filmmaker Markus Rothkranz looks back at some low-budget practical effects he created in the 1980s and 1990s. The tricks include miniatures, multiplane backgrounds, mirrors, and set pieces made from everyday objects.

Long Time No See CD Player

Long Time No See CD Player
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Dust off your CD collection and enjoy the early days of digital music once more. NINM Lab’s portable CD player can transmit audio to modern headsets and speakers via Bluetooth. Its clear cover lets you watch discs spin, while the snap-on cover adds a pair of speakers. It’s also got a magnetic back for sticking it to metal surfaces.

Everlong Even Longer

Everlong Even Longer

The Foo Fighters’ tune Everlong is damned near perfect the way it was recorded back in 1997. But if you slow it down to just the right speed, it might even be better. Maybe it’s just that we get to enjoy the song a little longer, but ARK’s speed-adjusted version of the track is simply stellar.

Everything But the Girl: Nothing Left to Lose

Everything But the Girl: Nothing Left to Lose

After a 24-year hiatus, UK pop duo Everything But the Girl is back. From the sound of Nothing Left to Lose, they haven’t skipped a beat. The first single from their new album Fuse is a song about love, dedication, and desperation set against a sizzling electronic dance groove.

Making Pepsiman Out of Pepsi Cans

Making Pepsiman Out of Pepsi Cans

Despite its outrageous product placement, Pepsiman was a shockingly fun PlayStation game. Its protagonist was a metal superhero who had to run through towns gathering up cans of its sponsor’s soft drink to save the day. Minimaus Crafts created his own model of Pepsiman using skinny Pepsi cans as his medium.

Retro Sounds of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s

Retro Sounds of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s

rerunthe80s takes us back in the time machine to remind us of sounds most of us haven’t heard in decades. From analog televisions to VCRs to video game systems, see how many of them you can guess with your eyes closed. We scored 15 out of 19.

How a VCR Works

How a VCR Works

VCRs might be obsolete technology, but they still featured some pretty smart engineering. That’s why illustrator and educator Jared Owen put together this in-depth look at the mechanisms that lie behind the VHS cassette flap. It’s cool to see how VCRs loaded and unloaded tapes without tangling them… most of the time.

MTV 120 Minutes Music Video Archive

MTV 120 Minutes Music Video Archive

1980s and 1990s music fans will remember MTV’s 120 Minutes as the go-to show for the latest in alternative music. Thanks to fan Chris Reynolds, there’s now a YouTube playlist featuring the more than 2500 music videos that ran on the show between 1986 and 2003. We’re assuming he had a little help from this website.

Nike Air Max 97 Metallic Silver and Chlorine Blue Sneakers

Nike Air Max 97 Metallic Silver and Chlorine Blue Sneakers
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A fresh take on the Nike Air Max 97 celebrating 25 years of the bullet train-inspired shoe. The sneaker is at its best in this new colorway. The mudguard is done up in shiny metallic silver, while the upper is encircled in rings of dark blue, complemented by a watery Chlorine Blue air cushion and matching swooshes.

The Internet Time Machine

The Internet Time Machine

Want to see what a website looked like on a specific date? You can always go to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and type in a URL to find out. Or, you could do what The Science Elf did and build a box that runs the Wayback Proxy and lets him dial in a specific date to surf old versions of websites on vintage web browsers.

The Drama of Microsoft Excel

The Drama of Microsoft Excel

“My spreadsheet doesn’t do that!” This 1992 promo spot for Microsoft Excel 4.0 seems like it was directed and performed by a team that wished they were doing more meaningful work. Instead, they ended up pimping the ubiquitous productivity software with a level of gravitas typically reserved for serious TV dramas.

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