Review of Hype! (1996) by Nathan H — 10 Mar 2010

Along with "American Hardcore" and "Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years," this movie paints an amazing portrait of the evolution of rock music throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Each movie showcases a different facet of the overall rock culture, from musicians who were influenced to be rebellious and counter-cultural, to musicians who jumped headfirst into the tide of what was becoming popular.

"Hype!" shows '80s/'90s-era Seattle in all its eccentricity. Why did this one out-of-the-way city suddenly come to represent an entire musical movement? How did it come to define the direction of rock music for an entire decade? If the '60s-era rock musicians were shaped by social change and protest against the national culture, then the '90s-era "grunge rockers" were shaped first by a sense of protest against the mainstream music scene, and then...like a sort of tragedy...the entire area became a brand itself, the mass-marketed "Seattle Music Scene," a generic flavor thrust upon the country just the same as Seattle's coffee industry.

Overall, it's a fascinating story, and "Hype!" is able to piece together some very interesting interviews in order to clearly show how the city went from Outcast to Edgy New Sound to Pop Music.