For pop music fans born in the late ’80s, there isn’t a summer more pivotal than 1999.
Boy band heartthrobs and pop princesses were all the rage. MTV’s “Total Request Live” was required after-school viewing. Nickelodeon even sponsored the first music festival catered to kids, headlined by boy band 98 Degrees.
Nearly two decades later, those same “kids” are still spending their money on music festivals — but now with a nostalgic bent.
Nineties hip-hop label Bad Boy has launched a tour. Gwen Stefani and Eve will hit the road. Even boy band 98 Degrees is taking advantage of aughts fever this summer with a new outing.
“It seems like the nostalgia thing is becoming the in vogue way to tour these days,” said 98 Degrees’ Nick Lachey.
Lachey and 98 Degrees will top-line the My2K Tour, launching in July, which pairs them with former teen-dreams who once dominated “TRL,” including Ryan Cabrea, O-Town and Dream.
“People really enjoy that era of music,” Lachey said of the ’90s and ’00s. “It was a feel-good time in music and frankly our country.”
Lachey said his group had been looking to go on the road since 2013’s Package tour — then their first in 12 years — which paired them with Boyz II Men and New Kids on the Block.
Bundling newly christened heritage acts together made the most sense, Lachey said, considering past success with the concept.
“Every summer, you see it. Guys like Def Leppard and Styx and all of these bands go out together,” he said.
Yet tours based on fond memories rather than current hits are no longer just the providence of boomers or Generation X. A recent report from the Pew Research Center, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, pegged millennials, defined as those ages 18 to 34 in 2015, as America’s largest generation at 75.4 million.
Millennials are all grown up, and it’s never too early, apparently, to start looking back.
“You’re seeing it in hip-hop, with Puffy and the Bad Boy tour,” Lachey said. “New Kids has done it in a smart way (recently) with Nelly and TLC last year and Backstreet Boys before that.”
Stefani is hitting the road in support of her first solo record in a decade, “This Is What the Truth Feels Like.” But this time she’ll do so with addition of special guest Eve.
The pair collaborated on two huge hits in the early aughts. Thus, the tour feels in part like a nod to Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” era of 2004, which no doubt defined high school for the bulk of her fans. The tour launches in July and concludes in October.
Then there’s the I Love the 90s tour, which is tailor made for music fans who yearn for the days of “TGIF.”
The trek, which started as spot dates and morphed into a full-fledged outing, packages hip-hop and R&B stars responsible for some of the most indelible hits of the early ’90s.
Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Kid ‘n Play, Tone Loc, Coolio, Color Me Badd, Kool Moe Dee, Rob Base, Young MC and All-4-One are part of the revolving lineup.
