1990s in music, North America, Hip hop
Samples and interpolations of old songs in hip hop songs were common in the 1990s because it was meant to celebrate the end of the 2nd millennium and the 20th century by going retro.


1990s in music, North America, Hip hop
Many of these songs are as follows: "U Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer; "Jump Around" by House of Pain; "Mo Money Mo Problems" and "Big Poppa" by Notorious B.I.G. ; "It Was a Good Day" by Ice Cube; "Regulate" by Warren G and Nate Dogg; "I'll Be Missing You" by Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112; "Ain't No Nigga" by Jay-Z featuring Foxy Brown; "Killing Me Softly" by The Fugees; "Feel So Good" by Mase; "Hey Lover" by Boyz II Men featuring LL Cool J; "C.R.E.A.M." by Wu-Tang Clan; "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" by Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Dogg; "No Diggity" by BLACKstreet; "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio featuring L.V. ; "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" by Missy Elliott; "I Wish" by Skee-Lo; "People Everyday" and "Tennessee" by Arrested Development; "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground; 2pac's "Do for Love", "I Get Around", and "California Love"; and Will Smith's "Men in Black", and "Wild Wild West".


1990s in music, North America, Hip hop
Some of the most prominent rap artists of the 1990s include 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., Nas, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, LL Cool J, Eazy-E, Wu-Tang Clan, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Cypress Hill, MC Hammer, Coolio, OutKast, Three 6 Mafia, Mobb Deep, A Tribe Called Quest, Puff Daddy, Will Smith, DMX, Master P, Jay-Z and Eminem.


1990s in music, North America, Electronic music
With the explosive growth of computers, music technology and consequent reduction in the cost of equipment in the early 1990s, it became possible for a wider number of musicians to produce electronic music. Even though initially most of the electronic music was dance music, the genre developed in the 1990s as musicians started producing music which was not necessarily designed for the dance-floor but rather for home listening (later on referred to as "Electronica") and slower paced music which was played throughout chillout rooms—the relaxation sections of the clubs (later on referred to as "downtempo", "chill-out music" and "ambient music").


1990s in music, North America, Electronic music
Since we don't really know what was the first electronic music computer generated track ever made, in the USA we can find in the intro of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" released in 1973, a fully completed music track using only computers and machines. At the same time, in Germany, Kraftwerk is recognised as the very first band creating music only with machines and computers. Kraftwerk were the pioneers of what is electronic music nowadays.


1990s in music, North America, Electronic music
Then, the electronic music scene exploded in the world, with at the front line, Chicago for House Music, and Detroit the Techno.


1990s in music, North America, Electronic music
In the late 1990s, Madonna had success with her album Ray of Light which experimented with electronica sounds. Moby achieved international success in the ambient electronica scene after releasing his critically acclaimed album Play in 1999 which produced an impressive eight hit singles (including his most popular songs "Porcelain", "Natural Blues" and "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? ").


1990s in music, North America, Electronic music
Electronic dance music was highly successful throughout the decade in Europe, particularly in Britain, Germany and Italy. Outdoor raves were popular at the start of the decade in the UK, before the government introduced its Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, leading to a higher number of superclubs opening. Among the most successful were Ministry of Sound and Cream. Before the ban, popular genres at these raves included breakbeat hardcore and techno, though in the mid-1990s these genres splintered into separate scenes, such as happy hardcore, jungle and drum and bass, the latter of which received mainstream recognition through artists such as Goldie and Roni Size.


1990s in music, North America, Electronic music
Other notable British genres that emerged during the decade include progressive house, big beat, vocal house, trip hop and UK garage (or speed garage). The latter genre developed in London in the late 1990s and continued to be successful through to the early 2000s. DJ Culture also gained momentum during the 1990s. DJs such as Sasha, John Digweed, Paul Oakenfold, Ferry Corsten and Pete Tong became big names in the business, which was made desirable by magazines such as Mixmag and Muzik.


1990s in music, North America, Electronic music
Italy ended the 1980s with Italo house, before becoming one of many countries to release Eurodance and Hi-NRG. Both genres were commercially successful across the world, with artists such as 2 Unlimited, La Bouche and Captain Hollywood promoting the genre. Countries such as Germany and Belgium, however, developed harder, darker styles of music, namely gabber, hard trance and techno. Trance emerged in the early 1990s and by the end of the decade had penetrated most of Europe, with artists such as ATB, Ferry Corsten, WestBam and Paul Van Dyk gaining huge commercial and underground success. European trance remained popular until the early 2000s. Goa became famed for its goa trance parties and Ibiza became the Number 1 clubbers' holiday destination.


1990s in music, North America, Country music
The popularity of country music exploded in the early 1990s. The stage had been set in 1989 with the debuts of several performers who proved to be profoundly influential on the genre during the 1990s and beyond. Most notable of that group was Garth Brooks, who shattered records for album sales and concert attendance throughout the decade. The RIAA has certified his recordings at a combined (128× platinum), denoting roughly 113 million U.S. shipments. Brooks recorded primarily in a honky-tonk style, although he frequently combined elements of soft rock and arena rock in his songs. His songs sometimes explored social themes, such as domestic violence (in "The Thunder Rolls") and racial harmony ("We Shall Be Free)", while others – such as "Friends in Low Places" — were just good-time songs with traditional country themes of heartbreak, loneliness and dealing with those emotions.


1990s in music, North America, Country music
Other performers who rose in popularity during the early 1990s were neo-traditionalists Clint Black and Alan Jackson and southern rock influenced Travis Tritt. Mary Chapin Carpenter had a folk-style about her, while Lorrie Morgan (the latter the daughter of the late George Morgan, (himself a country legend) blended elements of country and pop, and occasionally operatic sounds in songs such as "Something in Red." Trisha Yearwood was one of the top new singers of 1991, while Diamond Rio blended traditional and bluegrass styles and Brooks & Dunn provided a driving honky-tonk sound.


1990s in music, North America, Country music
During the early-to-middle part of the decade, several recordings were influenced by the popularity of line dancing, including "Boot-Scootin' Boogie" by Brooks & Dunn and "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus. This influence was so great that Chet Atkins was quoted as saying "The music has gotten pretty bad, I think. It's all that damn line dancing."


1990s in music, North America, Country music
A steady stream of new artists began their careers during the mid- and late-1990s. Many of these careers were short-lived, but several went on to long-lived, profitable careers. The most successful of the new artists were Yearwood, Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, Lee Ann Womack, Martina McBride, Kenny Chesney, Collin Raye, Faith Hill, and Tim McGraw, while Lonestar and Dixie Chicks were the most successful new groups. Twain's Come on Over album became the best-selling album released by a female of any genre.


1990s in music, North America, Country music
Yearwood became the first woman in more than 25 years to have her debut single top the Billboard Country Singles chart in 1991 with her single "She's in Love with the Boy". Yearwood's debut album also became the first by a female country act to sell over 1 million copies, eventually going double platinum.


1990s in music, North America, Country music
Among artists whose success continued from the 1980s, Reba McEntire was the most successful of the female artists, selling more than 30 million albums during the decade, gaining eight number-one hit singles on the U.S. Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart and six number one albums internationally, including her best-selling album, Greatest Hits Vol. 2, which was released in September 1993 and has sold over an international amount of 10 million copies to date.


1990s in music, North America, Country music
George Strait, a neo-traditionalist whose national success began in the early 1980s, enjoyed success as both a radio artist (17 No. 1 songs) and as a movie star (1992's Pure Country). Alabama, the most successful country band of the 1980s, continued their run of popularity with sell-out concerts and best-selling albums, while topping the country chart five times. Among older artists having big hits, Conway Twitty was one of the most successful, scoring two Top 3 hits with "Crazy in Love" and "I Couldn't See You Leaving", while Eddie Rabbitt had a No. 1 hit with "On Second Thought."


1990s in music, North America, Country music
Dolly Parton had a No. 1 hit (with relative newcomer Ricky Van Shelton) on "Rockin' Years" in 1991 and had several top 15 hits. Although his 1990s singles never reached the top 20 (excepting for a duet single with Randy Travis), George Jones (who had been around since the 1950s) regularly recorded and released critically acclaimed material, including the semi-autobiographical "Choices."


1990s in music, North America, Country music
The Oak Ridge Boys continued their run of success with a No. 1 hit ("No Matter How High") and several other top 40 hits; in 1995, upon the departure of William Lee Golden's replacement Steve Sanders, Golden reunited with longtime band members Duane Allen, Joe Bonsall and Richard Sterban, and the group has remained intact since then. While the Oak Ridge Boys' contemporaries The Statler Brothers were no longer reaching the top 40, the veteran group remained highly popular with fans and their new albums continued to sell well. Other artists reaching the top 10 of the Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart were Waylon Jennings, Anne Murray, and Kenny Rogers.


1990s in music, North America, Country music
Pop-influenced country music began growing in popularity, particularly after Twain and Hill rose in popularity in the latter half of the 1990s. In 1998, Hill's "This Kiss" and Twain's "You're Still the One" both reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, in addition to peaking at No. 1 on the Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. Rimes had a multi-million selling hit with "How Do I Live" (a song successfully covered by Yearwood), while Lonestar also had a huge crossover hit with "Amazed."


1990s in music, North America, Country music
Although the occurrence of country crossing over to the pop charts goes back as far as the start of the Billboard charts in 1940, some critics began to be troubled by a trend toward what they perceived as pop music marketed as country; they contended that radio was concentrating more on newer music while ignoring the more traditional styles of older artists such as Merle Haggard, George Jones, and others who continued to record and release new material.


1990s in music, North America, Country music
Johnny Cash and producer Rick Rubin once purchased a full-page advertisement in Billboard magazine – after Cash's album Unchained won a Grammy for Best Country Album, despite a lack of support from radio – showing a young Cash displaying his middle finger and sarcastically "thanking" radio for supporting the album. The criticism of pop-influenced and non-traditional styles in country music, however, dated back to the 1970s although it had quieted down comparably during the 1980s.


1990s in music, North America, Country music
In the 1990s, alternative country came to refer to a diverse group of musicians and singers operating outside the traditions and industry of mainstream country music. In general, they eschewed the high production values and pop outlook of the Nashville-dominated industry, to produce music with a lo-fi sound, frequently infused with a strong punk and rock & roll aesthetic, bending the traditional rules of country music. Lyrics were often bleak, gothic or socially aware. Other initiators include Old 97's, Steve Earle, Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, Ryan Adams, My Morning Jacket, Blitzen Trapper, and Drive-By Truckers.


1990s in music, North America, Country music
A number of notable artists in country music died during the decade, including Twitty, Webb Pierce, Dottie West, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Roger Miller, Roy Acuff, Charlie Rich, Minnie Pearl, Faron Young, John Denver, Carl Perkins, Grandpa Jones, Tammy Wynette, Eddie Rabbitt, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Rex Allen and Hank Snow.


1990s in music, North America, Jazz, Swing revival
During the 1990s, concurrent with third wave ska, swing music made a resurgence in the form of swing revival, which brought the jazz form into the pop charts. Reaching its commercial zenith around the time of the movie Swingers, whose soundtrack featured numerous 1990s swing bands, the movement was exemplified by bands such as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and the Brian Setzer Orchestra. The highest-charting song of the genre would have been "Jump, Jive an' Wail" by the Brian Setzer Orchestra, which peaked at #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. in 1998, and won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals in 1999.


1990s in music, Europe, Rock, Madchester
In the late 1980s/early 1990s, a counter-culture movement rose from the Manchester club scene that came to be known as Madchester. Happy Mondays, and The Stone Roses were the pre-eminent bands.


1990s in music, Europe, Rock, Britpop
In the early 1990s, a counter-culture movement rose in Britain, called Britpop by the music press, rejecting the themes of disenfranchised youth coming out of America in favour of songs written specifically about the experiences of the British youth. Although the movement was heavily influenced by 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s British rock there was very little that musically defined the Britpop bands beyond the intensely British lyrical themes. Britpop bands such as Blur, Suede, Pulp, Ash, Elastica, Supergrass, The Verve and Oasis regularly topped the singles and album charts throughout the decade.


1990s in music, Europe, Rock, Britpop
Oasis were the biggest band of the Britpop era at the forefront of alternative rock, as their second album (What's the Story) Morning Glory? became the second highest selling studio album of all time in the U.K. "Wonderwall" peaked at number 2 in the UK Singles charts, and number 8 in the US Billboard 100. Their era defining concerts at Knebworth Park, playing to 250,000 people over two nights, broke records for attendance and ticket applications. In addition to this, they made a significant impact on the US market, achieving three top 5 albums in that country. The Britpop phenomena ran out of steam by the end of the 1990s with most of its most successful bands splitting up or fading away, although bands that rose from the rubble of predecessors Oasis were Travis, Coldplay and Keane.


1990s in music, Europe, Rock, Post-Britpop
From about 1997, Britpop as a movement began to dissolve, emerging bands began to avoid the Britpop label while still producing music derived from it. Many of these bands tended to mix elements of British traditional rock (or British trad rock), particularly the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Small Faces, with American influences, including post-grunge. Post -Britpop bands like Coldplay, Travis, Stereophonics and Feeder achieved much wider international success than most of the Britpop groups that had preceded them, and were some of the most commercially successful acts of the late 1990s.


1990s in music, Europe, Rock, Other trends
The Irish Celtic folk rock band The Corrs achieved international success during the late 1990s with a series of hit recordings which established them as international stars and helped a successful career that continued into the 2000s.


1990s in music, Europe, Pop
Pop music and dance music became popular throughout the 1990s. Popular European pop artists of the 1990s included Seal, M People, 2 Unlimited, and Ace of Base.


1990s in music, Europe, Pop
During the 1990s, some European managers created their own boy band acts, beginning with Nigel Martin-Smith's Take That and East 17, which competed with Louis Walsh's Irish bands Westlife and Boyzone. In 1996, the male saturated market was turned on its head by one of the most successful and influential pop acts of the decade, the Spice Girls. The group achieve nine number 1 singles in the UK and US, including "Wannabe", "2 Become 1" and "Spice Up Your Life".


1990s in music, Europe, Pop
The group, unlike their British boy band predecessors, manage to break America and achieve the best-selling album of 1997 in the USA. More Girl Groups begin to emerge such as All Saints, who had five number 1 hits in the UK and two multi-platinum albums. By the end of the century the grip of boy bands on the charts was faltering, but proved the basis for solo careers like that of Robbie Williams, formerly of Take That, who achieved six number one singles in the UK between 1998 and 2004. Additional popular European teen pop acts of the 1990s included Ace of Base, Aqua and A*Teens.


1990s in music, Europe, Pop
Ballad songs were popular during this decade, and popular European artists included George Michael, Robert Palmer, Sade, Sinéad O'Connor, The Cranberries, Lisa Stansfield and Roxette. Danish pop/soft rock band Michael Learns to Rock, fronted by singer/songwriter/keyboardist Jascha Richter, were well known for their ballads, particularly in Asia with songs such as "The Actor", "Sleeping Child", "That's Why (You Go Away)", and "Paint My Love".


1990s in music, Europe, Pop
In the summer of 1996, the Spanish music duo Los del Río popularized the dance craze "Macarena" with their summer hit "Macarena". The song was featured prominently in many other countries during the mid-1990s.


1990s in music, Europe, Electronic music
With the explosive growth of computers music technology and consequent reduction in the cost of equipment in the early 1990s, it became possible for a wider number of musicians to produce electronic music.


1990s in music, Europe, Electronic music
The popularity of house, techno and rave in the early part of the decade lead to the boom of the more commercial Eurodance genre.


1990s in music, Europe, Electronic music
Popular European Eurodance acts of the decade included Toy-Box, Daze, Jonny Jakobsen, Alexia, Alice Deejay, Haddaway, Captain Jack, Captain Hollywood Project, Basic Element, Solid Base, Daze, Gigi D'Agostino, Vengaboys, 2 Unlimited, Cappella, Corona, Culture Beat, DJ Bobo, Dr. Alban, Ice MC, La Bouche, 2 Brothers on the 4th Floor, Twenty 4 Seven, Leila K, Fun Factory, Masterboy, Mr. President, Pandora, Magic Affair, Maxx, Loft, Sash!, BKS, Snap!, Playahitty, Love Inc., Real McCoy, Urban Cookie Collective, Scatman John, Paradisio and Whigfield. Eventually the popularity of the Eurodance genre lead to the huge popularity of the trance genre in the late 1990s and early 2000s.


1990s in music, Europe, Electronic music
The 1990s also saw the development and refinement of IDM (intelligent dance music), which borrowed from forms such as techno, drum and bass and acid house music and introduced more abstract elements, including heavy use of digital signal processing.


1990s in music, Europe, Electronic music, United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, popular electronic genres of the 1990s included breakbeat hardcore, drum and bass/jungle, big beat and UK garage. Among the most commercially successful electronic acts in the 1990s of these scenes were artists such as the Prodigy, the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada, Squarepusher, Leftfield, LFO, Massive Attack, Portishead, Underworld and Faithless. Notable 1990s UK garage acts included the Dreem Teem, Tuff Jam, Grant Nelson, 187 Lockdown, R.I.P. Productions/Double 99, Dem 2 and Sunship.


1990s in music, Europe, Electronic music, United Kingdom
The arrival of Massive Attack in the early 1990s lead to a new style of slow electronic music dubbed trip hop and influenced groups such as Portishead, Björk, Tricky, Morcheeba and Thievery Corporation.


1990s in music, Latin America, Pop
Puerto Rico became a merengue stronghold in the early 1990s, with acts such as Elvis Crespo, Olga Tañon and Grupo Mania topping the charts throughout Latin America.


1990s in music, Latin America, Pop
Latin boys band and vocal pop groups were storming up the charts in Mexico and Central America. Mexican boy band Magneto spawned hits in the early 1990s but split in 1996. In 1995, their successors, Mercurio continued making top hits like Bye Bye Baby and Explota Corazón. MDO, a Puerto Rican boy band also hoarded the charts with songs like No Puedo Olvidarme de Ti. Mexican pop groups Onda Vaselina and Kabah spanned several hits in the Latin American charts and made history in the Mexican charts. Jeans, Mexican pop girl group rose to fame in late 1996 and 1997 and continued until the 2000s.


1990s in music, Latin America, Pop
Then-21-year-old singer Luis Miguel rediscovered the bolero circa 1991, echoing back to the trios of the 1940s with his album Romance, making him the biggest international Latin star until the late 1990s.


1990s in music, Latin America, Pop
From early to mid-1990s successful acts such as Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, Thalía, Lynda Thomas, Chayanne, Paulina Rubio and arguably the most successful and influential, Gloria Trevi, became the first 1990s music idols in Latin America, subsequently appeared other successful singers and pop groups, including No Mercy, Shakira, Fey and Enrique Iglesias, they also achieved international success.


1990s in music, Latin America, Pop
Colombian rock singer Shakira, Puerto Rican-American actress Jennifer Lopez, and Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias began to rise into the top of the pop charts by the end of the decade, following Selena's assassination.


1990s in music, Latin America, Pop
Ricky Martin eclipsed Luis Miguel as the top Latin star when he performed "The Cup of Life" during the 1999 Grammy Awards, earning him the award for Best Latin Pop Performance. He released his English-language debut album less than half a year later, which featured the international hit, opening track "Livin' La Vida Loca".


1990s in music, Latin America, Rock
Surge of newfound interest in Spanish-language rock, led by bands like Soda Stereo, Héroes del Silencio, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Maná, La Ley, Café Tacuba or Los Tres which gained large international following during this period. Others would follow their footsteps.


1990s in music, Latin America, Rock
Along with the rise of Spanish rock came "rock alternativo", a Spanish equivalent to alternative rock headed by bands like Los Piojos, Babasónicos and Attaque 77. The "rolinga" or "stone rock" genre also emerged from "rock alternativo", popularized and headed throughout the entire decade by Viejas Locas. The stone-rock genre would remain popular in the 2000s with the Viejas Locas' vocalist, Pity Álvarez's other band Intoxicados.


1990s in music, Latin America, Salsa
During the 1990s, salsa spread from the Caribbean region all over Latin America sharing the dance music niche with cumbia. During this period salsa became also increasingly popular as dance music in the US and Europe. Beginning in 1990, the salsa romantica that began in the 1980s becomes a standard in tropical music thanks to chart-topping stars mainly from Puerto Rico such as Marc Anthony, Jerry Rivera, Tito Rojas, Víctor Manuelle and Gilberto Santa Rosa.


1990s in music, Latin America, Cumbia
In the 1990s, the popularity of cumbia waned in favour of other styles such as salsa but remained relatively strong. In Argentina, Mexico, El salvador, Colombia and other countries as well synthesizers and elements of electronic music were incorporated into cumbia music, giving birth to cumbia sonidera, cumbia andina mexicana and cumbia villera. The blending of chicha music and cumbia in Peru also gained large popularity.


1990s in music, Australia and New Zealand, Pop Rock
Bands INXS and Crowded House, who had risen to international fame in the 1980s, continued their success into the nineties. However, INXS saw a decline in popularity after the release of 1993's Full Moon, Dirty Hearts, which did not even reach the US Top 50 and on 22 November 1997, a few months after the release of the band's tenth studio album Elegantly Wasted, lead singer Michael Hutchence was found dead in a Sydney hotel room.


1990s in music, Australia and New Zealand, Pop Rock
Crowded House released two further albums, 1991's Woodface and 1994's Together Alone, which were both successful internationally, but disbanded in 1996 after playing their 'Farewell to the World' concert at the steps of the Sydney Opera House. Their greatest hits compilation album Recurring Dream, released in 1996, debuted at number one in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom and reached the Top 20 in several European territories. Notable nineties Australian rock bands include Silverchair, Savage Garden, Bachelor Girl, Powderfinger, and The Living End.


1990s in music, Australia and New Zealand, Pop Rock
In New Zealand, hip hop group OMC's single "How Bizarre" became the most successful New Zealand song in history, reaching number one in several music charts around the world, including Australia, Canada, Ireland, South Africa and Austria. The nineties saw a surge in popularity of alternative rock music in New Zealand, especially the popularity of alternative rock bands from the independent music label Flying Nun Records. Successful alternative rock bands of this era include Straitjacket Fits, Headless Chickens and The Chills. Headless Chickens provided Flying Nun with their first number one New Zealand single in 1994 with their song "George".


1990s in music, Australia and New Zealand, Pop Rock
Australian singer Kylie Minogue, who quickly rose to fame in the late eighties, continued to be popular throughout the decade, most notably with songs "Confide in Me" and "Where the Wild Roses Grow", which she recorded with Nick Cave. The nineties also saw the emergence of pop/rock singer Natalie Imbruglia who gained a worldwide popularity with a cover of Ednaswap's song Torn, pop singer Peter Andre, pop band Human Nature, Tina Arena and R&B Hip Hop artists CDB and Deni Hines.


1990s in music, Asia, Japanese Rock
In 1998, Supercar released its influential debut album Three Out Change. Characterized as having "almost foundational importance to 21st century Japanese indie rock", Supercar remained active through 2005 with their later albums containing more electronic rock.


1990s in music, Asia, Japanese Rock
Around the same time, bands such as Quruli and Number Girl had begun heavily influencing Japanese alternative rock. Music critic Ian Martin wrote that, along with Supercar, these groups had demonstrated that "Japanese rock bands could take on the British and American alternative bands of the 90s at their own game ... and in doing so, they had laid new ground for Japanese rock to develop in its own way from this point on."


1990s in music, Asia, J Pop
Tokyo-based noise rock band Melt-Banana became an international touring cult act as well as the Boredoms.


1990s in music, Asia, J Pop
J-Pop was a major trend in the late 1990s. The Japanese record label Avex Trax produced a string of top-charting J-pop artists, including Namie Amuro, Ayumi Hamasaki, and the band Every Little Thing. Hikaru Utada, only 16 at the time, scored her signature hit in 1999 with "Automatic", which was later covered by Hong Kong singer Kelly Chen. Also in 1999, DA PUMP, a four-member boyband, had a hit with "Crazy Beat Goes On! ", featured in the soundtrack of the year's film blockbuster, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. "Give me a shake", by girl-band MAX, was also a chart-topper in 1999.


1990s in music, Asia, J Pop
J-pop in the 1990s was significant because of its irresistible inclusion of English lyrics in the songs. Titles of most songs were also often in English. Notable examples include "Feeling good – it's paradise" by DA PUMP and "Give me a shake" by MAX. Other J-pop artists, such as Hokkaido two-girl band Kiroro, rarely included English lyrics in their songs.


1990s in music, Asia, J Pop
Some non-Japanese-speaking artists, such as Taiwan's Vivian Hsu, also crossed over successfully into J-pop; Hsu's band Black Biscuits had a hit single in 1999 in both Japanese and Taiwanese Mandarin with "Bye bye ". Taiwanese singer A-mei recorded a  on her 1999 album May I hold you, lover?.


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
The 1990s saw a revival of interest in local music in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore. In these four regions alone, local artists outsold foreign artists, especially during the late 1990s.


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
Three big Taiwanese rockers were household names throughout the 1990s. In 1997, it was Wu Bai; in 1998, the two-piece outfit Power Station; and in 1999, the veteran pub guitarist/singer .


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
Wu was known for his versatile ability to sing and write songs in Hokkien ("Number one in the world", "Back to hometown", "Lonely tree, lonely bird") as well as Taiwanese Mandarin ("Wanderer's love song", "Crying woman"), and also his poetic lyrics. His compositions were also recorded by other artists such as Hong Kong's Jacky Cheung ("If this is not love"), Wakin Chau ("Crying woman"), and Andy Lau ("Number one in the world", "Lone star tear"), and Taiwan's Tarcy Su ("Lazy Man's Diary", "Passive", "Yellow Moon").


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
Power Station, a Taiwanese aboriginal duo from the Paiwan tribe, were well known for their long hair, pitch-perfect two-part vocal harmonies, branded guitars/basses, and electrifying rock anthems. Members Yu Chiu-Hsin and Yen Chih-Lin also enjoyed success as singers of numerous television opening (and occasionally ending) themes throughout 1998 and 1999; they won the Best Theme Song award at the 1999 Star Awards for their song "I can endure the hardship", opening theme song to the award-winning drama series Stepping Out.


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
had been a singer in various pubs in his youth, and was especially known for his covers of songs by A-mei, Phil Chang, and Jeff Chang. In 1999, at the age of 40, his original composition "Forget me or forget him" propelled him to superstardom.


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
High-voiced male singers were fashionable in Taiwanese pop music in the 1990s. Jeff Chang was the foremost of these. His album Intuition (1998) contained the title track, which is his biggest single to date.


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
Singer-songwriter , whose voice was very similar to Chang's, had his biggest hit with his original composition "Incomprehensible memories" in 1998, which was featured on the soundtrack of the drama, Legend of the Eight Immortals. Panda also had a string of hits throughout 1998 and 1999, including "I Wander Alone", "River of the Blues", "Snowbird", and "The Match Girl".


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
Other popular Taiwanese male singers with exceptionally high voices during the 1990s included Chang Yu Sheng, Terry Lin, and Chyi Chin.


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
The Eurodance craze found its way into the Asian pop market with such singers as Yuki Hsu. Her first big hit, recorded in 1999 when she was only 20, was "Who is bad? ", a cover of Jonny Jakobsen's "Calcutta (Taxi taxi taxi)". Similarly, J-pop became popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong after their songs were translated into Chinese, for instance Kelly Chen's "Automatic ", a cover of the Hikaru Utada original; and Rene Liu's "Later", a remake of the Kiroro original.


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
Hong Kong's Four Heavenly Kings – Aaron Kwok, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, and Leon Lai – were the undisputed solo artists from Hong Kong in the 1990s. Cheung was also nicknamed the "God of Songs" during this period.


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
Young Hong Kong singers Daniel Chan, Ronald Cheng, and Gigi Leung had their big breaks in the 1990s. Chan's "Only you in my heart", on the album of the same name, was released in 1997 when Chan was only 22; the song was later selected as the opening theme song of Singaporean TV series, . Chan would also continue to sing a few television opening/ending themes in 1998, including "Lonely nights I'm not lonely" (from Stand by me), "When dreams are discovered" and "Does your heart hurt" (both from ).


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
Cheng's album I Really Can was released in 1999 and was his biggest seller to date; his other successful albums included You Are Not My Dearest Lover (1997) and Don't Love Me (1996).


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
Leung's album Fresh (1999), along with its title track, was a bestseller upon its release, and the title track remains her signature song.


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
Julie Su Rui of Taiwan and Anita Mui of Hong Kong, both of them established veteran singers, also had comeback albums in this period. Su's album Love Comes This Way was released in 1998, and Mui's Intimate Lover, in 1992.


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
In late 1999, two Hong Kong veteran singers had chart-topping albums. Jordan Chan's album A Bigger Star contained the song "I Don't Have Such Fate"; while William So's album Loving Someone Is So Hard contained "You + Me + Heartbroken", a re-recording of his signature song "Sadder as We Kiss" with new lyrics.


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
Other Asian singers who had chart-toppers in the 1990s included, among others:


1990s in music, Asia, Asian Pop
The 1990s also saw the death of Taiwanese countertenor singer Chang Yu Sheng, who died in a car accident late in 1997. His protege, aboriginal singer A-mei, recorded the song "Hearing You, Hearing Me" in his memory.


1990s in science and technology
This article is a summary of the 1990s in science and technology.


1990s in sociology
The following events related to sociology occurred in the 1990s.


1990s in the Republic of the Congo
The 1990s in the Republic of the Congo, starting with a collapse of the People's Republic of the Congo single party government and the promise of multi-party democracy, gradually slid into political controversy, culminating in a 1997-99 Civil War.


1990s in the Republic of the Congo
After decades of turbulent politics, in 1992 Congo completed a transition to multi-party democracy. Ending a long history of one-party Marxist rule, a specific agenda for this transition was laid out during Congo's national conference of 1991 and culminated in August 1992 with multi-party presidential elections. Sassou-Nguesso conceded defeat and Congo's new president, Professor Pascal Lissouba, was inaugurated on August 31, 1992.


1990s in the Republic of the Congo
Congolese democracy experienced severe trials in 1993 and early 1994. The President dissolved the National Assembly in November 1992, calling for new elections in May 1993. The results of those elections sparked violent civil unrest in June and again in November. In February 1994 the decisions of an international board of arbiters were accepted by all parties, and the risk of large-scale insurrection subsided.


1990s in the Republic of the Congo
However, Congo's democratic progress derailed in 1997. As presidential elections scheduled for July 1997 approached, tensions between the Lissouba and Sassou camps mounted. The Congolese army, loyal to President Lissouba, attacked Sassou's compound in Brazzaville on June 5. While the Army said the operation was to search for arms, Sassou used the incident as a casus belli for armed insurrection, igniting a 4-month conflict that destroyed or damaged much of Brazzaville. Lissouba traveled throughout southern and central Africa in September, asking the governments of Rwanda, Uganda, and Namibia for assistance.


1990s in the Republic of the Congo
Laurent Kabila, the new-President of the DRC, sent hundreds of troops into Brazzaville to fight on Lissouba's behalf. About 1,000 Angolan tanks, troops, and MiG fighter jets and arms donated by the French-government bolstered Sassou's rebels. Together these forces took Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire in the morning of 16 October. Lissouba fled the capital while his soldiers surrendered and citizens began looting. France had put its 600 citizens in Brazzaville, mostly oil workers, on alert for evacuation, but ultimately decided against the measure. Soon thereafter, Sassou declared himself president and named a 33-member government.


1990s in the Republic of the Congo
In January 1998 the Sassou regime held a National Forum for Reconciliation to determine the nature and duration of the transition period. The Forum, tightly controlled by the government, decided elections should be held in about 3 years, elected a transition advisory legislature, and announced that a constitutional convention would finalize a draft constitution. However, the eruption in late 1998 of fighting between Sassou's government forces and an armed opposition disrupted the transitional return to democracy.


1990s in the Republic of the Congo
This new violence also closed the economically vital Brazzaville-Pointe-Noire railroad; caused great destruction and loss of life in southern Brazzaville and in the Pool, Bouenza, and Niari regions; and displaced hundreds of thousands of persons. However, in November and December 1999, the government signed agreements with representatives of many, though not all, of the rebel groups. The December accord, mediated by President Omar Bongo of Gabon, called for follow-on, inclusive political negotiations between the government and the opposition.


1990s in video games
The 1990s was the third decade in the industry's history. It was a decade of marked innovation in video gaming. It was a decade of transition from sprite-based graphics to full-fledged 3D graphics and it gave rise to several genres of video games including, but not limited to, the first person shooter, real-time strategy, survival horror, and MMO. Handheld gaming began to become more popular throughout the decade, thanks in part to the release of the Game Boy. Arcade games, although still relatively popular in the early 1990s, began to decline as home consoles became more common.


1990s in video games, Consoles of the 1990s, Fourth generation consoles (1987–1996)
Starting in 1987 and ending in 1996, the fourth generation of video game consoles consisted primarily of games and systems programmed for the 16-bit era. During this generation, 2D graphics had improved over the previous generation and experimentation began to occur with 3D graphics, although 3D games were more prevalent on the PC at the time.


1990s in video games, Consoles of the 1990s, Fourth generation consoles (1987–1996)
The fourth generation also was the first time compact discs were considered a viable port for video game retail sales with the CD-i. Some of the most notable systems released during this generation were the Mega Drive/Genesis (1988), the Super NES (1990) and the Neo Geo (1991). Nintendo's Game Boy was also released during the fourth generation, which would later become the most popular series of handheld gaming systems during the 1990s. A rivalry between Sega and Nintendo occurred during this generation, starting the 2nd major console war, The 1st being between Atari 2600 & Intellivision.


1990s in video games, Consoles of the 1990s, Fifth generation consoles (1993–1999)
Starting in 1993 and ending in 1999, the fifth generation of video games are most widely known to be the 32/64 bit era and for being the transition period for video games to evolve into the third dimension. The Nintendo 64 (1996), PlayStation (1994), and Sega Saturn (1994) are considered to be the big three gaming systems of this generation. With the introduction of the PlayStation and Saturn, compact discs (CDs) began to replace cartridges however Nintendo continued using them with the Nintendo 64 due to the load times on CDs at the time and became one of the last cartridge based systems in mass production.


1990s in video games, Consoles of the 1990s, Early sixth generation console
The sixth generation was initiated by the release of the Dreamcast in 1999. It introduced several innovations including Internet gaming as a standard feature through its built-in modem, and a web browser. It was also the first home console to always display full SD resolution. Despite its early success, the Dreamcast was discontinued prematurely as sales slowed following the release of the PlayStation 2 on March 4, 2000.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Introduction of 3D polygons and environments
There was a "3D Revolution" in the 1990s, where video games made the transition from 2D and pseudo-3D graphics to real-time 3D polygon graphics, a trend popularized by 3D arcade video games in the early 1990s. This transition was largely driven by a technological arms race between two of the largest arcade game manufacturers, Sega and Namco, during the early-to-mid-1990s. The Namco System 21 which was originally developed for racing games in the late 1980s was adapted by Namco for new 3D action games in the early 1990s, such as the rail shooters Galaxian 3 (1990) and Solvalou (1991).


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Introduction of 3D polygons and environments
Sega responded with the Sega Model 1, which further popularized 3D polygons with Sega AM2 games including Virtua Racing (1992) and the fighting game Virtua Fighter (1993), especially popularizing 3D polygon human characters. Namco then responded with the Namco System 22, capable of 3D polygon texture mapping and Gouraud shading, used for Ridge Racer (1993). The Sega Model 2 took it further with 3D polygon texture filtering, used by 1994 for racers such as Daytona USA, fighting games such as Virtua Fighter 2, and light gun shooters such as Virtua Cop. Namco responded with 3D fighters such as Tekken (1994) and 3D light gun shooters such as Time Crisis (1995), the latter running on the Super System 22. Other arcade manufacturers were also manufacturing 3D arcade hardware by this time, including Midway Games, Konami and Taito.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Introduction of 3D polygons and environments
On home consoles, the success of Sega's Virtua Fighter in the arcades inspired Sony to develop the PlayStation (released 1994) as a 3D-focused hardware, rather than a 2D-focused hardware as they had originally planned. Super Mario 64 (1996) is said to be one of the most revolutionary video games. It was praised for how it took to 3D environments of wide open spaces and graphics at the time. Many games that moved onto 3D also tried to mimic Mario's success.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Introduction of 3D polygons and environments
Instead of pixels, polygons became a standard sight to be in video games from then on as they looked more lifelike when programmed into the right shapes. Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider series became the first video game sex symbol, becoming a recognizable figure in the entertainment industry throughout the late 1990s.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Introduction of 3D polygons and environments
On personal computers, id Software's Doom (1993) is widely credited as the origin of modern first person shooter (FPS) video games. Some people give this credit to id's Wolfenstein 3D (1992), as it was released roughly a year and a half earlier than Doom, but was not nearly as popular. Wolfenstein 3D was one of the first video games to feature ray casting with texture mapping, where graphical textures are wrapped around 3D objects. They were succeeded by id's Quake (1996), which made the transition from ray casting to 3D polygon graphics.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Optical disc storage
Nearly every system released in the mid-late 1990s began to move to the new CD-ROM technology, with the Nintendo 64 being the last major home video game console to use ROM cartridges. Also appealing to publishers was the fact that CDs could be produced at significantly less expense and with more flexibility (it was easy to change production to meet demand), and they were able to pass the lower costs onto consumers. In particular, the fifth generation marked a turning point for optical-based storage media.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Optical disc storage
As games grew more complex in content, sound, and graphics, the CD proved more than capable of providing enough space for the extra data. The cartridge format, however, was pushed beyond the limits of its storage capacity. Consequently, many game developers shifted their support away from the Nintendo 64 to the PlayStation.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Memory cards
Due to CD-ROMs lacking the built-in memory of ROM Cartridges, the Sony PlayStation introduced the use of memory cards to store saved game data. This became the standard for video game consoles until it was replaced by the use of hard drives and built-in flash memory during the seventh generation in the late first decade of the 21st century.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Game controllers
The Super NES controller introduced a more rounded dog-bone like design and added two more face buttons, "X" and "Y", arranging the four in a diamond formation. Another addition was the "L" and "R" shoulder buttons, which have been imitated by most controllers since.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Game controllers
The PlayStation controller was the first standard operating device for a home console to use two handle-bars at the bottom of the controller whereas previously this feature had been relegated to niche specialist controllers. This has been standard in most game controllers since, until the Wii appeared.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Game controllers
The Virtual Boy Controller was a controller which utilized dual joypads similar to how analog sticks functioned in later "dual control" sixth-generation systems. The presence of two pads was an effort to control objects in a 3D environment (one pad controlling pitch and turning while the other controlling forward movement and strafing).


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Game controllers
An analog stick sometimes called a control stick or thumbstick, is an input device for a game controller that is used for two-dimensional input. An analog stick is a variation of a joystick, consisting of a protrusion from the controller; input is based on the position of this protrusion in relation to the default "center" position.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Game controllers
While D-pads and digital sticks rely on single electrical connections for movement (using internal digital electrical contacts for up, down, left and right), analog sticks use continuous electrical activity running through potentiometers to measure the exact position of the stick within its full range of motion. In 1996 Nintendo introduced the first analog thumbstick on the Nintendo 64 controller. It was subsequently followed during the fifth generation by the 3D Control Pad (packaged with Nights into Dreams...), the Sony Dual Analog gamepad which introduced the use of two analog sticks, and the Sony DualShock. Since then, all major video game console controllers have included two analog thumbsticks, except for the Wii's "Wii-mote".


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Game controllers
The optional Rumble Pak for the Nintendo 64 controller introduced the use of haptic force feedback technology in gaming. It was later followed by the DualShock controller for the PlayStation which had built-in haptic feedback. Since then, built-in force feedback has become standard for most game controllers.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Game controllers
The use of pressure-sensitive buttons was introduced by the Dreamcast in 1999. It has trigger-like shoulder buttons, similar to the earlier Nintendo 64 controller, but the main difference being that DreamCast controller's shoulder buttons are pressure-sensitive. Since then, most game controllers have included pressure-sensitive buttons.


1990s in video games, Technological innovation, Online gaming
The rapid availability of the Internet in the 1990s led to an expansion of Online games, Video game consoles also began to receive online networking peripherals, such as the Satellaview (1995), SegaNet (1996). Online gaming, which had been the exclusive domain of PC games, became prominent in video game consoles starting with Dreamcast online functionality in 1999 with its built in modem, internet browsing software, and ability to play certain games online. Nearly all consoles since released then have had support for online gaming.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation
Many technically innovative and genre-defining games were developed during the 1990s, largely due to the impact of 3D graphics allowing three-dimensional environments as well as optical discs which allowed much greater storage capacity.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Fighting games
The release of Street Fighter II in 1991 is often considered a revolutionary moment in the fighting game genre. Yoshiki Okamoto's team developed the most accurate joystick and button scanning routine in the genre thus far. This allowed players to reliably execute multi-button special moves, which had previously required an element of luck. The game was also highly successful because its graphics took advantage of Capcom's CPS arcade chipset, with highly detailed characters and stages. Whereas previous games allowed players to combat a variety of computer-controlled fighters, Street Fighter II allowed players to play against each other. The popularity of Street Fighter II surprised the gaming industry, as arcade owners bought more machines to keep up with demand.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Fighting games
SNK released Fatal Fury: King of Fighters a few months later, adding a two-plane system where characters could step into the foreground or background. Meanwhile, Sega experimented with Dark Edge, an early attempt at a 3D fighting game where characters could move in all directions. Sega however, never released the game outside Japan because it felt that unrestrained 3D fighting games were unenjoyable. Several fighting games achieved greater commercial success, including SNK's Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown as well as Sega's Eternal Champions. Nevertheless, Street Fighter II remained the most popular, spawning a special Champion Edition that improved game balance and allowed players to use additional characters. The popularity of Street Fighter II led it to be released for home game consoles and allowed it to define the template for fighting games.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Fighting games
Sega began to attract attention with the 1993 release of Virtua Fighter in arcades. It was the first fighting game with 3D polygon graphics and a viewpoint that zoomed and rotated with the action. Despite the graphics, players were confined to back and forth motion as seen in other fighting games. By the time the game was released for the Sega Saturn in Japan, the game and system were selling at almost a one-to-one ratio.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Fighting games
In 1994, SNK released The King of Fighters '94 in arcades, where players choose from teams of three characters to eliminate each other one by one. A follow-up to Street Fighter II, Street Fighter Alpha, was released in 1995 but was unable to match the popularity of its predecessor. Throughout this period, the fighting game was the dominant genre in competitive video gaming, with enthusiasts popularly attending arcades in order to find human opponents.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Fighting games
The fighting game genre continued to evolve as several strong 3D fighting games emerged in the late 1990s. Namco's Tekken (released in arcades in 1994 and on the PlayStation in 1995) proved critical to the PlayStation's early success, with its sequels also becoming some of the console's most important titles. In 1992, Mortal Kombat became a popular fighting game due to its sprites being real people digitalized into the game with graphic and controversial depictions of violence, most notably, the fatalities. The Soul series of weapon-based fighting games also achieved considerable critical success, beginning with 1995's Soul Edge. Tecmo's Dead or Alive (released in 1996 in Japanese arcades and 1998 on the PlayStation) spawned a long-running franchise, known for its fast-paced control system and innovative counterattacks. The series again included titles important to the success of their respective consoles.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, First-person shooters
The first-person shooter (FPS) typically features the player as the protagonist. Most often the player does not see the face of who they are playing, but will always see the weapon of choice located in the players hand in the lower left or right hand corner. FPSs are usually violent and feature blood and gore, which has sparked controversy from parent groups.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, First-person shooters
With the introduction of the fifth generation of games, 3-D graphics become the standard by end of decade. Although FPSs had been some of the first games to become 3-D.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, First-person shooters
In 1992 Wolfenstein 3d is released, creating interest in what FPS games could become. Doom (1993) bursts onto the world scene and instantly popularizes the FPS genre, and even how games are played, as Doom is among the first games to feature multiplayer capabilities. It was Goldeneye 007 (1997), that introduced an engine that made development of first-person shooters for home consoles a practical idea. It is not until Quake (1996), however, that game developers begin to take multiplayer features into serious consideration when making games. Quake II (1997), Unreal (1998) and  Half-Life (1998) feature the next evolutionary step in the genre with continual progression of the game (no levels in the traditional sense) and an entirely in-person view, and become one of the most popular video games in history.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Interactive movies
In the early-to-mid-1990s, several video game developers experimented with plot twists and providing alternative storylines and endings into their games. They even went as far as to film live action scenes and scripted popular actors to play the parts. Night Trap, released in 1992, was highly acclaimed for implementing live action scenes into video games and later the Wing Commander series dove into live action as well. Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom was given an unheard of budget of US$12 million and starred Mark Hamill of Star Wars fame. The Wing Commander series was known for providing several alternate endings depending on how the player followed the story and interacted with the characters.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Platform games
The platform game genre evolved through several distinct phases throughout the 1990s. The first was an evolutionary step during the fifth generation in the early 1990s, followed by a complete transformation of the genre during the sixth generation in the late 1990s.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Platform games
The advent of 16-bit home consoles in the early 1990s marked an evolutionary step for the genre. By the time the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo Entertainment System launched, platform games were the most popular genre in home console gaming and were seen as vital for winning the console war. There was a particular emphasis on having a flagship platform title exclusive to a format, featuring a "mascot" character. Sega's Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle (1989) was only modestly successful, and Sega realized would need a stronger mascot to move Genesis units. In 1990, Hudson Soft released Bonk's Adventure featuring a character that would be positioned as NEC's mascot.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Platform games
1990 marked the release of the Super NES, along with the much awaited Super Mario World. In order to fend off the new competition, Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog. Whereas Nintendo's offering featured a conservative design, true to the Mario tradition, Sonic showcased a new style of design made possible by a new generation of hardware. Sonic featured large fields that scrolled effortlessly in all directions, as well as all manner of uneven terrain, curved hills, and a complex physics system that allowed players to rush through its levels with well-placed jumps and rolls. It proved to be a massive hit, was a successful pack-in with new systems, and cemented the view that platform games would make or break a console.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Platform games
The Sonic character was also seen as a new model for mascots in the early 1990s, particularly for his perceived "attitude," which characterized him as a rebel from the status quo. This "attitude" would soon become the status quo, as companies attempted to duplicate Sonic's success with their own brightly colored anthropomorphisms. Very frequently these were characterized by impatience, sarcasm, and frequent quipping to give them personality. These mascots, which included the likes of Gex, Bug!, and Bubsy, have mostly faded from relevance.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Platform games
In 1996, Nintendo released Super Mario 64. Until this time there had been no established archetype for bringing platform games into 3D. Mario 64 set a new standard and would be imitated by many 3D platformers to follow. Its gameplay allowed players to explore open 3D environments with greater freedom than any previous attempt at a 3D platform game. To aid this, Nintendo incorporated an analog control stick to their standard Nintendo 64 controller, something which had not been included in a standard console controller since the Vectrex (and since incorporated into the DualShock among other controllers).


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Platform games
This allowed for the finer precision needed for a free perspective. Players no longer followed a linear path to the ends of levels, either, with most levels providing objective-based goals. There were, however, a handful of "boss" levels that offered more traditional platforming, and showed what a more direct conversion to 3D might have been like.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Platform games
Some argue that many modern 3D platformers, especially those influenced heavily by Super Mario 64, are not platformers at all, or at least are not really an extension of 2D platformers. Super Mario 64 brought a change in the goals of some platformers. In most 2D platformers, the player only had to reach a single goal to complete a level, but in many 3D platformers, each level had to be combed for collectible items such as puzzle pieces (Banjo-Kazooie) or stars (Super Mario 64). This allowed for more efficient use of large 3D areas and rewarded the player for thorough exploration, but they also often involved more elements of action-adventure games, and less jumping on platforms.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Racing games
In 1992, Sega produced Virtua Racing, one of the first games with full 3D graphics. It was able to combine the best features of games at the time, along with multiplayer machine linking and clean 3D graphics to produce a game that was above and beyond the arcade market standard of its time. Also, Nintendo broke new ground by introducing the Mario Kart series on the SNES with Super Mario Kart.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Racing games
Using the familiar characters from the Mario franchise, the game not only departed from the realism paradigm by using small karts for the players to drive, but also featured bright, colorful environments and allowed the players to pick up power-ups to improve performance or hamper other racers. This franchise also spawned multiple sequels such as Mario Kart 64 which would release on theN64 making the first Mario Kart game to feature 3D computer graphics while still using pre-rendered sprites for the characters and items.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Racing games
In 1993, Namco struck back with Ridge Racer, and thus began the polygonal war of driving games. Sega struck back in 1994 with Daytona USA, while Midway introduced Cruis'n USA. Atari didn't join the 3D craze until 1997, when it introduced San Francisco Rush. In 1996, Konami introduced GTI Club which allowed free roaming of the environment – something of a revolution that had only been done in 3D before in Hard Drivin'.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Racing games
In 1997, Gran Turismo was released for the PlayStation. It was considered the most realistic racing simulation game in its time, combined with playability, enabling players of all skill levels to play. The Gran Turismo series has since become one of the most popular racing franchises ever, with the series selling more than 50 million copies worldwide. Colin McRae Rally was introduced in 1998 to the PC world, and was a successful semi-simulation of the world of rally driving (previously only available in Sega's less serious Sega Rally Championship). Motorhead, a PC game, was later adapted back to arcade.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Racing games
1999 marked a change of games into more "free form" worlds. Midtown Madness allows the player to explore a simplified version of the city of Chicago using a variety of vehicles and any path that they desire. In the arcade world, Sega introduced Crazy Taxi, where players assume the role of a taxi driver that needs to get clients to their destination in the shortest amount of time. A similar game also from Sega is Emergency Call Ambulance, with almost the same gameplay (pick up patient, drop off at hospital, as fast as possible).


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
The 1990s saw the emergence of several distinct subgenres of the role-playing video game genre.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
1990 would see the release of Crystalis for the Nintendo Entertainment System and also Golden Axe Warrior for the Master System. Both games featured Zelda-like gameplay blended with genuine RPG elements, such as experience points, statistics-based equipment, and a magic-casting system. In 1991, Square released Seiken Densetsu for the Game Boy, also known as Final Fantasy Adventure in the West. Like Crystalis, the action in Seiken Densetsu bore a strong resemblance to that of Zelda, but added more RPG elements. Seiken Densetsu 2, also known as Secret of Mana, implemented an innovative multiplayer function, and further developed its combat with more diverse weaponry and spell-casting.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
Unique among video games are Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom (1993) and Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara (1996). These games were released for the arcades, and featured a blending of beat 'em up and RPG characteristics. The games were later released for the Sega Saturn together as the Dungeons & Dragons Collection (1999). Several later beat 'em ups followed this same formula, including Guardian Heroes, Castle Crashers and Dungeon & Fighter.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
In Japan on Super Famicom, Tales of Phantasia was released in Japan in 1995, featuring real-time side-scrolling combat mode and an exploration mode similar to classic console RPGs. In 1996, Star Ocean was released that also has real-time combat and classic exploration but features bird's eye view. Namco and Enix did not publish these two revolutionary titles in America, even though sequels in the two series would become wildly popular on future generations of consoles in the US. Fifth generation era saw several popular action RPGs, such as Tales of Eternia, Brave Fencer Musashi and Legend of Oasis. In 1996 Nintendo released Super Mario RPG, for the SNES . Super Mario RPG was the first role playing game in the series and it launched to critical acclaim. It spawned two spiritual successors, Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
It was in the early 1990s that the console role-playing video game genre distinguished itself greatly from computer RPGs, with the Final Fantasy series playing an instrumental role. Final Fantasy III introduced the "job system", a character progression engine allowing the player to change a character's class, as well as acquire new and advanced classes. Final Fantasy IV (1991) was one of the first role-playing games to feature a complex, involving plot, placing a much greater emphasis on character development and pioneering "the whole concept of dramatic storytelling in an RPG."


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
It also introduced a new battle system: the "Active Time Battle" system, developed by Hiroyuki Ito, where the time-keeping system does not stop. Square Co., Ltd. filed a United States patent application for the ATB system on March 16, 1992, under the title "Video game apparatus, method and device for controlling same" and was awarded the patent on February 21, 1995. On the battle screen, each character has an ATB meter that gradually fills, and the player is allowed to issue a command to that character once the meter is full.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
The fact that enemies can attack or be attacked at any time is credited with injecting urgency and excitement into the combat system. Both the "job system" and the ATB system were fully developed in Final Fantasy V (1992) and continued to be used in later Final Fantasy games as well as other Square games such as Chrono Trigger (1995). Final Fantasy VI (1994) and the Megami Tensei series were some of the first RPGs to move away from the typical medieval setting, with Final Fantasy VI instead being set in a steampunk environment and the Megami Tensei games set in modern-day Japan.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
The next major revolution came in the late 1990s, which saw the rise of optical disks in fifth generation consoles. The implications for RPGs were enormous—longer, more involved quests, better audio, and full-motion video. This was first clearly demonstrated by Final Fantasy VII (1997). The explosion of Final Fantasy VII's sales and the ascendance of the PlayStation were proof of this and represented the dawning of a new era of RPGs. Backed by a clever marketing campaign, Final Fantasy VII brought the first taste of CRPGs to many of the new gamers brought in by the PlayStation gaming console. Subsequently, CRPGs, previously a niche genre, skyrocketed in popularity.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
In 1997, a new Internet fad began, influenced by the popularization of console RPGs. A large group of young programmers and aficionados began creating and sharing independent CRPG games, emulating the gameplay and style of the older Super NES and Genesis games. The majority of such games owe their achievement to simplistic software development kits such as the Japanese RPG Maker series.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
1989 and the early 1990s saw the release and spread of the MUD codebases DikuMUD and LPMud, leading to a tremendous increase in the proliferation and popularity of MUDs. Before the end of the decade, the evolution of the genre continued through "graphical MUDs" into the first massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), a term coined by Richard Garriott in 1997.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
That genre, as currently defined, began with Meridian 59 in 1995, but first truly came into its own with Ultima Online in 1997, a game that provided a core idea of what later MMORPGs would become, featuring a massive continent on which players could interact with others from around the world, fight mythical creatures, and cast spells. After earlier games broke ground, widespread popularity for MMORPGs arrived with the debut of EverQuest and Asheron's Call in 1999. MMORPGs would become a common form of social interaction in the 2000s.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
In 1990, Nintendo released and published the first tactical RPG, Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi for the Family Computer (or Famicom) in Japan, co-developed with Intelligent Systems. Released in Japan in 1990, Fire Emblem was an archetype for the whole genre, establishing gameplay elements that are still used in tactical CRPGs today (although some of these elements were influenced by Ultima III). Combining the basic console RPG concepts from games like Dragon Quest and simple turn-based strategy elements, Nintendo created a hit, which spawned many sequels and imitators.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
Among the first imitators was Langrisser by NCS/Masaya, first released for the Mega Drive in 1991. It was localized for North American release under the title Warsong, with a few graphical alterations. The Langrisser series differed from Fire Emblem in that it used a general-soldier structure instead of controlling main characters. Master of Monsters was a unique title by SystemSoft. Where Langrisser and Fire Emblem used a square-based grid, Master of Monsters used a hexagonal grid. Players could choose one of four different Lords to defend their Towers and areas on the grid by building an army of creatures to destroy the opposing armies.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
The first game in the long-running Super Robot Wars series is another early example of the genre, released for the Game Boy in 1991. Another influential early tactical RPG was Sega's Shining Force for the Genesis, which was released in 1992. Shining Force used even more console RPG elements than earlier games, allowing the player to walk around towns and talk to people and buy weapons. One game released solely in Japan for the Super Famicom (SFC), Bahamut Lagoon, began Square's (now Square Enix) famous line of tactical RPGs.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen was released for the Super NES and is more of a real-time strategy game in which the player forms role-playing video game-like character parties that are moved around a map in real-time. When two parties meet, the combat plays out with minimal user interaction. A later release, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, was originally a SNES game that was later ported to the PlayStation.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Role-playing games
Tactics Ogre is a much more direct influence on the sort of tactical RPGs that gamers recognize today such as Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. It was also the first to bear the name "Tactics" in the title, a term gamers would come to associate with the genre. Not only are characters moved individually on a grid, but the view is isometric, and the order of combat is calculated for each character individually. The game defined the genre in many ways.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Stealth games
While stealth elements have been present in video games as far back as 005, a 1981 video game by Sega, it was in the 1990s that the stealth game genre was established. Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake was released in 1990 for the MSX2 and was a major improvement over its predecessor, Metal Gear (1987).


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Stealth games
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake improved on the first game in many ways, including improved graphics, more player abilities (such as crouching, crawling into hiding spots, disguising in enemy uniforms and cardboard boxes, and distracting guards by knocking on surfaces), improved enemy AI (such as a greater field of vision, the ability to detect various noises, and a three-level security alert), and additions such as a radar, as well as a complex storyline. The game was only released for the MSX2 in Japan, however, which limited its accessibility to consumers in the US. An alternative Metal Gear sequel named Snake's Revenge was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America and Europe instead, also in 1990. Kojima was not involved in the game's development, which was instead conducted by another Konami team.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Stealth games
1998 is seen as a turning point in gaming history because of the release of Metal Gear Solid, as well as Tenchu: Stealth Assassins and Thief: The Dark Project. The ninja-themed game Tenchu: Stealth Assassins was released several months before Metal Gear Solid, making it the first 3D stealth based-game. The highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid transformed its modestly successful franchise into a large mainstream success. The increased power of the PlayStation console over previous platforms allowed for greater immersion in terms of both story and game environment. Metal Gear Solid has been credited with popularizing the stealth genre. The core elements of these games, such as avoiding confrontation, minimizing noise, and attacking antagonists from "the shadows", influenced many future stealth game series.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Survival horror
While elements of the survival horror genre can be traced back to the 1989 Capcom game Sweet Home, which served as a major influence on the genre, it was in the 1990s that survival horror was established as a genre. Another precursor appeared in 1992 when Infogrames released Alone in the Dark, which is also considered a forefather of the genre. The game featured a lone protagonist against hordes of monsters, and made use of traditional adventure game challenges such as puzzle-solving and finding hidden keys to new areas. Graphically, Alone in the Dark utilized static prerendered camera views that were cinematic in nature. Although players had the ability to fight monsters as in action games, players also had the option to evade or block them.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Survival horror
The term "survival horror" was first used by Capcom to market their 1996 release, Resident Evil, thus establishing it as a genre. The game was influenced by Capcom's Sweet Home, released seven years earlier. Resident Evil also adopted several features seen in Alone in the Dark, including puzzle-solving challenges and fixed cinematic camera angles. The control scheme in Resident Evil also became a staple of the genre, and future titles would imitate its challenge of rationing highly limited resources and items.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Survival horror
The game's commercial success is credited with helping the PlayStation become the dominant game console, and also led to a series of Resident Evil films. Many games have tried to replicate the successful formula seen in Resident Evil, and every subsequent survival horror game has arguably taken a stance in relation to it.


1990s in video games, Genre innovation, Survival horror
Silent Hill (1999) drew heavily from Resident Evil while using realtime 3D environments in contrast to Resident Evil's pre-rendered graphics. The game was praised for moving away from B movie horror elements to the psychological style seen in art house or Japanese horror films, due to the game's emphasis on a disturbing atmosphere rather than visceral horror. The original Silent Hill is considered one of the scariest games of all time.


1990s in video games, Best-selling video games of the decade
The following table lists video games of the 1990s that sold at least 5 million copies.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah
The 1990s post-Soviet aliyah began en masse in the late 1980s when the government of Mikhail Gorbachev opened the borders of the USSR and allowed Jews to leave the country for Israel.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah
Between 1989 and 2006, about 1.6 million Soviet Jews and their non-Jewish relatives and spouses, as defined by the Law of Return, emigrated from the former Soviet Union. About 979,000, or 61%, migrated to Israel. Another 325,000 migrated to the United States, and 219,000 migrated to Germany. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 26% of the immigrants who arrived in Israel were not considered Jewish by Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law (which only recognizes matrilineal descent), but were eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return due to patrilineal Jewish descent or marriage to a Jew.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah
The majority of the immigrant wave were Ashkenazi Jews; however, a significant proportion were Mizrahi groups such as the Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, and Bukharan Jews – with each ethnic group bringing its own distinctive culture to Israel. The group successfully integrated economically into Israel: in 2012, the average salary of FSU (Former Soviet Union) immigrants was comparable to that of native-born Israeli Jews.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, History
Following the Six-Day War, many Soviet Jews began applying for exit visas and demonstrating for their right to leave. This was accompanied by a worldwide campaign calling on the Soviet government to allow Jews to emigrate.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, History
Individual citizens of the Soviet Union who wanted to emigrate had to obtain exit visas. Many who sought exit visas were denied. Those who tried to escape the USSR and did not succeed were branded traitors, fired from their jobs, and became targets of public hatred. Those who received exit visas lost their Soviet citizenship and had to pay an exit tax. Under the Communist regime, real estate assets such as apartments usually belonged to the state, and emigrants had to cede those assets in the majority of cases.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, History
After the fall of the Soviet Union and the establishment of capitalism in Russia and other former Soviet republics, those laws were canceled. On July 1, 1991, a change in Soviet law came into effect under which emigrants would no longer have to forfeit their Soviet citizenship. From then, emigrants who left the Soviet Union and its successor states after the fall of the Soviet Union were able to keep their assets, and those from successor states which allowed dual citizenship were able to retain their citizenship.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, History
In response to growing international pressure, the Soviets began allowing Jews to emigrate in limited numbers annually starting in 1968, officially for "family reunification". Initially, most went to Israel, but after 1976, the majority began immigrating to the United States, which had a policy of treating Soviet Jews as refugees under the Jackson-Vanik amendment. In total, some 291,000 Soviet Jews were granted exit visas between 1970 and 1988, of whom 165,000 immigrated to Israel and 126,000 to the United States.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, History
In 1989, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev decided to lift restrictions on emigration. That same year, 71,000 Soviet Jews emigrated, of whom only 12,117 immigrated to Israel. In Vienna, a major transit point for immigration to Israel, some 83% chose to go to the United States. However, in October 1989, the US government stopped treating Soviet Jews as refugees, as another country, Israel, was willing to accept them unconditionally. In 1990, 185,227 Soviet immigrants arrived in Israel (out of about 228,400 Jews who left the Soviet Union that year). Approximately 148,000 more Soviet immigrants arrived in Israel in 1991.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, History
Immigration to Israel dropped off significantly from then on but remained steady between 1992 and 1995. In 1992, 65,093 Soviet immigrants arrived in Israel, followed by 66,145 in 1993, 68,079 in 1994, and 64,848 in 1995. From then on, Soviet immigration dipped below 60,000 per year for the next few years, though a spike occurred in 1999 when 66,848 immigrants arrived in Israel. This decline continued into the 2000s. In 2000 50,817 immigrants arrived followed by 33,601 in 2001, and after that immigration to Israel from the former Soviet Union declined to less than 20,000 per year.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, History
As the wave of emigration began, Soviet Jews who wanted to emigrate left the Soviet Union for various European countries and began gathering at transit points, from which they were flown to Israel, and the Israeli government ordered the national airline El Al to put every available plane at the disposal of the immigrants. Some Soviet immigrants also came by sea on chartered ships.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, History
Direct flights from the Soviet Union to Israel carrying immigrants took place in January and February 1990. The first direct flight, which carried 125 immigrants, departed Moscow on January 1, 1990. On February 22, 1990, the Soviet government suspended the direct flights. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze had ordered the direct flights stopped following a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in the Jerusalem neighborhood and settlement of Neve Yaakov, a predominantly Russian immigrant neighborhood over the Green Line, hinting that Soviet immigrants would be housed in Israeli settlements. Direct flights were resumed in August 1991. In December 1991, the Soviet Union itself collapsed. Eventually, every city in the former Soviet Union with a large Jewish population became a staging point for direct flights.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, History
In the aftermath of breakup of the Soviet Union, a series of wars erupted in areas of the former Soviet Union, and Jewish refugees from these war-torn areas were evacuated to Israel with the help of the Jewish Agency. During the War in Abkhazia, all Jews who wished to flee Abkhazia were evacuated and resettled in Israel. Jews from Chechnya fleeing the First Chechen War were evacuated to Israel in a rescue operation conducted by the Israeli government and Jewish Agency lasting several months. During the War of Transnistria in Moldova, Jews fleeing the war area went to cities such as Chișinău and Odessa, from where they were flown to Israel.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Geographical dissemination
The abruptness and extensiveness of this immigration wave brought about an immediate severe shortage of housing in Israel, in the Gush Dan area in particular, and a corresponding drastic rise in the prices of residential apartments. As a result, Ariel Sharon, then Israel's Minister for Housing Construction, initiated several programs to encourage the construction of new residential buildings, which partly included the concession of different planning procedures. When those resources were inadequate to the growing immigration wave, and many immigrants remained lacking a roof, within two years about 430 caravan sites were set up across Israel, comprising 27,000 caravans. The largest caravan site was founded in Beersheba, consisting of 2,308 housing units.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Geographical dissemination
After that period, the immigrants dissipated throughout Israel. But this immigration wave exhibited a phenomenon common to previous Israeli immigration waves: the efforts of the state to transfer the immigrants to the periphery primarily affected immigrants of lower socio-economic status, while those from higher socio-economic levels, who had the resources to resist these efforts, moved to residential areas of their own choice instead, mostly in Gush Dan. (Additional cities to which many of the immigrants moved (willingly and unwillingly) were Haifa and the Krayot urban area, Petah Tikva, Ariel and Ashdod.) Thus the immigration wave had a clear ethnic aspect: while the majority of the immigrants originating from the European areas of the Commonwealth of Independent States moved to the center of Israel, most of the immigrants who moved to the periphery were from the Central Asian Republics and the Caucasus.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Absorption characteristics
The absorption laws changed with time. The basic government grants given to each immigrant changed rapidly from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. Most of the immigrants initially located on the periphery and later dispersed to the "Russian" neighborhoods. There were cities, mainly in the medium and lower socio-economic levels, in which immigrants constituted over 50% of all the residents.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Absorption characteristics
Many of the immigrants integrated into the Israeli labor market, but the majority remained confined in their own communities. The closed nature of this immigration wave may have been due to its large size, which resulted in neighborhoods of sometimes tens of thousands of people. Also, many immigrants failed to adapt to the receiving society and the society's expectancy that they change to facilitate their social absorption.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Absorption characteristics
Many of the new immigrants found that their former education was not recognized by many Israeli employers, though it was recognized by institutions of higher education. Many had to work in jobs which did not match their expertise, in contrast with Soviets who immigrated to the United States in the 1980s.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Absorption characteristics
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Soviet immigrants initially had a much lower material standard of living and much higher unemployment rates than the veteran population, but that their situation gradually improved the longer they stayed in Israel. Their material standard of living in terms of possession of durable goods rose, and their unemployment rate gradually declined to a level similar among the veteran population.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Absorption characteristics
Some of the immigrants chose to stick to the strategy of dissimilation, keeping the originating culture and rejecting the absorbing culture. Other groups of immigrants (the political leadership and younger people) chose to stick with the strategy of intertwining, involving themselves in the surrounding culture while conserving their original culture. These strategic choices were different from those of the previous immigration waves, which commonly chose either to assimilate, rejecting the originating culture and welcoming the absorbing culture, or to intertwine. The immigrants' Israeli-born children, however, have completely assimilated into Israeli society.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Politics
The demand to gain political power which would comply with their unique needs caused a growth of "Russian parties" – in which the party "Yisrael BaAliyah" gained most popularity in the leadership of Natan Sharansky. The party gained a great success in the elections of 1996 and received 7 mandates. In the elections of 1999 its power descended by one mandate whereas in the elections of 2003 it only gained two mandates and was integrated into the Likud party.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Politics
Many see the fall of the party of the immigrants as a positive sign to the intertwining in the Israeli society and to the fact that they do not need their own party anymore. The founder and leader of the "Yisrael BaAliyah" party, Natan Sharansky, said after the elections that the reason for the fall of his party was actually in its success to obtain its objectives of intertwining the immigrants in the Israeli society.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Politics
In 1999, the politician Avigdor Lieberman (who immigrated with his parents in 1978) established the party "Yisrael Beiteinu" (Israel is our home), as a competitor of "Yisrael BaAliyah". Yisrael Beiteinu focused on the national issues and took a hard line towards Israeli Arabs and Palestinian Arabs based upon the view that they do not support the right of Jews to maintain a Jewish state in the Middle East. This party gained a relative success in the elections of 1999, in which they won four mandates and later united with the right wing party "The National Union" which gained 7 mandates in the 15th Knesset and in the 16th Knesset.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Politics
During the 1990s the voting of the immigrants in the elections was confronted, in that it was always against the present authority. In reality, the immigrants had a considerable part in the falls of the governments of Yitzhak Shamir, Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. With the start of the Second Intifada, a big part of the soviet immigrants tended towards the right-wing of the political spectrum in their opinions concerning the Arab–Israeli conflict and held hawkish positions in the issues of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and counter-terrorism.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Politics
Although most of the Soviet immigrants supported the liberal policies in the subjects of religion and state, because this immigration wave was secular in its majority, they avoided support for the Israeli left-wing parties which consisted of similar positions, as a result of their compromising positions in regard of the Palestinians and their identification of left-wing with the soviet communism. So, for example, the elections propaganda for Ehud Barak based on a distribution of a Russian book which described him as a war hero of Israel. Many political commentators claimed after the elections, that this book had a decisive effect in the victory of Barak in the elections. Likewise, also the big sympathy of Soviet immigrants to Ariel Sharon was in his extravagant militaristic record and in his aggressive image.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Politics
The gap between the right-wing positions of the majority of this public as opposed to its anti-religious positions was filled by the Shinui party, a secular party and significant anti-orthodox party, which gained a great popularity amongst the Soviet immigrants public, in spite of its left-wing tendency the Shinui party was not identified with the left. A study done in the 90s, asked Russian immigrants to choose their favorite party political program, with the party name being deleted. Not knowing what party the program belongs to, most immigrants chose the program of the left-wing Meretz (which came as a surprise to most immigrants).


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Politics
In the elections of 2006 the "Yisrael Beiteinu" parted from the "National Union" party. The logic that stood behind this decision was that in spite of the similarities between the positions of "Yisrael Beiteinu" and "National Union" party, the two parties have two separate target audiences: while "Yisrael Beiteinu" turns mainly to the Russian voters and to the right-wings seculars, the "National Union" party turns mainly to the religious national public and to the public of the settlers. This assumption became clear after "Yisrael Beiteinu" gained alone 11 mandates and became the second largest right-wing party after the Likud, which received only 12 mandates, while most of the mandates it received arrived of course from the target audience of the party – the immigrants from the Russian Federation.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Politics
In the Israeli elections of 2009, Yisrael Beiteinu gained 15 Knesset members, its highest ever.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Culture
The weakening of the Zionist ethos and disappearance of the melting pot perception brought more tolerance from the Israeli society to the attempts of the Russian immigrants to preserve their culture. In tandem, many of the immigrants saw themselves as delegates of Russian culture, and they considered it superior to Israel's largely Levantine culture. These parallel trends, combined with the separate immigrant neighborhoods, helped create a distinct Russian-Israeli culture.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Culture
This culture is characterized to a great extent by the combination of characteristic elements from the Soviet Union and Israel. This mixture created a new secular culture which speaks both Hebrew and Russian, and which puts a great emphasis on high culture activities in the fields of education, science and technology, literature, music, theater, etc. Russian immigrants are much more likely to go to the theater or to classic music concerts than Israel-born people, and in literature the Russian aliyah introduced the "fantasy" realism genre into Israeli literature, as opposed to "dry" realism. The Russian immigrants brought the battle reconstruction hobby into Israel, founding a few clubs.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Culture
Due to demand from the new immigrants, many Russian language newspapers appeared, and with the development of the multichannel television in Israel during the 1990s, many Russian channels started being rebroadcast in Israel. And in November 2002, a new Israeli-Russian channel, Israel Plus, emerged. Seven Russian newspapers were also established. However, the Israeli-Russian media is declining, as the children of Soviet immigrants rely far less on it than their parents do.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Culture
Though Hebrew courses are offered to every immigrant, many Russian immigrants prefer to speak Russian. As of 1995, only 51% of them were proficient in Hebrew, while 39% could not read Hebrew or had poor Hebrew literacy, and 26% could barely speak or could not speak Hebrew at all. Some 48% spoke only Russian at home, 6% at work, and 32% with friends, while 8% spoke only Hebrew at home, 32% at work, and 9% with friends. The rest spoke in an amalgamation of Russian and Hebrew.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Culture
The immigrants were overwhelmingly secular. A 2016 poll found that 81% self-identified as secular, as compared to 49% among all Israeli Jews, and only 4% were Haredi, although 55% expressed some level of religious belief. Their rate of intermarriage and cohabitation with non-Jewish partners was also found to be higher, with 10% of them married to or cohabiting with a partner who was a non-Jew, as compared to 2% among all Israeli Jews. However, the children of the immigrants are considerably more religious than their parents, with only 60% identifying as secular, 70% expressing some religious belief, and 14% being Haredi.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Culture
The secular character of this immigration wave and their attempts to preserve their eating habits caused in the mid-1990s the opening of stores selling merchandise which was prevalent in the USSR, notably non-kosher meat such as pork. Even though the sale of pork is allowed in Israel, and there are even pig farms in kibbutz Mizra, the marketing of the meat in cities with a high rate of religious or traditional residents constituted as a contravention of the secular-religious status quo in Israel, and caused many confrontations. In most of the cases, the different sides reached a compromise and the pork stores were moved to the industrial regions of the cities.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Culture
The majority of the Jewish immigrants were Ashkenazi Jews; however, Mizrahi groups such as the Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, and Bukharan Jews also immigrated in great numbers to Israel during the collapse of the USSR. They were more traditional and brought their culture, food, and music to Israel.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Culture
Many immigrants Hebraized their names, but most kept their Russian ones. However, Russian parents largely gave their children Hebrew first names, and the trend steadily rose throughout the 1990s into the 2000s. Many children of Russian immigrants have been given Biblical first names which are recognized as Israeli but are also common in other countries. While the immigrants themselves did not completely integrate into Israeli culture and hold on to part of their Russian identity, their children are entirely integrated into Israeli society, according to a 2011 study.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Culture, Immigrants not considered Jewish under Orthodox interpretations of Halakha
Orthodox interpretations of Halakha recognize only matrilineal descent. However, the Law of Return qualifies anyone who has a Jewish grandparent, or is married to a Jew. As a result of this discrepancy, the immigration wave included many people who were not considered Jews by the Israeli Rabbinate, such as children of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, grandchildren of Jews, or non-Jewish spouses of Jews, who were eligible under the Law of Return.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Culture, Immigrants not considered Jewish under Orthodox interpretations of Halakha
In 1988, a year before the immigration wave began, 58% of married Jewish men and 47% of married Jewish women in the Soviet Union had a non-Jewish spouse. Some 26%, or 240,000, of the immigrants had no Jewish mother, and were thus not considered Jewish under Halakha, or Jewish religious law, which stipulates one must have a Jewish mother to be considered Jewish. This causes problems when they wish to marry, as in Israel marriage arrangements for all religious communities are made by the relevant religious authorities, and in the case of Jewish citizens, only by Orthodox rabbis. This leads many to marry abroad in civil ceremonies, as civil marriages conducted outside Israel are recognized upon the couple's return.


1990s post-Soviet aliyah, Absorption in Israel, Culture, Immigrants not considered Jewish under Orthodox interpretations of Halakha
At the start of the mass immigration, almost all those immigrating from the former USSR were considered Jews under Halakha. The proportion of those who were not considered Jewish by Orthodox interpretations of Halakha among the immigrants consistently rose throughout the immigration wave. For example, in 1990 around 96% of the immigrants were Jews and only 4% were non-Jewish family members.