I passed on the Morrisey/Oasis and Seattle grunge stuff. It was impossible to avoid since the girls were crazy for it, though. Did rockabilly and some classic rock like CCR instead. I feel like I made the right choice there. LOL.
I paid next to no attention to pop music in general, as there was always something better to listen to. Most of it was derivative, boring, poorly written and executed by low/no talent posers. There were, of course brilliant exceptions.
I became a teenager right as grunge hit. So got super into the music and still love it. (Jammed Nirvana most of my workout this morning lol) Fortunately, I missed the look (mostly)!
The gym I went to in that era played a radio station of that grunge crap. i made a FM radio low power jammer to blank it out. Really confused them but gave me peace.
Now, my hearing is so bad all I can hear is pounding and thumping of whatever the crap is they play. I gather it is some sort of ghetto inspired chanting and shouting.