Okay, there are lots of plots holes you could pick on if you wanted, but, minus the space helmet randomness, Captain Marvel actually held together well enough that I wasn’t too distracted watching when I finally caught it this weekend.

Except for one scene: If you’re really a child of the 90s, would you have played Nirvana on a turntable? No. You’re right at the intersection of the decline of the cassette and the ascension of the CD. The record was nowhere in sight.

Wikipedia:

In Western Europe and North America, the market for cassettes declined sharply after its peak in the late 1980s. This was particularly noticeable with pre-recorded cassettes, the sales of which were overtaken by those of CDs during the early 1990s. By 1993, annual shipments of CD players had reached 5 million, up 21% from the year before; while cassette player shipments had dropped 7% to approximately 3.4 million.[36]

Additionally…

By the 1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger market share, and the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991.[1]

Nirvana’s height literally marks the least likely time you’d catch your favorite tunes on a turntable.

Very few folks were vinyl hipsters in 1991–4. I realize there are likely some convoluted, retconny explanations someone could dream up, but ultimately they’re fails. Carol “Don’t call me Supergirl” Danvers’ vinyl makes no sense at all.

Which stinks, because the rest of the movie is so clearly a nostalgic trip back to the 1990s. That is, someone wanted us to think that they cared about the 90s, but this vinyl slip-up tells me they were personally strangely hipster or, much more likely, that they weren’t really there.

Labels: Randmo