When Chris Wood found out his Vampire Diaries character, Kai, was going to be trapped in 1994 reliving the same day over and over again for two decades, he immediately began researching the fashion, music and technology of the time.
“I actually have a playlist on my phone that is hits from 1994, just the music that Kai probably listened to,” he tells Zap2it.
Kai’s No. 1 favorite band? Pearl Jam, of course.
You can see by his fashion he’s severely Eddie Vedder. I think the whole crossword knowledge of Pearl Jam songs, that’s probably one of his groups. [I also researched] the fashions of the ’90s, which were so out of this world, which are also hilariously sort of coming back now. I’ve seen a lot more flannels around the waist now than I’ve seen since growing up in the ’90s.”
Aside from the superficial differences between 1994 and 2014, there were also some significant technological differences.
“I spent some time looking at the major tech breakthroughs, because that’s a severely different element of life now,” Wood says. “In 1994 the Internet wasn’t what it was now. We didn’t Google things as readily” — Google didn’t even exist until 1998 — “[and] we didn’t have smartphones. Those things existed technologically but we didn’t have them as prevalent. [Kai’s] view of the world and how to handle things and what to do with his time when he’s bored and what he had access to for two decades trapped in this prison world were different than if I was trapped now for 20 years. I might be able to busy myself easier.”
But about that playlist — Wood says he packed it with 1994 hits from “Boyz II Men, Madonna, Ace of Base, Coolio, Aaliyah, Michael Bolton, Meat Loaf — anything that came out then. Snoop Doggy Dogg, Bon Jovi, Ice Cube — all kinds of wild stuff.”
To help set the mood, we researched those groups’ hit singles from 1994 and compiled them into a Spotify playlist you can listen to below. You’re welcome, and we’re not responsible for any Ace of Base songs that will be stuck in your head for the next week.
“The Vampire Diaries” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.
