Back then, my group of friends had sex, drugs, but no rock and roll. (I personally had none of the aforementioned things, I was the token goody-two-shoes). We had pop music. We were experiencing teen angst at the advent of the Britney Spears sensation. We had anger and rebellion, but the radio had "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None The Richer. It was difficult to rebel when we had nonsensical LFO lyrics haunting us: "New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits, Chinese food makes me sick, and I think it's fly when girls stop by for the summer." My brother (who is 15 this summer, like I was in '99) and his friends have music to be angry and destructive to. They have a whole plethora of songs dedicated to angst and rebellion and the dark side of the teen experience. So they have rock and roll. Drugs and rock and roll, but no sex. Their sex education was more frighteningly graphic than the stuff my age group was given, so they tend to steer away from anything that could cause STDs. Besides, most girls John's age are sleeping with boys my age or older.
Maybe all three things aren't necessary to have an adolescence as proscribed by "Dawson's Creek." Or to have all three things would cause an unbalance in the universal angst factor. Still, if given the choice, I'd have wanted a bit of rock and roll so I could have had something to make me cool.