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Forums: Artists Forum: Whostole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
etcetra
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Subject: Whostole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
Now i am not a historian or anything, but I've put a lot of time listening and reading about alternative bands.. and they had a big influence on me in my life.. I may be wrong about some things so feel free to criticize
I just want to look back and talk about what happened to it &how it died.. and also new things I've found out about them. And I want to know if people who were around then felt the same thing or if its just me.
It started when i was a 9th grade or something.. i started hearing about Nirvana, Pearl Jam you know.. on MTV.. I wasn't happy with any of the music that was out there before,
But all the sudden i felt like there was something.. some music i could actually belive in.. something that spoke for all these frustrating, meaningless years I was spending.. and I kept on buying cd's read about it.. read about temple of the dog, mudhoney, the whole seattle scene.. and I was looking forward to see the new bands.
But then.. I felt like the whole thing just faded out into nothing.. as if it didn't happen. It was strange because you started hearing thse 'new bands' under the altertanive/grunge banner.. bands like Bush, Collective Soul.. and then Goo Goo Doll and so on... they just sounded differnt.. they didn't sound real.. they just sounded like copy of what it was.
In some ways "Mellon Colllie and Infinite sadness" was like the last alternative explosion for me. I remember Billy Corgan saying stuff about how music is becoming electronic.
Well, its not all dead.. its just.. most of it is gone.. I mean I remember listening to Radiohead.. and they give me hope..I thoguht to myself .. gosh they did what SP couldn't do.. bring the electronic stuff somehow into their music. but i also remember how their performance at grammy was cancelled and Spice Girls instead.
Well since then i stopped listnineg to radio and gave up on the whole alternatice scene thing, because its nowhere to be found, but going to p2p kind of waken me up to those bands i used to listen to.
I've read a lot about Pearl Jam and Nirvana.. read about how Pearl Jam fought against ticket master to reduce ticket price.. and how both bands struggled with their fame and the media's exploitation of them.
I think PJ did the right thing.. they kind of went under the rader so that there are less pressure and make music the way the y want to. I mean i do admit i still think their earlier efforts are the best, but they do make really great songs here and there.
I think radiohead is kind of doing the same thing.. they are both trying to avoid selling out.. I am not a big fan of Courtney Love but she decided to leave the major lable and talked about the problem with the recordig company. These bands lost a lot of media presence because they decide not to cooperate with big companies as much.
Well, Curt Kobain as we know wasn't that fortunate.. well, I read his suicide notes again.. and i just felt like.. god how sad.. he was doing music.. and he lost his love doing it.. how could that have happend? And Eddie Vedder was close too.. he said about how he thought he would be the who would go first..
Has the recording industry done something to them to feel that way? I mean to put them on the edge? I gueess the alleged rivary between Nirvana and Pearl Jam is one thing.. but thats probably like fracgtion of what it was like ...I mean I am glad there were the radio the TV program or else i might not have heard about them..
but now that i look back.. these people were driven to the edge.. and well, these were the bands.. at least for me and i am sure many others, the bands that defined the 90's.
To come to think of it, its funny how almost all these bands kind of self destroyed itself.. i mean Smashing Pumpkings and Soundgarden broke up.. a lot of bands just disappeared because the member died of an OD..
When i saw "the merchant's of the cool" there were mentioning Nirvana and how his struggle was struggle not to sell out and in the end, it just destoryed itself. and i remmber another thing these cooperate "cool hunters" say.. they said that you kill the cool as soon as you find them and market them.
I wonder.. there were great music back then.. certainly a lot of bad music also, but why was not the good thing cultivated.. i think a lot of people wanted it to last.. well i am sure people thought this was something... mabye its a cliche and its a marketed thing..
but I felt like the bands that were around were real and it wasn't sold to us.. they were speaking to us. and something happend.. all these bands just disappeared.. and you had the carbon copies who were just selling themselves.
Well I don't know.. its been more than 10 years ago.. but i still cant help but to think someone stole my music.. it could have been something else.
I dont know exactly what happend.. some of you guys probably know about it a lot better than i do. But looking at music now and back then.. it seems so differnt.. so less real, and i can't help but think about what happend in those times. |
MusicAsWeapon
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Subject: Re: Who stole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
Good post, etc.
I had similar thoughts not too long ago, except it wasn't alternative bands that seemed to dissappear, it was underground metal.
I spent a majority of my teen years at clubs and such watching the local metal/death/thrash acts perform. Along with the local acts, we also got quite a bit of big time bands. I've seen everything from Nuclear Assault and Overkill to Deicide and Morbid Angel in local bars and clubs in my teens. I also had the opportunity to take a few bus trips with a local band to New Jersey for some real kickass shows. Then, all of a sudden, it vanished...
At the present, there are only a few places in PA that cater to the bigger acts (like Phila. and Pittsburg) and I could count the number of local acts I've heard of on my one hand. Now I know how my father feels about his generation...
As Stephen King writes in the Gunslinger, "The world has moved on..."
~MaW~ |
koemoejoe
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Subject: Re: Whostole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
thats just not true the world has not moved on just what is marketed to us but those days are comeing to an end with the riaa as soon as we can get these blood suckers out the sooner we will get are music back man the you really reminded of the the 90s with that post vary good but any way we will take music back i don't know to many younger kids who like even half the crap thats being sold to them it's all the same thay have stop looking to market cool as that news sed and just started makeing copys of what thay already have thats why music sales are falling and no one wants to lisson to this crap i'm sick of the riaa and i can't do nothing to voice this to my fellow amricans except a web site that can't get media attion |
etcetra
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Subject: Re: Whostole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
you know i have to say i was lucky. I mean I was old enough to figure out whats going on with the busic.. that it was becoming more and more commecial.. but I know I fell into the traps of commecialism somewhat, and i wasnt really aware of it earlier on.
I didn't realize it back then partly because I lived in Japan until middle of 9th grade.. and I barely knew MTV.. and a lot of the inside stuff that you get when you live in America. Yea i bought merchancdices, I wanted that look.. i only wish i knew things better then.. because i liked these bands for the music.
I mean like i said I felt something really reallyw rong when bands like Bush, Creed and Goo Goo Dolls came out. It just wasn't the same.
I just felt bad for the kids who were growing up listneing to this becuase this was when the band's resistance to commercialism was starting to fade and I wonder if kids would know the difference.
Well like i said.. the people who are at the top do kill the cool.. i mean there is no seattle scene, no underground metal scene.. and why not? I mean I don't see why a scene would completely disappear after they explode. unless you drain so much out of them.. and i think that's what happend.
It only makes me wonder what if these scene actually lasted and developed.. that these musicians could ature as a band by having a long term career.
Well, as far as I know. Pearl Jam is the only band that is still going on, and you dont hear from them as much any more. |
MusicAsWeapon
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Subject: Re: Whostole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
I think koemoejoe is the closest to what happened: the scenes didn't dry up per se, they just moved out of the metropoliton USA and into other areas that are less comercialistic. I know the underground metal scene flourishes overseas and there still might be some pockets of resistance in the states, but where I live it has been squashed out.
~MaW~ |
paulruss
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Subject: Re: Whostole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
This topic is as old as the hills.
Back in 1986 I discovered alternative music, I started slow, the cure, u2 and rem were the springboard. Followed by the smiths, ministry, cocteau twins, bauhaus and love and rockets. I got into punk, black flag, dead kennedys, sex pistols, husker du, the replacements and the minutemen. At the time my older friends chided me that I was buying into pop/alternative and told me not to get too worked up about punk because it was doa. I'm not suprised that it's still around and I'm even less suprised that it's been co-opted and sanitized by the labels in the form of sum-41, blink-182, and the like. Of course this new stuff is toothless and manipulated by the labels as an attempt to get young kids who hate britney to buy corporate punk instead of the real thing, but hey, what are you going to do? I was crying foul when pearl jam shot up the charts when my favorite bands (above), who opened the door for them were swept under the rug. Cobain killed himself, thus casting a pall over alternative and we got Smash Mouth instead, fair enough, people wanted to lighten up.
But here's what I think is going on. The music industry's business model is programmed to deal with what the next group of high school freshmen is going to like. In other words, music that the older sister will hate. Cobain's suicide hamstrung the alternative movement, a shift was made to industrial (white zombie, kmfdm) for a bit, then electronica (fluke, underworld), the spice girls came in and the teenyboppers went wild, they didn't want that dour crap their older siblings listened to, they wanted happy. When the alt-crowd grew up, got jobs and started spending money on alcohol instead of music, the next wave of kids were ready and in a buying mood. In comes the majors, ready with the backstreet boys and britney, as their fans grow older and start to enter the workplace, the industry is now gearing the next generation, the folkie kids and the angry rockers, john mayer and norah jones (folkies), saliva, disturbed (angry rockers). They'll ride a crest for awhile then be replaced by the next fad for the industry to create, and the cycle continues.
In short: rock, pop, rock, pop, rock, pop. Programmed ad-infinitum. The charts are plotted and planned for the next hundred years.
The artists that get signed or "make it", are either naiive or know full well of their planned obselescense and ready for the quick burn and cash. They're easily manipulated and will do as their told.
The cure, u2 and rem are still around and making music, but are back to the same kind of following they had when they were indies (well, maybe not u2). Most really great alternative acts from the past, who came from an indie background are still with us while the flash in the pan acts all, well flash.
Meanwhile, new, great indie bands are popping up all over the place, if you want to hear great music, there is, as there ever was, only one place to hear it: college radio.
Mourn not the state of the pop chart, it is what it is, it will not change. We're in the next 5 year cycle, which is rock, for now. Meanwhile college radio remains unchanged: a brilliant diamond in a sea of coal.
Have a wonderful day!
Paul |
paulruss
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Subject: Re: Whostole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
I have to add that this began way back in the 50's when elvis came out, again with the beatles, stones, bowie and the grandpappys of alternative, t-rex and iggy pop, then we got the carpenters for awhile until zeppelin came in, then queen, disco blew up and then came the talking heads, the pistols and gary numan, which gave way to duran duran, which got squashed by michael jackson and madonna, slowly u2, rem and the cure changed the face of music but were matched and eventually bested by mc hammer and new kids on the block, just when you thought rock was dead, bam, nirvana, pearl jam, soundgarden, alice and chains, depeche mode became a guitar band, everybody used feedback, cobain died, robzombie stepped in, then the prodigy, underworld, spice girls, backstreet boys, eminem, britney, blink 182 and sum-41, someone cried foul, the industry threw us a bone, norah jones (who's going to be around for a long, long time). phew! the history of rock and roll. up and down, rock and pop. |
paulruss
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Subject: Re: Whostole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
If you want an accurate historical timeline of alternative rock, start here:
to be safe copy and paste the link:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=CASS70309110622&sql =K154|15 |
etcetra
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Subject: Re: Whostole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
hey thanks for your post paul.. that was really intersting read. Yea it does seem to go in cycles... I rembmer MC Hammer he was probably just as bad as Britney.
What i am wondeirng is whehter the cycle is worse now than it was.. i mean maybe i feel this way because i never lived in the 60's, but was it better back than then it was now? Or you had your load of Britney BS back then also?
I can cite couple of differences between now and the past. I read in PBS' "The Merchants of the cool " that well the so called "generatoion-y" is the biggest generation to hit, and they have the a lot more spending power than their prior generations. Music industry seems to be heavily focced on this age group where as in the past, music industry seem to cater to a wider range of age groupe.
The documentary also did spend quite some time on the MTV and the working of the music industry and my impression was that their strategy they have right now is something that is new and revolutional. Cool Hunting and music video are cerainly new and they emerged in the 90's
i mean MTV did not exist as this giant music media back in the 80's.
also I am sure the advent of rap has an impact on the whole cyle, and the documentary does pick up on the whole hip-hop culture and advertisement.
The media analysts i read seem to belive that the alternative music scene, and Nirvana was the last and end of genuine movement.. (although it was drained out by the big companyies),
But however that may be a naive or even too nostalgic for conculsion and mabye as you say, there will be another rock movment in couple of years peoplse say rock n roll is dead but maybe it hibernates here and there.. or maybe this is just it. I am not sure
I can certaionly tolerate Maddona and Michael Jackson better than Brittany Spears or NSYNC, but thats my music taste. and I can't really name any new bands right now that I would champion as much as the ones I grew up listening to..but that can just be my taste. My impression is that it's always been like this somewhat, but its jsut getting worse and worse.
I've been reading couple of interviews by Eddie Vedder and Kurt Kobain, but the fact that they were being sold out, and that's what drove them to the edge.. has that happend before also?
gosh I have so many questions.. thanks again for your feedback
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paulruss
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Subject: Re: Whostole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
Thanks for your interest, etcetera!
I think that we've always had periods of great innovations in music followed by "safe" periods of bland pop. Disco dominated the airwaves in the late '70s, the early 70's had a period of groups like the partridge family, starlight vocal band, and a whole wierd movement called "adult contemporary" which was followed with "smooth jazz" (which is neither smooth, nor jazz). For every Jerry Lee Lewis, there was a Ricky Nelson (who later rebelled against his fame and then died tragically, sound familiar?).
Using the last sentence as a lead in I think there have always been a few rediculously famous artists who have felt betrayed and/or disillusioned by their success and rebelled against it in some way, John Lennon started doing that even when the Beatles were at the apex of their success. Bowie did it by killing off Ziggy Stardust and going through some radical musical and image changes, in the 80's he went shockingly mainstream and has never quite recovered from it commercially. He views it with wisdom "my time has passed, the young must rise up and kill the old" (paraphrase). Jerry Lee was an unfortunate victim of the London tabloid press at a time when moral indignation was at an all-time high. Then again, I suppose that any rock star who marries his 16 year old cousin is going to have a rough time of it. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys couldn't handle success and became a shut in. Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd retreated from success to live with his mom and garden, he's still there. Ian Curtis and Nick Drake killed themselves (though the reasons are really not known). Fame can drive intelligent, brilliant and thoughtful people to disdain, despair, drugs and suicide. Today's successes are those who are willing participants in the engine of fame, they're team players. Some are thick skinned enough to call their own shots and build a cult of personality where they lack real talent (i.e. madonna, britney may attempt this but I think will ultimately fail).
As far as which way the pendulum will swing, I have a feeling, based on past trends, that indie music is going to be a big push for the industry in the next few years given the decent success of bands like the strokes, at the drive in, the white stripes and the vines, which were the litmus test, but will not be the bands at the fore of that movement, just as the replacements, pere ubu, the pixies and husker du were the test cases for nirvana and pearl jam. I think the industry knows exactly when they're going to start aggressively pursuing new bands that fit the "indie" mold.
MTV will alter it's programming to reflect this change and it will become more "real" and less "flashy", this will last a few years and then pop will phase it's way back in.
The industry knows that it needs to keep things interesting by giving us extremes just when it knows the public has had enough of the current "thing".
I'm sure that the next wave will have a couple rabble-rousing genious superstars who will abandon their celebrity, have it taken from them, or commit suicide. The current batch of pop-superstar wunderkind will wait in vain for their comeback (remember tiffany?) and watch their millions bleed away into the pockets of lawyers, managers, unpaid bills and just plain hubris (see: mtv's "cribs").
I have followed the stories of this crazy industry for 18 years and nothing suprises me anymore. Just wait, I kid you not, I'd be willing to wager that polka-punk will be a fad sometime in the next ten years. Remember those brief latin-pop and swing fads from just a few years ago? Where's Ricky Martin now? Brian Seltzer (a great artist, but alas...)?
Now, if you ask me, Prince chewed up and spit out MJ and Madonna a long long time ago, but he's another one that fought the industry and won, his reward? exile. (plus he hasn't put out a decent record in 12 years (well, "come" was good.)
I like this subject. Let's talk some more.
Have a super day!
Paul |
etcetra
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Subject: Re: Whostole our Muisc? History of Alternative Music (according to my life)
Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
Well I do hope that the trend will shift in the way you expect in the near future. Well, since we've kind of established a model of how the industry work, i am trying to think of exceptions.
Like you said., the most intersting musciaisn are the ones who denousnce their fame afterwards. Well, I am trying to relate this with Radiohead. They did have a signifanct impact in the industry with their release of "Ok Computer", and here's what i find strange.
Well, I remember shortly after that, bands like Travis emerged.. And I remember reading somewhere that they would have been a tremendous hit if they made an album just like the bends.. and i thought to myself.. well, the whole radiohead sound is in, I am going to see a lot a lot of Radiohead clones in the same way there were a lot of Nirvana and Pearl Jam clones.
But It didn't seem to really take off. I am thinking part of the reason is that Radiohead didn't really follow up with another album like "Ok Comp." Well I am not sure what this does, but people like John Lennon and radiohead, they do seem to create some sort of 'anomaly' in the how model.. i mean it just donst fit because they don't do what cooperations expect them to do.. write music to maxmize profit.
As far as indie music goes.. i remember what my friend told me when he was pormoting his music. He asked whehter this indie station was there to cater what they belive to be good music, or whether they are just there to cater for sort of a target audiecen who is not so mainstream as the others.
And the station answerd that it was more like that latter, and from what i heard even most of the indie bands are owned by the major companies.. they are just giving people another cliche to chew on..
i met these people in the indie music scene, and it was all about their exclusiveness, and the arrogance to belong in it, and i feel like that is what they are selling. It's like they want to say "here i am betting than most ignorant idiots there, i have taste, i know music". Now I am going to refer to "merchants of the cool again', but the band "insane clown posse(?)" fits that profile.
Now if this is true then even the so called 'real' music are , and have always been pre-fabricated. or i should say truly goods bands are always there, but bands get picked up depending on the current trend of the market, so nothing really emerged in its own right, and even the best thing emerged because of the commercial and not the musical interest behind it...
so.. well in a sense the music I belived was never ours, it always belong to the cooperations, it was never stolen from me, they disappered because their marketing poteiontal just expired hmm very disturibing ..
But at the same time out of this whole mess.. truly good musicains do emerge here and that makes you belive that it really is about the music.
I guess i am more opt to think that things are worse now then ever but that maybe because i havent lived long enough.
I have few reason to think so.. for example the whole idea of peyloa back then and now.. i heard that in the past you go to court for that kind of thing.. nowdays i dont think many peole even know that tis going on.
I guess i can see things being worse because of people's general lack of awareness in things. I mean after all, I think the people who are boycotting RIAA are minoirties. but people back then might have been in the dark just as mch as the present.
Well i guess thats it for now.. phew that was a lot of thinking. Well thanks agaoin for writing.. i am in taiwan now for vaction.. (long story but my folks are here) and I'd dont get to talk to music like this other than here. |
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