Follow-Ups to Answer from Expert Amarilis Gibeli

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Jamie wrote at 2008-07-23 23:23:47
Hey,



I seem to recall that once Punk and New Wave (and all of their variants) had become mainstream, and when you could hear the tunes on top 40 stations, people had a hard time facing the fact they were listening to "pop" music. I knew there was trouble brewing when I heard The Stranglers on our local Top 40 pop radio station.



The term alternative (my tag was, and still is, "Mutant Pop") started popping up to describe non-mainstream bands in the mid-80s (I am not 100% sure of the timing) - Sonic Youth, Pixies, Smiths, etc.



As for Nirvana, yeah they had a short heyday of being alternative, but their talent & success blurred the lines ... particularly when copycat bands (sorry, but Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam, et al. (sorry, I really can't stand those sorts of bands. Mea Culpa!) did a lot to create a much wider audience for alternative music, which paradoxically is also the end of their involvement as alternative bands) started coming out of the woodwork, it was no time at all before EVERYONE was listening to alternative music. It's not really alternative, when the majority of people listen to it, yeah?



My position is that 95% of what is called alternative is good, ol' pop/rock and roll. Nothing wrong with it, but it is hardly alternative.



There you go. Crucify or immolate me, I'm ready! *ha*

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P man wrote at 2010-09-10 06:01:11
The origins of alternative music:



This is unique music that Generation X grew up with and/or later made. For the most part, this music is distinct from the pop music the Baby Boomers listened to (Classic Rock & Disco). With roots from 70s Glam & Progressive Rock (e.g., David Bowie, The New York Dolls, King Crimson, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, and Lou Reed), this type of new music started with the death of Disco and the beginning of New Wave and Punk (Circa 1979). Then in circa 1984, Generation X started making their own music known as Alternative (e.g., Sonic Youth, Camper Van Beethoven, Red Hot Chili Peppers). This Alternative music was not New Wave, and was not popular enough to play on the commercial radio stations still controlled by the Baby Boomers. As such, in the 80s, Alternative music was (for the most part) played on non-profit college radio stations. Then in the 90s, this Alternative music finally became mainstream as Generation X now controlled much of the commercial radio scene (e.g., starting with Nirvana, and Pearl Jam in 1990). As such, the term "Alternative music" lost much of it's meaning and terms as Grunge and Post-Punk were soon coined instead. By 2005, commercial radio's prominence was now completely replaced by the Internet and thus, those popular Gen X music styles were soon alternative again and were not so popular anymore. By 2010 it's become clear that Classic Rock is long dead and the various styles of Gen X music are being replaced by Generation Y's "Power Pop", Rap and Hip-Hop, as the new, popular music. That all being said, because of the Internet, we now have instant access to whatever we want. As such, the commercial music industry lost much of the resources it used in the past to solidify large portions of the music culture into focusing on their engineered trends. Contrary to that, commercial control of the Internet may now be prevalent enough to allow large manipulations of the masses again. Only time will tell.



Who is Generation X?

Clearly, one of the oldest of them is Eddie Vedder (born 1964) of Pearl Jam.

One of the youngest of them is Brandon Flowers (born 1981) of The Killers.



Enjoy



P in California (Born 1964)

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