Monday, 6/9/97 Defining a genre which defies all standards
MUSIC: Meaning of ‘alternative rock’ has mutated since grunge broke
in summer of 1991
By Mike Prevatt Daily Bruin Staff With the surge of "pop" music
and the "death" of grunge, the world of "alternative" music is
facing an identity crisis. In the summer of 1991, college radio and
modern-rock stations (who up until that point had been at the
bottom of Arbitron ratings) began playing a song called "Smells
Like Teen Spirit" by the Seattle grunge band Nirvana. Soon, MTV
caught on, and all of a sudden they had a No. 1 single, a No. 1
album and global media attention. Since then, things haven’t been
the same. In the wake of Nirvana’s sleeper success, a new music
culture broke through the sugar pop, big-hair rock mainstream music
barrier, thanks to tireless searches for the Next Big Thing by
record labels and big radio stations. With a sound that was darker,
quirkier and sometimes harder than what was on Billboard’s Top 100,
the term "alternative" was given to the new, non-mainstream sound
that was difficult to label. In the past six years, the kind of
music generally regarded as "alternative" has revolutionized the
face of music and brought in billions of dollars in revenue. Its
popularity and sometimes controversial nature is only comparable to
its urban Generation X equivalent, gangsta rap. Artists like
Nirvana, Pearl Jam, the Smashing Pumpkins, Beck and Alanis
Morrissette have given ’90s rock ‘n’ roll a cynical yet
revolutionary face, adding a new chapter in the book of pop music.
But nowadays, alternative music has lost a lot of its bite and
edge. Bands like the Wallflowers, No Doubt and Oasis are the new
leaders of a modern-rock scene that is a lot happier and more
pop-based than the alternative artists before them. Radio listeners
and members of the music industry are now wondering what
"alternative" music really is and questioning the literal
definition of the media-created label. "I’m afraid that for me the
word will forever be fused to Kurt Cobain and Nirvana," says James
Westby, a UCLA musicology professor. "In fact, I don’t know what
word to use anymore. I suppose it would be ‘underground’. There
will always be an underground which consists of so-called
‘outsiders’ who are trying to find a place where their voices can
be heard. And I suppose they will always be defined in opposition
to the mainstream(s)." Westby teaches classes such as Musicology 7
(music in film) and Musicology 13 (20th-century music), which he
dubbed "It’s the End of the World as We Know It." The nickname
comes from the classic song with the same title by R.E.M., another
alternative band. In these classes, Westby incorporates the
doom-and-gloom music and the Generation X phenomenon that made
"alternative" so big in the first place. He uses the music as a way
of studying society and culture, and as a reflection of our life
and times. "The present and near-present is all being worked out in
music," Westby says. "We are throwing out ideas in music and some
of them stick, and the underground is where ideas get thrown around
the most and the quickest. The underground is the least invested in
old ideas. They are the underground because they have been excluded
from the old." The underground began to make itself heard a few
years before 1991, when Nirvana hit. Modern rock made some headway
in 1989 and 1990 with the success of the Cure, Depeche Mode and
Erasure. Sinead O’Connor and Jane’s Addiction were also popular
among fans. In 1991, Jesus Jones and EMF, both new British
dance-rock bands without a name in America, hit the peak of
Billboard’s Top 100 with their singles "Right Here, Right Now" and
"Unbelievable," respectively. R.E.M.’s "Losing My Religion" hit the
top five and was a massive hit on MTV. Then came Nirvana. "I get
this nostalgic feeling for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’" Westby says.
"It was, even though I didn’t recognize it at the time, one of
those glorious moments in pop culture when everyone was taken by
surprise and everything got shuffled." Nirvana bumped Michael
Jackson out of the top spot on Billboard’s Top 200 album chart. In
1992, the Red Hot Chili Peppers found success with their album
"Blood Sugar Sex Magik." It spawned the insanely huge single "Under
the Bridge," which found its way to adult Top 40. Pearl Jam,
another band from the underground Seattle scene, released their
anthem "Alive" to a burgeoning modern rock radio market. Their
debut album, "Ten," went on to sell 10 million copies in the U.S.
U2, R.E.M., Soundgarden and Alice in Chains all went platinum with
their "alternative" sounds. The grunge scene created a whole slew
of groups ready to follow Nirvana and Pearl Jam, including Stone
Temple Pilots and Candlebox. Toad the Wet Sprocket and 10,000
Maniacs found a place in the hearts of listeners looking for a
less-abrasive sound. 1993 saw Nirvana’s "In Utero" and the
emergence of the Smashing Pumpkins. Modern-rock and college radio
took off. MTV was the alternative music headquarters, enabling
bands like Nine Inch Nails and Live to have more exposure and
boosting their record sales even more. Here in Los Angeles, KROQ
earned its highest ratings ever, beating out popular stations like
KIIS and KLOS. KROQ became the place people turned to for
alternative music, but in all its popularity came other stations
ready to play music that was more "alternative." Today, college
radio competes with KROQ for helping to break small alternative
bands, though not too successfully. "We want to play music before
KROQ plays it," says Katie Glick, a fourth-year English student and
disc jockey for KLA, UCLA’s radio station. It seems even the mainly
indie-centered college radio circuit must play more familiar
alternative rock to turn listeners away from mainstream KROQ. "We
have a strict rotation which we haven’t had in the past." Glick
says. "We were told pretty much what to play, which was mostly
radio-friendly music … what the kids listening in the dorms would
like. We play Nirvana and Weezer, but we also play dance music like
Moonshine and indie music." "Indie" is the nickname for music
coming from independent record labels such as Caroline Records and
Matador Records. Bands like Pavement and Sleater-Kinney hail from
the American indie scene. In Britain, indie music is the
mainstream, making stars out of (the London) Suede, Cast and other
bands. The British pop scene in the U.S. is considered indie,
though most of these bands are on major labels. "If you really want
to find what’s alternative, you need to look at indie music," says
Glick, who has her own British pop show on KLA. "To me, that’s
what’s alternative, not what’s played on the radio or MTV.
Alternative has become a term for what it doesn’t mean. It’s become
a kind of music, a certain sound, played on certain stations. It’s
harder to define now since it’s moved into the mainstream." Eddie
Hernandez, who works at Tower Records in Westwood, agrees. "By
definition, at this point, it’s anything on KROQ, even though it’s
really not alternative," Hernandez says. "What’s really alternative
is the stuff you hear on, like, KXLU (Loyola Marymount University’s
college station)." According to Hernandez, Tower Records put up CD
listening stations to showcase music by "up and coming artists,
developing artists … stuff no one’s heard." This month,
modern-rock groups like K’s Choice, Ben Folds Five and Dinosaur Jr.
can be found in those listening stations, so customers can preview
the albums before purchasing them. But, is "alternative music"
selling like it used to? "It’s selling more," Hernandez says. "No
Doubt is still selling very well after a year and God knows how
long. The new Foo Fighters album, Erasure, Toad the Wet Sprocket
… are selling really well. Some people bought like four copies of
the Toad album." Indeed, bands like No Doubt and the Wallflowers
are tearing up the album sales charts. Those two particular bands
record under the hugely successful Interscope Records, who have a
wish list of big alternative bands under their name. Marilyn
Manson, Bush and Nine Inch Nails also are signed with the
Westwood-based label. They are just a few of the KROQ-friendly
groups that rule the music charts. Other popular artists currently
selling well in modern rock include Beck, Hole and Sublime. But
what of the bands that found success in the early years of the
alternative music revolution? The Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch
Nails are the biggest names in alternative music right now. U2 and
Counting Crows aren’t selling the amount of albums they used to,
but they have held their own in an overcrowded market. Many bands
are suffering from low sales, despite fantastic first-week numbers.
Silverchair, the Offspring, Tori Amos, Weezer, Stone Temple Pilots
and Green Day have all been under media and industry scrutiny
because of their low sales. R.E.M. and Pearl Jam, megastars of
modern rock two years ago, barely sold a million copies each of
their 1996 releases. But the lull in sales among alternative’s old
standbys opens up opportunities for bands that take the genre in a
new direction. Now, the alternative music press is looking toward
electronic music to take off much like grunge did in 1991-92. The
Chemical Brothers have had surprisingly high sales of their new
release, "Dig Your Own Hole." The industry is waiting to see how
the aggressive dance outfit Prodigy will fair when their new album,
"The Fat of the Land," is released, especially after signing a $5
million contract with Maverick Records. Bands like Garbage, the
Smashing Pumpkins, Beck and U2 are also venturing into the land of
"electronica." The face of music is always changing. The death of
Kurt Cobain, the reclusive experimentation of Pearl Jam and the
breakup of Soundgarden have all but sealed the coffin for grunge
music. Modern rock is plugging in, amplified and layered with
computers and synthesizers. But is "alternative" still the label to
use? For now, until another genre comes along and takes over the
charts, it looks like both the sound and label we habitually call
"alternative" will remain a part of our cultural vocabulary.