Steven Hyden: "Whatever Happened To Alternative Nation?"
HeavyHands
Posts: 2,130
Columnist Steven Hyden of The Onion is in the middle of writing a series of really interesting articles on his perspective of American rock music during the decade of the 1990's. He's currently up to part 6. You can find them here if you're interested in reading them: http://www.avclub.com/features/whatever-happened-to-alternative-nation/
The third article was a bit down on PJ, but that's Hyden's own opinion, and truthfully, I think he made some valid observations in that article. Someone posted a link to it on The Porch a few weeks ago and took offense (why I don't know, they are opinion pieces...), but I think now that there are more pieces out it is easier to see how they all fit together.
In his most recent article, Hyden writes
"The popularity of Throwing Copper—which was released on April 26, 1994, and hit No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart 52 weeks later—says a lot about the state of alternative rock in 1995. Similar to the exploitation and marginalization of the serious-minded avant garde by the pop-music industry that rock critic Nik Cohn wrote about in the late ’60s, 1995 was a time when the superficial aesthetics of alternative music—down-tuned guitars, downbeat melodies, frowny-faced (but still telegenic) stars—had been fully absorbed by corporate starmakers, who set about flooding the market with highly commercial bubble-grunge bands that took everything that seemed fresh just three years earlier out of context and straight into the meat grinder." (source: http://www.avclub.com/articles/1995-live-bush-and-alanis-morissette-take-the-pop,49004/)
I've got to say, I think that is just about as astute an observation as I've ever read about how the commercial rock music market shifted from the slick pop aesthetic so prevalent in the 1980's and early 1990's to what it became after Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Faith No More, and others had such great success.
Thoughts anyone?
The third article was a bit down on PJ, but that's Hyden's own opinion, and truthfully, I think he made some valid observations in that article. Someone posted a link to it on The Porch a few weeks ago and took offense (why I don't know, they are opinion pieces...), but I think now that there are more pieces out it is easier to see how they all fit together.
In his most recent article, Hyden writes
"The popularity of Throwing Copper—which was released on April 26, 1994, and hit No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart 52 weeks later—says a lot about the state of alternative rock in 1995. Similar to the exploitation and marginalization of the serious-minded avant garde by the pop-music industry that rock critic Nik Cohn wrote about in the late ’60s, 1995 was a time when the superficial aesthetics of alternative music—down-tuned guitars, downbeat melodies, frowny-faced (but still telegenic) stars—had been fully absorbed by corporate starmakers, who set about flooding the market with highly commercial bubble-grunge bands that took everything that seemed fresh just three years earlier out of context and straight into the meat grinder." (source: http://www.avclub.com/articles/1995-live-bush-and-alanis-morissette-take-the-pop,49004/)
I've got to say, I think that is just about as astute an observation as I've ever read about how the commercial rock music market shifted from the slick pop aesthetic so prevalent in the 1980's and early 1990's to what it became after Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Faith No More, and others had such great success.
Thoughts anyone?
"A lot more people are capable of being big out there that just don't give themselves a chance." -Stone Gossard
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Comments
at first
if it didn't come out of the 60's or early 70's
it was rot
it was years before i got over being inundated with "grunge"
i heard pj mentioned on that puke movie "stepmom"
and saw flannel on runways and in the fuking gap
it wasn't until i heard about pj fighting ticket master that i gave the music a chance
so thankful for THAT
soundgarden and aic had debut albums out before neverfuckingmind
and so i am glad that i discovered all this good music
even if i did have to back into it
peace
"what a long, strange trip it's been"
That's an interesting approach you took, dickweed. You let the ideals of the band's politics guide you in to a relationship with their music.
Neat stuff.