Post a controversial music opinion

I'm flabbergasted reading any hit of the lack of diversity on '90s AT40 radio when hip-hop and R&B, after years of being shut out, triumphed thanks to Soundscan semi-accurately reflecting listener taste. It was a glorious time.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, May 7, 2023 3:43 PM

the top 40 station in my neck of the woods started to advertise that they were "rap free" around the time doggystyle was released.

(and that station was ironically the first place i ever heard a hiphop song)

I am warming to deflatormouse's point that the rise of grunge coincides with a larger cultural fracturing.

i was thinking specifically about how music that doesn't rock gets confused by "rock" identification and how and when that started.

https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9214-radio-friendly-unit-shifters-25-years-of-billboards-alternative-music-chart/

good piece.

I remember listening to Top 40 radio in the early to mid 1980s and didn’t feel like it was very diverse tbh … is it just that much less so now and I no longer pay attention?

oh hey this thread got good again, good job all

Yes, but isn’t that exactly what we’re talking about – cool bands getting industry love and hitting it big?

One story goes that REM only got their spot on Warner Bros because Hüsker Dü imploded. As much as I like to believe that, and as much as I love the Hüskers, I don’t think they had the temperament to break out like REM did. Does that count as a controversial opinion?

No.

Nope, and that sounds like a tall tale to me

Warehouse peaked at #117 on Billboard. Document had sold a million copies by January 1988--some quick wiki referencing, but that sounds accurate

having known Grant a little and knowing people that knew him well, Grant's ability to self sabotage his career was pretty striking

See: Replacements, The

R.E.M. was a known quantity, and all their albums made the top 40 (lowest was #36). As waterface noted, Warners wasn't exactly rolling the dice on them.

That is, before they signed with Warners all their albums had made the top 40.

and Peter Buck gave great interview, always.

They also had really, really corporate minded managers

They wanted to play the game, and they also knew how to play both sides of the fence. They played up their non-image image, claimed in 1985 that they'd never made a video (despite having made at least four that had aired on MTV), and made concessions barely noticeable as such by their audience, but enough to get them into arenas (enunciating, and Don Gehman production). They also had no problem doing the kind of radio-programmer gladhanding that the Hüskers were at best ambivalent about and that the 'mats obviously despised.

REM weren't really a drug band were they? (or maybe they hid it well)

That is, before they signed with Warners all their albums had made the top 40.

Also, "The One I Love" – a big, radio-friendly song – went to #9. They were clearly ready to "level up," and (needless to say) they delivered.

realistically, Huskers' commercial ceiling was probably about what Sugar's was

REM weren't really a drug band were they? (or maybe they hid it well)

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, May 8, 2023 10:14 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

According to Paul Westerberg -- and not denied by Peter Buck -- R.E.M. drank as much as the 'mats, and were heavily into speed. "Lay It Down Clown" is about Buck being unwilling to share his speed stash with the 'mats.

So yeah, in the '80s they hid it well. When Peter Buck was charged with drunkenly assaulting flight attendants on a transatlantic flight in 2001, he hid it less well.

I can see the "grunge bad" argument centered on the glut of cash-in signings of young bands that weren't ready for prime time (and likely would never be ready), grunge-lite "scrunge" bands etc... the flip-side of the thumb's-up I mentioned earlier (bands like Royal Trux getting 3-album deals with no strings attached).

and The Raincoats catalog getting a proper release in the States

and all those cool Infinite Zero reissues!

Someone I know interned for Virgin in the mid-90s, and worked directly for someone who was tasked with wining and dining Royal trux. They took Neil and Jennifer to brunch at an Italian restaurant in hollywood, and she said it was most definitely one of the strangest meals of her life.

Oh man... to be a fly on the wall (or in the soup, etc.)

A lot of those major label deals were disastrous for the weird bands that signed them and some essentially broke up because of them

My band got caught up in the feeding frenzy at the time, which amounted to being courted by a couple faux indie labels and A&Rs over the course of a year or two only to be unceremoniously blackballed for spurious reasons. It was all very demoralizing, especially since I put a lot of other important things in my life on hold to pour all my energy into the band. We did indeed break up not too long after all this, and I've been extremely wary of the music biz ever since.

moodles are you comfortable saying which band? just curious

VH1 Behind the Moodles

"In 1994, the Moodles were riding high. Then an unscrupulous label screwed them over. Then came the nightmare descent into drugs and groupies. Now the Moodles are soberer and wiser, and back in the studio again with their freshest material yet."

https://www.theonion.com/ask-vh1-behind-the-music-host-kris-kristofferson-1819583574

Just four guys in a room, I hope

We were called Bison, kind of emo-ish alt rock. Here's our record:

https://open.spotify.com/album/1ttc7KoPS9ittZffhiDSBe

Very much four guys in a room (or basement)

i like this! you guys def had a good sense for hooks, i could see how an A&R might think if we reined these guys in a bit and smoothed off the edges it could work on a bigger level...though i'm sure it would have had to be less interesting

thanks! we were very much into the popular alt rock/grunge bands at the time: Nirvana/Foo Fighters, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Husker Du/Sugar, as well as Urge Overkill, Jawbox, Swervedriver, but there's no escaping the fact that before the big alt explosion we started out as a Rush cover band and then became kind of a slick "modern rock" band.

R.E.M. was a known quantity, and all their albums made the top 40 (lowest was #36). As waterface noted, Warners wasn't exactly rolling the dice on them

I think a big thing was that even early on REM were on a separate level to the Azerrad bands (pre-1985) so there’s a whole level and extended period of momentum they had which was beyond the grasp of the Azerrads until the majors arrived for the latter

i'm assuming REM might have gone gold before signing to a major?

According to Wikipedia LRP and Document went gold when still on IRS….Reckoning and Fables were gold by ‘91

Their first real-time gold album was LRP iirc.

That tracks. Their 1986 US tour took in a few basketball arenas (the Chicago date was at the same arena the Police played in 1983), and they were on the cover of Spin for the first time, with the headline, “Are we there yet?”

that's a super safe bet for a label, strong sales on an indie, long touring history, a layup if you don't fuck it up

like the labels that wanted fugazi so badly in the 90s

Looks like it:

https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default-award&se=R.E.M.&col=certification_date&ord=asc#search_section

From the highbrow/lowbrow thread:

Tony Williams was a Ramones fan. From a 1983 interview in Down Beat:

DB: You were quoted in [an article in] Rolling Stone, praising the drummer in the Ramones. Were you serious?

TW: I don’t remember the occasion, but I do like that kind of drumming, like Keith Moon, any drumming where you have to hit the drum hard; that’s why I like rock ’n’ roll drumming.

DB: Sometimes so much of that music seems very insensitive.

TW: It depends on what you’re saying the Ramones are supposed to be sensitive to. Just because it’s jazz doesn’t mean it’s going to be sensitive. You’re trying to evoke a whole other type of feeling with the Ramones.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, May 8, 2023 4:35 PM

I actually think he was a genius drummer who got worse under the influence of rock, not sure if that is controversial or not

His duo with Cecil Taylor (“Morgan’s Motion,” on The Joy Of Flying) is a disappointment relative to how such a duo might have sounded in 1964 when he desperately wanted to play with Cecil and Bill Dixon (Dixon’s advice was, “I’m not working. Cecil’s not working. Why should you give up a chance with Miles Davis?”)

But it’s good. And his playing on PiL’s album is wonderful, far more convincing than any other established “jazz” drummer’s approach at “rock” that I’ve heard. He was a Keith Moon fanatic (“He’s beautiful. Totally free”) who could have only intriguingly expanded on that influence (already begun on the first two Lifetime records), among many others, had he lived.

Tbf he was alive and working through most of the '90s, but of course I wish he was still around and had gotten to play on better records in his latter years.

I would like to hear unperson's Tony Williams opinions. His playing and sound definitely changed over time (but of course his '60s sound and playing is a high water mark of the 20th century in general).

He was a Keith Moon fanatic (“He’s beautiful. Totally free”) who could have only intriguingly expanded on that influence (already begun on the first two Lifetime records), among many others, had he lived.

He died in 1997. How long were we supposed to wait for him to develop an interesting rock/fusion style? Williams was an amazing acoustic jazz drummer until about 1968. His interest in rock ruined him IMO. Not only did Lifetime mostly suck, but he was no longer able to go backward, shed those bombastic ideas, and revert to being the drummer he had once been. If he was still alive now he'd probably be talking about how much he loved Dream Theater.

Of course, I hate Keith Moon's drumming, too.

Never change.

Interesting discussion. One takeaway for me is it never occurred to me that he played on “Rise.”

Tbf he was alive and working through most of the '90s, but of course I wish he was still around and had gotten to play on better records in his latter years.

Definitely. I think he never found an approach that was able to successfully combine his love of volume with his (formerly, by the late ‘70s) idiosyncratic phrasing.

And I always wished he’d made about ten more albums along the lines of his two Blue Note dates as a leader, Spring and Life Time. There is very little like those records, then and now.