What got you into "alternative" music

I always liked money and cars. Lyrics about them though, that took me a while.

Okay, to answer the question, Thomas Pynchon and I don't regret it.

m.

Before that was punk with Bad Religion, Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat et al.

which may speak for my recent/current VIOLENT RAMP obsession.

That, and Peel - got me into everything from The Flaming Lips, Pavement & Pulp to minimalist techno, early drum'n'bass, German folk music and African pop. Still don't like The Fall much, but.

Seriously, if I could point to one thing that turned me musically weird... WCDB Albany, NY. Used to be the most amazing college radio station. Now I hear it's all sports all the time or something... ugh.

Depends on how you define it obv, but if we mean alternative *mainly guitar-based music*, then I'd say it's narrower in every way - ambition, emotional range, use of sound, willingness to experiment and so on.

Also doesn't *alternative* get in the charts? Or does getting in the charts disqualify it as *alternative*? Which is silly.

The use of alternative seems so early 80's.

Pre-punk I was into whatever was in the charts plus the odd bit of prog which friends' elder brothers usually had. I also saw non-chart stuff on OGWT, but didn't really connect with it as much as chart music. Punk took its time to travel to the rural North, so I was about 6 months behind London. We'd heard The Pistols/Damned/Ramones/Subway Sect/Buzzcocks etc on J.Peel and read about them in the music press, but didn't fully get into it until the first punk recds hit the charts in 1977. I remember watching the Tony Wilson program 'So It Goes' too, but that was 1978 wasn't it?

And Boards of Canada, Neu!, Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, Field Mice, Montgolfier Brothers, Godspeed YBE!, Cat Power, Pixies, Jesus & Mary Chain, Tocotronic to name but a few. I like alt-country but there is a lot of alternative music I like which has nothing to do with it.

P.S. Concerning the definition of alternative in this thread, have a look at the question, Dr.C:
And by Alternative I dont just mean Alternative rock. I mean, pretty much, anything that isnt mainstream

the progression for me went as such:
7th-9th grade - classic rock
10th grade - pearl jam, smashing pumkins, nirvana...
11th grade - sonic youth, nirvana, pavement, yo la tengo
12th grade - sonic youth, pavement, yo la tengo, the pixies

college it all exploded into me basically listening to anything in my search for great stuff. its not like when someone says "oh I listen to everything" and really mean "I don't give a shit about music" I mean it as "I'll listen to anything once, and if it seems like it could be special, I'll listen to it again."

Were I more socially agile back then, my enjoyment of the music wouldn't have progressed past a superficial "because it sounds cool" brainwashed cock-sucking level. But, hey, when you feel ostracized (regardless of whether it's true or not) - better yet, when you WANT to feel ostracized (since that's easier to cope with than the grey areas of truth defining your feelings of inadequacy and awkwardness) - and you want to reinforce your self-worth, why not construct walls of counter-culture coolness covered in glyphs decipherable only by One Of Us, thereby reinforcing the ostracization that might / might not have lead you to this state of exile in the first place, along with reinforcing the bullshit strata that ultimately leads to the Us Vs Them mentality permeating most of pop culture?

(And I qualified strata w/ "bullshit" because that's what I want it to be, not because it actually is.)

Nirvana

Wanting to be the kind of person who had opinions on the Pixies.

bands

albums

those too

Melody Maker

My new friends in secondary school liked Green Day

are you still friends?

with most of them, yes

Do you still call them "basic bitches"?

on occasion