Post a controversial music opinion

Also, there was always more than, like, one radio station. In my experience it was very common for kids to listen to the alt rock station and the pop station, to rap and rock, etc.

I was the right age for MTV, but my childhood home had no cable. I didn't have a television of my own until 1999. (Sorry, not meant as an "I don't even own a TV" flex, it's just that I simply didn't.) Occasionally I caught glimpses at other people's houses, but it just wasn't a big thing on my radar screen.

But MTV played everything. When I think of the ‘90s I think of extreme musical diversity, specifically because of MTV.

Awww. You're just darling. *pats morrisp's head gently*

Scientists were really great when they hit London in 84. It was great to see their tshirt turn up on US bands at the end of the decade. Sonic Youth and Mudhoney definitely wore them on stage.
The SOAS show was a blast with Mudhoney and Nirvana playing together. Mark Arm reappearing from the crowd he'd been surfing and looking for the return of his microphone. Some person standing at teh back reading a book throughout a totally adrenalised set.

The first Meaty Puppets lp is a favourite still and apparently a landmark that people were channeling .
Wasn't so great when it became a high st fashion and a bandwagon that people were being shaped for.
BUt Did love the early live stuff when it hit London and a lot of the music being channeled from the early 70s and late 60s.

xp Lol… I don’t know what you wanna hear, but MTV was a huge cultural force. You could watch Yo MTV Raps! and 120 Minutes. I guarantee I was exposed to “left of center” stuff that I never would’ve heard on the radio.

In 1983, Lionel Richie and Elvis Costello were on the same radio station. So were The Clash and Cameo. So were Donna Summer and Def Leppard. For my middle school classmates, Madonna and Michael were equally salient.

To what extent would those acts' present-day equivalents share the same cultural space?

It may be overly simplistic to blame grunge for this. But there is strong correlation.

― coolgnoscenti (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, May 7, 2023 3:11 PM (ten minutes ago)

On an old episode of the podcast "Do you like Prince movies?", Wesley Morris spoke at length about the pop-radio landscape of 1984, how you could hear Quiet Riot, Ratt, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson, and Dolly & Kenny Rogers all within the same hour. Matos' book "Can't Slow Down" gets into that, as well.

Being age 9 in that era had a huge influence on my eventually being fine with the more pop/dance-oriented albums by fave rock/metal bands I discovered in my teens, despite being told I was "not allowed" to like these "sellout" albums by the more cantankerous music obsessives in my high school and college communities (Achtung Baby, 90125, Power Windows, Pleased To Meet Me, Metallica's Black Album, etc.)

Maybe it’s true the Top 40 radio became less diverse in the ‘90s, I’ll take the word of those who track that, but I don’t think that means listeners’ tastes narrowed in that decade. Based just on my experience, it’s the opposite.

Yeah i mean tbf, my love of certain “grunge” bands has much more to do with my love of a certain punk sound than anything else— there’s something about that first Nirvana record, the parts that recall 80s hardcore bands, that I think is part of my musical DNA because it’s the first sound I was obsessed with.

just re: the capacious element of the “grunge” label. i was not into a lot of the stuff Alfred mentioned— and remember that when 3EB and a few others were first coming on the scene, I was already moving away from the alt-rock sound

doesn't a lot of this just come down to Clear Channel buying up every radio station and making it so local DJs and tastemakers had no say? I was too young to remember but from what I'd heard in the early 90s there were still a lot of things that were really big regionally but not nationally

yep!

*Grunge* is as fatuous and ephemeral a label as any other since MTV began but the best bands transcend the commercial stink. Mark Lanegan's *Sing Backwards and Weep* is a decent bulwark against the 'just another load of white dudes with guitars' allegation.

A big side benefit of the grunge phenomenon was labels throwing money at all sorts of weirdo indie bands in the mid ‘90s, hoping to find the “next Nirvana.”

doesn't a lot of this just come down to Clear Channel buying up every radio station and making it so local DJs and tastemakers had no say? I was too young to remember but from what I'd heard in the early 90s there were still a lot of things that were really big regionally but not nationally

― frogbs, Sunday, May 7, 2023 5:18 PM bookmarkflaglink

our local station, pre-Clear Channel, is the reason Seven Mary 3 was inflicted on the world (sorry), because they gave them frequent airplay during prime hours despite just initially being a local band, and would frequently play non-single album cuts from things at random.

So the thing that i remember about MTV in the 90's is that it has its own visual style, attitude and agenda that it's concerned with marketing. If you look at the music videos they play in isolation, there is some stylistic diversity. not a tremendous amount, but a moderate amount. i regarded MTV as untrustworthy and all of the music that they play is sort of colored by the MTV branding and style, it gets absorbed under the umbrella of MTV-ness. it's not a transparent medium. MTV is adding stuff into it that isn't there if you look at the videos in isolation. defining what that is is a whole other thing. but broadly, it's quite a negative attitude. the negativity gives it some bite and some edge, but it's also very afraid of liking or endorsing anything openly and unironically. and if MTV itself doesn't 'speak to you', it becomes an obstacle, it makes it harder to like any of the music they play. i mean, you could switch to VH1 and listen to John 'Cougar' Mellencamp sing about Big Jim Picato, i guess. so many choices, isn't it wonderful to be a consumer.

I remember posting on alt.music.slayer when I was 17 and posting my fav bands and got the reply ARE YOUR MUSICAL OPINIONS DICTATED TO YOU BY MATT PINFIELD, POSER?

my tastes were defined by bet rap city, and proudly so.

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.

hit=hint

xxp it was the public library for me. rock n roll encyclopedias, periodicals archive, audio/visual collection. not every library system offers all that, i was really lucky.

Matt Pinfield randomly came to one of my bands' gigs once. i met him and politely said that i had enjoyed 120 minutes, he then proceeded to speak to me as though i was his most devoted, #1 biggest fan in the world.

he was probably used to people telling him they loved the last Smashing Pumpkins album and was pleasantly relieved

In 1988, the B-52s and the Cure and Bananarama and Debarge were on the same radio station. So were Whitesnake and Debbie Gibson and Whitney Houston. For my high school classmates, Prince and Poison were equally salient. To what extent would those acts' present-day equivalents share the same cultural space? It may be overly simplistic to blame grunge for this. But there is strong correlation.

1988 also may have been a specific high point which wasn't reflective of the period immediately before it, and also wasn't destined to last? Growing up in the '80s, I listened to a ton of Top 40 radio (particularly WAVA-FM in DC, now a Christian station), and I don't recall it being a glorious smorgasbord of musical styles. Instead, I remember a lot of "Party all the Time," "Let's Go All the Way," "Rock Me Amadeus," "Missing You"... all fun songs(!), and I'm sure stations elsewhere had more varied playlists. But while I knew there were bands like the Cure that cool teens listened to, I didn't hear that stuff.

Fast-forward a few years, and (yep) "Lovesong" went to #2. R.E.M. had four Top 10 hits between '87 and '91 (I looked this stuff up, btw, I don't have these stats at the top of my head!). Then came huge hits like "Teen Spirit" and "Under the Bridge." Smashing Pumpkins were scraping the Top 10 at late as '96... but rock music was shifting by then anyway (deep in the post-grunge era). So did grunge kill the momentum of cool rock bands breaking into the Top 40, or was it just along for the ride?

My enduring memory of Pinfield is from some late ‘90s MTV awards show where Ben Stiller did a bit dressed as Pinfield, pestering the musicians who appeared on the show: “Hey, you guys wanna come over to my place? I just got some cool new Pixies imports!”

xp

there was a segment on his show when audience members tried to stump him and if they succeeded, won a prize ,right?

that's pretty funny.

R.E.M. had four Top 10 hits between '87 and '91

In 1988, R.E.M. moved from IRS (indie label with major distribution — first A&M, then MCA — but majors prioritize their own releases where PR and marketing is concerned) to Warner Bros. (major label). You think that may have impacted how their singles were received at radio and MTV?

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

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.