Post a controversial music opinion

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.

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?