I was a college radio DJ from 1988-1990. We never used or even heard the term 'alternative' when I started. But R.E.M. had just had a top ten hit and the major labels wanted to market them and some of the other bands in their generation. They signed bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden and later Nirvana and needed a new designation to market them. Indie or college rock didn't make sense anymore and postpunk clearly would put too many people off. Alternative was a nice, not too threatening but perhaps intriguing label, so they used that. Some other unsing heroes from the era include Minutemen, Camper Van Beethoven and of course the Pixies.
I guess alternative makes slightly more sense than indie once the bands are signed to major labels. And I see how when it comes to radio, it's not like you can divide everything up by small subgenres like post-punk, funk rock, jangle pop, etc. That just gets confusing. So it makes sense they needed some kind of a term for it at the time, but it lost all meaning (from my perspective) at a certain point. It eventually felt like a catch-all for everything that wasn't classic rock.. and they even played bands like The Black Crowes which were quite close to classic rock, just current. Also, I'm envious that you actually were a college DJ in the late 80's! Were there any parameters over what you could play, or did you have free reign?
@@eclecticism-uk Yeah good question. There was no limitation on what we could play but it couldn't be classic rock or too mainstream. There were interesting politics on what was put in rotation. The labels were already trying to get us to play their artists by offering "perks" to the the music director. Overall it was a fun time. I like your work - keep at it!
Maybe I'm way off on this take, but I've long thought that "altrock" of the nineties was essentially just the result of music industry suits throwing a lot of different types of rock and rock-adjacent music against the wall, in order to see what would stick. Throughout the decade, MTV played everything from grunge, to skate punk, industrial, goth, rockabilly, britpop, shoegaze, and of course college rock - sometimes in the same day (or same episode of 120 Minutes). It always seemed to me that "alternative" just meant "an alternative to hair metal and other eighties music".
The Damned didn't sign to a major label straight after New Rose in 1976. It took them 9 years to do so. During which time they broke up, reformed and released 5 studio albums and 18 further singles.
Thanks for pointing this out! I should've double checked that fact, but my American copy of "Damned Damned Damned" is through BMG, so when I read that 'fact' somewhere about only their first single being independent, I didn't look further into it. I'm over here spreading the fake news!
The Velvet Underground's John Cale produced The Stooges selftitled debut, Patti Smith's Horses, The Modern Lovers selftitled debut and laid the foundations for goth and post-punk on Nico's lp trilogy The Marble Index, Desertshore and The End which he also arranged, by composing and playing all instruments apart from Nico's harmonium. Cale was so instrumental in the shaping of the early alternative sound, when you also consider his role within The Velvet Underground, as his implemention of avant-garde elements such as the drone or his minimalistic repetetive piano chords, have become such vital musical elements of the 'Alternative' sound...Just sayin
That's a good point, and I feel like if you're gonna try to pick 1 album that was the genesis for the 'alternative' lineage of music, you could follow it back to Velvet Underground & Nico. You point out some of Cale's impact, and then you have Reed making the first industrial album, if you want to consider Metal Machine Music that, along with his impact on 'indie' songwriters. Cale was involved in a huge number of pivotal moments in music.
@@eclecticism-uk I wouldn't consider MMM to be the first industrial album, simply because its influence is so broad. Noise, No Wave and quite a bit of electronica owe a lot to it. Industrial starts with the first Throbbing Gristle Single. The old saying that not a lot of people bought VU&N, but they all started bands has to be ammended by stating that even fewer people got into MMM, but these people started *genres*.
You've reminded me that music genre classification can be a double-edged sword. I'm also drawn to music and bands that cannot be easily classified, like Thee Oh Sees.
Yeah, this channel has gotten me thinking more about genre than I typically would while listening to music. I'm more and more convinced that as a music listener, genres can be a vaguely useful way of describing music, but that bands themselves are better off not thinking about them at all and just making the music they're inspired to make at that time. Thee Oh Sees are a good example of that!
..not a fan of mass-marketed 'alternative', post-punk, punk pop, or grunge, but...this presentation was VERY well thought out, and did hold my attention. so thanks, man..
REM are not spoken about enough. That might seem strange for a huge band, but it's true. I think because of their '90s mainstream success with Automatic For The People, and the song 'Everybody Hurts' in particular, they suddenly became 'uncool', just another U2 like stadium band. But their '80s decade is flawless - from Chronic Town to Green, and then the 1989 world tour - it's hard to think of any band who had such a prolific, consistent decade from start to finish. I just adore their '80s output - when they were being more arty, poetic and cryptic they were so much more interesting. While I can listen to their '80s albums on repeat and never get bored, I never listen to anything by them after Green. Their IRS albums have been criminally ignored by the mainstream and wider public
Well said. It's like they're actually two different bands with the same name. Some of us know the first band but a lot of people only know the second band.
You're not wrong about Everybody Hurts making REM uncool. I lived through that period (I'm old) and that fucking dirge was everywhere. It was like a song that just took forever to say nothing much, just express some schmaltzy kneejerk sentiments. Automatic For The People was their parting of the ways moment. The half of that album that were released as singles were dire, cloying and overly sentimental. The songs that weren't are among their very best stuff ever. After Automatic I never bothered with REM anymore and I'm only recently coming round to the realisation that a lot of their later albums were pretty good.
@@nobbynoris yeah I agree. ‘Everybody Hurts’ never did it for me. Having said that, I know it’s a song that meant a lot to a lot of people and if people found solace in it, then that’s a good thing. But it was just never for me and it’s held in far too high regard as far as I’m concerned. Having said that, there is some good stuff on AFTP - the last three songs ‘Man On The Moon’, ‘Nightswimming’ and ‘Find The River’ are all good, as is ‘Try Not To Breathe’. But as an album I’ve never understood why it’s so critically acclaimed. I mean, it’s by no means a bad album, it IS a good album, but it’s very overrated in my humble opinion. And while we’re on the subject of overrated REM in the ‘90s, I would also throw ‘Losing My Religion’ into the ring. Jeez, I am SO sick of that song. I do actually like Out Of Time, and the song ‘Texarkana’ is for me their best ‘90s song, but the fact ‘Losing My Religion’ is still so omnipresent baffles me. Again, not a bad song as such, but really doesnt merit the airplay it STILL gets.
Funnily enough, 'Automatic for the People' is one of my favourite albums, but 'Everybody Hurts' was never one of the standout tracks. I was probably JUST young enough to miss the era when it was played constantly, so it never bothered me or stood out that much... the real standouts of the album, like you mention, and 'Try Not to Breathe.' I always found the somber mood of that album very comforting as a gloomy teenager who wouldn't discover The Cure or anything goth for a few more years. But if I had to pick an REM song I'm sick of, it's neither of these, it's 'Shiny Happy People.' And the music itself is decent, I just can't get over the lyrics being so, so stupid.
@@eclecticism-uk Ah.....I SHOULD dislike 'Shiny Happy People' - all REM fans and even the band themselves dislike it.....but I just can't. I was 9 when it came out and I loved it: it just had that poppy, upbeat feel that would appeal to a kid of that age. Don't get me wrong, it's by no means still my favourite REM song anymore and probably wouldn't even be anywhere near my top 50 REM songs, but for sentimental reasons I have to give it a pass and keep it in my guilty pleasures box!
I'm in my mid-60s and I'm reminded of a joke from the early '80s. What's the difference between a punk and a new wave band? Two years. In that period you have created a stable line-up, have gotten a handle on your instrument, and are finally starting to make the music that is really in your head.
@@tschorsch It's called a joke that was floating around in a certain clique of people in Pittsburgh ca. 1981. Would you prefer the term "Corporate Wave?"
Nope. Sorry, I was there at time. The only band that really happened to was the Human League. Most new wave bands were never punk bands. Although some fairly stupid television presenters might have used the term inappropriately for bands like Blondie or Echo and Bunnymen when they released the killing moon.
@@maryburke5423 Sire Records used the term to market their roster of bands. Vertigo released a compilation album in the UK called "New Wave" in 77, which had songs by the Ramones, the Voidoids, the Dead Boys, Patti Smith, the Dolls and the Damned. But we should note, that the joke has been recorded live in 1980 at the Bay Area Music Awards, when the Dead Kennedys performed Pull my strings (Starting the intro of California über alles, then stopping, Biafra announcing "We've gotta prove that we're adults now. We're not a punk rock band, we're a new wave band.", which is met with laughter from the audience, as the band starts to play Pull my strings).
I grew up in Georgia. So, REM was ever present in the late 80's while I was in high school. Violent Femmes were among the American "alternative" bands I listened to then.
It’s kinda wild just how many post punk debut albums came out in 1979. It’s like 80% of the most influential bands for the next twenty years debuted in ‘79. Man. Since you seem to really live digging deep I should turn you onto a couple of albums from my hometown. I graduated HS in 1995 in eastern Washington. A place called Tri-Cities. Richland to be exact. Thanks to Nate Mendel of foo fighter being from there and having a band called Diddley Squat in the 80’s laying down the roots and then Treepeople from Boise watering the soil we had an amazing scene going. Oh and if Treepeople is new to you. OH FUCK MAN. just do that. Cheers. Album Guilt Regret Embarrassment will be in heavy rotation the rest of your life I guarantee it.
Holy S. I was very sceptical when I came across this video. But when you even mentioned Pure Hell, I instantly subscribed and added a like. I knew Spider and I'm kinda blown away they were even mentioned. Totally agree the Buzzcocks historically should be hailed as the first alternate band. And yes those first five REM records were fantastic. I have come to the conclusion you absolutely know what's up and I'd love to raid your record collection
Hey, thanks for the subscribe and the comment! I've known about Pure Hell for only a couple years, actually, and it blew me away that their recordings took so long to get released considering how good they are. That's really cool that you know Spider... from the interviews I've heard, they seem really cool, and I bet they have some crazy stories about the punk scene!
Ok so I just finished the video. Enjoyed it just fine, but part of my brain was screaming about the absence of Pere Ubu in the "proto-alt" section 😆 Idk exactly what genre/sub-genre they would fall under but they absolutely deserve their own video if they aren't going to be included in an examination of post-punk/alt-rock/general avant garde madness
I definitely thought about them for the post-punk video I did a while back, and still want to find a time to talk about them. Maybe I need to do an "Avant Garde Madness" video, so I can also talk about The Residents, too
Thankyou...leaving school in 1981 my own musical journey in 'alternative' was very strictly English and Scottish-centric (Bauhaus, Joy Division, Josef K, Fire Engines, Smiths, through to June Brides, Pastels, Felt, My Bloody Valentine, Nikki Sudden, Dog Faced Hermans, Ex, Membranes....bands such as R.E.M. and Sonic Youth just sounded like 'rock' to my ears, in those days when they first emerged, for my sins) and my listening didn't ever include any North American bands till around 1990 when I got into Half Japanese and Galaxie 500...so I very much enjoyed your alternative take on and love letter to 'alternative'...The Vaselines album behind you brings back fond memories, I first saw 'Easy Rider' at a movie theatre with Eugene...although I haven't seen the mensch for many years...Best, S.
I mean, that's a pretty good list of bands to keep you busy! And there are a few I need to look into in the latter part of that list, too. I've only recently started getting into Felt, and I've never heard of June Brides or Nikki Sudden. I have a theory that because 'alternative' has gradually become the dominant form of rock, bands like REM did end up just sounding like a rock band, and (to an extent) the same can be said of some Sonic Youth songs. I'm a bit surprised it would have also felt like that in the 80's when you first heard them, though! Compared to a lot of the post punk you were into, I can see REM having felt a bit radio friendly. And I love The Vaselines! what a fabulous band. Although I have to again acknowledge my regional bias... you can probably guess which Seattle band I found out about them from :D
@@eclecticism-uk " I'm a bit surprised it would have also felt like that in the 80's when you first heard them, though!" I guess I first heard R.E.M. and Rain Parade and Long Riders at a time when I was getting into early Creation Records and my tastes were very raw and shambling, if anyone could actually play their instruments well, I was instantly turned off...I had a much older brother for whom punk never happened let alone anything after that, and who over-exposed me to the usual suspects of sixties guitar bands moving towards prog, thusly all the 'Paisley Underground' did sound at the time like a terrible rehashed nostalgia. And although I still don't have a lot of music which might be considere 'rock' I feel more generous about these styles now. That said, Sonic Youth never touched me. I don't think I had even heard of them until 1984...I recall in 1985 I bumped into my friend Ravi, in the small town where we both grew up, he suggested jumping the train to London to see New Order, which we did, and he was wearing a Sonic Youth t-shirt, and I disinctly remember thinking that I had yet to actually hear their music, but I imaged that they were probably going to be something-like Foetus or Psychic TV...so when I heard a bungle of guitars and feedback and painful vocals I was just confused and wondered what all the fuss was about. I am unsure that the June Brides have dated well, they were quite Orange Juice and Josef K influenced...with trumpets and a viola. Their very few tunes (few singles, a short album) echo around early Belle and Sebastian songs. Nikki Sudden was in the Swell Maps who you may have heard of...the stuff of his I can still listen to is quite shambolic singer songwriter, like a bargin basement English Johnny Thunders. He died of a heart attack, in the manner of rock stars, at the age of 49. "And I love The Vaselines! what a fabulous band" I saw them a few times before I met Eugene...who I met in the most conpromised position in the bathroom of my first apartment in Glasgow...he is very humble and personable...in a way his on stage persona wasn't. I'm still yet to listen to a whole album by that Seatle band he was friends with... Best, S.
I should probably talk about this in a video at some point, but it's all down to how TH-cam enforces copyright. A lot of the time, music samples get flagged and then the video isn't available everywhere and/or can't be monetised at all. And if a copyright holder flags a video that's already up as breaking copyright, a video could end up getting pulled down later on with me having no control over it. I know some TH-camrs still sneak in a lot of music, and if I learn their tricks, I may start doing it more, but I'm still kinda new at this. But I've started making a playlist to go along with each video to balance out the lack of actual music from the bands. I don't love the solution, but it's the best I have so far!
Alternative isn't a genre. It's a radio format. Unfortunately the word has stuck around long enough that people don't really automatically get what a radio format is anymore. It always felt weird to me when Sonic Youth were labeled as "Alternative" because again, Alternative is a radio format, and Sonic Youth had very little presence on the radio. They were much more a part of the underground, which always felt very different from Alternative. The fixation people have with the Nardwaur interview also seems strange to me. It's obvious to me everyone is joking and Nardwaur is in on it. They're all still friends even. Maybe some of the context has been lost so the humor isn't translating?
Actually, Sonic Youth had a big presence on COLLEGE RADIO. It's called searching "Left of the Dial" and not relying on Top 40 rock and pop radio to curate your taste.
Exactly. It was a 90s marketing term that nobody liked. Bands didn't make music to fit genres back then, they just made music and didn't argue about what to call it.
@@maryburke5423 Yes that's called marketing. No band ever said "I play in an alternative band". Nobody could describe what an alternative band sounds like. It was a term created by the music industry. In the modern world where everything is a broken down into data and tags, we've had to create these genre names cause you got to call it something or you can't sell it.
@@michaelmalone7231 I should be more clear. They had no real presence on commercial Alternative radio, which was a very different thing than college radio even though people often conflate them.
I have gone though loads of genre's and thousands of songs and bands and I have a collection of 890 but I struggle to find songs as I'm Very picky I need help finishing my collection is they a website out there if you type on your music collection it will accurately give you songs by bands or bands you will like?
Great video. Since I've never lived in the US, I guess I've got a different perspective. I'd like to ask you if Throwing Muses deserves a place as a pivotal band for what it was to come in the 1990s. I think it does and neither it nor Tanya Donelly haven't gotten the credit they deserve, for instance, the role of Donelly in Breeders.
Nice summery of four great bands. But I'm a little disappointed there was no mention Bob Mould's work with Sugar and solo career, which is still going strong. In my opinion, Bob is one of the most underrated and not-talked-about-enough artists from this era.
For this one, it comes down to my own ignorance of his career after Husker Du. Although I've been into Husker Du for years, I've never gotten around to exploring his later career. Alright, I'm gonna start checking out Sugar and his solo stuff so I can fill in that hole!
I always feel like The Damned get short shrift … 1st UK Punk single, 1st Punk album Damned Damned Damned that is the blueprint for what is now called Garage Punk, Machine Gun Etiquette their 3rd album, which is one of thee great UK Punk albums…. From there they get into Goth and albums that feel like proto Alternative records…. And then there is the Australian scenes with The Saints and Radio Birdman pioneering punk and what becomes Alternative….
Agreed on all points! Out of that first wave of UK punk, The Damned is my favourite, and they're the only band from that scene/era that I still try to keep up with. David Vanian's impact on punk, from his style to his lyrics and vocals, is often under-appreciated. It took me way too long to find out about The Saints and Radio Birdman, and it really does illustrate how punk was 'invented' in multiple locations at around the same time. But since I wasn't there at the time, I still feel like I'm probably missing some aspects of how it all happened, and I'm going off of what people have said in books and articles.
Classical, folk, pop, and jazz are the only genres in the west. Alternative, punk, post punk, etc. are just pop in slightly different attire. Musically folk and pop are the same genre. I just separated them because of the difference in aesthetics.
I may have to use this as a primer to show people what all my favorite bands are.... My most beloved music comes from that mid 80s to early 90s golden age, which makes sense due to my being in my late 40s. I refer to this genre, by the way, as "college rock", because if I say "alternative", everyone thinks that I must love STP and Pearl Jam, but nope, I'm a Pixies and Violent Femmes junkie. Oh, and I have to constantly remind my 32 year old coworker that REM is NOT a one hit wonder.....
Hahaha, which of the hits does your coworker know? Is it just "Losing My Religion"? Yeah, 'College rock' works better because it at least sticks to that one era of music. But now alternative is almost as broad as saying you like R&B... you could be talking about Little Richard, Mary J Blige, Frank Ocean, or Van Morrison's Them. And with alternative, you could mean REM, Soundgarden, Arctic Monkeys, My Chemical Romance, or Avril Lavigne.
When you say first underground album, was Elektra an 'underground' label at this point? They had a stacked roster coming up in the late 60's, but I know that would've been before The Doors or those other bands.
@eclecticism-uk They were a folk label. Love was their first rock band, and were supposed to be their rock breakthrough, before the Doors arrived. A similar case can be made for The Stooges, with Alice Cooper stealing their momentum.
new channel to me, so far covering everything I already know, but with the added twist that I work in a bookstore, and I can see what you like now, side note I own a T shirt given to me by Brandon Sanderson in 2011, your liking of new queer horror is noted, also. Not here to promote my own shit, but every gig I have played some has commented on "how 90's" it sounds. You might like my stuff, I wouldnt say I'm good, but I'm heading in the right direction...also R.E.M / Vaselines / Pixies / Dinosaur Jr as your back drop, instant subscriber. Hope you like Drop 19's and neutral milk hotel too!
Breeders. For most of alternative's run, I could ignore it as there were interesting things going on elsewhere. For them, it had the same impact as Nirvana's "Nevermind".
The Breeders are excellent! "Pod" was one of the albums I was playing a lot while working on this video, and some of "Last Splash" too. I loved Jane's Addiction too back in the nineties, and still think they were very unique, but don't listen to them nearly as much anymore... of course, there's just never enough time to listen to music.
Personally, I think you need to get over this whole genre pigeonholing scholck. Back when this music was being made, there were no strict formulas, nobody was thinking " well that's not how my genre sounds...cant't do that." they just made music. Alternative was a marketing term used by record companies to sell us Smashing Pumpkin and that's it. The only person who ever liked the term was Billy Corgan, and that makes perfect sense considering where he's at now.
The Saints 1976. Brisbane, Australia. Give it a look. Radio Birdman, Boys Next Door - The Birthday Party - Nick Cave, Rowland.. ) Some of The Scientists I'm old enough to have been about at the time... Ah... That makes me... years old and almost deaf. Oh no... Strangest bands and artists influenced bands of the era. The Residents, early Devo, Captain Beefheart, and the Magic band come to mind a lot, 13flr Elevators and The Glam bands stomping drum beast in comparison with the Eagles LA Rock MOR or supergroup sound. Alice Cooper theatrics, Tubes, Alex Harvey Cheers.
Sure it's genre. Your own video description says it's a type of rock music. REM ain't doing opera or samba or a thousand other types of music, they're playing alternative rock.
Any genre that includes REM, Avril Lavigne, Soundgarden, Twenty One Pilots, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Nirvana at the same time isn't actually a genre.
The holy trinity of proto alternative will always be The Velvet Underground, The Stooges and David Bowie.
I was a college radio DJ from 1988-1990. We never used or even heard the term 'alternative' when I started. But R.E.M. had just had a top ten hit and the major labels wanted to market them and some of the other bands in their generation. They signed bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden and later Nirvana and needed a new designation to market them. Indie or college rock didn't make sense anymore and postpunk clearly would put too many people off. Alternative was a nice, not too threatening but perhaps intriguing label, so they used that. Some other unsing heroes from the era include Minutemen, Camper Van Beethoven and of course the Pixies.
I guess alternative makes slightly more sense than indie once the bands are signed to major labels. And I see how when it comes to radio, it's not like you can divide everything up by small subgenres like post-punk, funk rock, jangle pop, etc. That just gets confusing. So it makes sense they needed some kind of a term for it at the time, but it lost all meaning (from my perspective) at a certain point. It eventually felt like a catch-all for everything that wasn't classic rock.. and they even played bands like The Black Crowes which were quite close to classic rock, just current.
Also, I'm envious that you actually were a college DJ in the late 80's! Were there any parameters over what you could play, or did you have free reign?
@@eclecticism-uk Yeah good question. There was no limitation on what we could play but it couldn't be classic rock or too mainstream. There were interesting politics on what was put in rotation. The labels were already trying to get us to play their artists by offering "perks" to the the music director. Overall it was a fun time.
I like your work - keep at it!
Maybe I'm way off on this take, but I've long thought that "altrock" of the nineties was essentially just the result of music industry suits throwing a lot of different types of rock and rock-adjacent music against the wall, in order to see what would stick. Throughout the decade, MTV played everything from grunge, to skate punk, industrial, goth, rockabilly, britpop, shoegaze, and of course college rock - sometimes in the same day (or same episode of 120 Minutes). It always seemed to me that "alternative" just meant "an alternative to hair metal and other eighties music".
@@thefallenfaith1986 Basically, yes.
The Damned didn't sign to a major label straight after New Rose in 1976. It took them 9 years to do so. During which time they broke up, reformed and released 5 studio albums and 18 further singles.
Thanks for pointing this out! I should've double checked that fact, but my American copy of "Damned Damned Damned" is through BMG, so when I read that 'fact' somewhere about only their first single being independent, I didn't look further into it. I'm over here spreading the fake news!
Can't wait to check out the playlist for this one! Keep up the awesome work!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed the video! I hope you enjoy the playlist as well :)
For a second there, i thought you said Kim Gordon was 71 and that can't be true...
It's hard to wrap your head around, isn't it? Talk about aging gracefully.
The Velvet Underground's John Cale produced The Stooges selftitled debut, Patti Smith's Horses, The Modern Lovers selftitled debut and laid the foundations for goth and post-punk on Nico's lp trilogy The Marble Index, Desertshore and The End which he also arranged, by composing and playing all instruments apart from Nico's harmonium.
Cale was so instrumental in the shaping of the early alternative sound, when you also consider his role within The Velvet Underground, as his implemention of avant-garde elements such as the drone or his minimalistic repetetive piano chords, have become such vital musical elements of the 'Alternative' sound...Just sayin
That's a good point, and I feel like if you're gonna try to pick 1 album that was the genesis for the 'alternative' lineage of music, you could follow it back to Velvet Underground & Nico. You point out some of Cale's impact, and then you have Reed making the first industrial album, if you want to consider Metal Machine Music that, along with his impact on 'indie' songwriters. Cale was involved in a huge number of pivotal moments in music.
@@eclecticism-uk I wouldn't consider MMM to be the first industrial album, simply because its influence is so broad. Noise, No Wave and quite a bit of electronica owe a lot to it. Industrial starts with the first Throbbing Gristle Single. The old saying that not a lot of people bought VU&N, but they all started bands has to be ammended by stating that even fewer people got into MMM, but these people started *genres*.
You've reminded me that music genre classification can be a double-edged sword. I'm also drawn to music and bands that cannot be easily classified, like Thee Oh Sees.
Osees are incredible live
Yeah, this channel has gotten me thinking more about genre than I typically would while listening to music. I'm more and more convinced that as a music listener, genres can be a vaguely useful way of describing music, but that bands themselves are better off not thinking about them at all and just making the music they're inspired to make at that time. Thee Oh Sees are a good example of that!
You're doing a great job and I look forward to more.
..not a fan of mass-marketed 'alternative', post-punk, punk pop, or grunge, but...this presentation was VERY well thought out, and did hold my attention. so thanks, man..
REM are not spoken about enough. That might seem strange for a huge band, but it's true. I think because of their '90s mainstream success with Automatic For The People, and the song 'Everybody Hurts' in particular, they suddenly became 'uncool', just another U2 like stadium band. But their '80s decade is flawless - from Chronic Town to Green, and then the 1989 world tour - it's hard to think of any band who had such a prolific, consistent decade from start to finish. I just adore their '80s output - when they were being more arty, poetic and cryptic they were so much more interesting. While I can listen to their '80s albums on repeat and never get bored, I never listen to anything by them after Green. Their IRS albums have been criminally ignored by the mainstream and wider public
Well said. It's like they're actually two different bands with the same name. Some of us know the first band but a lot of people only know the second band.
You're not wrong about Everybody Hurts making REM uncool. I lived through that period (I'm old) and that fucking dirge was everywhere. It was like a song that just took forever to say nothing much, just express some schmaltzy kneejerk sentiments.
Automatic For The People was their parting of the ways moment. The half of that album that were released as singles were dire, cloying and overly sentimental. The songs that weren't are among their very best stuff ever. After Automatic I never bothered with REM anymore and I'm only recently coming round to the realisation that a lot of their later albums were pretty good.
@@nobbynoris yeah I agree. ‘Everybody Hurts’ never did it for me. Having said that, I know it’s a song that meant a lot to a lot of people and if people found solace in it, then that’s a good thing. But it was just never for me and it’s held in far too high regard as far as I’m concerned. Having said that, there is some good stuff on AFTP - the last three songs ‘Man On The Moon’, ‘Nightswimming’ and ‘Find The River’ are all good, as is ‘Try Not To Breathe’. But as an album I’ve never understood why it’s so critically acclaimed. I mean, it’s by no means a bad album, it IS a good album, but it’s very overrated in my humble opinion.
And while we’re on the subject of overrated REM in the ‘90s, I would also throw ‘Losing My Religion’ into the ring. Jeez, I am SO sick of that song. I do actually like Out Of Time, and the song ‘Texarkana’ is for me their best ‘90s song, but the fact ‘Losing My Religion’ is still so omnipresent baffles me. Again, not a bad song as such, but really doesnt merit the airplay it STILL gets.
Funnily enough, 'Automatic for the People' is one of my favourite albums, but 'Everybody Hurts' was never one of the standout tracks. I was probably JUST young enough to miss the era when it was played constantly, so it never bothered me or stood out that much... the real standouts of the album, like you mention, and 'Try Not to Breathe.' I always found the somber mood of that album very comforting as a gloomy teenager who wouldn't discover The Cure or anything goth for a few more years.
But if I had to pick an REM song I'm sick of, it's neither of these, it's 'Shiny Happy People.' And the music itself is decent, I just can't get over the lyrics being so, so stupid.
@@eclecticism-uk Ah.....I SHOULD dislike 'Shiny Happy People' - all REM fans and even the band themselves dislike it.....but I just can't. I was 9 when it came out and I loved it: it just had that poppy, upbeat feel that would appeal to a kid of that age. Don't get me wrong, it's by no means still my favourite REM song anymore and probably wouldn't even be anywhere near my top 50 REM songs, but for sentimental reasons I have to give it a pass and keep it in my guilty pleasures box!
"Wipers" out of Portland, OR is s band you should definitely check out. They have been named as in influence by many notable artists.
Seconded, Greg Sage is a PNW legend
@@brianwilcox2543 Oh yeah, Wipers are amazing! Don’t worry, they’ll be in part 2 :)
I firmly believe Wipers need far more attention. I've been a fan for over 30 years (first heard them on the River's Edge soundtrack).
Great video!
The Fall - unmissable. 🤓👍 Great video btw. 👍👍
I'm in my mid-60s and I'm reminded of a joke from the early '80s. What's the difference between a punk and a new wave band? Two years. In that period you have created a stable line-up, have gotten a handle on your instrument, and are finally starting to make the music that is really in your head.
That sounds more like a myth. Do you have any examples? The genres are very different.
@@tschorsch Blondie, The Pretenders, The GoGos, Talking Heads...
@@tschorsch It's called a joke that was floating around in a certain clique of people in Pittsburgh ca. 1981. Would you prefer the term "Corporate Wave?"
Nope.
Sorry, I was there at time.
The only band that really happened to was the Human League.
Most new wave bands were never punk bands.
Although some fairly stupid television presenters might have used the term inappropriately for bands like Blondie or Echo and Bunnymen when they released the killing moon.
@@maryburke5423 Sire Records used the term to market their roster of bands. Vertigo released a compilation album in the UK called "New Wave" in 77, which had songs by the Ramones, the Voidoids, the Dead Boys, Patti Smith, the Dolls and the Damned. But we should note, that the joke has been recorded live in 1980 at the Bay Area Music Awards, when the Dead Kennedys performed Pull my strings (Starting the intro of California über alles, then stopping, Biafra announcing "We've gotta prove that we're adults now. We're not a punk rock band, we're a new wave band.", which is met with laughter from the audience, as the band starts to play Pull my strings).
I grew up in Georgia. So, REM was ever present in the late 80's while I was in high school. Violent Femmes were among the American "alternative" bands I listened to then.
It’s kinda wild just how many post punk debut albums came out in 1979. It’s like 80% of the most influential bands for the next twenty years debuted in ‘79.
Man. Since you seem to really live digging deep I should turn you onto a couple of albums from my hometown. I graduated HS in 1995 in eastern Washington. A place called Tri-Cities. Richland to be exact. Thanks to Nate Mendel of foo fighter being from there and having a band called Diddley Squat in the 80’s laying down the roots and then Treepeople from Boise watering the soil we had an amazing scene going. Oh and if Treepeople is new to you. OH FUCK MAN. just do that. Cheers. Album Guilt Regret Embarrassment will be in heavy rotation the rest of your life I guarantee it.
Holy S. I was very sceptical when I came across this video. But when you even mentioned Pure Hell, I instantly subscribed and added a like. I knew Spider and I'm kinda blown away they were even mentioned. Totally agree the Buzzcocks historically should be hailed as the first alternate band. And yes those first five REM records were fantastic. I have come to the conclusion you absolutely know what's up and I'd love to raid your record collection
Hey, thanks for the subscribe and the comment! I've known about Pure Hell for only a couple years, actually, and it blew me away that their recordings took so long to get released considering how good they are. That's really cool that you know Spider... from the interviews I've heard, they seem really cool, and I bet they have some crazy stories about the punk scene!
Ok so I just finished the video. Enjoyed it just fine, but part of my brain was screaming about the absence of Pere Ubu in the "proto-alt" section 😆 Idk exactly what genre/sub-genre they would fall under but they absolutely deserve their own video if they aren't going to be included in an examination of post-punk/alt-rock/general avant garde madness
I definitely thought about them for the post-punk video I did a while back, and still want to find a time to talk about them. Maybe I need to do an "Avant Garde Madness" video, so I can also talk about The Residents, too
These bands are why Nirvana were never that interesting to me.
When i first heard of alternative rock it was a big umbrella for artists who didnt fir meatly in other genres. That was the late 80's
Thankyou...leaving school in 1981 my own musical journey in 'alternative' was very strictly English and Scottish-centric (Bauhaus, Joy Division, Josef K, Fire Engines, Smiths, through to June Brides, Pastels, Felt, My Bloody Valentine, Nikki Sudden, Dog Faced Hermans, Ex, Membranes....bands such as R.E.M. and Sonic Youth just sounded like 'rock' to my ears, in those days when they first emerged, for my sins) and my listening didn't ever include any North American bands till around 1990 when I got into Half Japanese and Galaxie 500...so I very much enjoyed your alternative take on and love letter to 'alternative'...The Vaselines album behind you brings back fond memories, I first saw 'Easy Rider' at a movie theatre with Eugene...although I haven't seen the mensch for many years...Best, S.
I mean, that's a pretty good list of bands to keep you busy! And there are a few I need to look into in the latter part of that list, too. I've only recently started getting into Felt, and I've never heard of June Brides or Nikki Sudden.
I have a theory that because 'alternative' has gradually become the dominant form of rock, bands like REM did end up just sounding like a rock band, and (to an extent) the same can be said of some Sonic Youth songs. I'm a bit surprised it would have also felt like that in the 80's when you first heard them, though! Compared to a lot of the post punk you were into, I can see REM having felt a bit radio friendly.
And I love The Vaselines! what a fabulous band. Although I have to again acknowledge my regional bias... you can probably guess which Seattle band I found out about them from :D
@@eclecticism-uk " I'm a bit surprised it would have also felt like that in the 80's when you first heard them, though!" I guess I first heard R.E.M. and Rain Parade and Long Riders at a time when I was getting into early Creation Records and my tastes were very raw and shambling, if anyone could actually play their instruments well, I was instantly turned off...I had a much older brother for whom punk never happened let alone anything after that, and who over-exposed me to the usual suspects of sixties guitar bands moving towards prog, thusly all the 'Paisley Underground' did sound at the time like a terrible rehashed nostalgia. And although I still don't have a lot of music which might be considere 'rock' I feel more generous about these styles now. That said, Sonic Youth never touched me. I don't think I had even heard of them until 1984...I recall in 1985 I bumped into my friend Ravi, in the small town where we both grew up, he suggested jumping the train to London to see New Order, which we did, and he was wearing a Sonic Youth t-shirt, and I disinctly remember thinking that I had yet to actually hear their music, but I imaged that they were probably going to be something-like Foetus or Psychic TV...so when I heard a bungle of guitars and feedback and painful vocals I was just confused and wondered what all the fuss was about.
I am unsure that the June Brides have dated well, they were quite Orange Juice and Josef K influenced...with trumpets and a viola. Their very few tunes (few singles, a short album) echo around early Belle and Sebastian songs. Nikki Sudden was in the Swell Maps who you may have heard of...the stuff of his I can still listen to is quite shambolic singer songwriter, like a bargin basement English Johnny Thunders. He died of a heart attack, in the manner of rock stars, at the age of 49.
"And I love The Vaselines! what a fabulous band" I saw them a few times before I met Eugene...who I met in the most conpromised position in the bathroom of my first apartment in Glasgow...he is very humble and personable...in a way his on stage persona wasn't. I'm still yet to listen to a whole album by that Seatle band he was friends with...
Best, S.
It’s criminal, The Smiths weren’t mentioned! They will forever be my #1 favorite alternative/indie rock band of the 80s
I did say it was a two-parter... how could I not talk about The Smiths? ;)
@ You gotta include them in your part two! Also I largely believe in many ways that Talking Heads was the launching pad of alternative rock
informative and accurate video, but why no clips of the music ? is it a time restraint or dmca thing ?
I should probably talk about this in a video at some point, but it's all down to how TH-cam enforces copyright. A lot of the time, music samples get flagged and then the video isn't available everywhere and/or can't be monetised at all. And if a copyright holder flags a video that's already up as breaking copyright, a video could end up getting pulled down later on with me having no control over it. I know some TH-camrs still sneak in a lot of music, and if I learn their tricks, I may start doing it more, but I'm still kinda new at this.
But I've started making a playlist to go along with each video to balance out the lack of actual music from the bands. I don't love the solution, but it's the best I have so far!
Alternative isn't a genre. It's a radio format. Unfortunately the word has stuck around long enough that people don't really automatically get what a radio format is anymore.
It always felt weird to me when Sonic Youth were labeled as "Alternative" because again, Alternative is a radio format, and Sonic Youth had very little presence on the radio. They were much more a part of the underground, which always felt very different from Alternative.
The fixation people have with the Nardwaur interview also seems strange to me. It's obvious to me everyone is joking and Nardwaur is in on it. They're all still friends even. Maybe some of the context has been lost so the humor isn't translating?
Actually, Sonic Youth had a big presence on COLLEGE RADIO. It's called searching "Left of the Dial" and not relying on Top 40 rock and pop radio to curate your taste.
Exactly. It was a 90s marketing term that nobody liked. Bands didn't make music to fit genres back then, they just made music and didn't argue about what to call it.
@@Xlornick.Alternative as in alternative charts, alternative record stores was well and truly around in the 80s…maybe not in mainstream America tho.
@@maryburke5423 Yes that's called marketing. No band ever said "I play in an alternative band". Nobody could describe what an alternative band sounds like. It was a term created by the music industry. In the modern world where everything is a broken down into data and tags, we've had to create these genre names cause you got to call it something or you can't sell it.
@@michaelmalone7231 I should be more clear. They had no real presence on commercial Alternative radio, which was a very different thing than college radio even though people often conflate them.
I have gone though loads of genre's and thousands of songs and bands and I have a collection of 890 but I struggle to find songs as I'm Very picky I need help finishing my collection is they a website out there if you type on your music collection it will accurately give you songs by bands or bands you will like?
Great video. Since I've never lived in the US, I guess I've got a different perspective. I'd like to ask you if Throwing Muses deserves a place as a pivotal band for what it was to come in the 1990s. I think it does and neither it nor Tanya Donelly haven't gotten the credit they deserve, for instance, the role of Donelly in Breeders.
Nice summery of four great bands. But I'm a little disappointed there was no mention Bob Mould's work with Sugar and solo career, which is still going strong. In my opinion, Bob is one of the most underrated and not-talked-about-enough artists from this era.
For this one, it comes down to my own ignorance of his career after Husker Du. Although I've been into Husker Du for years, I've never gotten around to exploring his later career. Alright, I'm gonna start checking out Sugar and his solo stuff so I can fill in that hole!
The Damned where signed to Stiff and then Chiswick. Neither of them were major labels.
I always feel like The Damned get short shrift … 1st UK Punk single, 1st Punk album Damned Damned Damned that is the blueprint for what is now called Garage Punk,
Machine Gun Etiquette their 3rd album, which is one of thee great UK Punk albums…. From there they get into Goth and albums that feel like proto Alternative records….
And then there is the Australian scenes with The Saints and Radio Birdman pioneering punk and what becomes Alternative….
Agreed on all points! Out of that first wave of UK punk, The Damned is my favourite, and they're the only band from that scene/era that I still try to keep up with. David Vanian's impact on punk, from his style to his lyrics and vocals, is often under-appreciated.
It took me way too long to find out about The Saints and Radio Birdman, and it really does illustrate how punk was 'invented' in multiple locations at around the same time. But since I wasn't there at the time, I still feel like I'm probably missing some aspects of how it all happened, and I'm going off of what people have said in books and articles.
Classical, folk, pop, and jazz are the only genres in the west. Alternative, punk, post punk, etc. are just pop in slightly different attire. Musically folk and pop are the same genre. I just separated them because of the difference in aesthetics.
I'm here to say that I hope you keep this series going. I really hope to eventually see a breakdown and explanation that "nu-metal" is NOT a genre.
Before Alternative it was College Rock
I may have to use this as a primer to show people what all my favorite bands are....
My most beloved music comes from that mid 80s to early 90s golden age, which makes sense due to my being in my late 40s.
I refer to this genre, by the way, as "college rock", because if I say "alternative", everyone thinks that I must love STP and Pearl Jam, but nope, I'm a Pixies and Violent Femmes junkie.
Oh, and I have to constantly remind my 32 year old coworker that REM is NOT a one hit wonder.....
Hahaha, which of the hits does your coworker know? Is it just "Losing My Religion"?
Yeah, 'College rock' works better because it at least sticks to that one era of music. But now alternative is almost as broad as saying you like R&B... you could be talking about Little Richard, Mary J Blige, Frank Ocean, or Van Morrison's Them. And with alternative, you could mean REM, Soundgarden, Arctic Monkeys, My Chemical Romance, or Avril Lavigne.
First underground album to chart:
Love (1966)
First American Alternative:
The Modern Lovers (1971)
When you say first underground album, was Elektra an 'underground' label at this point? They had a stacked roster coming up in the late 60's, but I know that would've been before The Doors or those other bands.
@eclecticism-uk They were a folk label. Love was their first rock band, and were supposed to be their rock breakthrough, before the Doors arrived.
A similar case can be made for The Stooges, with Alice Cooper stealing their momentum.
new channel to me, so far covering everything I already know, but with the added twist that I work in a bookstore, and I can see what you like now, side note I own a T shirt given to me by Brandon Sanderson in 2011, your liking of new queer horror is noted, also. Not here to promote my own shit, but every gig I have played some has commented on "how 90's" it sounds. You might like my stuff, I wouldnt say I'm good, but I'm heading in the right direction...also R.E.M / Vaselines / Pixies / Dinosaur Jr as your back drop, instant subscriber. Hope you like Drop 19's and neutral milk hotel too!
Breeders. For most of alternative's run, I could ignore it as there were interesting things going on elsewhere. For them, it had the same impact as Nirvana's "Nevermind".
Oh, and Janes Addiction.
The Breeders are excellent! "Pod" was one of the albums I was playing a lot while working on this video, and some of "Last Splash" too. I loved Jane's Addiction too back in the nineties, and still think they were very unique, but don't listen to them nearly as much anymore... of course, there's just never enough time to listen to music.
Personally, I think you need to get over this whole genre pigeonholing scholck. Back when this music was being made, there were no strict formulas, nobody was thinking " well that's not how my genre sounds...cant't do that." they just made music. Alternative was a marketing term used by record companies to sell us Smashing Pumpkin and that's it. The only person who ever liked the term was Billy Corgan, and that makes perfect sense considering where he's at now.
The Saints 1976. Brisbane, Australia. Give it a look. Radio Birdman, Boys Next Door - The Birthday Party - Nick Cave, Rowland.. ) Some of The Scientists I'm old enough to have been about at the time... Ah... That makes me... years old and almost deaf. Oh no...
Strangest bands and artists influenced bands of the era. The Residents, early Devo, Captain Beefheart, and the Magic band come to mind a lot, 13flr Elevators and The Glam bands stomping drum beast in comparison with the Eagles LA Rock MOR or supergroup sound. Alice Cooper theatrics, Tubes, Alex Harvey Cheers.
Hell yes, genres piss me off now more than anything lol. Alt is like the catch all now
That and indie! At this point, when something's indie or alt, I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, haha.
I hate the term UNDERGROUND. so fucking elitest.
the UNDERGROUND is the subway in London
Sure it's genre. Your own video description says it's a type of rock music. REM ain't doing opera or samba or a thousand other types of music, they're playing alternative rock.
Any genre that includes REM, Avril Lavigne, Soundgarden, Twenty One Pilots, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Nirvana at the same time isn't actually a genre.
really good job @eclect