Originally Posted by Copperfield

As it turns out, yes. Yes it is.

(complete with Pixies no less)

Yeah, real great. Ugh. And such horrible music.

At least with Hamlet, there was some question about it. To be or not to be was still in question until the end. Not to mention all the great lines.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Listening to alternative/grunge/punk or whatever you want to call it made us different and somehow "better" than other folks.

Especially when such music is all crap.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Yeah, real great. Ugh. And such horrible music.

At least with Hamlet, there was some question about it. To be or not to be was still in question until the end. Not to mention all the great lines.

Yes Eric we know, you will never get it.

And that is the reason many of us will always feel pity for you.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

As an early adopter of the punk/grunge/alternative music scene before the industry began creating these monikers to better divide them up in the music stores to sell more records I can tell you that all of the previously mentioned genres were simply called "punk music" by those who listened. Literally music listened to by punks. At that time a punk was just someone outside of the mainstream, up to and including (but not restricted to) actual punks (who in those days were mostly skater punks rather than the more familiar British variety). As many of my friends at the time were local skater punks, I was introduced to this sort of music through the usual distribution methods of the day. "Punk music" more generally meant damn near anyone making music DIY and who had not yet "sold out". The whole sell-out thing was very important to people at the time as it usually (but not always) marked the end of good material from a given band. Dookie was actually a great example of this phenomenon as it was the end of Green Day's influence amongst those who had bought their records before a major label signed them. It wasn't so much a middle finger to grunge as it was selling out to the man.

Punk could be folk music, rock, progressive rock, country, rap, metal, industrial, anything just so long as you remained loyal to the scene. I once saw a talented front man for a local punk band pull out a banjo and sing a perfect rendition of Rainbow Connection in front of a mosh pit (incredible). That was punk for young Xers.

Pop-punk was merely an abomination created by the recording industry to have bands that kinda-sorta sounded like the more edgy stuff but would still be snapped up by 13 year old girls.

Perhaps the best summation of what punk meant (and still means I suppose) appears in a song called 60% by a now aging punk band called NOFX (a band I loved back in the day and still love). Now well into their 40's, they created their own record label in 1990 to distribute their music. The label is known for having unusual rules (bands are only signed to 1-record deals).

I more or less agree with everything you said, except the whole pop punk thing... Mostly because punk was originally pop punk. The Ramones, the Buzzcocks, to Screeching Weasel and The Queers, to NOFX to Greenday and so on and so forth. I mean, if listening to Sloppy Seconds is wrong, I don't want to be right. Especially "You've got a great body (but your record collection sucks)."

Oh, I just thought of another similarity between the two 3T's: jazz had standards, 3T rock had covers and 3T hip hop had samples.

So I'll start this with what Copperfield remindeed me of: NOFX's Linoleum.

Now Linoleum by itself is pretty stock, standard punk rock fare:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YouZ...e_gdata_player

To me, it's not even that good for NOFX. But then Shai Hulud did it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob-g...e_gdata_player

Cool, right? Now Here's Bad Astronaut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA7u...e_gdata_player

Then August Burns Red did it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x77x...e_gdata_player

Then Streetlight Manifesto got ahold of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0ML...e_gdata_player

But this wasn't just one song. Another good example was Operation Ivy's Knowledge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOqv...e_gdata_player

Also done by Greenday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHr_...e_gdata_player

And The Aquabats:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enCV1...e_gdata_player

It also wasn't limited to just punk songs, Here's Stretch Armstrong doing Angels of the Silences by Counting Crows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUodo...e_gdata_player

Or by Turning, Here's Thrice doing Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAhFU...e_gdata_player

Or because the original was particularly great, Here's Goldfinger doing 99 Red Balloons by Nina:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QYIl...e_gdata_player

And 7 Seconds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb3WY...e_gdata_player

As for sampling, I'm sure we're all familiar, but just as a reminder, here's the Isley Brother's Footsteps in the Dark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etwIu...e_gdata_player

Here's Ice Cube's It Was A Good Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViK8P...e_gdata_player

Now to completely ruin all you hold dear, here's Nina Gordon covering NWA's Straight Outta Compton:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG2EG...e_gdata_player

So very much like Jazz and Blues, Music in the 90's had standards.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

How funny that you came to this conclusion when in another thread I came to a similar conclusion about "formative years". And by the way your typical 13 year old in 1994 would've been MillennialX, the 1981 cohort.

A theoretical hypothesis based on the linked post I've been musing:

Some personal "formative period" data:

Chas'88's would be: 2001 - 2009.
MillennialX's would be: 1994 - 2002.
Uzi's would be: 1991 - 1999
ASB'65's would be: 1978 - 1986.
Roadbldr'59's would be: 1972 - 1980.
The Wonkette's would be: 1969 - 1978.
KaiserD2's would be: 1960 - 1968.
My Father's would be: 1956 - 1964.
The Grey Badger's would be: 1952 - 1960.

To use a variety of people of different ages.

What I hypothesize is that you can "commune", share "viewpoints", and "nostalgicize" about your formative years more easily with someone who shares some part of your "formative period", than you can with those who don't.

~Chas'88

I'm not going to expound because it's too vast a topic, IMO.


Prince

PS: The "formative years"; I like it. "The Formative Years"^TM.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

After I left rock-radio around 1992, the next record that pops-out as being important i/r/t a cultural trend
IMO was Green Day-Dookie(1994) and their first single off that record: Longview. I was then managing a
video rental store that also sold CDs, and it seemed every kid was buying it. I suspect that it was a case
of the next generational cohort exerting its desire. So, in my mind, where "grunge" was generally focused
on the grim realities of life, this new "power pop-punk" was a frustrated, sucker-punch, FU to "Grunge".
It's still a great pop-record to this day, IMO, and I'd say it's pretty much "watershed" for an entire musical
movement that was to present itself.

So, if this be true, would the generation that embraced Green Day-Dookie be the Y-Cusp? IOW, if 13-years-old
is around the time when music is used for personal(self)-identification, that would put it right around the time
when the Y-Cusp was hitting that age.


Prince

You're right that what survived or coalesced out of the original "Grunge/Alternative" push was "pop punk". Weezer is another band worth mentioning, although they don't really fit any category. Their first album is one of the few things from that time period that I like.

The late 90s had Blink 182, Jimmy Eat World and so forth. That was what passed for rock. Then there was "emo", which was thankfully short-lived. Now there's nothing. There are bands, but it's hard to define what they do as "rock". The original "Grunge revolution" is what started the downward slide. It's been a linear trajectory to irrelevance from that point to now. Rap and R&B have also declined, being replaced by techno/club/dance music. That shift seems to mirror the move from funk into disco in the 70s. Whether any new rock movement comes along and shakes thing up remains to be seen.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Yes Eric we know, you will never get it.

And that is the reason many of us will always feel pity for you.

Oh thanks. Feel pity, because I'm not into self-destruction and horrible music. Poor Eric!

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I would go farther than some of what's said above, and say that Grunge killed rock music altogether, not just the existing style of it. Also, being in the target age group for it, I knew very few people who liked it very much. For those who had been listening to mainstream music or "classic rock", it was too negative and unpleasant to listen to. For those who had been in to various "alternative" or "underground" styles, it was seen as a sell-out.

Maybe you simply didn't have a very large social circle then? You wouldn't be the only person on this forum who doesn't get out much, after all. From what I remember (and this is backed up statistically in terms of things like album sales), plenty of people approximately my age were listening to it.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

It seems to me that the music industry and entertainment industry in general were looking for "the new thing", and they jumped on this whole "Gen X" thing as a marketing ploy. Boomers were aging out of the pop market, and they had nothing better to promote. So you had strands of various styles that had been percolating since the late 70s - rap, metal, punk and "post-punk", and that's what ended up being brought forward. The whole Grunge thing was not that commercially successful in comparison to earlier trends, and it didn't take long before rap and R&B ended up dominating the 90s. Rock music had gone to a place that was not sustainable for a mass audience.

Rock music had been going to a place that wasn't "sustainable" for a mass audience for years. That was basically my point. Pop music, no matter what style it's in, fills an emotional need. Some rock of the mid- to late 1980s was capable of filling the emotional needs of an adolescent audience (the primary audience for pop music), but a lot of it wasn't. Consider the embarassment of Billy Idol's "Cradle of Love"--a dude in his mid-30s singing about banging teenagers. Or consider the singles from Steel Wheels getting heavy rotation on rock radio. Or consider hair metal, with it's endless warmed over variations on "Rock and Roll All Nite" and "Patience". That's what the rock world actually looked like before "Smells Like Teen Spirit" broke. It wasn't particularly interesting.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Grunge was not merely anti-hair metal. It was anti-music. It was a pose, not a musical style. Bands like the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, etc remain immortal, and can or could continue to fill stadiums to this day. The Police had a massive reunion tour a few years ago. The bands of the Grunge era have largely broken up and disappeared from public consciousness. Those that remain, like Pearl Jam, haven't sniffed real success since the early 1990s. The whole thing was a fraud, and most of the songs are completely forgettable.

You make it sound as though it's some kind of either/or thing. It is, of course, entirely possible for people to listen to Led Zeppelin and Soundgarden, or the Rolling Stones and Nirvana, or whatever. There seems to be a not insignificant overlap between people who enjoy Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam. While Mr. Cats has indicated he had a problem imagining rock radio playing the Eagles alongside Pearl Jam, that's ultimately exactly what happened. After all, it's not a huge leap from, say, this to this. The idea that there wasn't an obvious continuity with earlier forms of rock is, to put it simply, wrong. Just wrong.

Ultimately, you're making the same mistake that a lot of people here make (less so in the real world) by assuming that people should enshrine your musical tastes as they listen privately to their favorite music on their headphones or on their stereos at home. The idea that people actually go out to concerts, or otherwise integrate music into their social lives is lost on you. (This gets back to what I was saying above about not getting out much.) It's cool that The Police put together a reunion tour in 2007, and it's cool that the band's relatively affluent audience was willing to pay an average ticket price of $112.00, but I bet you wouldn't have seen a lot of people under the age of about 35-40 in the audience. And, of course, in the early 1990s, they weren't touring at all. Neither was Led Zeppelin. The Stones were, and I actually got paid $20 an hour to camp out for Stones tickets by my boss, and even then I wouldn't have dreamed of spending the kind of money she was willing to pay for tickets to see a miniature Mick Jagger and Co. flog the latest (ahem) "hits" off of Voodoo Lounge.

When rock (or any other style of music) ceases to appeal to young people, it becomes a museum piece. Which is basically what was happening in the early to mid-1990s.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

More importantly, the stylistic rabbit-hole of poor musicianship, darkness and anger as requirements for "cred" resulted in the situation we have now, where rock music is nearly extinct.

Go back to the links I offered in one of my earlier posts. You had people predicting, accurately, that mainstream rock was destroying itself by reaching up the age ladder (to Boomers) as opposed to down the age ladder (to 13ers) as early as 1982. That decision meant that rock was well on its way to being extinct.

And that happens to be where you miss my point. "Grunge" didn't have to happen, at least not in the way that it did. If rock radio had done a better job of breaking new acts, as it had done up until about the mid-1980s, then it wouldn't have happened. But putting aside grunge, Metallica wasn't getting much airplay on mainstream rock radio circa 1990. When it was current, you'd have actually had a better shot of hearing "One" (and only "One") on a mixed Top 40 station as opposed to a mainstream rock station. (Metallica was largely forbidden on mainstream rock stations until the release of the Black Album.) At the time, it was more important to hype up the latest release by the Rolling Stones, the Doobie Brothers, or Billy Idol (all of whom had #1 mainstream rock hits in about the year or so before Nirvana broke).

Of course, other styles of music ended up filling the emotional needs that rock used to fill, at least for young people, and generally did it better. That left rock with a fairly narrow band, which is how grunge actually ended up happening. (None of this is intended as a defense of grunge. With the exception of the rush of euphoria that accompanied "Smells Like Teen Spirit", I had little use for the "style" myself, although I hesitate to use that word when what actually ended up being labeled as "grunge" represented a pretty wide variety of sounds.)

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Weezer is another band worth mentioning, although they don't really fit any category. Their first album is one of the few things from that time period that I like.

They didn't fit into a category then, but now we know that Weezer was a pioneering emo act...

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Then there was "emo", which was thankfully short-lived.

Which make this part funny!

Originally Posted by Semo '75

They didn't fit into a category then, but now we know that Weezer was a pioneering emo act...



Which make this part funny!

Actually, Emo is kind of tragically comical all the way around. The term emo is short for "Emotive Hardcore" and the label hung initially on a short list of bands localized in DC in the mid 80's. Bands like Fugazi (early), Nation of Ullysses, and Rites of Spring qualified. What it meant, musically, was that it was hardcore with musical hooks which was more likely to be played at mid tempo.

Example: Fugazi's Repeater
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nVCMLWtVN5E

As time went on, there was a slightly more indy rock vibe to it, but it still stuck with that blend of musical hooks layed on top of hardcore. Groups like Sunny Day Realestate, Cap'n Jazz, Braid, Drive Like Jehu, and all the bands that broke off Cap'n Jazz (The Promise Ring, Joan of Arc, The Owls).

Example: Cap'n Jazz - Little League
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RG2FFpI5K3s

Then slowly it melded with pop-punk, and you got groups like Jimmy Eat World, Saves the Day, New Found Glory, Fenix TX, and on and on and on...

Example: Saves the Day - Shoulder to the wheel
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jHBJ-73LQjQ

Then nobody knows what happened. Basically Emo occupied the same place in the highschool heirarchy as Goth, except without the respect. They were essentially freaks, but the highschoolization of the word made it a catch all for music where you dressed like goth Vandals had beaten you up and given you a make over and you listened to radio rock. People were calling literally everything that moved and had six strings emo. Greenday got called an emo band, Rise Against got called an emo band, Weezer got called an emo band, Alkaline Trio got called an emo band and on and on and on. Somehow, emo became a retroactive time travelling quantum superforce which changed a music's genre based on tendency to wear make up or Buddy Holly glasses (which is now, apparently, the original emo band).

So more or less, nobody knows what is or is not emo past 1997ish. It is either an extemely specific subgenre of hardcore, or it encompasses all music written between 1948 and 2009, when we decided to call everyone hipster and tell them to shut up.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Actually, Emo is kind of tragically comical all the way around. The term emo is short for "Emotive Hardcore" and the label hung initially on a short list of bands localized in DC in the mid 80's. Bands like Fugazi (early), Nation of Ullysses, and Rites of Spring qualified. What it meant, musically, was that it was hardcore with musical hooks which was more likely to be played at mid tempo.

Nobody was referring to Fugazi as emo back in that period. In fact, I've never heard anybody describe Fugazi, no matter what period you're talking about, as emo. People simply called Fugazi hardcore. And while, yeah, Rites of Spring was called emo (or emo-core or emotional or emotional hardcore) in zines back then, the band didn't really have the polished sound that the style that would be called "emo" in the 1990s would end up having. Stuff like Jawbreaker, or Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" (or the entirety of the Blue Album), Sunny Day Real Estate, etc. Pop punk + lyrics that are earnest and emotionally charged to the point of self parody=mid-90s emo. Basically.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Then nobody knows what happened. Basically Emo occupied the same place in the highschool heirarchy as Goth, except without the respect. They were essentially freaks, but the highschoolization of the word made it a catch all for music where you dressed like goth Vandals had beaten you up and given you a make over and you listened to radio rock. People were calling literally everything that moved and had six strings emo. Greenday got called an emo band, Rise Against got called an emo band, Weezer got called an emo band, Alkaline Trio got called an emo band and on and on and on. Somehow, emo became a retroactive time travelling quantum superforce which changed a music's genre based on tendency to wear make up or Buddy Holly glasses (which is now, apparently, the original emo band).

So more or less, nobody knows what is or is not emo past 1997ish. It is either an extemely specific subgenre of hardcore, or it encompasses all music written between 1948 and 2009, when we decided to call everyone hipster and tell them to shut up.

To be fair, the shape of a genre is only clear in hindsight and genre definitions change over time. And, really, the actual style of music is often less important to that kind of classification than aesthetics, the self-classification of people who listen to it, and so on. It's pretty safe to describe Black Sabbath's Master of Reality and Metallica's Master of Puppets as heavy metal. "Goth" covers a lot of ground, from electropop (Peepshow-era Siouxsie and the Banshees) to raw punk ([b]Only Theatre of Pain[b]-era Christian Death) to late-'80s hard rock (Vision Thing-era Sisters of Mercy). While I get the music geek tendency to classify, divide, and sub-divide musical genres, it's easy to see how "Say It Ain't So" was a harbinger of things to come, even though the term "emo" wouldn't be on people's tongues for another four or five years (i.e. when emo became a "thing" at the end of the 1990s). Just like people started working backward to rope in various punk and post-punk bands once goth became a "thing" after 1982. In the end, it didn't matter--goth was (and I guess still is) what goths listen to. Heavy metal was and is what metalheads listen to. Etc.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Genrification.

I don't have a problem with genrefication, even intensive genrification in general. I don't even mind a little retconning. However, there's a smell test. Weezer doesn't sound like any emo that came before it (Fugazi does quite a bit, up until about Killtaker). Weezer didn't really pal around with bands that were emo prior to establishing their sound (Fugazi did all the way through their career). Yes, Weezer influenced emo after it, but Weezer was not really, itself, emo.

The reason I think it's significant enough to make a point of is because genrefication is about types of music, not people.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

[sarcasm]Yeah, self-destruction is a very inspiring basis for great art.[/sarcasm]

Huh. Maybe we should go ask Pete Townshend and Co.(ie: The Who)?

I hope it's not lost on you that what Townshend started, Jimi Hendrix took a step farther with the
burning(sacrificing) of his guitar at the end of his set at The Monterey Pop Festival-1967(ie: Wild Thing).
(Both The Who and Jimi Hendrix being managed by Kit Lambert(and Chris Stamp) at the time, and
the backstory involving the competition between the two has been pretty well documented, IMO;
Hendrix burning the guitar on June 18th; The Who Smothers Bros. broadcast on Sept. 16th of 1967).


Prince

PS:
Maybe you'd rather go with Jim Morrison and The Doors.
Do you prefer The End?
Or maybe,
"The Day Destroys the Night, Night Divides the Day.
Try to Run, Try to Hide. Break On Through(To the Other Side)"

Originally Posted by Kepi

Dookie and The Offspring's Smash are definitely the "intro to cool" album for the Y cusp. I wouldn't say it's an FU to grunge mainly because most grunge was a form of punk, just slowed down and with the progressions played backwards....

Hey Kepi. I believe you may be into "micro-ing"(ie: genrefication) a little too much for my taste.
While I do understand and appreciate "classifications" for discussion puposes, I just can't follow
all the sub-cultures where it seems to me that almost every single band has their own classification.
So, that said, I'm going to bow-out of any further discussions of "sub-cultures". What I'm interested
in is music that had a significant cultural impact(ie: music that had considerable exposure).

For example, as far as "country music" goes, the 1990s first brought us Garth Brooks, and then
Shania Twain. That's about as far as I'm willing to go as far as any sort of cultural impact i/r/t "Country"
(maybe, a re-surgence of Johnny Cash or Willy Nelson, and possibly the rise of Jimmy Buffett).
IOW, after "the great splintering", where did the Boomers go? How about the Early Xers?
The Late-Xers? The Y-Cusp? Early-Millys? Etc.

I do appreciate you bringing-up The Offspring. That really hits home with what Copper was saying
i/r/t DIY(Do-It-Yourself). The "early-90's rock" saw a complete revolution towards "regular"-people
playing music. Hell, a lot of the musicians would record and play "loosely"(ie: kinda sloppy) on purpose, IMO.
The "sound" was "looser" and more "noisy". It was a thing.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

As an early adopter of the punk/grunge/alternative music scene before the industry began creating these monikers to better divide them up in the music stores to sell more records I can tell you that all of the previously mentioned genres were simply called "punk music" by those who listened. Literally music listened to by punks. At that time a punk was just someone outside of the mainstream, up to and including (but not restricted to) actual punks (who in those days were mostly skater punks rather than the more familiar British variety). As many of my friends at the time were local skater punks, I was introduced to this sort of music through the usual distribution methods of the day. "Punk music" more generally meant damn near anyone making music DIY and who had not yet "sold out". The whole sell-out thing was very important to people at the time as it usually (but not always) marked the end of good material from a given band. Dookie was actually a great example of this phenomenon as it was the end of Green Day's influence amongst those who had bought their records before a major label signed them. It wasn't so much a middle finger to grunge as it was selling out to the man.

Punk could be folk music, rock, progressive rock, country, rap, metal, industrial, anything just so long as you remained loyal to the scene. I once saw a talented front man for a local punk band pull out a banjo and sing a perfect rendition of Rainbow Connection in front of a mosh pit (incredible). That was punk for young Xers.

Pop-punk was merely an abomination created by the recording industry to have bands that kinda-sorta sounded like the more edgy stuff but would still be snapped up by 13 year old girls.

Perhaps the best summation of what punk meant (and still means I suppose) appears in a song called 60% by a now aging punk band called NOFX (a band I loved back in the day and still love). Now well into their 40's, they created their own record label in 1990 to distribute their music. The label is known for having unusual rules (bands are only signed to 1-record deals).

I believe I see what you're saying here. Thanks for the clarification i/r/t "punks". Personally, I know the term i/r/t
The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Black Flag, Etc., and really back into the late-60's with stuff that might be labeled
"alt" like The Velvet Underground(Lou Reed), The Stooges(Iggy Pop),(and really Early-The Who and The Doors),
and Black Sabbath, and some Led Zep for early-"heavy metal". But I believe I get what you're saying.
(I'd probably have to throw in David Bowie as well, but that dude is just simply artist-supreme in my book so,
it's difficult to classify him without really being specific.)The Dave Matthews Band is a great example of DIY, IMO.
Plus, although Dave Grohl was/is a very competent drummer, he pretty much taught himself to be a guitar player
(as well as a singer songwriter) right before our eyes with Foo Fighters, IMO.

Oh yeah. My comment about Green Day being an FU to "Grunge" was not meant to say that they
intended to give the finger to "Grunge", but that the music is a sharp contrast i/r/t "vibe", IMO.
IOW, some new fans of rock(the ones where Green Day/The Offspring were their first favorite bands)
were connecting with something very different than what Seattle(et al) were putting-out.

And that leads to JPT's comments.


Prince

PS: BTW, Copper. I still plan on getting back to you about your question to me
i/r/t Sonic Youth/Pixies/Etc. and Hum(et al).

Originally Posted by The Rani

Looking back on it now, my perspective is that fans of underground music were intent on distinguishing themselves (ourselves) from the mainstream. Listening to alternative/grunge/punk or whatever you want to call it made us different and somehow "better" than other folks. It's a silly adolescent concept, really, tying your ego-identity to the bands that you listened to!
But yes, there were also times when music became crap as it became more commercialized.

So I guess some of it was truth and some of it was B.S.

Oh, Boy! I remember exactly where I was when I had that kinda realization.

It was circa 1983 and I was really indentifying with some of the harder rock bands that were being
played on the radio(eg: Iron Maiden). I was in my car, alone, and Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?
by Culture Club came on. I was like "screw this crap!", and then I had the epiphany. Wait a minute!
I kinda like this song, and there's nobody around to criticize me. What the hell am I doing?
I literally was a changed man(kid) at that point.(BTW, I totally love DYRWTHM, nowadays).

Looking back, I remember coming-up with the concept of "conforming to being a non-conformist".
It was just so absurd to see people rebelling against something, but then immediately identifying with
something else that was already going-on. I've always been more of a "social-butterfly"
(despite my introverted-nature); Experimenting-with and analyzing different stuff.

To this day, I still have to laugh when I ask people what music they like, and they say: Everything.
Then I say, "Oh really? How about: The Spice Girls? Or, ABBA? Or, Puff, the Magic Dragon"?
(Everybody sing! A little louder! Uh-oh; Here comes the sad part. Oh wait, last time, triumphantly;
Everybody! "Puff, the Magic Dragon, lived by the sea, and..." Oh, that rascal, Puff! LMAO-ing!)
[Note: FWIW, I like all three of the above].

There's a lot of stuff I'm not that into, but ultimately, I pretty much can find something I like
in almost anything(if I look hard enough). Most of the time it's not the "thing" that I'm really into,
it's the people that comprise the membership of the "thing". And, it's usually not so much that I
connect with certain "members" of a thing, but that I don't connect with "members" of other things.

I guess what I'm ultimately saying is that, I'm not into "Sides", per se.

ETA: Rani, I don't believe I've ever asked you what kind of music you really like.
So, what are you into? From some of your posts, I guess you were listening to
a bunch of the "new wave"-sorta stuff that our age-group was exposed to.


Prince

PS: I guess I'm kinda like: "The Island of Misfit Toys"(Honah Lee)!

Hey JPT. Nice to see you posting again. I do hope you'll forgive me for temporarily diverting your
thread(sort of).

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I would go farther than some of what's said above, and say that Grunge killed rock music altogether, not just the existing style of it. Also, being in the target age group for it, I knew very few people who liked it very much. For those who had been listening to mainstream music or "classic rock", it was too negative and unpleasant to listen to. For those who had been in to various "alternative" or "underground" styles, it was seen as a sell-out.

I believe you and I are in the same camp, in that it was too "negative" for us. But as Semo
(and Copper to a degree) have pointed-out, it wasn't "interpreted" as such by alot of people.
IOW, eventhough the intentions may have been "negative" to a degree, the interpretation was
not. And, looking-back, although at the time I interpreted the muisc/message as "negative",
I believe their intentions were not really that "negative", but instead, only indentifying what they
were interpreting as going-on in the world. And I'd add that breaking stuff down(eliminating falseness)
may leave one with a form of "spirituality" in a sense. It's different for different types of people.
I didn't see it at the time, but I definitely see it now.

That concept is nothing new. I was first exposed to it via Bob Dylan from Like A Rolling Stone
"When you've got Nothing left, you've got Nothing left to lose", and Kris Kristofferson from
Me and Bobby McGee "Freedom's just another word for, Nothing left to lose".

So for some people(and probably, a whole lot of people), what I perceived as "negative" was
really sort of "positive" for them, and maybe even, "life-affirming".

Anyway, something to consider, IMO.

FWIW, one of my main problems with "Grunge"(et al),
was that there weren't any songs about "chicks"!

Originally Posted by JPT

It seems to me that the music industry and entertainment industry in general were looking for "the new thing", and they jumped on this whole "Gen X" thing as a marketing ploy. Boomers were aging out of the pop market, and they had nothing better to promote. So you had strands of various styles that had been percolating since the late 70s - rap, metal, punk and "post-punk", and that's what ended up being brought forward. The whole Grunge thing was not that commercially successful in comparison to earlier trends, and it didn't take long before rap and R&B ended up dominating the 90s. Rock music had gone to a place that was not sustainable for a mass audience.

I have to agree that it wasn't as successful(generally speaking) as some stuff before it, but that doesn't mean
that it wasn't viable. It did have it's time(as we kinda showed with stuff like all those big concert-events like
Lollapalooza, The HFStival, Monsters of Rock, OzzFest, Etc.).

And, that separation was only temporary because , eventually, alot of that stuff did make it's way
to being incorporated into "rock music" as we kinda know it. But, considering the way music is
available Today, stations aren't really required to "do it all", so to speak.

Originally Posted by JPT

Grunge was not merely anti-hair metal. It was anti-music. It was a pose, not a musical style. Bands like the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, etc remain immortal, and can or could continue to fill stadiums to this day. The Police had a massive reunion tour a few years ago. The bands of the Grunge era have largely broken up and disappeared from public consciousness. Those that remain, like Pearl Jam, haven't sniffed real success since the early 1990s. The whole thing was a fraud, and most of the songs are completely forgettable.

Oh, come-on now. I don't believe it's very fair putting stuff up against The Stones, Led Zep, and Floyd.
I certainly agree with you that they are "immortal", but saying that Pearl Jam(although I'm not into them)
is nothing more than a footnote, well...whatever.

Originally Posted by JPT

More importantly, the stylistic rabbit-hole of poor musicianship, darkness and anger as requirements for "cred" resulted in the situation we have now, where rock music is nearly extinct.

I believe some of that "poor musicianship" was on purpose. Too a degree, some of the Seattle-sound
was a little "loose"(ie: rough around the edges). I mean, that's kinda how the name "Grunge" was
adopted. I pretty much stick with Pearl Jam and the influence of Neil Young's Live Rust-era sound as
the "Grunge"-sound. As far as musicianship goes, I can tell you straight-up that alot of those guys can
really play their asses-off. IMO, one of the best drummers in all of music is Jimmy Chamberlain who played
with Smashing Pumpkins. I'd put him right below the likes of Buddy Rich and Neil Peart; Seriously. And like
I said before, I believe some of the "loose-ness" was intentional.

But, it also brought-in a whole new group of musicians via a move towards DIY. It was like, hey,
if you can play a few chords and sorta play lead guitar, you can do this. Think for a second how
cool that is: "You can do this!" That was somewhat refreshing after feeling completely humiliated
attempting to hang with the likes of some of those Hard Rock guitarists. Yngwie Malmsteen,
John Norum, John Sykes, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, and Nuno Bettencourt
(much less Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix, for that matter).
But yeah, some of the musicianship did indeed take a hit...a big hit.

Rock Music being "extinct". That's a very interesting statement, IMO.

Here's where I went: Well, first-off, I'm basically a '70s "classic-rock" guy, with a great appreciation
for early-80's melodic rock/hard-rock(eg: Journey-Escape, Def Leppard-Pyromania). Plus, I like a lot
of melody and hooks and stuff. So, the first thing I did was completely go back-over almost everything
from 1965-1970 that I missed-out on when I was growing-up.

Then, I basically went to Goo Goo Dolls and Shania Twain(when Mutt Lange started producing her records).
I think U2 is pretty cool, but I'm not into all the offshoots that occured(eg: Coldplay). FWIW, I'd say that
"rock music"(as I knew it) went "Country". Shania Twain-"Rock This Country!".
And FWIW, most of the kids(15-25ish) in my area are big "country music" fans
(eg: Jason Aldean and some dude named Luke, or Clay, or something!).
Basically, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Little Big Town, Etc.
Well, that and all sorts of current "micro-groupings" of "Metal"
(I don't listen to the stuff, personally).

Anyway, that's that.

Here's what's missing IMO.

Journey-Escape
"I've got dreams I'm livin' for..."
But, that said, there's a whole new group of kids, that, while they don't "get"-it
(in the way that I get it), they're still connecting with it (eg:. Don't Stop Believin'), IMO.

Prince


PS: So, JPT. I've never asked before. What's your birth year? And, what did you do after "grunge" occured.
I mean, where did you go other than back to the 1970's- rock stuff?

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

Huh. Maybe we should go ask Pete Townshend and Co.(ie: The Who)?

I hope it's not lost on you that what Townshend started, Jimi Hendrix took a step farther with the
burning(sacrificing) of his guitar at the end of his set at The Monterey Pop Festival-1967(ie: Wild Thing).
(Both The Who and Jimi Hendrix being managed by Kit Lambert(and Chris Stamp) at the time, and
the backstory involving the competition between the two has been pretty well documented, IMO;
Hendrix burning the guitar on June 18th; The Who Smothers Bros. broadcast on Sept. 16th of 1967).


Prince

PS:
Maybe you'd rather go with Jim Morrison and The Doors.
Do you prefer The End?
Or maybe,
"The Day Destroys the Night, Night Divides the Day.
Try to Run, Try to Hide. Break On Through(To the Other Side)"

What can I say? Except that I would not agree that their destruction of guitars was what inspired their best work. Rather it was spirituality, and the communal ecstacy of their interaction with their fans. On the other hand, I agree that expressing frustration was part of the mojo of The Who and other boomer artists. And I sympathized because I am frustrated too. But Late Boomers and Xers in rock have tended to take that to an extreme, without redeeming artistry.

As for Break on Through, it is about going beyond the usual dualities of life. I never thought of that as self-destructive.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

What can I say? Except that I would not agree that their destruction of guitars was what inspired their best work. Rather it was spirituality, and the communal ecstacy of their interaction with their fans. On the other hand, I agree that expressing frustration was part of the mojo of The Who and other boomer artists. And I sympathized because I am frustrated too. But Late Boomers and Xers in rock have tended to take that to an extreme, without redeeming artistry.

That's part of the point IMO, Eric. Sometimes it's necessary to let something go,
for the purpose of allowing something else to arrive. So, IMO, The Who and Hendrix
weren't frustrated at all. Bob Dylan went and played electric at Newport '65 and pretty
much let his "fans" know that he wasn't going to be what they wanted him to be.
(he even came back on and gave them "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"!(That's heavy-duty, IMO).
David Bowie sacrificed the Ziggy-persona at his famed '73 Hammersmith-concert.
(ie: Rock and Roll Suicide). It's just a ritual sorta thing.

But I would agree that my fave Who-stuff is more "spiritual", but even then they almost always
had some level of ending something whether it was breaking the mirror, or gettin' outta dodge
(ie: The Exodus is here.). That "letting-go" kinda is a requirement of "The Journey", IMO.

Originally Posted by Eric

As for Break on Through, it is about going beyond the usual dualities of life. I never thought of that as self-destructive.

Of course, Eric. See above.


Prince

PS: It's no secret that many(if not most) of those guys were influenced by Eastern Spiritual concepts.
Just take the Ego down a notch, gradually. That's how we learn to leave some room for the opinions
of others. You know, "Listening to you, I get Opinions". I can tell you they certainly weren't talking about
Meher Baba, exclusively. Of course, YMMV(ie: you may think differently).

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

(paraphrased) I'm not as interested in the minor parsings of genre, but the bigger picture of where it went.

Yeah, I think I'm muddling a bit. Lemme put it this way. What Copperfield said about "punk" being a labelling that just meant a wide variety of musical subgenres under one label evolved a bit. So while Greenday and The Offspring weren't as dreary as the grunge stuff, they were still under the umbrella of punk. It was the same overall "scene".

Now what was different was that prior to Greenday and The Offspring, being in the underground was like being in the busch league. You weren't something until you got airplay. Even though there was this underground scene, there was a certain point where it was just not a stable way to make a living. So grunge went mainstream and so did some of the other punk acts through the 90's.

However, with each successive iteration of bands, they were siphoning money out of the mainstream and back into their respective scenes and promoting up other acts from their scene.

So while most early and mid Xers would reach a point and mainstream, the amount of money in the scenes (Punk, Goth, Techno, Metal, underground Hip-Hop) made it much more in the best interest of the fans and the bands to stick around for longer. So a group like AFI starts out on Nitro Records (owned by Dexter Holland of The Offspring), and sticks around for 5 albums and numerous EPs before doing a split release with Dreamworks for their first major label, big promotions release. And it's not like they weren't making loads of money on Nitro. They broke into the Billboard top 200 with their 5th album which didn't receive much promotion until after it did that.

So where Boomers, early and mid Xers all got to a certain point, and their respective groups broke big and those people mainstreamed with the bands most of the time, Y-cuspers and Millennials stuck to their scenes mostly, and it really knocked the mainstream down several pegs, but also created brand names they trust. So where my step-brother would never trust Motley Crue to create a variety show for kids, I have The Aquabats (which allowed Travis Barker of Blink-182 fame to join Blink-182 just as they were breaking big) producing 2 lines of kids shows (Yo Gabba Gabba, and The Aquabats Super Show), and of course I'm watching that with my daughter.

So to me, it's not as much a splintering as it is a seeding, which produced a bunch of seperate cultures, which have grown up to a point where no one is dominant, but they offer a lot more.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

That's part of the point IMO, Eric. Sometimes it's necessary to let something go, for the purpose of allowing something else to arrive. So, IMO, The Who and Hendrix
weren't frustrated at all. Bob Dylan went and played electric at Newport '65 and pretty
much let his "fans" know that he wasn't going to be what they wanted him to be.
(he even came back on and gave them "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"!(That's heavy-duty, IMO).
David Bowie sacrificed the Ziggy-persona at his famed '73 Hammersmith-concert.
(ie: Rock and Roll Suicide). It's just a ritual sorta thing.

But I would agree that my fave Who-stuff is more "spiritual", but even then they almost always
had some level of ending something whether it was breaking the mirror, or gettin' outta dodge
(ie: The Exodus is here.). That "letting-go" kinda is a requirement of "The Journey", IMO.

Seems like I myself may need to let go of some things soon. That's not self destruction, but maybe breaking through something or ending something yes.

Actually, I think I heard Pete Townshend say frustration was part of what he was expressing. And then of course there's the Stones "We're gonna vent our frustrations, or blow a 50-amp fuse"

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Seems like I myself may need to let go of some things soon. That's not self destruction, but maybe breaking through something or ending something yes.

Actually, I think I heard Pete Townshend say frustration was part of what he was expressing. And then of course there's the Stones "We're gonna vent our frustrations, or blow a 50-amp fuse"

I think we'll all be required to give up something(ie: "shared sacrifice"). I doubt
we'll get to choose what that something will be, but I believe it doesn't hurt to be
prepared for the possibility, going-forward.

And yeah. The Stones were singing I can't get no Satisfaction, but moved forward
to deeper-stuff like You Can't Always Get What You Want. But like I said above,
IME, we don't always recognize or get to choose what that necessary change in
life is going to be until it occurs(ie: is realized as being a necessary change).

So, as far as I'm concerned, vent-away to your heart's desire,
but just know that there are consequences for that sort of thing.


Prince

PS: Personally, I got No Expectations.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Yeah, I think I'm muddling a bit. Lemme put it this way. What Copperfield said about "punk" being a labelling that just meant a wide variety of musical subgenres under one label evolved a bit. So while Greenday and The Offspring weren't as dreary as the grunge stuff, they were still under the umbrella of punk. It was the same overall "scene".

And that's fine, and significant in that it's intereting that you guys viewed it as such, IMO.
But that said, that classification of everything being "punk" creates a problem when attempting
to chart a style/sound's "lineage". And there are distinct "lineages".

Originally Posted by Kepi

...So to me, it's not as much a splintering as it is a seeding, which produced a bunch of seperate cultures, which have grown up to a point where no one is dominant, but they offer a lot more.

"Seeding" is a fantastic way to put it IMO, Kepi. I was thinking about how I stated that I felt "Grunge"
sort of devestated an environment that was ripe for a change. Then, I kinda thought about it as an
atom-smashing event, where all the new atoms became their own new beginnings. Like you said,
a "seeding".

And it's very interesting to me that the original "seeds" of alt/punk/metal,
all really began around 1965-1970.
The Velvet Underground(Lou Reed).
The Who(My Generation).
Led Zep/Sabbath/Hendrix/Etc.

It's all right there, IMO.

How about: MC5: Kick Out The Jams?
Awesome, IMO!


Prince

PS: I'm going to finish-up with a response to Semo. But, one of the reasons that I even brought
this whole thing up in the first place was to try and identify what actually occured musically in the
1990s, to see if it lines-up with the 1920s. I don't know, but there may be a case that it mirrors
the advent of: Jazz. Something to consider, IMO.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Oh, I like everything.

Heh.

Originally Posted by Rani

I guess my favorite recent listening experience was when a classic rock radio station did an "album sides" Thursday. They played the Cars side 2 (one of my all time faves) but also some stuff that I wasn't really into at the time it was popular (Bob Seger, Jackson Browne.) Also the usual stuff from The Who, Beatles, Pink Floyd etc. I enjoyed all of it!

I'm listening to side 2 of The Cars as we speak. Love it.
Ben Orr had such a great voice!
I always liked this one off of Candy-O: It's All I Can Do.
And yeah. I'm right with you on all that stuff.

Originally Posted by Rani

And yes, I still have a bunch of "new wave" CDs from the old days. I guess now it's "old wave."

Well, 1979/1980 was a REALLY big year for music i/r/t endings and beginnings.
I feel that that 1979-1984ish period is like "my music", in that, it holds a special place
because of my age at the time. It's a really underated time-period, IMO.


Prince

PS: I think this may actually be my all time fave of that time:
Big Country-In A Big Country!
(Man, that song is just so powerful, IMO!)

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

... But that said, that classification of everything being "punk" creates a problem when attempting to chart a style/sound's "lineage".

That's one of the purposes of all the subgenres and classifications, one of the others is being intimidating. Because I'm in scene, I can sit there and listen to someone ramble on about these subgenres in such a way that I can instantly identify what a person is talking about, if they know what they're talking about, and throw in points of my own to show I know what I'm talking about. Meanwhile, someone who's not put the effort in has no clue what's going on. Meanwhile I've got a more rudimentary knowledge of Goth (which, in truth is just another subset of punk that fully seperated into it's own thing), and I'll get lost rather quickly.

Can it degenerate into pretentiousness and mindless tribalism? Yes. But used appropriately it's a good way to maintain group identity and ensure bonding within the group. Because subgenre is more or less the history of the music, the lineage is kept, the information is easier to chunk and cluster, and life goes on. Because, sure, while there's probably only 20 Melodic Hardcore bands worth listening to, I'd rather subgenrify it and keep that in my head than a list of 20 bands.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

And it's very interesting to me that the original "seeds" of alt/punk/metal, all really began in 1965-1970.

More or less, yeah. Punk really grabs from 60's surf and garagebands as foundational. Metal from Blues. But really the sound really was refined by those groups (and Kick out the Jams is one of those that's been covered by a million different punk bands, too), and it was only a click or two over to the genre's proper.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

PS... Jazz.

Have you ever listened to hardcore Jazz guys? Like the ones who just really obsess over it? While it doesn't seem Jazz was as tribal, I know my Dizzy from my Coletrane, and listening to those guys makes my head spin. It's very comparable.