Genre, at least as someone sees it -- either the operator of the store if it's a mom-and-pop operation or corporate management in combination with the record companies if it's a chain outlet. Once songs of any kind are selected for airplay on radio stations and given an umbrella word to describe that kind of songs being played, that's a format.
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Is Alternative dead and how can it go forward?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
If you ask the artist themselves what would they call their genre.
In alt, most are usually pretentious enough to declare that they conform to no genre definition.
Sure and all the Country Cornpone artists are "humble Salt of the Earth" folks with racist clowns like Wallen. "Alternative" is a meaningless Radio phrase. The current format known as Alternative is just Pop Rock. Taylor Swift seems just as pretentious as anyone else. You are making a sweeping generalization about artists you don't like...
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Nope. Alternative is a music industry phrase, and the genre has three categories identified by NARAS for Grammy awards.
Here's one category from Grammy.com:
16. Best Alternative Music Performance
For new vocal or instrumental solo, duo/group or collaborative Alternative music recordings.
- There'd Better Be A Mirrorball
Arctic Monkeys - Certainty
Big Thief - King
Florence + The Machine - Chaise Longue
Wet Leg - Spitting Off The Edge Of The World
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Featuring Perfume Genius
The Grammys are becoming more irrelevant every year. The ratings have cratered as have music sales. I consider Radio and the Grammys as the same entity. Alternative Radio was once a somewhat accurate name as it played artists that were not featured on Top 40 or AOR playlists. That was a long time ago...
Doesn't matter. You said Alternative was a "radio phrase." You're wrong.
It IS a Radio phrase. They still have formats using that name. Sure, some record stores still in business also use it. Every artist gets put under some type of moniker umbrella. Many of the great ones weave in and out of different musical styles...
Based on what artists and the recording industry say. Radio doesn't make the music.
Writer Terry Tolkin is credited with coming up with the name in 1979
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Who was considered alternative in 1979?
Probably the Ramones, The Clash, The Knack, The Cars, The Police, The Pretenders, Joy Division, Boomtown Rats, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Nick Lowe, Specials, Bauhaus, Split Enz, etc.
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Seriously: Is there anything in life that makes you smile? I soon expect a picture of you to appear next to the dictionary definition of "misanthrope".
Nope. It's Mr Anthrope's daughter.I thought the dictionary definition of "misanthrope" was "not an anthrope".
Weren't those people lumped together in either New Wave or Punk? I don't remember hearing or seeing the term Alternative applied to music or radio at all in the late '70s.
Yes, that list of artists fell under New Wave. "Alternative" started being used in late 80s as I recall. 10,000 Maniacs, R.E.M., Cure, etc...
It was a bit earlier than that. I listened to Long Island's WLIR in 1986. I remember the year because Depeche Mode's "A Question of Lust" (1986) was the station's number one song of that year. WLIR used the word "alternative" back then.
Right, it didn't catch on in the mainstream for a few more years but those are probably the kinds of artists Tolkin was referring to when he coined the phrase in 1979. Yes, New Wave and punk were the genre labels being used at the time. Today those artists all fit well into the Classic Alternative category.
Correct. What Tolkin was writing about was a new batch of artists he considered to be "post-punk." Punk was a reaction to established rock of the early 70s. Tolkin sensed the punk wave was burning out in 1979, and something new was on the horizon. One of the first bands he worked with was the Butthole Surfers.
Devo, M, Gary Numan.
WEND Charlotte NC at one point was playing classic alternative artists (don't remember whether they used the term) during a special show and I remember thinking I would never consider those modernistic musical styles to be "classic".
The only song I can remember from that show was "In a Big Country" by Big Country. I remember the kids of "Bandstand" doing Scottish style dancing. Maybe not to that song, but there was another similar song.
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