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is it dying?

I think there's still life in the old format yet. Saturday Night Live hosted The Black Keys tonight and they sounded great. We've also had Florence and the Machine and Arcade Fire this season.

When you look at their other musical guests this season, like Rihanna, McCartney, Diddy and Katy Perry, SNL has hosted artists who can sell records in their respective formats.

It's a small thing but I think if the format was dying, SNL would ignore these artists.
 
earshot said:
I think there's still life in the old format yet. Saturday Night Live hosted The Black Keys tonight and they sounded great. We've also had Florence and the Machine and Arcade Fire this season.

When you look at their other musical guests this season, like Rihanna, McCartney, Diddy and Katy Perry, SNL has hosted artists who can sell records in their respective formats.

It's a small thing but I think if the format was dying, SNL would ignore these artists.
Click to expand...

You're right! The format isn't dead, and those artists you mentioned also were on shows like Conan, Leno, Letterman, Craig Ferguson, etc. so they all got mainstream America exposure. I mean the frickin' FLAMING LIPS were on Letterman this year. It doesn't get any weirder than that! If we continue to support this music, and be the passionate bunch that we are, I don't see alternative going away anytime soon.
 
When alt rock radio wakes up and quits pursuing those who consider SNL relevant or funny; PROBLEM SOLVED!
 
I'm not sure that the format is dying...maybe in name only...but it clearly needs some retooling...maybe a re-branding.

I live in Atlanta and for many years, when people said Alt-Rock radio, 99x came to mind. 99x managed to capitalize on a relatively fresh format from more of a commercialized college-radio angle.

The back story: word has it that the night before the station flipped from it's previous top 40 format, the PD had a panic attack and called two of the other jocks who agreed on the play list and the promptly changed it. Rather than the sugar-coated-pop-alternative songs that dominated the play list, they were pulling songs from Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Rev Horton Heat as well as classic alternative and deep cuts from the likes of REM, the pixies and the Sex Pistols.

In retrospect, 99x was probably a large part of the foundation of alternative radio. What made them successful was the general attitude they sold...again, it was a commercialized college radio format. They were the station that took risks at playing Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Prodigy and Fliter. Many of the bands that are popular on top 40 radio today (DMB, Green Day, 311, Weezer) were staples for 99x.

BTW, I'm not in the biz...just a radio-phile...but, being a huge music fan for 2/3rd's of my life, I've noticed that music trends move rather quickly here in the US. We're a short-attention-span-nation, so the idea that alternative is getting sidelined doesn't surprise me much.
 
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