Lately, I’ve been thinking about the narrative surrounding the ‘90s alternative rock boom, and how oversimplified it’s become over the years. Too often, we get a simple line like “Nirvana changed everything,” and if we’re lucky, a little follow-up along the lines of “Limp Bizkit ruined everything.” So I decided to identify the scenes, subgenres, and trends that most influenced the Modern Rock charts over the past two decades; I figured I’d come up with a dozen or so. Instead, I ended up with almost 30, which I’ve broken down below. (I’m sure in the comments we can argue about which ones I left out, or which bands shouldn’t have been lumped together.)
College Rock (U.S. Division)
Key bands: R.E.M., The Replacements, XTC, The Pixies
Era of dominance: 1988-1992
Defining hit: The Pixies, “Here Comes Your Man”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: R.E.M., “Supernatural Superserious”
By the time Billboard began publishing a Modern Rock singles chart in 1988, there was already a clutch of American bands getting consistent radio play. And for the first few years of the chart, jangle ruled the roost.
College Rock (U.K. Division)
Key bands: U2, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Love And Rockets, New Order
Era of dominance: 1988-1993
Defining hit: The Cure, “Wish”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Depeche Mode, “Wrong”
The divergent paths of U2 and R.E.M. since the early ‘90s kind of tell the story of how American college rock’s Brit equivalent was always better suited for stadiums and/or enduring cults.
The Last Gasp Of The Old Guard
Key bands: Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Elvis Costello, Robyn Hitchcock
Era of dominance: 1988-1992
Defining hit: Lou Reed, “Dirty Blvd.”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Elvis Costello, “Complicated Shadows”
Yeah, there was a full year or two after “Smells Like Teen Spirit” when these guys were still charting consistently, but ultimately Nirvana’s ascent killed off more than just hair metal.
The Pre-Lillith Fair Chick Singer Boom
Key bands: Tori Amos, Suzanne Vega, Sinead O’Connor, Kate Bush
Era of dominance: 1988-1994
Defining hit: Tori Amos, “Cornflake Girl”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Paramore, “Decode”
Now, the only female singer-songwriters that can get Modern Rock airplay are M.I.A. and Katy friggin’ Perry, and all the girls with guitars and pianos and mainstream aspirations have fled to VH1.
Pre-Grunge Heavy Alt-Rock
Key bands: Jane’s Addiction, Social Distortion, Living Colour, Faith No More
Era of dominance: 1988-1992
Defining hit: Jane’s Addiction, “Stop”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Avenged Sevenfold, “Scream”
I’m glad that these bands all at least have one signature hit I hear on the radio every week, because it’s nice to be reminded that there wasn’t some kind of vast unfilled niche between R.E.M. and Poison before Nirvana showed up.
Seattle Grunge
Key bands: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains
Era of dominance: 1991-1995
Defining hit: Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Pearl Jam, “Brother”
After the last round of tracks from Vitalogy and Unplugged In New York ran their course, the hits kinda dried up, but those four years produced the biggest chunk of recurrent radio staples of any of these scenes. And Nirvana changed everything, y’know.
The Earnest Funkateers
Key bands: Red Hot Chilli Peppers, 311, Sublime, Incubus
Era of dominance: 1991-present
Defining hit: Red Hot Chilli Peppers, “Give It Away”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: 311, “Hey You”
Guitar bands that throw some combination of rapping, DJing, slap bass, and groovy good-vibes balladry into their sound may be the surest thing the Modern Rock format has ever known. The demand may fluctuate, but overall these kinda guys will never go out of style.
West Coast Punk-Pop
Key bands: Green Day, Offspring, Rancid, NOFX
Era of dominance: 1993-1995
Defining hit: Green Day, “Basket Case”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Rancid, “Last One To Die”
As a dedicated grunge kid, this stuff really got on my nerves at the time, but now I can admit Dookie was a pretty great record.
The Industrial-Rock Crossover
Key bands: Nine Inch Nails, Filter, Stabbing Westward, Gravity Kills
Era of dominance: 1994-1997
Defining hit: Nine Inch Nails, “Closer”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Hollywood Undead, “Undead”
Après Reznor, le deluge, but most of them sucked and didn’t stick around for very long, so good riddance.
The Post-Grunge A-List
Key bands: Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, Weezer, Foo Fighters, Radiohead
Era of dominance: 1993-present
Defining hit: Smashing Pumpkins, “Today”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Weezer, “Troublemaker”
Once Cobain checked out and Pearl Jam set about becoming the world’s biggest cult band, there were a lot of guitar bands of widely divergent sounds and origins angling to fill the void, intentionally or unintentionally. But only a handful ended up with a sustained, successful run, and a large permanent fanbase, if not a Nirvana-sized legacy. Some of these bands are still chugging along like efficient hit factories; some of them could probably easily make hits again whenever they get their shit together to do so.
One-Album Wonders
Key bands: Bush, Live, Third Eye Blind, Candlebox, Soul Asylum
Era of dominance: 1994-1996
Defining hit: Live, “Lightning Crashes”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Gavin Rossdale, “Love Remains The Same”
These are the bands that briefly joined the above described A-list, landing four or five huge hits off of one album (usually but not always their debut), but proving unable to hack it in the long run. They’re the ones with ‘greatest hits’ albums that are 60% comprised of songs from the same album.
Rappin’ Whitey
Key bands: The Beastie Boys, Beck, Everlast, Eminem
Era of dominance: 1988-present
Defining hit: Crazytown, “Butterfly”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Asher Roth, “I Love College”
One of the sturdiest constants in the history of Modern Rock radio: If a white guy decides to rhyme over guitars, one drop of airplay guarantees years of request line calls, whether it’s the Flobots or Dynamite Hack’s version of “Boyz In The Hood.”
The Indie Rock Bubble
Key bands: Sonic Youth, Pavement, Dinosaur Jr., Meat Puppets
Era of dominance: 1990-1994
Defining hit: Pavement, “Cut Yr Hair”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Silversun Pickups, “Panic Switch”
I can remember very clearly in the summer of 1994 being inundated with Green Day and Offspring, and finding solace in the occasional spins of “Bull In The Heather,” “Feel The Pain,” “Backwater,” and Frank Black’s “Headache” that kind of pointed the way towards what I’d spend a lot of the next few years listening to.
The Birth Of Adult Contemporary Alternative
Key bands: Counting Crows, Collective Soul, Goo Goo Dolls, Matchbox 20
Era of dominance: 1993-1996
Defining hit: Verve Pipe, “The Freshmen”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Counting Crows, “When I Dream Of Michaelangelo”
Like the female singer-songwriters that preceded them, these candy-asses ruled alt-rock airwaves for a few years; when got a little too schmaltzy, Hot AC was waiting for them with open arms.
Stealth Hippies
Key bands: Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors, Phish
Era of dominance: 1991-1996
Defining hit: Blues Traveler, “Runaround”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Dave Matthews Band, “Funny The Way It Is”
For a while they blended in with the alt-AC crowd, but eventually we heard the noodling and smelled the patchouli, and made them get their own Lollapalooza.
Britpop’s Failed Invasion
Key bands: Oasis, Blur, Elastica
Era of dominance: 1995-1997
Defining hit: Oasis, “Wonderwall”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Snow Patrol, “Take Back The City”
Cool Britannia came over here with a full head of steam, but other than a couple of ballads by the monobrowed Gallagher mooks, it never really translated to stateside success. Meanwhile, Damon Albarn’s shots at American radio recurrent immortality were a 2-minute blast of Big Muff riffage and some hooks he sung while dressed up as a cartoon monkey.
Alternapop
Key bands: Sugar Ray, Smashmouth, Fastball, Semisonic, Everclear
Era of dominance: 1996-1999
Defining hit: Smashmouth, “Walking On The Sun”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: The All-American Rejects, “Gives You Hell”
Former Idolator regular Anthony Miccio likes to throw around this term a lot, and it’s effective enough that I’m going to go ahead and nick it from him here. In the aftermath of arty collage-types like Beck and the Beastie Boys, we suddenly got a lot of goofballs in shades making shiny videos directed by McG, with clunky hip hop-inspired beats and laid back riffs. The summer of ’97 was pretty horrific if you ask me, but a few of these songs have aged well.
Third Wave Ska
Key bands: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, No Doubt, Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris
Era of dominance: 1995-1997
Defining hit: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, “The Impression That I Get”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Uh…. none.
No Doubt only had one foot on board to begin with, so it was easy for them to jump ship to superstardom while everyone else more committed to skankin’ went down with the boat.
The Godforsaken Swing Revival
Key bands: The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, The
Squirrel Nut Zippers, The Brian Setzer Orchestra
Era of dominance: 1997-1998
Defining hit: The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, “Zoot Suit Riot”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: …
Thing is, the ska bands didn’t seem that bad once these guys came along.
The “Electronica” Revolution
Key bands: Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim
Era of dominance: 1997-1999
Defining hit: The Prodigy, “Firestarter”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: another dead end here
Obviously, the last decade of car-commercial beats and critical love for minimal techno confirms that Americans weren’t actually afraid of this stuff–but the attempt to retrofit it for stadium rock that was a bit wrongheaded.
The Punk-Pop Resurgence
Key bands: Blink 182, Sum 41, New Found Glory, Yellowcard
Era of dominance: 1997-2004
Defining hit: Blink 182, “Dammit”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: All Time Low, “Dear Maria, Count Me In”
During the years when Green Day’s popularity waned and The Offspring briefly became a weird Alternapop novelty band, a new breed of slightly more goofball pop-punk took over, with increasingly nasal vocals that set the stage for emo’s bid for the mainstream.
Rap Metal
Key bands: Rage Against The Machine, KoRn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, Linkin Park
Era of dominance: 1996-2002
Defining hit: Rage Against The Machine, “Killing In The Name Of”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Linkin Park, “Bleed It Out”
The earnest white rappers and alt-funk bands are still going strong, but I think this scene can be safely called over. Rage reunited, but just to play shows; KoRn and the Bizkit are irrelevant; and Linkin Park and Kid Rock are still making hits, but with as little rapping (or metal) as possible.
Grunge, the Second Coming
Key bands: Creed, Nickelback, Puddle Of Mudd, Seether, Staind, Godsmack
Era of dominance: 1998-present
Defining hit: Creed, “Higher”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Shinedown, “Second Chance”
This lot has a cockroach-like resilience that their Seattle forebears never had, which is a shame for the rest of us.
The Return Of Sunset Strip Decadence
Key bands: Hinder, Buckcherry, Saving Abel, Theory Of A Deadman
Era of dominance: 2005-present
Defining hit: Hinder, “Get Stoned”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Theory Of A Deadman, “Bad Girlfriend”
Motley Crue hasn’t quite reached the Modern Rock chart yet, but it’s filled with bands who tour with them and who, for all intents and purposes, have just updated their whole style for the wallet chain era.
”The” Bands
Key bands: The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives, The Vines
Era of dominance: 2001-2002
Defining hit: The Strokes, “Last Nite”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Kings Of Leon, “Sex On Fire”
Rock came back! And then it went away again, except for the White Stripes.
Crossover Emo
Key bands: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Dashboard Confessional, The Used, Jimmy Eat World
Era of dominance: 2002-2007
Defining hit: Fall Out Boy, “Sugar, We’re Going Down”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: My Chemical Romance, “Desolation Row”
At one point, it seemed like emo–or at least a bunch of bands who get called emo but inevitably deny the charge–would take over. But Fall Out Boy went pop, MCR went classic rock, and most of the other bands that landed a few hits are ice cold now.
The 21st-Century Indie Bubble
Key bands: Modest Mouse, Death Cab For Cutie, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire, Interpol
Era of dominance: 2004-present
Defining hit: Modest Mouse, “Float On”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: The Airborne Toxic Event, “Sometime Around Midnight”
It’s hard to tell whether this bubble will last longer than the one that Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement benefited from a decade earlier, but the Pitchfork-to-KROQ farm team system seems to be getting only stronger over time.
The New VH1 Wuss-Rock Vanguard
Key bands: Coldplay, The Fray, The Killers, Maroon 5
Era of dominance: 2002-present
Defining hit: Coldplay, “Clocks”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: The Killers, “Spaceman”
Unlike Oasis and the Goo Goo Dolls, Coldplay and the Killers have found the trick to Modern Rock longevity: A palatable amount of U2-style artiness.
Hard Rock Dinosaurs Sneaking In The Back Door
Key bands: Metallica, AC/DC, Guns N Roses
Era of dominance: 2008-present
Defining hit: AC/DC, “Rock’n’Roll Train”
Vestigial reminder in a recent hit: Metallica, “Cyanide”
The once-thick line that divided alternative stations from “active rock” stations officially went from blurry to nonexistent last year, when these bands all showed up on the Modern Rock chart, most of them for the first time. If the chart doesn’t exist a few years from now, this will be why.
omission of taking back sunday’s “tell all your friends” from the emo list is a travesty. they and dashboard are the OG’s of the emo revival. otherwise, i agree with most of this.
@Chainsaw Dick: I dunno…Taking Back Sunday only made the MR chart with later albums, and even with those songs I saw them on MTV2 a bit but never really heard them much on the radio.
This should be made into poster form somehow.
Well done, Al!
@KingofPants: Haha thanks. I’ve already created a crude spreadsheet timeline based on the overlapping eras, maybe one of these days I’ll have somebody whip up a more sophisticated graphic representation of it.
Love this. I have quibbles, but not enough to bother with here.
Re: Nirvana/changing everything…
I know that this is the sort of thing that’s going to brand me a fart (a la Boomer/’60s nostalgia of the no-really-it-was-different-back-then variety) before I even hit 40, but here goes:
It really was amazing…not so much how “everything” changed, because it didn’t entirely; but, for whatever did change, how quickly it happened.
It really did feel seismic at the time: One minute, MTV was still playing the hell out of Slaughter and Warrant, the next minute they weren’t. One minute, Sonic Youth were too weird to sell, the next minute Dirty was a Top 40 album and “100%” was getting MTV play in the daytime. Top 40 radio didn’t change all that much at first, but man, by 1993, the sheer number of non-pop, album-cut-like stuff getting drivetime play on Z100 was shocking.
Again, it wasn’t totality, it was speed–pretty much starting the month Nevermind hit No. 1.
Along with Taking Back Sunday and Dashboard, gotta throw Saves the Day on their, I’m still baffled at how popular “At Your Funeral” became. That song was all over the place in 2001.
It appears I conflated The Cure’s “High” with the name of the album it came from, Wish. My bad!
I don’t know if it’s “recent” but for the ska revival, Pepper’s “Give It Up” was somewhat big back in ‘05.
Aw, why did you to pick Hollywood Undead for the industrial portion? I actually appreciate NIN, Filter and Stabbing Westward. I would’ve gone with that Shiny Toy Guns track.
The reminder for the Hot AC bands should be The Fray’s “You Found Me” which I can’t believe is charting on Modern Rock these days.
@Chris Molanphy: Yeah, I definitely kind of understated the importance of Nevermind, simply because it’s kind of become this totemic thing that people can just wave around to avoid going into this kind of detail. I mean it goes without saying that a lot of shit really did change quickly and directly because of that album, I’d never argue against that.
@Chris Molanphy: Z100 in the 93-96 period really wasn’t that representative of what a CHR station should be. They were basically modern rock with the ocassional Aerosmith, Ace Of Base or TLC song thrown in.
The real crime of this list is not mentioning that the song Soup was not on the album Soup, leading me to accidentally buy a blind melon album I didn’t want.
This post is excellent. I have two questions/points regarding two ye olde New Wave icons mentioned.
I’m assuming XTC are in College Rock (U.S. Division) because of their ‘86-’92 hits in that format, during a period when their audience shrank in the UK.
Also, was Elvis Costello’s “Complicated Shadows” a hit somewhere? I don’t remember it getting played anywhere in my area, except maybe the occasional Triple-A airing.
Does LCD Soundsystem fall into the 21st century indie bubble? I feel like that bubble is quite large. If you’re going to throw Death Cab and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs into it.
Should this bubble be separated geographically the way you split West Coast Punk? East & West indie. i.e. (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD, Hold Steady, Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio) vs. (Death Cab, Fleet Foxes, Shins, Band of Horses, etc).
I know a lot of these bands hardly crack the chart, if at all, but is there enough of a chart presence to discuss a split in the bubble? Am I over-thinking this?
@MikeP.: The XTC thing was just a total brainfart. I swear I know what country they’re from, I just somehow forgot at some point yesterday.
There’s a new recording of “Complicated Shadows” on the Triple A chart right now, I’m not really sure why or if it’s from Elvis’s new album or what.
@BigRicks: Yeah, I dunno…obviously there is a bit of a New York/non-NY divid going on with contemporary radio indie, but I have to admit I don’t know or care enough about it to really want to try to sort it out. I mean even the pop punk thing, it just happened that the big mid-90s bands were all from Cali, but the later ones mostly weren’t.
That “dead end” for electronica might be there because you forgot Daft Punk. They still have a pretty big following, at least if YouTube memes are any indication. And you could count Justice’s Kravitz-remixing asses as the vestigial reminders.
@Narrowcast: Oh right, Costello did a re-recording for his new Americana/bluegrass-style album.
Such an awesome post! Kudos (apart from making me feel old and nostalgic…)
Let’s not forget the current 21st Century Return of “Troo” Metal: Mastadon, Lamb of God, Baroness, etc?
@natepatrin: Yeah, obviously a lot of the artists that I implied were lost causes after a certain point were only really lost on rock radio, they just found a more welcoming audience either on another format or with a big cult following outside of radio.
wow. well done.
seriously, this is the most complete breakdown of the past two decades of popular music that i’ve seen.
It sure is easy to dismiss Electronica as a ‘Dead End’ when all you mention is the dreaded Prodigy/Chemical Brothers/Fatboy Slim triumvirate, but WTF? Those guys managed to flim flam US A&R types into thinking they were the next big thing because they seemed tangentially connected to those newfangled ‘raves’ all the kids were talking about in 1994. But that brand of Corporate Electronica was a dead end because those bands made music that was the worst possible interection of grating and boring.
In the meantime, your classification ignores the larger phenomenon of raves and the club nights following all the anti-rave hysteria, a phenomenon that goes on to this day. It never got as big as Disco in the late 70s, but for a couple of years around 1999-2000 DJ nights were bigger draws in my town than rock shows.
Not only that, but electronics have crossed over into the indie scene big time, where kids with guitars are picking up all those awful ‘groovebox’ machines Roland and Korg made in the late 90s and repurposing them to their own ends.
I don’t mean to dump on you but it does seem like part of the reason electronic music never really made it in the US is that no one in the music media ever managed to get a clue. And yet it just keeps bubbling along in local DIY scenes all over the country.
@Narrowcast: Fair enough; I gave up on the radio in general a while ago so you’d be able to gauge things in that respect better than I would. It’s a minor, mostly-irrelevant gripe about an otherwise exhaustive, memory-stoking rundown of everything in rock that entertained and/or irritated me in high school and college.
@chaircrusher: Dig Your Own Hole is great and you’re not invited to my parties.
@chaircrusher: Maybe you missed the headline, or the entire theme of this column, or the content of every other part of the article, so I’m gonna give you a pass on this one.
This is a great post.
I’m wondering where the strain of downtempo that hit the charts in 95-96 is, though? A lot of that sound is still around. Key bands: Portishead, Luscious Jackson, Sneaker Pimps, Primitive Radio Gods, Everything But the Girl. On the bubble: Massive Attack, DJ Shadow, Theivery Corporation, Underworld
Undeniable hits: Primitive Radio Gods - “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand”; Luscious Jackson - “Naked Eyes; Sneaker Pimps - “Underground”; Portishead - “Sour Times”; Everything But the Girl - “Missing”
Moby’s Play was a mix of the above’s commercial and underground sampled boom-bap that now induces vomiting from most people when entering their ear canal. However, it was one of the biggest selling records of the ’90s, so a case has to be made for its influence. And the genre from which it spawned.
Recent vestigal hits: Gnarls Barkley carry the torch. Check out Cee-Lo’s amazing remix of Nat King Cole’s “Lush Life”. the Whitest boy Alive - “Golden Cage”
Dugg:
http://digg.com/d1pXvR
@brooklynradio: And bless you for not calling it “trip-hop.”
@ghostyhead: Haha! Worst. Term. Ever.
@brooklynradio: OK, you hit upon something I really did overlook and wish I had thought of. I had some vague inkling to come up with an umbrella for Garbage, Primitive Radio Gods, etc., but never got around to it.
More kudos for this great post. A few things, though…
1) There seems to be a need for a subheading for, instead of just one-album wonders, one-hit wonders. I’m thinking of songs like Space’s “Female of the Species,” White Town’s “Your Woman,” Edwyn Collins’ “A Girl Like You” and others that received a ton of radio play in a short period of time.
2) Ouch on Soul Asylum being stuck in the one-album wonder category. Which album exactly do you consider the wonder? I always thought Grave Dancers Union and Let Your Dim Light Shine were equally accomplished.
3) The label “The Bands” seems to be a bit lazy. Isn’t there a widely-used label out there for those bands, something like “New Rock Revival?” Not that that’s any better, but…
And finally, Stabbing Westward. Wow. I hadn’t thought of that band in years. Thanks for bringing back the embarrasing memory that I owned and enjoyed a couple of the band’s albums in the late ’90s.
Can we get a post devoted to the legacy of “Possum Kingdom”?
Also? Alt. country boom. Son Volt, Wilco, Jayhawkes, Whiskeytown, Lucinda Williams. Again, 95 - 96.
Hit: Son Volt - “Drown”
Recent vestige: Good God! The indies are all about Americana these days. Where to begin?
I’ll just put Fleet foxes - “White Winter Hymnal” out there. And the Shins’ last record. How’s that?
I don’t think that One Hit or One Album Wonders should be any but a bean-counter category. There is no Wonder sound. Unless you count the multiple One Hit Wonder-esque songs of the Offspring.
@natepatrin: I think the Chemical Brothers have been pretty consistently awesome all along.
Two things:
1. Tonight I’m DJing my first-ever high school dance and the people organizing it told me that the kids are into retro stuff, so this list was wicked helpful in that dept. Thanks!
2. The Impression That I Get is a recent hit if you live anywhere at all near Boston. It’s the beast that wouldn’t fucking die.
@bcapirigi: And the Chems fucking OWN live. I wouldn’t have thought it either, until I witnessed it. Several times, actually.
@bcapirigi: (fyi, i closed the italics in your comment)
Thanks. I’m really dumb with the html sometimes (always.)
@brooklynradio:
Agreed on the Alt Country omission.
Other than that however, this post is so completely fantastic that I am printing it out to help explain things to my children someday.
The Depeche Mode covers album “For the Masses” is a really good snapshot of the mid/late 90s transition.
Whole bunch of bands you haven’t heard of since then and/or miss: Dishwalla, Veruca Salt, Apollo Four Forty…. Great Smashing Pumpkins, “what the hell”-era The Cure; it’s got it all.
Of course that’s also it’s downfall - the Rabbit in the Moon track is pretty terrible and it closes out with Deftones and Rammstein.
It starts out quite nostalgic but by the end of it you’re glad those days are over. Pretty clever album.
Quick correction: “Wish” was an album. Did you mean “Friday i’m in Love”?
It seems that Mediabase and Radio & Records have started to filter out former alternative rock stations that now lean Active Rock (WAAF, anyone?) and there seems to be alot more alternative stuff on the Modern Rock Tracks chart now.
Great post, it just goes to show how schizophrenic 90’s modern rock became after the major labels threw so many potential “Next Big Things” into the pot. The 00’s may end up being just as bad - remember the decade is ending next year.
@brooklynradio: But what about “post-rock”, the 90’s genre that never was?
@Chris Molanphy: So are you going to keep commenting on posts, Because I don’t want to be the only uber-chart geek commenter on Idolator.
@chaircrusher:
“I don’t mean to dump on you but it does seem like part of the reason electronic music never really made it in the US is that no one in the music media ever managed to get a clue.”
I disagree, speaking as a electronic music writer. Typical electronic dance music is much too abstract, vocal-free and lengthy to many American ears that are accustomed to pop, rock and rap songs that lasts for no more than four minutes. Quite a few mainstream music writers covered electronic music back in the Great Hype of ‘97 and the pop-friendly, Big Beat artists like the Chemical Bros. and Fatboy Slim got a lot of airplay. It’s just that not many American listeners were impressed by what they heard.
@Chainsaw Dick: I did talk a bit about “Possum Kingdom” last year when the Toadies charted with a new single: http://idolator.com/5053624/zack-de-la-rocha-comes-out-of-hiding
@k-rex: In case it wasn’t clear, very few of these categories are really grouped together by sound. The Seattle bands and the rap metal bands were as varied and dissimilar from each other as Bush was from Third Eye Blind, and so on and so on. I’m merely setting up the context in which these groups were viewed or heard or marketed, whether at the time or in retrospect.
@DocStrange: Shouldn’t AAF only be considered in the Active Rock chart?
@Cam/ron: Oh boy. Let’s not discuss Tortois.
Also, the mistake in the music industry with electronica was calling it electronica instead of simply calling it rock. Once it got pushed into that squishy realm of dance music, a lot of white American males didn’t want to be associated with it because of what they saw it as: Disco. You know what, it is. But if you didn’t tell them that, I think The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy slim, etc. would still get some spins on modern rock stations. Because, really, Norman Cooke sampled The Who, The Beatles, etc. to create his Big Beat pop. These guys were AC/DC with samplers, midis, and synths.