10 Alternative Albums That Started It All

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Alternative Music
From Peter Bochan,
Your Guide to Alternative Music.

Contact the Guide

Peter Bochan is the creator of the Shortcuts radio series, and the host and DJ of All Mixed Up, which has run on WBAI in New York City for over 20 years. He is a frequent winner of local and national radio awards, and was voted "Best (and most eclectic) Radio DJ of 2000" by the Village Voice, #1 Pick of Top 10 Music Programs by The New York Times, and was listed as one of the Top Ten Radio Programs by Time Out New York.

Experience:

Bochan has been in the music industry for most of his life. Besides being on one radio station or another since college, he has produced work for film, radio, television, and the recording industry, and worked on projects with Rage Against the Machine, Richard Belzer, Pearl Jam, John Lydon, Yo Yo Ma, Bruce Springsteen, and many others. He has interviewed artists such as PJ Harvey, The Flaming Lips, G Love, Billy Joel, Donovan, the Ramones, Oasis, Mos Def, and the Eels, to name a few.

From Peter Bochan:

Ever since I was young, I've loved music and knew I wanted to be a part of the music world, any way I could. I even stayed in college a few extra years so I could continue to have a show on my alma mater's station. Luckily for me, I've been fortunate and have worked in radio and music my whole life, and have always been drawn to the independent and fringe musicians that not everyone may otherwise hear.

From Other Sources:
All Mixed Up With Peter Bochan Links and information from Bochan's New York City show.
WBAI FM The non-commercial New York radio station that Bochan calls home.

Like, er, Billy Joel? Bruce Springsteen? (see list of obscure musicians he has interviewed/worked with)

Read: no-one would give me a real job.

Priceless!

It's also interesting in terms of the word "alternative," which had very little currency until this stuff became "a truly mainstream phenomenon" -- in that sense these albums really did do a lot of the work of creating "alternative" as a genre. Most people younger than us use the term "alternative" to refer specifically to this sort of thing, and the current acts that get defined as alternative (or would self-define as alternative) tend to be sludgy mainstream rock bands full of guys who pretty obviously grew up on stuff like this. (Plenty of bands ILM might describe as having to do with "nu-metal" probably consist of folks just following up the Alice in Chains records they turned on to as fairly mainstream during the early 90s.)

Although I wouldn't take any "beginnings of alternative" list without New Day Rising seriously anyway.

Wait no, my dad likes Neil Diamond. Oh god. Now I dont know what to think.

My favourite bit (apart from all the other favourite bits) at the moment is how he recommends Siamese Dream because it's filled with guitar. Unlike, say, the rest of his list.

This is the oddest inclusion. Not the Pups best. Impact on mainstream negligible at best. Anything going for it other than the Cobain connection?

Yes, me too.

btw, she is hot.

Which is why he said it of P.J. and not any of the other 9 on the list. Duh.

yes

OTM

Actually, the best part here is the indefinite article before "50 Ft Queenie." It's like he says "I have no idea what she's talking about - how about you, kids?"

-- 'Curt' Russell (noodle_vagu...), January 24th, 2006.

yes, he should have mentioned frank black too. now there's someone who's unafraid to be unpretty.

I'd say it was mostly hit singles that killed it.

1. Bush - that "This Cloud" song. Singer was too pretty, too British, too obviously without ties to the 80s punk scene. The first hit band that felt like a total cash-in.

2. Green Day - "Time of your Life" Song was too pretty, too Californian, too eager to rise above the ties to the 80s punk scene.

3. No Doubt - "Don't Speak" In which a band that was doing a great job of making the songs of the Waitresses into the big hits they should have been in 1982 shows they really wanted to be Bonnie Tyler.

4. PJ Harvey - Bring You My Love. Trades in a uniquely raw outlook for big ol' melodramatic rock.

5. Radiohead - OK Computer. Johnny Rotten's "I hate Pink Floyd" t-shirt comes full circle. The new boss is now the same as the old boss.

6. Sugar Ray - "I want to fly"... (okay, I'm bord now...)

I'm not saying these are bad records (tho' I think some of them are) I'm just saying it was pointless viewing this music as an alternative to anything that came before it.

xpost -- Actually I wonder: does anyone know Billboard's history in terms of introducing the alternative/modern-rock charts? (Or when "alternative" became a recognizable term in the mainstream?) I'd guess that moment has as much to do with these albums as PG-13 ratings have to do with Gremlins and Temple of Doom.

Well, the magazine Alternative Press covered these kinds of bands as early as 1985 - though I'm not sure if that title pre-dated the use of the word "alternative" to refer to that style of music.

http://altpress.com/history/

For more roffles, check out the other About music subdomains.

Part of my point here is better spelled out on that wiki link for "modern rock." Note the most recent hits on that thing. They're all from first-wave "mallternative" favorites (Green Day, Chili Peppers, etc.) -- or, more importantly, from acts like Nickelback, Staind, and Fuel. Those are the kinds of mainstream bands that "alternative" (as opposed to "indie," I guess) has come to refer to. And those are bands whose ideas of rock seem heavily shaped by 90s alt-rock -- not by the underground or even the college rock that came before it; their cues are coming from mainstream grunge and Nine Inch Nails and such.

Also I forgot to mention that the 19-year-old metalhead I used to work with had exactly this conception of stuff, which is maybe why I consider it normal. He liked metal and new (or nu-) metal, plus "a lot of that alternative stuff from the 90s, like Smashing Pumpkins and Soundgarden and all that."