what got you out of "alternative" music?

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ilm.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 19:54 (twenty-three years ago)

^_^ hugglez (((((jess)))) hugglez ^_^

― dk, Tuesday, 15 October 2002 19:57 (twenty-three years ago)

dunno, I guess leaving college is a starting point. Didn't worry so much about trying to be cool and keep up with the kids.

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 19:59 (twenty-three years ago)

i think it was the term "alternative music"

― g (graysonlane), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"One Love" by the Stone Roses was the first chink in the armour.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Who said I was out of alternative music?

― Jody Beth Rosen, Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Tower Records used to have this alternative section and I used to buy things at random or look for the albums that got good reviews in Alternative Press.

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:03 (twenty-three years ago)

The Wu-Tang Clan

― Honda, Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Who wants out?

― paul cox (paul cox), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:09 (twenty-three years ago)

obviously four people on this thread so far, i would think.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:15 (twenty-three years ago)

Nails in the coffin: the rather limp last albums by Spiritualized and Mercury Rev didn't help, realizing that no mater how rave the reviews I had no desire to hear And You WIll Know Us By the Trail of Dead. That said, I still listen to a lot of indie shit.

― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Late 80s/early 90s dance acts like Technotronic, Cathy Denis, C + C Music Factory, and Black Box, as well as the ascendency of hip-hop as the cornerstone of pop music (particularly LL Cool J, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, and Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock).

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:31 (twenty-three years ago)

BNW - that is a much more accurate marker actually. What was the first critically acclaimed/'hot' underground act that you really didn't care about hearing? For me I think it was Placebo - I saw a picture, read a description, and thought "No. I don't even want to have an opinion on them. Stop the train, etc."

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:36 (twenty-three years ago)

anything that is reviewed is not alternative anyway.

― g (graysonlane), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Meeting another Will Oldham fan.

Also, dancing.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:38 (twenty-three years ago)

I ended up with an opinion on the fuckers anyway. But the will was there.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:40 (twenty-three years ago)

a number of things:

-Nirvana (which has never made any sense to me whatsoever) and the corporatization of "alternative"
-at the same time 120 minutes went terrible (Dave Kendall etc) playing Alice in Chains and then NiN.
-Pixies and Galaxie 500 broke up
-The slow realization that "Loveless" was a kind of end of rock music and that Kevin Shields would never release another album, and the mediocrity of most other shoegaze bands (which were fun until Loveless raised the bar so high)
-The feeling that dance music was taking the rhythmic urgency out of alternative rock (a band like Loop didn't make sense when you had a stack of techno to listen to)
-alt-rock's subsequent reactionary descent into lo-fi (Stereolab and Yo La Tengo were very boring and drab compared to what had immediately gone before)
-I became much more interested in house, techno and hip-hop - although I consider them "alternative" music as well.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 20:56 (twenty-three years ago)

nothing really, i mean i'm not 'out' of 'alternative' music as such, the period i was most into what could be called this was aged 16-18 (coincidentally, when i was going to raves as well), before that i'd been into hip hop (both rave and indie got me 'out of hip hop' for about 3 years) after that it was kind of equilibrium with everything i guess, and still is

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 21:14 (twenty-three years ago)

aaliyah. and not wanting any more built to spill albums.

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 21:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Groove Armada-Superstylin'

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 21:24 (twenty-three years ago)

or, what i mean is, i wasnt 'into' 'alternative' music 'first' and 'then' 'out' of 'it' 'later'

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 21:35 (twenty-three years ago)

yawn yawn bloody yawn

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:02 (twenty-three years ago)

is Warp "alternative"?

― dsico (dsico), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:05 (twenty-three years ago)

i would hazard a guess everything after "artifical intelligence" is.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:11 (twenty-three years ago)

oh nebulosa! feeble beaters! leg warmers on top! erase and suspect! fickle lips! oh girdled big lips of sanguine cake!

fuck... out of it? would i stop listening to any genre or style? should i care how many people listen to a music?

i mean i could understand if say... you were sad and sad music only made you sadder so you resolved to only listen to aggressive and angry music just so you could stay away... but no longer listening to alternative?

so all of a sudden if a band wasn't on the radio it's shit?

nice logic,
m.

― msp, Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:12 (twenty-three years ago)

i hadn't really thought of the question that way. i had read the question to mean "when did you stop listening to indieguitar music", presuming of course that people did (some did some didn't), becuase quite obviously the sales and coverage for indie rock is less now than grunge/britpop etc. so someone was buying and is no longer.

for me the question was flawed, but for a different reason. it presumed that people started with alternative and then branched out, this is not my experience, although for some posters it seems to have been the general path (so maybe its not so flawed, just a different experience to mine)

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:15 (twenty-three years ago)

although you could be right msp, and i wrong. its possible that people made a consicous and political decision not to listen to things not on the radio (although i have looked at the other threads on ilm regarding microhouse and country and improv and arabian music and decided against this, for me at least

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:17 (twenty-three years ago)

I took the question to mean "At what point did alternative music stop being your main insterest?" which is making two big assumptions but I think Jess knows that.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:18 (twenty-three years ago)

well starting a thread to mean "at what point did alternative music become your sole interest outside of that rubbish pop" is pretty presumptuous too!

(so, yes.)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:22 (twenty-three years ago)

what honda sed

― boxcubed (boxcubed), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:27 (twenty-three years ago)

oh... both of those (gareth's and tom's) changing of the question changes things significantly i suppose.

although, i think i'm more like gareth in that "alternative" or indie guitar music or whatever was never what i was into first anyways.

i was more of a gospel and pop kid when i was really young. i kinda got into hardcore as a young kid via skateboarding... then got into booty (of all things) and hip-hop and heavy metal... then got back into "alternative" as the grunge and pre-grunge thing hit... and so on off into the ether of everything.

sorry for being so reactionary. i just have no indie guilt. shamelessly,
m.

― msp, Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:31 (twenty-three years ago)

I got as much out of "alternative" as I did other marketing terms like "new wave" that are more about softening how music is perceived for increased sales.

― jack cole (jackcole), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:39 (twenty-three years ago)

it's funny, but listening to the Slanted & Enchanted reissue (w/bonus stuff yay!) made me realize just how little alt-rock as a thing-in-itself meant to me in comparison w/a lot of friends/colleagues. I was more into house/techno/rave during that period than I was into rock, and I was VERY into rock, and hip-hop as well about equally. I dunno--I've never had any particular single-centric kind of fandom; it's always been dispersed among a lot of things. that's why I find myself rolling my eyes at the idea of "indie guilt"--after about age 15 or 16 I'd pretty much abandoned any kind of genre-centric viewpoint, not to mention the fact that indie rock always had been, if anything, the Interesting But Still Somewhat Foreign genre I liked--classic-rock rave and rap and funk I felt pretty much in my bones. because Pavement were really the first "indie" group I ever knew about (in the shamelessly college-rock-and-college-rock-only sense), and it took me a lot longer to get into them than it did, say, Acen or Black Box.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:42 (twenty-three years ago)

that said, if you mean not-indie-but-mainstream-alt, I think I liked most of it as an idea/subculture than as actual music, at least at the time (late '80s/early '90s, pre-Nirvana)--have never been much of a Cure/Depeche Mode fan, though they've both got their moments. (Dan and Ned, don't attack!) I'm using Pavement as an example because they were the first band I understood to be not just a rock band on an indie label but an indie-rock band--not by circumstance but by choice. which is probably not what Jess is asking.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:46 (twenty-three years ago)

in fact, it's DEFINITELY not what Jess is asking! sorry!

I have to say the whole '94 fusillade of sub-Pearl Jam bands; it seemed like there was a worse one every month: 4 Non Blondes, Blind Melon, Collective Soul, like that. so that's about when the bubble burst for me, at least in the "this is a Good Thing happening here!" sense.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:49 (twenty-three years ago)

i really meant indie rock too; i only phrased it as "alternative" because of the other thred. it's funny how long i actually tolerated the type of stuff michaelangelo was talking about in his last post (i mean we're only talking age 16, 17 now). (not 4 non blondes though! or blind melon or collective soul for that matter. but nth gen grunge pop.)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:52 (twenty-three years ago)

I was lucky in that I was in Minneapolis, which has a fairly diverse range of music to consume if that's where your energies lie. (this is also pre-Internet, so that makes a difference too.) I read a lot of reviews (Christgau esp.), bought tons of records and borrowed and taped stuff off friends and the library, plus used vinyl was ridiculously cheap back then, which meant I got a terrific education in '60s-'80s stuff. My hunch is that many folks who found themselves disenchanted by alt-rock and found themselves drifting to other things, be it skronk or rave or Kylie, had been convinced that alt was something you listen to w/o surcease forever, and I just never felt that way.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 23:04 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm not sure people (well not me anyway) ever felt that way MM. For me it was that I bought into the idea that indie music represented progress and exciting new original things were being done all the time, and I think there was a time when this was true or at least much truer than it is now. But then eventually I started feeling it wasn't true enough and more exciting new things had been happening elsewhere. By the time I got to the point of disconnecting 'exciting' and 'new' my alt listening had declined anyway and I just couldn't seem to relate to the sort of things that music did well.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 23:09 (twenty-three years ago)

good point. I wasn't pointing fingers, btw, just articulating something I've wondered about.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 23:11 (twenty-three years ago)

I do think some people did get into alt music and felt that they were at home and would listen to it without surcease forever and they weather the fallow times with a kind of stoicism - this was pretty much the editorial line of Uncut until Ryan Adams came along for instance; and you can see it in the "Thank heaven for the Strokes!" neumu.com line too.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 23:16 (twenty-three years ago)

that's exactly what I said!

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 23:25 (twenty-three years ago)

[[punches Tom in the arm]]

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 23:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Dan and Ned, don't attack!

You did say 'have their moments' instead of something evil, so you will not be killed. But you are on notice. ;-)

I bought more music over this weekend than I have in years and I'm not too sure if it's meant to be alternative or not. I do need to find out what Haphash and the Coloured Coat exactly sound like now, though.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 01:04 (twenty-three years ago)

I didn't get out of alternative music. Alternative music got out of me.

― Nick Mirov (nick), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 02:33 (twenty-three years ago)

I never gave up on alternative music or indie rock b/c I never really believed in it. Not the way I see some people talking about it. I don't think I identified with it enough to be disillusioned, and this thread suggests disillusionment.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 02:49 (twenty-three years ago)

What Mark said.

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 16 October 2002 04:27 (twenty-three years ago)

hear, hear

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 04:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Travis, Coldplay, Doves and their ilk got me out in a way, cos I had to start denying that I liked "indie" all of a sudden...the twunts.

― Charlie (Charlie), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 05:33 (twenty-three years ago)

the P/E ratio was disappointing

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 05:40 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think I identified with it enough to be disillusioned

Same here -- I always scoffed at the word "alternative" and never quite fit into the "indie rock" mold, although I guess I've listened to enough of both over the years. I don't feel like it was ever anything I had to "get out of" or wean myself away from -- it was just one type of music out of the many types I've liked.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Wednesday, 16 October 2002 06:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Being at College/University, as opposed to leaving. That's all I ever hear at the student lounge, 'alternative, indie rock'. Plus, it pisses off friends, to the point of it seeming subversive, listening to Nelly - that said, I am an studying Arts.

― Michael Dieter, Wednesday, 16 October 2002 07:28 (twenty-three years ago)

I was never that much aware of an alternative movement by the time i started buying those sort of recs. but once i got enough money i started getting into more types of music so i nevah got out becuz i nevah got into anything in the first place.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 08:33 (twenty-three years ago)

If Jess has used the word "difficult" music would it make any difference.

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 09:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Ronan - yes, it might, but this thread is supposed to be the counterpart to the one about getting into "alternative" music. Very few of the examples mentioned on either thread qualify as 'difficult' music (they're not really 'alternative' either haha).

I was going to post something insufferable on the other thread along the lines of honestly finding incomprehensible the idea that mainstream and alternative are mutually exclusive. But then I thought better of it ;-)

― Jeff W, Wednesday, 16 October 2002 10:33 (twenty-three years ago)

yes ronan, it would have been massively different: my 'coming round' to the idea of actively listening to things other than "alternative" (i'm using a ridiculously inclusive vesion of that term) was helped by 3 things: 1) approaching the end of teenhood and not needing the 'difference' factor anymore, 2) ilm, 3) having already moved away from guitar music as the centre and listening primarily to 'stuff with beats' (tho, being warp post-a.i idm stuff, still qualifying as "indieternative"), i wanted a marriage of the electronic/beat stuff ('difficult') with more 'song-y' elements (vocals, persona, a certain kind of 'emotion'), found (some of) it in pop/dance/hiphop

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 11:07 (twenty-three years ago)

First I thought this was about what I got out of alternative music in the sense of how did it enrich my life. And I didn't know what to answer.

Rereading the question I realise that it doesn't apply to me. I am still into alternative music though I find the term more and more useless. Another ten threads on this and I seriously consider to get out of alternative music by replacing the word "alternative" by something else. My current favourite would be "non-mainstream".

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 11:13 (twenty-three years ago)

I agree with the analysis above about never really believing enough to become disillusioned. I will say that a key moment was seeing Red House Painters live and realizing that Kozelek wasn't a sensitive, depressed boy struggling to communicate with the world but an obnoxious, spoiled, insuferable brat.

― Aaron W, Wednesday, 16 October 2002 13:23 (twenty-three years ago)

The last two summers I worked alot and spent loads of money on CDs and then by the end of the summer I thought "why the fuck have I got all these shit albums". And then dance music happened.

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 14:49 (twenty-three years ago)

what got you out of "alternative" music?
Smaertass answer: When it stopped being called college rock and became alternative. And then even more so when it went from being alternative to being "alternative" with quotes around it.
Realistic answer: Either Oasis or Creed, I forget which.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 14:57 (twenty-three years ago)

what msp said..

I think anyone who says "oh, I'm totally not into ____________(entire genre of music) anymore" is just saying that to give themselves the impression of higher moral ground over something.

― tinobeat (tinobeat), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 15:03 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm totally not into lullabies anymore.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 15:19 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm totally not into alternative anymore cos I'm totally not into having the high moral ground over something.

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 15:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Did anyone read that Gina Arnold book Route 666: The Road to Nirvana? This is kind of what I'm talking about. That was a real head-scratcher for me, I couldn't stop thinking, "What the fuck is she talking about?" Now THERE is somebody who believed in the "Alternative Nation" like her life depended on it: "We won. Now good music is in the charts", etc.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 15:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, I read it. She was a bit over-enthusiastic, but frankly, I prefer her manic joy over the oh-I'm-so-cool-as-a-cucumber hipster coverage I've seen over the last few years.
I actually enjoy the music that Gina Arnold was raving about and I think that 1989-1993 was a golden age of sorts. Its actually a shame that it got so big, and all that music is now either trivialized or gone.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 15:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, in my thread about getting into alternative music, I only said alternative because I didnt want to limit it to alternative as in Grunge, or indie rock, or even rock. Pretty much anything "different". People who like indie rock, tend to also like crazy jazz like Mingus, or maybe more experimental rap. Alternative is only a genre, because it lacks a better word to describe it.

I was just as sick as 90s alternative as everyone else. It really wasnt alternative once it became the mainstream, and let's face facts: it spawned Bush, and later on Puddle of Mudd and Creed. I think once it became mainstream, it sort of lost all experimentation and just started like aggressive, grunge-esque crap. And what filled the void of what alternative was in the 80s, was indie rock. People say theyre sick of it - but it seems those are the same people who always gripe about music now adays not being as good as it once was. There's good music all over, in most genres, no matter what your taste. I think once you move out of college, you just sort of loose interest and dont care about anything new... listening to music is such a rarity, when you do it, you just want to listen to what you know and love. Thus, the oldies market.

One person said he stopped like it because of Aaliyah. I cant understand that. It boggles my mind. I can understand maybe not liking rock any more, and maybe getting into techno, but at least both of those have intergrity. And by that I mean, doing something different, or at least doing something that takes talent and originality.

Maybe you cant help the music you like; the new Aaliyah song just gets to you. But it sounds so much like everything else... me, itd be like a kneejerk reaction to hate it.

― David Allen, Wednesday, 16 October 2002 21:00 (twenty-three years ago)

might as well: What, David, do you mean by "integrity"?

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 23:38 (twenty-three years ago)

And by that I mean, doing something different, or at least doing something that takes talent and originality.

Sounds a lot like "Are You That Somebody?" to me.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 23:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Re-reading what I wrote, it sounds like I was favoring indie rock. Im not.

Also, integrity, like I said: being original, having talent, making good music.

― David Allen, Thursday, 17 October 2002 00:26 (twenty-three years ago)

yep, that'd be Aaliyah all right.

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 17 October 2002 17:14 (twenty-three years ago)

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