Flashbacks!!

Chapter 1: The AlternaNation

So over the past few months I have been reading  a lot of posts reminiscing on the music of the 1990’s on a variety of different websites, and more specifically the alternative revolution that invaded overnight and faded out just as quickly. Looking back on those days helps to bring a smile to my face, and makes me laugh quite a bit. There were some pretty terrible bands and songs during this time period, and some of the bands whose albums I had in my collection serves as a reminder that no one is perfect. It was also the my first musical adventuring that I did for a sweet couple of years, and it was the start of me forming my own identity (as every young adolescent does during this time period). To make it clear, this is not a best of the Alternative 90's by the books. This is my look at different aspects of the alternative scene of that time combined with my retrospective criticism and revelations.

 To develop ones taste you do have to sort through some bad music, this eventually leads us to find the good (or at least what we perceive as good). We are young when we start to learn what we love or want in our music, and it is the different sounds that invade our life at this point that start to shape our journey. I am never ashamed of the music I once listened to, but I will never bullshit these days and pretend all of it was great. In this entry we will look at some of the greats, some of the overlooked, and some who I just enjoyed. They may not fit into everyone’s experience, but these are bands I remember having some form of an impact.

While there was a lot of bad music happening that we should actively forget as people, there were a lot of bands that somehow squeezed their way into the mainstream for a moment to produce high quality albums. I think album is the key word here as radio pop songs are not usually constructed around a full album, but more so the singles format. The good bands of this time may have had singles emerge on the radio, but the full length of their album was written with just as much vigor. There will always be music packaged and fed based around the singles, and if you only took your music in that way then you missed out (if it was the right Artist that is).  There were also bands that started out with a brilliant and revolutionary sound that ended up becoming water downed and stale, but you cannot deny the power in much of their earlier music. The radio has been known to stem creativity and encourage formulaic output, and unfortunately some of the great bands from this period got caught in that cycle (or they just continued putting out material for the sake of putting out material without that genuine creative drive).

Time has an interesting way of applying perspective, and when venturing back to some of these albums from my youth I am able to look at them from a different lens. There are the staple albums that I have consistently returned to that I can listen to just as easily today as I did when I was younger (Weezer ‘Blue album’, Rancid ‘Out Come the Wolves’). Then there are the albums I did not really dig when they were initially released, but have come back to in my maturity and have found a deeper appreciation for (Jane’s Addiction ‘Nothing Shocking’, The Verve ‘Urban Hymns’, Sonic Youth ‘Washing Machine’). On the other end of the spectrum, I have found the quintessential albums I used to love and now cringe when I hear a song played from it (Bush ‘Sixteen Stone’, Nirvana ‘Nevermind’, Soundgarden ‘Superunknown’). 

 The crazy thing for me is the amount of awesomeness that I overlooked for a long time. I listened to what the radio fed me. I listened to the singles, and overlooked many albums I have come to love. The radio was the source to find these new bands coming out in this style, but then one day I bought a Bad Religion album and with it came a catalog for Epitaph Records. Here was a map to music that I found I really liked, and I got to choose what songs and records to buy. It was liberating, and when I found out that I had more say I began to leave the alternative life behind, and with it some decent music. I can’t really blame myself though, in my eyes I was protecting my ears from the likes of Tonic, Semisonic, Matchbox 20, Creed, Marcy’s Playground, Our Lady Peace, and however many other bands that turned the alternative nation into a vomit inducing pile of crap and opened the door to further abomination such as the the likes of Nickelback, Hoobastank, 3 doors down, and Staind.

A classic example of overlooked alternative awesomeness was Jane’s Addiction ‘Nothing Shocking’. This album was released in 1988, a good 6 years before I really started diving into music. At the time it had the single “Jane Says” that also carried over into my time, but that song never really did it for me. Jane’s Addiction had already broken up by the time I had heard of them, and their media representation was not enough to inspire a further probe. They made a few resurfaces, one time with Flea on bass, but overall I never really looked into their music. A few years back I decided to check out that album out of curiosity (and I will admit due to the enjoyment of the “Mountain Song” on Guitar Hero) and I was kind of blown away. It was not what I expected at all. It blended a heavy dose of neo-psychedelia, with some heavy 70’s rock laden riffs, and pretty much helped to pave the way for alternative rock to break into the mainstream. The creativity on the track “Ted, just Admit it” was never paralleled by any other heavy alternative band, “Summertime Rolls” is a mellow masterpiece of psychedelic proportions, and the combination of the intro “Up the Beach” into “Mother Ocean” is a perfect blend of heaviness and pop sensibility. Overall there are a couple of tracks that don’t live up to the awesomeness of others, but this is easily in my opinion the best alternative album to have been written, and not even matched by the bands later efforts. 

There were so many bands that I just kind of dismissed back in the day as one hit wonders. Tripping Daisy was a band whose cd I owned and I could only tell you about that one song of theirs on the radio ( “I got a girl” ), and that cd found its way into a used bin during my collection cleanse post middle school. Being curious I have gone back, and that cd was pretty great for what they were doing and their sound was a contrast from a lot of the “Hunger Dunger Dang” rock saturating that era of alternaradio. The Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, the Meat Puppets and Dinosaur Jr. are all examples of radio “one hit wonders” (I use this phrase in terms of what the radio played, we all know these bands produced much greater music than what was aired) that I heard and then dismissed in the not too distant future. Some of those I came back to embrace quicker due to their association with the punk rock scene, and helped to see their connection and influence in the music underground I was now diving into. The Butthole Surfers to this day are easily the weirdest band that impacted me through their break into the mainstream for a moment in time. Their psychedelic noise rock was not very palatable to the youngin’ just jumping into punk rock, but over time the brain began to process their songs beyond “Pepper".

Then we have those groups of bands that came out slinging rock n roll and proper riffage, and slowly as they found a formula, they began to water it down further and further. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are a band that epitomizes that downfall, and encapsulate a band that is now only a shadow of who they once were. I came into my musical listening in the days after ‘Bloodsugarsexmagik’ was released and that for me was my introduction, what I didn’t realize is before that there were albums of some weird funk rock fusion happening. Pretty much what I saw was a band who scored big with “Under the bridge” and looked to recreate a mediocre pop formula over their next however many albums. Many people love Californication or Stadium Arcadium, but to me that is just a different band with the same name. I have a hard time accepting the switch from songs such as “Fight like a Brave” and “Freaky Styley” to songs like “Scar Tissue” and “Dani California”. It was the post-Hillel Slovak era that saw the eventual decline and departure of the Big Boys-Minutemen styled funk rock. Its not that I don’t approve of bands evolving, changing sound, finding new influences, maturing as musicians, it is just the final product that all of those lead to that matters. 

Soundgarden is another that could fit into this category. They created some amazingly heavy music, pioneered a genre, and helped to influence many younger bands, and then they became stale and manufactured. 'Superunknown' was an alright album (although if I ever have to hear black hole sun again it will be too soon), but their previous efforts of ‘Louder than Love’ and 'Badmotorfinger’ were pretty fantastic. Soundgarden acknowledged the change in style, and it is hard to say whether it was mainstream recognition or just overall artistic evolution that morphed their later material. I don’t even want todiscuss ‘Down on the Upside’, and I think Soundgarden recognized where things were heading and had enough brains to end their tenure before declining further. I can respect bands a lot more when they recognize when to set the instruments down rather than forcing it forward into mediocrity. 

So what else was happening during this time on alternaradio? Well, we had the pop punk explosion of the mid 90’s that had Green Day, The Offspring, Rancid and Bad Religion leading the charge. We had random alternative country bands popping onto the airwaves such as the Old 97’s, Cowboy Junkies, and Cracker (radio hits disguised a lot of their full sound). Green Day and The Offspring both went onto great financial success and departed a bit from their punk rock sound. The Offspring hit it big with ‘Smash’, which was a decent album, but after ‘Ixnay on the Hombre’ we saw the band turn to novelty songs like “Pretty fly for a white guy” and “Original Prankster” to keep the ears of the mainstream. Green Day wrote some catchy East Bay styled pop punk, and that style can still be seen as an influence in their music. After 'Dookie' though we saw the style become more similar to some straight power pop music that fit in more with Weezer than the likes of their former Lookout! Records label mates. Bad Religion and Rancid broke through to the radio, but both retreated back to their core punk fan base after later albums did not seem to have the same pull with a lot of America. ‘Outcome the Wolves’ is easily my favorite Rancid album, but Bad Religion definitely hit a sour period during their Atlantic Records tenure. These bands were not necessarily the alternative sound, but they found their way into this crowd and began to share radio waves.

A few more album notes, Weezer put out the best power pop album of the 1990's with the Blue album, and followed up brilliantly with 'Pinkerton', disappeared and then came back to then deteriorate to the band that wrote the song "Beverly Hills". The Verve kept the shoegaze feel alive after bands such as Chapterhouse and the Catherine Wheel broke up or became more power pop. Cake continued to write an interesting brand of alternative rock that I was unique and fun, and it kept them relevant to the masses for some reason as well. Blur broke through with a couple of hits, but overall had a catalog of psychedelic tinged britt-pop that was overlooked in America (England embraced them as much as they did Oasis).

So the mid 1990’s were an interesting time for music and what was breaking through, but by the end of the past century we saw what eventually happened. Formulaic output trumped creativity and ingenuity, quality was lost to security, the adventurous spirit of the underground music at the time was broken by the record executives looking for a new consistent way to make a buck. This process is what killed the alternative scene, and diluted it to an army of Creed and Nickelback clones. The adventurism of music did not die though, it assumed new forms, but the form found in the alternanation was lost.



Link: SFMTC Vol 9a - AlternaNation 

SFMTC Vol 9a - The AlternaNation   

01. Blur - Tender
02. Weezer - Surf Wax America
03. Soundgarden - Gun
04. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Funky Crime
05. Dinosaur Jr. -  Outta Hand
06. Primus - Fisticuffs
07. Cracker -  Mr. Wrong
08. The Offspring - Genocide
09. Blind Melon - Tones of Home
10. Tripping Daisy - Human Contact
11. The Old 97s - Timebomb 
12. Janes Addiction - Summertime Rolls
13. Rancid - Avenues And Alleyways
14. Butthole Surfers - Cough Syrup
15. The Flaming Lips - Plastic Jesus
16. Bad Religion - Incomplete
17. Cake - Stickshifts And Safetybelts
18. Meat Puppets - Sam
19. The Verve -  Catching The Butterfly
20. Sonic Youth - The Diamond Sea