What determines new wave from alternative?

[SwampThing]

ghosty,
I agree that the 90's were musically diverse. I'd like to point out that many of the alternative bands that made into the mainstream were indie bands long before they hit corprate radio. In fact, some would say the grunge scene here in Seattle died the day it was re-packaged for mass consumption. Soundgarden and Alice in Chains were great crossover bands with a diverse fans base, A band like Pantera has a very specific audience.

I avoided the whole rave/techno scene. I don't like dance clubs (or dancing for that matter). I mostly enjoyed Britpop/Shoegaze scene, bands like Slowdive, Ride, Stone Roses, Kithens of Disinction, etc.

[KYYX4ever]

Billy Corgan also admired Duran Duran, and considered them an influence. He has also appeared onstage with them, joining them for an inpromptu performance or two.

However, keep in mind that influences do not make the sound. The artist ( Billy Corgan in this case) takes their/his influences and usually creates a whole new sound. Duran always said they were influenced by the Sex Pistols, but I don't hear Pistols in their old music. Obviously, the lines are blurred between New Wave influencing Alternative, and Alt. influencing NW.; and add to that countless artists taking sounds from both and turning it into their own.

[ghosty]

I followed every bizarre turn the Stone Roses took in their short career and loved Kitchens Of Distinction....same goes for Inspiral Carpets.

There was a great British band called Rialto that had one great solid album and then disappeared. I think 1998.

[SwampThing]

[quote]Originally posted by ghosty
[br]I followed every bizarre turn the Stone Roses..[/quote]I read their biogrpahy, pretty interesting, very sad what happened to them.

[quote]Originally posted by ghosty
There was a great British band called Rialto that had one great solid album and then disappeared. I think 1998.
[/quote] I have this CD. Lot's of Britpop bands have come and gone only releasing 1 or 2 CD's.

[SwampThing]

[quote]Originally posted by KYYX4ever
However, keep in mind that influences do not make the sound. The artist ( Billy Corgan in this case) takes their/his influences and usually creates a whole new sound. [/quote] Couldn't agree more. This is one of the points I didn't make very clear in my argument.
[quote]Originally posted by KYYX4ever
...and add to that countless artists taking sounds from both and turning it into their own.[/quote] This is the best part. This is what sets many artists apart and makes them interesting.

[Quite Life]

Granted SwampThing, Billy Corgan and gang may have listen to NW like Duran Duran, The Cure, New Order, Bauhaus along with other stuff like Cheap Trick and Def Lepperd. If people want to be ecclectec with thier musical tast well I guess thats O.K. Maybe you hear thier musical influences in thier music but I don't listening to thier tunes I hear no sound of NW what so ever out side of thier covering NW tunes and even that doesn't sound NW. In most bands especially American ones you can read thier influences like a book in thier music.

Let me give you an example, first let me turn my raido dial to the latest alternative rock station.....whats on.....oh The White Stripes.
Lets use them as an example. This interesting Detriot Bluesy duo (interesting that they are a divorced couple cranking out tunes) at first you can tell that thier musical influesces are The Kinks(you hear it in thier vintage gear), Led Zepplin (obviously, thier bluesy interpratation of blues), MC5 and the Stooges (good ole fashion in your face "I got my guitar and my amp and I'm going to plug it in and what the hell you're gonna do about it" Detriot rock) so the radio is playing "Fell in Love with a Girl" what a second.... Wow these guys must of listen to alot of Pretenders music (good choice IMO) There are movements in The White Stripes' "Fell in Love with a Girl" that are very Identical to the Pretenders "Middle of the Road" and The White Stripes would'nt of gotten them for that particular song if it were not for The Pretenders.



cheers,
jr

[Quite Life]

Now to the topic at hand I'll put it this way.

From 1977-1983 was the time when the greatest music that was ever known to man was created. It was the glorious height of the New Wave/Punk Rock (well 76'-81' for punk) empire with all of its creative genius on display for all to admire and enjoy. By 1985 the New Wave Empire had crumbled to a desolate wasteland taken over by the forces of creative mediocrity cranked out by the woeful Alternative/Modern Rock corporate machine. This is why the QUAKE KQAK FM 99 failed and died in June 1985 because they played and were an authentic New Wave station and didn't really progress with the change in music to alternative like the later Live 105 starting 1987. By experience I'll put it this way between 1982-1984 very few people were into NW the music was fresh the scene was fresh it was really a fun fun time. The music was creative and colorful and so were its people. No one and I mean no one with the exception of us few like NW. By 1985-1987 when alternative took over (gag) when The Smiths were just blowing up with their bitching and moning I feel sorry for myself music and The Cure became this big Corporate behemoth picked up by Electra (early Cure cool later Cure not so cool) people left and right from Jocks and Cheerleaders to stoners to grandma next door where piling on the "Alternative/modern rock" band wagon. Everyone in town was getting into the Alternative scene getting a ticket to a concert by The Smiths, The Cure or Depeche Mode was 10 times harder than getting World Series Tickets and beleive me we had pleanty of them in the Bay Area. Even I made a few bucks brokering(politally correct for scalping) tickets both The Cure, Depeche Mode and World Series[8D]. By graduation(Class of 87' I flunked 1st grade you can tell by my spelling I should of been class 86') 75% was into Alternative the other 25% were into NWA or Public Enemy. All the AC/DC lps were in the trash or sitting up as targets at the Davis Street range or Lake Chabot Gun Club. I guess there is something about creative infertility and mass popularity that go hand and hand. I guess going from "Lover Boy and Michael Jackson" to "The Smiths" is a consistent transition. Not only the music were a dirge but so were the people, dark and dirgy, blah... This was a sad time I was waiting for someone like The Clash to come and rescue me from this crap but sadly they had shot thier wad and had nothing more to give and thus would leave me abandon desolate and alone in this alternitive world.

I'll put it another way God demonstrates his common grace goodness in creation by giving and extra measure of grace thus Punk and New Wave where created. God restrains or with draws his common grace and man is left to his own devices to create really bad music thus the New Wave empire falls and is left to the desolate wasteland of Alternative/Modern Rock mediocrity. 1994 God demonstrated his goodness in this musical epoch by showing his favor in common grace again and thus Supergrass release "I Should CoCo" and Blur release "Park life” and Brit Pop blows up and all seems right in the musical world for a time.

Spoken like a true Calvinist.

Oh and those AC/DC records people started to buy them again then when Soundgarden and Alice in Chains (Alternitive superstars just like the Smiths and Cure) started to crank out thier crap. "AC/DC and Soundgarden oh it sounds the same I'll think I'll buy both they go together". Maybe we should blame the later records by The Cult. Rock on man and pass me the bowl.


Telling you how I really feel from a guy that longs for the days of real music from the likes of Romeo Void, Gang of Four, Altered, Images, Japan, The Specials and so on.


Excathedra [;)](who can't spell),
JR

[SwampThing]

Ironic. For a guy who is so put off my the Smiths, you really remind me of Morrissey. So despite our differences, I still like you.

[Quite Life]

[quote]Originally posted by SwampThing
[br]Ironic. For a guy who is so put off my the Smiths, you really remind me of Morrissey. So despite our differences, I still like you.
[/quote]


Thanks [:)]


ql

[ghosty]

[quote]Originally posted by Quite Life
[br]Now to the topic at hand I'll put it this way.

From 1977-1983 was the time when the greatest music that was ever known to man was created. It was the glorious height of the New Wave/Punk Rock (well 76'-81' for punk) empire with all of its creative genius on display for all to admire and enjoy. By 1985 the New Wave Empire had crumbled to a desolate wasteland taken over by the forces of creative mediocrity cranked out by the woeful Alternative/Modern Rock corporate machine. This is why the QUAKE KQAK FM 99 failed and died in June 1985 because they played and were an authentic New Wave station and didn't really progress with the change in music to alternative like the later Live 105 starting 1987. By experience I'll put it this way between 1982-1984 very few people were into NW the music was fresh the scene was fresh it was really a fun fun time. The music was creative and colorful and so were its people. No one and I mean no one with the exception of us few like NW. By 1985-1987 when alternative took over (gag) when The Smiths were just blowing up with their bitching and moning I feel sorry for myself music and The Cure became this big Corporate behemoth picked up by Electra (early Cure cool later Cure not so cool) people left and right from Jocks and Cheerleaders to stoners to grandma next door where piling on the "Alternative/modern rock" band wagon. Everyone in town was getting into the Alternative scene getting a ticket to a concert by The Smiths, The Cure or Depeche Mode was 10 times harder than getting World Series Tickets and beleive me we had pleanty of them in the Bay Area. Even I made a few bucks brokering(politally correct for scalping) tickets both The Cure, Depeche Mode and World Series[8D]. By graduation(Class of 87' I flunked 1st grade you can tell by my spelling I should of been class 86') 75% was into Alternative the other 25% were into NWA or Public Enemy. All the AC/DC lps were in the trash or sitting up as targets at the Davis Street range or Lake Chabot Gun Club. I guess there is something about creative infertility and mass popularity that go hand and hand. I guess going from "Lover Boy and Michael Jackson" to "The Smiths" is a consistent transition. Not only the music were a dirge but so were the people, dark and dirgy, blah... This was a sad time I was waiting for someone like The Clash to come and rescue me from this crap but sadly they had shot thier wad and had nothing more to give and thus would leave me abandon desolate and alone in this alternitive world.

I'll put it another way God demonstrates his common grace goodness in creation by giving and extra measure of grace thus Punk and New Wave where created. God restrains or with draws his common grace and man is left to his own devices to create really bad music thus the New Wave empire falls and is left to the desolate wasteland of Alternative/Modern Rock mediocrity. 1994 God demonstrated his goodness in this musical epoch by showing his favor in common grace again and thus Supergrass release "I Should CoCo" and Blur release "Park life” and Brit Pop blows up and all seems right in the musical world for a time.

Spoken like a true Calvinist.

Oh and those AC/DC records people started to buy them again then when Soundgarden and Alice in Chains (Alternitive superstars just like the Smiths and Cure) started to crank out thier crap. "AC/DC and Soundgarden oh it sounds the same I'll think I'll buy both they go together". Maybe we should blame the later records by The Cult. Rock on man and pass me the bowl.


Telling you how I really feel from a guy that longs for the days of real music from the likes of Romeo Void, Gang of Four, Altered, Images, Japan, The Specials and so on.


Excathedra [;)](who can't spell),
JR

[/quote]

That may have been how it was for you while you were in High School on the west coast in the late 80's but when I was in High School at the same time on the east coast, it was'nt like that at all. In fact the opposite was true. With the exception of myself and a handful of friends, NO ONE listened to the Smiths or The Cure. No jock or cheerleader would have been caught dead listening to that music. They openly hated it! You know the old lines "Morrissey is gay! The Cure is gay! Blah Blah Blah!" They were all way heavy into Bon Jovi, Poison, Def Leppard, White Lion, Warrant etc. etc. etc...maybe a little rap thrown in for good measure..but certainly not modern rock.


Being a senior and liking The Cure or The Smiths and listening to WLIR (or WDRE as it was called at the time) was like being in a weird cult. I'd say there were only 5 of us (maybe 8...TOPS!) and we huddled around that radio like we were getting messages from space.


So you see, it must all depend on your own individual experience. Where you lived, what was happening in radio, etc. Maybe that's the one true answer to this dilemma. Everyone has there own spin on what happened in music depending on what they experienced.

Tell ya what though, I would've killed to go to your school. I would've had more friends!

When I lived in Virginia (up till my junior year), I was considered really "out there" for having a Beatles album. The record store in Lynchburg ONLY carried top 40 records so maybe someone who lived down there circa 86-89 will have a different story.

[Quite Life]

Ghosty, I think your partialy right when geography plays a big part of your experience. It also sounds like we grew up in different times my NW experience was in the early to mid 80's it sounds like yours was mid to late 80's and that plays a big part on that we observe over the years.

Sure you probly like growing up with us in the west coast. A typical day would go like this. Just imagin school year 1983:
jr--quite life
pals--quite life's friends


pals: where is everybody
jr: uh its senior ditch day
pals: oh
jr: hey, lets ditch too
pals: but were freshmen
jr: thats o.k. we need the practice so when were seniors we'll get it right
pals: dude that totally makes sense
jr: is'nt there an all ages show at the Mabuhay tonight?
pals: yeah I think it's the Bongos and with the Uptones
jr: well lets go
pals: but it's 8:15am
jr: thats o.k. the sooner the better anyway we still have time to mosey on down to the QUAKE and check out the Alex Bennet morning show with Joel Regelsky.
pals: that sounds cool
jr: maybe we can stop off in Berkeley and check out Rather Riped Records, Leopold Records and Raspuntant Records.
pals: yeah!!!!

[ghosty]

[quote][i]It also sounds like we grew up in different times my NW experience was in the early to mid 80's it sounds like yours was mid to late 80's and that plays a big part on that we observe over the years.

Yeah, I was in middle school/high school circa 81-86 in Virginia. New Wave and specifically The New Romatic movement was HUGE with just about everyone, as well as the requisite Michael Jackson and Madonna crowd. I recall a running Spandau Ballet-vs-Duran Duran debate raging in the school newspaper, in fact several girls in my freshmen year started up their own fanzine called "Nite Romantic" and distributed it in the cafeteria. The school art projects were filled with portraits and paintings of Adam Ant and Boy George.

...and then I moved to New Jersey in 86. Everyone in high school was listening to Metal/Classic Rock and wearing denim jackets with buttons sporting their favorite bands (Ratt, Def Leppard,etc.). I thought I stepped in into another dimension.

[Momotaro]

Ghosty's experiences in NJ were pretty much the norm here Quiet Life, even in the very early 80's.

No one listened to New wave. It was either heavy metal or classic rock. That was it. I am not sure the kids at school really knew what we were listening to. They only knew that since the majority of them weren't listening to it, it wasn't any "good". Those people never came around. Their loss.

I do feel a little envious of some of the kids now. They can walk around listening to what they want, dressed the way they want without an eyebrow being raised. We kind of fought the fight and blazed the trail for them years ago.

Once again, getting back to "What determines New Wave from Alternative", I will add that if you bought the artist"s music on a LP record album instead of just buying the 45, then it is New Wave. Anything else is alternative.

[guyinsf]

All of these terms really mean the same, more or less. "Punk" was really the first term used to describe this new type of rebellious sound and of course the term "new wave" was picked up my the media as more radio-friendly version of punk that started from about 79-86ish. In the late 80's, the term "alternative" was created, in my opinion, to perpetuate the appeal punk/new wave. They just couln't keep calling it new wave or punk because by then, all the great acts (clash, ramones, blondie, etc) had disappeared. The label "college radio" also sort of coincided with "alternative" because that's what college kids were into to. Right now, with bands like the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Killers, and all the new wave-inspired bands, we are just basically seeing another interpretation of the genre created by the original punk and new wavers of the mid 70's to early 80's. All of these terms reflect the evolution of pretty much the genre that Blondie, Ramones, Clash and Sex Pistols spearheaded in the mid 70's and you can possibly add their predecessors like Bowie, iggy pop, NY dolls and Jonathan Richman to that list too. I remember when the radio station Live 105.3 started in the mid 80's in SF and the their slogan was "Modern Rock" their playlist was pretty much 1976-on. As broad as the term modern rock is, I actually like it a lot because it encompasses pretty much from punk to what's is considered alternative or underground or fresh today.

[LovePlusOne]

I have nothing insightful to share with the original poster, but reading people's comments, I wanted to in, as someone in his very early 30s. I have to say at the outset, having had no real interest in bands or acts "being pure" or "not selling out" or any of that baloney, my only criterion as a music fan has always been--do I like it, does it hook me. For a long time that kind of music was pretty much on the fringe. Now it's not. Let me explain...

My fondness for New Wave I think germinated when I was around 8 or 9, listening to Top 40 radio in my mom's car here in LA, where a lot of New Wave acts were in pretty heavy rotation, like the Cars, Human League, Blondie, ABC, Haircut 100 [8D] and Soft Cell. So early on, "pop" music had very positive connotations for me.

When I was a little older, having still a fondness for that music long after it faded from the hit parade, I discovered KROQ, KXLU and 91x. During Junior High and High School, telling people these were my favorite stations would have meant social peril for me, so I always kind of kept it under wraps. But I discovered the Cure, Smiths, New Order, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Psychedelic Furs--many of whom people here are calling "post New Wave." So in addition to all the quirky synth music I loved I now was exposed to all this other cool music.

Well, right at the end of High School and beginning of college, the Seattle invasion was in full effect. I still remember to this day the first time I heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit"--it blew me away. My impression is most people on this board are not particularly fond of this era of music, and I myself was ambivalent. Suddenly this thing called "Alternative" was now popular. Being a KROQ/91x listener was passe. A lot of the music was *heavier* and *edgier* guitar-based stuff, and very little experimental acts.

Now I have to admit I actually liked Pearl Jam (at least through Vitalogy), Smashing Pumpkins (early stuff--I tolerated Siamese Dream) and Soundgarden. But I really dug shoegaze, Blur/Oasis, and later trip-hop like Portishead, Massive Attack, and Hooverphonic. So I appreciated some of the "Grunge" stuff but loved the fringe. And the Viacoms and Clear Channels were gobbling up everything, and the radio became more and more predictable.

Then around the late 90s, the white boy metal rap thing happened and I seriously stopped listening to any radio. I realize that KROQ probably sold out 20 years ago but for me this was when I felt it the most. I just couldn't listen to that stuff, and instead stuck with my Radiohead and Shins CDs, and all the 80s New Wave music I got through various means onto my computer.

But never once have I felt that greatness began and ended at New Wave, though it is my favorite style of music. I always liked what "hit me," whether it be Dr. Dre or Trans-X. That's why today I can listen to bands like the Bravery, Epoxies or Futureheads and appreciate them on their own terms, as well as smile at the obvious influence New Wave had on their sound. So to me, what I like to call good music passes through a continuum. Some of it is guilty-pleasure type stuff, some of it the critics would call great, and then some of it is so obscure as to be an afterthought. Then there's the rest which everybody hear argues over [:D].