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Can you believe I actually have this on one of my compilations? :p
Jul. 6th, 2010
Can you believe I actually have this on one of my compilations? :p
[NOTE: This is the first of many rambling posts as I put together some information and plan out my mode of attack on writing Walk In Silence. These posts may be a bit disjointed and lack cohesiveness, but at this point I'm just throwing ideas out there. I'm posting these for your enjoyment and any feedback you'd like to give.]
I have a theory.
It may be totally wrong, like Miss Anne Elke's theory about dinosaurs, but it's mine and what it is. My theory is that American college radio in the 80s--that is, the college radio we oldsters came to know and love before it sold out in the 90s--came about through a convergence of a number of things in the early 80s, most likely peaking around 1983-84:
--College radio, in general, has always been about experimentation, for the most part. A goodly amount of them were run by the students themselves and overseen by a faculty member acting as an advisor. Said students, more often than not into the 'alternative' scene themselves (and given that they had somewhat free rein to play whatever they wanted, and ultimately at the discretion of the music director), were often the ones to search out and play the non-Top 40, scene-specific music (read: punk, goth, UK rock, etc.).
--To a lesser extent, the FM radio band--a relatively newer idea in radio history, and growing in size throughout the 70s--became less experimental and freeform as it became the stronger radio band in terms of popularity. Freeform started moving towards the college radio stations, where for the most part it's been ever since (with some exceptions, with some college stations either becoming NPR affiliates, or at least NPR clones).
--A second wave of punk emerging, coming after the rise and crash-and-burn of the 1977 scene (Clash, Sex Pistols, numerous NYC bands, etc), more politically active and more adventurous/emotion-laden/reactive to the events of the time. Experimental post-punk (Wire, The Fall, Throbbing Gristle, etc.), politically charged punk (San Francisco/Texas/DC scenes), creative and melodic punk (Minneapolis/Boston scenes), and so on. Additionally and to a somewhat lesser extent, younger siblings of those who lived/listened to that '77 wave start picking up on the same music and grasp onto their own version with this second wave. The "old" progressive scene (that is, old-school prog-rock like Rush, King Crimson, etc) morphs into the "new" progressive scene (that is, early to mid-80s album-oriented bands with their own following but not exactly chartbound).
--Newer and different UK pop starting to reach shorts via independent record stores mostly in college towns. Brit-centric bands with a large following in the UK start getting airplay on US college stations (Smiths, The Cure, Joy Division/New Order, Depeche Mode, etc.).
--Non-"pop" music emerging--deliberately not chartworthy yet aquiring a sizable following--a good amount of it coming from the UK. Goth and proto-shoegaze (The Cure, Siouxsie, Bauhaus, 4AD bands, etc.). These styles of music are less about dancing and background noise and more about introspection, or at least more cerebral and less disposable. At the same time, American bands utilizing the same ideals start their own genres/scenes (Violent Femmes, REM, etc.) that branch off from there.
--Emergence of late night music shows on then-new cable stations (Night Flight on USA, etc, IRS Presents the Cutting Edge and later 120 Minutes on MTV) playing this "new" kind of music. Early MTV features a handful of these bands due to demand for any kind of playlist at that point.
All these things converging in the mid-80s gave American college radio the impetus to be even more creative and experimental, thus moving towards the more "nonconformist" types of music. While the music selection is still primarily album-oriented (or at least single-oriented but not exactly with the sole objective of selling units), it is less about straight-ahead popular rock (which at this point, had grown almost into "product" proportions) and more about the musicianship or at least the creativity behind it.
Again, with the advent of 120 Minutes in 1986 and up until 1989, "college rock" (soon to be renamed "modern"/"alternative"/etc.) reached a kind of renaissance where the genre was not exactly popular and rarely hit the US charts, but achieved a loyal following from high schoolers and college students reaching out for a new style of music that was different from the Top 40 and straight rock stations. [More on the mindset behind this in a later post.]
By 1989, with the advent of MTV's Alternative Nation, relentless pushing of new music, and a small but impressive number of chart hits ("Under the Milky Way" at #17, "So Alive" at #1, etc.), added to new music scenes emerging (grunge in Seattle, Britpop and Madchester in the UK), college radio was at an impasse--some stations that had been playing the above mentioned alternative suddenly found themselves competing with commercial stations starting to play the same thing [More on this mindset in a later post as well.]. Some college stations go with the flow, while others reach out even further into eclecticism and experimentalism.
[MORE SOON]
I have a theory.
It may be totally wrong, like Miss Anne Elke's theory about dinosaurs, but it's mine and what it is. My theory is that American college radio in the 80s--that is, the college radio we oldsters came to know and love before it sold out in the 90s--came about through a convergence of a number of things in the early 80s, most likely peaking around 1983-84:
--College radio, in general, has always been about experimentation, for the most part. A goodly amount of them were run by the students themselves and overseen by a faculty member acting as an advisor. Said students, more often than not into the 'alternative' scene themselves (and given that they had somewhat free rein to play whatever they wanted, and ultimately at the discretion of the music director), were often the ones to search out and play the non-Top 40, scene-specific music (read: punk, goth, UK rock, etc.).
--To a lesser extent, the FM radio band--a relatively newer idea in radio history, and growing in size throughout the 70s--became less experimental and freeform as it became the stronger radio band in terms of popularity. Freeform started moving towards the college radio stations, where for the most part it's been ever since (with some exceptions, with some college stations either becoming NPR affiliates, or at least NPR clones).
--A second wave of punk emerging, coming after the rise and crash-and-burn of the 1977 scene (Clash, Sex Pistols, numerous NYC bands, etc), more politically active and more adventurous/emotion-laden/reactive to the events of the time. Experimental post-punk (Wire, The Fall, Throbbing Gristle, etc.), politically charged punk (San Francisco/Texas/DC scenes), creative and melodic punk (Minneapolis/Boston scenes), and so on. Additionally and to a somewhat lesser extent, younger siblings of those who lived/listened to that '77 wave start picking up on the same music and grasp onto their own version with this second wave. The "old" progressive scene (that is, old-school prog-rock like Rush, King Crimson, etc) morphs into the "new" progressive scene (that is, early to mid-80s album-oriented bands with their own following but not exactly chartbound).
--Newer and different UK pop starting to reach shorts via independent record stores mostly in college towns. Brit-centric bands with a large following in the UK start getting airplay on US college stations (Smiths, The Cure, Joy Division/New Order, Depeche Mode, etc.).
--Non-"pop" music emerging--deliberately not chartworthy yet aquiring a sizable following--a good amount of it coming from the UK. Goth and proto-shoegaze (The Cure, Siouxsie, Bauhaus, 4AD bands, etc.). These styles of music are less about dancing and background noise and more about introspection, or at least more cerebral and less disposable. At the same time, American bands utilizing the same ideals start their own genres/scenes (Violent Femmes, REM, etc.) that branch off from there.
--Emergence of late night music shows on then-new cable stations (Night Flight on USA, etc, IRS Presents the Cutting Edge and later 120 Minutes on MTV) playing this "new" kind of music. Early MTV features a handful of these bands due to demand for any kind of playlist at that point.
All these things converging in the mid-80s gave American college radio the impetus to be even more creative and experimental, thus moving towards the more "nonconformist" types of music. While the music selection is still primarily album-oriented (or at least single-oriented but not exactly with the sole objective of selling units), it is less about straight-ahead popular rock (which at this point, had grown almost into "product" proportions) and more about the musicianship or at least the creativity behind it.
Again, with the advent of 120 Minutes in 1986 and up until 1989, "college rock" (soon to be renamed "modern"/"alternative"/etc.) reached a kind of renaissance where the genre was not exactly popular and rarely hit the US charts, but achieved a loyal following from high schoolers and college students reaching out for a new style of music that was different from the Top 40 and straight rock stations. [More on the mindset behind this in a later post.]
By 1989, with the advent of MTV's Alternative Nation, relentless pushing of new music, and a small but impressive number of chart hits ("Under the Milky Way" at #17, "So Alive" at #1, etc.), added to new music scenes emerging (grunge in Seattle, Britpop and Madchester in the UK), college radio was at an impasse--some stations that had been playing the above mentioned alternative suddenly found themselves competing with commercial stations starting to play the same thing [More on this mindset in a later post as well.]. Some college stations go with the flow, while others reach out even further into eclecticism and experimentalism.
[MORE SOON]
