Pre-Nirvana hipster-geezer rock

[Gone Fission]

Bigtime nostalgia trip this evening remembering WNEW-FM, the old NYC rock radio station that played "classic rock" stuff because they always had since their early free form days, along with new material from old artists and some blending in of post-punk and such (Clash, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, etc.). Remembering hearing "Academy Fight Song" for the first time via a live R.E.M. cover. I might have still been in junior high for that one.

I am struck remembering how much of the material was kind of updated stuff by older artists, like Lou Reed's "New York" album or this:



Man, I'm fucking old to remember when these guys were turning old.

Do any of you youngins remember life pre-Nirvana?

[repoman]

no, but I remember this from Beavis and Butthead

[aedes]

Oh man, before Nirvana. I remember. It was all like



and



These guys were better though

[repoman]

I remember this one from Adventures in Babysitting

[Ugly Nora]

[Ugly Nora]

Also this.

[blakestree]

Oh man, before Nirvana. I remember. It was all like

Yeah, before Nevermind I was all:



and



and



and

[Kacey Y]

Nevermind came out when I was in 7th grade. So before that era of discovering contemporary music for myself, I knew my parents music (Dad: ZZ Top, Allman Bros, Zappa, BB King, U2, Beach Boys, Steely Dan/Mom: Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac), and I already had sought out and bought myself stuff like Metallica, Slayer, Weird Al and older jazz from playing trumpet at school. I didn't really have an awareness of the more artsy end of proto punk/punk rock/new wave, college rock or indie rock type stuff at all. The local radio stations were pretty much just classic rock, easy listening/80's pop, classical and country.

[$harkToootth]

I wasn't even 1 when 'Nevermind' came out but offering a post hoc perspective, it wasn't that there was nothing that sounded like NIRVANA before NIRVANA. There were plenty of bands doing the 'arty' or 'alternative' rock thing. The real paradigm shift came when 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' hit #6 on the Billboard 100. I say this all the time but, if you look at what was popular in that time period...it really is a fluke that album ('Nevermind') sold as well as it did and received as much air play as it did.

Apparently Kurt tried to write the perfect pop song when composing 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' so I don't feel too far off when I say to people that I think 'Drain You' is a perfect pop song

[repoman]

I'm kind of confused about what kind of music this post is supposed to be about, is it hipster music (they called it 'college rock') of the mid-late 80s?

Like this?

[lost in music]

I started getting into modern rock radio in the year or so before Nirvana hit - mostly through my love of Cure and Depeche Mode as well as baggy and grebo like Happy Mondays, Soup Dragons, Neds Atomic Dustbin. I wasn't old enough to have much perspective on whether these guys were geezers, but I definitely didn't like any of the Iggy or Lou that the station played. Walk on the Wild Side was a rare treat but i didn't get that it was the same guy who sang Dirty Boulevard. There were younger guys too who I lumped in with this boring old man rock: Elvis Costello with a beard, XTC, Lloyd Cole, Robyn Hitchcock, Stan Ridgeway, Mark Everett (at the time just going by 'E'), fucking David Byrne solo album with the dog on the cover.

[Iommic Pope]

Counterpoint: is music now doomed to collapse into its own anus because people get fed playlists and clusters of genres based on their "preferences", as opposed to the good old days when you actually had to take a gamble on records when you bought them or actively listened to some obscure radio show?

[Gone Fission]

I started getting into modern rock radio in the year or so before Nirvana hit - mostly through my love of Cure and Depeche Mode as well as baggy and grebo like Happy Mondays, Soup Dragons, Neds Atomic Dustbin. I wasn't old enough to have much perspective on whether these guys were geezers, but I definitely didn't like any of the Iggy or Lou that the station played. Walk on the Wild Side was a rare treat but i didn't get that it was the same guy who sang Dirty Boulevard. There were younger guys too who I lumped in with this boring old man rock: Elvis Costello with a beard, XTC, Lloyd Cole, Robyn Hitchcock, Stan Ridgeway, Mark Everett (at the time just going by 'E'), fucking David Byrne solo album with the dog on the cover.

If NYC had a modern rock/alternative format like LA's KROQ pre-grunge with enough power to reach the 'burbs, I didn't know about it. But maybe some crossover of more mainstream-friendly punk like the Ramones, commercially successful post-punk and coat-trails ('Heads, Blondie, Pretenders, Elvis Costello, Police, and U2), and some legacy artists' new work from these acts. Honestly, most of the new stuff was classic rock or prog rock holdovers, though. Steve Winwood, Clapton, Peter Gabriel, being way too excited about John Fogerty.

On the too-much-trust-in-old-rockers downside, this is a turd WNEW was overly fond of. Three Jefferson Airplane alums are to blame, but I'm also gonna have to blame Springsteen.

[$harkToootth]

This radio show debuted today and it was dope. I only knew about it because of the dude's blog. http://lyl.live/show/zchivagos-disco-dystopia/

[Gone Fission]

Counterpoint: is music now doomed to collapse into its own anus because people get fed playlists and clusters of genres based on their "preferences", as opposed to the good old days when you actually had to take a gamble on records when you bought them or actively listened to some obscure radio show?

I really miss having really good free-form or -ish available on my radio. D.C. Is a horrible town for radio. I miss KCRW, KUT's Friday-night Left of the Dial, Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight, and KGSR before they went all in on y'allternative. Oh, and Rice and UT college radio had some great shows back when. Damn, between all that, you could pick on stuff that would change your life that you didn't even know was out there.

All of which is way beyond the old WNEW in scope and adventure. I'm way to young to remember its true "progressive" heyday.