Ongoing History of New Music

Once upon a time, music was incredibly tribal…once you picked a tribe, you had to conform to serious and rigid rules…whatever the prevailing dogma dictated was your reality…snobbery abounded…. For example, in the 70s, 80s, and well into the 90s, rock was divided into two camps…on one side were the mainstream rockers, fans of the artists that occupied most of the attention: radio airplay, record sales, concert tickets…they were on top of the Rock’n’Roll zeitgeist…  On the other were the alterative kids…they were the outsiders, the weirdos, the misfits—and they were very happy with their position…alt-rockers were content with their own musical universe… But here’s the thing: during this period, these two tribes were locked in a cold war…it was a war of musical ideology, musical outlook, and musical aspirations…and woe to any tribe member who tried to change tribes…you might as well try to take a stroll across the DMZ between North and South Korea…things could be that rigid… And there was more…if you were a mainstream rock fan, you couldn’t admit to your fellow tribe members that you liked music from the other side…same thing if you were an alt-rocker…to admit that you liked Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, or Van Halen was nothing short of heresy… I recall one time when Billy Corgan admitted that some of the Smashing Pumpkins sound was influenced by Judas Priest…shock and horror!...treason!...if social media had been around back then, he would have been trolled to death—even though if you listened to the pumpkins, you could hear that kind of metal influence coming through…it just didn’t make sense… Today, though, those rigid tribal groups have broken down…we have entered an era when we’re very ecumenical about music…more and more, the prevailing philosophy is “respect all music, listen to what you want”… This is healthy because it opens up new vistas for music—for listening and for influences when it comes to making new music… Here…let me show you what I mean…

If you were to ask a contemporary group like say The White Stripes or The Hives about which band influenced their sound they would probably list off a bunch of names including The Stooges. If you were to go back to the 90’s and ask the same question to Nirvana or Janes Addiction, one of the bands they would inevitability mention would be The Stooges. Slip back to 80’s and ask Sonic Youth and they would probably say The Stooges… If you travel back to the 70’s and ask The Sex Pistols or The Ramones and they would likely say…The Stooges… Or ask David Bowie…and you’d get The Stooges… Alright then so The Stooges seem to be on everyone’s list but hold on….this is a band that hardly sold any records in their day and were so messed up that their singer ended up in an asylum. So, I guess the question must be asked…what’s the big deal about The Stooges?

The study of word origins and word meanings is called Etymology.  And rock music has it's own branch of Etymology and we can give you lots of examples. In fact over the course of the next two Podcasts we will break some of these terms down. Why do we call it Punk music? And how did we come up with New Wave? Or Grunge? Or Post Modern? Answers to those and more as we explore Etymology in Alt Rock

Every song has a story behind it. Maybe the way it was created, what it is about, who it is about, where it was written...there are literally a million reasons and ways a song was born. But have you ever wondered how musicians came up with some of their best known songs?  How did Nirvana arrive at Smells Like Teen Spirit? What was Blur doing when they came up with Song 2? Why was it so complicated to finish Fairytale of New York? Well wonder no more...we have answers to those and a whole lot more as we once again look at the stories behind songs.

This is "The Reunions: Part 3" The final part of a series that first aired in 2009 and we thought it was time to revisit it...see what bands did survive a reunion and which ones have not. Now something to note about this series. Some bands have since broken apart again or gone off in an entirely different direction. And some are no longer together because a member has since passed on.