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Core artists for a Alternative Classics category

B

BigLou-TheProwl

New Participating Member
I am looking to add a Alternative Classics category. Who would be the core artists? I am thinking that the time frame would be 1964-1989.

This is who I am thinking of adding so far ( Not every song but appropriate to the format)

The Cure
The Clash
David Bowie
Queen
Steely Dan
The Beatles
Blood Sweat and Tears


We are a College Radio station with a fluid alternative format
Any suggestions would be very helpful
 
Black Crowes
Bob Marley
Elvis Costello
Talking Heads
Violent Femmes
Jimi Hendrix
Pink Floyd
Who
Ramones
Rolling Stones
R.E.M.
U2
Jane's Addiction
Duran Duran
Pixies
Smithereens
New Order

...just to name a few
 
The Smiths/Morrissey
Depeche Mode
Joy Division
The The
 
I'm sorry, but an "alternative" station that regards Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or Steely Dan as "core alternative" ain't an alternative station. Black Crowes, Bob Marley and Earth Wind & Fire aren't "core alternative" either.

Did those bands influence alternative acts? Surely. Have they got songs that fit in an alternative format? Absolutely. But "core alternative"? Nuh-uh.

Alternative begins with The Ramones, Television, Richard Hell, Jim Carroll, Blondie, Talking Heads and the NYC scene in 1975-76.

The Ramones ignited The Sex Pistols (and Siouxsie, their most prominent fan), The Clash and Generation X in London and the London punk explosion, which ignited Manchester punk/post-punk explosion (and in doing so transformed a lot of glam and pub rockers into punk/new wave acts, like The Damned.)

Before that, it was all "rock".

Meanwhile, Bob Marley was only the most prominent example of island influence, which included Desmond Dekker & The Aces, Toots & The Maytals, and never forget Millie Small, all informing the Two-Tone movement (and giving Eric Clapton a hit record, of course.)

Precursors include The Stooges, The Velvet Underground/Lou Reed, The Doors, The Modern Lovers, The Kinks, The Animals, pub rockers like Graham Parker, Rockpile and Bruce Springsteen (a Patti Smith collaborator, among many other things), glam rockers like Roxy Music, Brian Eno and The New York Dolls...

...not to mention what was happening in (West) Germany with Can, Neu and Kraftwerk.

And don't underestimate the role of BBC Radio, John Peel especially, and Tony Wilson on ITV in granting all aspects of the underground a nationwide UK audience, and informing the import scene that drove alternative back here in the states through college radio record pools like Rockpool.

I haven't even started on the DC, Athens GA, LA, Chicago, Minneapolis or SF scenes...

I'm singling out Black Crowes for exclusion especially, though. They're a blues/roots informed rock band, and there's nothing alternative about 'em. And don't go telling me "but alternative stations played them, therefore they're alternative", because alternative stations played Wham! too...
 
But if they are an Alternative station that is looking for "classics," you must include the stuff that influenced the 80s-now sounds. Maybe the more crunchy sounding songs from those artists.

Why isn't blues/roots alternative? It's surely not mainstream anymore. See Black Keys, Mumford, etc. as "alternative" artists influenced by these styles.
 
BigLou-TheProwl said:
I am looking to add a Alternative Classics category. Who would be the core artists? I am thinking that the time frame would be 1964-1989.

This is who I am thinking of adding so far ( Not every song but appropriate to the format)

The Cure
The Clash
David Bowie
Queen
Steely Dan
The Beatles
Blood Sweat and Tears


We are a College Radio station with a fluid alternative format
Any suggestions would be very helpful
Click to expand...

Steely Dan, The Beatles and Blood, Sweat and Tears don't belong.

Unless I misunderstand your concept of Alternative Classics, 1964 is too far back. 1969 for the earliest Bowie, but really, you could start him in 1976 with "Heroes" and be just fine. That's about where you'd want to begin anyway (early Ramones, etc).

Queen's a marginal choice and it's highly dependent on which songs.

Cure, Clash, Bowie are bedrock foundation for you.

I'd add Oingo Boingo to the list, and The Cars.
 
butlerguy03 said:
But if they are an Alternative station that is looking for "classics," you must include the stuff that influenced the 80s-now sounds. Maybe the more crunchy sounding songs from those artists.

Why isn't blues/roots alternative? It's surely not mainstream anymore. See Black Keys, Mumford, etc. as "alternative" artists influenced by these styles.
Click to expand...

Black Keys took blues/roots and added a punk swagger. Same for Mumford & Sons, energizing folk music in the Billy Bragg mold. Honestly, now that they've done that, they're both solidly on the AAA side and don't need any adds from me unless their next record blows me away. (More likely in the Black Keys case. Their stuff's fun and it makes you move.)

But the Black Crowes are the embodiment of exactly the bloated rock structure that the alternative movement sprang into existence to oppose. The whole "it's so beholden to a non-alternative style that it's actually alternative" argument only goes so far. Other winking pantomimes like The Darkness and Spacehog never belonged either, but they got promoted to alternative radio and alternative radio bit. (And The Cult, sadly, finally believed their own hype. Up through the Love album, they're core alt; after that, they're metal by any other name, and best forgotten.)

Yeah, I have opinions on the subject...
 
hubcity said:
Yeah, I have opinions on the subject...
Click to expand...

I respectfully disagree with some of your opinions. Now, saying that, if you have a strong classic hits or classic rock or AAA station nearby, yes you probably should stay away from the blues/roots side. But if you consider Adult Album Alternative not Alternative, doesn't that exclude U2, Clash, and many other artists? There is a clear overlap.

I would recommend to the person asking for these core artists to look back at CMJ charts...see the artists that are listed frequently. It's not a end-all be-all, but it could give you some good "wow" songs.
 
There's no way I'd consider U2 or The Clash using the same yardstick as Black Crowes; the former are core alternative artists, and the latter has as much business being on alternative stations as Wham! did (and, yes, for some ungodly reason, alternative radio played Wham!'s first album too. Also Mr. Mister. I'll never understand how we got suckered into that.)

U2 were a vital post-punk band who got big enough that rock twisted in their direction. The Clash made less of a dent in the US (more's the pity, because in 1979 they were The Only Band That Matters) but what gets played on mainstream rock stations should only be the tip of the iceberg for both these bands (For U2, mainstream stations ignore the "Boy", "October" and most of the "War" album. For The Clash, I think only two tracks on "Combat Rock" and two tracks on "London Calling" exist for mainstream stations.)
 
KROQ and 91X used to play the occasional Beatles track as well as new releases from The Rolling Stones and The Who/Pete Townsend. Their way of acknowledging that basically all modern rock came from these few artists, I suppose. I thought it was a good idea.
As for Bob Marley, why is he the only reggae artist in the regular Alt rotation these days? Why not Jimmy cliff or Peter Tosh (Legalize It ;D) ?

I agree that Queen/Bowie/Roxy Music/Iggy should be limited to a "roots of alternative" category. Please, no Black Crowes.
 
hubcity said:
I'm sorry, but an "alternative" station that regards Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or Steely Dan as "core alternative" ain't an alternative station. Black Crowes, Bob Marley and Earth Wind & Fire aren't "core alternative" either.

Did those bands influence alternative acts? Surely. Have they got songs that fit in an alternative format? Absolutely. But "core alternative"? Nuh-uh.

Alternative begins with The Ramones, Television, Richard Hell, Jim Carroll, Blondie, Talking Heads and the NYC scene in 1975-76.

The Ramones ignited The Sex Pistols (and Siouxsie, their most prominent fan), The Clash and Generation X in London and the London punk explosion, which ignited Manchester punk/post-punk explosion (and in doing so transformed a lot of glam and pub rockers into punk/new wave acts, like The Damned.)

Before that, it was all "rock".

Meanwhile, Bob Marley was only the most prominent example of island influence, which included Desmond Dekker & The Aces, Toots & The Maytals, and never forget Millie Small, all informing the Two-Tone movement (and giving Eric Clapton a hit record, of course.)

Precursors include The Stooges, The Velvet Underground/Lou Reed, The Doors, The Modern Lovers, The Kinks, The Animals, pub rockers like Graham Parker, Rockpile and Bruce Springsteen (a Patti Smith collaborator, among many other things), glam rockers like Roxy Music, Brian Eno and The New York Dolls...

...not to mention what was happening in (West) Germany with Can, Neu and Kraftwerk.

And don't underestimate the role of BBC Radio, John Peel especially, and Tony Wilson on ITV in granting all aspects of the underground a nationwide UK audience, and informing the import scene that drove alternative back here in the states through college radio record pools like Rockpool.

I haven't even started on the DC, Athens GA, LA, Chicago, Minneapolis or SF scenes...

I'm singling out Black Crowes for exclusion especially, though. They're a blues/roots informed rock band, and there's nothing alternative about 'em. And don't go telling me "but alternative stations played them, therefore they're alternative", because alternative stations played Wham! too...
Click to expand...

That's a pretty good list of groups that took Rock and tossed it in the trash.
 
An accusation to which, I believe, the proper response would be "Well, yeah, that was kind of the point."
 
Can
Wire
Nitzer Ebb
Echo and The Bunneymen
Cocteau Twins
Felt
Brian Eno
Coil
This Mortal Coil
Bauhaus
Tones on Tail
Love and Rockets
The Church
The Alarm (hey!)
The Clash
Ultravox
Adam and the Ants
Altered Images
Yaz
The Call
The Cult
Gene Loves Jezebel
Mighty Lemon Drops
Ministry (yes the fake accent variety, love it)
Jane's Addiction
ABC
The Specials AKA
English Beat
Joy Division/New Order
OMD
Pet Shop Boys
The Smiths
The Cure

That is a pretty good start.
 
I agree with Upper90. Also, take a peek at the playlist for Sirius/XM station "1st Wave" on dogstarradio.com. That essentially is a classic alternative station, going from roughy 1977 to 1991. Again, you could probably reach a few years further back with artists like David Bowie, the Velvet Underground/Lou Reed, and maybe even Kraftwerk (!), but definitely stay away from Blood, Sweat & Tears.

Jacko
 
Upper90 said:
Can
Wire
Nitzer Ebb
Echo and The Bunneymen
Cocteau Twins
Felt
Brian Eno
Coil
This Mortal Coil
Bauhaus
Tones on Tail
Love and Rockets
The Church
The Alarm (hey!)
The Clash
Ultravox
Adam and the Ants
Altered Images
Yaz
The Call
The Cult
Gene Loves Jezebel
Mighty Lemon Drops
Ministry (yes the fake accent variety, love it)
Jane's Addiction
ABC
The Specials AKA
English Beat
Joy Division/New Order
OMD
Pet Shop Boys
The Smiths
The Cure

That is a pretty good start.
Click to expand...

Going pretty deep there. A good portion of that list is really obscure.

I'd make the playlist 50% early '90s ('90-'95: Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam), 35% 80s New Wave, 15% earlier stuff (Ramones, Velvet Underground, etc.) I'd also play new songs from the acts from those eras that are still active.
 
Yes, some obscure agreed. I was trying to touch on the original poster's time frame (which is really large!) by adding in some seminal influences like Wire and Can in addition to the normal college fare from 80's and early 90's. There are many, many more of course. I could live with your 50/35/15 station - sounds good to me, where do I dial in?!! I would not rule out an occasional new act that might fit the mold, there are some really cool songs out there right now. Lorde, Capital Cities, Grouplove, to name a few that as a late 80's college kid I really enjoy hearing on the radio. Bring back the cool!
 
Upper90 said:
I could live with your 50/35/15 station - sounds good to me, where do I dial in?!!
Click to expand...


Maybe I'll do a stream sometime. But it would likely be a lot less deep on the playlist than hardcore fans would like. Mainly because I'm a "just the hits" kind of guy, and partly because I've never worked in music radio. I'm a talk guy. Even my bumpers are just the hits.
 
At the risk of further fragmenting a genre, I think there should be dividing lines between pre-grunge, grunge, and current hits in alternative. My local station is very grunge-heavy and light on currents and '80s. That's the audience they target, and that's fine. But they also have a serious overlap with their sister classic rock station.
 
I break that down this way:

Nirvana was alternative.
Grunge was not alternative. Grunge was a mainstream rock sub-genre created to capitalize on the popularity of Nirvana. Grunge caused hair-metal bands to ditch their hairspray and shop at K-mart for flannel shirts.
Alternative, as defined in the nineties, was not alternative. It was the dominant rock genre, fully supported by the major labels.
Nu-metal succeeded Grunge as the primary thrust of rock, trading as "Alternative".
Meanwhile, some non-Alternative alternative artists kept doing things that were different. Sonic Youth, Bjork, Beck, Morphine...
 
To me, alternative is an evolving format. Late 70s and early 80s you had the post punk period. During the remainder of the 80s, you have the synth pop/new wave stuff. In the 90s, alternative continued with Garbage, Live, and yes, I would argue that alternative was playing grunge as well. I remember 99X in Atlanta playing Alice in Chains and Soundgarden all the time. The 2ks got sorta screamo/emo with My Chem and to some extent, Louis XIV, Interpol and your skater thrash stuff. By the 2010 mark, alternative started revisiting the 80s with the new wave/synth pop stuff. In the last few months, I've noticed new music from Arcade Fire and MGMT going back into that distortion post punk stage (thought this may not materialize). Alternative morphs and evolves. Remember that Sarah Mclachlan and Jesus Jones was alternative when the first came out. With the exception of maybe a few stations, I don't think you would ever hear those artist on alternative today. In 10 years, we will look back with that puzzled face and say; "Alternative use to play FUN?"
 
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