Alternative Radio
Around a year ago, the alternative rock station in my area died. Truth be told, I hadn't listened to it that much for a couple years before it passed on. Much like Hot Topic, I had outgrown the station and the type of music it promised. I had used to have a kind of trepidation about listening to the station when I was younger because it was 'adult' and I could get in trouble for listening to it. At nearly thirty, I had trepidation listening to the station because I felt like a dad pretending he was hip and with it and thinking about daring to walk into that Hot Topic again, even if doing so would be one of the single most embarrassing things I could do.
A few months ago, a new alternative music station arose to take it's place. I had to admit I was intrigued, and decided to turn it on. Even if it wasn't the kind of music I found myself listening to all that much anymore, it was still a form I could find quite a bit of enjoyment in.
Long story short, it wasn't the same.
The station was dedicated to playing music and just music. No commercials, no DJs, just song after song. In a lot of ways, that sounds nice. Commercials are annoying at best, and sometimes the commercials are even preferable to the DJs, or more likely to get a laugh. But the problem is that the station had no soul, and that was something that the previous alternative station had in spades.
I grew up listening to the previous alternative station in the late 90s through into 2011, from middle school until I finished undergrad. It's interesting, because you don't recognize what a scene is at first, but there was definitely a scene at that time around alternative music, and the stations that played it embodied this fact. Alternative was still at a point where it was different and challenging and breaking away from most of the rock scene. It wasn't quite punk, though it had roots in that movement, and the attitude that followed from it meshed into alternative. Much like the idea of alternative comics, there was an edge to alternative music and the culture that surrounded it.
A lot of this edge was actually embodied in the station that played it. Their bumpers were quirky and culturally hip. They were, for lack of a better word, counter culture, but the safe kind of counter culture. You were holding safety scissors when you were listening to them, but you were still running with those scissors. The station covered a variety of alternative forms too. They'd have throwbacks to early 90s alternative. Some nights they'd cover local shows. Listening to that station was very much being part of a culture, and you were part of that culture because there was something there.
As paradoxical as it sounds, just listening to song after contemporary song isn't anything. Because in the end alternative wasn't just the music. It was the talking heads and bumpers and everything else that followed that had the brand 'alternative' latched to it that bled into that music.
Alternative wasn't just the music. It was everything surrounding it. And much of what's surrounding it is, where I live, gone.
Fret not! I listened to the same when I was in middle- and high-school, and eventually reached the conclusion that what ultimately bound the music under the "alternative" label together was nothing more than pseudo-rebellious Gen-X marketing aesthetics, rather than some actual stylistic association. It was mostly all just "rock" - as a genre, not a style - in a different outfit, at the end of the day.
Of course "alternatives" to rock still exist, but that's an always-moving target; the "rock" of today is - funny enough, considering your username - the countervailing, ever-expanding umbrella that amalgamates all that is no longer "alternative," the very thing which the new and non-traditional forms innately oppose themselves to. The "alternative" of today is, for one, not called that anymore, and two, not to be found by any means in the same channels through which it once flowed.
Perhaps the broad strokes of society just aren't ready for it? Perhaps they won't be until it's "over," moved on to something else - perpetually ahead of the curve. But it's out there, if you know where to look and actually do so. Perhaps this is all tangential, since ultimately your point here is about radio, but I think the general consensus is that radio is more or less a dead medium for anything fresh and less-than-commercialized (not that I think it will necessarily stay that way forever - you could look at the vinyl boom for a potential analogy).
Anyway, I like your writing; I read your intro post and you're definitely the kind of person I could stand to see a lot more from on Steemit, so I've got you followed. I write a lot about music of all kinds in my column The Harmonic Series, and I have a hunch you might enjoy it. Here's a link to my 2017 Top 10 Albums list, check it out if that sounds interesting to you.
In a lot of ways, I agree completely how it was more or less a rebranding of the Gen X cultural scene. In a lot of ways, it's even more that scene that I miss than the music itself, if I'm being honest. Those moments were MTV was still relevant and hip and showed it with subversive and weird programming like Beavis and Butthead and Wonder Showzen. In a weird way, these countercultural ideas and concepts have been accepted into the culture at large and further diluted to the point where they're becoming more common and the norm in creative endeavors, which is both somewhat uplifting but also feels like a loss as it seems as if the uniqueness that had pervaded it is now gone.
However, like you've said, there still is a prevailing sense of that creativity to be found in lesser channels. I haven't gotten to dig as deep or experiment as much in recent years as I had a bit ago, mostly do to time constraints. However, it is exciting to always learn more about what's out there. I can agree that radio is dead as far as being a medium that moves the artistic form of music forward. The dominance of big groups like Clear Channel buying out station after station has helped to make sure that it's pretty well safe, cookie cutter slop. Problem being that when you're driving a clunker that keeps shorting most of its electronics out, radio tends to be one of your best bets for entertainment on the road.
I gave your article a read and an upvote. I'm sorry into it, and you seem to know your stuff pretty damn well so I'll be following. I appreciate your vote and liking the article here. I'll be following you during my stay here since I'm always down to discover something new in the arts.
I love the 90s and most of my favourite bands herald from that time.
Love this post. Welcome to freewrite.