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Has Alternative Become The New Mainstream?

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sandman263:
A discussion point, as from reading through this message board, there are some strong and excellent opinions on here....

Has alternative music become the new mainstream? As we approach year's end, the usual multitudes of "best of" lists are appearing. As I've flitted from blog to blog, website to website, I'm seeing the same artists again and again. Here's a random list, taken from around 15 "best of" selections, both here on QC, and on a large number of other blogs I frequent.

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer
The Fiery Furnaces - Widow City
The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Band of Horses - Cease to Begin
Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
Battles - Mirrored
Boxer - The National

The same artists appearing, again and again.

Now, while most of these are not something I get my kicks from (and in some cases, I find quite boring), I fully accept that everyone has their own taste. My question is this: in the vast world of "alternative" music, where for every single mainstream release, there are a hundred releases that find their audience, and sell plenty of copies, how does the above happen - a convergence to the same artists and albums? How has the alternative music scene turned into the mainstream - why do a certain number of artists rise to the top, again and again? Is it simply a matter of taste? Is it just that all the blogs I read are run by people with identical tastes in music?  :wink:

To give you an idea, here's a few albums I didn't see anywhere.....

West - Lucinda Williams
The Shepherd's Dog - Iron and Wine
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank - Modest Mouse
Family Tree - Nick Drake
The Con - Tegan & Sara
A Weekend in the City - Bloc Party
Magic - Bruce Springsteen

a pack of wolves:
It happens through marketing, general critical consensus and people making pop records with mass appeal. Really, maybe only a couple of those artists you list are anything significantly alternative to what's been put out by major record labels for decades now (not, I hasten to add, is there anything necessarily wrong with this). Considering that Arcade Fire have massive adverts in big record shops for their records it's hardly surprising that they will do well in end of year lists by a lot of people. Also, I would say you probably do indeed frequent websites run by people with similar tastes. None of those records got more than the odd mention on the other music-based websites I go on where Wolves In The Throne Room and Burial were probably the most common choices.

Tom:
You don't see We Were Dead or A Weekend in the City because they were pretty much crap.

In answer to your question, no not quite cause it has already happened. A lot of the bands that saw airplay on MTV and the like in the 90's were/are considered alternative and have left a lasting affect on pop culture.

Jackie Blue:
This has been true for pretty much... always.

The "best" albums will always be listed in most year-end lists.  You may not like some of those albums, but generally they are there because they appeal to the most number of people in the most significant way.

Example: Boris' Pink was in the top 3 of almost every list last year.  Why?  Because it really was that fucking good.

Also, Bloc Party?  Are you serious?  Not to besmirch your taste in music but... I mean... Bloc Party?

I think the answer may lie with the fact that your tastes are more "mainstream" than the ones making the lists (to me, the concept of that Modest Mouse album making any year-end best-of list would pretty much cause me to dismiss the entire list).

For context, the best albums of the year for me, off the top of my head, were the ones by:

Maserati
Boris w/ Michio Kurihara
Liars
Okkervil River
Gowns
Explosions in the Sky
Do Make Say Think

...and some more I'm sure I'm forgetting.

sandman263:

--- Quote from: zerodrone on 30 Dec 2007, 13:35 --- I think the answer may lie with the fact that your tastes are more "mainstream" than the ones making the lists (to me, the concept of that Modest Mouse album making any year-end best-of list would pretty much cause me to dismiss the entire list).
--- End quote ---

And this leads to my next question, and probably an unanswerable one - what is "mainstream"? (The additional list was not, in fact, my own list - just some albums that I know were critically acclaimed by non-mainstream websites & magazines in Ireland and the UK (where mainstream is the new Britney album, sadly....off the top of my own head, Explosions in the Sky, the National and Matthews Good and Ryan stood out for me this year).

As you said, and rightly so, "they are there because they appeal to the most number of people in the most significant way". However, this can be said about Britney, or Timbaland, or Kylie Minogue. What I find of most interest is that when you compare the number of (quality) mainstream music releases to the non-mainstream, on a global level, the non-mainstream far, far, far outnumbers the mainstream. I would have expected "best of" lists to therefore reflect this, since the sample pool is much, much larger. This makes me wonder - where do people who listen to non-mainstream music find out about it? And then, why do they all seem to gravitate to the same albums? The quality of those albums? Influences of their peers?

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