by Dan Ozzi (Music 781.66 Ozz)
When we think of 1990s popular music, probably the main musical movement that springs to mind is grunge, the mostly Seattle-based bands who took over the airwaves. In a broader sense, though, grunge was just part of a larger musical movement, often called “alternative music” in that era, but really part of a continuum of indie music bands that were called “college rock” before alternative. What all of these bands tended to have in common was a shared background in some variant of rock music, which could manifest as various forms of punk or post-punk, and a kind of noncommercial aesthetic. “Alternative” as a genre name, after all, was intended to reflect that the music was an alternative to the commercial mainstream.
But in the 90s, “alternative” became quite commercially successful and had an increasingly wide appeal. Some bands readily adjusted to being able to pack arenas, while others struggled with the idea publicly, and others tried to reject it altogether, staying away from major label record deals and trying to maintain a kind of independent authenticity. And these things get complicated: in some underground music circles, the idea of signing any kind of contract that will radically increase your exposure to a much wider fan base is “selling out,” yet maintaining that indie ethos is itself a marketing tool. It’s a lot to unpack.
Fortunately, we now have a new book by music journalist Dan Ozzi that investigates how various different bands navigated the waters of commercial interest in the grunge and post-grunge era. It’s called Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo and Hardcore (1994-2007), and you can borrow it from Polley.
Ozzi handles this ’94-’07 timespan by devoting each chapter to a band whose major label debut album was released somewhere within it, going chronologically. And as the title suggests, he ends up documenting bands that represent a few different subgenres of alternative music, with a focus on emo, punk and hardcore bands. His brief introduction recognizes that this phenomenon of major labels taking an interest in more underground forms of music wasn’t exactly a new phenomenon: punk bands like the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash had all signed with major labels all the way back to the 70s. Then the 80s were a period of relative isolation for indie music, where the major labels stuck with more tried and true forms of pop music with stronger melodic tendencies. But in the early 90s, there was just something about Nirvana’s sound, still raw and authentic as underground music, but also very melodic and memorable, that rocketed their sophomore album, “Nevermind,” to rapid success. With very little promotional work, the record went platinum in only 8 weeks! Labels couldn’t help but take notice of this, which launched a new era of sending A&R reps out to see the kinds of bands they’d mostly been ignoring for the last decade, hoping to repeat Nirvana’s success. So what follows is the story of 11 alternative bands of various styles who ended up signing to major labels, and how things went for them. The stories are very different, and make for fascinating contrasts between one another.
Take the first band highlighted in the book, for example. Punk band Green Day was a Bay-area punk band that had been enjoying relative success with their first 2 albums on the indie label Lookout Records. Their scene was based around the little Berkeley punk club 924 Gilman, an interesting venue started by Tim Yohannan from Maximum Rocknroll magazine that attempted to create a respectful and fun kind of atmosphere. The club was as DIY as things get, run by volunteers, and open to bands just starting out. Although the punk scene around this club was generally still dominated by bands that were somewhat heavier sounding, pop-punk bands started to gain a little traction in the early 90s, and Green Day was at their forefront. They put in a lot of work, too, touring the country playing tiny clubs and house shows, got better as a band, and were doing well for themselves by the time of their sophomore album on Lookout, called “Kerplunk.” But Nirvana’s Nevermind was screaming to the top of the charts just as “Kerplunk” came out, and major label A&R folks started looking for bands they thought could follow the same trajectory. Reprise Records ended up with the band, released their major label debut “Dookie” in February of 1994, and the record had gone triple platinum by December. And of course we all know how this story ended: the band continued to enjoy success and has stayed together to the present. For them, “selling out” seems to have worked just fine.
But the next featured band, Jawbreaker, didn’t have so much luck. They held out as indie artists for a long time, even getting to open for a week of Nirvana dates earlier in their career while maintaining their indie cred, but eventually things seemed to be positioned for them to have larger success, and they signed a 3-album deal with Geffen for around a million dollars. Long story short, their first record for Geffen, “Dear You,” just didn’t sell well, topping out around 40,000 copies, and all of the pressure on the band to succeed turned inter-band tensions into band-ending arguments. And they started out in the same scene as Green Day, used the same record producer, engineer, and videographer, but it just didn’t pan out.
The extreme success of Green Day and the collapse of Jawbreaker describe the extremes of what can happen to staunchly independent bands when major labels take them on. Most of the other bands featured in the book had results that landed somewhere in between. The band At the Drive-In is a good example of the more nuanced results most bands experienced. Like Green Day, they enjoyed relative indie success with their first two albums on independent labels. They released their own major label debut, “Relationship of Command,” to lots of critical acclaim, and things were looking up. But like Jawbreaker, touring on the record proved to be very stressful, as the band couldn’t control the destructive behavior in their newly-large audiences. Ultimately the band decided to break up just as their record sales were starting to climb. But they found new pathways into music: some members of the band went on to form Sparta, while others formed The Mars Volta. Both of those bands have been successful on their own terms in the many years since.
And that’s the fun of this book: you’ll learn about a variety of bands’ responses to the pressures of major label success, both real and perceived, and although there are commonalities, each took a path as unique as their music. Since the book highlights bands in this kind of situation over the course of 13 years, you’ll likely read about some familiar favorites and some bands you missed, and it’s always fun to find out about new-to-you music, too.
(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Grunge Diaries: Seattle, 1990-1994 by Dave Thompson, or Now is the Time To Invent!: Reports From the Indie Rock Revolution, 1986-2000 by Steve Connell.)
( publisher’s official Sellout web page ) | ( official Dan Ozzi web site )
Recommended
by Scott S.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Polley Music Library
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