The Alternative 90s, the AV Club's Retrospective: 1997

Today, we continue the journey through a remarkable period of music history. This series is meant as a companion/reaction piece to Steven Hyden’s Whatever Happened To Alternative Nation? Accurately subtitled as “One man’s year-by-year journey into 90s rock.” You can get this highly recommend work on Kindle for just $2.99. Do it!

Look back for previous editions where we covered part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, and part 7.

 

Hyden’s approach to 1997 is centered almost exclusively on two bands. Oasis leads things off. Their third full-length, Be Here Now, was released in April of that year. But much of the attention is on the years preceding it. Hyden shares his memories of first finding their debut, Definitely Maybe, in his local record store and blasting it on his mom’s car stereo while cruising around the Appleton, Wisconsin area. 

There is something so very American and wonderful about how the freedom to drive at age 16 has a personalized soundtrack, isn’t there? In the early 90s, cassette tapes were cheerily loaned or copied, be they albums or homemade mix tapes, and much musical excitement took place on the suburban streets or stretches of highway. I could name a thousand of these instances, but the most fun one I can recall is when our friend Boris presented “Jump Around” to everyone in Brad’s Toyota Paseo. Not a lot of space to jump around inside a moving Paseo, but we somehow managed to follow the song’s directions without causing a crash.

Hyden states that Oasis was one of his favorite acts in the second half of the 90s, which is something that was surely true for many people. As he put it, “Great Oasis songs were like sharks – no brains, all teeth, and out for blood and naked girls.” They were purported to be the second coming of The Beatles, only with selfish rockstar attitudes. The second half of this was true, but the failure of Be Here Now kiboshed the loftier ambitions. Yet, their popularity was earned with some of the catchiest tunes of the decade, and a clear step forward for rock music.

Radiohead provided the perfect contrast. Another UK group that started off as a band to complain about. Another Bush who was merely ripping off the Pixies and Nirvana. “Creep” was a huge hit off their first record, but not remotely original. Their second album, The Bends, showed some musical progression, with some memorable songs, but was not exactly breaking new ground. Which is why OK Computer landed as perhaps the biggest revelation in music history. This is not hyperbole.

I vividly recall hearing “Paranoid Android” for the first time, accompanied by its insane NSFW video (which could not be more 90s). This was not just different for Radiohead. It was different from anything anyone had heard before. The entire record presented a perfect merging of the band’s talents and pointed to an entirely new direction for them as an avant-garde yet incredibly popular rock band, something that hadn’t existed since the 1970s. Hyden makes the point that, in addition to the very public rivalry between the two acts, Oasis and Radiohead can be seen as divergent entities

Radiohead looked like Gallant to Oasis’ Goofus. Oasis was in hock to the past, relying on the stature of the British rock heroes they were stealing from to give weight to oversized gestures not even the Gallagher brothers could pretend to be enthusiastic about anymore. Radiohead appeared to be ahead of the curve, forecasting the paranoia, media-driven insanity, and omnipresent sense of impending doom that’s subsequently come to characterize everyday live in the 21^st century.

 

In the end, Oasis definitely definitely felt like the end of something. They had two great albums with songs forever cemented in the musical consciousness of pretty much everyone. And then they ran out of worthwhile things to play and to say. As mentioned in the last post, there were a ton of very good English bands in this space, but the one that took this sound forward, in the most neutered way possible, though drawing a bit on Radiohead’s influence as well, was Coldplay. That’s worked out very well for them, but it certainly feels like we could have had a better trajectory. Hyden brings them up with a relatively positive mention. But this book is 14 years old, and things have, let’s say, evolved.

 

I know this is not how Hyden was going about it, and he says in the prologue “you’re going to complain when I leave certain bands out.” But given how morose 1996 felt, it’s worth noting that we got either seminal or level-up albums from the following acts: Hum, Poster Children, Richard Buckner, Old 97s, Get Up Kids, At the Drive-In, No Knife, Modest Mouse, Blur, and Spiritualized. Foo Fighters came into existence and put out the indelible “Everlong.” The Verve had the most accomplished record to date (though, of course I prefer their earlier stuff). All this is to say that the early 90s chapter of alternative, grunge in particular, ended after 1994, and seemed like it would simply die, either of overdoses or lack of newness. OK Computer is the hall of fame player, but look at that list. These are all “alternative” acts, but across at least eight different subgenres. The best bands in the new century would be generally coming from the paths carved out by these trailblazers and their late 90s peers.

In 1997 I graduated college and moved back to Chicago. I missed the radio station and the colossal wealth of music and musical knowledge (i.e. loveable geeks) that I was immersed in. But I started a job and got lucky that there were other music geeks on the team. I had some disposable income and was living in a city chock full of great venues, one that no band ever skipped on a North American tour. We were surely in a new era, but the explosion of new ways to be an alternative band meant a never-ending pursuit of excitement. This doesn’t apply to the masses anymore, but I didn’t have to care about that. Who needs masses when you can see your favorite new shiny thing at the Double Door?

Do we have Radiohead to thank for that? No idea, but they deserve credit for elevating alternative more than anyone had in years. I’ll let Hyden wrap up, noting their status and their progression:

Nobody gets more respect than Radiohead. Other artists look to Thom Yorke for musical guidance, and his band is the gold standard for how to conduct a rock ‘n’ roll career with a measure of ethics and dignity. But let’s not allow our memories to pull a fast one on us. Once upon a time, Radiohead only wished it was special.