Comments by "A.J. Hart" (@cobbler88) on "Top 10 Alternative Bands of the 1980s" video.

Because the voting is HEAVILY American. And the irony is that "mainstream alt" acts will be rewarded based on air play/sales in the U.S. Tears for Fears and REM were much bigger in the U.S. than The Smiths ever were, particularly REM. Hell, Morrissey as a solo act might have actually been bigger during the "Your Arsenal" days than the high point of Smiths U.S. success. If you want it to lean more UK, then more votes have to come from UK.
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@anthonysaunders345 I was fairly into keeping up with things for awhile, but with age that passion tends to mellow. We CAN chase things down but I don't really have the initiative now. At best I'll maybe check the end-of-year Billboard alt-style chart, click samples and see what might be worth checking out. But I will always have an ear open, and will continue to see the Pixies every year they tour even though they seemed to be just going through the motions when opening for Weezer (or should I say, the Weezer cover version tour) earlier this year. Yes, anyone can get discovered now. Whether parlaying that into being able to make a soft living as a musician is any easier might be a trickier question. Online track sales give an artist a microscopic portion of the proceeds. In December, Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas" broke the Spotify single-day streaming record with 11 million listens. Carey made, at most, $92,400 from that. That's if it was top rate. The low rate is about 1/14 of that, I believe. If she was somewhere in the middle ... So, we're left with artists managing to get themselves discovered via social media, then recording an album. But people aren't really buying albums anymore. All young people from about 1997 to the present day have lived their lives as a la carte listeners. Few will ever experience the full-album narrative of Styx' "Kilroy Was Here." :) Now you have to tour. You might be "YouTube famous" but that doesn't mean the real world knows who the hell you are. Take "Captain Marvel's" release. If you were living on YT, you'd swear there was a huge controversy surrounding the movie being agenda-driven and Brie Larson being a rotten bitch. This grand conspiracy included Rotten Tomatoes (rightly) changing its ratings, removing some things, etc. But if I asked a normal person what they'd heard about the movie, they usually said, "Nothing." I can't really say how things will proceed. I imagine at least in the short term it's still going to be all about building a brand as the rest of us are left to hope that this continues to produce enough Lady Gagas with genuine talent and that the stray Adele will somehow still slip through. But maybe some enterprising person will develop a curated, YT-like platform that makes it easier to connect artists and fans, allowing enough of a genuine following to develop that makes touring a possibility, then things blossom from there. The more things seem to change, the more certain realities seem to stay the same. You still usually will need to work your ass off at the bottom before becoming in any way successful. The rest will just have to aspire to someday being the next Rebecca Black or Alison Gold.
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Hell, EVERYONE's going to like a list when you put everyone on the damn list.
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Exactly! Because the band ELIAS likes does not fall within the parameters specific to PATRICK, INXS cannot possibly be considered an alt band, regardless of the band having its own sound throughout it's career and the fact that its very early stuff sounds as empty and sterile as early Cure and Banshees. I wonder if it qualifies as irony that the alt people go all "no true Scotsman" at the drop of a hat.
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Smashing Pumpkins debut album didn't come out until the 90s. Marcy Playground didn't release a studio album until 1997. I assume you'd include N'SYNC and Lady Gaga on your alt-80s list as well?
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Smell that? It's the scent of alt music snobs scurrying from under their rocks to tell us that almost all of these acts fall under some other category, but are definitely NOT alternative. Of course, that ignores the fact that after recategorizing everything, there will be no acts left to consider alt. Even that act you KNOW is alt falls under a different category to someone else, I assure you. Let's not get too crazy with the purity tests here, people.
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That's weird. I have a style of music that has no audience either. I was around in the 80s. Maybe I should have been on the list too.
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@deadeye4520 Oh! I caught the "yet" and my statement stands. It can be read in this thread that the "yet" may be the reason the Furs didn't make the list. Accepting that, I can make a similar case for myself. Not only that, but I can use the "yet" to continue to state my case, as I have the rest of my life to achieve "yet."
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@deadeye4520 Hey! After the week I'm having, the thought that I still have a shot at being recognized as such might be all I have going for me! :)
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Oh, it's still a list. You might not like the acts, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still a list. :P
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@anthonysaunders345 The UK has always been considered sort of a weird mixed bag by any American who paid attention to those charts in the 80s. One week The Smiths could be No. 1, the next week it was some Neil Diamond album no one in the U.S. had ever heard of. It's not surprising that there are so many acts that were absolutely huge in UK while here we either barely heard of them or weren't exposed enough to know a Fur from a Bunnyman or to recognize much difference. But back then everything was funneled through the local radio stations. Those gate-keepers are gone now, mostly for the best.
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Yeah, I've seen his "four basic chord progressions" vids. The concept is a little janky and tends to be overly broad. But execs have a much lesser role in determining what gets out there now than they did in past decades when we did not have the Internet and social media. Although actually getting contracts is still ultimately up to labels, they no longer have a stranglehold on whether the public is exposed to the music in the first place.
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@anthonysaunders345 I can guarantee there are a few thousand of artists working on that, as well as a few deposed A & R guys trying to figure out how to develop the next work-around, then take advantage of it. In the meantime, I can't help but enjoy the fact that artists find themselves forced to tour a bit more these days. They were kind of forgetting the consumer when all they had to do was cut albums.
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That really early Siouxsie stuff sounds so hollow, like early Cure or INXS.
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@HenryFrederick It was more about being true to the theme of the vid than poking fun. That was just gravy. Not sure what the number of thumbs up has to do with things, especially since they don't display our thumbs down.
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@patrickcannady2066 In all fairness. Dick Clark probably never heard of U2 or Bruce Springsteen. :)
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@ffjsb So you obviously not understanding something you read means it's the COMMENT that's stupid? Nnnnno. Maybe just take your seat at the kids table while the grown-ups are talking, okay? You take care.
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