Word: mainstreaming
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...riding high in recent years. Editorialists and TV commentators have fumed at the new censorship, but only now is the edifice of p.c. starting to take some heavy shelling. The comedians are coming. A pop-culture backlash against p.c. was inevitable. Under the watchful eye of the p.c. police, mainstream culture has become cautious, sanitized, scared of its own shadow. Network TV, targeted by antiviolence crusaders and nervous about offending advertisers, has purged itself of what little edge and controversy it once had. Hollywood movies, seeking blockbuster audiences, are shying away from the restrictive R rating (not to mention...
...Vedder is a product of the thriving world of alternative rock, a musical genre that rejects the commercial values of mainstream pop. Alternative has no strict definition, but it has a feel. Its musicians reject show-biz glitz. They support progressive social causes. Many of them avoid dating groupies and models. Their music is usually guitar-driven, with experimental touches. While pop songs are often about love, alternative lyrics are usually about tougher feelings: despair, lust, confusion. Alternative rock is a reaction, especially among the twentysomething generation, to all the years of being subjected to Madonna's changing hair color...
...Alternative rock has been simmering for years, ready for this moment of boiling over. The Georgia-based band R.E.M. was an alternative pioneer in the mid-'80s that went mainstream years before Pearl Jam was even formed. What's new is that the record charts are now crowded with alternative bands ranging from the arty-rock quartet Smashing Pumpkins to the folk-tinged Soul Asylum. MTV's Alternative Nation program and the Lollapalooza road tour, which feature the new breed, have become the hippest venues going...
...therein lies the controversy: alternative music is currently one of the most potent forces in the mainstream, which has triggered an identity crisis and rancorous debate among musicians and fans. If these rockers are stars now, fans ask, haven't they become everything we're against? Nothing better symbolizes the struggle for this musical genre's soul than the success of Pearl Jam, a band adored by followers but reviled by some fellow musicians as sellouts, poseurs or opportunists riding on the fame of their fellow Seattleites, Nirvana. Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain has said that bands like Pearl...
...company and released the huge hit Nevermind (more than 4 million copies sold) on the Geffen label, other major labels began an indie-band feeding frenzy. Bands that had been playing in taverns were being offered $300,000 contracts. Many of these groups were founded on the principle that mainstream music was bankrupt, which only made them more attractive to mainstream labels...