Word: rock
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Pearl Jam came together as a serendipitous offshoot of a Sub Pop band called Green River. Rock legend, passed along by the resentful, has it that bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard split from that band because the lead vocalist wanted to stay true to the experimental spirit of alternative rock, while Ament and Gossard wanted to become big-time rock stars. The band they formed, Mother Love Bone, combined a heavy-metal sound with bouncy tunes. Just as the group seemed ready to break through in 1990, its lead singer died of a heroin overdose...
...irony is that the initials W.M.A. could stand for many of the people who will buy Pearl Jam's album. In fact, they stand for all the members of the band, as well as most of the people in the alternative rock scene, though female musicians have grown in prominence. In the liner notes to the Nirvana compilation Incesticide, lead singer Cobain wrote, "If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of a different color, or women, please do this one favor for us -- leave us the f--- alone!" And Scott Weiland, the flame-haired singer for Stone...
Many alternative rockers have tried as well to broaden the demographic reach of their music to be more inclusive. The annual traveling rock carnival Lollapalooza, which helps bring regional acts to a national audience, has made a point of including rap acts such as Arrested Development and Ice Cube. "A lot of white kids will not go to a black show," says Ted Gardener, producer of Lollapalooza. "They'll buy the records, but they won't go see the band. They're afraid they might get killed. And some black kids feel the same way about white shows. Our attempt...
...ridiculing the alternative world: "You're in high school again! No recess!" Just as in school, certain styles and viewpoints are considered "cool" in the alternative scene; those that don't fit in are derided. This year the critically acclaimed band Smashing Pumpkins had a hit single called Cherub Rock, an attack on alternative dogmatism: "Stay cool/ And be somebody's fool this year...
...alternative bands keep flooding into the mainstream, then the word alternative may go out of style, just as "progressive rock" became passe in the 1980s. "Alternative" has become a marketing tool. "Five minutes ago, I saw an ad for Bud Dry: 'The alternative beer with the alternative taste,' " says Jim Pitt, who books musical acts for NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien. "Pretty soon you'll see an ad where they're moshing, 'Out of the mosh pit and into a Buick.' It's the cycle of American pop culture. Things get absorbed...