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Originally Posted by GeneticKiss
I for one am fairly glad that Sonic Youth helped drag alternative music/culture into the mainstream, because without it we'd be drowning in hip-hop related crap (and not the good kind of hip-hop, either). A lot of people think the 80s were the apex of rock music, from musicianship to partying, but once you reach the top, there's only one direction left to go-down. By 1990, rock was definitely heading toward the bottom. The alternative era revitalized rock music by first destroying the blights of the hair band days (overproduction, wanky musicianship, the whole live fast/die young ethos) and rebuilding it as something new and exciting again. But that wouldn't have happened if someone-like Sonic Youth-hadn't stood up and said, "The masses are asses, huh? Well, fuck that! We're taking our music to the people, and if they like it, cool, and if they don't...well, at least we tried."
Yeah, the main stream can be pretty shallow in some parts, but...I dunno, I've spent a good part of my late teens and early-to-mid 20s being a music snob and railing against the conventions of pop culture, but I've found the fringe to be a pretty lonely place and I've got ambitions that won't fit on it. Compromise is about two sides giving a little, so maybe if I want the mainstream to come to me, I need to go to them a bit.
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