Genre Classification(was Re: Turn Pale/Radio Berlin)

[manny at telerama.com]

College rock never came into use with music fans but it has been used as
a subgenre term esp by critics. It does not refer to Cure, Church,
Echo, etc - that is either *still* postpunk or it is neo-psychedelia etc.
There was a whole neo-psych movement (Rain Parade, Dream Syndicate) in the
80s, also the cowpunk movement (Green on Red, True Believers, etc)
and other things, but though people in college radio may have liked those
bands, those acts were not 'college rock' per se. Neo-psych begat today's
garage punk underground (the Cynics emerged from the first neo-psych wave)
and cowpunk begat alt-country. But college rock is something else.

Remember the days of WXXP *before* the common use of the term 'alternative
music' (Lollapalooza-style) when everything on the airwaves was jangly pop
and the music they were playing was referred to as 'modern rock' or po-mo?
"College rock" best describes the mid-80s jangly Byrds-ness carried forth
by REM, the Connells, The Replacements, Love Tractor, Let's Active, etc.
Also the kind of generic college radio rock bands that had one hit -
Translator's "Everywhere That I'm Not" being a good example. Today the worst
inheritors of that legacy might be bands like the Clarks (by the early 90s
there were oodles of jangle bands in every college town, hence 'college
rock'). I  fear that a lot of those 80s fans (the Scott Mervises of the
world, to use a succinct local reference point) grew up and in their
late 30s to early 40s are now into mellower forms of that stuff,
stretching from Radiohead and Coldplay to the adult-folk-rock stuff on
WYEP. 

Today's equivalent of 20-something 'college rock' has a bit more of a
hippie edge to it, from Hootie to Dave Matthews to Phish, etc and many
bands that sound like that. Oh boy, this has less and less goth content
and more jamband content the more I talk about it. I think we can conclude
that today's equivalent of college-rock is jam rock. Better stop now! ;)

On Thu, 11 Mar 2004 patricia at darksleep.com wrote:

> While we're on the subject, I've been lately chewing on the term "college
> rock", which came about after postpunk essentially split into new wave
> and, well, college rock. It was applied to such bands as The Cure, The
> Church, Echo and the Bunnymen, etc. (the bands who stayed more guitar
> oriented rather than going synth as most new wave did). What I'm wondering
> is, did this term ever come into popular usage with the fans of this
> music, and is it still appropriate to apply the term to newer bands who
> are reviving that sound, or has the term morphed a new meaning?
> 
> 
> -- 
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