From: aa765@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Chris Young)
Newsgroups: alt.rock-n-roll.metal.gnr
Subject: Re: Not quite right...
Date: 19 Nov 1992 23:12:42 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc12.ins.cwru.edu


Previously, TGERMAN@vax.cns.muskingum.edu ("Tom German") sayed:

aa765@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Chris Young) writes:

>Don't mind me butting in... I'm new to the network thing, but I love to get in
>on the GNR dialogue.

     Feel free to!

>I agree that GNR does what they want, but realistically, record management
>plays a strong part in what songs are released from an album--stronger than we
>might like to think.  GNR are the musicians and the artists.  They write from
>the heart about real experiences they've had.  They use their artistic license
>to decide if the song is a ballad, rocker, or whatever.
>
>When the record is cut, it's the marketing and promotions people who decide
>what will make a million dollars on the radio.  They have control in the end
>over what songs are released.  To you and me, it may not make much artistic
>sense, but it usually always makes good business sense.
>
>I'm not saying I'm in favor of the process, but for now it's a fact of life.
>To be honest, I thing the people at Geffen want to create the illusion that GNR
>does whatever they want by letting them say "fuck" in most of their songs, but
>when it comes down to the bottom line, the men in the three-piece suits decided
>that the 16-year-olds with their daddy's cars and jacked-up allowances will
>spend their bucks on "Yesterdays" rather than "Coma."

     This is a more realitic interpretation of the percieved
shift to 'more commercial' singles by GNR. Thanks for pointing
that out.

>Face it.  There aren't enough of us honest to goodness rock fans who appreciate
>diversity in music--or are there?  Maybe we just need to make our voices
>heard. That seems to be happening, as groups like Nirvana become mainstream,
>but someone sees "Smells Like Teen Spirit"  start to make some money, and all
>of a sudden it's totally commercialized until no one can stand it anymore.

     Plus, dozens of wannabe's and hang-ons (e.g. Ugly Kid
Joe) come on the scene to cash in on the music's new poplu-
larity.

>Sounds like Catch-22, doesn't it?

     Everything goes in cycles- the punkers of the late
seventies were a reaction to the overproduced, overblown,
glitzy 70's rock, and its bastard offspring, *disco*.

     So, in the early eighties, groups like the Clash and
the Police took some of the edge off hard-core Punk, and
had commercial success. Then followed a bunch of New Wave
bands (from Men Without Hats to INXS to Duran Duran).

     When this got too cheesy and commercial, Heavy Metal
reared its head in (or at least NEAR) the mainstream. Then,
bands like Poison, Bon Jovi, etc- the Glam-Rockers- made
the Heavy Metal image commercially appealing.

     See what I'm getting at? What I've always liked about
GNR was their simple, straightforward approach to Rock. It
sucks to see them go down the road to teeny-bopper commer-
cialism too...

>Incidentally, I'm in charge of the radio station at Muskingum College (WMCO
>90.7 fm) and this is the classic problem we face.  How do succeed on the air
>without bowing to Top 40 music.  We try to play different cuts from albums,
>like "Locomotive" or "Dead Horse".  We also play stuff you can't hear on most
>stations, like Jazz, Blues, or World Music.
>
>We may not be "popular" but we're proud.

     College radio will yet prove the Savior of American
Popular Music.

>I'd love feedback from anyone listening, because I think true GNR fans can
>relate.
-- 
                                             - C Young