Brad Stengel

Hmmm...I've thought about that, but the alternative explosion in the early 90's was much more far reaching. If you look at the charts, it's still the post-grunge/alternative dinosaurs that rule. Think about the biggest rock bands in the world.

For example, I found a list of the best selling albums of the year so far, and if we are to filter out the hip-hop and pop....

Coldplay: formed 1998
Kid Rock: breakout album 1998
AC/DC: formed 1973
Metallica: formed 1981

That's not to say being "indie" is equivelant to outsider...I don't think it ever has.

And think about the last few HUGE rock bands constantly played on the radio: Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nickelback, Creed, Linkin Park...this is the equivalent of Ratt, Motley Crue, and Poison owning the charts in 1996...which as we know was not the case...instead it was a bunch of alterna-posers, an amount of which isn't nearly enough to warrant any comparisons to the early 90's explosion.

Then again, Radiohead is arguably more popular now than when they released OK Computer, and the local Boston station WBCN who's been rehashing the same alterna-hits/post grunge shite the last 10 years just went out of business, so who knows.

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