Barrett Media produces over 20 stories per day on the music, news, and sports media industries. To make sure you’re updated on the latest happenings across the media business, sign up for our newsletters to get the news delivered straight to your inbox.
Full disclosure: I’m a P1 Alternative listener. I listen to a lot of Alternative radio, and I have been heavily dedicated to that format for decades. I grew up in a pretty rural area that was heavy with AC, Top 40, and Country stations, so when I first saw the video for Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” on MTV, it was like every GIF you’ve ever seen where someone mimes their brain exploding. I was instantly hooked by this different-sounding, emotionally charged music that spoke to me in ways that Top 40 never had.
I got into radio shortly thereafter, so I played a lot of the huge ’90s-era Alternative mainstay tracks and artists as either currents or recurrents. At first, it was fun to take that stroll down Memory Lane and recall where and when I was when I first played a particular song on air. But now? I just feel old. And it feels monotonous.
A few years ago, I tried to do some rough calculations on how many times I’d heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” especially factoring in how much time I’d spent listening to the format and cross-referencing how often it usually gets played on-air. I think I arrived somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 times.
As I look at the Mediabase format airplay chart for the week of September 17-23, I see a ton of familiar names. Linkin Park, a band that first broke almost 25 years ago, is back at #1 (admittedly with a new lead singer). Jack White is at #5, a name we first learned in the late 1990s as part of The White Stripes.
Looking down the chart, I see such names as Sum 41 (debuted in 2001), Sublime, a name from 1992 – who also admittedly was quiet for many, many years – and The Offspring, who broke through in 1994. Other notable ‘90s artists currently climbing the Alt chart include Smashing Pumpkins, Blink-182, 311, Green Day, and Jane’s Addiction. The Foo Fighters’ recent singles have fallen into recurrent, although I did see them live this summer in their biggest U.S. show ever. (Shout out to my current home of Denver.)
My point in all this meandering? It brings me back to a question I’ve been asking for years: Who are the new core artists in Alternative? We keep reaching back to the ‘90s and including these artists not just as power gold, but also now as currents. Since we’re hitting 30th-anniversary observances on a lot of the formative albums of the format, we’ve gotten to the point where Classic Rock is now dipping very heavily into our well.
And now, with the launch of Classic Alternative stations that seem like the “second next” generation of Classic Rock (since one could argue that the first next generation of Classic Rock is ‘80s and early ‘90s rock, like what you hear on SiriusXM’s Classic Rewind), we’re publicizing that the material is older and being borrowed by other formats.
I’ve asked this question a lot over the past few years. When I do, a lot of programmers usually just pause and say something along the lines of “Huh. That’s a good question…” and try to talk through some options while also talking themselves out of the names they’ve put forth. The responses usually sound something like this:
- The Killers: Yes, still going strong, but when did their first album come out? Wow, Hot Fuss is 20 years old, and we’re still playing stuff off that album. I guess it’s not that much older than the original core artists mentioned. They’re putting out new stuff… but so are all those other ‘90s and 2000s bands, like Blink and Offspring, etc.
- Cage The Elephant: This might be a contender since they’ve put out some solid material for the format. But they did blow up in 2009, so they’re already 15 years old for the format—not like they’re a “new” core artist. They’ve been consistent for Alt, though.
- Twenty One Pilots: Definitely an artist to consider, since they didn’t really get traction until the mid-2010s (Ed. Note: 2015 to be exact), but we’re sharing a fair amount of their music with other formats now, so I’m not sure we can claim them specifically as ours. I sometimes hear 21P on Top 40 and Hot AC.
- Imagine Dragons: Also a mid-2010s band that we might consider due to their relative newness (Ed. Note: Imagine Dragons hit it big in 2012) and they certainly are pumping out radio hits, but we definitely don’t own this one anymore. Imagine Dragons probably has more spread than any other Alternative artist right now – I hear them on Top 40, Hot AC, even Active Rock….
So what’s the answer? Who will be the next wave of Alt mainstays, the artists we can really own in the format who weren’t around 15 or 25 (or more) years ago? Who are we nurturing to dominate for the next 10-15 years? At this point, your guess is as good as mine.
A former air personality and industry journalist, Keith Berman worked at the late Radio & Records for several years, where he held a number of positions before being promoted to format editor. While at R&R, he also served as a writer and reporter, covering breaking news; authoring weekly columns, format roundups and features; and contributing heavily to Street Talk Daily. When R&R folded, he co-founded RAMP (Radio and Music Pros) and spent 3 years covering radio and record labels before taking a hiatus from the industry. His experiences also include time on-air at stations in Connecticut, Boston and Southern California. He can be reached at KeithBerman@gmail.com.
