Buddy Holly never wrote a song called "We're Too Punk" by Jon Worley
One of my vocations is "hack music critic". I write semi-literate descriptions of totally obscure albums and disseminate this information on the Aiding & Abetting web page. On a good week, 5,000 people stop by to read my musings.
Everybody keeps asking me, "What's the next big thing?" I wish I had an answer. The last big musical coalescence came with the release of Nirvana's "Nevermind" in September 1991. That success, and the rather slower breakout of fellow Seattle scene vets Pearl Jam, signaled the end of indie rock as we knew it. All of a sudden, great bands like Jawbox, Green Day and Bad Religion had deals with Atlantic Records, and plenty of other cool indie bands fed at the teat of the major label cash cow. I'm not even going to talk about the scene I caused when I saw Hank Rollins's mug on the cover of Seventeen.
The only band I know of to go against this flow is Superchunk. When Matador Records (the band's label at the time) scored a distribution deal with Atlantic, the band left. It now releases its album on Merge Records, which is owned by members of the band. This noble exception in no way excuses the rest of the money whoring.
This heyday of the "alternative nation" ran until the fall of 1995, when Green Day's follow-up to "Dookie" stiffed in the stores. I was in Berkeley a couple weeks after that release and was shocked that it couldn't even crack the top ten of the local stores. Also that fall, Melissa Etheridge's latest shipped platinum and returned gold.
"Not to worry", the major label fiends told us. "We've got great new albums by R.E.M., Pearl Jam and U2 for 1996. Life is good." Well, not really. None of those new albums has sold a million yet, and I can't even find the new U2 in many places. Of course, I lost interest in U2 10 years ago, but there's my elitist music critic ego going off again.
So what's going to be huge in 1997? After the mega publicity surrounding the short-lived Van Halen reunion, not to mention the monster buckage on the Kiss reunion/makeup tour, major labels read a resurgent interest in 1980s glam metal. Ratt and Poison have reformed, and even Vince Neil has rejoined the Crue (replacement singer John Corabi will now be playing rhythm guitar, at least while he still gets a check). God knows the Scorpions are due for another one. The CMC label has done nicely the past couple years with new albums from Warrant and Quiet Riot, among others. I wouldn't be surprised to see one of the big boys (probably Polygram; I mean, they only blew $150 million or so on the whole Casablanca thing years ago) take a flyer on that pipeline.
I know, I know. You want to know what good music will be big this year. The easiest call is the new Chemical Brothers album, which comes out in a month or so. The buzz surrounding the single "Setting Sun" is the biggest I've seen since "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (no, really), and the band has never put out a bad record. Now, this is what I'd call fairly uncommercial fare (electro-jazz-jungle-rap-rock-whathaveyou), but that song should sell five million records, easy.
After that, the picture is murkier. Girls Against Boys is scheduled to make its big league debut. And we're due for a new sort of rap sound (some of the noises from the native tongue camp have been encouraging) to really kick up in the market place. Actually, we're due for a whole big shakeup. And the best part about it is that we probably won't hear it for another year. I mean, when Guns N' Roses was the Big Thing in 1988, no one remembered that the album came out in the summer of 1987 (I bought it the day it was released, and I have the dated receipt to prove it).
For the record, the best stuff I've heard this year is by a band called Cradle of Filth. Operatic black metal, with male and female vocals, washes of gothic keyboards, violins and other strange stuff, amplified to the hilt. Fans of acts as diverse as the Cure and Darkthrone are buying it up. Of course, it probably won't be a hit with the Hootie crowd.
It's musical taste like this that keeps me from getting that cush Rolling Stone gig.
Jon Worley is creator of Aiding & Abetting, a webzine found at http://cent.com/abetting. For the record, his favorite musical act is the guy he still calls Prince. He would like to thank Lawnmower Deth for the use of their song title.