https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=playlist
The mid-nineteen-nineties was not a time with out irony. You could recall that, again then, “different” rock had not solely gone mainstream, however, in sure areas, had even grow to be the preferred style of music on the radio. That was definitely true within the Seattle space, the place I grew up. And when you wished to start out a rock band there, as author Adam Cadre remembers, you knew what steps you needed to take: “get a file deal, make a video, get it on 120 Minutes, have it grow to be a Buzz Clip, surprise why huge success doesn’t ease the aching void inside.”
Should you obtained into bands like 10,000 Maniacs, Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M., The Replacements, the Pixies, the Offspring, or Sonic Youth within the mid-nineties (to say nothing of a sure trio referred to as Nirvana), likelihood is — statistically talking, a minimum of — that you simply first noticed them on 120 Minutes.
On the peak of its recognition on MTV, the present outlined the alternative-rock zeitgeist, introducing new bands in addition to bringing new waves of listeners to present ones. Although most strongly related to the nineties, it premiered in 1986, hosted by three of the primary MTV VJs, J. J. Jackson, Martha Quinn, and Alan Hunter. 36 years later, you’ll be able to relive the whole lot of 120 Minutes‘ seventeen-year run (with a quick revival within the twenty-tens) on Youtube.
A consumer named Chris Reynolds has created a playlist that seems to include each track ever aired on 120 Minutes. (These have been documented by The 120 Minutes Archive, beforehand featured right here on Open Tradition.) Among the many playlist’s greater than 2,500 movies are songs — Violent Femmes’ “Kiss Off,” The Psychedelic Furs’ “Love My Approach,” Pearl Jam’s “Alive,” Fishbone’s “On a regular basis Sunshine,” R.E.M.’s “Stand” — that may take you again to the pop-cultural eras 120 Minutes spanned. However there are much more — Manufacture’s “Because the Finish Attracts Close to,” Lloyd Cole and the Commotions’ “Jennifer She Mentioned,” Helmet’s “Milquetoast,” Trigger and Impact’s “You Assume You Know Her” — that you could be effectively have missed, even when you rocked your manner by the eighties and nineties.
Associated content material:
Watch the First Two Hours of MTV’s Inaugural Broadcast (August 1, 1981)
Nirvana Refuses to Mime Alongside to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on High of the Pops (1991)
William S. Burroughs — Various Rock Star — Sings with Kurt Cobain, Tom Waits, REM & Extra
Primarily based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and tradition. His initiatives embrace the Substack publication Books on Cities, the guide The Stateless Metropolis: a Stroll by Twenty first-Century Los Angeles and the video collection The Metropolis in Cinema. Observe him on Twitter at @colinmarshall, on Fb, or on Instagram.