Re: The Who Digest Vol 3 Num 74

[Lev Polinsky <polinsky@husc.harvard.edu>]

On Sun, 17 Mar 1996, James Marshall Boswell wrote:

> Mark,
<snip> 
> I particularly liked what you said about "Quad" defining Rock.  I would
> add that it is the last really great "Rock" album.  After "Quad," Rock
> just becomes an FM radio format, complete with a whole roster of bands who
> have done little more than mastered the sound without doing anything with
> the form (Journey, Styx, Foreigner, etc.).  The same thing is happening
> with so-called Alternative Rock right now.  These little sub-genre
> movements have a shelf life of about 8 to 10 years, it seems to me.  After
> that, they get coopted by opportunists who only want a niche in the
> market. Record executives like the latter part of these movemements, of
> course, for once the movement has become simply a "sound," they can better
> control the distribution of product.  Rock runs from about the 1965-era
> Who to the 1976 release of the first Boston album.  Alt Rock runs from
> R.E.M.'s "Murmur" in 1983 all the way to the first Stone Temple Pilots
> album.  What next?  Unfortunately, I'm a little too old to care. 
> 
> Marshall
> 
While perhaps agreeing with you on the idea, I must say there are 
exceptions to the chronology.  John Fogerty's Centerfield, e.g, which is a 
superb rock album, if a bit of an anachronism, came out in 1986...