Spin Alternative Record Guide
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There’s no turning back. For better (punk’s democratic ethic gets broadcast to the masses) or worse (can you say Ticketmaster?) a little record called Nevermind changed everything. The ambitious Spin Alternative Record Guide (subtitled “The Essential Artists and Albums of Punk, New Wave, Indie Rock, and Hip Hop”) sets out to map the post-Nirvana universe, inhabited by ancestors like the evil genius Lou Reed and descendants like the brain-dead poseurs Stone Temple Pilots. The book’s Darwinian approach is redeemed by the inclusion of my (and Eddie Vedder’s) favorite band: Seattle’s fun-lovin’ garage rock heroes the Fastbacks, who for 16 years have plugged away for little glory and less money to hash out some of the most honest, free-spirited artworks of the postwar era.
Editors Eric Weisbard and Craig Marks–along with a slew of contributors like Brit Simon Reynolds, the Village Voice’s Ann Powers, and the hilarious Rob Sheffield–have compiled an easy-to-use canon, rating records on a one-to-ten scale and including top-ten lists from luminaries like Joey Ramone (whose roster includes his own It’s Alive). And through in-depth coverage of world music, they’ve painted a portrait of the alternative nation as a group of multi-culti sophisticates who have spent more time grooving to third world dissidents than lamenting Evan Dando’s haircut.
Speaking of shopping, the idealist in me wants to see this project as a history of sorts, while the realist devil on my shoulder knows that it’s only a buyer’s guide, reducing, on one level, the shouts that changed my life into objects of acquisition. Gina Arnold, citing Simon Frith, writes that “the question for rock musicians isn’t how to live without capitalism, but how to live within it.” Once, after a Nirvana show I caught outside of Dublin, I walked in a procession of Irish teenagers chanting a raucous a cappella “Smells Like Teen Spirit” all the way back to town. But their rowdy solidarity, translated into pounds exchanged for dollars, lines David Geffen’s bulging pockets to this day. How many times have you sat on some boho record geek’s couch listening to his (and it’s usually a boy) rants against yuppie materialism while he pushes play on a $25 import? We’ll not resolve these quandaries anytime soon. But here’s Eric Weisbard’s hint, and I’m with him all the way: “The Fastbacks offer the answer for a song.”
