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The 'adult alternative' pop music and radio format of the 1990's

i feel like this stuff is still under-theorized as a sociocu...
,.,..,.,..,.,.,.,..,.,.,,..,..,.,,..,.,,.
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things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
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things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
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i feel like it represented the post-cold war totalization of...
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things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
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there were also bands in other genres which saw the rise of ...
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things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
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Toad the Wet Sprocket sucked.
animeboi
  03/09/26
Wait -
things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/09/26
what if God was one of us? just a slob like one of us?
kike coffin
  03/09/26
philosophy is just the talk on the cereal box.
animeboi
  03/09/26
...
things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/09/26
good call. that song came out in 1989 and sort of presages t...
kike coffin
  03/09/26
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things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/09/26
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things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/09/26
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things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/09/26
This shit was king in that weird interregnum between grunge ...
Big Clique Energy
  03/09/26
180
things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/09/26
Lmao
cowgod
  03/09/26
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things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/09/26
it was still big in the 00's for a while. matchbox twenty, ...
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things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
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Good call, there was that last cohort of white people who wa...
Big Clique Energy
  03/10/26
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things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/10/26
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richard clock
  03/10/26
tbh pearl jam was already kinda soy and paved the way for sh...
cooked unc
  03/10/26
Funny I don’t really like Pearl Jam but love Eddie Ved...
things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/10/26
Lmao, I’d forgotten it’s a statue sitting at a t...
things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/10/26
They all copied his voice — Silverchair, Candlebox, ST...
Big Clique Energy
  03/10/26
Been a while since I listened to silverchair diorama, ty
things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/10/26
who will saAAAAaave your soul
richard clock
  03/10/26
18000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/10/26
Train, Nora Jones, pretty much whatever we want.
Candy Ride
  03/10/26
...
things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:
  03/10/26


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Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:04 PM
Author: ,.,..,.,..,.,.,.,..,.,.,,..,..,.,,..,.,,.


i feel like this stuff is still under-theorized as a sociocultural and marketing phenomenon. superficially, it was the music industry's pivot from the 'adult contemporary' format which was struggling after the 80's. but it grew well beyond that into a sprawling industry with some of the best-selling albums in US history, like hootie's first record.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730628)



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Date: March 9th, 2026 10:51 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730942)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:04 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730629)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:09 PM
Author: ,.,..,.,..,.,.,.,..,.,.,,..,..,.,,..,.,,.


i feel like it represented the post-cold war totalization of pop culture into a specific set of products. 'adult alternative' wasn't really a single coherent sound or category; it was a kind of catch-basin for different marketing goals. 'grunge' was too harsh for a lot of consumers, so they got grunge-'adjacent' acts like counting crows and collective soul instead.

'jam bands' were too diffuse and difficult to edit for radio, so the AA format developed DMB and blues traveler and so on.

the riot girl stuff was too unpolished, but AA could take some of those notions and fold them into sheryl crow and melissa etheridge and so forth.

'roots rock' was too niche. bring in hootie. and on and on.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730641)



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Date: March 9th, 2026 9:18 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730669)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:30 PM
Author: ,.,..,.,..,.,.,.,..,.,.,,..,..,.,,..,.,,.


there were also bands in other genres which saw the rise of AA and said "give me some of that." goo goo dolls, for example. they started back in the 80's as a metal-adjacent rock band. they decided at some point around 1992 that they did not want to compete with the grunge acts, and they polished their sound into smoother rock-based power-pop, eg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRbWasL1kac

this did okay for them, but they knew they could go further. and that's what they did by 1995, with their first AA mega-hit ('Name').

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730705)



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Date: March 9th, 2026 9:40 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730732)



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Date: March 9th, 2026 9:09 PM
Author: animeboi (.)

Toad the Wet Sprocket sucked.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730640)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:18 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:

Wait -

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730670)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:11 PM
Author: kike coffin

what if God was one of us? just a slob like one of us?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730650)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:13 PM
Author: animeboi (.)

philosophy is just the talk on the cereal box.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730658)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:18 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730671)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:24 PM
Author: kike coffin

good call. that song came out in 1989 and sort of presages the format OP talks about by 5 or 6 years.

i love 'What I Am', though. it's of a higher quality than 'Dishwalla' and the AC stuff that came in the 90s.

one of the few guitar-based top-40 songs of the era that was not a 'hard rock'/Alt rock crossover, just straight pop rock. it gives you a sense of what 80s/90s top 40 would have sounded like if it had never been 'Urbanized.' if the cultural currents that produced 70s 'soft rock' had persisted.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730693)



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Date: March 9th, 2026 9:39 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730730)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:18 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730674)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:18 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730675)



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Date: March 9th, 2026 9:21 PM
Author: Big Clique Energy

This shit was king in that weird interregnum between grunge and nu metal. It was like “we can’t go from Pearl Jam to Limp Bizkit right away, so here’s some Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730688)



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Date: March 9th, 2026 9:39 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:

180

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730731)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:40 PM
Author: cowgod

Lmao

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730735)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 9th, 2026 9:51 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730766)



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Date: March 9th, 2026 9:43 PM
Author: ,.,..,.,..,.,.,.,..,.,.,,..,..,.,,..,.,,.


it was still big in the 00's for a while. matchbox twenty, for example. in fact, i'd say that coldplay was the last huge AA act. those guys eventually got edged out by pop-rap and other genres.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730748)



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Date: March 9th, 2026 9:51 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49730767)



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Date: March 10th, 2026 11:55 AM
Author: Big Clique Energy

Good call, there was that last cohort of white people who wanted new rock but was turned off by the Scumminess of nu metal. So the AA genre limped along a few more years.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731645)



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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:21 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731738)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 10th, 2026 12:05 PM
Author: richard clock



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731674)



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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:07 PM
Author: cooked unc

tbh pearl jam was already kinda soy and paved the way for shittier post-grunge bands

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731680)



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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:21 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:

Funny I don’t really like Pearl Jam but love Eddie Vedder’s 2? Solo acoustic albums (into the wild and the one with the album cover at the bottom of the ocean)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731903)



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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:28 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:

Lmao, I’d forgotten it’s a statue sitting at a typewriter underwater, highly ZOZO-coded tp

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731922)



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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:26 PM
Author: Big Clique Energy

They all copied his voice — Silverchair, Candlebox, STP, Collective Soul, Bush etc.

I don’t care for PJ but Eddie Vedder was the most influential / ripped-off rock vocalist since like Robert Plant.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731920)



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Date: March 10th, 2026 1:29 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:

Been a while since I listened to silverchair diorama, ty

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731925)



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Date: March 10th, 2026 12:05 PM
Author: richard clock

who will saAAAAaave your soul

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731673)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 10th, 2026 12:22 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:

18000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731739)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 10th, 2026 1:18 PM
Author: Candy Ride

Train, Nora Jones, pretty much whatever we want.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731891)



Reply Favorite

Date: March 10th, 2026 1:19 PM
Author: things from the 90s/00s so ethereal and dreamlike:



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5843757&forum_id=2#49731899)