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I think I remember this song. It seems familiar. YouTube recommended it based on other songs I was listening to. It was clearly popular. Do you remember it? What do you associate it with?

A great track from their debut album Emmerdale. I could listen to Nina Persson sing the phone book. There are 2 version of this video. I think this one is more interesting.

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What does "Alternative" mean? Obscurity? No Top 40 hits? Musical experimentation…something else? Can a band have "mainstream" success in one part of the world but be considered "alternative" somewhere else? Probably.

What do you think?

In the case of The Mutton Birds, this song spent six weeks at number one in New Zealand and several other songs and albums hit the Top 40 during their career. Abroad, there was almost no chart action, and I suspect that any airplay was on less mainstream airwaves. This was definitely true here in Australia. An exception is the cover of Blue Öyster Cult's, '(Dont Fear) The Reaper', that was on the soundtrack of the film The Frighteners, hitting #48 in Australia.

Formed in Auckland in 1991 by Don McGlashan (ex-Blam Blam Blam, as seen in a previous post in this Community) and David Long (who went on to work on the music for a bunch of Peter Jackson movies). They were joined by ex-members of Sneaky Feelings and Garageland , amongst others , during their existence.

No matter what your definition of Alternative music is, their four studio albums and various compilations and live albums have some great songs on them. This is one of them.

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Sebadoh should really be right up my alley. I don't know why, but at the time, I really struggled to get into them. I think I even went to one of their shows while I was on a trip to New Zealand, but I cannot tell you anything about it, only that I hung out with some Swedish people from Gothenburg, afterwards.

This is a good tune, though.

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Seeing as Daydream Nation is the album of the week on this community…

I only paid full attention to this band from New Brunswick when their first Sub Pop album came out in 1993. This song came a year later on their second album, which was rapidly followed by the last of their albums on the label, in 1995.

I did hear the odd track from Eric's Trip along the way and also some stuff from Julie Doiron, the bass player.

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San Diego's aMiniature (the "a" is not pronounced) is a super obscure band to me. Back in the 90s, I would sometimes hang out with a bass player who professed to loving them, but I could never find any of their records. On the streaming service I use, there is one album from 2022, which isn't listed on Discogs. None of the 3 albums that are on Discogs, seem to be on streaming…see Songwhip.

Anyway. There's some stuff on Yew/Youtube and I thought this track was good.

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Since being founded in 1988, The Meanies' fame has extended beyond the all-ages gigs and dingy rock pubs of Melbourne. It was reported that Eddie Vedder hand-picked them to support Pearl Jam for their first Australian tour in 1995. They supported a host of other touring acts, as well as playing shows outside of Australia, themselves.

10% Weird is short and sharp, like most of their tracks and a bit less shouty/more melodic than some. You can also catch a glimpse of the record store that was part of their label at the time, Au Go Go Records.

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No introduction needed for these fellas, I think. Great song/band/video. RIP, Adam Yauch.

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I associate Superchunk with reading music magazines that often got to my part of the world months after they were published. My limited budget for buying tunes was mostly allocated elsewhere, so it’s more recently I have realised that alongside a few tracks I heard on specialist radio programmes, Superchunk released a spate of pretty good and consistent albums, for most of the 1990s.

I definitely remember this song from a compilation or something.

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