by RICH ARITHMETIC
Editor’s Note: This is a lightly edited version of a piece that originally appeared in the 1980’s Cassette Culture Blog, September 24, 2026.
You know, it’s always struck me weird that when Grunge was so dominantly popular in the Nineties, it was called Alternative Music. I mean, what a misnomer, right? After all, the sheer popularity of Grunge meant that it was the mainstream, not the alternative. Which is why I tended to think of it as Alternative™.
Meanwhile, all the cool music of the late ’70s and Eighties that had previously been considered “alternative” because it didn’t fit neatly on commercial playlists still didn’t get much airplay, but it was no longer fashionable to call it “alternative.” For example, New Wave, Ska, Power Pop, Neo-Surf, Folk-Punk, Alt-Country, Retrobilly, etc. had been considered “alternative” before Grunge came along and took over sole ownership of the term.
And, then, there was also the alternative Paisley Underground — bands and artists who were delving into the psychedelic sounds of the Sixties and updating them. It was a movement that included a revival of Baroque Pop, which hadn’t been a popular presence since the late ’60s when bands like The Left Banke, The Moody Blues, The Zombies, The Beach Boys, and (of course) The Beatles all released popular songs that featured lush melodies and harmonies accompanied by classical instruments in addition to their rock-band foundations.
So it was that I began referring to all these genres as “The Alternative to Alternative™.”
And one of my favorites was Sam Phillips, who was not the famous 1950’s record producer who gave us Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash, and Roy Orbison. The “new” Sam Phillips was a hugely talented young singer-songwriter who wrote impeccable songs with intellectual impulses that challenged popular notions of pop music, truly making her music an alternative to Alternative™, and “Where the Colors Don’t Go” from 1991 was a Baroque Pop masterpiece. (Produced, by the way. by Sam’s future husband and all-around auteur, T Bone Burnett.)