1991 - The Year Music Changed

 

There are many great years in the history of postmodern music that stand out because of the music that was released in that particular year. Albums like Metallica (The Black Album), Guns n’ Roses (Use Your Illusion I and II), U2 (Actung Baby), Ozzy Osbourne (No More Tears), R.E.M (Out of Time), Pearl Jam (Ten), Soundgarden (Badmotorfinger) and Nirvana (Nevermind). With releases like these and many more, 1991 has become one of those years. But it is actually more than a year for great music. 1991 should be considered a watershed year because of an entirely non-musical technological innovation. 

Before we get into 1991, let me explain what I mean by a watershed year. A watershed year is a year where an event happens that changes the way we do or think about something. So what changed in 1991 that made us change the way we thought about music? 

In the May 25th issue of Billboard Magazine described the traditional methods of how their data was gathered as a way to introduce their new partnership with an outside music research firm called Soundscan. They used a point-of-sale method, scanning a barcode on the album or CD at the time of sale. Each barcode scan would equal one sale. This allowed for a new degree of accuracy in compiling sales statistics. 

The Billboard charts, for those who may not be familiar with them, are the most important gauge on how well an album or a single is doing at any given time. Back in the day, Billboard would call up a selection of record stores and some radio stations and ask what was selling well that week. This was not really that accurate and the data would sometimes be skewed by personal bias and such. What Soundscan bought was a level of accuracy that was not possible before. And along with that accuracy came some surprises.

Up until 1991, the charts were basically populated with established Baby Boomer acts. By mid 1991, rock was enjoying an upswing after a few years of pop dominance. By August, more than a third of the artists in the top ten were rock acts. Many were also veteran artists who had just released a new album. Some insiders were cautious of the upswing saying that rock was hibernating. However, that was about to change. 

With this new system, some surprising data was coming in. The market was no longer looking at Baby Boomer established acts dominating the charts. Soundscan showed that marginalized genres such as country music were being purchased. Along with country, new genres were making their way onto the charts.Those genres were grunge and rap.

The music that was slowly making its way onto the charts did not really have a name yet. It was just known as alternative music. The audience generating and fueling this new music were the children of Baby Boomers that would eventually be labeled as Generation X.  Gen X was growing up and growing disillusioned with what their parents and society as a whole was giving them. In a world where the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism promised a bright, new world where anything was possible. Instead Gen X’s dealt with Boomers who abandoned their 1960s ideals of peace of love for building companies and bank accounts. Gen X wanted their own voice and their own music. They wanted music that was based on what was really going on in the world, not the bloated excess that had heavily inserted itself into music by the end of the 1980s. They wanted authenticity.

Here too, SoundScan played a role. Generation X may have shown their authenticity through their culture and music, but SoundScan helped bring that music to the mainstream through its own authentic methods. The piece count system highlighted some genres that may have been overlooked by what the mainstream believed to be  popular. What is popular was gauged by the ever-important Billboard Magazine charts. Billboard and SoundScan work together to show the labels what people were buying, and then the record labels begin to promote these artists, thus confirming what was popular through the buying choices made by the fans. 

Grunge and rap were seen as authentic forms of music based on real-life experiences, and fans of these artists saw the realness of the music. Once SoundScan could authenticate the genres' popularity, the format began to change the charts. Some writers and commentators have claimed that SoundScan quickly steered the music industry into a new direction. There is some truth to this statement. SoundScan did alter the way music was looked at by the mainstream media and record labels and thus allowed for music to breathe, allowing new genres like rap and grunge to make their way onto the established charts. 

Most articles written about SoundScan claim that it “turned the music industry on its ear.” This is accurate, but only to a certain extent. Indeed, genres like grunge and rap may not have received the exposure they did without SoundScan. By the end of the 1980s, the music industry was firmly entrenched with classic rock and MOR pop music. Grunge and rap were on the fringes of the industry. They would not have been considered for any serious promotion without SoundScan proving definitively that these genres were gaining traction. 

If one looks at the fact that these genres were able to reach the Top 200 at all, then it can be said that the music industry was “turned on its ear.” One example of an artist  that probably would not have made it to the Top 200 without SoundScan would be N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitude) and their second album Efil4zzaggin (“Niggas4Life” spelled backward.) Efil4zzaggin entered the Billboard Top 200 for the week ending 15 June 1991 at number two. The following week it took the number-one spot, the first album by a rap group ever to do so. The week that N.W.A. took the number one spot, five other rap albums were on the Top 200 chart. N.W.A. acknowledged SoundScan had a direct influence on their success, saying. “Thanks to SoundScan, this is the first No. 1 record we’ve ever had.”

However, despite new artists breaking into the Top 200, Baby Boomer music still had a decent grip on the charts. In the week of 4 January 1992, a week before Nirvana’s Nevermind reached number one, the top five albums in the Top 200 were Boyz II Men, Michael Bolton, (M.C.) Hammer. Garth Brooks and Michael Jackson. And so, the revolution may have been less sudden and sweeping than some commentators have allowed.

However, the longevity of these artists on the Billboard charts tells a more accurate story. If one looks at the length of time these artists remained on the charts, aside from the fact that they may have made it to the top spot, one begins to see a more accurate and extensive impact of SoundScan. N.W.A. and Efil4zaggin remained on the charts for forty-four weeks. Grunge made a good show in the longevity department as well. Nirvana’s Nevermind consecutively remained on the charts for 250 weeks (5 years), and Pearl Jam’s Ten nearly matched it with 245 weeks. 

SoundScan directly impacted the sales and popularity of these albums and consequently advanced the careers of their creators. SoundScan forced the music industry to see what was being purchased in the record stores and thus had no choice but to promote these albums if they were to stay relevant with their markets. How SoundScan impacted the music industry over the long duration is what matters. As stated earlier, these genres remained on the charts for months or years, showing the music industry that room could be made for new genres without the listening audience suddenly abandoning well established genres. Grunge and rap elbowed their way onto the charts, aided by SoundScan, but did not immediately displaced pop and rock. Mainstream pop and rock held on firmly to their market share in the early 1990s, while grunge and hip-hop were still considered alternative. 

There is another side to SoundScan’s effect on grunge and rap. As record labels and mainstream media discovered these genres, they rushed to jump on the bandwagon to appear to have known about them the whole time. The issue is that once a genre becomes widespread, the music industry co-opts it, and it immediately becomes about how much money can be made from it. At that point, the main message of the music is lost in the wave of popularity. When rebellion becomes mainstream, the rebellion is gone. Once SoundScan had justified what the grunge and rap communities were saying, the community became commodified. People got rich. Some took the money and ran; the rest wondered what had happened.

 Sources for this article include: 

Billboard Magazine, https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Billboard-Magazine.htm

Greg Prato, Grunge is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music, (Toronto: ECW Press, 2009).

Mark Yarm, Everyone Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge, (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2011).