(Entertainment-NewsWire.com, July 01, 2014 ) Ann Arbor, MI – Alternative radio turns 27 years old this year. That is a whole generation and for the Ipad crowd that seems like eons ago. For the young kids there hasn’t been a time when there wasn’t amazing video games, instant everything, and downloadable hi tech heaven. But it was in 1987, when the radio formats were forever changed when the doors were literally kicked wide apart by REM with the breakthrough album, “Document”. This album was sketchy at best with loud thumping anthems, (It’s The End Of The World As We Know It) and radio friendly songs, (The One I Love).
The popular news site, www.hotmetrofinds.com remembers the epic rise of REM and its landmark concert at Crisler Arena, Ann Arbor in Oct. 1987. It was after this performance that radio stations in the Midwest changed the formats and allowed other acts to enter into the American mainstream. Acts that followed REM after this period was Echo and the Bunnymen, INXS, The Cult, The Pogues, The Replacements, Midnight Oil, The Smiths, and many more. That is the focus on this article and it also asks some interesting questions from a historical point of view.
As Detroit goes through a series of change and many artists are calling it home one artist wants to put things in perspective. The sites creator, Ted Cantu, wants people to remember what is important in the sense of history. “The past is romanticized by ideas of what alternative radio really was all about. It was after finding the play lists of songs at the Ann Arbor 1987 and finding inaccuracies that the article began to take shape. This account of alternative radio is based on recollections, historical facts and the order of events from a first person perspective.”
The article also looks at a concert that took place in Ann Arbor twenty years earlier at the nearby Hill Auditorium. It was there that Andy Warhol came to town with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable Tour with the Velvet Underground. This was a multi sensory show with projections, music, lights and dancing. The article looks at audience perception and compares it to the REM show which in a way paid homage to the multi media presentation. The rise of Michael Stipe and REM also opened MTV up to new and upcoming independent sounds world wide.
About Your Hot Metro Finds: Hot Metro Finds delivers entertainment, music, arts, interesting pop culture commentary, concert information and interviews. There is also business insight and coupons for Metro Detroit businesses.
