The Music Industry Doesn't Know What It's Doing And Never Did (Chapter Eight Billion)

Last year saw a 20th anniversary release of The Joshua Tree, U2's stellar album that turned them into a mega-group. This year, we also have the release of a 25th anniversary edition of Michael Jackson's Thriller, an album whose impact on pop music's style and presentation remains to this day. Thriller is the only album in history to be the top-selling record for two consecutive years, 1983-84, and still sells more than 100,000 units a year.

Both albums are good, but before we get to patting the industry on the back for its wisdom in developing these two star attractions, let me look at another record marking its 25th anniversary this year, Jason and the Scorchers' Fervor. The Scorchers' second EP, it featured the blow-away hillbilly-meets-three-chord-crunch sound that would later get called "cowpunk" and help lead to an entire musical subgenre that I think is called alt-country. Singer Jason Ringenberg's high-lonesome whine somehow fit hand-in-glove with the kind of guitar and rhythm section work more likely to be found on albums owned by people in leather vests and pants rather than fringed shirts with cowboy yokes.

My own opinion is that the two fit so well because at their roots, rock and country derive from folk music that's pretty simple structurally compared with the work of great classical composers. They're lots more alike than they are different, in other words. In 1983, I didn't care; I just thought this cassette (!) kicked some major tuckus and I'm sure the guys who lived next door to me were as familiar with it as I was by the time I wore it out. I saw the Scorchers once, standing close enough to the front in the basement of Northwestern's Norris Student Center to risk getting clipped by a guitar when Warner Hodges started in one of his ridiculous spins or kicked in the head when Ringenberg started skittering his six-feet-plus of elbows, knees and boots around a very small stage. My ears are probably still ringing.

The Scorchers released two great EP's, four great albums (and one not-so-bad), a couple of different compilations and a live set. I think they had a video or two on MTV, too. Without them, I doubt there'd have ever been an "alt-country" movement, let alone country-rock hybrids like Big & Rich.

But somehow, none of the marketing minds within the records industry ever figured out a way to secure for them the ubiquity other acts had. They could break down the barrier between R&B and rock with Thriller and marry Americana roots music to Irish punk in The Joshua Tree. But giving the public a Ramones sound fronted by Hank Williams? That one was, at the time, too far out of the box.