Customer #1: Do you see the latest from FRENTE here? I don't see it.
Customer #2: It should be in the ALTERNATIVE ROCK section. (going to alternative rock section:) Here it is. It's here in ALTERNATIVE ROCK.
Customer #1: Cool...There's FRENTE.
Some thoughts come to mind, thinking about this conversation now:
- I still wonder if the record store hired those two people to pose as shoppers and talk up current music that the store was trying to sell. Even the most self-consciously cool people didn't emphasize artist names and musical genres in their everyday speech so blatantly.
- The modern rock station here, KPNT, was attracting a solid audience then, so I imagine exposure on that station alone to Frente's cover of New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle" would have been enough to drive shoppers in.
- Considering how many people in the same age range listened to so-called alternative rock, a lot of it wasn't a true alternative to the mainstream. (That contradiction reminds me of a conversation I witnessed in college; one student was touting the benefits, without irony, of being in "a fraternity for nonconformists.") In the early '90s, certain magazines and radio stations classified Peter Gabriel and 10,000 Maniacs as alt-rock artists, and I suppose they were, technically. Still, if there has to be an industry label on it, "modern rock," the term media outlets adopted later in the '90s, is a better, more accurate term.
- The day after I heard this pitch for Frente, I mentioned it to a co-worker. Later that week, he said, "I went music shopping yesterday, and I saw the section for Frente. I considered shouting it out."
