Blog: NPR Music: Monitor Mix

Remember that underachieving genre known as college rock? The bands themselves weren't slackers -- a musical term that didn't even exist back then -- but as a genre it felt painted into a corner, never to reach an audience beyond viewers of MTV's 120 Minutes , fanzine readers and CMJ aficionados. A conversation I recently had at a barbecue revolved around who was the first college-rock band. We settled on R.E.M. The Smiths, I would argue, were the other pillar of the genre, while The Replacements and Husker [...]