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Watershed moments

Discussion in 'General Discussions' started by Baraka_Guru, Apr 20, 2012.

  1. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    List a watershed moment that you admire. It can be anything—art, industry, politics, history, nature.... List a moment that was a turning point or a point of no return.

    I'll go first.

    A watershed moment in music:

    [With material from Wikipedia]

    On August 27, 1991, a song by an up-and-coming rock band was issued to the radio two weeks before it was released as a single. It didn't chart at first, and only had regional success. Overall, it wasn't expected to be a success, as it was intended to merely build an audience for the rest of the album.

    However, campus radio and modern rock stations picked up on the song and gave it heavy rotation. In the words of a member of the band's management company, "none of us heard it as a crossover song, but the public heard it and it was instantaneous [. . .] They heard it on alternative radio, and then they rushed out like lemmings to buy it."

    What happened next ensured the track's commercial and critical success: the video received its world premiere on MTV, and proved so popular that the channel began to air it during its regular daytime rotation.

    Both the song and its album became a rare cross-format phenomenon, reaching all the major rock radio formats including modern rock, hard rock, album rock, and college radio.

    The song came at a transitional time in rock. The nineties followed a period of New Wave, hair/glam metal, and punk rock. It came at a time when alternative rock was set to explode. This song proved to be the spark alternative rock needed, propelling it into the mainstream.

    The song is distinctive in its now legendary and deceptively simple four-chord riff, making it instantly recognizable.

    The song is "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from the album Nevermind by Nirvana. The album went diamond in the U.S., having sold over 10 million copies. To date, over 30 million copies have sold worldwide.

    Smells Like Teen Spirit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2012
    Baraka_Guru, Apr 20, 2012
    #1
  2. rogue49

    rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

    Location:
    Baltimore/DC
    The announcement of Dolly The Sheep (February 22, 1997)
    The first mammal to be cloned.

    From wikipedia...
    I remember I was 26, a tech at the end of a graveyard shift at a hospital.
    I was BS'ing with a friend, when I caught it on the Morning News.

    After watching it, I shivered...
    Like I had just watched the first Atomic Bomb exploded.
    The implications and consequences were profound and immediately apparent.

    I admire their brillance for doing it.
    And I remember that day even now and how I felt.
    It will change our world.
     
    rogue49, Apr 20, 2012
    #2
  3. Zen

    Zen Very Tilted

    Location:
    London
    1979 and the TEAC 144 Portastudio.

    We are The Music Business; We are Destroyers of Dreams
    I'm being arbitrary as I choose this product. I think of Steinberg's introduction of Pro 16 a few years later, along with Recently deceased (April 8 2012 RIP) Jack Trameil and his development of the Tramiel Operating System which was the heart and soul of the magical Atari ST range, which gave us a solid programming base and MIDI timing so solid that it still bests present PC. The Simulanalog project which broke the valve-emulation barrier. PJ geerlings who cracked in softwear the emulation of tonewheels ... the soul of the prodigious Hammond Organs.

    I had to put one 'moment' first, but all these and more were funnelling to general access the sounds which previously cost more than one person could normally access.

    It had to be in the early 80s I was introduced to the Portastudio. The world inside my head could, at long last, be, to some extent, externalised in sound. A bit later, I was sat in front of an ATARI, with CUBASE 1 - the first program with a Graphic interface rather than need to do number input. I could see my thoughts extending into rectangles. Then I could cut, copy and paste them. I could also go into the guts of my notes and edit them AFTER THE EVENT! This was Epiphane, Deus ex Machina, Armageddon, Walpurgisnacht and my teddy's birthday all rolled into one.

    This was a revolution in access to creative tools.
    This was a Second Gutenberg.
     
    Zen, Apr 21, 2012
    #3