College rock

"The return-to-simplicity credo was also the working principle for a scene that would develop on US college campuses in the late 1980s, known as "college rock." As an outgrowth of hardcore, this scene celebrated its lack of affiliation with major labels and corporations, as its music was circulated through small independent labels (or sometimes by the bands themselves), airplay on college radio stations, and live performances at clubs that formed a circuit on the country's most important college towns."

"I think [alternative rock becoming mainstream] made it worse [for bands]. It made it such big business. Made it harder to get played on most alternative stations. There was a lot of money to be made and they got a lot more focused and they started narrowing down their playlist to like twenty songs."

"Soon after punk hit, intense, speed-driven hardcore bands formed in California and New York and DC, and their fans built an infrastructure — a coast-to-coast network of clubs, mimeographed fanzines, college radio stations, record shops, and small record labels that would make indie possible. Some of them (Camper Van Beethoven, Pixies) sounded like the indie that would come after; some of them (Black Flag) didn’t. But the movement — whether called alternative rock, modern rock, college radio, or whatever — was now grounded."