In the 1960s, rock festivals such as Woodstock were seen as the culmination of rock and Altamont as the ending of the hippie culture. In the 1990s, two alternative music festivals were the launchings of the alt-culture of the decade: Lollapalooza and Lilith Fair.
Lollapalooza, meaning “an extraordinary or unusual thing or event,” was as impactful in raising awareness of alternative rock and grunge as any artist of the decade.
Founded in 1990 by Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, this new concept was to create an ensemble tour – with several bands traveling to a series of venues throughout North America. Primarily recruiting alt-rock/grunge bands, the 1991 inaugural tour of Lollapalooza had seven bands, including Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Colour, Butthole Surfers, and rapper Ice-T with his thrash metal band, Body Count.
The Lollapalooza launch covered 21 cities in North America during the summer of 1991, played to over 430,000 people, and grossed over $10 million. Though primarily a stylistic nod to the post-punk, early grunge sounds, the concert tour also featured Ice T’s rapping, Body Count’s metal set, and Nine Inch Nails industrial rock. The diverse elements of Farrell’s band, Jane’s Addiction, drew from rock, country, folk, punk, Latin, and even Arabic music. Non-conformist and anti-mainstream, Lollapalooza 1991 was the perfect launching of the alternative movement.
By the following year, Lollapalooza ’92 had not only grown from 21 to 36 cities but had increased its total audience to over 800,000 and almost doubled its gross income to nearly $19 million. Accompanying the alternative culture of music was a phalanx of socially active non-musical participants: PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), Greenpeace (climate change awareness), ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition or Unleash Power), Rock the Vote (voter registration), the Cannabis Action Network, the Coalition for the Homeless, and other anti-war, anti-poverty, anti-racism groups had joined the traveling caravan. The ’92 Lollapalooza now included Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, and others. The “alternative” sounds were quickly becoming mainstream on the charts and in America’s cultural consciousness. Like the ’50s sound of Presley, Berry, Holly, and Little Richard, it could no longer be ignored or minimized. The Lollapalooza tours packaged the protest messages of early ’60s Greenwich Village coffee houses into radical sounds and part of a new counterculture cavalcade.
By the mid-’90s, almost every alt-artist who had achieved any status had played an iteration of Lollapalooza. However, by the late ’90s, what had started as a counterculture celebration had settled into a middle-aged complacency that would ultimately doom its innovative spirit. Nevertheless, for a few years, the alt musical movement was given an annual stage that matched its uniqueness in both spirit and structure.
As crucial as Lollapalooza was to mainstream the alt-music culture, Lilith Fair brought a new and essential focus on female artists and bands.
The festival’s name was taken from Jewish mythology, which holds that Adam’s first wife, Lilith, who was created from the same clay as her male counterpart, but refused to be subservient to him and chose to leave the Garden of Eden.
While Sarah McLachlan established herself as an essential voice in the alt-movement of women’s pop-rock of the ’90s, her decision to produce the Lilith Fair music events was as significant. In the summer of 1997, McLachlan brought together some of the most notable female artists for a traveling concert tour and festival. Like the male-dominated Lollapalooza festivals of the decade, Lilith Fair was a series of traveling concerts. The first Lilith Fair festival was a series of thirty-seven dates that began in the Pacific Northwest, moved through the Southwest, Midwest, South, Northeast, and finished by moving across Canada to finish in McLachlan’s home of Vancouver, British Columbia. With three stages at the events, mainstage artists such as Sheryl Crow, Jewel, Fiona Apple, Natalie Merchant, Lisa Loeb, the Indigo Girls, and India Arie brought a wide range of musical styles to the events. Though well over eighty female artists would appear over the summer, only McLachlan and Suzanne Vega would appear at all the dates.
The following year Lilith Fair expanded to fifty-seven dates, expanding the venues to every part of the United States and Canada. Many of the previous year’s mainstage artists returned and were joined by others, such as Bonnie Raitt, Queen Latifah, Liz Phair, Diana Krall, and Erykah Badu. Throughout the summer, well over one hundred female artists performed on the stages, including a young Broadway novice named Idina Mentzel, fresh off her debut in the musical Rent.
Because Sarah McLachlan predetermined that Lilith Fair would be limited to a three-year run, the 1999 iteration would be its final tour. However, trimmed back to forty dates, the list of artists appearing was expanded from the previous years. At one venue or another, almost 120 female artists or bands appeared on the three stages of the traveling festival.
Lilith Fair brought a wide range of female artists to audiences throughout the United States and Canada through its three-year existence. As much as her recordings impacted the charts, the festival created and produced by McLachlan from 1997 to 1999 raised the visibility and the commercial viability of women in popular music. Over the run of 134 dates (Sarah McLachlan was the only artist to appear on stage for all of them), over 300 women artists were featured. The total audience was estimated to be over 1.5 million, and over $10 million was raised for women’s charities. It was a stark contrast to the male-dominated Lollapalooza festivals.
Though a Lilith
Fair revival tour was planned and launched in the summer of 2010, due to poor
ticket sales, many of the concert dates were canceled and others moved to
smaller venues to accommodate smaller crowds.
Just as the major rock festivals in the 1960s – Monterey, Woodstock, and Altamont – can be seen as a snapshot of the culture and the music of the decade, so were Lollapalooza and Lilith Fair to many of those essential artists in the alt- movements of the 1990s.
An Overview
Ch. 1: Understanding Pitch
Ch. 2: Understanding Musical Pulse
Ch. 3: Understanding Volume
Ch. 4: Understanding Tone
Ch. 5: Understanding Melody
Ch. 6: Understanding Harmony
Ch. 7: Understanding Rhythm
Ch. 8: Understanding Bass
Ch. 9: Understanding Countermelody
Ch. 10: Understanding Structure
Ch. 11: Understanding Instrumentation
Ch. 12: Understanding Tempo
An Overview
Ch. 1: 19th Century: Pre-Foster
Ch. 2: Folk Music by the People
Ch. 3: Popular Music in its Infancy
Ch. 4: Stephen Foster – “Father of American Popular Music”
Ch. 5: The Importance of Stephen Foster
Ch. 6: Scott Joplin – “King of Ragtime”
Ch. 7: The Player Piano – Automated Music
Ch. 8: John Philip Sousa – “The March King”
Ch. 9: John Philip Sousa – Recording Artist and Activist
An Overview
Ch. 1: John Lomax – Recording American Roots Music
Ch. 2: Woody Guthrie – “Father of Modern American Folk Music”
Ch. 3: Leadbelly & Pete Seeger: End of the First Wave
Ch. 4: The Kingston Trio – Beginning of the Second Wave
Ch. 5: Joan Baez – “First Lady of Folk Music”
Ch. 6: Peter, Paul & Mary – Balancing the Message
Ch. 7: Robert Zimmerman – The Beginning of an American Icon
Ch. 8: Dylan in New York City
Ch. 9: Dylan after Newport
Ch. 10: The Importance of Dylan
Ch. 11: Folk Music in the 21st Century
An Overview
Ch. 1: The Roots of Country
Ch. 2: Bristol Beginnings
Ch. 3: The Grand Ole Opry
Ch. 4: Cowboys and the Movies
Ch. 5: Western Swing
Ch. 6: Bluegrass: Hillbilly on Caffeine
Ch. 7: Honky-tonk: Merging Two into One
Ch. 8: The Nashville Sound: Country-Pop
Ch. 9: Rockabilly – Country meets R&B
Ch. 10: Country Feminists Find Their Voice
Ch. 11: The Bakersfield Sound
Ch. 12: Austin “Outlaw” Country
Ch. 13: Neo-Traditionalists at the end of the 20th Century
Ch. 14: Mainstreaming Country in the ‘90s
Ch. 15: Redesigning Country in the 21st Century
An Overview
Ch. 1: What is Jazz?
Ch. 2: Before It Was Jazz
Ch. 3: Jazz is Born!
Ch. 4: Early Jazz Musicians
Ch. 5: Louis Armstrong
Ch. 6: Chicago and Harlem – Hub of 1920s Jazz
Ch. 7: Big Band – Jazz Swing!
Ch. 8: Big Band Musicians and Singers
Ch. 9: Jump Blues and Bop
Ch. 10: Cool Jazz
Ch. 11: Hard Bop
Ch. 12: Free Jazz – Breaking the Rules
Ch. 13: Fusion – The Jazz-Rock-Funk Experience
Ch. 14: Third Stream and World Jazz
Ch. 15: New Age & Smooth Jazz
Ch. 16: Summary – Jazz Lives!
An Overview
Ch. 1: Blues – The Granddaddy of American Popular Music
Ch. 2: Where Did the Blues Come From?
Ch. 3: What Are the Blues?
Ch. 4: How to Build the Blues
Ch. 5: Classic Blues – The Early Years
Ch. 6: Delta Blues – Authentic Beginnings
Ch. 7: Blues in the City – Migration and Power
Ch. 8: Blues in Britain – Redefining the Masters
Ch. 9: Contemporary Blues – Maturity and Respect
Ch. 10: The Relevancy of the Blues Today
Ch. 1: Timelines, Cultures & Technology
Ch. 2: Pre-Rock Influences
Ch. 3: Rock is Born!
Ch. 4: Rock is Named
Ch. 5: Doo-Wop
Ch. 6: Independent Record Labels
Ch. 7: Technology Shapes Rock ‘n’ Roll
Ch. 8: The Plan to Mainstream Rock ‘n’ Roll
Ch. 9: Payola – Rock ‘n’ Roll’s First Scandal
Ch. 1: Crafting Sound in the Studio/Producers and Hit Songs
Ch. 2: West Coast Sound: Beach, Surf, and Teens
Ch. 3: The British Invasion: Two Prongs – Pop & Blues
Ch. 4: Motown and the Development of a Black Pop-Rock Sound
Ch. 5: Soul Music: Gospel and R&B in the Deep South
Ch. 6: The Sounds of Bubble Gum Pop-Rock
Ch. 7: The Arrival of Folk-Rock
Ch. 8: Psychedelic Rock ‘n’ Roll
Ch. 9: Early Guitar Gods of Rock
Ch. 10: Rock Festivals: The Rise and Fall of Music, Peace, and Love
Ch. 11: Anti-Woodstock and Shock Rock Movements
Ch. 1: Technological Breakthroughs
Ch. 2: Electronic Dance Music
Ch. 3: Hip-Hop & Rap – An Introduction
Ch. 4: The Beginnings of Rap
Ch. 5: Old School Rap – Up From the Streets
Ch. 6: Rap’s Golden Age
Ch. 7: East Coast – Political Rap
Ch. 8: West Coast – Gangsta Rap
Ch. 9: The Fragmentation of Rap – Pop, Party & More
Ch. 10: Further Fragmentation – Different Directions
Ch. 11: The Importance of Rap
Ch. 1: Musical Stage Productions in America before the 1800s
Ch. 2: Minstrel Shows and Melodramas
Ch. 3: Stage Presentations in the Late 19th Century
Ch. 4: Early 20th Century: Revues and Operettas
Ch. 5: The Arrival of the Modern American Musical
Ch. 6: Great Partnerships in Book-Musicals
Ch. 7: Musical Theatre Composers in the mid-Century
Ch. 8: Fresh Voices on the Stage in the 1960s
Ch. 9: Two Dominant Forces at the End of the Century
Ch. 10: New Voices at the End of the Century
Ch. 11: New Voices, New Sounds in the New Century
Ch. 12: Musical Theatre Glossary
Ch. 13: Is it “Theatre” or “Theater”?
Study Units also have “Playdecks” – containing hundreds of chronologically organized audio examples of music in the study units, and “Study Qs” for unit chapters.