So everybody was highly anticipating this record. Their previous record ‘.And Justice for All’ was the first one that really made inroads on American commercial charts. “They had released a number of records prior to that, that were a little more influenced by punk rock.

Metallica’s hit from 1991 was “Enter Sandman.” Tell us why that song and album took off and basically defined the era. If any of us were interested in getting into commercial radio, this was the way it was done.” And that was just using this as a laboratory. format that followed more in the lines of kind of commercial radio, versus a completely freeform radio like KCRW has. This was in an era when they call it ‘college rock’ as opposed to ‘alternative rock.’ And for college rock, most record labels had a college department and they would actually have a specific representative that would send out copies to all of the college radio stations across the country.Īnd we would simply gather all of these records and listen to them all and make decisions about the records that we thought were going to be of greatest interest to be played at the station. Lawrence: “At the time, there was sort of a distinction. KCRW: In the radio scene at UCLA, how were you getting your music and deciding what to play?Įric J. Lawrence, who was the music director at UCLA’s radio station in 1991. Press Play looks at some of the era’s iconic albums with KCRW music critic Eric J. College radio stations pushed these albums, looking to buck pop music trends in favor of something grungier.īands like Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Metallica released albums that still remain some of the most influential rock records of all time. In 1991, radio stations nationwide didn’t know it yet, but they were shuffling through records that would go on to define the hard rock sound of the decade.

Nirvana symbol guns n roses symbol