"Mainstream and alternative are ideological labels"

[Fluffy Lothario]

I'm watching an interview with Frankie Boyle. Since I can't imagine he's too well-known in America, Boyle is, to put it lightly, a controversial Scottish comedian. Watch about a minute of this if you need a sample.

Anyway, at around fourteen minutes of this interview, Boyle is bemoaning the quality of television in general, and it goes on like this (I'm watching chunks and quoting from memory/paraphrasing).

Interviewer: well, yeah, but your taste is different to that of the general British public. TV is mainstream.

Boyle: Show X is the most mainstream comedy on at the moment, and it draws 5 million viewers from a potential 50. Mainstream and alternative are ideological labels. I did a thing on Radio 2 where they asked me to select some songs for an interview. I said, "could I have Joanna Newsom?" They said, "no, it's too alternative". I'd just been to see her at the Albert Hall [I'm assuming a sizeable venue]. I said, "she can't be alternative". What they mean is she's too challenging, too difficult.

Interviewer:  I would defend BBC1. They've got a job to do, to appeal to a mainstream audience, and I don't think mainstream is an ideological construct, I think we all know what we mean when we say mainstream.

And it goes on.

Anyway, I thought this was really interesting. Frankie is saying that the concept of mainstream doesn't necessarily correlate with popularity at all, it's just an idea we have of what is most palatable or widely acceptable or "safe" within any medium, and that this, falsely, largely defines our idea of what is popular and isn't regardless of its following. I guess the interviewer is counter-arguing that the two DO correlate, that what most people find palatable or acceptable will generally line up with what is most popular.

I'm not sure where I would stand on this. Maybe both are right in certain instances, or when you look at it from different angles. (Of course, his comments were a brief detour onto music from the topic of comedy on TV, but I think it still applies perfectly to music).

I mean, to use an example most people here can relate to, take Rush. I don't think I'm out of place by saying their sound has never (or only very briefly) coincided with what was considered mainstream at the time, yet I understand that, going by "bums on seats" in venues, they're massive. Same with, say, Iron Maiden. So this idea most people would have in our head that Rush are not "popular" because they don't fit the image of mainstream is probably wrong.

Having said that, here's a list of the most watched youtube videos. Would it be wrong to suggest most if not all of these songs/artists would fit comfortably in the mainstream box? (Maybe the most glaring exception is Gotye; when I first heard that song, I thought, wow, that's an amazing pop song... that will NEVER be popular. But they put it on Glee, and off it went).

That's a big enough wall of text for now, let's see if anyone actually wants to talk about it.

[ytserush]

Based on the above I'd agree with Frankie.

Anything that isn't picked up by mass media probably isn't considered mainstream.

[RoeDent]

Mainstream  is  opposite of prog. Even though it had chart success in the 70s, the fact that mass media look back on that time with derision or simply ignorance is proof that the two can never be together.