When I was first hired by American Recordings in 1992 — right as Seattle's "grunge" explosion was just starting to hit on a worldwide scale — my old boss Mark DiDia used to tell a funny story during our marketing meetings at the label.
"You know, ever we since we hired you, Boyd," DiDia used to say in that tone of feigned indignation I got to know so well during my two years in the "big-time" in Los Angeles at American, "all of our artists' sales have gone straight into the toilet. While all your friends back up there in Seattle got shit hot pretty much the day after you left to come here."
It was all a joke of course.
Sir Mix-A-Lot had his biggest record ever with American that year in "Baby Got Back." He never really had another record like that, of course. But I still sleep quite well at night knowing that I played a big part in that success, thank you very much.
But DiDia actually had sort of a point in at least one respect. While the whole grunge thing was going on right underneath my nose in my hometown of Seattle, I was actually somewhat oblivious to it.
Working in the music community in Seattle at the time, I of course knew what was happening. I had friends in that scene, and I even made it out to see bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden back when they were playing shitholes like the OK Hotel and the old Rckcndy. I also had good enough ears to know that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a once in a lifetime sort of record.
Still, I was way too involved with Sir Mix-A-Lot and the other rap artists at Seattle's "other" independent label at the time — Nastymix was actually selling more records than Subpop was back then — to fully grasp what was going on. It was happening right under my nose, but I just didn't fully "get it" back then.
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