1991 saw the music industry turned upside down, and 30 years later, its echoes remain

In the 1980s the music industry was divided into two worlds.

On one side was the big-money mainstream world of MTV-approved pop and rock stars, the all-important singles and album charts, and pay-to-play commercial radio.

This is where you would find the likes of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Michael Bolton.

On the other side was so-called “alternative music” — a catch-all category that covered everything from punk and metal to gangsta rap and indie rock.

This was an underground world of indie labels, college and public radio stations, low-budget recording studios, and van loads of rough-and-ready bands traversing the dive bars and low-key venues of Australia and the US.

As Craig Schuftan wrote in his book Entertain Us! The Rise and Fall of Alternative Rock in the ’90s:

The two worlds “were so sharply divided that the idea of crossing over wouldn’t have crossed most indie musicians’ minds”.