"Seattle, Washington, USA. In the early 1990s the music capital of the world. Home to grunge, teen spirit and the kings of alternative rock, Nirvana, the band that brought the sound of the American underground to a mass audience." Alternative rock was a reaction to the shock treatment of Reaganomics, leading to Generation X, that couldn't identify with the studio-polished rock that filled mainstream radio and MTV. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic were part of this generation and inspired by groups such as Black Flag, who played a more fitting musical style, hardcore punk. Alternative rock was in the early 1980s called college rock because it was mostly played by campus radio stations, who broadcast in the lower bandwidths that were not shown on the dials of radios, so listeners had to turn the knob 'left of the dial'. These were also forced to tour constantly and play in small venues with groups such as The Replacements and Sonic Youth.