Lewis Largent And ‘120 Minutes’ Were Instrumental In Legitimizing “Alternative” Music on MTV In The ‘90s

A word that does not often get used in the same breath as “MTV” is “gravitas.” (Unless you are talking about Kurt Loder, in which it always does.) MTV, even before the teen pop boy band boom of the late ’90s, was fun and fluffy and effervescent. But for a few years in the mid-1990s, as the network was changing course in a post-Warrant, peak-Nirvana world, there was a voice who lent an air of authority to the proceedings. Lewis Largent wasn’t overly serious, but he knew what he was talking about. He didn’t seem above it, but he had a touch of the ironic detachment the moment called for. He wasn’t a young model, but he had a great head of hair. Lewis Largent had something close to gravitas. And a very good ear.

When Largent showed up at MTV in 1992, he had already been an influential voice at KROQ in Los Angeles, the station that played alternative music before we called it alternative music. (Have you seen the original Valley Girl? That’s the station that’s always playing in the background!) Largent started as an intern there in the early ‘80s, got a shift on-air in 1985, and was the music director by 1989. The turn of that decade was a big time for what we had still not completely decided to call alternative music; hair metal was out of Aqua-Net, U2 was on a post-Rattle & Hum sabbatical, Guns n Roses could not be relied upon, so there was a void in the Big Rock Moment area. Something was going to happen, and nobody knew what it was going to be, but KROQ played all the suspects: the Pixies, Dramarama, Red Hot Chili Peppers. A variety of stuff from just slightly off-center, chosen at least in part by Largent. 

Nirvana ended up being the Big Rock Moment, and in its wake, MTV hired Largent. He got a gig in music programming first, then moved in front of the camera to host the Sunday late night show that played a format that was being dubbed “alternative music”: 120 Minutes. As the immediate post-Cobain bands— Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins— took over mainstream radio and non-120 Minutes MTV, it was fair to ask the question: if alternative is the mainstream now, then what does alternative mean? The Largent-era 120 Minutes made it clear that it was not a guitar tone or a distressed lumberjack flannel, it was a spirit of exploration. It was the avant-garde, or at least a version of it you could play between ads for Stri-Dex medicated acne pads. It was PJ Harvey into Superchunk into experimental ‘90s Bowie into Suzanne Vega into the Shamen into 311. It was a little bit of everything, and if Largent wasn’t the main decision-maker behind that, he was the face of it. Kennedy could never. 

On-air, Largent stood out by not really trying to stand out. He didn’t seem to be auditioning for a sitcom or a shampoo commercial. He just seemed like he knew what he was doing, and knew what he was talking about, and knew how to talk to musicians, particularly ones who could not have imagined they’d be interviewed on MTV, like Pavement.

He stepped back from 120 Minutes in the mid-1990s, but stayed on in the music programming role he never left, then moved on to an executive position at Interscope Def Jam, where he signed Andrew WK, which is a very Lewis Largent thing to do. He left that job a decade or so ago, and went back to school for a creative writing degree. 

You can already feel his absence in the world of radio. It’s 2023, we’re still calling it “alternative music,” and without a Largent to curate the playlists, the term is back to being meaningless. But turn on KROQ right this second and you will hear the Pixies, Dramarama, or Red Hot Chili Peppers within the hour. That’s a guarantee. 

Lewis Largent died last week at the age of 58 after a long and unspecified illness. He’s survived by his wife Julie, and their two children. 

Dave Holmes is an editor-at-large for Esquire.com, host of the Earwolf podcast Homophilia, and his memoir Party of One is in stores now.