Adult album alternative
Encyclopedia
Adult album alternative (also triple-A, AAA, or adult alternative) is a radio format
. A spinoff from the album-oriented rock
format, its roots trace to the 1960s and 1970s from the earlier freeform
and progressive
formats.
The format has a broader, more diverse playlist
than most other formats and tends to appeal more to adult
s than to teenagers. Musical selection tends to be on the fringe of mainstream pop
and rock
as well as many other music genre
s such as indie rock
, alternative rock
, alternative country
, jazz
, folk
, world music
and blues
. The musical selections tend to shy away from hard rock
and rap
music. Some Triple-A stations bill themselves under slogans such as "World Class Rock" or "Quality Rock". Music selection also includes tracks from albums that are not singles, which leads to the enhanced and larger playlist. Within AAA, there are also variations; a classic AAA station (such as WLKK-HD2
or WXMT) focuses on songs from the 1970s and 1980s (the same eras as classic hits
, classic rock
and adult hits
), while a modern AAA focuses on more recent songs.
AAA artists take influence from early 90s jangle pop
(Gin Blossoms
, Barenaked Ladies
, Goo Goo Dolls
), acoustic folk rock
(Indigo Girls
, Tori Amos
, Jeff Buckley
, Sarah McLachlan
, Fiona Apple
, Jewel
), rock and roll
(Sheryl Crow
, Hootie & the Blowfish
, Dave Matthews
), and the moody electronics of trip hop
(Portishead). The music played has gained significant exposure for artists who were ambitious, intellectual, or idiosyncratic, yet still accessible enough to meet the requirements of mainstream radio programmers who wanted more sophisticated music that wasn't loud or overly disturbing.
Triple-A songs sometimes do manage to chart on the Adult Top 40, modern rock
, or an adult contemporary chart, since they may first break out on AAA. Additionally, Radio and Records, a news magazine devoted to radio and the music industry, charts stations in various formats including Triple-A. Its sister publication Billboard
also began a Triple-A chart using Radio and Records' information on July 10, 2008. Rival Mediabase 24/7 also does a Triple-A chart. As of mid-2009, Radio and Records publications were discontinued along with the accompanying charts. As of 2010, Billboard publishes Triple A Charts in the Billboard Magazine and for its premium members on its website. Mediabase also publishes Triple A Charts.
Additional charts - including Triple A's only Non-commercial airplay chart - are published by FMQB, which also produces the annual Triple A Conference in Boulder, CO, an event that grew out of the Gavin Report's Triple A Summit which was first held in 1993. FMQB took over production of the event, rebranding it as the Triple A Conference, after the closing of Radio & Records in 2009.
Radio format
A radio format or programming format not to be confused with broadcast programming describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. Radio formats are frequently employed as a marketing tool, and constantly evolve...
. A spinoff from the album-oriented rock
Album-oriented rock
Album-oriented rock is an American FM radio format focusing on album tracks by rock artists.-Music played:Most radio formats are based on a select, tight rotation of hit singles...
format, its roots trace to the 1960s and 1970s from the earlier freeform
Freeform (radio format)
Freeform, or freeform radio, is a radio station programming format in which the disc jockey is given total control over what music to play, regardless of music genre or commercial interests. Freeform radio stands in contrast to most commercial radio stations, in which DJs have little or no...
and progressive
Progressive rock (radio format)
Progressive rock is a radio station programming format that prospered in the late 1960s and 1970s, in which the disc jockeys are given wide latitude in what they may play, similar to the freeform format but with the proviso that some kind of rock music is almost always what is played...
formats.
The format has a broader, more diverse playlist
Playlist
In its most general form, a playlist is simply a list of songs. They can be played in sequential or shuffled order. The term has several specialized meanings in the realms of radio broadcasting and personal computers.-In radio:...
than most other formats and tends to appeal more to adult
Adult
An adult is a human being or living organism that is of relatively mature age, typically associated with sexual maturity and the attainment of reproductive age....
s than to teenagers. Musical selection tends to be on the fringe of mainstream pop
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
and rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
as well as many other music genre
Music genre
A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music...
s such as indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
, alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
, alternative country
Alternative country
Alternative country is a loosely defined sub-genre of country music, which includes acts that differ significantly in style from mainstream or pop country music...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
. The musical selections tend to shy away from hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
and rap
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
music. Some Triple-A stations bill themselves under slogans such as "World Class Rock" or "Quality Rock". Music selection also includes tracks from albums that are not singles, which leads to the enhanced and larger playlist. Within AAA, there are also variations; a classic AAA station (such as WLKK-HD2
WLKK
WLKK is an American radio station located in Wethersfield, New York. Broadcasting on the frequency of 107.7 MHz, the station is currently owned by Entercom Communications and is operated out of the company's studios in Amherst, New York, a suburb of Buffalo...
or WXMT) focuses on songs from the 1970s and 1980s (the same eras as classic hits
Classic hits
Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes rock and pop music from 1964 to 1989. The term is sometimes erroneously used as a synonym for the adult hits format, but is more accurately characterized as a contemporary style of the oldies format...
, classic rock
Classic rock
Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...
and adult hits
Adult hits
Adult hits is a radio format, popular in the early 2000s, that does not adhere to a specific music genre, but instead draws from a wider playlist...
), while a modern AAA focuses on more recent songs.
AAA artists take influence from early 90s jangle pop
Jangle pop
Jangle pop is a genre of alternative rock from the mid-1980s that "marked a return to the chiming or jangly guitars and pop melodies of the '60s" bands such as The Byrds, with their electric twelve-string guitars and power pop song structures. Mid-1980s jangle pop was a non-mainstream "pop-based...
(Gin Blossoms
Gin Blossoms
Gin Blossoms is an American pop rock band formed in 1987, in Tempe, Arizona. They took their name from a photo of W.C. Fields which bore the caption "W.C. Fields with gin blossoms", referring to what appeared to be the actor's gin-ravaged nose, but was actually a skin condition known as rosacea...
, Barenaked Ladies
Barenaked Ladies
Barenaked Ladies is a Canadian alternative rock band. The band is currently composed of Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn, Ed Robertson, and Tyler Stewart. Barenaked Ladies formed in 1988 in Scarborough, Ontario, then a suburban municipality outside the City of Toronto...
, Goo Goo Dolls
Goo Goo Dolls
The Goo Goo Dolls are a Grammy-nominated American rock band formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York, by vocalist and guitarist John Rzeznik and vocalist and bass guitarist Robby Takac. Since the end of 1994, Mike Malinin has been the band's drummer, a position previously held by George Tutuska...
), acoustic folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
(Indigo Girls
Indigo Girls
The Indigo Girls are an American folk rock music duo, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They met in elementary school and began performing together as high school students in Decatur, Georgia, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area...
, Tori Amos
Tori Amos
Tori Amos is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument...
, Jeff Buckley
Jeff Buckley
Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Buckley , raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of Tim Buckley, also a musician...
, Sarah McLachlan
Sarah McLachlan
Sarah Ann McLachlan, OC, OBC is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter. Known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range, as of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four...
, Fiona Apple
Fiona Apple
Fiona Apple McAfee Maggart is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Apple met international acclaim for her 1996 debut album, Tidal, which was a critical and commercial success...
, Jewel
Jewel (singer)
Jewel Kilcher , professionally known as Jewel, is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, actress and poet...
), rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
(Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Suzanne Crow is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, musician, and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, folk, hip hop, country and pop...
, Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish is an American rock band that enjoyed popularity in the second half of the 1990s. They were originally formed in 1986 at the University of South Carolina by Darius Rucker, Dean Felber, Jim Sonefeld, and Mark Bryan. The band has recorded five studio albums to date, and has...
, Dave Matthews
Dave Matthews
David John "Dave" Matthews is a South African–born American musician and occasional actor, best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band...
), and the moody electronics of trip hop
Trip hop
Trip hop is a music genre consisting of downtempo electronic music which originated in the early 1990s in England, especially Bristol. Deriving from "post"-acid house, the term was first used by the British music media and press as a way to describe the more experimental variant of breakbeat which...
(Portishead). The music played has gained significant exposure for artists who were ambitious, intellectual, or idiosyncratic, yet still accessible enough to meet the requirements of mainstream radio programmers who wanted more sophisticated music that wasn't loud or overly disturbing.
Triple-A songs sometimes do manage to chart on the Adult Top 40, modern rock
Modern rock
Modern rock is a rock format commonly found on commercial radio; the format consists primarily of the alternative rock genre...
, or an adult contemporary chart, since they may first break out on AAA. Additionally, Radio and Records, a news magazine devoted to radio and the music industry, charts stations in various formats including Triple-A. Its sister publication Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
also began a Triple-A chart using Radio and Records' information on July 10, 2008. Rival Mediabase 24/7 also does a Triple-A chart. As of mid-2009, Radio and Records publications were discontinued along with the accompanying charts. As of 2010, Billboard publishes Triple A Charts in the Billboard Magazine and for its premium members on its website. Mediabase also publishes Triple A Charts.
Additional charts - including Triple A's only Non-commercial airplay chart - are published by FMQB, which also produces the annual Triple A Conference in Boulder, CO, an event that grew out of the Gavin Report's Triple A Summit which was first held in 1993. FMQB took over production of the event, rebranding it as the Triple A Conference, after the closing of Radio & Records in 2009.
See also
- List of adult alternative artists
- Adult contemporary, a format with a much more pop-oriented playlist, that is much softer and not too adventurous.