Alternative rock
Encyclopedia
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. Although the term was most commonly associated in its commercial heyday with a loud, distorted guitar sound, its original meaning was broader, referring to a generation of musicians unified by their collective debt to either the musical style, or simply the independent, D.I.Y. ethos, of punk rock
, which in the late 1970s laid the groundwork for alternative music. At times, "alternative" has been used as a catch-all description for music from underground
rock artists that receives mainstream recognition, or for any music, whether rock or not, that is seen to be descended from punk rock (including some examples of punk itself, as well as New Wave
, and post-punk
).
Alternative rock is a broad umbrella term consisting of music that differs greatly in terms of its sound, its social context and its regional roots. By the end of the 1980s, magazines and zine
s, college radio airplay and word of mouth
had increased the prominence and highlighted the diversity of alternative rock, helping to define a number of distinct scenes such as industrial music
, gothic rock
, jangle pop
, noise pop
, C86
, Madchester
and shoegazing
. Most of these subgenres had achieved minor mainstream notice and a few bands representing them, such as Husker Du
and R.E.M., had even signed to major labels. But most alternative bands' commercial success was limited in comparison to other genres of rock and pop music at the time, and most acts remained signed to independent labels and received relatively little attention from mainstream radio, television or newspapers. In the US, punk itself had also failed to find wide mainstream recognition, which the genre had briefly achieved in Britain. Instead, underground US bands in the early 1980s developed an uncompromising and uncommercial style of hardcore punk
, which influenced the lo fi sound of much US alternative rock significantly.
Some examples of alternative rock bands that have achieved commercial success and mainstream critical recognition are R.E.M.
, The Smiths
, Red Hot Chili Peppers
, Nirvana
, Alice in Chains
, Pearl Jam
, Oasis
, The Smashing Pumpkins
, The Flaming Lips
, Foo Fighters
, Green Day
, Weezer
, Liz Phair
, Radiohead
, The Strokes
, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
, Modest Mouse
, The White Stripes
, Muse
, and The Black Keys
. However, many alternative rock artists, such as Pixies, Meat Puppets
, Cocteau Twins
, The Birthday Party
, My Bloody Valentine, and Pavement
are cult
acts that have recorded with independent labels
and had more sustained influence on other bands than mainstream commercial success of their own.
used the term Alternative Music to describe the groups he was writing about. College rock
was used in the United States to describe the music during the 1980s due to its links to the college radio
circuit and the tastes of college students. In the United Kingdom, dozens of very small DIY (do it yourself)
record labels emerged as a result of the punk subculture
. According to the founder of one of these labels, Cherry Red
, NME
and Sounds
magazines published charts based on small record stores called "Alternative Charts". The first national chart based on distribution called the Indie Chart
was published in January 1980; it immediately succeeded in its aim to help these labels. At the time, the term indie was used literally to describe independently distributed records. By 1985, it had come to mean a particular genre, or group of subgenres, rather than simply distribution status.
The use of the term alternative to describe rock music originated around the mid-1980s; at the time, the common music industry terms for cutting-edge music were new music and post modern, respectively indicating freshness and a tendency to recontextualize sounds of the past. Individuals who worked as DJs and promoters during the 1980s claim the term originates from American FM radio of the 1970s, which served as a progressive alternative to top 40 rock music
radio format
s by featuring longer songs and giving DJs more freedom in song selection. According to one former DJ and promoter, "Somehow this term 'alternative' got rediscovered and heisted by college radio people during the 80s who applied it to new post-punk, indie, or underground-whatever music". At first the term referred to intentionally non–mainstream rock acts that were not influenced by "heavy metal ballads, rarefied new wave" and "high-energy dance anthems". Usage of the term would broaden to include New Wave
, pop
, punk rock
, post-punk
, and occasionally "college"/"indie
" rock, all found on the American "commercial alternative" radio stations of the time such as Los Angeles
' KROQ-FM
. The use of alternative gained further exposure due to the success of Lollapalooza
, for which festival founder and Jane's Addiction
frontman Perry Farrell
coined the term Alternative Nation. In the late 1990s, the definition again became more specific. In 1997, Neil Strauss
of The New York Times
defined alternative rock as "hard-edged rock distinguished by brittle, '70s-inspired guitar riffing and singers agonizing over their problems until they take on epic proportions".
Defining music as alternative is often difficult because of two conflicting applications of the word. Alternative can describe music that challenges the status quo and that is "fiercely iconoclastic, anticommercial, and antimainstream", but the term is also used in the music industry to denote "the choices available to consumers via record stores, radio, cable television, and the Internet." Using a broad definition of the genre, Dave Thompson in his book Alternative Rock cites the formation of the Sex Pistols
as well as the release of the albums Horses
by Patti Smith
and Metal Machine Music
by Lou Reed
as three key events that gave birth to alternative rock.
for underground music that has emerged in the wake of punk rock
since the mid-1980s. Throughout much of its history, alternative rock has been largely defined by its rejection of the commercialism
of mainstream culture, although this could be contested ever since some of the major Alternative artists have achieved mainstream success or co-opted with the Major labels from the 1990's onwards (especially since the new millenium & beyond). Alternative bands during the 1980s generally played in small clubs, recorded for indie labels, and spread their popularity through word of mouth. As such, there is no set musical style for alternative rock as a whole, although The New York Times
in 1989 asserted that the genre is "guitar music first of all, with guitars that blast out power chords, pick out chiming riffs, buzz with fuzztone and squeal in feedback." Sounds range from the dirty guitars of grunge to the gloomy soundscapes of gothic rock to the guitar pop revivalism of Britpop to the shambolic performance style of twee pop. More often than in other rock styles since the mainstreaming of rock music during the 1970s, alternative rock lyrics tend to address topics of social concern, such as drug use, depression, and environmentalism. This approach to lyrics developed as a reflection of the social and economic strains in the United States and United Kingdom of the 1980s and early 1990s.
By 1984, a majority of groups signed to independent record labels were mining from a variety of rock and particularly 1960s rock influences. This represented a sharp break from the futuristic, hyper rational post-punk years.
Throughout the 1980s, alternative rock was mainly an underground phenomenon. While on occasion a song would become a commercial hit or albums would receive critical praise in mainstream publications like Rolling Stone
, alternative rock in the 1980s was primarily relegated to independent record labels, fanzines, and college radio stations. Alternative bands built underground followings by touring constantly and regularly releasing low-budget albums. In the case of the United States, new bands would form in the wake of previous bands, which created an extensive underground circuit in America, filled with different scenes in various parts of the country. Although American alternative artists of the 1980s never generated spectacular album sales, they exerted a considerable influence on later alternative musicians and laid the groundwork for their success. By 1989 the genre had become popular enough that a package tour featuring New Order
, Public Image Limited and The Sugarcubes
toured the United States arena circuit.
In contrast, British alternative rock was distinguished from that of the United States early on by a more pop-oriented focus (marked by an equal emphasis on albums and singles, as well as greater openness to incorporating elements of dance and club culture) and a lyrical emphasis on specifically British concerns. As a result, few British alternative bands have achieved commercial success in the US. Since the 1980s alternative rock has been played extensively on the radio in the UK, particularly by disc jockey
s such as John Peel
(who championed alternative music on BBC Radio 1
), Richard Skinner
, and Annie Nightingale
. Artists that had cult followings in the United States received greater exposure through British national radio and the weekly music press, and many alternative bands had chart success there.
Early American alternative bands such as R.E.M.
, The Feelies
, and Violent Femmes
combined punk influences with folk music
and mainstream music influences. R.E.M. was the most immediately successful; its debut album, Murmur
(1983), entered the Top 40 and spawned a number of jangle pop
followers. One of the many jangle pop scenes of the early 1980s, Los Angeles' Paisley Underground
revived the sounds of the 1960s, incorporating psychedelia, rich vocal harmonies and the guitar interplay of folk rock as well as punk and underground influences such as The Velvet Underground
.
American indie record labels SST Records
, Twin/Tone Records
, Touch and Go Records
, and Dischord Records
presided over the shift from the hardcore punk
that then dominated the American underground scene to the more diverse styles of alternative rock that were emerging. Minneapolis bands Hüsker Dü
and The Replacements were indicative of this shift. Both started out as punk rock bands, but soon diversified their sounds and became more melodic. Michael Azerrad
asserted that Hüsker Dü was the key link between hardcore punk and the more melodic, diverse music of college rock
that emerged. Azerrad wrote, "Hüsker Dü played a huge role in convincing the underground that melody and punk rock weren't antithetical." The band also set an example by being the first group from the American indie scene to sign to a major record label, which helped establish college rock as "a viable commercial enterprise." By focusing on heartfelt songwriting and wordplay instead of political concerns, The Replacements upended a number of underground scene conventions; Azerrad noted that "along with R.E.M. [The Replacements] were one of the few underground bands that mainstream people liked."
By the late 1980s, the American alternative scene was dominated by styles ranging from quirky alternative pop (They Might Be Giants
and Camper Van Beethoven
), to noise rock
(Sonic Youth
, Big Black
, The Jesus Lizard
) and industrial rock
(Ministry
, Nine Inch Nails
). These sounds were in turn followed by the advent of Boston
's the Pixies and Los Angeles
' Jane's Addiction
. Around the same time, the grunge
subgenre emerged in Seattle, Washington. Grunge was based around a sludgy, murky guitar sound that synthesized heavy metal
and punk rock. Largely based around the Seattle indie label Sub Pop
, grunge bands were noted for their thrift store fashion which favored flannel shirts and combat boots suited to the local weather. Early grunge bands Soundgarden
and Mudhoney
found critical acclaim in the U.S. and UK, respectively.
By the end of the decade, a number of alternative bands began to sign to major labels. While early major label signings Hüsker Dü and The Replacements had little success, acts who signed with majors in their wake such as R.E.M. and Jane's Addiction achieved gold and platinum records, setting the stage for alternative's later breakthrough. Some bands such as the Pixies had massive success overseas while they were ignored domestically.
Gothic rock
developed out of late-1970s British post-punk. With a reputation as the "darkest and gloomiest form of underground rock," gothic rock utilizes a synthesizer-and-guitar based sound drawn from post-punk to construct "foreboding, sorrowful, often epic soundscapes," and the genre's lyrics often address literary romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and supernatural mysticism. Bauhaus
' debut single "Bela Lugosi's Dead
", released in 1979, is considered to be the beginning of the gothic rock genre. Around the same time, post-punk contemporaries Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure
adopted the new sound.
One of the key alternative rock bands to emerge during the 1980s was Manchester
's The Smiths
. Music journalist Simon Reynolds
singled out The Smiths and their American contemporaries R.E.M. as "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day", commenting that they "were eighties bands only in the sense of being against the eighties". Reynolds noted that The Smiths' "whole stance was predicated on their British audience being a lost generation, exiles in their own land". The Smiths' embrace of the guitar in an era of synthesizer-dominated music is viewed as signaling the end of the New Wave era and the advent of alternative rock in Britain. Despite the band's limited chart success and short career, The Smiths exerted an influence over the British indie scene through the end of the decade, as various bands drew from singer Morrissey
's English-centered lyrical topics and guitarist Johnny Marr
's jangly guitar-playing style. The C86
cassette, a 1986 NME
premium featuring such bands as The Wedding Present
, Primal Scream
, The Pastels
, and the Soup Dragons, was a major influence on the development of indie pop
and the British indie scene as a whole.
Other forms of alternative rock developed in the UK during the 1980s. The Jesus and Mary Chain
's sound combined the Velvet Underground's "melancholy noise" with Beach Boys pop melodies and Phil Spector
's "Wall of Sound
" production while New Order
emerged from the demise of post-punk band Joy Division
and experimented with techno
and house music
. The Mary Chain, along with Dinosaur Jr, C86
and the dream pop
of Cocteau Twins
, were the formative influences for the shoegazing
movement of the late 1980s. Named for the band members' tendency to stare at their feet and guitar effects pedals onstage rather than interact with the audience, shoegazing acts like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive
, Ride
, and Lush
created an overwhelmingly loud "wash of sound" that obscured vocals and melodies with long, droning riffs, distortion, and feedback. Shoegazing bands dominated the British music press at the end of the decade along with the drug-fueled Madchester
scene. Based around The Haçienda
, a nightclub in Manchester owned by New Order and Factory Records
, Madchester bands such as Happy Mondays
and The Stone Roses
mixed acid house
dance rhythms with melodic guitar pop.
, Dinosaur Jr
, Faith No More
, Firehose, and Nirvana
. In particular, R.E.M.'s success had become a blueprint for many alternative bands in the late 1980s and 1990s to follow; the group had outlasted many of its contemporaries and by the 1990s had become one of the most popular bands in the world.
The breakthrough success of the band Nirvana led to the widespread popularization of alternative rock in the 1990s. The release of the band's single "Smells Like Teen Spirit
" from its second album Nevermind
(1991) "marked the instigation of the grunge music phenomenon". Due to constant airplay of the song's music video on MTV
, Nevermind was selling 400,000 copies a week by Christmas 1991. The success of Nevermind surprised the music industry. Nevermind not only popularized grunge, but also established "the cultural and commercial viability of alternative rock in general." Michael Azerrad asserted that Nevermind symbolized "a sea-change in rock music" in which the glam metal
that had dominated rock music at that time fell out of favor in the face of music that was authentic and culturally relevant.
Nirvana's surprise success with Nevermind heralded a "new openness to alternative rock" among commercial radio stations, opening doors for heavier alternative bands in particular. In the wake of Nevermind, alternative rock "found itself dragged-kicking and screaming ... into the mainstream" and record companies, confused by the genre's success yet eager to capitalize on it, scrambled to sign bands. The New York Times declared in 1993, "Alternative rock doesn't seem so alternative anymore. Every major label has a handful of guitar-driven bands in shapeless shirts and threadbare jeans, bands with bad posture and good riffs who cultivate the oblique and the evasive, who conceal catchy tunes with noise and hide craftsmanship behind nonchalance." However, many alternative rock artists rejected success, for it conflicted with the rebellious, DIY ethic the genre had espoused before mainstream exposure and their ideas of artistic authenticity.
Other grunge bands subsequently replicated Nirvana's success. Pearl Jam
had released its debut album Ten
a month before Nevermind
in 1991, but album sales only picked up a year later. By the second half of 1992 Ten became a breakthrough success, being certified gold and reaching number two on the Billboard 200
album chart. Soundgarden
's album Badmotorfinger
and Alice in Chains
' Dirt, along with the Temple of the Dog
album collaboration featuring members of Pearl Jam
and Soundgarden
, were also among the 100 top selling albums of 1992. Soundgarden was influenced by 1970s blues rock and heavy metal, punk and the 1980s American Underground. Their album Superunknown
debuted at number 1 in 1994 and earned two Grammy Awards. The popular breakthrough of these grunge bands prompted Rolling Stone
to nickname Seattle "the new Liverpool
." Major record labels signed most of the prominent grunge bands in Seattle, while a second influx of bands moved to the city in hopes of success.
At the same time, critics asserted that advertising was co-opting elements of grunge and turning it into a fad. Entertainment Weekly
commented in a 1993 article, "There hasn't been this kind of exploitation of a subculture since the media discovered hippies in the '60s." The New York Times
compared the "grunging of America" to the mass-marketing of punk rock, disco
, and hip hop
in previous years. As a result of the genre's popularity, a backlash against grunge developed in Seattle. Nirvana's follow-up album In Utero
(1993) was an intentionally abrasive album that Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic
described as a "wild aggressive sound, a true alternative record." Nevertheless, upon its release in September 1993 In Utero topped the Billboard charts. Pearl Jam also continued to perform well commercially with its second album, Vs. (1993), which topped the Billboard charts by selling a record 950,378 copies in its first week of release.
With the decline of the Madchester scene and the unglamorousness of shoegazing, the tide of grunge from America dominated the British alternative scene and music press in the early 1990s. As a reaction, a flurry of defiantly British bands emerged that wished to "get rid of grunge" and "declare war on America", taking the public and native music press by storm. Dubbed "Britpop" by the media, this movement represented by Blur
, Oasis
, Suede
, and Pulp
was the British equivalent of the grunge explosion, in that the artists propelled alternative rock to the top of the charts in their home country. Britpop bands were influenced by and displayed reverence for British guitar music of the past, particularly movements and genres such as the British Invasion
, glam rock
, and punk rock. In 1995 the Britpop phenomenon culminated in a rivalry between its two chief groups, Oasis and Blur, symbolized by their release of competing singles on the same day. Blur won "The Battle of Britpop", but Oasis soon eclipsed the other band in popularity with its second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
(1995), which went on to become the third best-selling album in Britain's history.
became a distinct form following the popular breakthrough of Nirvana. Indie rock was formulated as a rejection of both alternative rock's absorption into the mainstream by artists who could not or refused to cross over, and a wariness of it's "macho" esthetic. While indie rock artists share the punk rock distrust of commercialized music, the genre does not entirely define itself against that, as "the general assumption is that it's virtually impossible to make indie rock's varying musical approaches compatible with mainstream tastes in the first place". Labels such as Matador Records
, Merge Records
, and Dischord, and indie rockers like Pavement
, Superchunk
, Fugazi
, and Sleater-Kinney
dominated the American indie scene for most of the 1990s. One of the main indie rock movements of the 1990s was lo-fi
. The movement, which focused on the recording and distribution of music on low-quality cassette tapes, initially emerged in the 1980s. By 1992, Pavement, Guided By Voices and Sebadoh
became popular lo-fi cult acts in the United States, while subsequently artists like Liz Phair
and Beck
brought the aesthetic to mainstream audiences. The period also saw alternative confessional female singer-songwriters. Besides the previously mentioned Liz Phair, PJ Harvey
and the massively successful Alanis Morissette
fit into this sub group.
During the latter half of the 1990s, grunge was supplanted by post-grunge
. Post-grunge bands such as Candlebox
and Bush
emerged soon after grunge's breakthrough. These artists lacked the underground roots of grunge and were largely influenced by what grunge had become, namely "a wildly popular form of inward-looking, serious-minded hard rock." Post-grunge was a more commercially viable genre that tempered the distorted guitars of grunge with polished, radio-ready production.
Post-rock
was established by Talk Talk
's Laughing Stock and Slint
's Spiderland
albums, both released in 1991. Post-rock draws influence from a number of genres, including Krautrock
, progressive rock
, and jazz
. The genre subverts or rejects rock conventions, and often incorporates electronic music. While the name of the genre was coined by music journalist Simon Reynolds in 1994, the sound of the genre was solidified by the release of Millions Now Living Will Never Die
(1996) by the Chicago group Tortoise
. Post-rock became the dominant form of experimental rock music in the 1990s and bands from the genre centered around the Thrill Jockey
, Kranky
, Drag City
, and Too Pure
record labels. A related genre, math rock
, peaked in the mid-1990s. In comparison to post-rock, math rock is more "rockist
" and relies on complex time signatures and intertwining phrases. While by the end of the decade a backlash had emerged against post-rock due to its "dispassionate intellectuality" and its perceived increasing predictability, a new wave of post-rock bands such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor
and Sigur Rós
emerged who further expanded the genre.
After almost a decade in the underground, ska
acts became popular in the United States in 1996 with Mighty Mighty Bosstones, No Doubt
, Goldfinger
, Reel Big Fish
, Less Than Jake
and Save Ferris
charting or getting radio exposure.
in 1994 and Pearl Jam's lawsuit against concert venue promoter Ticketmaster
, which in effect barred the group from playing many major venues around the United States. In addition to the decline of grunge bands, Britpop faded as Oasis's third album, Be Here Now (1997), received lackluster reviews and Blur began to incorporate influences from American alternative rock. A signifier of alternative rock's declining popularity was the hiatus of the Lollapalooza festival after an unsuccessful attempt to find a headliner in 1998. In light of the festival's troubles that year, Spin
said, "Lollapalooza is as comatose as alternative rock right now".
Despite alternative rock's declining popularity, some artists retained mainstream relevance. Post-grunge remained commercially viable into the start of the 21st century, when bands like Creed
and Matchbox Twenty
became among the most popular rock bands in the United States. At the same time Britpop began to decline, Radiohead
achieved critical acclaim with its third album OK Computer
(1997), and its follow-ups Kid A
(2000) and Amnesiac
(2001), which were a marked contrast with the traditionalism of Britpop. Radiohead, along with post-Britpop
groups like Travis
and Coldplay
, were major forces in British rock in the subsequent years.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, several alternative rock bands emerged, including The Strokes
, Franz Ferdinand
, Interpol
, and The Rapture
that drew primary inspiration from post-punk and New Wave, establishing the post-punk revival
movement. Preceded by the success of The Strokes and The White Stripes
earlier in the decade, an influx of new alternative rock bands, including several post-punk revival artists and others such as Modest Mouse
, The Killers, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs
, found commercial success in the early 2000s. Due to the success of these bands, Entertainment Weekly
declared in 2004, "After almost a decade of domination by rap-rock and nu-metal bands, mainstream alt-rock is finally good again."
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...
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. Although the term was most commonly associated in its commercial heyday with a loud, distorted guitar sound, its original meaning was broader, referring to a generation of musicians unified by their collective debt to either the musical style, or simply the independent, D.I.Y. ethos, of punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, which in the late 1970s laid the groundwork for alternative music. At times, "alternative" has been used as a catch-all description for music from underground
Underground music
Underground music comprises a range of different musical genres that operate outside of mainstream culture. Such music can typically share common values, such as the valuing of sincerity and intimacy; an emphasis on freedom of creative expression; an appreciation of artistic creativity...
rock artists that receives mainstream recognition, or for any music, whether rock or not, that is seen to be descended from punk rock (including some examples of punk itself, as well as New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
, and post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
).
Alternative rock is a broad umbrella term consisting of music that differs greatly in terms of its sound, its social context and its regional roots. By the end of the 1980s, magazines and zine
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
s, college radio airplay and word of mouth
Word of mouth
Word of mouth, or viva voce, is the passing of information from person to person by oral communication. Storytelling is the oldest form of word-of-mouth communication where one person tells others of something, whether a real event or something made up. Oral tradition is cultural material and...
had increased the prominence and highlighted the diversity of alternative rock, helping to define a number of distinct scenes such as industrial music
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
, gothic rock
Gothic rock
Gothic rock is a musical subgenre of post-punk and alternative rock that formed during the late 1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the strong ties they had to the English punk rock and emerging post-punk scenes...
, 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...
, noise pop
Noise pop
Noise pop is a subgenre of alternative rock developed in the mid 1980s in the UK and US, that mixes atonal noise or feedback, or both, with the melodic instrumentation and production elements more often found in pop music, making it more melodic and angst-free than noise rock.-History:Noise pop has...
, C86
C86
C86 may refer to :* C86 , an audio cassette available from the magazine New Musical Express in 1986, which spawned a musical sub-genre.* Ruy Lopez, Worrall Attack opening in the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings...
, Madchester
Madchester
Madchester was a music scene that developed in Manchester, England, towards the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The music that emerged from the scene mixed alternative rock, psychedelic rock and dance music...
and shoegazing
Shoegazing
Shoegazing is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged from the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. It lasted there until the mid 1990s, with a critical zenith reached in 1990 and 1991...
. Most of these subgenres had achieved minor mainstream notice and a few bands representing them, such as Husker Du
Husker Du
Husker Du means "Do you remember" in Danish and Norwegian, and may refer to:*Hüsker Dü, American punk band*Hūsker Dū?, a Danish board game*Husker Du, a Danish documentary series about the 1970s...
and R.E.M., had even signed to major labels. But most alternative bands' commercial success was limited in comparison to other genres of rock and pop music at the time, and most acts remained signed to independent labels and received relatively little attention from mainstream radio, television or newspapers. In the US, punk itself had also failed to find wide mainstream recognition, which the genre had briefly achieved in Britain. Instead, underground US bands in the early 1980s developed an uncompromising and uncommercial style of hardcore punk
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
, which influenced the lo fi sound of much US alternative rock significantly.
Some examples of alternative rock bands that have achieved commercial success and mainstream critical recognition are R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
, The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
, Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
, Nirvana
Nirvana
Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
, Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1987 by guitarist and songwriter Jerry Cantrell and original lead vocalist Layne Staley. The initial lineup was rounded out by drummer Sean Kinney, and bassist Mike Starr...
, Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...
, Oasis
Oasis (band)
Oasis were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as The Rain, the group was formed by Liam Gallagher , Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs , Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan and Tony McCarroll , who were soon joined by Liam's older brother Noel Gallagher...
, The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins are an American alternative rock band that formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1988. Formed by Billy Corgan frontman and James Iha , the band has included Jimmy Chamberlin , D'arcy Wretzky , and currently includes Jeff Schroeder Mike Byrne , and Nicole Fiorentino The Smashing...
, The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips are an American alternative rock band, formed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1983.Melodically, their sound contains lush, multi-layered, psychedelic rock arrangements, but lyrically their compositions show elements of space rock, including unusual song and album titles—such as "What...
, Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters is an American alternative rock band originally formed in 1994 by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of his previous band. The band got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War...
, Green Day
Green Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
, Weezer
Weezer
Weezer is an American alternative rock band. The band currently consists of Rivers Cuomo , Patrick Wilson , Brian Bell , and Scott Shriner . The band has changed lineups three times since its formation in 1992...
, Liz Phair
Liz Phair
Phair's entry into the music industry began when she met guitarist Chris Brokaw, a member of the band Come. Brokaw and Phair moved to San Francisco together, and Phair tried to become an artist there...
, Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
, The Strokes
The Strokes
The Strokes are an American indie rock band formed in 1999 in New York City. Consisting of Julian Casablancas , Nick Valensi , Albert Hammond, Jr. , Nikolai Fraiture and Fabrizio Moretti ....
, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Yeah Yeah Yeahs are an American indie rock band formed in New York City in 2000. The group is composed of vocalist and pianist Karen O, guitarist and keyboardist Nick Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase. They are complemented in live performances by second guitarist David Pajo, who joined as a touring...
, Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse is an American indie rock band formed in 1993 in Issaquah, Washington, by singer/lyricist/guitarist Isaac Brock, drummer Jeremiah Green, and bassist Eric Judy. They are based in Portland, Oregon. Since their 1996 debut album, This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think...
, The White Stripes
The White Stripes
The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...
, Muse
Muse (band)
Muse are an English alternative rock band from Teignmouth, Devon, formed in 1994. The band consists of school friends Matthew Bellamy , Christopher Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard...
, and The Black Keys
The Black Keys
The Black Keys are an American rock duo consisting of vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer/producer Patrick Carney. The band was formed in Akron, Ohio, in 2001. As of October 2011, the band has sold over 2 million albums in the U.S....
. However, many alternative rock artists, such as Pixies, Meat Puppets
Meat Puppets
The Meat Puppets are an American rock band formed in January 1980, in Phoenix, Arizona. The group's original lineup was Curt Kirkwood , his brother Cris Kirkwood , and Derrick Bostrom . The Kirkwood brothers met Bostrom while attending Brophy Prep High School in Phoenix...
, Cocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997, known for innovative instrumentation and atmospheric, non-lyrical vocals...
, The Birthday Party
The Birthday Party (band)
The Birthday Party were an Australian rock band, active from 1973 to 1983.Despite being championed by John Peel, The Birthday Party found little commercial success during their career...
, My Bloody Valentine, and Pavement
Pavement (band)
Pavement is an American alternative rock band that formed in Stockton, California in 1989. In their career, they achieved a significant cult following, and they were called the best band of the 1990s by prominent music critics Robert Christgau and Stephen Thomas Erlewine...
are cult
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
acts that have recorded with independent labels
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
and had more sustained influence on other bands than mainstream commercial success of their own.
The term alternative rock
Before the term alternative rock came into common usage around 1990, the sort of music to which it refers was known by a variety of terms. In 1979, Terry TolkinTerry Tolkin
Terry Tolkin was the Vice President of A&R at Elektra Records from 1992 to 1996. He signed a number of critically acclaimed alternative rock bands, including Luna, Stereolab, Afghan Whigs, Scrawl, Jennyanykind and Nada Surf...
used the term Alternative Music to describe the groups he was writing about. College rock
College rock
College rock is a term that was used in the United States to describe 1980s alternative rock before the term "alternative" came into common usage. The term's use of the word "college" refers to campus radio stations located at institutions of higher education in Canada and the United States, where...
was used in the United States to describe the music during the 1980s due to its links to the college radio
Campus radio
Campus radio is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively by students, or may include programmers from the wider community in which the radio station is based...
circuit and the tastes of college students. In the United Kingdom, dozens of very small DIY (do it yourself)
Do it yourself
Do it yourself is a term used to describe building, modifying, or repairing of something without the aid of experts or professionals...
record labels emerged as a result of the punk subculture
Punk subculture
The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...
. According to the founder of one of these labels, Cherry Red
Cherry Red
Cherry Red is a London-based independent record label formed in 1978.-History:Cherry Red grew from the rock promotion company founded in 1971 to promote rock concerts at the Malvern Winter Gardens...
, NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
and Sounds
Sounds (magazine)
Sounds was a long-term British music paper, published weekly from 10 October 1970 – 6 April 1991. It was produced by Spotlight Publications , which was set up by Jack Hutton and Peter Wilkinson, who left "Melody Maker" to start their own company...
magazines published charts based on small record stores called "Alternative Charts". The first national chart based on distribution called the Indie Chart
UK Indie Chart
The UK Independent Chart or Indie Chart is a chart of the best-selling independent record releases in the UK.- History :In the wake of punk, small record labels began to spring up, as an outlet for artists that were unwilling to sign contracts with major record companies, or were not considered...
was published in January 1980; it immediately succeeded in its aim to help these labels. At the time, the term indie was used literally to describe independently distributed records. By 1985, it had come to mean a particular genre, or group of subgenres, rather than simply distribution status.
The use of the term alternative to describe rock music originated around the mid-1980s; at the time, the common music industry terms for cutting-edge music were new music and post modern, respectively indicating freshness and a tendency to recontextualize sounds of the past. Individuals who worked as DJs and promoters during the 1980s claim the term originates from American FM radio of the 1970s, which served as a progressive alternative to top 40 rock music
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...
radio format
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...
s by featuring longer songs and giving DJs more freedom in song selection. According to one former DJ and promoter, "Somehow this term 'alternative' got rediscovered and heisted by college radio people during the 80s who applied it to new post-punk, indie, or underground-whatever music". At first the term referred to intentionally non–mainstream rock acts that were not influenced by "heavy metal ballads, rarefied new wave" and "high-energy dance anthems". Usage of the term would broaden to include New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
, pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
, and occasionally "college"/"indie
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...
" rock, all found on the American "commercial alternative" radio stations of the time such as Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
' KROQ-FM
KROQ-FM
KROQ-FM — branded 106.7 KROQ — is a commercial modern rock radio station licensed to Pasadena, California serving the Greater Los Angeles. The call sign is pronounced "kay rock." It is the flagship station of Loveline hosted by Dr...
. The use of alternative gained further exposure due to the success of Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups. The music festival hosts more than 160,000 people over a...
, for which festival founder and Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction is an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985. The band's original line-up featured Perry Farrell , Dave Navarro , Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins . After breaking up in 1991, Jane's Addiction briefly reunited in 1997 and again in 2001, both times...
frontman Perry Farrell
Perry Farrell
Perry Farrell is the frontman for the alternative rock band Jane's Addiction. Farrell created the touring festival Lollapalooza as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction in 1991; it has since evolved into an annual destination festival. Farrell continues to produce Lollapalooza with partners William...
coined the term Alternative Nation. In the late 1990s, the definition again became more specific. In 1997, Neil Strauss
Neil Strauss
Neil Darrow Strauss , also known by the pen names Style and Chris Powles, is an American and Kittitian author, journalist and ghostwriter...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
defined alternative rock as "hard-edged rock distinguished by brittle, '70s-inspired guitar riffing and singers agonizing over their problems until they take on epic proportions".
Defining music as alternative is often difficult because of two conflicting applications of the word. Alternative can describe music that challenges the status quo and that is "fiercely iconoclastic, anticommercial, and antimainstream", but the term is also used in the music industry to denote "the choices available to consumers via record stores, radio, cable television, and the Internet." Using a broad definition of the genre, Dave Thompson in his book Alternative Rock cites the formation of the Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...
as well as the release of the albums Horses
Horses (album)
"Horses" is often cited as one of the greatest albums in music history. In 2003, the album was ranked number 44 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. NME named the album number 1 in its list "20 Near-as-Damn-It Perfect Initial Efforts"...
by Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
and Metal Machine Music
Metal Machine Music
Metal Machine Music, subtitled *The Amine β Ring, is the fifth solo album by Lou Reed. It was originally released as a double album by RCA Records in 1975...
by Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
as three key events that gave birth to alternative rock.
Characteristics
The name "alternative rock" essentially serves as an umbrella termUmbrella term
An umbrella term is a word that provides a superset or grouping of concepts that all fall under a single common category. Umbrella term is also called a hypernym. For example, cryptology is an umbrella term that encompasses cryptography and cryptanalysis, among other fields...
for underground music that has emerged in the wake of punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
since the mid-1980s. Throughout much of its history, alternative rock has been largely defined by its rejection of the commercialism
Commercialism
Commercialism, in its original meaning, is the practices, methods, aims, and spirit of commerce or business. Today, however, it primarily refers to the tendency within open-market capitalism to turn everything into objects, images, and services sold for the purpose of generating profit...
of mainstream culture, although this could be contested ever since some of the major Alternative artists have achieved mainstream success or co-opted with the Major labels from the 1990's onwards (especially since the new millenium & beyond). Alternative bands during the 1980s generally played in small clubs, recorded for indie labels, and spread their popularity through word of mouth. As such, there is no set musical style for alternative rock as a whole, although The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in 1989 asserted that the genre is "guitar music first of all, with guitars that blast out power chords, pick out chiming riffs, buzz with fuzztone and squeal in feedback." Sounds range from the dirty guitars of grunge to the gloomy soundscapes of gothic rock to the guitar pop revivalism of Britpop to the shambolic performance style of twee pop. More often than in other rock styles since the mainstreaming of rock music during the 1970s, alternative rock lyrics tend to address topics of social concern, such as drug use, depression, and environmentalism. This approach to lyrics developed as a reflection of the social and economic strains in the United States and United Kingdom of the 1980s and early 1990s.
Alternative rock in the 1980s
Throughout the 1980s, alternative rock was mainly an underground phenomenon. While on occasion a song would become a commercial hit or albums would receive critical praise in mainstream publications like Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, alternative rock in the 1980s was primarily relegated to independent record labels, fanzines, and college radio stations. Alternative bands built underground followings by touring constantly and regularly releasing low-budget albums. In the case of the United States, new bands would form in the wake of previous bands, which created an extensive underground circuit in America, filled with different scenes in various parts of the country. Although American alternative artists of the 1980s never generated spectacular album sales, they exerted a considerable influence on later alternative musicians and laid the groundwork for their success. By 1989 the genre had become popular enough that a package tour featuring New Order
New Order
New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris...
, Public Image Limited and The Sugarcubes
The Sugarcubes
The Sugarcubes were an Icelandic alternative rock band formed in 1986 and disbanded in 1992. They received critical and popular acclaim internationally.-History:...
toured the United States arena circuit.
In contrast, British alternative rock was distinguished from that of the United States early on by a more pop-oriented focus (marked by an equal emphasis on albums and singles, as well as greater openness to incorporating elements of dance and club culture) and a lyrical emphasis on specifically British concerns. As a result, few British alternative bands have achieved commercial success in the US. Since the 1980s alternative rock has been played extensively on the radio in the UK, particularly by disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
s such as John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
(who championed alternative music on BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
), Richard Skinner
Richard Skinner (broadcaster)
Richard Skinner is a British radio and television broadcaster.He is the only presenter to have fronted the three BBC 'flagship' pop music programmes Whistle Test, Top of the Pops and Top 40 show. -Early career:...
, and Annie Nightingale
Annie Nightingale
Anne "Annie" Nightingale MBE is an English radio broadcaster. She is most commonly known by the more informal name of Annie...
. Artists that had cult followings in the United States received greater exposure through British national radio and the weekly music press, and many alternative bands had chart success there.
The American underground in the 1980s
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
, The Feelies
The Feelies
The Feelies are a rock band from Haledon, New Jersey. They formed in 1976 and disbanded in 1992 having released four albums. The band reunited in 2008 and most recently released an album in 2011....
, and Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes were an American alternative rock band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, initially active between 1980 and 1987 and again from 1988 to 2009...
combined punk influences with folk music
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....
and mainstream music influences. R.E.M. was the most immediately successful; its debut album, Murmur
Murmur (album)
Murmur is the debut album by the American alternative rock band R.E.M., released in 1983 on I.R.S. Records. Murmur drew critical acclaim upon its release for its sound, defined by singer Michael Stipe's cryptic lyrics, guitarist Peter Buck's jangly guitar style, and bassist Mike Mills' melodic...
(1983), entered the Top 40 and spawned a number of 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...
followers. One of the many jangle pop scenes of the early 1980s, Los Angeles' Paisley Underground
Paisley Underground
Paisley Underground is an early genre of alternative rock, based primarily in Los Angeles, California, which was at its most popular in the mid-1980s.- History :...
revived the sounds of the 1960s, incorporating psychedelia, rich vocal harmonies and the guitar interplay of folk rock as well as punk and underground influences such as The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
.
American indie record labels SST Records
SST Records
SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn. The company was initially called Solid State Transmitters through which Ginn sold electronics equipment...
, Twin/Tone Records
Twin/Tone Records
Twin/Tone Records was a record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that operated from 1977 until 1994 and helped several local groups receive national attention. The label was born from the Minneapolis punk rock music scene, which included venues like Jay's Longhorn Bar. The label was begun by...
, Touch and Go Records
Touch and Go Records
Touch and Go Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.After its genesis as a hand-made fanzine in 1979, it grew into one of the key record labels in the American 1980s alternative and underground rock scenes, Touch & Go carved out a reputation for releasing adventurous...
, and Dischord Records
Dischord Records
Dischord Records is a Washington, D.C.-based independent record label specializing in the independent punk music of the D.C.-area music scene. The label is co-owned by Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson, who founded Dischord in 1980 to release Minor Disturbance by The Teen Idles...
presided over the shift from the hardcore punk
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
that then dominated the American underground scene to the more diverse styles of alternative rock that were emerging. Minneapolis bands Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü was an American rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1979. The band's continual members were guitarist Bob Mould, bassist Greg Norton, and drummer Grant Hart....
and The Replacements were indicative of this shift. Both started out as punk rock bands, but soon diversified their sounds and became more melodic. Michael Azerrad
Michael Azerrad
Michael Azerrad is an American author, journalist and musician. He grew up in the New York City area and received his BA degree from Columbia College in 1983...
asserted that Hüsker Dü was the key link between hardcore punk and the more melodic, diverse music of college rock
College rock
College rock is a term that was used in the United States to describe 1980s alternative rock before the term "alternative" came into common usage. The term's use of the word "college" refers to campus radio stations located at institutions of higher education in Canada and the United States, where...
that emerged. Azerrad wrote, "Hüsker Dü played a huge role in convincing the underground that melody and punk rock weren't antithetical." The band also set an example by being the first group from the American indie scene to sign to a major record label, which helped establish college rock as "a viable commercial enterprise." By focusing on heartfelt songwriting and wordplay instead of political concerns, The Replacements upended a number of underground scene conventions; Azerrad noted that "along with R.E.M. [The Replacements] were one of the few underground bands that mainstream people liked."
By the late 1980s, the American alternative scene was dominated by styles ranging from quirky alternative pop (They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years Flansburgh and Linnell were frequently accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG became a full band. Currently, the members of TMBG are...
and Camper Van Beethoven
Camper Van Beethoven
Camper Van Beethoven is an American alternative rock group formed in Redlands, California in 1983.An eclectic band, Camper Van Beethoven mixes elements of pop, ska, punk rock, folk and alternative country, as well as various types of world music. Their aggressive musical pluralism created a...
), to noise rock
Noise rock
Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...
(Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
, Big Black
Big Black
Big Black was an American punk rock band from Evanston, Illinois, active from 1981 to 1987. Founded by singer and guitarist Steve Albini, the band's initial lineup also included guitarist Santiago Durango and bassist Jeff Pezzati, both of Naked Raygun...
, The Jesus Lizard
The Jesus Lizard
The Jesus Lizard was an American alternative rock and noise rock band formed in 1987 in Austin, Texas. They were "a leading noise rock band in the American independent underground…[who] turned out a series of independent records filled with scathing, disembowelling, guitar-driven pseudo-industrial...
) and industrial rock
Industrial rock
Industrial rock is a musical genre that fuses industrial music and specific rock subgenres. Industrial rock spawned industrial metal, with which it is often confused...
(Ministry
Ministry (band)
Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded by lead singer Al Jourgensen in 1981. Originally a synthpop outfit, Ministry changed its style to industrial metal in the late 1980s. Ministry found mainstream success in the early 1990s with its most successful album Psalm 69: The Way to...
, Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
). These sounds were in turn followed by the advent of Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
's the Pixies and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
' Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction is an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985. The band's original line-up featured Perry Farrell , Dave Navarro , Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins . After breaking up in 1991, Jane's Addiction briefly reunited in 1997 and again in 2001, both times...
. Around the same time, the grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
subgenre emerged in Seattle, Washington. Grunge was based around a sludgy, murky guitar sound that synthesized heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
and punk rock. Largely based around the Seattle indie label Sub Pop
Sub Pop
Sub Pop is a record label founded in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman in Seattle, Washington. Sub Pop achieved fame in the late 1980s for first signing Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and many other bands from the Seattle music scene...
, grunge bands were noted for their thrift store fashion which favored flannel shirts and combat boots suited to the local weather. Early grunge bands Soundgarden
Soundgarden
Soundgarden is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1984 by singer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto...
and Mudhoney
Mudhoney
Mudhoney is an American alternative rock band. Formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1988 following the demise of Green River, Mudhoney's members are vocalist and rhythm guitarist Mark Arm, lead guitarist Steve Turner, bassist Guy Maddison, and drummer Dan Peters. Original bassist Matt Lukin left the...
found critical acclaim in the U.S. and UK, respectively.
By the end of the decade, a number of alternative bands began to sign to major labels. While early major label signings Hüsker Dü and The Replacements had little success, acts who signed with majors in their wake such as R.E.M. and Jane's Addiction achieved gold and platinum records, setting the stage for alternative's later breakthrough. Some bands such as the Pixies had massive success overseas while they were ignored domestically.
British genres and trends of the 1980s
Gothic rock
Gothic rock is a musical subgenre of post-punk and alternative rock that formed during the late 1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the strong ties they had to the English punk rock and emerging post-punk scenes...
developed out of late-1970s British post-punk. With a reputation as the "darkest and gloomiest form of underground rock," gothic rock utilizes a synthesizer-and-guitar based sound drawn from post-punk to construct "foreboding, sorrowful, often epic soundscapes," and the genre's lyrics often address literary romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and supernatural mysticism. Bauhaus
Bauhaus (band)
Bauhaus was an English rock band formed in Northampton in 1978. The group consisted of Peter Murphy , Daniel Ash , Kevin Haskins and David J . The band was originally Bauhaus 1919 before they dropped the numerical portion within a year of formation...
' debut single "Bela Lugosi's Dead
Bela Lugosi's Dead
"Bela Lugosi's Dead" is a gothic rock song written by the band Bauhaus. The song was the band's first single, released in August 1979, and is often considered to be the first gothic rock record released. It did not enter the UK charts. The b-side features the song "Boys" and some versions also...
", released in 1979, is considered to be the beginning of the gothic rock genre. Around the same time, post-punk contemporaries Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure
The Cure
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member...
adopted the new sound.
One of the key alternative rock bands to emerge during the 1980s was Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
's The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
. Music journalist Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds is an English music critic who is well-known for his writings on electronic dance music and for coining the term "post-rock". Besides electronic dance music, Reynolds has written about a wide range of artists and musical genres, and has written books on post-punk and rock...
singled out The Smiths and their American contemporaries R.E.M. as "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day", commenting that they "were eighties bands only in the sense of being against the eighties". Reynolds noted that The Smiths' "whole stance was predicated on their British audience being a lost generation, exiles in their own land". The Smiths' embrace of the guitar in an era of synthesizer-dominated music is viewed as signaling the end of the New Wave era and the advent of alternative rock in Britain. Despite the band's limited chart success and short career, The Smiths exerted an influence over the British indie scene through the end of the decade, as various bands drew from singer Morrissey
Morrissey
Steven Patrick Morrissey , known as Morrissey, is an English singer and lyricist. He rose to prominence in the 1980s as the lyricist and vocalist of the alternative rock band The Smiths. The band was highly successful in the United Kingdom but broke up in 1987, and Morrissey began a solo career,...
's English-centered lyrical topics and guitarist Johnny Marr
Johnny Marr
Johnny Marr is an English musician and songwriter. Marr rose to fame in the 1980s as the guitarist in The Smiths, with whom he formed a prolific songwriting partnership with Morrissey. Marr has been a member of Electronic, The The, and Modest Mouse...
's jangly guitar-playing style. The C86
C86 (music)
C86 is a cassette compilation released by the British music magazine NME in 1986, featuring new bands licensed from independent labels of the time. As a phrase, C86 quickly evolved into shorthand for a guitar-based musical genre characterised by "jangly" guitars and fey melodies, although other...
cassette, a 1986 NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
premium featuring such bands as The Wedding Present
The Wedding Present
The Wedding Present are a British indie rock group based in Leeds, England, formed in 1985 from the ashes of the Lost Pandas. The band's music has evolved from fast-paced indie rock in the vein of their most obvious influences The Fall, Buzzcocks and Gang of Four to more varied forms...
, Primal Scream
Primal Scream
Primal Scream are a Scottish alternative rock band originally formed in 1982 in Glasgow by Bobby Gillespie and Jim Beattie and now based in London. The current lineup consists of Gillespie, Andrew Innes , Martin Duffy , and Darrin Mooney...
, The Pastels
The Pastels
The Pastels are a group from Glasgow, Scotland, UK.Their early records for labels like Whaam!, Creation, Rough Trade, and Glass Records, had a raw and immediate sound, melodic and amateur, which seemed at odds with the time...
, and the Soup Dragons, was a major influence on the development of indie pop
Indie pop
Indie pop is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980s, with its roots in the Scottish post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label in the early '80s, such as Orange Juice, Josef K and Aztec Camera, and the dominant UK independent band of the mid...
and the British indie scene as a whole.
Other forms of alternative rock developed in the UK during the 1980s. The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Jesus and Mary Chain are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in East Kilbride, Glasgow in 1983. The band revolves around the songwriting partnership of brothers Jim and William Reid...
's sound combined the Velvet Underground's "melancholy noise" with Beach Boys pop melodies and Phil Spector
Phil Spector
Phillip Harvey "Phil" Spector is an American record producer and songwriter, later known for his conviction in the murder of actress Lana Clarkson....
's "Wall of Sound
Wall of Sound
The Wall of Sound is a music production technique for pop and rock music recordings developed by record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, California, during the early 1960s...
" production while New Order
New Order
New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris...
emerged from the demise of post-punk band Joy Division
Joy Division
Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...
and experimented with techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
and house music
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
. The Mary Chain, along with Dinosaur Jr, C86
C86 (music)
C86 is a cassette compilation released by the British music magazine NME in 1986, featuring new bands licensed from independent labels of the time. As a phrase, C86 quickly evolved into shorthand for a guitar-based musical genre characterised by "jangly" guitars and fey melodies, although other...
and the dream pop
Dream pop
Dream pop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s, when bands like The Passions, Dif Juz, Lowlife and A.R. Kane began fusing post-punk and ethereal experiments with bittersweet pop melodies into dreamy, sensual soundscapes. The term was almost...
of Cocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997, known for innovative instrumentation and atmospheric, non-lyrical vocals...
, were the formative influences for the shoegazing
Shoegazing
Shoegazing is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged from the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. It lasted there until the mid 1990s, with a critical zenith reached in 1990 and 1991...
movement of the late 1980s. Named for the band members' tendency to stare at their feet and guitar effects pedals onstage rather than interact with the audience, shoegazing acts like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive
Slowdive
Slowdive were an English shoegaze band that formed in 1989. The band formed in Reading, Berkshire and primarily consisted of Nick Chaplin , Rachel Goswell , Neil Halstead , and Christian Savill...
, Ride
Ride (band)
Ride were a British alternative rock band that formed in 1988 in Oxford, England, consisting of Andy Bell, Mark Gardener, Laurence "Loz" Colbert, and Steve Queralt. The band were initially part of the "shoegazing" scene. Following the break-up of the band in 1996, members moved on to various other...
, and Lush
Lush (band)
Lush were an English alternative rock band, formed in 1987 and disbanded in 1998. They were one of the first bands to attract the "shoegazing" label...
created an overwhelmingly loud "wash of sound" that obscured vocals and melodies with long, droning riffs, distortion, and feedback. Shoegazing bands dominated the British music press at the end of the decade along with the drug-fueled Madchester
Madchester
Madchester was a music scene that developed in Manchester, England, towards the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The music that emerged from the scene mixed alternative rock, psychedelic rock and dance music...
scene. Based around The Haçienda
The Haçienda
Fac 51 Haçienda was a nightclub and music venue in Manchester, England. It became most famous during the "Madchester" years of the late 1980s and early 1990s, during the 1990s it was labelled the most famous club in the world by Newsweek magazine...
, a nightclub in Manchester owned by New Order and Factory Records
Factory Records
Factory Records was a Manchester based British independent record label, started in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus, which featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column, Happy Mondays, Northside and James and...
, Madchester bands such as Happy Mondays
Happy Mondays
Happy Mondays are an English alternative rock band from Salford, Greater Manchester. Formed in 1980, the band's original line-up was Shaun Ryder on lead vocals, his brother Paul Ryder on bass, lead guitarist Mark Day, keyboardist Paul Davis, and drummer Gary Whelan...
and The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses are an English alternative rock band formed in Manchester in 1983. They were one of the pioneering groups of the Madchester movement that was active during the late 1980s and early 1990s...
mixed acid house
Acid house
Acid house is a sub-genre of house music that emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style, often with samples or spoken lines rather than sung lyrics. Acid house's core electronic squelch sounds were developed around the mid-1980s, particularly by DJs from Chicago who experimented with...
dance rhythms with melodic guitar pop.
Popularization in the 1990s
By the start of the 1990s, the music industry was enticed by alternative rock's commercial possibilities and major labels actively courted bands including Jane's AddictionJane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction is an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985. The band's original line-up featured Perry Farrell , Dave Navarro , Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins . After breaking up in 1991, Jane's Addiction briefly reunited in 1997 and again in 2001, both times...
, Dinosaur Jr
Dinosaur Jr
Dinosaur Jr. is an American alternative rock band formed in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1984. Originally called Dinosaur, prior to legal issues that forced the group to change their name, the band disbanded in 1997 until reuniting in 2005...
, Faith No More
Faith No More
Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed originally as Faith No Man in 1981 by bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist Wade Worthington, vocalist Michael Morris and drummer Mike Bordin. A year later when Worthington was replaced by keyboardist Roddy Bottum, and Mike...
, Firehose, and Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
. In particular, R.E.M.'s success had become a blueprint for many alternative bands in the late 1980s and 1990s to follow; the group had outlasted many of its contemporaries and by the 1990s had become one of the most popular bands in the world.
The breakthrough success of the band Nirvana led to the widespread popularization of alternative rock in the 1990s. The release of the band's single "Smells Like Teen Spirit
Smells Like Teen Spirit
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a song by the American grunge band Nirvana. It is the opening track and lead single from the band's second album, Nevermind , released on DGC Records...
" from its second album Nevermind
Nevermind
Nevermind is the second studio album by the American rock band Nirvana, released on September 24, 1991. Produced by Butch Vig, Nevermind was the group's first release on DGC Records...
(1991) "marked the instigation of the grunge music phenomenon". Due to constant airplay of the song's music video on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, Nevermind was selling 400,000 copies a week by Christmas 1991. The success of Nevermind surprised the music industry. Nevermind not only popularized grunge, but also established "the cultural and commercial viability of alternative rock in general." Michael Azerrad asserted that Nevermind symbolized "a sea-change in rock music" in which the glam metal
Glam metal
Glam metal is a subgenre of hard rock and heavy metal that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, particularly on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip music scene...
that had dominated rock music at that time fell out of favor in the face of music that was authentic and culturally relevant.
Nirvana's surprise success with Nevermind heralded a "new openness to alternative rock" among commercial radio stations, opening doors for heavier alternative bands in particular. In the wake of Nevermind, alternative rock "found itself dragged-kicking and screaming ... into the mainstream" and record companies, confused by the genre's success yet eager to capitalize on it, scrambled to sign bands. The New York Times declared in 1993, "Alternative rock doesn't seem so alternative anymore. Every major label has a handful of guitar-driven bands in shapeless shirts and threadbare jeans, bands with bad posture and good riffs who cultivate the oblique and the evasive, who conceal catchy tunes with noise and hide craftsmanship behind nonchalance." However, many alternative rock artists rejected success, for it conflicted with the rebellious, DIY ethic the genre had espoused before mainstream exposure and their ideas of artistic authenticity.
The grunge explosion
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...
had released its debut album Ten
Ten (Pearl Jam album)
Ten is the debut studio album by the American grunge band Pearl Jam, released on August 27, 1991 through Epic Records. Following the disbanding of bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard's previous group Mother Love Bone, the two recruited vocalist Eddie Vedder, guitarist Mike McCready, and...
a month before Nevermind
Nevermind
Nevermind is the second studio album by the American rock band Nirvana, released on September 24, 1991. Produced by Butch Vig, Nevermind was the group's first release on DGC Records...
in 1991, but album sales only picked up a year later. By the second half of 1992 Ten became a breakthrough success, being certified gold and reaching number two on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
album chart. Soundgarden
Soundgarden
Soundgarden is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1984 by singer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto...
's album Badmotorfinger
Badmotorfinger
Badmotorfinger is the third studio album by the American grunge band Soundgarden, released on October 8, 1991 through A&M Records. After touring in support of its previous album, Louder Than Love , Soundgarden began the recording sessions for its next album with new bassist Ben Shepherd...
and Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1987 by guitarist and songwriter Jerry Cantrell and original lead vocalist Layne Staley. The initial lineup was rounded out by drummer Sean Kinney, and bassist Mike Starr...
' Dirt, along with the Temple of the Dog
Temple of the Dog (album)
Temple of the Dog is the only studio album by the American rock band Temple of the Dog, released on April 16, 1991 through A&M Records. The album is a tribute to Andrew Wood, the former lead singer of Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone. Wood died on March 19, 1990 of a heroin overdose...
album collaboration featuring members of Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...
and Soundgarden
Soundgarden
Soundgarden is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1984 by singer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto...
, were also among the 100 top selling albums of 1992. Soundgarden was influenced by 1970s blues rock and heavy metal, punk and the 1980s American Underground. Their album Superunknown
Superunknown
Superunknown is the fourth album by American grunge band Soundgarden, released on March 8, 1994 through A&M Records. Soundgarden began work on the album after touring in support of its previous album, Badmotorfinger...
debuted at number 1 in 1994 and earned two Grammy Awards. The popular breakthrough of these grunge bands prompted Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
to nickname Seattle "the new Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
." Major record labels signed most of the prominent grunge bands in Seattle, while a second influx of bands moved to the city in hopes of success.
At the same time, critics asserted that advertising was co-opting elements of grunge and turning it into a fad. Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
commented in a 1993 article, "There hasn't been this kind of exploitation of a subculture since the media discovered hippies in the '60s." The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
compared the "grunging of America" to the mass-marketing of punk rock, disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
, and hip hop
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...
in previous years. As a result of the genre's popularity, a backlash against grunge developed in Seattle. Nirvana's follow-up album In Utero
In Utero
In Utero is the third and final studio album by the American grunge band Nirvana, released on September 13, 1993, on DGC Records. Nirvana intended the record to diverge significantly from the polished production of its previous album, Nevermind...
(1993) was an intentionally abrasive album that Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic
Krist Novoselic
Krist Anthony Novoselic II is a Croatian-American rock musician, best known for being the bassist and co-founder of the grunge band Nirvana. After Nirvana ended, Novoselic formed Sweet 75 and then Eyes Adrift, releasing one album with each band...
described as a "wild aggressive sound, a true alternative record." Nevertheless, upon its release in September 1993 In Utero topped the Billboard charts. Pearl Jam also continued to perform well commercially with its second album, Vs. (1993), which topped the Billboard charts by selling a record 950,378 copies in its first week of release.
Britpop
Blur (band)
Blur is an English alternative rock band. Formed in London in 1989 as Seymour, the group consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Blur's debut album Leisure incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing...
, Oasis
Oasis (band)
Oasis were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as The Rain, the group was formed by Liam Gallagher , Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs , Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan and Tony McCarroll , who were soon joined by Liam's older brother Noel Gallagher...
, Suede
Suede (band)
Suede are an English alternative rock band from London, formed in 1989. The group's most prominent early line-up featured singer Brett Anderson, guitarist Bernard Butler, bass player Mat Osman and drummer Simon Gilbert. By 1992, Suede were hailed as "The Best New Band in Britain", and attracted...
, and Pulp
Pulp (band)
Pulp are an English alternative rock band formed in Sheffield in 1978. Their lineup consists of Jarvis Cocker , Russell Senior , Candida Doyle , Mark Webber , Steve Mackey and Nick Banks ....
was the British equivalent of the grunge explosion, in that the artists propelled alternative rock to the top of the charts in their home country. Britpop bands were influenced by and displayed reverence for British guitar music of the past, particularly movements and genres such as the British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
, glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
, and punk rock. In 1995 the Britpop phenomenon culminated in a rivalry between its two chief groups, Oasis and Blur, symbolized by their release of competing singles on the same day. Blur won "The Battle of Britpop", but Oasis soon eclipsed the other band in popularity with its second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
(What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Morning Glory? is the second studio album by the English rock band Oasis. It was released on 2 October 1995 through Creation Records. The album was Oasis' most enduring commercial success, charting at number one in the UK and number four in the U.S...
(1995), which went on to become the third best-selling album in Britain's history.
Other trends
Long synonymous with alternative rock as a whole, indie rockIndie 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...
became a distinct form following the popular breakthrough of Nirvana. Indie rock was formulated as a rejection of both alternative rock's absorption into the mainstream by artists who could not or refused to cross over, and a wariness of it's "macho" esthetic. While indie rock artists share the punk rock distrust of commercialized music, the genre does not entirely define itself against that, as "the general assumption is that it's virtually impossible to make indie rock's varying musical approaches compatible with mainstream tastes in the first place". Labels such as Matador Records
Matador Records
Matador Records is an independent record label, with a roster of indie rock artists and bands.-History:Matador was started by Chris Lombardi in 1989 in his New York City apartment. The following year, Lombardi was joined by former Homestead Records manager Gerard Cosloy, and the two of them have...
, Merge Records
Merge Records
Merge Records is an independent record label based in Durham, North Carolina. It was founded in 1989 by Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan. It began as a way to release music from their band Superchunk and music created by friends, and has expanded to include artists from around the world and records...
, and Dischord, and indie rockers like Pavement
Pavement (band)
Pavement is an American alternative rock band that formed in Stockton, California in 1989. In their career, they achieved a significant cult following, and they were called the best band of the 1990s by prominent music critics Robert Christgau and Stephen Thomas Erlewine...
, Superchunk
Superchunk
Superchunk is an American indie rock band from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, consisting of singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan, guitarist Jim Wilbur, bassist Laura Ballance, and drummer Jon Wurster. Formed in 1989, they were one of the bands that helped define the Chapel Hill music scene of the 1990s...
, Fugazi
Fugazi (band)
Fugazi is an American post-hardcore band that formed in Washington, D.C. in 1987. The band's continual members are guitarists and vocalists Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto, bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty....
, and Sleater-Kinney
Sleater-Kinney
Sleater-Kinney was an alternative rock band from Portland, Oregon that formed in 1994. Originally formed in Olympia, Washington, the group's name is derived from Sleater-Kinney Road, Interstate 5 off ramp #108 in Lacey, Washington, the location of one of their early practice spaces. They were a...
dominated the American indie scene for most of the 1990s. One of the main indie rock movements of the 1990s was lo-fi
Lo-fi music
Lo-fi is lower quality of sound recordings than the usual standard for music. The qualities of lo-fi are usually achieved by either degrading the quality of the recorded audio, or using certain equipment. Recent uses of the phrase have led to it becoming a genre, although it still remains as an...
. The movement, which focused on the recording and distribution of music on low-quality cassette tapes, initially emerged in the 1980s. By 1992, Pavement, Guided By Voices and Sebadoh
Sebadoh
Sebadoh is an American indie rock band, formed in 1986 in Westfield, Massachusetts by Eric Gaffney and Dinosaur Jr bass player Lou Barlow. Along with such bands as Pavement and Guided by Voices, Sebadoh helped pioneer lo-fi music, a style of indie rock characterized by low-fidelity recording...
became popular lo-fi cult acts in the United States, while subsequently artists like Liz Phair
Liz Phair
Phair's entry into the music industry began when she met guitarist Chris Brokaw, a member of the band Come. Brokaw and Phair moved to San Francisco together, and Phair tried to become an artist there...
and Beck
Beck
Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
brought the aesthetic to mainstream audiences. The period also saw alternative confessional female singer-songwriters. Besides the previously mentioned Liz Phair, PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
and the massively successful Alanis Morissette
Alanis Morissette
Alanis Nadine Morissette is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, record producer, and actress. She has won 16 Juno Awards and seven Grammy Awards, was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and also shortlisted for an Academy Award nomination...
fit into this sub group.
During the latter half of the 1990s, grunge was supplanted by post-grunge
Post-grunge
Post-grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged in the mid-1990s as a derivative of grunge, using the sounds and aesthetic of grunge, but with a more commercially acceptable tone...
. Post-grunge bands such as Candlebox
Candlebox
Candlebox is an American alternative rock band from Seattle, Washington. Since their debut, the group has released four studio albums, which have achieved multi-platinum and gold certification, as well as numerous charting singles, a compilation, and a CD+DVD....
and Bush
Bush (band)
Bush are an alternative rock band formed in London in 1992 shortly after vocalist/guitarist Gavin Rossdale and guitarist Nigel Pulsford met in a London nightclub. Realising they shared a love for such diverse artists as the Pixies, Bob Marley, The Jesus Lizard, MC5, Nirvana, Hüsker Dü, and Big...
emerged soon after grunge's breakthrough. These artists lacked the underground roots of grunge and were largely influenced by what grunge had become, namely "a wildly popular form of inward-looking, serious-minded hard rock." Post-grunge was a more commercially viable genre that tempered the distorted guitars of grunge with polished, radio-ready production.
Post-rock
Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the influence and use of instruments commonly associated with rock, but using rhythms and "guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures" not traditionally found in rock...
was established by Talk Talk
Talk Talk
Talk Talk were an English musical group, active from 1981 to 1991. The group had a string of international hit singles including "Today", "Talk Talk", "It's My Life", "Such a Shame", "Dum Dum Girl", "Life's What You Make It" and "Living in Another World"....
's Laughing Stock and Slint
Slint
Slint was an American rock band consisting of Brian McMahan , David Pajo , Britt Walford , Todd Brashear and Ethan Buckler...
's Spiderland
Spiderland
Spiderland is the second studio album by the American post-rock band Slint, released on March 27, 1991 on Touch and Go. Featuring dramatically alternating dynamics and vocals ranging from spoken word to shouting, the album contains narrative lyrics that emphasize alienation...
albums, both released in 1991. Post-rock draws influence from a number of genres, including Krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
, progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
, and 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...
. The genre subverts or rejects rock conventions, and often incorporates electronic music. While the name of the genre was coined by music journalist Simon Reynolds in 1994, the sound of the genre was solidified by the release of Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Millions Now Living Will Never Die is the second album by the Chicago-based band Tortoise. Released in 1996 by Thrill Jockey Records, Millions... is renowned as a groundbreaking album for post-rock; an uncredited review from Outersound.com declares that not long after the album's release, the group...
(1996) by the Chicago group Tortoise
Tortoise (band)
Tortoise is an American post-rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1990.-Music:Tortoise's almost entirely instrumental music defies easy categorization, and the group gained significant attention from their early career. The members have roots in Chicago's fertile music scene, playing in...
. Post-rock became the dominant form of experimental rock music in the 1990s and bands from the genre centered around the Thrill Jockey
Thrill Jockey
Thrill Jockey Records is an American independent record label established in 1992 in New York City by former Atlantic Records A&R representative Bettina Richards.-History:...
, Kranky
Kranky Records
Kranky is an independent record label, located in Chicago, Illinois. It was started in 1993 by Bruce Adams and Joel Leoschke.The bands it houses are noted for combining experimental and often electronic influences with elements of more traditional rock structures, and many of the artists on Kranky...
, Drag City
Drag City (record label)
Drag City is a Chicago-based independent record label. It was established with a Royal Trux release in 1990 in Chicago, Illinois by Dan Koretzky and Dan Osborn.Drag City specializes in experimental indie rock acts...
, and Too Pure
Too Pure
Too Pure is a London-based independent record label that was formed in 1990 by Richard Roberts and Paul Cox.-History:Too Pure started off as a small experimental label and had built their reputation by releasing primarily alternative/independent music which they felt was being ignored by the major...
record labels. A related genre, math rock
Math rock
Math rock is a rhythmically complex guitar-based style of experimental rock that emerged in the 1980s and that was very influenced by progressive rock like King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Henry Cow - and 20th century composers such as Steve Reich and John Cage...
, peaked in the mid-1990s. In comparison to post-rock, math rock is more "rockist
Rockism
Rockism is a derogatory term referring to perceived biases in popular music criticism. It was popularized by New York Times critic Kelefa Sennneh in 2004 in an influential article. The term was coined by Pete Wylie with a variant meaning and used by "one or two" critics in the British music press...
" and relies on complex time signatures and intertwining phrases. While by the end of the decade a backlash had emerged against post-rock due to its "dispassionate intellectuality" and its perceived increasing predictability, a new wave of post-rock bands such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a Canadian post-rock band which originated from Montreal, Quebec in 1994...
and Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with classicaland minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound, and frontman Jónsi Birgisson's falsetto vocals and use of bowed guitar. In January 2010, the band announced that they will be on hiatus. Since then, it has since been announced...
emerged who further expanded the genre.
After almost a decade in the underground, ska
Ska punk
Ska punk is a fusion music genre that combines ska and punk rock. It achieved its highest level of commercial success in the United States in the late 1990s. Ska-core is a subgenre of ska punk, blending ska with hardcore punk.The characteristics of ska punk vary, due to the fusion of contrasting...
acts became popular in the United States in 1996 with Mighty Mighty Bosstones, No Doubt
No Doubt
No Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California that formed in 1986. The ska-pop sound of their first album No Doubt , failed to make an impact...
, Goldfinger
Goldfinger (band)
Goldfinger is a Los Angeles pop punk/ska punk band that formed in 1994. Currently, the band is composed of vocalist/guitarist John Feldmann, guitarist Charlie Paulson, bassist Kelly LeMieux, and drummer Darrin Pfeiffer...
, Reel Big Fish
Reel Big Fish
Reel Big Fish is an American ska punk band from Huntington Beach, California, best known for the 1997 hit "Sell Out". The band gained mainstream recognition in the mid-to-late 1990s, during the third wave of ska with the release of the gold certified album Turn the Radio Off. Soon after, the band...
, Less Than Jake
Less Than Jake
Less Than Jake is an American ska punk band from Gainesville, Florida. Originally formed in 1992 as a power pop trio, the band evolved into a hybrid of ska punk. Less Than Jake have also been cited as showing influences from a wide variety of genres including post-grunge, heavy metal, alternative...
and Save Ferris
Save Ferris
Save Ferris was a ska punk band formed circa 1995 in Orange County, California. Their name is a reference to the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off.-History:...
charting or getting radio exposure.
Mid to Late 1990s: Troubles and popularity decline
By the end of the decade, alternative rock's mainstream prominence declined due to a number of events, notably the death of Nirvana's Kurt CobainKurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
in 1994 and Pearl Jam's lawsuit against concert venue promoter Ticketmaster
Ticketmaster
Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. is an independent American ticket sales and distribution company based in West Hollywood, California, USA, with operations in many countries around the world. In 2010 it merged with Live Nation to become Live Nation Entertainment...
, which in effect barred the group from playing many major venues around the United States. In addition to the decline of grunge bands, Britpop faded as Oasis's third album, Be Here Now (1997), received lackluster reviews and Blur began to incorporate influences from American alternative rock. A signifier of alternative rock's declining popularity was the hiatus of the Lollapalooza festival after an unsuccessful attempt to find a headliner in 1998. In light of the festival's troubles that year, Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
said, "Lollapalooza is as comatose as alternative rock right now".
Despite alternative rock's declining popularity, some artists retained mainstream relevance. Post-grunge remained commercially viable into the start of the 21st century, when bands like Creed
Creed (band)
Creed is an American rock band formed in 1995 in Tallahassee, Florida. Becoming popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the band has released three consecutive multi-platinum albums, one of which has been certified diamond, and has sold over 28 million records in the United States, with an...
and Matchbox Twenty
Matchbox Twenty
Matchbox Twenty is an American rock band, formed in Orlando, Florida in 1995...
became among the most popular rock bands in the United States. At the same time Britpop began to decline, Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
achieved critical acclaim with its third album OK Computer
OK Computer
OK Computer is the third studio album by the English alternative rock band Radiohead, released on 16 June 1997 on Parlophone in the UK and 1 July 1997 by Capitol Records in the US. It marks a deliberate attempt by the band to move away from the introspective guitar-oriented sound of their previous...
(1997), and its follow-ups Kid A
Kid A
Kid A is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in October 2000 by the Parlophone label. A commercial success worldwide, Kid A went platinum in its first week of release in the United Kingdom. Despite the lack of an official single or music video as publicity, Kid A...
(2000) and Amnesiac
Amnesiac
Amnesiac was generally well-received by critics. It was also ranked as one of the best albums of the year by several publications. The Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll ranked it number 6 on their top 10 albums of the year. Alternative Press declared it the #1 album of the year...
(2001), which were a marked contrast with the traditionalism of Britpop. Radiohead, along with post-Britpop
Post-Britpop
Post-Britpop is a sub-genre of British alternative rock, made up of bands that emerged from the late 1990s and early 2000s in the aftermath of Britpop, influenced by acts like Pulp, Oasis and Blur, but with less overtly British concerns in their lyrics and making more use of American rock...
groups like Travis
Travis (band)
Travis are a post-Britpop band from Glasgow, Scotland, comprising Fran Healy , Dougie Payne , Andy Dunlop and Neil Primrose...
and Coldplay
Coldplay
Coldplay are a British alternative rock band formed in 1996 by lead vocalist Chris Martin and lead guitarist Jonny Buckland at University College London. After they formed Pectoralz, Guy Berryman joined the group as a bassist and they changed their name to Starfish. Will Champion joined as a...
, were major forces in British rock in the subsequent years.
Early 2000s: Renewed popularity and return to roots
The Strokes
The Strokes are an American indie rock band formed in 1999 in New York City. Consisting of Julian Casablancas , Nick Valensi , Albert Hammond, Jr. , Nikolai Fraiture and Fabrizio Moretti ....
, Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand (band)
Franz Ferdinand are a Scottish post-punk revival band formed in Glasgow in 2002. The band is composed of Alex Kapranos , Bob Hardy , Nick McCarthy , and Paul Thomson .The band first experienced chart success when their second single, "Take Me Out", reached #3 in...
, Interpol
Interpol (band)
Interpol is an American indie rock and post-punk revival band from New York City. Formed in 1997, the band's original line-up consisted of Paul Banks , Daniel Kessler , Carlos Dengler and Greg Drudy . Drudy left the band in 2000 and was replaced by Sam Fogarino...
, and The Rapture
The Rapture (band)
The Rapture is an Indie rock band based in New York City. The band mixes influences from many genres including post-punk, acid house, disco, electronica and rock, pioneering the post-punk revival genre...
that drew primary inspiration from post-punk and New Wave, establishing the post-punk revival
Post-punk revival
The post-punk revival was a development in alternative rock of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in which bands took inspiration from the original sounds and aesthetics of garage rock of the 1960s and post-punk and New Wave of the late 1970s...
movement. Preceded by the success of The Strokes and The White Stripes
The White Stripes
The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...
earlier in the decade, an influx of new alternative rock bands, including several post-punk revival artists and others such as Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse is an American indie rock band formed in 1993 in Issaquah, Washington, by singer/lyricist/guitarist Isaac Brock, drummer Jeremiah Green, and bassist Eric Judy. They are based in Portland, Oregon. Since their 1996 debut album, This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think...
, The Killers, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Yeah Yeah Yeahs are an American indie rock band formed in New York City in 2000. The group is composed of vocalist and pianist Karen O, guitarist and keyboardist Nick Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase. They are complemented in live performances by second guitarist David Pajo, who joined as a touring...
, found commercial success in the early 2000s. Due to the success of these bands, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
declared in 2004, "After almost a decade of domination by rap-rock and nu-metal bands, mainstream alt-rock is finally good again."
Term Falls out of Favor
During the 2000s in the United States the term "Alternative Rock" fell out of common usage and was replaced by "Indie Rock", a term that had previously limited usage there.See also
- Independent music
- List of alternative rock artists
- Modern rockModern rockModern rock is a rock format commonly found on commercial radio; the format consists primarily of the alternative rock genre...
(radio format) - Timeline of alternative rockTimeline of alternative rock__NOTOC_1980 - 1981 - 1982 - 1983 - 1984 - 1985 - 1986 - 1987 - 1988 - 1989 - 1990 - 1991 - 1992 - 1993 - 1994 - 1995 - 1996 - 1997 - 1998 - 1999 - 2000 - 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008 - 2009 - 2010 - See also- 1979 :* Newly formed bands...
External links
- [ Allmusic article for alternative rock]