| Articles: |
| 1) The Genre Known As Punk - The Article - Some Questions 2) The Grunge Revolution - The Beginning - Album To Change Albums - End Of An Era 3) The Punk Manifesto - Belief System Outline 4) The Genre Known As Alt-Rock - The Article |
| It's Alternative Rock, As We Know It...And I Feel Fine. AN OVERVIEW: I think it was when I was still in Junior High, sometime around 1997 or so, and some kid asked me what type of music I listened to. I told him "mostly alternative stuff". He said "What do you listen to that crap for?" or something like that. I gave him a few examples of my favorite bands and I eventually convinced him that I did have decent taste in music citing bands that we both liked. I eventually realized why he took such offense to the genre of alternative. You see, alternative is a genre that is constantly in transition, it can sybolized pop punk riffs one minute, like Greenday, and the next be refering to softer more melodic bands like Oasis. In reality alternative, isn't really alternative anymore since very often, it represents mainstream and radio friendly rock. BRIEF HISTORY: Alternative as a genre that really took form in the mid 1980's with college radio stations playing underground favorite bands like REM. As the genre grew in size it became more and more diverse, including many other genre's into it's fold, but despite it's new attention, it was not synonymous with popular culture. The alternative scene did not become mainstream until 1991, when Nirvana's Nevermind was released. Alternative became the new focal point for "Modern Rock" and influenced virtually every artist of the 90's directly or indirectly. Now, grunge, neo-punk, ska, folk, and even Heavy Metal would be associated with the new mainstream genre known as alternative. CONCLUSION Now, it's safe to say that the title "Alternative" no longer applies since there is no longer any such thing as "Conventional Rock". If anything the word alternative is only refering to the bands currently in the spotlight. |
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