HISTORY OF GENREAlternative Rock Music

• The cultural origins are the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

• Alternative Rock music is a genre of Rock music that emerged from independent music from the 1980’s.

• Alternative Rock music became popular within the time period of the the 1990’s. Although, the history of alternative rock goes back further.

• The typical instruments used are vocals, electric guitar, bass, drums and keyboards.

• Alternative rock is a broad umbrella term consisting of music that is greatly different in terms of sound, social context and regional roots.

• Many alternative Rock bands leave their independent record labels and sign to major record labels (Sony, Universal and Warner)

“Alternative music is any kind of music that

has the potential to reach a wider

audience.”

“It also has real strength, real quality, real

quality and it has to be socially significant.”

• Alternative Rock music changed from being individual, but currently it is mostly mainstream now.

• A new genre of alternative rock was created known as indie music which has a softer and calmer sound than alternative rock. This resulted in becoming really popular with bands such as The Kooks and The Libertines.

• There was no coverage of alternative rock music during the 1980’s, and the music was unrecognizable to the audience, before the awareness of the genre started to spread.

• In the 1990’s, there was a huge change, as bands had moved from playing small venues to big time concerts, this was the beginning of commercialism (excessive emphasis on profit) and popularity.

• Originally, alternative rock artists were signed to a small independent label or no label at all (1976). Now they are mainly signed to major labels (2014).

• Also, beforehand alternative rock was loosely arranged, and a genre/movement that just existed on the sidelines of music.

History of genre