Category: Jam Session
Whilst talking to someone in a bar about music yesterday, he said this to me.
you seem like you listen to a lot of alternative music.
What in the world is this? i mean i listen to a lot of music not a lot of people listen to, devendra banhart/the shins/caliko/joana newsom etc etc etc, and more stuff that absolutely nobody will have heard of, but what is this alternative to? what constitutes alternative music? is everything that isn't top 40 alternative, e.g underground rap/techno etc etc? i'd be interested to see what you guys think on this. p.s those who know me know that i am hugely eclectic, and i still havn't figured this out :p
Never thought about the term, it came in in the early nineties to describe Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Sound Garden and The Verve (formerly Vervpipe). A lot of it comes from 9dependent "indie" labels. It doesn't really encapsulate industrial but some of it has techno leanings. Even The Gorillas and Shiny Toy Guns are considered Alternative: You'll even find The B52s & REM there.
Yeah, some of the songs in the 90's are also considered as alternative music. I think Goo Goo Dolls, Lifehouse, Nickelback, Oasis, Matchbox 20, Staind, 3 Doors Down, Daughtry, Shinedown and some of the songs in Linkin Park are considered as alternative music.
oh i love shinedown but never really thought of myself liking alternative. still like them though :). and i'm not sure where'd i'd be with out linken park either :).
It's just such a wide thing, technically anything that's not in the charts should be alternative, but it seems to have been used as a markiting term. The other one that really gets me is shoe gaze. What sort of a name is that for a genre?
Actually, a lot of what people call alternative turns out to be rock or a more mild version of metal, hence Shinedown. If any Shinedown song is what I think alternative means, it would be "Call Me". If any Linkin Park songs are what I think it means, they would be "Shadow of the Day," "The Little Things Give You Away," "My December," "Blackbirds," "Wake" and the like. For 3 Doors Down, "She Don't Want The World," and "Here By Me." For Staind, things like "Epiphany." So I actually think it encompasses many things too, but more recently, the idea has changed. I wouldn't think of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Sound Garden as alternative, which just goes to show how fast genres evolve and how really indistinct many actually are, not to mention how much they're open to interpretation.
Alternative music is intended to mean an alternative to the mainstream music that dominates the charts. Some people who like alternative music believe they are better than those who like mainstream music, because they don't just like a song ecause everybody else likes it or it's on the radio. However, like mainstream music fans, alternative music fans are followers. They follow different leaders.
The battle for Christmas number 1 in the UK charts last year illustrates the above point.
The point that has been brought up here that I never really thought about is that many of these bands that are considered alternative are mainstream. Staind, Linkin Park, Shinedown, etc. are all pretty well-known, even for a person who's barely acquainted with the rock scene. So it's an alternative to what exactly? The crappy pop stations that play the same 20 songs all day long? Whoever made the point about Nirvana and Pearl Jam is right. See, that music was considered alternative then because the grunge scene, before it took off, was only played on college radio stations to begin with, if you heard it on the radio at all. The adults said it was music of the devil and the kids lapped it up, so magazine critics probably tried to come up with a watered-down term to encompass this feeling, hence alternative. That's just my opinion, but the point is, once Nirvana became famous, the meaning of alternative basically became radio-friendly, well-polished rock music.
this is my point, turtle who's name i probbably know but have forgotten...
What a stupid term alternative is for pretty much mainstream music. I would suggest alternative music being things like olof arnalds, the boxhead ensemble, devendre banhart, joana newsom, alongside the more progressive side of rock, not 4 minute radio friendly pop music.
right.. well, that's put me right off alternative!. i hate shadow of the day and my cecember. ugg
Dan, as it's been said, alternative isn't actually a genre. It's not even a made up genre. So there lol
It's hard to like something that not only isn't really there, but doesn't exist, and believe me there's a difference. So now I shall go off and write a topic about the difference between reality and existence. rofl
I really hate it when people narro things down into tiny little subgenres, it's something i as a dj have been fighting against for years and years. People should open their ears a lot more to new and different sounds, especially more experimental ones. There's not one sub genre i don't like at least 1 band or artist from, there really isn't, and people call me strange for this when i think it's them being narro minded lol
I didn't know the Vere and the Verve Pipe were the same band. They came onto the scne about the same time or thereabouts. THe Verve had that song Bittersweet Symphony which I've always found rather catchy, then the Verve Pipe at the time was big with that Freshmen song. As I recall this was about 1997 or so, right around the same time Green Day came out with their version of Time of Your Life. And while I love that song people seriously overused it since it got played at any remotely sad or otherwise emotional occasion. Then a year or two later Eve6 came out with Here's to the Night, another song which I do in fact like, which became the song of choice for just about every High School graduation.
Verve anything was awesome.
But what's it now with the young fools not liking anything industrial? Even the ones dolled up in black can't seem to get into real hard industrial like we did in latter 80s early 90s, think Coil's Horse Rotorvator or Current 93's Swasticas for Noddy.
Yes, Linkin Park and Stain belong in the alternative music category. They are liked by certain groups of people, and appeal to a narrower cross-section than pop music artists. Alternative covers a very wide range (emo, punk, heavy metal, new metal, pop punk, goth, unsigned to name a few).
Within alternative music, there is musical snobbery, with people not liking bands that are liked by pop music fans. They only like bands with a small following.
The alternative scene is very divided, moreso than the mainstream scene, where the urban genres have merged, then merged with pop and dance. Of course, there is underground music within msot genres, and usually that music doesn't embrace other genres or appeal to people who don't like that genre. Rap is a good example of this, as is hardcore dance.
Musical snobbery is just something I don't understand at all, and I'm a dj so am probbably the most likely person to be a musical snob. Anyone that has seen y record and cd collections will tell you how seemingly random they are as i really don't believe in catigorising stuff, but that's just me.
yes well lia, that still means i hate my december and shadow of the day