I have heard people saythat they love Alternative music, but I don't actually understand what's so different about Alternative and regular Rock. I've also seen bands like Dropkick Murphys and Rancid be classified as Alternative and That confused me to no end. I always thought Alternative was the Pop Rocky stuff. If someone could help out, That'd be great=)


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It's a marketing term. Like most marketing terms, it has no meaning. For whatever its worth, here;s an essay on it from allmusic:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=19:T578

When I think of alternative, I think of punk rock and nirvana.

Thanks to bands like REM and Nirvana popularizing it,it no longer has any meaning...

Alternative rock became an obselete term in about 1993 when alternative became mainstream.

Simple answer. Alternative was indie before indie was indie. If the Arcade Fire had released Funeral in 1993, it would've been called alternative instead of indie. Alternative became a popular term to describe bands from the grunge era. I belive before that it was referred to as college rock.

As far as I understand it, "alternative" rock arose in the early 80s to refer to any rock music that was based predominantly on punk rock as opposed to "traditional" blues-based rock and roll. Early R.E.M., the Replacements, and then Sonic Youth and Pixies, and so on were all out of the mainstream and punk-based (if you trace it back) so they were "alternative". Then Nevermind happened, and "alternative" became the most popular form of rock, and things came full circle.

That is a good way to put it. Alternative really had meaning in the late 80's and into the 90's. Perhaps personified by shows like 120 minutes and college radio and the club scenes with the fore mentioned groups, The Smiths, Stone Roses, NIN etc... Then "Losing My Religion", "Smells Like Teen Spirit", "Under The Bridge", "Alive" etc.. made "Alternative" fashionable thus killing the true meaning behind it. Indie has been around for a long time, but in it's purest form referred to bands that were on smaller labels and remained underground. Which was again, alternative. That concept was killed in the early 90's as well. Now so many bands are considered indie that the whole idea of it being an alternative music style is watered down.

I consider stuff like The National to be 'alternative'. Anything with pop accessibility but that doesn't follow the proven mainstream formula.

post-punk, college rock, alternative rock, and indie rock are all different terms for the same thing in different eras.