Alternative rock (also called alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. Alternative rock consists of various subgenres that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980s, such as grunge, Britpop, gothic rock, and indie pop. These genres are unified by their collective debt to the style and/or ethos of punk rock, which laid the groundwork for alternative music in the 1970s. At times alternative rock has been used as a catch-all phrase for rock music from underground artists in the 1980s, and all music descended from punk rock (including punk itself, New Wave, and post-punk).

While a few bands like R.E.M. and The Cure achieved commercial success and mainstream critical recognition, many alternative rock artists during the 1980s were cult acts that recorded on independent labels and received their exposure through college radio airplay and word-of-mouth. With the breakthrough of Nirvana and the popularity of the grunge and Britpop movements in the 1990s, alternative rock entered the musical mainstream and many alternative bands became commercially successful.


Characteristics
"Alternative rock" is essentially an umbrella term 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. 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.

Some bands of alternative rock and metal: Foo Fighters , The Calling , Red Hot Chili Peppers , Smashing Pumpkins , Three Doors Down , Three Days Grace , 30 seconds to Mars , All Americans Rejects , Radiohead , Queens of the stone Age , Audioslave , Lifehouse , Five for Fighting , Ryan Adams , Depeche Mode , Dinosaur Jr. , The Strokes , Evanescence , Fall Out Boys , Jimmy Eat World , Remy Zero , R.E.M. , Sugarcult and others.


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