HISTORY OF ALTERNATIVE ROCK                                               

 

In order to explain the history of Alternative Rock music you first have

to understand that it doesn’t exist. "Doesn’t exist" you ask? Very

simply put, how does a genre exist that can lump together artists

like the Foo Fighters, the Whitestripes, U2 & Sublime into a singular

category. It can’t but the music industry’s lack of imagination will

have you think otherwise when an artist with an unknown sound

presents its self. Is this how the history of alternative rock is going

 to be remebered?

 

Historically many of the alternative rock groups have a direct link

to punk rock & newwave sounds created in the 70's. Again though

this is even a misconception given the varieties of music that are now

present under this genre. From the funk like feel of the Chilli Peppers,

the Heavy Metal hammering of Alice in Chains, or the Surfer like

swooning of Everclear, were left confused as to what the history of

Alternative rock will be.

                                                                                                                            

Granted a large spectrum in the history of Alternative Rock derive

from Punk, like the Pretenders & the Talking Heads. Most of the

New Wave feels of the 80's though has transcended more toward

a Metal sub-genre with groups like Finger Eleven, the Nickleback,

or Audioslave. The historic ramifications of this irresponsible practice

of banding all these obvious different genres will make the future

process of giving a distinct label to music close too impossible.This

absurd practice of placing any new artist under this umbrella has

 become the accepted practice in the industry as well as the media.

If anything the history of alternative rock will point out that it isn’t 

the first time this practice was pushed upon a genre. Similar to the

Jazz & Blues rhythms of the 30's & 40's anything being performed

 by African American musicians of the era was placed under the

 ominous title of R&B.

       Now this method may be acceptable to a degree when an artist

or musician is in their infancy for the simple reason of the labels not

having a direction to take. But when a group begins to have a proven

success with a history of their own, what then? Take a group like REM

who surely at this point befit a specific genre label but still floats around

under the label Alternative Rock Music. Does the Dave Mathews Band

seriously fit under the same genre as say Incubus or Cold Play matched

with a group such as Panic at the Disco? Will their come a time in history

were one of these groups steps away from the Alternative Rock Music

genre & become an entity all its own? In the end will the books show

that the history of alternative rock was simply due to a lack of alternatives

to choose from.

Back to the Top