Music junkies, concert connoisseurs, and vinyl vigilantes everywhere need to know about the similarities and differences between the alternative rock and indie rock genres. The genres alternative and indie are terms sometimes used interchangeably, but their origins are indeed differing. There has been a varying progression of media platforms used to listen to these genres among the past few decades due to society’s social and economic changes. In terms of instrumental progressions and technological buildups in the music world, the instruments and stylings used to define these genres has changed as well. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, alternative rock is defined as “a style of rock music characterized as unconventional, or outside the mainstream which resonated powerfully with a generation weathering an economic recession.” Conversely, Oxford explains the term indie as “the deliberately unpolished or …show more content…
I would choose to define alternative rock as music that has heavy metal influenced rhythms, with the use of electric guitars and bass drums, but conveys a lighter, upbeat feel, and uses meaningful lyrics. Alternative rock emerged in the late 80’s and early 90’s when the United States was facing an economic recession and in a post-war state. The songs alternative rock artists wrote during this time tended to be more melancholy in sound, and carry out the use of lyrics about the struggles society as a whole, and the artists as individuals were facing due to this social and economic decline. These lyrics were relatable for listeners and adequately helped them cope with the strife. These artists, more often than note were signed by more widely-known record labels. Examples of these bands include, but are not limited to, Radiohead, Sonic Boom, Cage The Elephant, Pearl Jam, Jane’s Addiction, and
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll or rock 'n ' roll) is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States. The music we know as rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in the mid 1950s, even though a form of it had been on the horizon for at least a decade or so. A quarter of the American population moved during World War II, and that is what brought southern, rural, sacred and secular traditions into contact with urban-based music and its audiences. Rock and roll drew on many different styles. It derived most directly from the rhythm and blues music of the 1940s, which it developed from earlier blues, boogie-woogie, jazz and swing music. It was also influenced by gospel, country, western, and traditional folk music. With the combinations of all of these genres of music, that help to create this new style of music excited a worldwide generation of young listeners. Even though it had the attention of young listeners it started to upset the already established social, cultural and musical authorities. With this new music style coming into full affect along with new dances and people having voicing out their own opinion caused a lot of turmoil. Many people began to question this new genre of music and labeled it as the devil music while other loved it and couldn’t help but dance
Your answers should be your own words, however: no direct quotes will be allowed (without proper citations). Also, do not work with others on this quiz—again, your work is expected to be wholly your own. 1. How did “alternative rock” musicians react/rebel against the visually-oriented MTV artists and the flashy heavy metal bands? Alternative rock musicians dressed casual compared to the heavy metal bands of that time.
In contrast, as rock music began to evolve, the use for the guitar began to differ. Instead of soft sounds, these artists used the guitar to create new and edgy music. Moreover, rock music popularized a new type of guitar called the electric guitar. This new instrument was rowdy and abrupt, adding to rock music’s
The band Twenty-One Pilots positively changed people's views on alternative music by using other elements from different genres. A band that started off in Columbus, Ohio has “blown up at top 40 radio, sold out massive arenas and even drawn the ire of millennial-bashing columnists with an unapologetic mashup of suburban angst, rap and reggae”(Ringen).
Rock music is cool medium with simple diction and repeated catchphrases, and rock’s main function to music is more generally noise. Rock has seen mostly male audience. Some musicians that are known in the rock music business included: Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Pulp, Chuck Berry, John Lennon, Led Zeppelin and
The popularity of alternative rock came about after the grunge period. Grunge was a type of alternative rock music that criticized commercialism. Bands such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Soundgarden were the most popular to come out of the grunge scene. In the mid 90s, pop-punk music began to find itself becoming more and more popular. Green Day released an album on a major record label, and other bands such as The Offspring and MxPx as well.
These sub-genres consist of hard rock, soft rock, metal, classic rock, grunge, hair bands, and several more. These sub-genres have some differences that set them apart from each other however, they keep on track with the over laying theme of heavy guitar riffs and loud lead singers. Such as hard rock and soft rock are completely different, both keep on point with the amazing guitar solos. The origins of this glorious genre are interesting as some of the people who listen to the
Marker Amerika expands on this theme in remixthebook (potentialism). In his piece Cranked Up Real High: Genre Theory and Punk Rock, Stewart Home demonstrates the effects of remixing and the punk rock age. Through experimentalism, Pierre Christin and Enki Bilal demonstrates the characteristics of the punk.
Position Paper It has been said over recent decades that rock music is dead. Before the likes of Nirvana and even Lynyrd Skynyrd graced the airwaves of America, Jim Morrison of the 1960’s band The Doors wrote “Rock Is Dead”. But after decades of decline, a revival in the 1990s, and further decay into current obscurity, it is safe to say that rock has died off in pop culture. The lucky few who hear crunchy guitars and angry vocals on the radio nowadays are merely listening to the twenty- to thirty-year-old cries of dissatisfied youths.
When people hear the genre “rock and roll,” they often think of performers like Elvis Presley, AC/DC, and Aerosmith. Those bands have provided the foundation for rock and roll, but the newer bands have to carry over from the bands of the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s to the bands of the 1990’s and the 2000’s. The new generation of bands has just as much, if not more, popularity than the bands of the older generation. Bands do not gain popularity just by showing up to rehearsal, though. Gaining popularity can take years of making music, and sometimes establishing credibility takes more time than other bands. The more popular bands that have many fans are bands like Three Days Grace, Alter Bridge, and Avenged Sevenfold. These three bands have had
A phrase coined by many emerging bands in the early 1980’s, ‘alternative rock’ has become an increasingly more popular term used to describe artists that try to be innately different, yet veer away from the establishment and wish only to play the music they want to play without “selling out”. While it isn’t as concentrated or specific as other genres like hip hop or classical music, alternative music encompasses a wide variety of artists and songs over decades, most of which could be subcategorized into grunge, metal, punk rock, progressive, new wave, and even mo
Overview of Rock music: Rock music is a widespread genre of pop music. Early shaped rock music (before 1960) was originated in the United States, popular in the 1950s, as well as folk music and country music blending white music. Forming a new type of music that combines R & B, folk and country music. The big picture is, with the first batch of European and American young people who grew up after World War II, they all came into adulthood in 1960. This period of 1950-60 was their adolescence.
Originally, Independent music referred to bands or artists who performed and/or produced music autonomously and without the commercial rules and restrictions associated with major record labels (Hale, 2014). Throughout the years Independent music has evolved into a broader meaning that is harder to define. Today, the term “Indie” is used to describe a genre of music and is often used as a prefix to another genre such as Indie-Rock and Indie-Folk.
The term “indie” is a shortening of the word independent and, in a way, both words share the same meaning: freedom from outside control. In the introduction to her book, Slanted and Enchanted, Oakes identifies “credibility, freedom, the ability to promote their own work and to control how it’s promoted” (page 10), as some of the principles that indie culture cultivates. Through her examples of indie creators, Oakes detailed two ways of how “indie” was “independent.” Indie artists like the Rock Paper Scissors corner shops, Adam Tobin of Unnameable books, and indie bands often used some level of personal interaction between artist and consumer that leads to personal credibility and an emphasis of the individuality of the indie artist. This personal
On the train there we listen simultaneously, one bud in either ear, middle-school style, to a gingerly prepared selection of what I call “gateway indie”. Songs like “Rather Be” or “Somebody I Used to Know”, anything by Ed Sheeran or Ingrid Michaelson. Songs that could be considered traitors to the genre arguably built on eternal invisibility, or, more positively, songs that have broken free from the mostly underappreciated genre’s net of obscure lyrics, changing time signatures, unpopular instruments like the oboe or guitalin, and small spurts of unexpected electronica that sound awkward to the previously unexposed mind. Then again, I think as the train gives a tiny lurch and