Alternative Rock - History

1980's

Alternative rock is a sub-genre of rock music that emerged during the 1980’s The name ‘alternative’ came from that it was different and separate from mainstream rock. This was by the music being more distorted in sound from the guitars and aggressive lyrics and attitudes. 

Alternative rock first emerged in the 1980’s in America by a select few bands such as R.E.M whose debut album went into the top 40. during the late 80’s, the alternative rock genre emerged into Britain and firstly by The Smiths.

1990's

Alternative Rock really became popular during the 1990’s after its emergence in the 80’s.

This was done by the emergence of such groups like Jane’s Addiction and Nirvana which really began to make the Alternative Rock genre popular, and with the release of Nirvana’s single Smells Like Teen Spirit which due to constant airplay on MTV made Nirvana’s Record Nevermind sell 400,000 copies by Christmas on its release in September.

This really showed that alternative rock was at an all time high in popularity

The decline then rise In Popularity (90’s/early 2000’s)

During this time period the popularity of alternative rock began to fade due to many events, one of which was the death of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain.

But despite the decline in popularity many bands still had success in the early 2000’s, acts such as Jimmy Eat World, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and Paramore had great success and started a ‘emo’ style to the genre of Alternative Rock, which after a recent downfall in popularity was now beginning to show a revival going forward. 

REVIVAL OF ALTERNATIVE (EARLY 2000'S)

In the 2000’s Alternative Rock began to have a revival, this was down to a number of new acts that emerged like The Arctic Monkeys and Linkin Park.

Also the new sound that came out of these new acts and that all bands that emerged helped introduce more variety and sub-genres for alternative rock. 

e.g. Linkin park in 2001 in the lead up to their new album Hybrid Theory constructed a new genre in Nu-metal which combined rock and rap together, this led to the album to selling 4.8m copies in 2001

THE NEW BREED (2010 ONWARDS)

Many bands that started in the early 2000’s such as Linkin Park and Arctic Monkeys still making and producing albums today with the recent releases of Linkin Park’s “The Hunting Party” and Arctic Monkeys “AM” album still selling millions of copies.

Also more recently 2013 onwards the alternative rock genre has seen the emergence of new acts younger rock acts like Royal Blood, The Marmozets and Mallory Knox etc.