The Age Of Alternative (80's - 90's)

What is rock? Well that is one difficult question to answer if you go and look at the rock today and the rock from the past. That is why I have decided to take a look into where this genre originated and see how it has developed into what it is today.

The Age Of Alternative
(80’s – 90’s)

The U.S.’s New Wave was replaced by The No Wave of Lydia Lunch, Sonic Youth, and The Swans as Punk-rock evolved into Hardcore and the numerous bands that terrorized New York (Misfits), Boston (Mission Of Burma), and mostly Washington (Bad Brains, P***y Galore, Fugazi) on the East Coast came out. Over on the West Coast, Los Angeles (Black Flag, X) and San Francisco (Dead Kennedys, Flipper, Camper Van Beethoven) managed to stay experimental. They did so much that L.A. saw an emergence of bands with roots in the Beach-Punk scene that was far more complex that built the solo career of Henry Rollins.
The entire national scene benefited from the emergence of independent music. L.A. nurtured the Paisley Underground and the cow-punk scene as tons of different Neo-rock bands roamed New York. Boston homed Dinosaur Jr. and The Pixies who invented Grunge-rock. The Southeast harvested a melodic genre that blended Folk-rock with pop making The B52’s and REM. Seattle was the revival of Hard-rock and the burst of Grunge as Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam came out. Minneapolis was a true catalyst with The Husker Du and The Replacements along with Soul Asylum later that changed the notion of Punk-rock and created the base for a return of the rock song format with a new drive. Kentucky also became a surprising center of action through Squirrel Bait that started a dynasty of convoluted, mainly instrumental Rock. And Punk-rock still continued with The Slint and Tortoise. With Psychedelia haunting around the punk era The Butthole Surfers, Flaming Lips, and Phish were born carrying traits from both.
During Punk’s reign hip-hop grew and revolutionized the music scene with Public Enemy, Run DMC, and Beastie Boys who crossed over with a breed of Rock inspired Rap. Through this Run DMC and Aerosmith joined forces to remix Aerosmith’s Walk This Way as well as Anthrax and Public Enemy coming together to revamp Public Enemy’s Bring Tha Noise. Both of these songs were years before their time.
The Nineties were still seeing the expansion of Alternative with many little sub-genres popping up. The basic trend of the decade was more towards abstract music as singer-songwriters followed the trend such as Beck. Foxcore had a brief spree with all-female punk bands on the West Coast like Hole, Babes in Toyland, L7, and Seven Year B***h while Industrial-rock pulled a comeback in Chicago with Ministry and Nine Inch Nails as did New York and San Francisco gave bands that followed suit. Hard sounds still reigned post-grunge in New York and L.A. consisting of Korn, Stone Temple Pilots, and Tool. Britain was still influenced by psychedelic music with Dream-pop, Scottish Noise-pop, and Shoegazers before it feel into a generally new form of ambient music. With Britain being a blur of Brit-pop the “next big things” came out as Oasis, Suede, and Radiohead. Let alone all of this, Heavy Metal peaked with Metallica, Jane’s Addiction, and Guns And Roses which soon fell into thousands of sub genres like Doom Metal, Grind-core, and Death Metal. Funk Metal also came up with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rage Against The Machine while Marilyn Manson blended fresh beats with a Metal like atmosphere to recharge the developing Metal scene. And Punk-pop had peaked with Green Day, Screeching Weasel, and Pegboy also.
The Nineties was also a decade of intellectual rock where no song could be just a melody and a rhythm but it had to be contorted all about. With that said New York leaned towards R&B and Psychedelia, Boston towards Psychedelia and Pop, Seattle and L.A. towards Psychedelia as well, San Francisco towards Folk and Country, Washington towards Punk-rock, and Chicago towards Punk-rock, Psychedelia, Pop, and Country as well as the remains of Punk in Texas, Minneapolis, and Tennessee sending shock-waves about the nation.
Rounding out to the present, Industrial Music and Grindcore somehow merged and spawned terrifying sounds as the Alternative Indy began to grow its roots.