What makes a band or musician "alternative"?

[idgiehkt]

In your opinion what defines this category? I was listening to my 'alternative' radio station tonight and they were playing a song by Snow Patrol (not "Chasing Cars", something else) that sounded like pop to me. And alot of the bands they play sound like straight-ahead rock 'n' roll. Your thoughts?

[ghostsofgiants]

1. It started as stuff that existed outside the mainstream.

I suppose it still does, to an extent, but not to the extent it did in the 80s/early 90s, I guess. (How often do you hear Snow Patrol on mainstream radio?)

[idgiehkt]

3. lol

I never listen to mainstream radio. When this alt. station has one of it's annoying talk programs on (I don't understand that concept anyway, if I want to hear people talk I'll watch television) I listen to the classic rock station.

[ghostsofgiants]

4. Yeah, I don't listen to mainstream radio often either, but essentially "alternative" is...

A blanket term for stuff that might be (even just a little) outside the norm of what the mainstream is producing.

[idgiehkt]

6. that's kinda scary

I guess I should listen to a mainstream radio station just to see what they are playing...I guess Paris Hilton and all that... :shrug:

:hi:

[jilln]

2. I was wondering this too, because things I import into iTunes are sometimes automatically labeled

alternative.

Perhaps it means stuff that's not Top 40 crap that's on all the worst stations?

[idgiehkt]

5. I guess so

I didn't even know there was still a concept called "top 40" anymore. I think the A&R guys come up with this stuff. When I try to find Rita Marley or Marcia Griffiths in the Real store they are under the category of "Lover's Rock" when clearly what they sing is reggae. My favorite band of all time was labeled under 'scum rock' when it first came out, which was clearly a contrived label by some A&R guy; it was supposed to stand for socially conscious underground music...really they were just punk, I guess. I think the labels are a selling point and sometimes organic movements like riot grrrl kind of spring up out of nowhere but...also there are alot of bands they play on there like Nickelback, Hinder, Shinedown, etc, that seem more just plain 'rock' than alternative. I'd like to see them play some more 'real' alternative stuff because I know there is a lot out there I don't get to hear between them playing the bands I mentioned above and Bush, which seems to be half their playlist. (Good think I really like Bush).

[jilln]

7. Scum rock?!? That's a new one to me.

So what's your favorite band of all time?

Yes Top 40 still exists. It's where they keep the Britneys, Christinas, Jessicas, Justins and American Idols. Blech.

I just took a look, and it seems like they need a new category: The "featurings". About 1/3 of everything in the current Top 40 is so-and-so featuring xxx, like T-Pain Featuring Yung Joc, Akon Featuring Eminem and Lloyd Featuring Lil' Wayne . As if they weren't capable of producing mindless crap all by themselves.

[idgiehkt]

8. Lunachicks

You are right about the 'featuring' thing, I think it started in rap partly because of the sampling and partly because so many (but not all) rap artists started out in such poverty that they tried to give as many friends of theirs a break on their product as they possibly could and it kind of bled into mainstream music. I forgot about the franchises like you mentioned...that music is so far out of my consciousness that I forget those people do something other than expose their genitalia and go to rehab.

:rofl: