The document provides an overview of the origins and characteristics of alternative rock music. It discusses how the genre emerged from punk rock in the 1980s, with early influential American bands including R.E.M. and Violent Femmes. Key characteristics included a diverse range of sounds and lyrics addressing social issues. Music videos from the 1980s-90s featured mixed performance and narrative clips, while modern videos often contain intriguing narratives. Album art for the genre commonly features images related to the artist in a non-main focus style.

1. ALTERNATIVE
ROCK
G E N R E H I S TO R Y A N D C O N V E N T I O N S

2. ORIGINS
• The term ‘alternative rock’ comes from the idea that the genre was
intentionally non-mainstream, and artists labelled as alt rock emerged in
the 1980s/90s. Essentially, it is an umbrella term for underground music
in the wake of punk rock since the mid 80s.
• Early American alternative bands include Dream Syndicate, R.E.M, The
Feelies and Violent Femmes. They combined punk influences with folk
music and mainstream music influences, and were part of the
underground music scene of the 80s.
• The key alternative British band was The Smiths, who I love, and they
had a massive influence on the British indie scene despite their short
career and limited success in the charts.

3. CHARACTERISTICS
• Sounds range from the gloomy soundscapes of gothic rock to the
jangling guitars of indie pop to the dirty guitars of grunge to
1960s/1970s Britpop.
• A notable characteristic of alternative rock is the nature of the
lyrics. More often than in other rock styles since the mainstreaming of
rock music during the 1970s, alternative rock lyrics tend to address
topics of social concern: such as drug use, depression, suicide, and
environmentalism. This approach to lyrics developed as a reflection of
the social contexts in America and Britain in the 1980s and early 1990s.

4. CONVENTIONS – MUSIC VIDEOS
• Conventions of this genre are difficult to identify because the very
nature of alternative music means that every artist and record label is
trying to be unique and different, even within the genre.
• Music videos from the 1980s and 90s had a heavy performance element,
but smaller unrelated clips were weaving into videos from the likes of
Oasis and The Smiths. This contrasts with the mainly narrative-based
videos of the genre today. The content of the videos was usually quite
obscure and not easily understood, which is a reflection of what the
genre stood for at the time.
• In modern alternative music videos, there are often intriguing narratives
joined with performance shots of bands either in concert or in obscure
settings. Commonly, music videos are shot in black and white, like The
1975’s early videos or The Neighbourhood.

5. CONVENTIONS - DIGIPAKS
Usually, alternative digipaks have an image of the
artist somewhere, but they are not typically the
main focus which is atypical of digipaks. I think
this gives a more individual edge and helps the
album become iconic, like so many indie covers
are (i.e Nirvana’s Nevermind).
The discs themselves are typically a plain
block colour with the title/artist name on,
and I like this as it allows for the rest of the
pack to be busy with images. On some
digipaks, the artist is not shown at all, but
is replaced by a prop, landscape or actor. I
think this looks cool sometimes, but I don’t
think I’d use it for my own construction as
it looks rather unprofessional and as if not
a lot of effort has been made.