Alternative Bands

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Throughout the years there have been many rock-style bands that did not quite fit on rock radio. These bands soon came to be played on "alternative" radio, such as college, community, and pirate stations. Hence the alternative rock moniker stuck for these uniquely different rock bands. Some of my favorite alternative bands from the early 1990's include Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Radiohead.

The Smashing Pumpkins follow their lead singer's, Billy Corgan, theory that, "Great music completely obliterates any conceptions of genre." The Smashing Pumpkins took their local Chicago sound of metal, alt-rock, psychedelic dream pop, and shared it with the world. Many times during live shows they go into long jams, completely changing the original songs to fit their moods. Even though people's choice in music change, the Smashing Pumpkins seem to adapt and add their own personal style to it. Even though the Smashing Pumpkins are no longer a band, people still try to imitate their unique sound.

Pearl Jam, named for Eddie Vedder's great grandmother Pearl's famous homemade jam set a foundation in music that would become known simply as Grunge. Grunge is a sub-category of alternative music, which lasted for only a short period of time. Pearl Jam sounds like a combination of 1970's rock music and punk. With their hits "Alive," "Evenflow" and "Black," Pearl Jam painted dark pictures of depression, suicide, and a bleak world in general. To follow their anti-mainstream, anti-sellout stance, the group refused to produce any videos for songs from their second release, Vs., which came out in 1993. Pearl Jam was able to sale millions of records even though they did not go mainstream.

In their brief history, Nirvana unwillingly brought alternative music into the mainstream and defined a generation of people alienated by baby boomers, Michael Jackson and Madonna. Nirvana was greatly influenced by Olympia, Washington based Melvins and New York's Sonic Youth. Kurt Cobain's introspective lyrics and the hard core sounds of his band made it easy for them to cross into mainstream music. The song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was hailed as the anthem of the grunge generation and its appeal broadened the band's fan base to include mainstream jocks, metalheads and alternative posers, the very people Nirvana music was supposed to alienate.

Radiohead, originally from Oxford, England, first began playing together in 1987.

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