Just like the term “new wave”, the word “Alternative” does not carry a specific meaning. If we consider alternative broadly enough, many styles such as punk, heavy metal, funk, rap, pop, rock&roll, singer/songwriter partially fall under it. In fact, “alternative” is a collective name for all post-punk bands that formed and created after 1983-1984, when new wave began to run out of steam, and up until alternative rock/pop actually entered the mainstream in 1995. Although the work of Live and Silverchair has little to do with alternative, the influence of R.E.M. and Nirvana can certainly be considered as part of the underground and anti-mainstream movement in rock’n’roll. In addition to the time frame and special aesthetics, alternative rock/pop is also largely characterized by a special way of rethinking and reworking the musical heritage of Rock, combining seemingly incompatible things into a whole.
The formation of Alternative music was somewhat different in America and Britain. And although there were bands that became equally popular in both countries, such as R.E.M., there were many unique bands like Pearl Jam or Stone Roses that never managed to spread their success across the ocean. Moreover, the spread of entire subgenres was sometimes limited to one country (funk-metal, for example, was never popular in Britain).
Throughout most of the 80s, alternative was confined to small provincial clubs, makeshift recording studios, and campus radio stations. Only occasionally a single song would accidentally break through to MTV and TOP 40, or a single album would unexpectedly be praised by critics from influential mainstream magazines like Rolling Stone. Nevertheless, most alternative bands had little commercial appeal. Instead, rock bands slowly but surely gained fans by constantly touring and releasing low-budget albums every year. They were followed by more and more bands, and soon there was quite an impressive underground crowd, with their own schools (trends) emerging in different parts of the country.
Husker Du was associated with SST Records, the record company founded by Black Flag and Greg Ginn. SST was the most influential American independent studio of the 80s, publishing, in addition to Black Flag and Greg Ginn, such famous bands as Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr. and others. While it can’t be said that Husker Du paved the way for Sonic Youth – the New York band was already recording when Husker Du rose to prominence – Husker Du’s music prepared critics and audiences alike for Sonic Youth’s most determined creative experimentation. Sonic Youth were more artistic and, unlike R.E.M. and Husker Du, with a clear claim to artistic taste: their lyrics smacked of theatrical poetry, and their songs were usually lengthy, with shifting dissonant motifs.
Much of the alternative guitar pop of the late ’80s had roots in the clunky, unstructured music of the Feelies and the nervous, eccentric folk-rock of the Violent Femmes, who both debuted in the very early ’80s. Although the Feelies never sold many records, their jangling guitar riffs helped pave the way for the R.E.M. that followed. The Feelies’ twangy melodies and stingy lyrics had much in common with the songs Gordon Gano wrote for the Violent Femmes’ debut. These bands were the beginning of many unconventional guitar pop groups that were characterized by quirky and eccentric humor. Because they continued to actively record and tour when their quirky guitar pop became popular, the Feelies and Violent Femmes are considered not only the progenitors of the movement, but also an important part of the genre. However, in addition to them, there were a significant number of bands, ranging from the jocular duo They Might Be Giants to the jagged eclecticism of Camper Van Beethoven, that often made it onto the college charts. As for Britain, those bands that broke out of the mainstream and fell into this trend found more acceptance on American college radio stations than at home. Robyn Hitchcock, leader of the Soft Boys (who openly admitted to being heavily influenced by R.E.M.) was one of those British musicians who were warmly welcomed in the States. XTC’s intelligent, meticulously honed pop was also more likely to be spun in American colleges than in Britain.