The 90s Part 7: The Other Genres

One of the great things about the alt-rock revolution of the 1990s was its diversity… The sounds from this part of the rock universe had always been varied…that’s because the idea of “alternative music” was so amorphous…if it was (a) non-mainstream and ignored by most radio stations; (b) a little left of centre in terms of aesthetics; and (c) considered weird by the majority, then it qualified as “alternative” by default, simply because the was no other way to categorize it…and humans love to organize things into piles, right?... Multiple genres thrived in the alt-rock universe…plus there were all the sub-genres and sub-sub-genres and even sub-sub-sub-genres…this mean that if you into alternative music before the 1990s, you were spoiled for choice…there was something for everyone… Then along came grunge, the biggest sound of the decade…it ripped a whole in the music-space-time continuum, opening a hole into this parallel universe, allowing all these sounds to invade the mainstream… And because these sounds and scenes and sub-genres had been happily evolving almost unseen for years, the people making this music knew what they were doing…the mainstream was flooded with new songs from scenes that were already mature—or at least close to it… Never before had so much solid music from so many seasoned performers been waiting in wings, ready to show their stuff…and when they got their chance—wow… This is our look at the alt-rock of the 1990s, part 7… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices