Genre

Definition of genre:

A music genre is a conventional category that identifies pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes interchanged and go into sub genres within a main genre.

History of indie and alternative music:

Indie music is a mix of pop, jazz, rock and blues. Indie music was created in the 1950-60’s but was very underground meaning indie bands played in little venues and in their garages. Indie music did not grow in popularity till the 80’s. Indie artists created music how they wanted. Therefore they usually were not getting signed to a big producer and did not make a lot of money. Indie artists rather create their own music or sound than rather make a lot of money. In fact they prefer to not be as popular as pop music and other genres. To this day Indie music is not as popular as the others. But a lot of well-known Indie bands started as small garage bands. It took a lot of practice and dedication. They played at venues often and started off with small CD’s.

Alternative rock music became popular in the 1990's but the history or alternative rock music goes back farther than that. Before Nirvana brought alternative rock music to the mainstream audience, the music genre had been gaining popularity with the college crowds and music underground. In the 1980's REM was making their start in alternative rock music. Most of their airtime was given by college radio stations. This is where their loyal fan base started. However, their commercial success started at about the time that alternative started to really become popular in the 1990's. The popularity of alternative rock music came about after the grunge period. Grunge was a type of alternative rock music that denounced commercialism. This movement started in Seattle, Washington and soon took the world by storm. This was ironic since it was this type of music that helped to create the commercial success for alternative rock music. Bands such as Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Similar examples of Indie music:

As we can see from this image we can see that indie music contains a large amount of colour within the album covers which you could say is represented with the lyrics of the songs that they produce. With these we do see the idea of them trying to be minimalist which is how the genre started out. People not playing to make lots of money but to have fun and jam with your friends within your garage.