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120-659: Pop Will Eat Itself are an English alternative rock band formed in 1986 in Stourbridge in the West Midlands of England with members from Birmingham , Coventry and the Black Country . Initially known as a grebo act, they changed style to incorporate sample -driven indie and industrial rock . Graham Crabb describes their sound as "electronic, punk, alternative hip-hop, hybrid music for fucking, fighting & smoking cigars". Their highest-charting single
240-525: A Wasted Youth album under which one E.P. was released ( 2,000 Light Ales from Home on Iguana Records) before eventually becoming Pop Will Eat Itself in 1986. The new name was taken from a quotation in an NME article on Jamie Wednesday by David Quantick . In 1986, the band released the "Poppies Say Grrr!" single , which became Single of the Week in the NME and played by Janice Long on BBC Radio 1 and in
360-571: A "total prostitute" for agreeing to perform at that year's Eurovision which took place in Tel Aviv , Israel. Gillespie said: "Madonna would do anything for money, you know, she's a total prostitute. And I've got nothing against prostitutes. The whole thing is set up to normalise the state of Israel, and its disgraceful treatment of the Palestinian people. By going to perform in Israel what you do
480-711: A collection of underground pop groups that defined the UK's mid-'80s indie pop scene. After the band rejected the initial version of debut album, Sonic Flower Groove , recorded with Stephen Street , they re-recorded the album with Mayo Thompson, and the record was released in 1987 on the Creation subsidiary Elevation. The album was well received in the British indie community, as was its 1989 follow-up, Primal Scream , which demonstrated hard rock influences from The Rolling Stones and New York Dolls to The Stooges and MC5 . As
600-484: A confessional tone. Rites of Spring has been described as the first "emo" band. Former Minor Threat singer Ian MacKaye founded Dischord Records which became the center for the city's emo scene. Gothic rock developed out of late-1970s British post-punk . With a reputation as the "darkest and gloomiest form of underground rock", gothic rock uses a synthesizer-and-guitar based sound drawn from post-punk to construct "foreboding, sorrowful, often epic soundscapes", and
720-523: A cynical response to an "authentic" rock movement. Bush , Candlebox and Collective Soul were labelled almost pejoratively as post-grunge which, according to Tim Grierson of About.com , is "suggesting that rather than being a musical movement in their own right, they were just a calculated, cynical response to a legitimate stylistic shift in rock music." Post-grunge morphed during the late 1990s and 2000s as newer bands such as Foo Fighters , Matchbox Twenty , Creed and Nickelback emerged, becoming among
840-754: A drummer. Gillespie played on the band's debut LP , Psychocandy , which was released in 1985 to critical acclaim. By this time Gillespie had already released a single, albeit to little attention, with his own band Primal Scream . Throughout his days as a drummer Gillespie had continued to work at Primal Scream, the band he started along with guitarist Jim Beattie in 1982. By early 1986, Gillespie had played his last show with The Jesus and Mary Chain and left to devote his attentions to Primal Scream. The Reid brothers gave Gillespie an ultimatum to abandon Primal Scream or be replaced. While Gillespie said, "I never really enjoyed being in Primal Scream ;... But
960-490: A flurry of British bands emerged that wished to "get rid of grunge" and "declare war on America", taking the public and native music press by storm. Dubbed " Britpop " by the media, and represented by Pulp , Blur , Suede , and Oasis , this movement was the British equivalent of the grunge explosion, in that the artists propelled alternative rock to the top of the charts in their home country. Britpop bands were influenced by and displayed reverence for British guitar music of
1080-571: A headliner in 1998. In light of the festival's troubles that year, Spin said, "Lollapalooza is as comatose as alternative rock right now". Despite these changes in style however, alternative rock remained commercially viable into the start of the 21st century. During the latter half of the 1990s, grunge was supplanted by post-grunge . Many post-grunge bands lacked the underground roots of grunge and were largely influenced by what grunge had become, namely "a wildly popular form of inward-looking, serious-minded hard rock."; many post-grunge bands emulated
1200-706: A late night new wave show entitled "Rock and Roll Alternative". " College rock " was used in the United States to describe the music during the 1980s due to its links to the college radio circuit and the tastes of college students. In the United Kingdom, dozens of small do it yourself record labels emerged as a result of the punk subculture . According to the founder of one of these labels, Cherry Red , NME and Sounds magazines published charts based on small record stores called "Alternative Charts". The first national chart based on distribution called
1320-420: A majority of groups that were signed to indie labels drew from a variety of rock and particularly 1960s rock influences. This represented a sharp break from the futuristic, hyper-rational post-punk years. "Alternative music is music that hasn't yet achieved a mainstream audience, Alternative isn't new wave any more, it's a disposition of mind. Alternative music is any kind of music that has the potential to reach
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#17327978312221440-455: A new line-up was announced, featuring Graham Crabb (as the only original member), fellow vocalist Mary Byker ( Gaye Bykers on Acid , Apollo 440 , Pigface ), guitarist Tim Muddiman ( Gary Numan ), drummer Jason Bowld ( Pitchshifter , Killing Joke ) and bassist Davey Bennett (This Burning Age). That October the album New Noise Designed by a Sadist was released on Cooking Vinyl, produced by Monti & Rob Holliday (Sulpher, The Prodigy ) and
1560-469: A new wave of post-rock bands such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Rós emerged who further expanded the genre. In 1993, the Smashing Pumpkins' album Siamese Dream was a major commercial success. The strong influence of heavy metal and progressive rock on the album helped to legitimize alternative rock to mainstream radio programmers and close the gap between alternative rock and
1680-464: A number of genres, including Krautrock , progressive rock , and jazz . The genre subverts or rejects rock conventions, and often incorporates electronic music. While the name of the genre was coined by music journalist Simon Reynolds in 1994 referring to Hex by the London group Bark Psychosis , the style of the genre was solidified by the release of Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996) by
1800-692: A protest against Great Britain's Criminal Justice And Public order Act 1994 , which had criminalised rave culture. The band found some new popularity after signing with Trent Reznor 's Nothing Records in the US, and touring with Nine Inch Nails , as well as having their songs used on the PlayStation game Loaded . In March 1995 the band released the Dos Dedos Mis Amigos remix album Two Fingers My Friends! which featured remixes by The Orb , Apollo 440 and Renegade Soundwave . Crabb left
1920-614: A roadie for Altered Images and played bass in The Wake . Gillespie was a friend of The Jesus and Mary Chain's bassist Douglas Hart , who asked Gillespie to join the band after their original drummer had left following the release of their debut single in 1984. Gillespie's style of drumming was minimal, with his drum kit consisting only of a snare and a floor tom, which he played standing up, an idea he borrowed from The Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker . Gillespie has also said that he played only two drums due to his own lack of ability as
2040-497: A rough demo. All PWEI songs were credited to Vestan Pance. It was a pseudonym for the band as a whole. Although the songs were mainly Crabb or Mansell compositions, using a pseudonym was considered more interesting than just "All songs by Pop Will Eat Itself". When Townshend joined the band, an attempt to change the name to 'Vestan Pance and Socks' was denied by RCA. Alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music , alt-rock or simply alternative )
2160-488: A wariness of its "macho" aesthetic. While indie rock artists share the punk rock distrust of commercialism, the genre does not entirely define itself against that, as "the general assumption is that it's virtually impossible to make indie rock's varying musical approaches compatible with mainstream tastes in the first place". Labels such as Matador Records , Merge Records , and Dischord , and indie rockers like Pavement , Superchunk , Fugazi , and Sleater-Kinney dominated
2280-568: A wider audience. It also has real strength, real quality, real excitement, and it has to be socially significant, as opposed to Whitney Houston, which is pablum." —Mark Josephson, Executive Director of the New Music Seminar speaking in 1988 Throughout the 1980s, alternative rock remained mainly an underground phenomenon. While on occasion a song would become a commercial hit, or albums would receive critical praise in mainstream publications like Rolling Stone , alternative rock in
2400-480: Is This! and Cure for Sanity ) were recorded with the aid of Flood , known for his work with Nine Inch Nails , U2 and Depeche Mode . The band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, and US, including appearances at Reading Festival. Their singles charted progressively higher, with every single release charting inside the UK Top Forty from 1990 until their final single release in 1994. On 1992's The Looks or
2520-556: Is a Scottish musician, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as the lead singer, founding member, primary lyricist, and sole continuous member of the alternative rock band Primal Scream . He was the drummer for The Jesus and Mary Chain in the mid-1980s, leaving after the release of the band's debut album Psychocandy , and was once the bassist for The Wake . In October 2021, Gillespie published his memoir Tenement Kid . Born in Springburn and moved to
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#17327978312222640-492: Is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge subgenre in the United States, and the Britpop and shoegaze subgenres in the United Kingdom and Ireland. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock , hard rock , and glam metal acts from
2760-422: Is credited with a number of keyboard instruments along with drums and percussion, and he played synthesizer on one of The Wake's singles. Additionally, he is shown playing guitar briefly in the music video for " You Trip Me Up " by The Jesus and Mary Chain, and twelve-string guitar on Primal Scream's single "Gentle Tuesday", and, although able to play these instruments, did not play them on either recording. Gillespie
2880-473: Is credited with guitar on the track "Gravitational Waves (Drifter's Song)", the b-side to the Record Store Day 2016 release Mantra for a State of Mind . Gillespie married stylist Katy England at St. Margaret's Church, Betley on 29 July 2006. They have two children together, Wolf (born in 2001) and Lux (born in 2004). Gillespie defaced a Make Poverty History poster signed by all the acts at
3000-510: Is often difficult because of two conflicting applications of the word. Alternative can describe music that challenges the status quo and that is "fiercely iconoclastic, anticommercial, and antimainstream", and the term is also used in the music industry to denote "the choices available to consumers via record stores, radio, cable television, and the Internet." However alternative music has paradoxically become just as commercial and marketable as
3120-660: The Billboard 200 album chart. Soundgarden 's album Badmotorfinger , Alice in Chains ' Dirt and Stone Temple Pilots ' Core along with the Temple of the Dog album collaboration featuring members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, were also among the 100 top-selling albums of 1992. The popular breakthrough of these grunge bands prompted Rolling Stone to nickname Seattle "the new Liverpool ". Major record labels signed most of
3240-504: The Billboard charts. Pearl Jam also continued to perform well commercially with its second album, Vs. (1993), which topped the Billboard charts by selling a record 950,378 copies in its first week of release. In 1993, the Smashing Pumpkins released their major breakthrough album, Siamese Dream —which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 4 million copies by 1996, receiving multi-platinum certification by
3360-588: The British coalition government were reactionary quasi-fascists. The statement was prompted by the use of Primal Scream's song "Rocks" at the Conservative Party Conference. In 2016, Gillespie, during a break due to a technical issue, said, "I'm no comedian but should I tell a joke?", before saying to the room: "What do you call a Conservative MP that's been stabbed to death? A beautiful fucking thing". In 2019, Gillespie called Madonna
3480-561: The Glastonbury Festival in 2005. Gillespie scribbled over this and wrote "Make Israel History." Gillespie later said that he did this in support of Palestine , and when questioned on whether he was anti-Semitic , he responded "There's Israeli and Jewish people who support the Palestinian cause as well. We did a lot of work for the Hoping Foundation to raise money for children in the Palestinian refugee camps and
3600-531: The Indie Chart was published in January 1980; it immediately succeeded in its aim to help these labels. At the time, the term indie was used literally to describe independently distributed records. By 1985, indie had come to mean a particular genre, or group of subgenres, rather than simply distribution status. The use of the term alternative to describe rock music originated around the mid-1980s; at
3720-583: The RIAA . In 1995, the band released their double album, Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness — which went on to sell 10 million copies in the US alone, certifying it as a Diamond record. With the decline of the Madchester scene and the unglamorousness of shoegazing, the tide of grunge from America dominated the British alternative scene and music press in the early 1990s. As a reaction,
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3840-762: The Watch the Bitch Blow EP. They toured the UK in December 2013 as one third of a triple bill featuring The Wonder Stuff and Jesus Jones . The Watch the Bitch Blow EP was released in March 2014, through PledgeMusic , and the "Reclaim the Game (Funk FIFA)" single featuring Brazilian rapper BNegão ( Planet Hemp ) followed in June 2014 for the 2014 FIFA World Cup , as a protest song against FIFA. The album Anti-Nasty League
3960-495: The hair metal that had dominated rock music at that time fell out of favor in the face of music that was authentic and culturally relevant. The breakthrough success of Nirvana led to the widespread popularization of alternative rock in the 1990s. It heralded a "new openness to alternative rock" among commercial radio stations, opening doors for heavier alternative bands in particular. In the wake of Nevermind , alternative rock "found itself dragged-kicking and screaming ... into
4080-561: The "grunging of America" to the mass-marketing of punk rock, disco , and hip hop in previous years. As a result of the genre's popularity, a backlash against grunge developed in Seattle. Nirvana's follow-up album In Utero (1993) was an intentionally abrasive album that Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic described as a "wild aggressive sound, a true alternative record." Nevertheless, upon its release in September 1993 In Utero topped
4200-553: The 1970s, which served as a progressive alternative to top 40 radio formats by featuring longer songs and giving DJs more freedom in song selection. According to one former DJ and promoter, "Somehow this term 'alternative' got rediscovered and heisted by college radio people during the 80s who applied it to new post-punk, indie, or underground-whatever music." At first the term referred to intentionally non-mainstream rock acts that were not influenced by "heavy metal ballads, rarefied new wave" and "high-energy dance anthems". Usage of
4320-437: The 1980s drew to a close, Britain's underground music scene became dominated by the burgeoning acid house scene. Primal Scream became fascinated with the new dance music, and they asked a friend, a DJ named Andrew Weatherall , to remix a track from Primal Scream, "I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have". Weatherall reworked the song, adding a heavy bass groove echoing dub , deleting most of the original instrumentation (including
4440-479: The 1980s was primarily featured on independent record labels, fanzines and college radio stations. Alternative bands built underground followings by touring constantly and by regularly releasing low-budget albums. In the United States, new bands would form in the wake of previous bands, which created an extensive underground circuit filled with different scenes in various parts of the country. College radio formed an essential part of breaking new alternative music. In
4560-553: The 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry . The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial rock or pop. The term's original meaning was broader, referring to musicians influenced by the musical style or independent, DIY ethos of late-1970s punk rock . Traditionally, alternative rock varied in terms of its sound, social context, and regional roots. Throughout
4680-463: The 1980s, alternative bands generally played in small clubs, recorded for indie labels, and spread their popularity through word of mouth . As such, there is no set musical style for alternative rock as a whole, although in 1989 The New York Times asserted that the genre is "guitar music first of all, with guitars that blast out power chords, pick out chiming riffs, buzz with fuzztone and squeal in feedback." More often than in other rock styles since
4800-402: The 1980s, magazines and zines , college radio airplay , and word of mouth had increased the prominence and highlighted the diversity of alternative rock's distinct styles (and music scenes), such as noise pop , indie rock , grunge , and shoegaze . In September 1988, Billboard introduced "alternative" into their charting system to reflect the rise of the format across radio stations in
4920-752: The 2000s with multi-platinum acts such as Fall Out Boy , My Chemical Romance , Paramore and Panic! at the Disco . Bands such as the White Stripes and the Strokes found commercial success in the early 2000s, influencing an influx of new alternative rock bands that drew inspiration from garage rock , post-punk and new wave , establishing a revival of the genres. In the past, popular music tastes were largely dictated by music executives within large entertainment corporations. Record companies signed contracts with those entertainers who were thought to become
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5040-473: The American indie scene for most of the 1990s. One of the main indie rock movements of the 1990s was lo-fi . The movement, which focused on the recording and distribution of music on low-quality cassette tapes , initially emerged in the 1980s. By 1992, Pavement, Guided by Voices and Sebadoh became popular lo-fi cult acts in the United States, while subsequently artists like Beck and Liz Phair brought
5160-512: The British indie scene through the end of the decade, as various bands drew from singer Morrissey 's English-centered lyrical topics and guitarist Johnny Marr 's jangly guitar-playing style. The C86 cassette, a 1986 NME premium featuring Primal Scream , the Wedding Present and others, was a major influence on the development of indie pop and the British indie scene as a whole. Other forms of alternative rock developed in
5280-723: The British music press at the end of the decade along with the Madchester scene. Performing for the most part in the Haçienda , a nightclub in Manchester owned by New Order and Factory Records , Madchester bands such as Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses mixed acid house dance rhythms with melodic guitar pop. The Amerindie of the early '80s became known as alternative or alt-rock, ascendant from Nirvana until 1996 or so but currently very unfashionable, never mind that
5400-586: The Chicago group Tortoise . Post-rock was the dominant form of experimental rock music in the 1990s and bands from the genre signed to such labels as Thrill Jockey , Kranky , Drag City , and Too Pure . A related genre, math rock , peaked in the mid-1990s. In comparison to post-rock, math rock relies on more complex time signatures and intertwining phrases. By the end of the decade a backlash had emerged against post-rock due to its "dispassionate intellectuality" and its perceived increasing predictability, but
5520-523: The Hour...This Is This! In late 1988 PWEI were invited by Rush Management to support Run DMC on their European tour. Main support act Public Enemy were becoming increasingly popular and had a large and militant following who booed off all support acts, in particular, PWEI, who agreed to leave the tour when the situation deteriorated in Amsterdam . They released three albums on RCA. The first two ( …This
5640-566: The Lifestyle? the band recruited John "Fuzz" Townshend as their drummer to complement their pre-programmed drums. The band had discussed adding a live drummer in 1990, but touring commitments made it impractical to do so until the band were able to break touring activity in late 1991 to commence recording. The album peaked at UK No. 15 and featured the Top 30 hit singles "Karmadrome" and "Bulletproof!" Despite healthy sales and widescale touring
5760-881: The Lollapalooza festival became the most successful tour in North America in July and August 1991. For Dave Grohl of Nirvana who attended the festival at an open-air amphitheater in Southern California , "it felt like something was happening, that was the beginning of it all". The tour helped change the mentalities in the music industry: "by that fall, radio and MTV and music had changed. I really think that if it weren't for Perry [Farrell], if it weren't for Lollapalooza , you and I wouldn't be having this conversation right now". The release of Nirvana's single " Smells Like Teen Spirit " in September 1991 "marked
5880-647: The Mary Chain is Jim and William's band and I knew I could express myself better in Primal Scream." The band signed to Creation Records in 1985, and over the next year, they released a pair of singles. However, Primal Scream did not really take off until the middle of 1986, when Gillespie left the Jesus and Mary Chain and guitarists Andrew Innes and Robert Young joined the band. The B-side "Velocity Girl" wound up on NME ' 's C86 cassette compilation,
6000-613: The Midlands by John Slater on BRMB Radio . The single was sold in a brown paper bag and was made available for sale at Martin Newsagents in Stourbridge High Street as well as from the home of one of the band. With their new-found popularity, the band set off on a six-week tour of Europe, often encountering hostility at the set length being less than half an hour, even though this comprised around 16 tracks: all
6120-733: The Old Cassette Box . Crabb concentrated on his ambient side project Golden Claw Musics . After the rest of the band split in 1996, March and Townshend went on to form the big beat band Bentley Rhythm Ace . Townshend also released two solo albums and Mansell wrote film scores, including Requiem for a Dream , π , Doom , The Fountain , The Wrestler , Moon , and Black Swan . The band reformed to play their first gigs in eight years, in Nottingham, Birmingham, and London in January 2005. These gigs were notable for their Instant Live albums, whereby ten minutes after
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#17327978312226240-519: The PWEI reformation. The remaining band members continued as Vileevils , and released the tracks "Retro Dreaming" and "Street Fightin" for download via the pweination website. A secret, one-night PWEI reunion was scheduled to happen at the Vileevils show at Stourbridge Rock Cafe on 9 June 2007, but was foiled when Mansell was unable to obtain a visa in time to fly back to the UK. March still appeared at
6360-625: The Replacements upended a number of underground scene conventions; Azerrad noted that "along with R.E.M., they were one of the few underground bands that mainstream people liked." By the late 1980s, the American alternative scene was dominated by styles ranging from quirky alternative pop ( They Might Be Giants and Camper Van Beethoven ), to noise rock ( Sonic Youth , Big Black , the Jesus Lizard ) and industrial rock ( Ministry , Nine Inch Nails). These sounds were in turn followed by
6480-474: The Story) Morning Glory? (1995), went on to become the third best-selling album in the UK's history. Long synonymous with alternative rock as a whole in the U.S., indie rock became a distinct form following the popular breakthrough of Nirvana. Indie rock was formulated as a rejection of alternative rock's absorption into the mainstream by artists who could not or refused to cross over, and
6600-542: The Top 40 and spawned a number of jangle pop followers. One of the many jangle pop scenes of the early 1980s, Los Angeles' Paisley Underground revived the sounds of the 1960s, incorporating psychedelia, rich vocal harmonies and the guitar interplay of folk rock as well as punk and underground influences such as the Velvet Underground . American indie record labels SST Records , Twin/Tone Records , Touch and Go Records , and Dischord Records presided over
6720-615: The UK Top 30. A different version of this song later appeared as the opening track on the 1994 album, Dos Dedos Mis Amigos . The album peaked at No. 11 in the UK Albums Chart and spawned their then final single release, " Everything's Cool ", which became their ninth Top 30 UK hit. The band also collaborated with The Prodigy on the track " Their Law ", featured in their breakthrough second album Music For The Jilted Generation . This track also had political content, serving as
6840-411: The UK during the 1980s. the Jesus and Mary Chain 's sound combined the Velvet Underground's "melancholy noise" with Beach Boys pop melodies and Phil Spector 's " Wall of Sound " production, while New Order emerged from the demise of post-punk band Joy Division and experimented with disco and dance music . The Mary Chain, along with Dinosaur Jr. , C86 and the dream pop of Cocteau Twins , were
6960-577: The US by a more pop-oriented focus (marked by an equal emphasis on albums and singles, as well as greater openness to incorporating elements of dance and club culture) and a lyrical emphasis on specifically British concerns. As a result, few British alternative bands have achieved commercial success in the US. Since the 1980s, alternative rock has been played extensively on the radio in the UK, particularly by disc jockeys such as John Peel (who championed alternative music on BBC Radio 1 ), Richard Skinner , and Annie Nightingale . Artists with cult followings in
7080-626: The US received greater exposure through British national radio and the weekly music press, and many alternative bands had chart success there. Early American alternative bands such as the Dream Syndicate , the Bongos , 10,000 Maniacs , R.E.M. , the Feelies and Violent Femmes combined punk influences with folk music and mainstream music influences. R.E.M. was the most immediately successful; their debut album, Murmur (1983), entered
7200-577: The United States by stations like KROQ-FM in Los Angeles and WDRE-FM in New York, which were playing music from more underground , independent, and non-commercial rock artists. Initially, several alternative styles achieved minor mainstream notice and a few bands, such as R.E.M. and Jane's Addiction , were signed to major labels . Most alternative bands at the time, like the Smiths , one of
7320-481: The Velvet Underground , which influenced many alternative rock bands that would come after it. Eccentric and quirky figures of the 1960s, such as Syd Barrett have influence on alternative rock in general. The Dead Kennedys formed the independent record label Alternative Tentacles in 1979, releasing influential underground music such as the 1983 self-titled EP from the Butthole Surfers . By 1984,
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#17327978312227440-558: The advent of Boston 's Pixies and Los Angeles' Jane's Addiction. Around the same time, the grunge subgenre emerged in Seattle , Washington, initially referred to as "The Seattle Sound" until its rise to popularity in the early 1990s. Grunge featured a sludgy, murky guitar sound that syncretized heavy metal and punk rock. Promoted largely by Seattle indie label Sub Pop , grunge bands were noted for their thrift store fashion which favored flannel shirts and combat boots suited to
7560-475: The aesthetic to mainstream audiences. The period also saw alternative confessional female singer-songwriters. Besides the aforementioned Liz Phair, PJ Harvey fit into this sub group. In the mid-1990s, Sunny Day Real Estate defined the emo genre. Weezer 's album Pinkerton (1996) was also influential. Post-rock was established by Talk Talk 's Laughing Stock and Slint 's Spiderland albums, both released in 1991. Post-rock draws influence from
7680-539: The alternative rock community" including Henry Rollins , Butthole Surfers , Ice-T , Nine Inch Nails , Siouxsie and the Banshees (as second headliners) and Jane's Addiction (as the headlining act). Covering for MTV the opening date of Lollapalooza in Phoenix in July 1991, Dave Kendall introduced the report saying the festival presented the "most diverse lineups of alternative rock". That summer, Farrell had coined
7800-437: The alternative/independent scene and dryly tore it apart." David Lowery , then frontman of Camper Van Beethoven, later recalled: "I remember first seeing that word applied to us... The nearest I could figure is that we seemed like a punk band, but we were playing pop music, so they made up this word alternative for those of us who do that." DJs and promoters during the 1980s claim the term originates from American FM radio of
7920-615: The band at that time the highest charting act to appear on Top of the Pops without a record deal. In an attempt to recoup their investment, the label released a live album Live at Weird's Bar and Grill recorded in London in October 1992. PWEI's political stance became more explicit with the release of the single " Ich Bin Ein Auslander ". A collaboration with Asian group Fun-Da-Mental , the song had anti-Nazi styled lyrics and reached
8040-471: The band glimpsed their future as hip-hop/dance/rock music pioneers and decided to record their debut album Box Frenzy with Gordon at Sheffield's FON studios in June/July 1987. It was here the band met The Designers Republic , which was to be the start of a very successful partnership. The album came out on manager Craig Jennings' Chapter 22 label. 'CJ' still manages the band to the present day, along with
8160-570: The band had. During this time the band was listening to more hip hop ( Run DMC , Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys ) as well as music from a new emerging movement of sample-heavy dance records ( The Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu , MARRS , S'Express and Bomb the Bass ). After hearing Robert Gordon's remix of their cover of Sigue Sigue Sputnik 's " Love Missile F1-11 " and Age of Chance 's mini-LP Crush Collision (also engineered by Gordon),
8280-512: The band in 1995 - originally proposing to contribute in a non-touring capacity due to fatherhood - but the band replaced him with Kerry Hammond on guitar and backing vocals, with Mansell taking over full vocal duties. The band decided to split in May 1996, (with 12 songs recorded and mixed in a state of near completion), and toured the UK briefly in June 1996 with a final live show at Roskilde. At this point, their set contained several unreleased songs from
8400-582: The band's biggest supporters at RCA had left the company by January 1993 and the remaining executives did not understand the band or their music, suggesting at one meeting that EMF 'write a hit' for them. The band was dropped from the label before the "Get the Girl! Kill the Baddies!" single was released. It went on to peak at number 9 in the UK Singles Chart , becoming the band's biggest hit and making
8520-442: The completion of each gig, double live albums of the performance could be purchased. The band released a preview of new material called Sonic Noise Byte on 4 November 2005, as a torrent download for members of their official website pweination. However, an announcement on the official website in March 2006 confirmed that Mansell and March would no longer be involved in the project due to other work commitments, effectively ending
8640-467: The death of Layne Staley and the subsequent disbanding of Alice in Chains in 2002, and the disbanding of both the Cranberries and Stone Temple Pilots in 2003. Britpop also began fading after Oasis ' third album, Be Here Now (1997), was met with lackluster reviews. A signifier of alternative rock's changes was the hiatus of the Lollapalooza festival after an unsuccessful attempt to find
8760-459: The decisions were business people dealing with music as a product, and those bands who were not making the expected sales figures were then excluded from this system. Before the term alternative rock came into common usage around 1990, the sorts of music to which it refers were known by a variety of terms. In 1979, Terry Tolkin used the term Alternative Music to describe the groups he was writing about. In 1979 Dallas radio station KZEW had
8880-471: The drum kit to being a co-vocalist with Mansell and was replaced by a drum machine called Dr. Nightmare. March took on programming duties and became the band expert on all things Atari and Akai. "Beaver Patrol", a cover of the Wilde Knights song, (suggested to the band by Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream), caused some controversy for its offensive lyrics but "There Is No Love Between Us Anymore" made
9000-453: The early 2000s, when indie rock became the most common term in the US to describe modern pop and rock, the terms "indie rock" and "alternative rock" were often used interchangeably; while there are aspects which both genres have in common, "indie rock" was regarded as a British-based term, unlike the more American "alternative rock". The name "alternative rock" essentially serves as an umbrella term for underground music that has emerged in
9120-429: The formative influences for the shoegazing movement of the late 1980s. Named for the band members' tendency to stare at their feet and guitar effects pedals onstage rather than interact with the audience, shoegazing acts like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive created an overwhelmingly loud "wash of sound" that obscured vocals and melodies with long, droning riffs, distortion, and feedback. Shoegazing bands dominated
9240-430: The foundation for its large cult following. The key British alternative rock band to emerge during the 1980s was Manchester 's the Smiths . Music journalist Simon Reynolds singled out the Smiths and their American contemporaries R.E.M. as "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day", commenting that they "were eighties bands only in the sense of being against the eighties". The Smiths exerted an influence over
9360-457: The instigation of the grunge music phenomenon". Helped by constant airplay of the song's music video on MTV, their album Nevermind was selling 400,000 copies a week by Christmas 1991. Its success surprised the music industry. Nevermind not only popularized grunge, but also established "the cultural and commercial viability of alternative rock in general." Michael Azerrad asserted that Nevermind symbolized "a sea-change in rock music" in which
9480-422: The key British alternative rock bands during the 1980s, remained signed to independent labels and received relatively little attention from mainstream radio, television, or newspapers. With the breakthrough of Nirvana and the popularity of the grunge and Britpop movements in the 1990s, alternative rock entered the musical mainstream, and many alternative bands became successful. Emo found mainstream success in
9600-587: The lady who got us involved is Bella Freud, Lucian Freud's daughter and Sigmund Freud's great granddaughter. They had to flee Austria to escape Nazi persecution, and she believes in the Palestinian cause. To say we're anti-Semitic is a smear, so you'd better watch what you're saying. Because you oppose one country's government's policies doesn't mean to say that you hate all the people from that country. I don't like Bush or Putin or Tony Blair, but I don't hate American, Russian or British people. Most people are just trying hard to get by." In 2012 he stated that he believed
9720-428: The layers of guitars), and interjecting layers of samples , including lines of Peter Fonda 's dialogue from The Wild Angels . The new mix was retitled "Loaded", and it became a sensation. "Come Together", the first single from their forthcoming third album, was in much the same vein, and was similarly praised. For their third album, Screamadelica , Primal Scream worked with Andrew Weatherall and Hugo Nicolson ,
9840-420: The local weather. Early grunge bands Soundgarden and Mudhoney found critical acclaim in the U.S. and UK, respectively. By the end of the decade, a number of alternative bands began to sign to major labels. While early major label signings Hüsker Dü and the Replacements had little success, acts who signed with majors in their wake such as R.E.M. and Jane's Addiction achieved gold and platinum records, setting
9960-458: The lower reaches of the UK charts and as a result, PWEI were signed to the record label RCA . Whilst much confusion ensued around the dramatic change of direction, PWEI secured a first by being the first Western independent band to be invited to play the then- Soviet Union . The band achieved Top 40 hits with " Can U Dig It? " and " Wise Up! Sucker " from their album , This Is the Day...This Is
10080-495: The mainstream rock, with record companies using the term "alternative" to market music to an audience that mainstream rock does not reach. Using a broad definition of the genre, Dave Thompson in his book Alternative Rock cites the formation of the Sex Pistols as well as the release of the albums Horses by Patti Smith and Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed as three key events that gave birth to alternative rock. Until
10200-559: The mainstream" and record companies, confused by the genre's success yet eager to capitalize on it, scrambled to sign bands. The New York Times declared in 1993, "Alternative rock doesn't seem so alternative anymore. Every major label has a handful of guitar-driven bands in shapeless shirts and threadbare jeans, bands with bad posture and good riffs who cultivate the oblique and the evasive, who conceal catchy tunes with noise and hide craftsmanship behind nonchalance." However, many alternative rock artists rejected success, for it conflicted with
10320-494: The mainstreaming of rock music, 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 and economic strains in the United States and United Kingdom of the 1980s and early 1990s. Precursors to alternative rock existed in the 1960s with proto-punk . The origins of alternative rock can be traced back to The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) by
10440-509: The mid-1980s, college station KCPR in San Luis Obispo, California , described in a DJ handbook the tension between popular and "cutting edge" songs as played on "alternative radio". Although American alternative artists of the 1980s never generated spectacular album sales, they exerted a considerable influence on later alternative musicians and laid the groundwork for their success. On September 10, 1988, an Alternative Songs chart
10560-460: The more melodic, diverse music of college rock that emerged. Azerrad wrote, "Hüsker Dü played a huge role in convincing the underground that melody and punk rock weren't antithetical." The band also set an example by being the first group from the American indie scene to sign to a major record label, which helped establish college rock as "a viable commercial enterprise". By focusing on heartfelt songwriting and wordplay instead of political concerns,
10680-575: The most popular rock bands in the United States. At the same time Britpop began to decline, Radiohead achieved critical acclaim with its third album OK Computer (1997), and its follow-ups Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), which were in marked contrast with the traditionalism of Britpop. Radiohead, along with post-Britpop groups like Travis , Stereophonics and Coldplay , were major forces in British rock in subsequent years. Bobby Gillespie Robert Gillespie ( / ɡ ɪ ˈ l ɛ s p i / ghil- ESP -ee ; born 22 June 1961)
10800-448: The most popular, and therefore who could generate the most sales. These bands were able to record their songs in expensive studios, and their works were then offered for sale through record store chains that were owned by the entertainment corporations, along with eventually selling the merchandise into big box retailers . Record companies worked with radio and television companies to get the most exposure for their artists. The people making
10920-443: The music is still there. — Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s (2000) By the start of the 1990s, the music industry was enticed by alternative rock's commercial possibilities and major labels had already signed Jane's Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Dinosaur Jr. In early 1991, R.E.M. went mainstream worldwide with Out of Time while becoming a blueprint for many alternative bands. The first edition of
11040-436: The opening day of Infest , with Fuzz Townshend rejoining on drums. Over the following years, they continued playing occasional concerts in the UK, with line-ups varying between shows to agree with the availability of the band members. In addition to Townshend, former band members Richard March and Adam Mole rejoined the band, resulting in a near original line-up by 2018. Seven years after its original release, Anti-Nasty League
11160-424: The pair who designed the sound of the album. They also worked with The Orb and former The Rolling Stones producer Jimmy Miller . The resulting album was a kaleidoscopic, neo-psychedelic fusion of dance, dub , techno , acid house, pop, and rock, and it was greeted with favorable reviews in the UK. Released in the spring of 1991, Screamadelica was one of the records credited for bringing techno and house into
11280-569: The past, particularly movements and genres such as the British Invasion , glam rock , and punk rock . In 1995, the Britpop phenomenon culminated in a rivalry between its two chief groups, Oasis and Blur, symbolized by their release of competing singles “ Roll With It ” and “ Country House ” on the same day on 14 August 1995. Blur won " The Battle of Britpop ", but they were soon eclipsed in popularity by Oasis whose second album, (What's
11400-415: The pop mainstream. The album was a success, winning the first Mercury Music Prize in 1992. The fourth album, Give Out But Don't Give Up , marked a departure for the band from its original sound, experimenting instead with Stones-influenced hard rock . The album was not well received, and it was a relative commercial failure. It hurt the group's reputation as innovators, a situation they reacted to with
11520-418: The prominent grunge bands in Seattle, while a second influx of bands moved to the city in hopes of success. At the same time, critics asserted that advertising was co-opting elements of grunge and turning it into a fad. Entertainment Weekly commented in a 1993 article, "There hasn't been this kind of exploitation of a subculture since the media discovered hippies in the '60s." The New York Times compared
11640-427: The rebellious, DIY ethic the genre had espoused before mainstream exposure and their ideas of artistic authenticity. Other grunge bands subsequently replicated Nirvana's success. Pearl Jam had released its debut album Ten a month before Nevermind in 1991, but album sales only picked up a year later. By the second half of 1992 Ten became a breakthrough success, being certified gold and reaching number two on
11760-458: The release of Beautiful Future . In January 2010, Primal Scream started work on their new album, More Light , which was released in May 2013. In March 2016, Chaosmosis was released, album containing well received songs such as "100% or Nothing", "Trippin' on Your Love". In July 2021, he released Utopian Ashes , a duet album with Jehnny Beth ; it was issued under the banner of both artists "Bobby Gillepsie and Jehnny Beth". Utopian Ashes
11880-441: The roster at his firm, Raw Power Management. The transition from punky guitar music to incorporating state-of-the-art production and new musical territories was not dissimilar to a path previously trodden by one of the band's musical heroes The Clash and subsequently Big Audio Dynamite . The album surprised the band's fans and perplexed the music critics. Crabb, now more immersed in sample-finding and songwriting, moved from behind
12000-421: The shift from the hardcore punk that then dominated the American underground scene to the more diverse styles of alternative rock that were emerging. Minneapolis bands Hüsker Dü and the Replacements were indicative of this shift. Both started out as punk rock bands, but soon diversified their sounds and became more melodic. Michael Azerrad asserted that Hüsker Dü was the key link between hardcore punk and
12120-404: The show, and after the Vileevils set they played the planned PWEI songs, without Mansell. Vileevils performed their final live date in December 2008 supporting Ned's Atomic Dustbin , before recording an unreleased album, which was cancelled prior to release in 2010. Some songs from this record were re-recorded for the 2011 Pop Will Eat Itself album New Noise Designed By A Sadist . In July 2011,
12240-479: The sound and style of grunge, "but not necessarily the individual idiosyncracies of its original artists." Post-grunge was a more commercially viable genre that tempered the distorted guitars of grunge with polished, radio-ready production. Originally, post-grunge was a label used almost pejoratively on bands that emerged when grunge was mainstream and emulated the grunge sound. The label suggested that bands labelled as post-grunge were simply musically derivative, or
12360-529: The south side district of Mount Florida in Glasgow aged 10, he attended King's Park Secondary School . His father is Bob Gillespie, a former SOGAT union official and Labour Party candidate in the 1988 Govan by-election , won by the Scottish National Party 's Jim Sillars . Gillespie played drums for the band The Jesus and Mary Chain . Prior to The Jesus and Mary Chain, he worked as
12480-514: The stage for alternative's later breakthrough. Some bands such as Pixies had massive success overseas while they were ignored domestically. In the middle of the decade, Hüsker Dü's album Zen Arcade influenced other hardcore acts by tackling personal issues. Out of Washington, D.C.'s hardcore scene what was called "emocore" or, later, " emo " emerged and was noted for its lyrics which delved into emotional, very personal subject matter (vocalists sometimes cried) and added free association poetry and
12600-513: The subgenre's lyrics often address literary romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and supernatural mysticism. Bands of this subgenre took inspiration from two British post-punk groups, Siouxsie and the Banshees , and Joy Division . Bauhaus ' debut single " Bela Lugosi's Dead ", released in 1979, is considered to be the proper beginning of the gothic rock subgenre. The Cure 's "oppressively dispirited" albums including Pornography (1982) cemented that group's stature in that style and laid
12720-644: The term Alternative Nation . In December 1991, Spin magazine noted: "this year, for the first time, it became resoundingly clear that what has formerly been considered alternative rock —a college-centered marketing group with fairly lucrative, if limited, potential—has in fact moved into the mainstream." In the late 1990s, the definition again became more specific. In 1997, Neil Strauss of The New York Times defined alternative rock as "hard-edged rock distinguished by brittle, '70s-inspired guitar riffing and singers agonizing over their problems until they take on epic proportions." Defining music as alternative
12840-514: The term would broaden to include new wave , pop, punk rock , post-punk , and occasionally " college "/" indie " rock, all found on the American "commercial alternative" radio stations of the time such as Los Angeles' KROQ-FM . Journalist Jim Gerr wrote that Alternative also encompassed variants such as "rap, trash, metal and industrial". The bill of the first Lollapalooza , an itinerant festival in North America conceived by Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell , reunited "disparate elements of
12960-528: The time, the common music industry terms for cutting-edge music were new music and postmodern , respectively indicating freshness and a tendency to recontextualize sounds of the past. A similar term, alternative pop , emerged around 1985. In 1987, Spin magazine categorized college rock band Camper Van Beethoven as "alternative/indie", saying that their 1985 song "Where the Hell Is Bill" (from Telephone Free Landslide Victory ) "called out
13080-470: The title track to the hit 1996 film Trainspotting , a return to the dance stylings of Screamadelica . The band continued to work on their next album, entitled Vanishing Point , over the course of 1996, releasing it to positive reviews in the summer of 1997. The ultra-aggressive XTRMNTR followed in the spring of 2000. Two years later Primal Scream released Evil Heat , an album in line with XTRMNTR , and in 2006 Riot City Blues came out. 2008 saw
13200-488: The type of rock played on American 1970s Album Oriented Rock radio. In the early 21st century, many alternative rock bands that experienced mainstream success struggled following the suicide of Nirvana 's Kurt Cobain in April 1994, Pearl Jam 's failed lawsuit against concert venue promoter Ticketmaster , Soundgarden 's break-up in 1997, the Smashing Pumpkins losing its original members in 2000, L7 's hiatus in 2001,
13320-426: The unfinished album. Two tracks from this period were released at the time, a cover version of Gary Numan 's "Friends", released on the 1997 tribute album Random , and an instrumental track called "Zero Return" on a magazine sampler. In 2013, the songs from the unfinished album were assembled into a bonus disc with the reissue of "Dos Dedos Mis Amigos", comprising the 'unreleased 1996 album', now titled A Lick of
13440-405: The wake of punk rock since the mid-1980s. Throughout much of its history, alternative rock has been largely defined by its rejection of the commercialism of mainstream culture, although this could be contested since some of the major alternative artists have eventually achieved mainstream success or co-opted with the major labels from the 1990s onward (especially into the 2000s, and beyond). In
13560-541: Was a guest singer on the songs "This Is What It Is (To Be Free)", "Ghosted at Home" and "Country of the Blind" for the album Los Angeles by Lol Tolhurst , Budgie , and Jacknife Lee . Although Gillespie only sings and plays occasional percussion onstage with Primal Scream, throughout his career he has played a number of different instruments, most notably drums with The Jesus and Mary Chain and bass guitar with The Wake . On Primal Scream's 2013 album More Light , he
13680-529: Was created by Billboard , listing the 40 most-played songs on alternative and modern rock radio stations in the US: the first number one was " Peek-a-Boo " by Siouxsie and the Banshees . By 1989, the genre had become popular enough that a package tour featuring New Order , Public Image Limited and the Sugarcubes toured the US arena circuit. Early on, British alternative rock was distinguished from that of
13800-406: Was followed by a UK tour. The band further toured in March and December 2012. The single "Disguise" was featured as Radio 6 Breakfast Show 'Single of the Week' and an instrumental "Back to Business" was used on Top Gear . Crabb & Byker also guested on Soccer AM . The band began working on a remix album to complement New Noise Designed by a Sadist , but this project was discontinued in favour of
13920-410: Was made available digitally on the band's official store and major music streaming and download services. Two months later, in June 2022, a new single, "The Poppies Strike Back", was released. A second, "Chihuahua", followed in September. It was the first new music to be released by the band since 2015's Anti-Nasty League aside from a 2018 box set compilation which included several unreleased remixes and
14040-420: Was met with "generally positive reviews" with a rate of 80 out of 100 from music critics. Two videos featuring the duo were shot to promote the singles "Chase it Down" and "Remember We Were Lovers" and uploaded on YouTube. Gillespie's book, Tenement Kid , a memoir relating his childhood in 1960s Springburn Glasgow, the discovering of punk, then his realization as an artist, until the release of Screamadelica ,
14160-511: Was planned for release in September–October, but was delayed to fit in with the band's live schedule in 2015. It was released exclusively and independently through the band's shop: shop.popwilleatitself.net in April 2015. A 9-date UK tour was undertaken in May. In May, the band signed a publishing administration deal with Bucks Music Group for the ANL album only. On 26 August 2016, PWEI headlined
14280-543: Was published in late 2021. The book was released to critical acclaim: the Scotsman wrote that "Gillespie’s autobiography is written with both passion and eloquence", while the Irish Times wrote that Tenement Kid was "a thrilling read". The Times reviewed it as an "elegantly written tale": Will Hodgkinson said that "the Primal Scream frontman writes movingly about his troubled youth". In 2023, Gillespie
14400-743: Was the 1993 top-ten hit "Get the Girl! Kill the Baddies!". After initially disbanding in 1996, and having a brief reformation in 2005, they issued their first release in more than five years in 2010. An early permutation of the band formed in 1981 under the name From Eden. Members included Clint Mansell , Adam Mole, Chris Fradgley, Malcolm Treece and Miles Hunt (Treece and Hunt went on to form The Wonder Stuff ). From Eden recruited Graham Crabb from 'Kit-Form Colossus' to replace Hunt on drums before splitting up. Crabb, Mole and Mansell recruited Richard March and changed their band name to Wild and Wandering (known locally as Blind and Blundering because they always performed in an intoxicated state). The name came from
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