The Rise of Alternative Rock in 1989

In 1989, a new wave of alternative rock hit the mainstream, led by bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Introduction

In early 1989, college radio stations across the United States began playing a new type of music that would come to be known as alternative rock. ThisDeveloping from a variety of different genres including punk, post-punk, and new wave, alternative rock was a departure from the traditional pop and rock sounds that had dominated the airwaves for years. With its raw, edgy sound and DIY ethic, alternative rock quickly gained popularity among listeners who were looking for something different.

While alternative rock was not commercially successful at first, it soon found its way into the mainstream. In 1991, Nirvana released their breakout album Nevermind, which featured the mega-hit single “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Suddenly, alternative rock was everywhere and its popularity only continued to grow in the years that followed. By the end of the 1990s, alternative rock had become one of the most popular genres in music.

Looking back, 1989 was a pivotal year in the history of alternative rock. It was the year that this new genre first began to make its mark on the world of music and it set the stage for alternative rock’s eventual rise to prominence.

The birth of alternative rock

In the late 1980s, a new type of rock music emerged that became known as alternative rock. This type of rock music was different from the mainstream rock music that was popular at the time. Alternative rock was more experimental and often had a DIY ethic. It was also often influenced by punk rock and post-punk.

The early years

The alternative rock genre began in the early 1980s, when musicians began to experiment with different sounds and styles. The term “alternative” was first used to describe these new bands in the music scene. In the mid-1980s, a number of alternative rock bands began to emerge, including R.E.M., The Smiths, and The Pixies. These bands became very popular in the underground music scene. However, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that alternative rock really broke into the mainstream.

In 1991, Nirvana released their album Nevermind, which quickly rose to the top of the Billboard charts. At the same time, another alternative rock band, Pearl Jam, also released their debut album Ten. These two albums helped to make alternative rock a household name. In the years that followed, many other alternative rock bands achieved commercial success, including Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Nine Inch Nails.

Alternative rock continued to be hugely popular throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. In recent years, however, the genre has seen a decline in popularity. Nevertheless, there are still many great alternative rock bands making music today.

The breakthrough

It would be inaccurate to suggest that alternative rock came out of nowhere in 1989. In the sense of what we now know as “indie rock,” the sound and the attitude can be traced back to at least the mid-1970s and the beginnings of punk. But it was in 1989 that a confluence of factors – musical, economic, social, and technological – came together to create the perfect storm that would propel alternative rock into the mainstream.

The musical foundations of alternative rock were laid by a number of artists who were influenced by punk but not necessarily part of the punk scene. These included bands like R.E.M., who combined jangly guitars with literate lyrics; The Smiths, whose elegant melancholy set them apart from both punk and mainstream pop; and The Jesus and Mary Chain, whose feedback-drenched noise set them at the furthest extreme from traditional pop music. These bands found themselves lumped together under the “alternative” banner not because they sounded alike, but because they didn’t sound like anything else that was being played on radio or MTV at the time.

The breakthrough for alternative rock came in early 1991 with Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The song was an anthem for disaffected Generation Xers, with its mix of hard rock guitars and pop hooks, and its sneering middle finger to everything from corporate America to hair metal. The success of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” launched Nirvana into stardom, but it also gave a huge boost to a whole slew of other bands who were suddenly seen as part of a viable commercial scene. In the wake of Nirvana’s success, alternative rock became one of the dominant forces in popular music for the rest of the decade.

The golden age of alternative rock

Just as hair metal was dying in the late 80s, a new genre of music was born. grunge, britpop, and college rock were all flourishing. This was the golden age of alternative rock, and it all started in 1989.

The early 1990s

In the early 1990s, alternative rock reached a commercial peak with the release of Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten. These albums brought mainstream attention to a genre that had been developing since the 1980s but had remained mostly underground. Nevermind in particular was immensely popular, selling over 30 million copies worldwide and launching the career of Nirvana’s singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain. Pearl Jam’s Ten also sold very well, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time.

The success of Nevermind and Ten broadened the appeal of alternative rock beyond its traditional fan base among college students and other young people. Suddenly, alternative rock was being played on MTV and radio stations across the country, and many other bands that had been unsigned or only marginally successful before suddenly found themselves with record deals and top-selling albums. The early 1990s was thus a golden age for alternative rock, with many of the genre’s most successful and influential bands releasing their best-known work during this time.

The mid-1990s

The mid-1990s saw the rise of a new generation of alternative rock bands, many of whom were influenced by the grunge sound of the early 1990s. Bands such as Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Britpop and Radiohead were all hugely successful during this period, with Oasis’s album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? becoming the best-selling album of all time in the UK.

The decline of alternative rock

Indeed, by the late ‘90s, the alt-rock scene had fragmented into too many subgenres—grunge, emo, ska-punk, Britpop, post-rock, lo-fi—for any one movement to claim hegemony.labels dropped most of their alt-rock rosters, and the airwaves were quickly overrun by boy bands, teen pop, and nu-metal. It seemed that, for a time, alternative rock was dead.

The late 1990s

The late 1990s saw the decline of alternative rock as a commercially viable genre. This was due in part to the success of Britpop acts such as Oasis and Blur, who had eclipsed American alternative rock groups such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam in terms of both popularity and critical acclaim. Furthermore, the mainstream success of nu metal groups such as Korn and Linkin Park led many alternative rock radio stations to switch to a format that played more to these artists’ strengths. As a result, alternative rock bands found it increasingly difficult to gain airplay on radio and MTV, and many groups either disbanded or switched to another genre.

The early 2000s

By the early 2000s, alternative rock was in decline in both commercial and critical terms. Emo, a subgenre of punk rock that developed in the 1980s, achieved brief mainstream popularity in the early 2000s but was derided by critics as “emo pop” and “adolescent whine”; nonetheless, it had a significant underground following throughout the decade. Pop punk also reached its commercial zenith in the early 2000s with bands such as Blink-182, Sum 41 and Green Day achieving massive success; however, Blink-182’s album Enema of the State (1999) was panned by some critics as “the beginning of the end” for pop punk due to its polished sound.

Conclusion

While it is impossible to track the exact moment when alternative rock became a “thing,” it is safe to say that by the end of the 1980s, the genre was well on its way to becoming one of the most popular music styles in the world. Thanks in large part to the success of Nirvana and their 1991 album Nevermind, alternative rock entered into the mainstream and has remained there ever since.