"Gene (band) Gene were an English alternative rock quartet that rose to prominence in the mid-1990s. Formed in 1993, they were popularly labelled as a Britpop band and often drew comparisons to The Smiths because of their Morrissey-esque lead singer, Martin Rossiter. Gene's music was influenced by The Jam, The Smiths, The Style Council and The Clash. Gene's origins lie in a previous band which was first called The Go Hole, named after a fictional ""Beat"" club in John Clellon Holmes' novel ""Go"", and later renamed Sp!n when they became a four-piece. The band was formed by Lee Clark (vocals/guitar)"
"as punk rock bands, but soon diversified their sounds and became more melodic. 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 (Big Black, Swans) to industrial rock (Ministry, Nine Inch Nails) and to early Grunge (Mudhoney, Nirvana). These sounds were in turn followed by the advent of Boston's the Pixies and Los Angeles' Jane's Addiction. American alternative rock bands of the 1980s included Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, Minutemen, R.E.M., Dinosaur Jr., Pixies, and Sonic Youth which were popular long before"
"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) to industrial rock (Ministry, Nine Inch Nails). These sounds were in turn followed by the advent of Boston's the Pixies and Los Angeles' Jane's Addiction. The top mainstream American Alternative Rock bands of 1980s included Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, R.E.M., The Pixies, and Sonic Youth which were popular long before the Grunge movement of the early 1990s. New singers and songwriters appeared including Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Tom"
"the early 1980s to describe rock artists who did not fit into the mainstream genres of the time. Bands dubbed ""alternative"" had no unified style, but were all seen as distinct from mainstream music. Alternative bands were linked by their collective debt to punk rock, through hardcore, New Wave or the post-punk movements. Important bands of the 1980s alternative movement in the US included R.E.M., Hüsker Dü, Jane's Addiction, Sonic Youth and the Pixies. Artists were largely confined to independent record labels, building an extensive underground music scene based on college radio, fanzines, touring, and word-of-mouth. Few of these bands,"
"They have learned how to play their instruments. They have discovered melody, guitar solos and lyrics that are more than shouted political slogans. Some of them have even discovered the Grateful Dead."" By the mid-to-late 1980s, these bands, who had largely eclipsed their punk rock and post-punk forebears in popularity, were classified broadly as alternative rock. Alternative rock encompasses a diverse set of styles—including gothic rock, dream pop, shoegaze, and grunge, among others—unified by their debt to punk rock and their origins outside of the musical mainstream. As American alternative bands like Sonic Youth, which had grown out of the"
"alternative bands in the late 1980s and 1990s to follow; the group had outlasted many of its contemporaries and by the 1990s had become one of the most popular bands in the world. The Red Hot Chili Peppers became an important band in the rise of alternative rock with their album ""Blood Sugar Sex Magik"" bringing worldwide attention to alternative rock. Combining funk rock with more conventional rock, the Chili Peppers were able to achieve mainstream success climaxing with the release of ""Californication"". Oasis was another band at the forefront of Alternative Rock. From their release of ""Definitely Maybe"" in"
"Manchester's punk rock scene during the late 1970s, he fronted the Nosebleeds, with little success. Beginning a career in music journalism, he authored several books on music and film in the early 1980s. With Johnny Marr he formed the Smiths in 1982, soon attracting national recognition for their eponymous debut album. As the band's frontman, Morrissey attracted attention for his baritone voice, witty and sardonic lyrics, and idiosyncratic appearance; deliberately avoiding rock machismo, he cultivated the aesthetic of a social outsider who eschewed drugs and embraced celibacy. The Smiths released three further studio albums—""Meat Is Murder"", ""The Queen Is Dead"","
"chart success and widespread exposure. Punk revival bands like Green Day and The Offspring also became popular and were grouped under the ""alternative"" umbrella. Similarly, in the United Kingdom Britpop saw bands like Blur and Oasis emerge into the mainstream, abandoning the regional, small-scale and political elements of the 1980s indie scene. Bands like Hüsker Dü and Violent Femmes were just as prominent during this time period, yet they have remained iconoclastic, and are not the bands that are frequently cited as inspirations to the current generation of indie rockers. As a result of alternative rock bands moving into the"
"including Frenzal Rhomb and Jet. The band would go on to become an ARIA Hall of Fame inductee. The Church, meanwhile, was highly successful in the 1980s, only to see their careers diminish in the next decade; 1994's ""Sometime Anywhere"" saw the band recede from a mainstream audience. Alternative rock began to gain popularity midway through the 1990s, with grunge and Britpop styles especially popular, resulting in a new wave of Australian bands. Some, such as Savage Garden, The Living End and Silverchair, also gained quick success in the United States, while You Am I, Jebediah, Magic Dirt, Something for"
"The Freshies, led by Chris Sievey (Frank Sidebottom). At the same time, and out of the same post-punk of Joy Division combining rock, pop, and dance music to earn much critical acclaim while selling millions of records. The group that would ultimately become the definitive Manchester group of the 1980s was The Smiths, led by Morrissey and Marr. With songs like ""Rusholme Ruffians"" and ""Suffer Little Children"", Morrissey sang explicitly about Manchester, creating songs that are as iconic of Manchester as the paintings of L.S. Lowry. As the 1980s drew to a close, a new energy arrived in Manchester fueled"
"the Smiths. In 2014 and 2015 the Smiths were announced as nominees to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As frontman of the Smiths, Morrissey subverted many of the norms that were associated with pop and rock music. The band's aesthetic simplicity was a reaction to the excess personified by the New Romantics, and while Morrissey adopted an androgynous appearance like the New Romantics or earlier glam rockers, his was far more subtle and understated. According to one commentator, ""he was bookish; he wore NHS spectacles and a hearing aid on stage; he was celibate. Worst"
"Morrissey, Depeche Mode, and Erasure as modern rock artists representative of that year. But it was the breakthrough success of the grunge bands Nirvana and Pearl Jam in 1991 that resulted in a large number of American radio stations switching to the format. Modern rock is considered by some to be a specific genre of alternative rock. The format has gone through two distinct periods, dividing the line from classic modern rock and the current alternative rock format used today. Up until grunge went mainstream, the format featured a wide variety of up-tempo danceable music from a diverse group of"
"reggae and has managed to break numerous records. They become the first alternative act to have two concurrent top five singles in the United States while their fourth studio album ""Blurryface"" (2015) was the very first album in history to have every song receive at least a Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America. Alternative rock Alternative rock (also called alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a style of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. In this instance, the word ""alternative"" refers to the"
"Tommy Stinson on bass and that Justin Sharbono would replace Dan Murphy on guitar. Soul Asylum Soul Asylum is an American alternative rock band formed in 1981 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, best known for the Grammy-winning 1993 hit ""Runaway Train"". The band was originally called Loud Fast Rules, with a lineup consisting of Dave Pirner, Dan Murphy, Karl Mueller, and Pat Morley. They changed their name to Soul Asylum in 1983. Morley was replaced by Grant Young in 1984. The band recorded three albums with Twin/Tone Records and two with A&M Records, with little commercial success. In 1992, they released the"
"political concerns, The Replacements upended a number of underground scene conventions; Azerrad noted that ""along with R.E.M. [The Replacements] 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 the advent of Boston's Pixies and Los Angeles' Jane's Addiction. Around the same time, the grunge subgenre emerged in Seattle, Washington,"
"played songs on alternative and college radio stations. Simon Goddard wrote that the ""Banshees - Mk II would become one of the biggest alternative pop groups of the 1980s"". ""Spin"" described them as ""alternative rockers"" in 1991 when referring to their presence in the top 40 chart. Noting the band's participation in the first Lollapalooza festival, journalist Jim Gerr saw them as one of the ""elements of the alternative rock community"". ""Mojo"" retrospectively presented them as one of ""alternative rock's iconic groups"". Siouxsie and the Banshees have influenced many later genres including post-punk, new wave, synth pop, gothic rock, alternative"
"early 1980s. Manchester was transformed by The Smiths, through Morrissey's lyrics into a place of epic romance as part of a critique of the hard northern working class life under Thatcher. The Indie scene was diverse and contained bands such as The Cocteau Twins, The Fall and The Jesus and Mary Chain. By 1986, The Smiths had become one of Britain's most established band's, a record deal with label EMI had been agreed and they began to play larger and larger venues in the U.S. However, this brought its own pressures and eventually this contributed to The Smiths splitting in"
"to a completely different sound. By the end of the 1980s these bands had largely eclipsed their punk forebearers and were termed alternative rock. As alternative bands like Sonic Youth and the Pixies were starting to gain larger audiences, major labels sought to capitalize on a market that had been growing underground for the past 10 years. In 1991, Nirvana achieved huge commercial success with their album, ""Nevermind"". Nirvana cited punk as a key influence on their music. Although they tended to label themselves as punk rock and championed many unknown punk icons (as did many other alternative rock bands),"
"a slower, heavier hard rock direction. Crossover thrash was another influential movement in mid-1980s hardcore, with bands like D.R.I., Corrosion of Conformity, Suicidal Tendencies, Los Cycos, Cro-Mags, Fang, Agnostic Front, Rich Kids on LSD, The Accüsed and Cryptic Slaughter embracing the thrash metal of bands like Slayer. Most of the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene eschewed hardcore in favor of a college rock-influenced style of punk. By the mid to late 1980s, many of the most prominent early hardcore punk bands had broken up. Bad Religion made a progressive rock album with ""Into the Unknown"", the Beastie Boys gained fame by"
"to move into the mainstream, including early indie bands Aztec Camera, Orange Juice and The Smiths, followed by The Housemartins and James. The ""C86"" cassette, released in 1986 by ""NME"" and featuring such bands as The Wedding Present, Primal Scream, The Pastels, and the Soup Dragons, 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 the UK during the 1980s. The Jesus and Mary Chain wrapped their pop melodies in walls of guitar noise, while New Order emerged from the demise of post-punk band"
"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"". The bill of the first Lollapalooza, an itinerant festival in North America conceived by Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, reunited ""disparate elements of the alternative rock community"" including Henry Rollins, Butthole Surfers, Ice-T, Nine Inch Nails, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Jane's Addiction. That same year, Farrell coined the term ""Alternative Nation"". In the late 1990s, the definition again became more specific. In"
"as the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, the Charlatans, the Inspiral Carpets and James mixed alternative rock, psychedelic rock and dance music to create a sound which led to commercial success in the indie rock field and a wider musical influence nationally. The '90s brought forth arguably Manchester's most popular band, Oasis. The Chemical Brothers (from Southern England) formed in Manchester. Also, ex-Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown has forged a successful solo career, as has ex-Smiths' leadman Morrissey. Among the others born in the Manchester area are Richard Ashcroft, front man of alternative rock group the Verve, and Jay Kay, the"
"Transvision Vamp Transvision Vamp were a British alternative rock group. Formed in 1986 by Nick Christian Sayer and Wendy James, the band enjoyed chart success in the late 1980s with their pop/punk sound. James, the lead singer and focal-point of the group, attracted media attention with her sexually charged and rebellious image. The band's original line-up was James, Sayer, Dave Parsons (bass), Tex Axile (keyboards) and Pol Burton (drums). Parsons and Axile had both been in punk bands prior to joining the band; Parsons in The Partisans, and Axile in various bands, most notably The Moors Murderers and X-Ray Spex"
"Alternative chart. Dominant genres included pop punk and softer alternative rock, as grunge acts such as Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots did not reach No. 1, while Britpop, a form of alternative rock from the UK, was represented only by Oasis. By the late-1990s, the Alternative Songs chart was ruled by relatively lighter alternative rock bands such as Third Eye Blind, Matchbox Twenty and Sugar Ray and a plethora of one-hit wonders. At the turn of the century, alternative radio embraced nu-metal/rap rock with bands including Korn, Limp Bizkit and most famously, Linkin Park. Chris Molanphy of Pitchfork stated that"
"of alternative metal with the punk crutch of 1992's ""Meantime"" [and] bands such as Rage Against the Machine took the concept a crucial step further, integrating hip hop to connect with skate rat kids raised on Metallica and Run D.M.C.."" Many established 1980s metal bands released albums in the 1990s that were described as alternative metal, including Anthrax, Metallica and Mötley Crüe. In the latter part of the 1990s, a second, more aggressive wave of alternative metal emerged; dubbed nu metal, it often relied on hardcore punk, groove/thrash metal, industrial and hip hop influences, as opposed to the influences of"
"that time. The Photos spent much of the time gigging, playing in the early days with: The Adverts, The Cure, John Cooper Clarke and The Fall and later toured the UK supporting The Undertones and Squeeze. Once, at The Marquee in Wardour Street (13 July 1980), they were supported by an unknown up and coming Irish group called U2. LaterJools Holland and the Millionaires supported The Photos on another UK tour. When The Photos played Manchester Polytechnic were reviewed by Morrissey in the ""Record Mirror"", writing under his full name Steven Morrissey. The review was also featured in the book"
"""Epic"" live on the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards and the performance inspired him to begin writing and performing music again. They were voted No. 52 on VH1's ""100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock"". The band is credited for inventing the alternative metal genre which began in the 1980s and that fuses metal with other genres, including alternative rock. Tim Grierson of About.com said the band ""helped put alternative metal on the map."" Faith No More has also been credited for influencing nu metal bands, such as Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Sevendust, primarily due to the popularity of ""Epic"", and"
"three Misfits songs, while Slayer's cover album ""Undisputed Attitude"" consisted of covers of predominately hardcore punk bands. During the 2000s, many more metalcore bands became known. Bullet for My Valentine, Killswitch Engage, Atreyu, Shadows Fall, and As I Lay Dying all had some popularity during the 2000s. Some hardcore bands began experimenting with other styles as their careers progressed in the 1980s, becoming known as alternative rock. Bands such as Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Hüsker Dü, and The Replacements drew from hardcore they had played earlier in their careers, but broke away from its ""loud and fast"" formula. In the mid-1980s,"
"Mudhoney Mudhoney is an American alternative rock band. Formed in Seattle, Washington in 1988 following the demise of Green River, Mudhoney's members are singer and rhythm guitarist Mark Arm, lead guitarist Steve Turner, bassist Guy Maddison and drummer Dan Peters. Original bassist Matt Lukin left the band in 1999. Mudhoney's early releases on the Sub Pop label, particularly their debut single ""Touch Me I'm Sick"" and the ""Superfuzz Bigmuff"" EP, were massively influential on the Seattle music scene. More than almost any other release of the era they inspired the dirty, high-distortion sound that would become grunge. Later on, Mudhoney"
"Chris de Burgh (who went on to greater mainstream success in the 1980s), Rick Wakeman, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Chuck Mangione, Squeeze, and Peter Frampton. On March 10, 1977, A&M signed the Sex Pistols after the band had been dropped by EMI. However, A&M dropped the band within a week. A&M sustained its success during the 1980s with a roster of noted acts that included Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Henry Badowski, Janet Jackson, the Police, Sting, the Brothers Johnson, Falco, Atlantic Starr, the Go-Go's, Bryan Adams, Suzanne Vega, Righeira, Brenda Russell, Jeffrey Osborne, Oingo Boingo, the Human League, Ozark"
"2013 as T. Hardy Morris and The Outfit. He released follow up album ""Drownin on a Mountaintop"" in 2015. The band's original drummer Jason Scarboro now works as an electrician. Dead Confederate Dead Confederate was an American alternative rock band, formed in Augusta, Georgia and based in Athens, Georgia. The band's sound was described as a mix of alternative country, psychedelic rock and grunge, and has drawn comparisons to Nirvana and My Morning Jacket. Childhood friends Thomas Hardy Morris and Walker Howle have played together since high school in Augusta, Georgia and along with Morris's brother Dawson hooked up with"
"as noise pop, indie rock, grunge, and shoegaze. Most of these subgenres had achieved minor mainstream notice and a few bands representing them, such as Hüsker Dü and R.E.M., had even signed to major labels. But most alternative bands' commercial success was limited in comparison to other genres of rock and pop music at the time, and most acts 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"
"whom he would later collaborate. By early 1982, Freak Party had fizzled out, being unable to find a singer. Marr approached Rob Allman, singer in White Dice, who suggested Steven Morrissey, a singer with the short-lived punk band the Nosebleeds. Marr approached a mutual friend asking to be introduced and they visited Morrissey at his house in Kings Road, Stretford in May. Marr's jangly Rickenbacker and Fender Telecaster guitar playing became synonymous with the Smiths' sound. Marr's friend Andy Rourke joined as bass player and Mike Joyce was recruited as drummer. Signing to indie label Rough Trade Records, they released"