Your way in
Alternative rock 1985
An umbrella for everything that grew outside commercial radio and then conquered it. Defined originally by the college-radio network, not by any one sound.
- Heaviness
- 4
- Speed
- 5
- Melody
- 8
- Where from
- USA / United Kingdom
- Tempo
- 100-150 bpm
- Song length
- 3-5 min
- Written about
- Alienation, Irony as self-defence, Suburbia, The refusal to explain yourself
- Vocals
- Sung
Why this one
| You said | Alternative rock | Match | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singing When someone is singing, what should come out? | clean | 100% | ×3 |
| A steady walk What pace? | 5 out of 10 | 100% | ×2 |
| The seventies and eighties Does it matter when it was made? | 1985 | 100% | ×1 |
| The inside of a head What should the words be about? | Alienation, Irony as self-defence, Suburbia, The refusal to explain yourself | 100% | ×1 |
| Normal How long should a song be? | up to 5 min | 96% | ×1 |
| Weighted mean | 99% | ||
Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 5 answers you gave, weighted vocals 3, pace 2, era 1, about 1, length 1 out of 8. Alternative rock leads the next by 5 points. Where two genres score the same the broader one wins, because a genre with subgenres under it is somewhere to carry on from and a leaf is a full stop.
Five records, in this order
- 1The one to put on first
Pixies, Doolittle 1989
Pixies - Doolittle. Cobain admitted he was simply trying to write a Pixies song.
- 2Then
- 3Then
- 4Then
- 5One step further in
Pulp, Different Class 1995
Pulp - Different Class. The decade's best lyrics, and it isn't close.
The first is Alternative rock's own entry point. After it come Alternative rock's essential records in the order the encyclopedia lists them. Every one of these has a page here with links out to somewhere it can be played.
If that is not it
-
Glam rock 94%
Rock in glitter, platform boots and calculated ambiguity. The spectacle is half the music.
4 steps from Alternative rock, meeting it only at Rock.
The way into Glam rock -
New wave 93%
Post-punk's commercial face: synthesizers, hooks and jerky rhythms. Punk without the rage, but with the same ideas.
4 steps from Alternative rock, meeting it only at Rock.
The way into New wave
Not simply the second and third of the ranking: those are almost always near neighbours of the first, which is three names for one suggestion. An alternate has to sit at least 4 steps through the tree from the headline and from the other alternate, which is the same floor the "sounds like this, but isn't" panel uses.
What your answers ruled out
- Singing put 54 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Black metal, Death metal, Post-hardcore. Worth 3 of 8.
- The seventies and eighties put 4 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Kawaii metal, New nu metal, Progressive metalcore. Worth 1 of 8.
- The inside of a head put 88 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Punk rock, Hardcore punk, Black metal. Worth 1 of 8.
- Normal put 13 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Progressive rock, Krautrock, Acid rock. Worth 1 of 8.
Counted as genres scoring 20% or less on that answer alone. A recommendation that only shows what it chose is hiding half of what it did.