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So what is Alternative Music? Alternative Music is the opposite of Pop, an umbrella term for describing music that is not produced with Top of the Pops and record sales in mind. However, as "alternative" artists now ride high in the charts and are managed by the same record labels as their pop counterparts this doesn't mean as much as it used to. A better description might be to tag it as modern rock, although Alternative embodies many sub-genres including Indie Rock, Brit Pop, Gothic, New Wave, Alt Folk and literally dozens more that probably mean nothing to you if you don't already know of them.
The roots of alternative music go back to the late 60’s with bands like Iggy Pop, the Velvet Underground and the Stooges who fused art with intellectualism, along with counterculture ideals. T-REX, Bowie and acts like Kraftwerk continued the trend through the 70’s making it a major influence on Punk Rock.
Today most of what gets called Alternative is very much mainstream popular music, with music lovers resenting the term, since everything good or bad seems to get tagged as alternative.
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