Alternative Sound Bytes

3. Stone Temple Pilots

One grunge band from outside of Seattle is Stone Temple Pilots. STP had so much going on for them that made it as one of the more prominent names in the genre of 1990s alternative. The group had over 17 million albums sold in the United States alone, fifteen singles topped the Billboard charts, a “Best Hard Rock Performance” Grammy award, and a number of American Music awards.

Alongside STP’s fame was a load of harsh criticisms against them. They rose so quickly upon the release of their debut album “Core” and their fans grew more and more. The Rolling Stone magazine declared them as the “Best New Band” but their music critics said otherwise – “Worst New Band”. However, before actually disbanding in the year 2002, the group released four more albums that were all successful, and this made STP leave a deep mark in the grunge music scene.

4. Alice in Chains

Alice in Chains, formed in 1987, is also from Seattle. The band released three albums as well as an EP entitled “Jar of Flies”. To date, this EP was the one which sold over ten million copies around the world. Alice in Chains’ signature was their intense guitar and distortion music and such was truly manifested in their album “Dirt”.
However, the popularity of grunge music and its bad side effects took toll on the band. Alice in Chains was truly successful with its career but vocalist Layne Staley’s problem with drug addiction greatly affected the future of the band. His death due to substance overdose led to the unofficial disbanding of the grunge group.

Eric Mouquet and Michel Sanchez of Deep Forest are sound reporters. A voiceless musical duo, they draw on voices from every corner of the world. Under their patronage, infinitely distant utterances have become familiar to us. Hymns of joy and cries of anger, prayers and aubades, songs of hope and despair have all been brought to shake our certainties, seize our senses and stir our emotions.From Africa or Eastern Europe, from pygmies to nomads,the human visions brought to us by Deep Forest have helped greatly in narrowing the musical gap between the hemispheres. In the North of France, Deep Forest’s homeland, sheltered from sight and far from worldly concerns, a true communion has sprung up between ethnic songs and instruments on the one hand, and accordion, piano, synthesisers and high technology on the other.

Deep Forest’s music – in the manner of so many non-Western civilisations – refuses to draw lines between joy and suffering, elation and sadness, just as, from the very beginning, it has banished all barriers of style from its personal grammar. After three albums and thanks to the diversity of encounters, mixes and alliances that the group has undertaken, Deep Forest have not only invented a sound different from any other, they have also created a language. From the heart of the Amazon forest to the North of France, from Havana to Prague, from Madagascar to New York, it remains our best-shared secret.

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The huge genre of the music industry has joined in the commercial mainstream to harvest the rewards and make things easier. But this phenomenon is not a bad thing. Proof of which is Echoing August. For a song to be successful, it has to be catchy. The melody and lyrics must stick to the mind of the listeners so that singing along will not be a hard task. These are the ingredients used by Echoing August for its songs. The first E.P. of the band, the Intentions, was released and include Nick Martucci on vocals and guitar, Shawn Sandi on drums and Pat McCarthy on bass.

An alternative rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1979.

The band comprised guitarist and vocalist Paul Westerberg, guitarist Bob Stinson, bassist Tommy Stinson, and drummer Chris Mars for most of their career.

The Band began as a punk rock group, but began to incorporate other subgenres of rock music and became instrumental in the development of early alternative rock.The Replacements is one of the influences of these bands such as The Goo Goo Dolls, Green Day, Pavement and many more.

Following the critically acclaimed Let It Be (1984), the band signed to Sire Records, becoming one of the first American underground rock bands to sign to a major record label.

In the ’80s the Replacements’ blend of punk guitar and pop melodies garnered critical acclaim but little commercial success. Hailing from the Minneapolis home base of acts as diverse as Hüsker Dü and Prince, the quartet was seen by its fans as generational spokesmen; Paul Westerberg’s angst-ridden confessional songs cast him as a postpunk Bob Dylan and would influence such ’90s stars as the Goo Goo Dolls.

via [Rolling Stone]

Bands in the late 60’s and early 70’s pushed the limits of blues-rock into a new genre which would be called heavy metal. Early eighties the heavy metal genre began a sub-genre categories to better describe the stylistic differences that were growing out of the original heavy metal movement. End of the 1970s many of the earliest heavy metal bands disbanded.

America doesn’t always make the right choice in American Idol, and good performers always get voted out while the less talented ones are left behind.

Good thing for Chris Daughtry, who got voted out in the 5th season of American Idol but was part of the final four, that he went beyond the popular singing talent search to carve out a name for himself in the music industry. Chris now fronts Daughtry, and alternative / rock band that has been making waves on air, starting with their singles “It’s Not Over” (with 3,276,000 point sales) and “Home” (with 1,181,000 point sales), which were released in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Daugthry also has the distinction of being in the #1 U.S. Billboard 200 for 2 weeks and the #1 U.S. Billboard Top Rock Albums position for 14 weeks.

Besides Chris, the band is made up of Josh Paul on bass, Joey Barnes on drums, Brian Craddock and Josh Steeley on guitars.

The band has announced their schedule for their Spring tour pending the release of two albums, “Ursa Major” and “Ursa Minor” that are expected to be released this year. They will be in New Orleans for the first leg of the tour on March 18 as they hug the East Coast with some off-route stops in Tucson, Cleavland and St. Louis ending with a performance in San Jose California. Though no specifics as to the dates of release for the two albums are made public, Ursa Major is the group’s first major studio effort in five years making it one of the most anticipated albums by fans.
Singles have been released but only going as far as each individual song’s components for use in a mixing contest where they have encouraged fans to do stuff with them to produce a unique representation of their music. They have already chosen the winners whose work will be included in a digital compilation that would be accompanying the official album release. Ursa minor, is to be released later this year and is revealed to contain some of the B-sides of the previous album as well as rare tracks and extra’s from the Alternative rockers.

Image source: www.worcsu.com

Alternative music is a genre coined as a sort of catch-all for those sub-genres that are unclassified but can be traced with similarities to popular genres. This alternative music is usually those that were not released commercially and are recorded on independent labels. Some music from this category, from word of mouth, would soon find its way into the mainstream and become commercially successful.

The alternative version of hip hop has not been very popular. Artists claiming to play alternative rap or alternative hip hop are non-conformists who wish to turn from the common drug and violence-directed mainstream rap. Alternative hip-hop fuses influences from funk, rock, jazz, soul and reggae.

As there will always be popular music, there will always be a spot for alternative music. After all, there will always be music that falls somewhere in-between, music that is somewhat like but not entirely the same as what is predominantly popular at a certain period in time.

The 1990s was a decade of good music. Disco music and new wave of the 80s was taken over by alternative rock, in particular, grunge. With its heavily distorted guitar sound and voice quality so dense, grunge music embodied emotional and taboo topics and made it heard.

Often known as the “Sound of Seattle”, the top 5 grunge bands of all time are all natives of Seattle.
In enumerating the best bands of the grunge music scene then, (and justifying the choices in the process,) the following five of the biggest band names of the movement definitely made their mark in half-decade run highlighted by bands’ quick rise to fame and success but marred by problems such as drug abuse and a short period of fame for rock bands.

5. Soundgarden
Formed in 1984, Soundgarden did not actually gain recognition until the 1990s, the same time that Nirvana and Pearl Jam made grunge music “sell”. Soundgarden’s most important and most successful album was “Superunknown”, which was released in 1994. It was nominated for the “Best Rock Album” in the 1995 Grammy Awards and ranked first place in the Billboard Top 200. Their singles “Black Hole Sun” and “Spoonman” from the said album each earned a Grammy award.

…TO BE CONTINUED…