Music Genre - Brief History, Iconography and Lists of Artists

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include indie pop, jangle pop, C86 and lo-fi, among others. Originally it was used to describe record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock. As grunge and punk revival bands in the US, and then Brit pop bands in the UK, broke into the mainstream in the 1990s, it came to be used to identify those acts that retained an outsider and underground perspective. In the 2000s, as a result of changes in the music industry and the growing importance of the Internet, a number of indie rock acts began to enjoy commercial success, leading to questions about its meaningfulness as a term.

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s. The 'alternative' definition refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream rock music, expressed primarily in a distorted guitar sound,transgressive lyrics and generally a nonchalant, defiant attitude. The term's original meaning was broader, referring to a generation of musicians unified by their collective debt to either the musical style, or simply the independent,D.I.Y  ethos of punk rock, which in the late 1970s laid the groundwork for alternative music. At times, "alternative" has been used as a catch-all description for music from underground  rock artists that receives mainstream recognition, or for any music, whether rock or not, that is seen to be descended from punk rock.

Alternative rock is a broad umbrella term consisting of music that differs greatly in terms of its sound, its social context, and its regional roots. By the end of the 1980s magazines and zines, college radio airplay, and word of mouth had increased the prominence and highlighted the diversity of alternative rock, helping to define a number of distinct styles such as gothic rock, jangle pop, noice pop, C86 and industrial rock.

This is an example of how the genres indie and alternative do work together to create a combined music genre.

In this video that I made there are a few up to date Indie/Alternative artists and bands.