Author, Lecturer, Broadcaster & Cultural Arts Expert;
President of Art Collage JANG/J Music/J Art/J Books & Media.
Author of over 40 books published on Amazon, including The Crimson Horror series and The Great and Immortal Painters’ Stories series.
Dedicated to sharing insights into art, culture, literature, and creative expression through writing, lectures, media, and content creation.
I had 26th live broadcast of “Pops
Lounge” yesterday in TBN Ulsan Traffic Broadcasting Network’s “Studio1041”. The
topic of yesterday's broadcast was “Rock music", one of the genres
of popular music which were popular in America in the 1990s.
I uploaded content of yesterday's
broadcast on YouTube, and please enjoy the below link.
Following the last week, I am going to
start my 67th lecture.
The topic for this week is “Alternative
Rock”, the 6th theme of “The History of Rock”.
This lecture is a summary of the
contents of “67. History of Rock Music: 6. Alternative Rock” introduced on November
5, 2016.
The term “alternative
rock” is a generic term for underground music that has been born following punk
rock since the mid-1980s. In general, alternative lock was defined as rejecting
the commerciality of mainstream culture, even though some artists entered the
mainstream and achieved commercial success. In the 1980s, alternative rock
bands performed mostly in small clubs, recorded at indie label records, and made
their names known through oral tradition.
There is no established musical style
for alternative rock, and the musical spectrum is greatly wide, from gloomy
gothic rock vibes to loud guitar sounds of indie pop, grunge guitar sounds, and
Britpop revival sounds of the 1960s and 70s. The lyrics of alternative rock are
mostly related to social interests such as drugs, depression, suicide and
environmental protection movements.
In the 1980s,
alternative rock was an underground genre. Alternative rock bands established
their presence in the underground, consistently performing and regularly
releasing low-budget albums. In the case of the United States, new bands have
been formed and these bands have built up a wide range of underground forces.
Although American
alternative artists did not gain special popularity in the 1980s, they became
the foundation for the success of later bands. By the beginning of the 1990s,
the music industry recognized the potential of alternative rock's commercial
success, and accordingly major record companies started to sign the alternative
rock bands such as Jane's Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dinosaur Jr. and
Nirvana. In particular, R.E.M.'s success became a blueprint for many later
alternative rock bands from the late 1980s to 1990s.
Jane's Addiction
R.E.M.
The big success of the
group Nirvana led to the huge popularity of alternative rock in the 1990s. The
single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Nirvana's second album,
"Nevermind (1991)" sparked a grunge musical phenomenon. The success
of “Nevermind” surprised the music world and not only raised the popularity of
grunge, but also established the generalization of the cultural and commercial
survival of alternative rock.
Nirvana
Nevermind, Nirvana (1991)
Other grunge bands followed Nirvana's success,
and Pearl Jam's debut album "Ten", released in 1991, became a gold
album by the second half of 1992 and peaked number 2 on the Billboard 200 album
chart.
Pearl Jam
In the late 1990s, the
popularity of alternative rock declined due to various incidents such as the
death of Kurt Cobain of Nirvana in 1994 and the prohibition of a number of
Pearl Jam’s performances in the United States due to the sue regarding the
performance schedule of Ticketmaster Entertainment, the promoter of Pearl Jam's
performance.
However, following the success of bands such as The Strokes and
The White Stripes in the early 2000s, new alternative rock bands such as Modest
Mouse, The Killers and Yeah Yeah Yeahs emerged, and they made a commercial
success in the early and mid-2000s.
The White Stripes
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
You can also review this lecture from
following media.
Following
the last week, I am going to start my 60th lecture.
The
lecture topic for this week is “Pop Music in 1990s”. It is a summary of the
contents of “60th ACJ Music Academy, History of Pop Music: 5. 1990s”, which was
introduced on September 3, 2016.
In the 1990s, the popularity of teen pop and dance pop, appeared in the
1970s, continued. Rock music was still popular in the 1990s following the 1980s
but unlike the 1980s, when glam metal gained great popularity, punk rock and
the newly appeared Grunge and Industrial Rock gained popularity. During this
period, Contemporary Country music, which began in the 1980s, also gained great
popularity.
First of all, for rock music, in the 1990s, with the advent of the band
Nirvana, Alternative Rock entered the major music charts, and many alternative
rock bands were commercially successful.
Nirvana
Grunge, a subgenre of alternative rock, was born in the 1980s in the
Northwestern United States of Washington and Oregon. Grunge bands began to gain
popularity from the early 1990s, and Nirvana and Pearl Jam made great
contributions to the development of grunge. However, many grunge bands were
disbanded in the mid-1990s, and the death of Nirvana’s vocalist and guitarist
Kurt Cobain in 1994 led to a decline in this genre.
Pearl Jam
Punk rock in the United States revived with the advent of Green Day in
1994 and entered the mainstream of the music industry in the mid-1990s.
Green Day
Many subgenres of metal were outsiders for the commercial aspect in the
1980s, but as the Thrash Metal genre emerged in the early 1990s, it made a
breakthrough for success. This breakthrough was especially a major success of
the fifth album with the same title as the band name released by Metallica in
1991, and as a result, Thrash Metal was firstly able to enter the mainstream.
Metallica
In the late 1990s, Industrial Metal gained popularity, including Nine Inch
Nails and Marilyn Manson, the best American industrial metal bands of the time.
Nine Inch Nails
Marilyn Manson
Michael Jackson released the album “Dangerous” in 1991 and sold 35 million
copies, continuing popularity and commercial success in the 1990s.
Album "Dangerous", Michael Jackson
The British girls’ group, The Spice Girls, targeted the US market and
became the most commercially successful British group in North America after
the Beatles, and their influence expanded the entry opportunity of teen pop
genre to the American charts that were dominated by grunge and hip-hop.
The Spice Girls
In the late 1990s, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera gained great
popularity by releasing the hit singles "…Baby One More Time" and
"Genie in a Bottle", and Céline Dion gained a worldwide success with
the soundtrack of film Titanic“My Heart Will Go On”.
Britney Spears
Christina Aguilera
Céline Dion
Film "Titanic"
For Contemporary R&B, Whitney Houston's hit song "I Will Always
Love You", which was the soundtrack for the film The Bodyguard in 1992,
made number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 14 weeks, and it was sold
over 40 million albums worldwide, recorded as the most sold single of female
singers of all time.
Whitney Houston
Film "The Bodyguard"
In 1990, Mariah Carey began to gain popularity with hit songs such as
"Vision of Love" and "Love Takes Time."
Mariah Carey
In 1993, Janet Jackson signed a contract with Virgin Records, and released
her fifth studio album, "Janet", which was sold over 20 million copies
worldwide.
Album "Janet", Janet Jackson
The popularity of country music peaked in the early 1990s, and the most
notable musician was Garth Brooks.
Garth Brooks
In addition, new singers continued to appear
between the mid- and late 1990s, among which the most successful new singers
include LeAnn Rimes, Martina McBride and Faith Hill.
LeAnn Rimes
Martina McBride
Faith Hill
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