Alternative Rock/ Indie Rock Case Study

What is Indie/Alternative Rock?
Indie/ Alternative rock is a genre which comes off one of the Rock genre branches. The genre consists of Rock mixed with a slight bit of pop culture, making it alternative. It's popularity has grown over the years. Lyrics of this genre tend to address topics of social concern, such as drug use, depression, and environmentalism.

History of Alternative/Indie Rock
Indie Rock (A shorter version for independent rock) is continuously growing. There is also an Indie Chart amongst the UK charts. Indie Rock originated in the 1980s in the USA and UK. In the UK bands such as the Smiths, My Bloody Valentine and The Cure started to influence the indie rock scene which is also be known as a alternative rock. With the growing increase in interest for Indie rock many record companies set up in America specialising in Indie Rock. In the 1990's punk revival bands such as Greenday and The Offspring became popular with punk revival being a smaller genre inside indie rock. Alternative Rock at the time began to be classified as any bands that made it into the mainstream charts and indie rock referred to bands that had not made it into mainstream charts.

From 2000 to the present day there have been alternative rock bands such as Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem , Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Franz Ferdinand Kasabian, Bloc Party, Gorillaz and The Killers have all found their way into either The UK and US mainstream charts or both. A suggested reason for the success behind alternative and indie rock bands from the year 2000 is decline in record sales and increased media exposure on viral marketing of Indie bands online.

The audience of Indie Rock
When indie rock originated in the 80s it was sometimes known as College rock in the US due to it's links with college radio. With many students in the US listening to these stations they became the primary audience for Indie and Alternative Rock.

Now days the Indie and Alternative rock genre appeals to mainly teenagers and students as well as various groups of people 20 - 30 years old. A large proportion of people born in the decades 80's and 90's. The songs usually relate to teenagers because of the topic of social concern, with teenagers being confused or not knowing what to think of these subjects as they are still young, they find ways to relate to the lyrics.

The Future of Alternative and Indie Rock
With the younger generation now taking more of a liking to Rap and RnB. The popularity of Alternative and Indie rock will die down, with the target audience age growing. There will still be the indie rock chart but it may not get as much coverage as the present day. However with the success that indie and alternative rock bands are having in this day and age, may inspire up and coming bands to perform rock music in the future. Also some smaller bands in the alternative rock and indie rock genre may be able to appear to wider audience by posting videos online on sites such as MySpace and Youtube.