What is your definition of "alternative" music? Shouldn't alternative music mean something other than the normal or popular music that is played on the radio? I thought alternative meant very little, unknown underground bands that weren't or never played on the radio or were bands with a new sound that hadn't yet became popular with radio listeners.
Many radio stations today label themselves as alternative radio stations when they play popular and well known bands like Pearl Jam, Tool, Staind, Creed and The Offspring. How can these bands still be labeled as "alternative" when they are widely played on the airwaves?
What are these bands alternative to? Country music??
Alternative music to me would be something like the black metal/dark metal that is too evil for most listeners for radio play. You don't hear too much "Morbid Angel" on the radio these days.  [}:D]

[b]ArmaLiter[/b]

No band formed after 1977 is worth my while, hence ALL music other than that is alternative to me!!![:D]

I know what you're saying ArmaLiter, but for better or worse, alternative has come to define grunge/college rock and it should probably stay that way.

You're right though, Morbid Angel is too evil for radio play, heheh. They actually played the Myriad arena here in OK last year. No mean feat considering that when Marilyn Manson (no, don't care for MM) played here a few years back, the Gov. urged a boycott...Altars of Madness rokks!

I started an "Alternative" format radio station back in '89. At that time the label meant bands Top-40 or Rock stations wouldn't play. Everything from The Ramones to the Smiths. Long about 1994 Grunge broke and the "Alternative" tides changed, for the worse. Today I would consider anything that isn't cool to be alternative.

To me KSPC was an alternative music radio station(Claremont Colleges).  Remember 79-80(thereabouts) they played punk and the new wave stuff just starting up.  Had to time them right though cause they had days for that type of music and they had days of polka music, weird mix.

I work in New York City...what is "alternative"?

Dude I think Morbid Angel is more like DEATH metal man.  I don't think alternative music exsists anymore.  At least not the way it did when the term came to mean bands like Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, and Mudhoney.  These were some of the bigger bands in the so called Alternative music genre.  Before that goddamned GRUNGE crap came out.  That shit was like those guys picked up their guitars one day and the next they were rock stars. So I think the so called Alternative music era is dead as we once new it.


PANTERA ROCKS!
TESTAMENT ROCKS!
SACRED REICH ROCKS!
SUICIDAL TENDENCIES WAY ROCKS!
AND ALL THESE GUITAR PLAYERS KICK ASS:  
STEVE VAI
JOHN PETRUCCI
JOE SATRIANI
YNGWIE MALMSTEEN
PAUL GILBERT
RICHIE KOTZEN

In the early and mid 80's there were a series of post-punk indie bands that couldn't get any radio airplay because the stations were jammed with classic rock playlists that hadn't changed in a decade. There was a lot of great stuff, but they were shut out.

So they got the moniker "alternative", and got their foot in the door via college radio. For several years they were stuck in that ghetto. Eventually they (and their successors) got some mainstram radio play in the larger cities. Finally  Nirvana broke out.

The term "alternative" these days basically means any post-1982 rock band that is not hair metal. It's not the alternative anymore, it's the default, but such is language.

The only band that actually fits what "Alternative" should mean these days is Cake.

Cake? They broke at Top-40. I remember when they were touring all piled up in a Dodge Tradesman van pulling the sorriest trailer you've ever seen. Their label reps pulled up to a show one night in a shiny Prevost while the guys making the money were still in the Dodge. Showed me a lot, that band.

Considering that "alternative" is pretty much a cultural code word for "GAY" I'll have to define "alternative music" as "GAY MUSIC."

Ooooh, music that makes you want to find love in another man's.....DISGUSTING!!!!

Alternative music was bands like Joy Divison/New Order, The Cure, Siousixe and the Banshees, The Smiths, R.E.M and other bands that were popular on collage radio.
Not to be confused with Suicidal Tendencies, T.S.O.L, Seven Seconds, JFA, and other skate punk bands of the early '80's. Then there was Punk.. Sex Pistols, Blondie (before their radio days), the Ramones, Iggy Pop and others

[b][/b]

You forgot to mention The Pixies!