Fluxblog 493: a history of alternative music in 42 playlists

My ongoing project of exploring this history, covering 1965-2019

This is a roughly chronological collection of my playlists sketching out the lineage of, broadly speaking, alternative rock. It’s an ongoing project, so if there’s an area you’d like to have explored, please comment. I’d personally rather not cover emo or hardcore though. This is a public post, so please share this with whoever you think might appreciate it.

🔸 = mainline narrative, everything else is side quests and sub-genres

🔸EARLIEST ALTERNATIVE 1965-1971 - A collection of music by visionaries, iconoclasts, pioneers, and precursors of what would become alternative rock.[Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

EARLY METAL AND HEAVY ROCK 1968-1972 – Prime movers, early adopters, and key one-offs at the dawn of the heavy metal era. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

UNBROKEN CIRCLES: FOLK IN ROCK 1969-1972 - Covering the English folk revival, psychedelic folk, and acoustic rock in the hippie era. [Spotify | Apple]

WHAT WAS KRAUTROCK?: GERMAN PROGRESSIVE MUSIC 1968-1977 - An introduction to a perennially cool era of groundbreaking experimental music made by German artists. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

🔸BEFORE PUNK 1972-1976 - Proto-punk, glam, power pop, hard rock, and other music heralding the full arrival of punk in 1977. [Spotify | Apple]

🔸DURING PUNK 1977-1979 - The epicenter of the punk explosion featuring the classics along with local obscurities and related phenomena. [Spotify | Apple]

🔸AFTER PUNK: 1980-1983 - Covering the factions and genres that emerge in the wake of punk. [Spotify | Apple]

LACERATING ANGLES: THE POST-PUNK GUITAR SOUND 1977-1984 - Showcasing the harsh and “angular” guitar aesthetic that emerged at this time. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

DEAD SOULS: GOTH SOUNDS 1967-1990 - A collection of goth classics, goth-adjacent music, and some music that was goth before it was called goth. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

PUNKY REGGAE PARTY: JAMAICAN SKA + PUNK 1976-1982 - In which mostly white rockers absorb and emulate Jamaican music in the early days of punk. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

TEEN CITY ROCK: POWER POP ERA 1974-1980 - A broad view of fun, normal-style rock bridging glam and punk/new wave. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

NERD WAVE 1978-1982 - A look back on a pivotal post-punk moment in which the nerd emerges as a new wave rock archetype with a distinctive twitchy affect. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

FIRST WAVE NEW WAVE 1980-1982 - A survey of new and established artists embracing the new punk-adjacent style at the dawn of the 1980s. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

SECOND WAVE NEW WAVE 1983-1986 - The period after the launch of MTV in which new wave goes very mainstream, and the vibe shifts away from the scene’s roots in punk. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

PUNK/ROCK/RAP 1980-1987 - Covering aesthetic intersections of punk and rap near the beginning of both genres. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

🔸RADIO FREE: EARLY ALTERNATIVE 1983-1985 - Post-punk evolves in indie/alt directions with the emergence of R.E.M., The Replacements, New Order, etc.
[Spotify | Apple]

A SPLINTER IN YOUR EYE: AMERICAN JANGLE 1982-1986 - This one shows the massive impact of R.E.M., though the artists here come by their jangle many different ways. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

THESE CHARMING MEN: LITERARY INDIE 1983-1986 - In which bookish jangly rock music emerges and thrives in the UK and Ireland in the Thatcher era. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

🔸WHAT WAS COLLEGE ROCK? 1985-1990 - The post-punk generation blooms into various forms of mutant pop. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

THE DAWN OF ALTERNATIVE 1988-1990 - Drilling down on a transitional era as "alternative" becomes a marketing term and radio format bridging out of college radio and underground scenes. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

BURNING INSIDE: INDUSTRIAL 1986-1994 - An introduction to the genre at its creative and cultural peak. [Spotify | Apple]

CELEBRATES ITSELF: SHOEGAZE 1988-1995 - Exploring the first wave of the genre, including some rather obscure bands. [Spotify | Apple]

🔸WHAT WAS ALT-ROCK? 1991-1996 - Alt-rock goes fully mainstream, and in doing so becomes more of a coherent genre with its own conventions. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

🔸WHAT WAS INDIE ROCK? 1991-1996 - A survey of the glory days of indie rock as a focused recognizable aesthetic distinct from alt-rock. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

WHAT WAS GRUNGE? 1988-1996 - A broad overview of the grunge moment from early origins to commercial saturation point. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

SEETHERS: WOMEN IN 90s ALT-ROCK - A collection of songs from the golden age of alt-rock, 1992-1997. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

POST-NIRVANA ALT-ROCK GOLD RUSH 1992-1995 - In which the record industry scrambles to market new and old underground/alt acts and figure out what could potentially become mainstream. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

ALT-CRUNCHY: NEO-HIPPIE, JAM BANDS, FOLKY VIBES 1992-1998 - The crunchy/neo-hippie end of alternative music in the '90s. [Spotify | Apple]

WHAT WAS BRITPOP? 1993-1997 - A survey of the Britpop era featuring all the big favorites along with the also-rans and some artists on the periphery. [Spotify | Apple]

🔸WHAT HAPPENED TO ALT-ROCK? 1997-1999 - In which musical ideas in indie and alt-rock resolve, evolve, and devolve at the end of the 20th century. [Spotify | Apple]

WHAT WAS POST-ROCK? 1996-2002 - Exploring the period in which indie rock moved towards the aesthetics of film soundtracks. [Apple | Spotify]

🔸THE GAP: INDIE/ALT-ROCK TRANSITIONS 2000-2002 - A story of evolutions and schisms at the dawn of the 21st century. [Spotify | Apple]

NYC: THE ROCK REVIVAL 2000-2004 - A broad view of what was happening in the New York City rock scene at the turn of the 21st century. [Spotify] [Apple]

PEAK ANGLES: POST-PUNK REVIVAL 2001-2006 - Looking back on the period when post-punk aesthetics returned after a long period of dormancy. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

THIS WAS INDIE SLEAZE 2002-2008 - A warts-and-all historically accurate representation of a particular vibe/moment. [Spotify | Apple| YouTube]

🔸THE LAWS HAVE CHANGED: INDIE ROCK 2003-2007 - In which indie hits the big time in the MP3 era. [Spotify | Apple]

LOGICAL VOLUME: EXPERIMENTAL / NOISE INDIE 2003-2007 - A retrospective of the vital arty end of indie rock in the 2000s. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

YOUNG FOLKS: TWEE INDIE 2004-2009 – Cute and cozy, childlike whimsy, and vintage vibes as twee aesthetics entered the mainstream in the second half of the 00s. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

🔸THE NEW INDIE 2008-2010 - Covering a significant sea change in indie aesthetics. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

READY FOR THE FLOOR: INDIE REMIXES 2008-2011 - A collection of high quality remixes from the golden age of blog house. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

🔸FUTURE STARTS SLOW: LIMINAL INDIE 2011-2014 - A look back on a phase in the indie lineage that now seems like a bridge between two eras. [Spotify | Apple]

🔸INDIE IN THE ALGORITHMIC AGE 2015-2019 - When streaming changed everything. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]