Alt Rock

Emerging from the independent music underground of the 1970s it became widely popular in the 1980s. The music was unified by collective debt to the musical style and/or the independent, DIY ethos of punk rock, which laid the groundwork for alternative music. Throughout the 1980s, magazines, college radio airplay, and word of mouth had increased the prominence and highlighted the diversity of alternative rock, and with the breakthrough of Nirvana, grunge and Britpop movements in the 1990s, it entered the mainstream. With Smashing Pumpkins, Jane's Addiction and Soundgarden