To me it means differing from the norm of the genre/whats popular. Although I realise it doesn't mean this to a lot of people. When I say Im into alternative music, many people seem to think I mean rock music - but the name for that (traditionally, anyway - I hate labels) is alternative rock.

alternative music is just another general label/term for generic crappy rock music that has been done and tried to death.

when people ask me what I listen to, I tell them that I listen to sh!t that they don't like. if some of them still insist, I play them some merzbow and crank it up. and they surely will leave you alone.

I always thought of Alternative as a more indie-rock style, a mellow not-so-hardcore rock. I think I was wrong though... why is it under the pop category?

have you noticed "alternative" has become another form of pop music after the early 90's? so it is appropriate to have it under pop forum. pop music to me is whatever gets played on day time mainstream radio stations. yup, from soft rock to classic rock to alternative rock, so on and so forth.

there are two big radio stations in chicago with the "alternative rock" stamped all over them, Q101 and 94.7 the zone. and all they play is just generic rock crap. and one of the stations is owned by disney, so if it is not pop, what is it? definitely not alternative, alternative to what? better/lesser known music?

if those 2 stations play merzbow or Oval during the day time, I would probably consider them POP. but it is not gonna happen, trust me on that. maybe on college radios, maybe...

We have generic pop/dance music in Europe that we call Eurotrash, and you`re talking about generic pop/rock in America, well.....

haakon, we have that generic pop/dance crap too, I think that kind of music is mostly on this radio station 96.3, with mixture of r&b and some rap music. I think Urban Crap is an appropriate name for that.

God I hate that sort of music.

yeah they are very annoying to listen to. asides from some college radio stations, we dont' have any good commercial stations at all in chicago. they all suck and play crappy songs. and the signals from those college radios are not very strong through out the city.

I was reading something about Radio 1 in britain, they got a lot of cool electronic artists(squarepusher/autechre/venetian snares...) on it. and then you have John Peel who almost always have cool bands. I am jealous.

Radio1 is shite. Long live 2!

alternative? is that something to eat?