Few music genres are as wide of an umbrella as alternative rock. Born out of the 1970s' various independent music scenes, alt-rock got its name from how it served as an alternative to the various corporate and record label-driven rock bands. Whether it was leaning on the DIY ethos of genres like punk, or songwriting and instrumentation styles that the mainstream eschewed, the 80s and 90s were a whirlwind time for musical development and evolution.

Alt-rock has at least as many pop-punk and emo. It's also arguable that "alternative rock" has become a meaningless phrase (aside from its clever uses by alt-rock darling Max Collins of Eve 6, whose nostalgia-laden riffs on the genre are some of the best content on Bluesky) given how the music industry has shifted drastically from its state when the term was coined. Regardless, here are some of the most enduring and iconic alt-rock subgenres, and the bands that best represent them.

10 Geek Rock

Jonathan Coulton (2003 – Present)

​​​​Alt-rock's explosion in popularity in the 90s meant that some subgenres formed not only based on musical sound, but also cultural identity. They Might Be Giants' smash success with 1990's Flood definitely proved there was an audience for alt that was a little twee, a little pedantic, and a little nerdy, and 1994 saw the formation of Nerf Herder, a Southern California group named after a particularly skewering insult from The Empire Strikes Back

Geek rock's definitive troubadour blasted onto the scene in 2007 by contributing a cute little ditty to an obscure video game entitled Portal. Jonathan Coulton's professional experience as a computer programmer clearly colored some of his early hits, like the office culture love song "Code Monkey." In the years since, Coulton has put out albums ranging from the incredibly geeky (Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms, a CD of which was included as an insert in the September 2005 issue of Popular Science magazine) to the incredibly rock-y (2019's Some Guys, which is a collection of 70s soft-rock covers).

9 Post-Punk Revival

Silversun Pickups (2000 – Present)

The original post-punk movement started in the late 1970s as a direct response to the early punk scene. While post-punk embraced the original punks' DIY aesthetics and ethos, they rejected the simplistic musical style of the genre in favor of wild forms of experimentation, bringing in influences from wildly contrasting genres like funk or dub reggae, as well as leftist political and artistic theory. Bands like the Talking Heads and Siouxie and the Banshees led the charge into the 80s, and although post-punk faded away, its influence on alternative music is undeniable.

The early 2000s saw a revival of post-punk, concurrent with the revivals of other genres like garage rock and new wave, that had the aim of restoring a sense of authenticity to rock in the wake of MTV's dilution of the genre. The Strokes are generally considered the landmark band for the movement, with 2001's Is This It proving to be wildly popular, but if there's a band whose sound embodies both the original post-punk iconoclasm and new-millennium aesthetics, its LA-based rockers Silversun Pickups and their intense, driving basslines, gorgeous production style, and wall-to-wall shimmering guitars.

8 College Rock

R.E.M. (1980 – 2011)

College rock is odd, as music genres go, as it had much less to do with a band's sound and more to do with the growing popularity of college radio stations in the 1980s. In the '60s, the FCC began issuing broadcast licenses to college campuses, establishing unique protections for them as a form of public radio so that students could have a hands-on way to learn the broadcasting trade. Those stations became – and to some extent, still remain – a hotbed of counterculture, where cutting-edge and independent musicians could get airplay regardless of what record label they were on.

​​​​The subgenre of college rock (and really, all modern alternative rock) wouldn't exist without R.E.M. and their drive to create their own music on their own .

R.E.M. became a fixture of that scene from the outset, thanks to their relationship with the University of Georgia in their hometown of Athens, and from there it was only a few short years after releasing their first single, 1981's independently-released "Radio Free Europe," before 1987's Document secured them their first Top 20 hit with "The One I Love." ​​​​The subgenre of college rock (and really, all modern alternative rock) wouldn't exist without R.E.M. and their drive to create their own music on their own .

7 Grunge

Nirvana (1987 – 1994)

​​​​While other grunge bands had darker sounds or more technical proficiency, there's no question that Nirvana remains the definitive grunge band – or maybe it's better said that Kurt Cobain remains the definitive voice of grunge music. The term was first used in reference to Seattle alternative bands in 1987, as the local scene, influenced by various punk and metal artists and insulated from the mainstream influence of the contemporary Southern California scene, began experimenting with sludgy, distorted, and even sloppy sounds, heavily dissatisfied with the overproduced hair metal and pop that was popular on a national level.

Nirvana formed in '87, but it wasn't until 1990 and the addition of new drummer Dave Grohl that the trio hit their stride. Their subsequent album, 1991's Nevermind, changed the face of rock and roll forever, and its first single, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," became the anthem of a generation. 1993's In Utero showed the band developing a more intricate sound, as did their December '93 MTV Unplugged broadcast.

Unfortunately, Cobain's suicide in early 1994 cut the band's future tragically short. Although Nirvana has played multiple reunion gigs with guest vocalists, Cobain's death was as influential on the genre as his music had been. Though there were still grunge releases further into the 90s, the spirit of the genre was gone for good.

6 Shoegaze

My Bloody Valentine (1983 – 1997, 2007 – Present)

Shoegaze, as a genre, is a form of alt or indie rock that evolved out of the UK and Irish neo-psychedelic scene in the late 1980s. The name refers generally to how band would take a neutral posture on stage, staring down at their feet in a way that often came across as disengaged. For the most part, it was because the musicians all had a wide variety of effects pedals hooked into their instruments, and so they stared at them while creating the genre's signature waves of droning, interplexed sound.

Irish shoegazers My Bloody Valentine are one of the pioneers of the shoegaze sound, particularly on their 1991 album Loveless. Q magazine praised the band and the album for their "virtual reinvention of the guitar" and how they extensively sampled noise that, when combined with the album's mono sound, resulted in the iconically impenetrable drone that defined shoegaze's vibe for a generation. My Bloody Valentine's label dropped them after Loveless' release, despite their success, and the band broke up shortly after, but they reunited in 2007 after the post-punk revival brought back a demand for their hallmark sound.

5 Power Pop

The New Pornographers (1997 – Present)

The "gleeful and headstrong" sound of the New Pornographers, as Pitchfork described them, is the perfect encapsulation of power pop as a genre. The original power pop sound came out of the 70s, as bands like the Raspberries and Badfinger carried on with creating uptempo, youthful pop-rock in the void left by the 1970 dissolution of the Beatles. The original wave of the genre died out in the 80s, however, as critics and musicians alike were dismissive of the supposedly juvenile optimism in bands like the Knack and their 1979 hit single "My Sharona."

Power pop's vibe remained in some bands' sounds throughout the 80s, but it wasn't until the mid-90s that it returned in force, as bands like Weezer started embracing that same uptempo, yearning sound that so many of their more grunge-obsessed peers saw as saccharine. When the New Pornographers released their first album, 2000's Mass Romantic, they found an adoring public ready and waiting for them. From 2000 to 2006, the year-end top 40 ranking from Village Voice had either a New Pornographers album or a solo release from one of the band's , namely lead vocalist Neko Case.

4 Post-Rock

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (1994 – 2003, 2010 – Present)

As one of rock's​​​​​​ more reactionary subgenres, post-rock is often considered extremely inaccessible, with songs sometimes lasting into the tens of minutes, and often devoid of vocals or even conventional song structures. Drawing heavily from earlier avant-garde and drone music groups such as the Velvet Underground, the first wave of post-rock bands like Slint and Stereolab formed in the 80s and 90s, forming the foundation of the genre's sound.

Montreal's Godspeed You! Black Emperor formed in 1994, and at once became both iconic and incredibly divisive in the post-rock scene. Operating as a collective, the band's radical anti-capitalist politics have fueled a significant number of their releases, combining anarchic ideology with anarchic musicology into a dense, layered, and nuanced sound that uses spoken-word pieces and field recordings almost as much as it uses dynamic arrangements. As founding guitarist Efrim Menuck said in a 2012 interview with The Guardian:

All music is political, right? You either make music that pleases the king and his court, or you make music for the serfs outside the walls. It's what music (and culture) is for, right? To distract or confront, or both at the same time?

3 Post-Grunge

Foo Fighters (1994 – Present)

Post-grunge – the reactionary late-90s genre that originally was a derogatory term for radio-friendly rock bands like Nickelback and Creed – was a troubled genre at its inception, due to the painful nature of grunge music's demise. About.com described the genre as "split[ting] the difference between plaintive ballads and aggressive rockers, resulting in songs that combine the two extremes into a sad-eyed, propulsive middle ground," and as the genre evolved into the 2000s, it often became synonymous with the pejorative term "butt rock," especially in reference to the aforementioned Nickelback.

Yet history's sense of irony is apparent in how one particular band rose above the commercially-diluted mess of post-grunge to stand out as an icon of the genre's potential: the Foo Fighters, led by Nirvana's own former drummer Dave Grohl. Stepping out from behind the drum kit to pick up a guitar and a microphone, Grohl found a voice and a way to channel his own artistry in the wake of Cobain's tragic death, creating one of the most popular rock bands of all time and leading the post-grunge movement into a mainstream acceptance.

2 Ska-Punk

Operation Ivy (1987 – 1989)

Ska as a genre has a convoluted origin​​​​​​, but even more interesting is how it interbred with alternative rock to create ska-punk, or ska's "third wave" (contrasting with its initial genesis in Jamaica in the 1950s, or its second form, "two tone," which emerged from working-class English neighborhoods in the 70s). Ska-punk emerged in the late 80s, heavily influenced both by two-tone predecessors like Madness and the Specials and punk contemporaries like the Clash. The 90s saw the genre at its mainstream peak with groups like No Doubt and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones climbing to the tops of charts worldwide.

Operation Ivy, who formed in Berkeley, California in 1987, were one of the most integral bands in the evolution of ska-punk, and helped define what would be known as the "East Bay Sound" among ska and conventional punk groups alike. Their raucous performances at Berkeley's legendary 924 Gilman Street venue were an integral part of the nascent punk scene there.

Operation Ivy only lasted two years, only releasing a single album (1989's Energy) before breaking up, yet their legacy continues to this day. Most notably, bassist Matt Freeman and guitar/vocalist Tim Armstrong went on to form Rancid, another integral band in the East Bay scene – and, of course, without Operation Ivy helping cement 924 Gilman Street as a locus of the scene, there would have been no Green Day to challenge just what being punk meant in the 90s.

1 Britpop

Oasis (1991 – 2009, 2024 – Present)

Alternative music subgenres are often reactionary, meaning that each movement emerged in response to the scene that came before it, sometimes as an homage and sometimes as a counterargument. Britpop is squarely in the latter camp: as the last of the UK's late-80s shoegaze scene died out, and the Seattle grunge sound seemed inescapable, British artists were looking to find a new, cleaner, more optimistic sound that wasn't quite power pop and wasn't quite the glam-rock of the 70s.

Bands like Oasis, Blur, Pulp, and Suede, who had mostly formed between 1988 and '91, found themselves at the center of the Britpop movement in 1993. Oasis and Blur even went head-to-head with dueling singles in 1995, in a media frenzy that became known as the "Battle of Britpop."

British music magazine NME had this to say amid the furor of the Battle of Britpop: "Yes, in a week where news leaked that Saddam Hussein was preparing nuclear weapons, everyday folks were still getting slaughtered in Bosnia and Mike Tyson was making his comeback, tabloids and broadsheets alike went Britpop crazy." (NME, 26 August 1995)

Blur's single "Country House" beat out Oasis' "Roll With It" for sales, in a battle that served as a proxy not just for musical preference, but also a culture war of British socioeconomic class - but Oasis won the war. Their next album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, sold over four million copies, four times that of Blur's The Great Escape. The Britpop craze, however, faded just as rapidly as it appeared, and come 1997, it was all over. The British public had moved on to the next big thing – Radiohead's OK Computer.