Alternative Metal

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Alternative metal is... what the hell is it, anyway?

OK, let's try this... you know Alternative Rock? Stuff like REM, Radiohead and They Might Be Giants? Well, imagine alternative rock. Imagine all its weirdness, all its... "alternativeness". Now, imagine that with the sonic amplitude of metal, and you've basically got Alt-Metal.

Alt-metal started off in the mid-to-late-eighties as a response to Hair Metal, which was the commercial darling of MTV and had in many people's eyes reduced (non-underground) metal to a watered-down pop movement; consequently, alt-metal bands sought to bring back metal's original fire. There was no specific "scene" for alt-metal bands, and not even a specific sound, but they were all united by experimental flourishes and influences from other genres.

The genre became popular in the late eighties/early nineties (around the same time that alt-rock got its big break) thanks to a few bands that are considered the founding members of the genre; these bands included Faith No More and Primus. A couple of years later, Tool took alt-metal and made it considerably darker.

The genre is wide enough that bands will often have totally different sounds to each-other (compare Primus and Korn - do they sound the same?), which causes a fair bit of annoyance with people who like to categorise their bands. At the end of the day, though, alt-metal is a handy catch-all term for bands that are both arguably metal and hard to classify.

See also Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly, a trope that many alt-metal bands possessed.

Bands typically classed as alt-metal include:

• 30 Seconds to Mars (also Progressive Metal, Progressive Rock, Space Rock, Synth Rock, Post-Grunge, Emo, Post-hardcore, and Hard Rock)
• Alice in Chains (Nominally Grunge/Heavy Metal. Certainly the most metal-influenced grunge band alongside Soundgarden.)
• Alter Bridge
• Audioslave
• BABYMETAL (At least until J-Pop/Idol/Metal gets its own category)
• Biohazard (fused with Rap Metal and Thrash Metal)
• Candiria
• Chevelle (easily the most straightforward example, as they pretty much are a straight hybrid of metal and radio-friendly alternative rock)
• CKY
• Crush 40 (also Hard Rock and Heavy Metal)
• Deftones
• Demon Hunter (also Groove Metal and Metalcore)
• Dir En Grey (their softer material. Their other material...well, what kind of metal is it?)
• Disturbed (later, fused with Heavy Metal)
• Dog Fashion Disco
• Evanescence
• Faith No More
• Fear Factory
• Five Finger Death Punch (also Groove Metal)
• Helmet (bordering on Noise Rock)
• Hoobastank (though most people know them for their pop-rock hit 'Reason'. Also falls under Post-Grunge for their mellower songs.)
• Ill Nino (fused with Latin and Nu-metal music)
• Jane's Addiction
• Korn (also Nu-metal and Funk Metal)
• Katatonia (later)
• King's X
• Lacuna Coil (later)
• Life of Agony
• Limp Bizkit (also Nu-metal, Funk Metal and Rap Metal)
• Living Colour
• Machinae Supremacy
• Marilyn Manson (mainly Industrial Metal)
• Maximum the Hormone
• Melvins
• Mr. Bungle
• Mudvayne
• Mushroomhead (also Industrial Metal)
• Nine Inch Nails (mainly Industrial Metal)
• Primus (overlaps with Funk Metal and Progressive Rock)
• Rage Against the Machine (also Rap Metal and Funk Metal)
• Sepultura (later, fused with Groove Metal)
• Skindred
• Slipknot (Also Nu-metal and Groove Metal)
• The Smashing Pumpkins
• Soulfly (early material, fused with Nu-metal / Groove Metal; later became Thrash Metal / Death Metal)
• Soundgarden
• Staind
• System of a Down
• Tool (Also Progressive Metal)
• Type O Negative
• White Zombie

Alternative Metal provides examples of the following tropes:

• Gateway Music - If you're a metalhead, and you're close to graduating college, you either got into metal through this or Nu-metal. More likely the latter, but the trope still applies to alt-metal.
• Heavy Metal
• Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness - Usually most bands under alt-metal tend to be in the 5-7 range, with a few bands getting up to 8.
• More Popular Spinoff - Nu-metal was this to the original alt-metal movement for a period.
• Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly - Demonstrated by many bands in the subgenre, whether prominently (Faith No More, Primus) or subtly (Living Colour, Deftones).
• Trope Maker - Generally considered to be Faith No More.
• What Could Have Been: Nu-metal is perceived as being more commercial than Alternative Metal, and the current lack of commercial interest in Nu-metal has kept Alternative Metal from reaching or even eclipsing the popularity Nu-metal once had.