| Young Adult Literature and Multimedia—Resources |
Alternative
Music and Today's Young Adults
Jennifer Bean
Ask any middle-aged parent of a teenager what they think alternative music is, and they will likely reply something like "it's that noise coming out of my child¹s room." Ask the teenagers (such as Matthew, age 15 who I surveyed), they will sigh in exasperation, roll their eyes, and say ³it is a cliché clinging onto a lost meaning . . . there are so many categories it is a dead term.²
A search of best-selling music on Amazon.com reveals that perhaps the teens are correct! Alternative music, or alternative rock as it is better known, is a constantly evolving genre that includes a vast array of musical styles, although its origins are in punk bands of the Œ80s (Popkin, 2006). The main categories as listed on Amazon.com are American and British alternative, goth and industrial, hardcore and punk, indie and lo-fi, new wave and post funk, and ska. These are further subdivided into more succinct genre such as riot grrl, freak folk, math rock, grunge, shoegaze (which originated with shy musicians who literally gazed at their shoes) and emo, to name a few (Rubin, 2007).
What do these various types of alternative music have in common? As the name implies, the music is different; it cannot be easily placed in standard musical genre such as blues, classic rock or rap. Alternative rock songs can be about anything imaginable, but some consider it ³music with a message² (Reisfeld, 1996, introduction). The lyrics often reflect societal problems and anti-establishment feelings, accompanied by various innovative acoustic combinations of guitars, drums and even orchestral instruments. Songs I have listened to range in tone from quietly contemplative to angry and jarring. Music reviews often describe the sounds of alternative bands with words like ³quirky² and ³experimental.² In my experience, alternative music seems particularly appealing to more intellectual, socially conscious teens. This makes sense, considering that in its early days alternative music was widely known as college rock.
The Grammys and MTV Music Awards first recognized ³alternative² as a musical category in 1991. According to the article ³Alternative Rock² the Lollapalooza Festival concert, which also started in 1991 and was revived in 2003, helped to popularize alternative music (Wikipedia, 2007). The Warped Tour is an alternative concert series that now attracts teens all over the country. Examples of alternative groups that have become mainstream include Evanescence, Coldplay, U2, Nirvana, Sublime and just recently, The Shins. Many alternative bands have creative names such as Death Cab for Cutie, The Decemberists, My Chemical Romance, Modest Mouse and the All American Rejects. Recent movies and television shows popular with young adults that have used alternative rock for their soundtracks include Marie Antoinette, the O.C and Grey¹s Anatomy.
One recent study claims that the lyrics of music popular with young adults promote greater sexual activity among young people (Lamb & Brown, 2006). This may be true, but some alternative groups have influenced young people in a positive way. The punk band Minor Threat and musician Ian MacKaye started the ³straight-edge² movement in the early Œ80s and it is still followed by some teens today (Staight-edge-4-life, 2007). Strait-edge youth make a personal commitment to avoid smoking, alcohol, drug use and casual sex. The straight-edge philosophy is symbolized with the letters ³sXe² stemming from the no-alcohol X marked on the hands of underage club and concert goers. It would be an interesting classroom exercise to have students research and write about their favorite alternative (or other genre) bands, and detail how they feel the music influences or reflects their lives.
There is an overwhelming amount of information about alternative music, bands and individual musicians available on the Internet. Young adults spend a great deal of time downloading alternative and other music. Popular alternative music web sites include alternativetentacles.com, altsounds.com, and alternativeaddiction.com. The virtual community MySpace has many links to bands and music blogs. I feel that we as educators have an important role in reminding teens of music copyright issues, and modeling legal downloading.
Books and magazines featuring alternative music history and musicians are widely available. However, most of these print materials are directed at an adult audience and I have found some to contain language or photographs that may be considered controversial in a public school setting. There seems to be a shortage of print resources about alternative bands that specifically target the young adult audience. A few reference sources, such as Biography Today from Omnigraphics and Parents Aren¹t Supposed to Like It from UXL are written for teens and include articles about some of the more mainstream alternative bands and band members. One historically interesting, though somewhat dated book for young adult collections is This is the Sound: The Best of Alternative Rock by Randi Reisfeld. A more current book on the subject of alternative rock is Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo, by Andy Greenwald. Biographies for teens about celebrity actors, sports stars and classic rock artists such as John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix are easy to find, but this is not the case for biographies focusing on alternative artists. Fortunately, some publishers are beginning to recognize the need for biographical books about modern bands and musicians directed at teens. For example, Mason-Crest and Chelsea House have recently published series of books for teens focusing on popular hip-hop bands. Hopefully authors and publishers will soon realize that alternative music is here to stay, and young adult readers are clamoring for biographies on their favorite alternative bands and musicians
References
Abey, C. D. (Ed.). (2006). Biography today (7 vols.). Detroit: Omnigraphics.
Alternative rock (2007). Retrieved January 28, 2007, from http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_961442_7/104-4647416-6367905?ie=UTF8&node=30
Alternative rock. (2007, January 26). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved January 28, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alternative_rock&oldid=103355995
Erlewine, S. T. (2007). American alternative rock / post-punk. Retrieved January 28, 2007, from http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=19:T578
Greenwald, A. (2003). Nothing feels good: punk rock, teenagers, and emo. NY: St. Martin¹s Griffin.
Hibbett, R. (2005). What is indie rock? Popular Music and Society, 28(1). Retrieved January 27, 2007, from Thomson-Gale Student Resource Center Junior database.
Lamb, S., & Brown, L. (2006). Music, the media, and teenage sex. Education Week, 26(9), 39-40. Retrieved January 28, 2007 from the Academic Search Elite database.
Parents aren't supposed to like it: Rock & other pop musicians of the 1990s (2nd ed.). (2001). Detroit: UXL.
Popkin, H. A.S. (2006, January 23). Alternative to what?. Retrieved January 28, 2007, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10993760/
Reisfeld, R. (1996). This is the sound: The best of alternative rock. NY: Aladdin Paperbacks.
Rubin, J. (2007). Top 10 actual alternatives: The most exciting alt and indie genres. Retrieved February 3, 2007, from http://altmusic.about.com/od/altindie101/tp/topgenres.htm
Straight-edge-4-life (n.d.). Retrieved February 1, 2007, from http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/shell/5/sxe4life.htm