Current Events > Where does the difference lie between Alternative, Pop Punk, and Rock

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Music enjoyers of CE, I woke up today and this question has been wreaking havoc on my tiny brain ever since. Alternative is just heavier Rock, and Pop Punk is just faster Alternative? In my examples I used Green Day, but then when I think about All Time Low, they're at times both faster and softer than Green Day.

Alternative
https://youtu.be/Ee_uujKuJMI

Pop Punk
https://youtu.be/NUTGr5t3MoY

Rock
https://youtu.be/r00ikilDxW4

All Time Low doing all three?
https://youtu.be/GcNiKCmWdYE

Please discuss and provide examples.

Alternative rock is a broad style of Rock that generally consists of verse-chorus song structures performed with a less commercial sensibility. The genre developed in the independent music scenes of the 1980s, being heavily indebted to the do-it-yourself spirit of Punk and the music of The Velvet Underground. Common characteristics typically include a blend of often melodic, traditional songwriting with more eccentric sounds drawing from that of punks, moodier or quirkier lyricism, and sometimes ample amounts of guitar-based distortion and fuzz.

Early Jangle Pop groups such as The dB's, Orange Juice, and later, R.E.M. and The Smiths, combined Post-Punk with chiming Pop Rock melodies. The British jangle pop scene was an important template for numerous branches of alt rock and Indie Popsuch as Twee Pop, Noise Pop, and C86. Other derivatives included the flashy Baggyscene popularized by The Stone Roseswhich took cues from Alternative Dance and Neo-Psychedelia, while the Shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine blended noise pop and Dream Pop into a hazy wash of instruments and vocals.

In America, bands like Violent Femmes, Hsker D, and The Replacements bridged Punk Rock and Post-Hardcore with Folk Rockand Power Pop. Later groups took on a more dissonant, raucous approach, with Noise Rock and Experimental Rock artists such as Sonic Youth and The Flaming Lips also playing alt rock. Around this time, a looser outgrowth of the genre known as Indie Rockemerged mainly through the ramshackle sound of Slacker Rock and further developed through several influential artists such as Pixies, Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Dinosaur Jr., and Guided by Voices.

Despite occasional exceptions like the arena rock of U2, the genre was met with little commercial success compared to New Waveand Glam Metal; the term college rock was coined to describe many of these early alt rock acts as well as their popularity on college radios, indicating that it was something outside the mainstream.

However, by the start of the 1990s, several previously independent artists including Sonic Youth and R.E.M. signed to major labels, and the success of Grunge bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam launched alternative rock along with Alternative Metalinto massive popularity. Multiple other offshoots began to pop up, particularly the jaunty Britpop of Oasis and Blur, and other prevalent genres of the 90s such as Electronic, Funk Rock, Third Wave Ska, Emo, and Hip Hop were influential on the growing alt rock explosion. By the turn of the century, pop rock artists like Weezer and Alanis Morissette, Pop Punk artists like Green Dayand Blink-182, and Industrial Rock artists like Nine Inch Nails would find crossover appeal with alt rock listeners, while indie rock experienced a commercial breakthrough by way of the Post-Punk Revival and Garage Rock Revival. A number of different artists during this period including Radiohead, TV on the Radio, and Ween mixed the creativity and experimentation of Art Rock with elements of alt rock.

In the 2010s, alternative rock largely faded from the mainstream and returned to the underground, though indie rock musicians such as Car Seat Headrest, Mitski, and Courtney Barnett enjoyed some moderate success. The genre also influenced Emo Rapalong with the more wistful strains of Pop Rap, with Kid Cudi and Lil Peep integrating various aspects of alt rock into their music.

Pop punk is a genre that blends the loud, fast-paced and sometimes sloppy sound of Punk Rock with the catchy sound of Popmusic. Pop punk has existed since the inception of punk rock and has thus covered a lot of sonic and lyrical ground, so is often hard to define. For instance, many pop punk bands embrace a fun, light-hearted image, where as others adopt the opposite, an overly melancholic and serious sound.

The earliest pop punk band is often considered to be Ramones. Other bands from the 1970s to embrace a more pop-influenced sound include Buzzcocks and The Undertones. Pop punk became more of a defined sound in the 1980s with the growing Melodic Hardcore and Skate Punk sounds. Bands from this era include Screeching Weasel and The Queers. Pop punk began to break through into the mainstream in the 1990s with bands such as Green Day, Blink-182, and The Offspring. In the mid 2000s the mainstream success of pop punk began to wane and was eventually subsumed by the rising popularity of Emo-Pop. In the 2010s, bands like The Wonder Years and Joyce Manor ushered in a new wave of pop punk with Emo influences.

Rock is a widely popular and vast genre that gathers together a wide range of different styles. Its origins can be traced to US recordings in the late 1940s that combined major elements from Jump Blues and Swing, with increased prominence given to the role of the electric guitar drawn from Chicago Blues. Even though the term "rock" was originally used by some Blues performers in the late 1930s to describe the bawdier version of their music with faster tempo songs, it went largely unrecorded until the late 1940s.

Rock in its original form was a song-based type of music that typically used a verse-chorus structure with a backbeat rhythm and the electric guitar at the forefront of the music being heavier and/or faster than its predecessor genres. The structure and sound of rock is based around a prominent electric guitar sound with a bass guitar and drums providing its rhythm (although electric guitars can also sometimes contribute, usually referred to as rhythm guitars in this context). However, rock musicians have experimented with this base structure from the beginning so any two different rock bands may not sound anything alike or even have similar structures. Rock music from its inception has symbolized the counter-culture and served as a vehicle for rebellion and protest, although the proliferation of the genre has diluted this characteristic's importance as a core aspect.

Rock originated in the southern United States and became popular in the 1950s through its two original forms Rock & Roll and Rockabilly. Rock & roll was used to describe black musicians such as Little Richard and Chuck Berry who played Rhythm & Blues at a faster tempo and incorporated new technical innovations such as the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone. Rockabilly was used to describe young Western Swingperformers who incorporated fast-paced rhythm and blues with Country influences. This term tended to be applied to white musicians like Carl Perkins and was popularized by the early recordings of Elvis Presley. This type of music started to decline in popularity in the late 1950s and early 1960s as Pop gained wider prominence, although the development of subgenres such as Surf Rock and Garage Rock retained the public's interest and general relevance of the genre.

Rock music in the United Kingdom evolved from blues via Skiffle, a genre derived from Jazz and Folk. In the 1960s, the so-called "British Invasion" of UK bands such as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles helped revive mainstream interest in the genre and cement it in the popular culture on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. These bands tended to recreate elements of American blues and rock & roll and fuse them with music popular in the UK, including Beat Music and Mod, which generated a cross-influence between the US and the UK and led to a boom in popularity.

During the 1960s, rock music expanded beyond its traditional roots and started to incorporate more and more unconventional aspects such as different guitar effects and distortion, diverse instrumentation, and general experimentation. As rock became commercialized, Pop Rock developed as a more accessible and radio-friendly version. The 1960s also saw the development of Folk Rock, which was widely used in protests around the world, and which subsequently led to the creation of the hallucinogenic drug-influenced Psychedelic Rock. Progressive Rock was also formed in the 1960s and involved the use of other instruments such as keyboards, as well as generally more complex and experimental songwriting.

In the 1970s, Hard Rock, a garage rock and blues rock influenced subgenre with more aggressive vocals and more pronounced guitar distortion came into prominence. Hard rock laid the foundations for Metal, which turned up the intensity further and would later evolve into many diverse subgenres. The theatrical and campy Glam Rock was developed in the early 1970s and saw immense popularity in the first half of the decade. Punk Rock took off in the mid-1970s and focused on an aggressive, hard-edged, and stripped down sound as well as counter-culture aesthetics. The Punk scene influenced both the mainstream and the underground in the 1980s and gave rise to New Wave, Post-Punk, and eventually, Alternative Rock and Indie Rock whose various forms would become mainstays in subsequent decades.

In the decades since its inception, rock has continued to evolve, splinter, and crossover with other genres: various diverse subgenres have reached both underground and mainstream popularity and various regional scenes have been developed. Rock has remained a commercial force and has continued to influence and define popular culture in countries across the world.

Rock - good
Alternative - good
Pop punk - sucks

I wish I could like Green Day.

Rock is just Pop music with guitar, drums, and bass? Like Bon Jovi. All Time Low is heavier than Bon Jovi.

if it sounds weird and different from your typical rock stuff and hipsters will flock to it, you know its alternative... lol

AloneIBreak posted...

I wish I could like Green Day.

You're not missing out on a lot. It's mostly nostalgia and adoration for them being a Gateway Band.

It's all just "Rock" music, just a matter of how widespread the appeal is.

Anybody actually read what that guy @SMAP- posted.

Flockaveli posted...

Anybody actually read what that guy @SMAP- posted.

Or copied from Wikipedia

Alternative is pretty much a useless word now, at least when it comes to new music

Mirriam-Webster defines Alternative Rock as alternative music that blends elements of conventional rock with influences from other musical styles (such as punk rock, hard rock, hip-hop, or folk).

Pop Punk tends to be thematically based on self teenage angst. Sum 41, Simple Plan, et al. Punk Rock tends more to the political and is more speaking to the other as a group rather than the self.

ZevLoveDOOM posted...

if it sounds weird and different from your typical rock stuff and hipsters will flock to it, you know its alternative... lol

Hipsters? Nah, Alt Rock is mainstream

Glad someone posted descriptions from Rateyourmusic.com. It's the best music site on the internet. Especially if you want to explore the most recent developments in new genres. Community of literal diehard music nerds.

Good rock musicians know how to play their musicians. Good punk musicians don't.

Noise rock and math rock is alt right?

Ratchetrockon posted...

Noise rock and math rock is alt right?

Very. Only incels listen to that.

Flockaveli posted...

Very. Only incels listen to that.

omgg

I hate music sub-genres.

Solid_Sonic posted...

I hate music sub-genres.

Why? Seems like an odd thing to have any notable negative feelings about.

First of all it creates situations like this topic and secondly it can boil into arguments about who is what and if they slipped from one to another. It's too in the weeds.

Solid_Sonic posted...

First of all it creates situations like this topic and secondly it can boil into arguments about who is what and if they slipped from one to another. It's too in the weeds.

ok but just "Metal" as an example, covers a lot of vastly different sounds with different ranges of appeal.

Like, Blind Guardian and Cannibal Corpse are both metal, but how much overlap is there really between fans of death metal and melodic power metal?