Music in the 90's

Towards the beginning of the 1990's music started to become hugely diverse with many different trends emerging, such as alternative rock, grunge music and the growth of hip hop and teen pop which started in around the 80's.

Alternative Rock:

This form of music came about due to the continual success and popularity of grunge and brit-pop. It emerged into mainstream music roughly in the first few years of the 1990's and because of the massive public interest in this genre of music, the music industry soon became very enticed by alternative rock's commercial possibilities so therefore major labels were soon competing to acquire certain bands including Jane's Addiction, Dinosaur Jr, and Nirvana. The most commonly asscociated band with alternative rock is The Red Hot Chilli Peppers who became very important in the rise of this music genre due to the release of their album 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik' which brought worldwide attention to them but also the musical genre. Alternative rock consists of various subgenres that have emerged from independent music, such as grunge, Britpop, indie pop, and indie rock. The common theme throughout all these bands is the ethos of punk rock. 

Pop Punk:

The pop punk genre of music emerged into mainstream in the mid 90's however it struggled to become emergent before this because the genre was not commercially viable for labels to take it on. The major breakthrough for this genre was in 1997 when the pop punk band 'Blink 182's' was signed by a record label to therefore promote them into the mainstream. both of these factors therefore influenced the arrival of some independent music labels such as Lookout! Records and Fat Wreck Chords. The band which made pop punk popular amongst mainstream music was the Californian band 'Green Day' who released an album called 'Dookie' in 1994, which sold 10 million copies in the United States and 20 million copies worldwide. Another band called Offspring soon after that released an album called 'Smash' which sold just as well as 'Dookie' and because of the success of these two albums, major labels soon became very interested in this new music genre.