Editing Alternative rock (section)

==Characteristics==
The name "alternative rock" essentially serves as an [[umbrella term]] for underground music that has emerged in the wake of [[punk rock]] since the mid-1980s.<ref name="American alt-rock">Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. [https://web.archive.org/web/20101025110738/https://www.allmusic.com/explore/essay/american-alternative-rock--post-punk-t578 "American Alternative Rock/Post-Punk"]. [[AllMusic]]. Retrieved May 20, 2006.</ref> Throughout much of its history, alternative rock has been largely defined by its rejection of the [[commercialism]] of mainstream culture, although this could be contested since some of the major alternative artists have eventually achieved mainstream success or co-opted with the [[major labels]] from the 1990s onward (especially into the 2000s, and beyond). In the 1980s, alternative bands generally played in small clubs, recorded for indie labels, and spread their popularity through [[word of mouth]].<ref name="encarta">"Rock Music". Microsoft Encarta 2006 [CD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2005.</ref> As such, there is no set musical style for alternative rock as a whole, although in 1989 ''[[The New York Times]]'' asserted that the genre is "guitar music first of all, with guitars that blast out power chords, pick out chiming riffs, buzz with fuzztone and squeal in feedback."<ref>{{cite web|last=Pareles |first=Jon |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/05/arts/home-entertainment-recordings-soundings-a-new-kind-of-rock.html |title=A New Kind of Rock |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222035709/https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/05/arts/home-entertainment-recordings-soundings-a-new-kind-of-rock.html |archive-date=December 22, 2019 |url-status=live |work=The New York Times |date=March 5, 1989 |access-date=July 19, 2009}}</ref> More often than in other rock styles since the mainstreaming of rock music, alternative rock lyrics tend to address topics of social concern, such as drug use, depression, suicide, and [[environmentalism]].<ref name="encarta"/> This approach to lyrics developed as a reflection of the social and economic strains in the United States and United Kingdom of the 1980s and early 1990s.<ref>{{cite book|last=Charlton |first=Katherine |url=https://archive.org/details/rockmusicstylesh00char |title=Rock Music Styles: A History |publisher=McGraw Hill |year=2003 |pages=346–347 |isbn=978-0-07-249555-3}}</ref>