80s

Simon Raymonde is a man of many talents. His artistic range spans from the ’80s with the prolific dream-pop/shoegaze band Cocteau Twins to the founding of Bella Union, an independent record label that’s seen the likes of Beach House, Father John Misty and Explosions In The Sky. His recent project, Lost Horizons, are also signed […]

Branding is one hell of an important factor to achieving success and maintaining a fanbase in music. So, it’s no surprise that many musicians use their solo projects as an avenue for genre experimentation. We’ve seen it countless times to varying extents. Some artists may just incorporate new, genre-defying dynamics to their foundational sounds, whereas others […]

1998 really wasn’t that long ago, but after saying the number 2021 out loud, it feels like it happened during another lifetime. To put things in perspective, Billie Eilish was born three years after 1998, and, hell, even FINNEAS was born the year before. Despite the fact that said year was toward the end of […]

You would think television (the medium, as opposed to Television, the band) and punk rock were a match made in heaven. After all, the music and culture are sharp, edgy and visually arresting. This should have made punk flawless televisual fodder, right? Truthfully, punk and TV collisions have more often resulted in mutual incomprehension and […]

The genre affectionately known as emo started out as a wave of internalized rage bubbling under the surface of Washington, D.C.’s Revolution Summer in the mid-’80s. Within three decades, it had permeated the mainstream and changed beyond all recognition. Like it or not, the bands inspired by that initial breakthrough, including Rites Of Spring and […]

Picturing our favorite bands in their fledgling stages is no easy task. But imagining them devoid of any original music and instead performing cover songs? That’s straight-up impossible. Remarkably, it’s not all that rare for now-iconic artists to reveal that they’d formerly performed as a tribute act. After all, what better way to get a […]

All hail the genre-benders! Seriously, it’s one thing to be successful in a single genre, but to change things up and continue to excel? That’s the mark of a legend. Admittedly, most artists go through some form of sonic progression over the course of their careers. But how many can you name that distinctly embody […]

It’s easy to mistake the foundations of pop punk as being laid in the 2000s. After all, that’s when the mainstream radio takeover of the genre occurred. As it turns out, though, we really have the ’90s to thank for our favorite artists and albums.  With the meteoric rise of bands such as Nirvana and […]

The ’80s feel like a lifetime away, and for many in the scene, they actually are (yikes). The good news is the decade has left a longstanding musical legacy. The incorporation of 1980s sound elements into modern music is hardly new, but its frequency seems to be rising. It seems impossible to turn on the […]

Christmas is quite possibly the most musically controversial holiday of the year. Not everyone digs the varying styles of seasonal music, though it’s a genre unto itself. You have the ancient carols, full of religious imagery, usually sung by hoary old choirs. The early 20th century’s awash with hokey Tin Pan Alley Christmas standards, sung […]

Is there anything better than hearing one of your favorite bands cover an old-school hit? Or put an alternative spin on that “guilty pleasure” song you’ve secretly been jamming to for weeks? New renditions often improve on originals by expanding and elevating their sound. And while debating which version is best is often a subjective […]

If we could identify one incandescent moment to come out of the coronavirus pandemic, it would have to be having large stretches of time to listen to albums. Yes, in 2020, most of us binged on Netflix and chilled the best we could. But streaming services made access to music downright infinite. We could finally […]

Heather Baron-Gracie of Pale Waves is slowly becoming everything she looked up to as a child.  Looking back, her musical hero wasn’t ever a typical “girly pop star.” Avril Lavigne made Baron-Gracie feel like she could openly be a tomboy, put down the Barbies and ride a skateboard with messy hair and a runny nose.  […]

Lynn Gunn’s process of making a PVRIS track usually follows the same steps. The rocker starts on production software Logic Pro, creates a “vibe” off a simple production and then enlists her collaborators later on. And for the most part, she’s creating something brand new.  But when it comes to remixing preexisting songs as PVRIS, […]

We’re all gripped by ’90s nostalgia, and our favorite alternative artists are no exception. The difference is instead of scouring for Furbys on eBay, they’re covering some iconic songs of the decade. While we can’t say that we ever expected pop-punk or metalcore renditions of ’90s hits, we’re certainly here for it. After all, we […]

Anyone who’s had any kind of scene phase is likely to look back on the 2000s fondly. With numerous hit alternative albums, including Paramore‘s Riot! and Yellowcard‘s Ocean Avenue, we were really blessed with some great music. Unfortunately, our nostalgia really only tends to gravitate toward a small number of the decade’s countless masterpieces. Don’t believe us? Dig up […]

Welcome to Alternative Press’ 15 best punk albums of 1989. It’s easy to look at the final year of the decade and see it as transitional. But there are portents of the future all over this list. Yet, truth be told, haven’t we seen that with all these lists? As we’ve worked on this series, […]

Heavy metal is most often viewed as a Westernized genre of music. While bands such as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden get their fair share of credit for creating the genre, others in different parts of the world are overlooked. Latin metal in particular has a long and fruitful history that largely gets […]

Super-duo iDKHOW pride themselves on their influences, and there’s one in particular that fans of ’80s classics may be familiar with. Men At Work’s “Who Can It Be Now?”—the iconic track with an even more iconic saxophone lick—actually inspired Alternative Press’ digital cover stars Dallon Weekes and Ryan Seaman to give sax solos a try […]