Alternative Rock
The song I am doing for my presentation is Loser by Beck. This song would be labeled as 2000’s Alternative Rock. Alternative rock is a broad catchall term that consists of music that is greatly different in terms of its sound, social context, and regional roots. Some characteristics of Alternative Rock include…
- Nonconformist lyrics
- Anything that will make their music unique and different from everyone else’s
- The lyrics are really the most important part because they usually address some sort of social issues like drug use, depression, etc
Alternative music is just music that hasn’t yet achieved a mainstream audience and really is any kind of music that has the potential to reach a wider audience, meaning the people that feel they don’t fit in in society. Some characteristics of audiences that listen to Alternative Rock are…
- Ages 16-25
- Mainly white
- Mostly students
- Mostly males
The song I picked can be classified as Stoner Rap. The lyrics are mostly just nonsensical with a mixture of self mockery and sardonic defiance. These types of groups all usually have a different sound than the social norms at the times. Beck in this song has a type of Bob Dylan–esque talk singing. These lyrics really fit with the not normal, rebelling from society idea
He used the similarities between Delta blues and hip hop, which helped to inspire the song. It is sort of folk music with a hip-hop beat. And also the song’s drum track is sampled from a Johnny Jenkins cover of Dr. John’s “I Walk on Gilded Splinters.” Several recurring musical elements that happen in alternative rock…
- Slide guitar riff
- Sitar
- The Bassline
- Tremolo guitar part
Tremolo, in electronics, is the variation in amplitude of sound achieved through electronic means, sometimes mistakenly called vibrato, and producing a sound somewhat reminiscent of flanging, referred to as an “underwater effect”. A variety of means are available to achieve the effect.
Delta Blues: The defining characteristics of Delta blues are instrumentation and an emphasis on rhythm and “bottleneck” slide guitar; the basic harmonic structure is not substantially different from that of blues performed elsewhere. The Delta blues style of blues is one of the earliest. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States stretching from Memphis, Tenneessee, in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the south and from Helena, Arkansas, in the west to the Yazoo River in the east.