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These 7 Songs From the ’60s Laid the Foundation for Alternative Rock
The article argues that alternative rock’s roots reach back to the 1960s, when psychedelic music and counterculture encouraged experimentation and rejection of genre boundaries. It presents seven songs from the decade as foundations for later styles including grunge, post-punk, shoegaze and Britpop.
The examples covered in the supplied text include David Bowie’s 1969 “Space Oddity”, inspired partly by 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Zombies’ 1965 “She’s Not There”, and Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love”, featured on their 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow. The article links their genre-mixing and themes such as isolation, emotional numbness and rebellion to qualities that later became associated with alternative rock.
In short
- Alternative rock’s roots stretch back to 1960s experimentation.
- The article highlights seven songs that helped shape the genre.
- Psychedelia and counterculture influenced later alternative styles.
Explained simply
Alternative rock is a broad term for guitar-led music that often experiments with sound and draws on different styles. Its later forms include grunge, post-punk, shoegaze and Britpop, but some of the ideas associated with them appeared in the 1960s, amid psychedelic music and a counterculture that challenged convention.
David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” (1969), The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” (1965) and Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love” (1967) show different sides of that experimentation. Their unusual sounds and themes of isolation, emotional distance and rebellion offer examples of how 1960s music helped shape approaches later heard in alternative rock.