What is 'Alternative' Music?

On the 1st of August, 2019, I was given the opportunity to meet and record the winner of the People's Choice Award at the 2019 Gold Coast Music Awards, ELSKA. Formally a Folk music artist, her own voice and a Harp is all that's needed for Elska to create catchy melodies and lyrics that are sure to be stuck in your head for days to come. We recorded 3 tracks, a Christmas carol, a cover of Chateau by Angus and Julia Stone (Appendix A) and an original written by Elska herself, titled, In My Skin. After the recording session, Elska mentioned that she was interested in modernising her music to expand her audience; bringing an alternative vibe to her music. I took that on board, by asking Elska what her influences and references were for the vision she had in mind, I was able to grasp on to something to work with. But... I didn't exactly know WHAT Alternative music was or is, so plenty of research had to go into this project to ensure the best outcome for both Elska and I; by me taking on the position of her producer. Long story short, I created an alternative version of the recording we captured in the studio and sent it to Elska for feedback. After a number of phone calls and emails back-and-forth, I'm pleased to announce that we have agreed to continue to build this song together with a view of releasing it in the near future. But before I talk about my production and the process I took to compose it, let's go through what I discovered about "Alternative" music, through research.

Appendix A - Elska performing Chateau on the Harp (Recorded on iPhone)

So what is Alternative music, exactly?

According to the Lexico, Oxford Dictionary, the term 'Alternative' can be an attributive word that is defined as being "(of one or more things) available as another possibility or choice." But another possibility or choice, to what exactly? Well, anything that is considered to be orthodox or 'the norm'. That is exactly what alternative music is, and always has been about; popular music that is considered to be unorthodox and outside of the grasps of mainstream/commercial music (alternative music, 2019).

There are many types of alternative genres; pop, dance, country, metal to name a few. But the genre that is most famous and widely known as the birth place of unconventional music, is Alternative Rock. For instance, the 60's and 70's was when Rock'n'Roll really started to become to dominant mode of western music (What Is Alternative Music?, 2019). It was also during the same period that a secondary voice of underground acts started to emerge, providing an alternative to the mainstream charts. For example: In 1965, the top two songs on the Rock'n'Roll top 100 chart were "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", by the Rolling Stones (Appendix B) and "We Can Work It Out, by The Beatles" (Appendix C). It was also during this period when Alt. Rock legends, Velvet Underground released "Venus In Furs" (Appendix D), and the late Roky Erikson started to pave the way for Psychedelic-Rock with the 13th Floor Elevators (Appendix E).

*Note: Both The Rolling Stones and The Beatles songs are similar in genre and production style; similar drum sequence and cadence are present in both tracks. While the 13th Floor Elevators and Velvet Underground are extremely different from one another as they were purposely made to be against the status quo; attempting to be overtly unique in their creation. (no discredit to TRS or The Beatles in anyway, just an observation of their choice of production in relevance to their target audience/market)*

Appendix B: The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

Appendix C: The Beatles - We Can Work it Out

Appendix D: Velvet Underground - Venus in Furs

Appendix E: 13th Floor Elevators - Kingdom Of Heaven

Fast forwards 50 years and alternative music is now seen at the top of charts and winning awards. But how is it alternative if it's topping mainstream charts? To put it simply, in 1990 the Grammy Awards started to give trophies for Best Alternative Album (What Is Alternative Music?, 2019). It was in 2016 when Sydney born producer, Flume, released an album titled "Skins", and to me this was a major turning point for 'alternative' or 'experimental' music. This album gained him 8 ARIA awards and a Grammy for Best Electronic/Dance Album in the year of it's release (Flume, 2019). Even though Skins had such great success on the charts, many still classify it as 'alternative' and 'experimental' due to it being so unique and different compared to other songs that are also labeled as being in dance and electronic genres. Alternative Dance Music is generally a combination of elements that tie to genres such as Pop, Dance, House, Trap and even Techno. Alt. Dance is predominantly electronic (for the most of it), having programmed drum beats (sampled drum loops or drum machines) and sequenced synthesizer melodies, which make it very similar to most commercial dance music (Audials, 2019). Although, the elements that separate it from the mainstream category the most is vocals and in some cases (in Flumes case) melody and drum sequence originality.

Typical dance music is driven by a 4/4 beat pattern with a snare or clap on the 2nd and 4th beat of each bar, chord progressions and melodies, and big 'drops' with heavy bass-lines (Audials, 2019).

Although Flume has a plethora of songs that are purely instrumental with large, spacious melodies and powerful, driving bass lines, he is definitely famous for his alternative production and composition styles; unquantised chords and melodies, and 'glitchy', off beat drum sequences. Good examples of this come from "Never Be Like you feat. Kai" and "Some Minds feat. Andrew Wyatt" (two of Flumes better pieces of work, in my opinion). During the first breakdown in Never Be Like You (1:20), he showcases the off beat, yet timely drum sequencing (Appendix F) and at the peak of the crescendo in Some Minds (3:09), the unorthodoxy of the sequenced melody is unmatched for it's time (2015) (Appendix G).

Appendix F: Flume - Never Be Like You ft. Kai (breakdown)

Appendix G: Flume - Some Minds ft. Andrew Wyatt (Drop)

Another great example (and a main reference for In My Skin) of how a genre can have an 'alternative' side, is by looking at the career of Australian born artist, Vera Blue. Born Celia Pavey, Vera Blue is a singer/songwriter who grew up in the country town of Forbes, New South Wales (Vera Blue, 2019). Growing up, Pavey would listen to Folk and Pop music from the 60's and 70's, and by the time she was a teenager she had already learnt to play the guitar, piano and violin (key instruments in Folk music), as well as being an extraordinary singer. Pavey was the runner up on season 2 of The Voice and went on to release a full length album titled, This Music, and an EP titled, Bodies. (Vera Blue, 2019) Having grown up with Folk music all around her, it deemed fitting that the music she wrote was very much of the same genre (Appendix H). Now, even though you could say her cover of Feel Good Inc. by The Gorillaz is a Pop-infused Folk song, I wouldn't say it's alternative as the composition appropriately fits into much of the Folk genre. That being it is heavily accompanied by a guitar, and as Hungarian Music Composer Béla Bartók wrote in a study on Folk music, the singing style she is using, is known as Parlando-rubato; meaning there is deliberate tension and stress on the words, making the message of what is being said the focal point in the composition and frequently departing from the metric or rhythmic patterns of idealistic music and singing styles (Folk Music, 2019).

Appendix H: Celia Pavey - Feel Good Inc. (Gorillaz Cover)

3 years after the release of her 2013 album, This Music, Pavey created the alias known as Vera Blue in an attempt to change her image and musical direction (Vera Blue, 2019). She began incorporating atmospheric and electronic elements into her music roots; experimenting different ways in which she can modernise Folk music and reach a wider audience through her songs. In 2017, Vera released her second studio album, Perennial. On the album is a song titled, Settle (Appendix I), and well... This track is hard to classify as anything other than Alternative.

Take a listen for yourself....

Appendix I: Vera Blue - Settle

Just like Appendix H, the intro for Settle can be labeled as Pop-infused Folk, but when the chorus comes in at 0:26 it suddenly becomes hard to categorised as either one of the two, thus classifying it as Alternative. Although, you could say it's closer related to Pop music due to the Parallel Processing on the vocals (layering of vocals) (Appendix J). Folk music has (for the most of it) quite natural sounding and raw vocals, and this is because (as I previously stated) it's about the message, not production. Layering multiple vocal channels together is closely related to Pop music due to the large scale sound and 'angelic' texture it can give compared to a single vocal lead.

Parallel Processing:

Parallel Processing is a technique used by producers all over the globe, it's purpose is crucial in mixing and mastering stages of production as it can (if done correctly) majorly enhance the sound or texture of an audio channel; making music "radio ready". It can be done by taking an audio track (in this case vocals), duplicating it in some way by either copying an identical track so there are two (or more) playing simultaneously, or sending the track(s) to a seperate auxiliary and playing it along with the main channel (Weiss. M, 2019). Once you have multiple versions of the same piece of audio, you then process each channel differently so that the frequency response, dynamic range, spacial dynamics and what ever else you feel is right for the mix, is different from one another. Doing this creates a much richer, wider, warmer, cooler (what ever you're trying to achieve) sound for your vocals.

Appendix J - What Is Parallel Processing?

Explaining Parallel Processing in such loose terms may not make a whole lot of sense to everyone that's reading this, I will go further in depth on the technique when I break down my rendition of ELSKA's, In My Skin. I think I've learnt enough about the basis of Alternative music and what ELSKA meant when she suggested that this is the direction her music could take. Something different and unorthodox compared to what the audience may already know ELSKA's music to be. A fresh perspective on her compositions.

Continuing on from what I spoke about in the introductory paragraph of this blog: Not only have I been given the opportunity to work with such a creative artist, this opportunity has only come about because Elska enjoyed what I added to her seemingly complete song.

*I want to note that this is an ongoing project, this is not a mix analysis of the final product, it is an analysis of the mixing techniques in the alternative version of her track*

Appendix K: The instrumental of Elska's original recording for In My Skin.

Appendix L: The instrumental for my rendition of In My Skin.

The video below is a mix analysis of my alternative rendition of In My Skin. As mentioned above, the reference track used for this production was Settle by Vera Blue (Appendix I). For the purpose of this blog, I will also include how I mixed Elska's vocals (even though they're being re-recorded).

HERE IS A LINK TO THE STEREO DELAY TECHNIQUE WHICH WAS USED ON THE KICK: https://www.audio-issues.com/music-mixing/top-10-vocal-effects-tricks/

Alternative music is a genre that will continue to evolve because it will always have something for reference. By knowing what the mainstream songs are, artists are able to use them as reference for what their alternative song can't be, leaving a large amount of possibilities to create.

Till next time,

Jordan.

References:

alternative music | Definition of alternative music in English by Lexico Dictionaries. (2019). Lexico Dictionaries | English. Retrieved 16 August 2019, from https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/alternative_music

Alternative Music. (2019). Audials.com. Retrieved 16 August 2019, from https://audials.com/en/genres/alternative_music.html

What Is Alternative Music?. (2019). LiveAbout. Retrieved 16 August 2019, from https://www.liveabout.com/alternative-music-101-your-faq-primer-94034

Flume. (2019). GRAMMY.com. Retrieved 16 August 2019, from https://www.grammy.com/grammys/artists/flume

Vera Blue | Biography & History | AllMusic. (2019). AllMusic. Retrieved 17 August 2019, from https://www.allmusic.com/artist/vera-blue-mn0003442746/biography

Folk music - Performance characteristics of folk music. (2019). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 17 August 2019, from https://www.britannica.com/art/folk-music/Performance-characteristics-of-folk-music#ref261478

Weiss, M. (2019). What is Parallel Processing? — Pro Audio Files. Pro Audio Files. Retrieved 17 August 2019, from https://theproaudiofiles.com/video/what-is-parallel-processing/