Adult Alternative according to Y! Music
Adult alternative pop/rock is a smooth, melodic, radio-friendly style that packaged alternative's mellower side for wider consumption. Commercial viability is usually an important part of adult alternative pop/rock, but artists don't always aim for it -- their individual approaches may simply turn out to be compatible with the style's sensibility.
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What ties adult alternative pop/rock together is a sense of maturity: it's essentially mainstream, pop/rock-based music of the '90s that appeals to a more refined, mellowed-out adult sensibility, intentionally or otherwise.
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Anxious to make music that was pretty and likable, some artists wound up inoffensive to the point of blandness; others self-consciously tried to sound "deep," resulting in forced melancholia and heaps of overwrought, amateurish poetry. But at its best, the style gained significant exposure for artists who were ambitious, intellectual, and/or idiosyncratic, yet still accessible enough to meet the requirements of mainstream radio programmers who wanted more sophisticated music that wasn't loud or overly disturbing.
..(snip)..
What ties adult alternative pop/rock together is a sense of maturity: it's essentially mainstream, pop/rock-based music of the '90s that appeals to a more refined, mellowed-out adult sensibility, intentionally or otherwise.
.. (snip)..
Anxious to make music that was pretty and likable, some artists wound up inoffensive to the point of blandness; others self-consciously tried to sound "deep," resulting in forced melancholia and heaps of overwrought, amateurish poetry. But at its best, the style gained significant exposure for artists who were ambitious, intellectual, and/or idiosyncratic, yet still accessible enough to meet the requirements of mainstream radio programmers who wanted more sophisticated music that wasn't loud or overly disturbing.