Alternative rock is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. It consists of various subgenres that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980s, such as grunge, Britpop, gothic rock, and indie pop. These genres are unified by their collective debt to the style and/or ethos of punk. At times alternative rock has been used as a catch-all phrase for rock music from underground artists in the 1980s, and all music descended from punk rock (including punk itself, New Wave, and post-punk).

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