I still maintain that alternative is nothing but bashful pop music.

When I think of Alternative music, I think of bands like Audioslave, Stained, and Cake.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...96c6bbf234.jpg

I listed "indie rock"/indie folk earlier in the thread since I was having trouble succinctly describing what exactly I was referring to but yeah, it really is too broad of a term seeing as it's not a genre. I LOVE Low and Tall Dwarfs and Mount Eerie and numerous bands that would fall under the general umbrella of indie. I was referring more to that specific kind of tepid and bland alternative jangly pop-rock that sounds like a mish-mash of everything you've ever heard in college town cafes or CW shows (not that I would know anything about CW shows of course). As well as most stuff you'd find in the most popular nondescript Spotify "Indie Chill" type playlists. There is certainly more boring music out there, though. Like the entire new-age genre, probably, as well as popular radio country.

This is true, too. It's useful when discussing music with regular people who otherwise may have no clue what you're talking about during polite music-related small-talk. If someone asks me what my favorite kind of music is, (while they're eating potato chips and clearly only half-listening) I can't go off on a tangent about all of my favorite ambient sub-genres or whatever; I have to instead say "I like Silent Hill type music" etc. And then they nod and change the subject. With those people, indie is its own genre, and I know that when they say they like indie music, they mean stuff like Neutral Milk Hotel, Mumford & Sons and The Black Keys etc etc.

Case in point.

I always think I can handle this question, then I have to explain what experimental music is by fumbling through subgenres they've never heard of and yammering in a language they don't understand until I just say "weird stuff" and shrug my shoulders.

Did you see my post before I edited it like 3 seconds later? I took out Creed because of the religious aspect. Or are we just on the same page?

Yes, I saw the edit and was upset at your exclusion of Creed, which was obviously driven by your amoral atheist tendencies. I won't have that on my forum.

The worst is when, after you say "weird stuff" their eyes light up and they say something like "Ohh so liiike Alt-J and stuff like that?" and then you have to disappoint them yet again.

Alt-J's first album is one of my favorites of the last six or seven years but I would have set that person straight as well. Their last two albums sucked but I'll always have my guilty pleasure in An Awesome Wave.

The game is already lost when they ask what experimental music is.