Underground music is music with practices that are considered outside of or in some way opposed to mainstream music culture. Underground music is generally tied to popular music culture.
There are therefore important tensions in underground music, as it seems to both absorb and resist the forms and processes of popular music culture.
Underground music may be seen as an expression of honesty, sincerity, freedom of creative expression as opposed to those practices that are considered formulaic or commercial. Concepts of non-conformity of individuality are also commonly employed in extolling the virtues of underground music.
There are examples of underground music that are particularly difficult to come across, such as the underground rock scene in the pre-Mikhail Gorbachev Soviet Union, which has developed a devoted following over the years (especially for bands like Kino), or the metal scene. Modern anti-Islamic religious states in the Arabian Peninsula.
However, most underground music is easily accessible, although performances and recordings may be difficult for the uninitiated.
Some underground rock bands never found unusual roots. They are radical and aggressive 1960s bands like The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, MC5, 70s bands like Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Clash and 80s hardcore punk bands like Discharge.
Some underground styles eventually became commercial pop styles, such as underground hip-hop in the early 1980s. In the 2000s, the increasing access to the Internet and digital music technologies made it easier to spread underground music using audio streaming and podcasting.
Some cultural studies experts now argue that “the underground doesn’t exist” because the Internet has made underground music available to everyone at the click of a mouse.
The term “underground music” has been applied to various artistic movements, for example the psychedelic music movement of the mid-1960s, but in recent decades the term has been defined by any musician who wishes to avoid the trappings of the mainstream. The commercial music industry otherwise only tells the truth through music.
Frank Zappa attempted to define “underground” by pointing out that “the mainstream will come to you, but you have to go underground.” and was employed in journalism and film as well as music as they sought to convey psychedelic experiences and ideals of free love.
In modern popular music, the term “underground” refers to performers or groups ranging from artists who perform guerrilla concerts and self-recorded shows to those signed to small independent labels.
In some genres of music, the term “underground” is used to imply that the content of the music is illegal or controversial, such as early 1990s death metal bands in the United States, such as Cannibal Corpse, due to their covers and lyrical themes. .
Black metal is also an underground form of music, and its Norwegian scene is notorious for its association with church burnings, occultism, murders, and anti-Christian views. All extreme metal is considered underground music due to its extreme nature.
Gothic and industrial are two other types of underground music that emerged in the late 1970s to mid-1990s, with goth rock focusing on vampires, dark magic and the occult, and industrial mainly using computer-generated sounds and hard driving beats.
