Indie or independent rock, particularly in America often known as alternative rock, was a scene that emerged out of post punk and new wave in the 1980s, eschewing the major record labels for control of their own music and relying on local scenes or national sub-cultures to provide an audience. Having enjoyed some success a number of indie acts were able to move into the mainstream, including early indie bands Aztec Camera, Orange Juice and The Smiths, followed by The Housemartins and James. Other forms of alternative rock developed in the UK during the 1980s. The Jesus and Mary Chain wrapped their pop melodies in walls of guitar noise, while New Order emerged from the demise of post-punk band Joy Division and experimented with techno and house music, forging the alternative dance style. The Mary Chain, along with Dinosaur Jr and the dream pop of Cocteau Twins, were the influences for the shoegazing movement of the late 1980s.

Gothic rock

Gothic rock, often shortened to goth, developed out of the post punk scene in the later 1970s. It combines dark, often keyboard-heavy music with introspective and depressing lyrics. Notable early gothic rock bands include Bauhaus (whose "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is often cited as the first goth record), Siouxsie and the Banshees (who may have coined the term), The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy, and Fields of the Nephilim. Gothic rock gave rise to a broader goth subculture that included clubs, various fashion trends and numerous publications that grew in popularity in the 1980s, gaining notoriety by being associated by several moral panics over suicide and Satanism.

Madchester

The independent rock scene that had developed in Manchester in the second half of the 1980s, based in The Haçienda nightclub and Factory Records and dubbed Madchester, came to national prominence at the end of the decade, with the Happy Mondays, the Inspiral Carpets, andStone Roses charting late in 1989. The scene became the centre of media attention for independent rock in the early 1990s, with bands like World of Twist, New Fast Automatic Daffodils, The High, Northside, Paris Angels, and Intastella also gaining national attention. The period of dominance was relatively short lived with The Stone Roses beginning to retreat from public performance while engaged in contractual disputes, the Happy Mondays having difficulty in producing a second album and Factory Records going bankrupt in 1992. Local bands catching the tail-end of Madchester, such as The Mock Turtles, became part of a wider baggy scene. The music press in the UK began to place more focus on shoegazing bands from the south of England and bands emerging through US grunge.

Dream pop and shoegazing

My Bloody Valentine, 2008.

Dream pop had developed out of the indie rock scene of the 1980s, when bands like Cocteau Twins,The Chameleons, The Passions, Dif Juz, Lowlife and A.R. Kane began fusing post-punk and etherealexperiments with bittersweet pop melodies into sensual, sonically ambitious soundscapes. The 4AD record label is the one most associated with dream pop, though others such as Creation,Projekt, Fontana, Bedazzled, Vernon Yard, and Slumberland also released significant records in the genre. A louder, more aggressive strain of dream pop came to be known as shoegazing; key bands of this style were Lush, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, Alison's Halo, Chapterhouse, Curve andLevitation. These bands kept the atmospheric qualities of dream pop, but added the intensity of post-punk-influenced bands such as The Chameleons and Sonic Youth.

Post rock

Post rock originated in the release of Talk Talk's album Laughing Stock and US band Slint's Spiderland, both in 1991, which produced experimental work influenced by sources as varied as electronica, jazz, and minimalist classical music, often abandoning the traditional song format in favour of instrumental and ambient music. The term was first used to describe the band Bark Psychosis and their album Hex(1994), but was soon employed for bands such as Stereolab, Laika, Disco Inferno and Pram and other acts in America and Canada. Scottish group Mogwai are one of the influential post-rock groups to arise at the turn of the 21st century.

Indie pop

Initially dubbed as 'C86' after the 1986 NME tape, and also known as "cutie", "shambling bands" and later as "twee pop", indie pop was characterised by jangling guitars, a love of sixties pop and often fey, innocent lyrics. It was also inspired by the DIY scene of punk and there was a thriving fanzine, label and club and gig circuit. Early bands included The Pastels, The Shop Assistants and Primal Scream. Scenes later developed in the United States particularly around labels such as K Records. Genres such as Riot Grrrl and bands as diverse as Nirvana, Manic Street Preachers, and Belle and Sebastian have all acknowledged its influence.

Britpop

Oasis performing in 2005.

Post Britpop

Thom Yorke ofRadiohead.

From about 1997, as dissatisfaction grew with the concept of Cool Britannia, and Britpop as a movement began to dissolve, emerging bands began to avoid the Britpop label while still producing music derived from it. Many of these bands tended to mix elements of British traditional rock (or British trad rock), particularly the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Small Faces, with American influences, including post-grunge. Post-Britpop bands like The Verve, Radiohead, Travis, Stereophonics, Feeder, and particularly Coldplay, achieved much wider international success than most of the Britpop groups that had preceded them, and were some of the most commercially successful acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Garage rock revival/Post-punk revival

In the 2000s British indie rock experienced a resurgence. Like modern American alternative rock, many British indie bands such as Franz Ferdinand, The Libertines and Bloc Party drew influences from post-punk groups such as Joy Division, Wire, and Gang of Four. Other prominent independent rock bands in the 2000s include: Editors, The Fratellis, Placebo, Lostprophets, Razorlight, Keane,Kaiser Chiefs, Muse, Kasabian, The Kooks and Arctic Monkeys (the last being the most prominent act to gain their initial fan base through the use of internet social networking).

New rave

With developments in computer technology and music software advanced, it became possible to create high quality music using little more than a single laptop computer. This resulted in a massive increase in the amount of home-produced electronic music available to the general public via the expanding internet, and new forms of performance such as laptronica and live coding. In Britain the combination of indie with American pioneered dance-punk was dubbed new rave in publicity for The Klaxons and the term was picked up and applied by the NME to a number of bands, including Trash Fashion, New Young Pony Club, Hadouken!, Late of the Pier, Test Icicles, and Shitdisco forming a scene with a similar visual aesthetic to earlier rave music.