When we wrote the plot for our film, we thought about many musical genres that would fit our main character's persona. Since our character is a producer, hip hop would have been the best music for the movie. However, we made sure he was also a singer. This allowed us to expand genre elements and find bands that the main character would take inspiration from. Our final decided genre was Alternative Rock, with elements of Hip Hop (A mix of both).

Bands and artists that would influence our character's sounds include Red Hot Chili Peppers, MF Doom, Ice Cube, Michael Jackson, Beastie Boys, Nirvana, 2 Pac, and J Dilla.

What is Alternative Rock?

Alternative Rock (also known as alt-rock) is a musical genre that has its roots in Rock and Punk music. Many of its songs are structured based on typical Pop Rock music, but promoted for a less mainstream audience, and consequently, with more obscure and experimental traits, moving away from the expectation of the general public within the rock genre. In fact, the "alternative" term is used to indicate that it is something that wants to be outside the mainstream field of rock music, alienating itself from all the most popular spirit of music. It also means music that wants to differ, not only in terms of sound, but also in terms of social context and geographical origin.

Two examples of embryonic Alt-Rock Bands

Bands like Violent Femmes and R.E.M are one of the most important examples of musical projects associated with the Alt-Rock genre, since they used a combination of post-punk and punk rock influences, while retaining certain brands of Folk Rock, to achieve a different, non-mainstream sound.

What is Hip Hop?

Hip hop was born to manifest the sentiment of a marginalized suburban class that lived in the ghettos and faced various social adversities such as drug trafficking, racism, violence, poverty and others. The street was the only place where younger people had for leisure and thus was a footing for a collection of gangs that often confronted each other in a violent way, to assert dominance over different territories.

This is where hip hop comes in. It originated in the New York neighborhoods mainly of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. This kind of music was an escape for many of the folks living in these neighborhoods. Hip Hop’s musical element is associated with funk, rnb, blues, rap and jazz (Of course, it isn't Hip Hop without Dancing and DJing, but for the sake of this blog, i’ll only focus on the musical elements). Many hip hop songs sample drums, singing and instrument tracks off of other songs to create a new one. Examples of producers that have revolutionized this genre include J Dilla, The Alchemist, Q-Tip, and more.

Important fact: The first hip hop party took place in 1973 on August 11 at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, New York. Hip hop became more than just a musical genre, it became a culture under the artistic forms of painting, poetry and dance.

These genres are extremely important in our film's soundtrack, considering we're mirroring both their characteristics. We are going to produce the whole song for the intro using foley sounds from our environments and samples from old rock songs to create a 90s Hip-Hop-esque soundtrack. A lot of the melody will be original (i'll be playing guitar and bass for this one). All of this will be created using a digital audio workstation (DAW) called FL Studio.

Sources:

What is Alt Rock?

The Subgenre of Alternative rock

Hip Hop Origins

Hip Hop Timeline