Top 5 with Rob Janicke

In case you haven't been following all the latest news over at Flying Garter's socials, we got a new team member! Meet Rob Janicke! We couldn't be more excited about Rob Janicke joining our team! Please welcome him to Flying Garter!

Just a little bit about Rob, but you can read more about him on our Who the hell are we? | The Flying Garter page!

• Author of Slacker: 1991, Teen Spirit Angst, and the Generation It Created (Inspired by You Books, 2024)

• Purchase your early-release, signed, limited 1st print-run edition of SLACKER here.  

• Founder ofGeneration Riff

• Writer/editor of The Riff Magazine on Medium

• YouTube Channel - Subscribe

But let's get to know Rob a little bit better with his Top 5!

Here's Rob's Top 5 Subgenres of Rock - this is a good read!!!! Rock on!

Top 5 Subgenres of Rock

5. New Wave -  Popular music, along with culture, tends to ebb and flow with the times. As soon as a particular style of music becomes overplayed, over-saturated, and too mainstream for the fans that first championed the genre, artists as well as fans start to get bored and begin looking for something new. Such was the case with the advent of New Wave, a subgenre of rock that began to emerge in the mid to late 1970s in the UK and the United States, reaching its peak in the early to mid 80s.

Guitar driven rock, especially played by virtuosos, started to run stale in the eyes (and ears) of teenagers somewhere around 1976-ish, and local musicians in British and American towns took notice.

Exit the Les Paul and enter the Moog!

Unlike traditional rock music, New Wave relied not on loud guitars and live drums, but instead, utilized their electronic counterparts by implementing synthesizers and drum machines. The grit and grime of rock n roll was subbed out for the clean, slick production of New Wave, and for a minute, it was all the rage.

With influences stemming from glam and art rock, experimental, avant garde, and dark pop, New Wave bands delivered something polar opposite of the hard rock and heavy metal that blanketed the rock music landscape of the mid-late 1970s.

Over time, bands such as Devo, Talking Heads, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Duran Duran, Roxy Music, New Order, The B-52’s, Blondie, The Cars, The Cure, Culture Club, Wire, The Police, The Jam, and on and on and on, became some of the biggest bands in the world, all while ushering in a new, radio-friendly genre of rock music.

It wasn’t just the melodic sounds of electronic power pop that created massive fan bases around the world, but the look and fashion that accompanied the music was just as important in distinguishing the new genre from its heavier counterparts. Tailored and oversized clothing with loud colors dominated the style. Big hair, boxed hair, all sorts of geometric hair ruled the day as well.

Although New Wave’s reach and influence can still be heard today, the radio and TV dominance it had, came to an end in the early to mid 80s but that was certainly enough time to establish itself as one of the biggest subgenres of rock that was ever created.

Duran Duran/Photo - Getty Images

4. Alternative - As with many subgenres of music, this one can be a bit broad in scope. For a Gen Xer like myself, who grew up in the 80s and was in college by 1991, “Alternative” has a very different meaning to me than it might to a Millenial or Gen Z person. I could literally write an entire book on the subject, that’s how vast and big the genre is. For the purposes of this piece, however, I’m using the version of Alternative that began to bubble up in the mid to late 80s, helping to pave the way for new genres of rock to follow. One of which you’ll find later in this article.

The word “alternative”, in non-musical terms, simply means something different from the usual or traditional way. It’s another choice or possibility. As you can see, once this definition is applied to music, it can become an endless exercise in trying to pin it down to just one style.

For me, one of the first times I can remember hearing the term “alternative” described as music, was used on local, NYC radio (probably WLIR/WDRE) in the mid-80s. One of the first bands, if not the first, that I associate with this memory is R.E.M. Alternative became the cooler, more industry-laden term from its predecessor, “college music” or “college radio”.

Along with R.E.M., 80s bands like Violent Femmes, 10,000 Maniacs, Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Pixies, The Smiths, Jane’s Addiction, and others began getting regular radio play on college or alternative stations around the US through the early and mid-1980s. There was more straight forward rock sound in alternative than say what New Wave had, but these bands took liberties and non-traditional rock structures that mainstream commercial rock bands didn’t. Songs weren’t required to always have guitar solos, you could have jangly-guitar sounds, big riffs, and power chords in the same song, female singers or band members weren’t just novelties, and the lyrics could literally be about anything the songwriters wanted, often being culturally diverse and political.

Alternative music was quite popular in the underground rock scene by 1989/1990 and it was directly responsible for the explosion of grunge and later forms of alternative that took over popular music throughout the entirety of the 1990s and beyond. Just about every band you know and like from the 90s were heavily influenced by the underground, alternative music of the 1980s.

R.E.M. Press Photo/1982

3. Punk - This easily could have been first or second on the list, but I had to make a decision so that’s exactly what I did. Catch me on a different day and who knows! Honestly, the reason why I think it’s in its rightful place is because of the short amount of time the initial punk scene lasted. Its ascension was just a few years. It had a second and third wave and different variations of course, but the first flame died out quickly. Also, for a genre that was supposed to be rebellious, they had too many rules…if that sounds like a contradiction it’s because it is.

In keeping with the theme of this piece, there are many directions these subgenres can go in. I’m using the term “punk” as the common version most people know when they hear the word. Technically speaking, punk is a mashup of 1950s rock and roll and 60s garage rock played a lot faster. Yes, other styles of “punk” existed early on, like the art and glam rock scenes consisting of bands like the Velvet Underground, New York Dolls, and Television. But the bands from that scene don’t fit the traditional punk rock narrative so I’m leaving that subgenre of the punk subgenre out. Follow me? Good.

Starting as early as 1974 in Queens, New York, The Ramones played two and three chord 1950s rock at breakneck speeds. Songs were barely two minutes long, oftentimes the lyrics were indecipherable, but the kids lost their minds over it. This was the beginning of punk rock as the world would come to know it.

Soon after their start, bands across the pond in London, England such as the Sex Pistols and The Clash would create their own versions of what The Ramones had done and helped make this new, loud, obnoxious music, an international phenomenon. And once again, the kids lost their minds. The music itself was great, maybe not technically, but that was kind of the point. Just about anyone could play it and that’s where the greatest appeal was for kids and the biggest problem the adults in the room had with the genre. So the more the bosses, parents, grandparents, and cops hated it, the more popular it became.

Other bands like Dead Boys, Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Misfits, Bad Religion, and others were all making a name for themselves, selling records, and going on tour. Like New Wave before it, punk also brought an influential fashion component into the mix and that eventually outgained the music itself in popularity. It also played a role in its early demise if you ask me. Mohawks, spiked armbands, safety pins, ripped clothing, combat boots, and tattoos were the visual norm for most punks. As with any popular musical genre, fans of punk rock dressed like their gutter-heroes and that caused plenty of rifts in bars, neighborhoods, and schools wherever the music was being heard. Jocks (and sometimes cops) would go out of their way to antagonize and even physically harm punk fans and bands alike. Eventually venues would get sick of the trouble, the media would trash the bands and their fans and side with the “squares”, and soon enough, the scene would die.

There were other reasons why the initial wave of punk rock had a short-lived time in the spotlight. Drugs, alcohol, fights amongst band members, made up “rules” about what was punk and what wasn’t, and major label, corporate takeovers, also played key roles in why it all came crumbling down. By this time though, the punk movement had already won over the hearts and minds of young kids everywhere and inspired thousands to follow in its sonic footsteps. Its power and influence lasts to this day and will forever be a major part of rock’s landscape.

Photo Courtesy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

2. Heavy Metal - Heavy Metal was my first musical love. It found me at a time in my life, somewhere between 1983-1984, when I needed it most. I may have only been 10 or 11 years old, but music had already been a major part of my life up until that point, so falling in love with a new style or genre wasn’t anything new to me. What was new was that it was the first genre that was “mine”. It wasn’t introduced to me by a parent or the radio so any discovery outside of that felt exhilarating, like I had stumbled upon a secret world of loud guitars, huge drums, and screaming vocals that went straight to my spine. It all stemmed from an older cousin who gave me two cassette tapes…Master of Reality by Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin IV by Led Zeppelin. I was done!

Although the roots of any genre can be traced back before the most popular of the early pioneers came out, many music historians contend that metal became a genre in 1968 with the formation of the aforementioned Sabbath, Zeppelin, as well as Deep Purple. In this case, all of these bands were British and thus England is also regarded as the birthplace of Heavy Metal, but the US and many other countries would follow suit soon enough.

Heavy Metal, unlike traditional rock music, emphasized heavy, distorted guitars, blistering guitar solos, volume and power that was through the roof, and thickness to the overall sound unlike anything heard before. It was rooted in the Blues just as rock and roll was, but if rock was on10, metal was on 50!

In addition to the three bands mentioned earlier, British metal would continue its assault on music fans around the globe with groups like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Motörhead. The US would get in on the fun too with KISS, Aerosmith, and Van Halen. By the time the early 80s arrived, Slayer and Metallica would tweak what had come before and add their “thrash” element to the music, but eventually would fall into the overall metal category as well.

What has been so incredibly impressive about most of the early metal bands is the fact that they have created and maintained a gigantic, rabidly loyal, global fan base with little to no commercial radio play. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead, Slayer, and even Metallica before the Black Album, which wasn’t released until 1991, had huge throngs of fans, in the millions, with little to no help from commercial radio or TV airplay. Heavy Metal fans are among the most loyal out of all musical genres and that distinction, in my humble opinion, will never go away.

Photo Courtesy of No Life Til Metal Website

Grunge - Sometimes, when the stars align just right, music and culture collide so violently, at such a rate of speed, that the entire planet not only hears the explosion, but pieces of shrapnel get stuck in society forever. This type of collision, which has only happened a couple of times before, created the rock subgenre that landed at the top spot on this list.

In the mid 1950s, the birth of rock and roll came to be. The mid 60s gave us Beatlemania and the British Invasion, and the early 90s, particularly 1991, brought a relatively unknown band (a trio by this time) from a small logging town a few hours outside of Seattle, Washington into the public eye, and music and culture haven’t been the same since.

When Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit the radio airwaves and then MTV, in the late summer/early fall of ‘91, rock music was given another once in a generation genre, Grunge. Mixing metal and punk of the 1970s, hardcore punk from the 80s, and personal and disturbing lyrics about depression, isolation, addiction, and suicide, Grunge hit Gen X kids in all the right places at the exact right time. Not many musical genres come with the question, “Where were you when you first heard…?” But Nirvana was so different at the time they came out, and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was thrust upon an entire generation who welcomed it with open arms, the future was vividly clear. This “new” music was here to stay. No one knew just how big it was about to get, but we knew something was happening.

Nirvana wasn’t the first to play this style of music, nor were they even the first band formed in the scene. Other bands from Washington (Seattle to be specific) like Green River and Soundgarden formed in 1984 and played this sludgy, metal and punk influenced version of rock that Nirvana would later take to the masses. Bands like Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam (both also hailing from Seattle) became massive successes as well. In Pearl Jam’s case, their founding members, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were early pioneers of the Grunge movement as they were both in Green River and later, Mother Love Bone. Grunge wasn’t new in 1991, it was simply introduced.

Right around the same time, bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, Rage Against The Machine, Stone Temple Pilots, and others took over radio and MTV. Grunge literally wiped the Top 40 clean of Pop and Hair Metal and made radio stations change formats overnight. Classic rock and even some metal bands were releasing “grungy” versions of their own music. It was a cultural tidal wave and in many ways, many floods of that movement still exist. History has shown that when something in a particular culture was big enough in its inception, society always finds a way to bring it back or reinvent it. Here, in 2026, grunge and 90s music and culture is enjoying a renaissance most musical genres never experience.

Another reason that is often overlooked as to why this style of music and those glory days of the 90s meant so much is because it was the last physical era. It was the last time bands recorded to tape and had to really know how to play. Technology like ProTools was still in its infancy and just about every rock band essentially recorded live. Also, this was the last era before streaming would destroy the record industry as we knew it due to the release of Napster in 1999. That led directly to services like Spotify and Apple being able to get away with paying artists next to nothing for their music and changing the way musicians could earn a living forever.

Next time someone asks you what your favorite genre of music is, if you say “rock”, remember this article, pick a subgenre or two, and have a long discussion over a beverage and some great tunes!

Nirvana Promo Photo Courtesy of Alamy/Far Out Magazine