Alternative metal is... what the hell is it, anyway?
OK, let's try this... you know Alternative Rock? Stuff like R.E.M., Radiohead and They Might Be Giants? Well, imagine alternative rock. Imagine all its weirdness, all its... "alternativeness". Now, imagine that with the sonic amplitude of metal, and you've basically got alt-metal.
Alt-metal started off in the mid-to-late-eighties as a response [...] [tvtropes.org]