Alternative music, often reflecting on the darker side of life, had to struggle for some time to get into the mainstream; but its arrival was finally welcomed in 1999 when underground bands like 'Migraine' and 'The Attempted Band' began to play in public

The alternative music revolution started worldwide around, the late 1970's with bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and so on. In quite sometime this fusion, between rock and grunge music stole the hearts of many musiclovers and within no time it gained unthinkable popularity.

But, in Dhaka, alternative music had to struggle for a long time to get into the mainstream until recently. The main reason for its setback was primarily because it was not 'regular pop music'. The music was not upbeat, and furthermore, the lyrics were usually concerned with the darker side of human life. Yet the music had a small group of followers, which grew over time but they lacked promoters.

Around 1995, some underground bands were formed in Dhaka, but they were yet not

confident enough, to come into 'the limelight'. This trend changed later on, when underground alternative bands like 'Migraine' and 'The Attempted Band' started to play in public. Migraine performed in a number of concerts while The Attempted Band acquired rave reviews during their performances at 'The Hard Rock Cafe' and in other concerts.

Soon enough, in 1999, alternative concerts were being organized and promoted by a group known as MAFC (Metal Alternative Fan Club) and by 2000, the number of followers had increased tremendously, due to these concerts.

In 2002, the Dhaka alternative music scene received 'a big break' when Ziyan arranged an open air concert. As a follow up to that on March 5th, Tanim of altermetal.com and ‘Union Underground’ organised the first ever, 'unplugged alternative concert'. Following the footsteps

of such concerts, concerts are being arranged in every two months. At the moment, the city has three groups who promotes and supports alternative music. And these are ‘altermetal.com’, ‘Union Underground’ and MAFC (after a long break). Altermetal has a web site, www.altermetal.com where information about the alternative music scene of the city can be found.

A prominent alternative group, ‘Black’ was the first in Dhaka to acquire and release an album. Due to the high appreciation of the album, other alternative music bands are releasing their albums by the end of this year or next year.

"We have already received a record contract from G-series. We are eager to find out what our fans think of the album when it is finally released," said Yamen, the lead vocalist of Breach, a popular alternative band of the city.

Bands like Migraine, Nemesis,

Breach, Ajob & Kronic have already established themselves as popular alternative bands. Rising stars like Part of the Scenery, STS, Sellout and Phulbanu's Revenge are not lagging far behind either.

Like Breach, Nemesis, Kronic and Ajob have also received record deals. The former two would have their albums released under the 'G-series' label while Ajob would have theirs being released by ‘Ektaar.’

“Thankfully, due to the growing popularity, we would be arranging more concerts this season. I hope that the music lovers of the city will actually support and help us to promote alternative music by attending them," said Tanim, of Union Underground and altermetal. com. Reportedly, MAFC would be arranging another concert, this July that is rumoured to become another milestone of a concert.