College Rock

College rock is the American underground rock of the 1980s that circulated through student-run campus radio stations rather than commercial airplay. Drawing on post-punk, jangle pop and power pop, it favoured chiming guitars, melodic basslines and literate, often oblique lyrics, produced cheaply for independent labels. Acts such as *R.E.M.*, *The Replacements* and *Hüsker Dü* built national followings through touring and college airplay while remaining outside the mainstream. The term fell away as the same bands were reclassified in the early 1990s, but college rock is the direct foundation of alternative rock.