Alternative rock, also known as alt-rock, alternative music, or simply alternative, emerged around the 1980’s. Alternative is described for these 80’s bands as being a punk rock band working off of independent record labels, since they didn’t fit in with the current genre at the time. As a complete genre, alternative is made up of several subgenres such as grunge, Britpop, gothic rock, and indie pop. These genres are unified by their collective debt to the style of punk, of which the road was laid out for alternative in the 1970’s. Though alternative is considered to be rock, some of it’s influences come from folk music, jazz, reggae, electronic music, and among of genres affected the way alternative has come out today. At many times, alternative rock has been used as a catch-phrase for all rock genres from underground artists in the 1980’s, and all of it has descended from all punk genres. Some artists, such as R.E.M. and The Cure, have achieved that of commercial success and mainstream recognition, while most other alternative rock bands had exposure through college radio and word-by-mouth. Audioslave was a hard/alternative rock band the formed in 2001. Audioslave was formed with former Soundgarden frontman and rhythm guitarist Chris Cornell, Rage Against The Machine members Tom Morello (lead guitarist), Tim Commerford (bass guitarist) and Brad Wilk (drums). Audioslave as an amalgamation of Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden, but by the band's second album, Out of Exile, noted that it had established a separate identity.
The band’s unique sound was created by blending 1970’s hard rock and 1990’s grunge. And, over that, were Morello’s unconventional guitar solos that were incorporated into the blend of what was to become Audioslave. As the same with Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave prided themselves that the only sounds that were put onto albums were only made by the guitar, vocals, drums, and bass. No samples were ever used in their albums.
After Audioslave had three successful albums, sold eight million albums worldwide, and received three Grammy nominations, and was the first band to perform an open-air concert in Cuba, Chris Cornell issued in February 2007 that he would be permanently leaving the band due to “irresolvable problems that were between personalities and differences in music.” And with that, Audioslave was broken up, with the Rage Against The Machine members going back for a reunion of their band. Although Morello and Cornell had released solo albums, it doesn’t seem like the band will ever come back together again.