The spirit of the age? Weirdly, given that the period was full of songs with titles like "Death Disco" or "Isolation" or "We Are All Prostitutes," I think it was actually optimism, confidence, a certain will-to-power. Charged up by punk, these groups really believed they could change things, they could actually take over in some sense—whether it was by building an alternative culture, as with postpunk, or, with New Pop, invading the mainstream and displacing Old Pop, as it were.

Simon Reynolds, im Dialog mit Stephen Metcalf, über Postpunk und sein Buch Rip It Up And Start Again.

Noch interessanter wird's im zweiten Teil, wo es um die Unterschiede zwischen Alternative-Musik in den USA und im UK geht:

I agree absolutely: In America, alternative music is just that, "alternative," and more oppositional to a mainstream culture it regards as not only rote, treacly, and formulaic but deeply reactionary. Think about the innovators in white American pop music who also had commercial success: Bing Crosby, Elvis, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, the Ramones, Bruce Springsteen. Well, they're not only retro, they play (albeit self-consciously) to that reactionary streak. They sell an idea of American exceptionalism rooted in an exalted American past, all while keeping their innovations hidden in plain sight.