Noun: "(sometimes attributive, often pejorative) any style or genre that is ostensibly counterculture or alternative, but actually mainstream enough to be encountered at a mall, or among the type of people who frequent a mall"edit
1996 — "Recycled garbage: what a waste", Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 26 February 1996:
Large herds of major label record company reps emptied beer bottles, while backpack-toting mallternative kiddos sucked on their cigarettes.
1996 — "Stone Temple Pilots: Hard road back to glory", Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 15 November 1996:
Onstage, cigarette in one hand and mike stand in the other, leaning forward into the music, Stone Temple Pilots front man Scott Weiland is about as good a one-person definition of '90s mallternative hard rock as one could ask for.
1997 — "Silverchair: Livin' it up - for now", Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 2 May 1997:
Freak Show, the threesome's equally vanilla-flavored mallternative rock disc, has yet to match album No. 1's success, […]
1997 — Jim Sullivan, "Counter culture", The Boston Globe Magazine, 24 August 1997:
As the "over-the-counterculture" has grown, as once cutting-edge alternative styles and products have become "mallternative," Newbury Comics has benefited from the market moving in its direction. Black leather biker jackets, body piercings, tattoos, and jarring hairstyles, which once could shock the counterculturally challenged, today are part of a lifestyle choice that barely raises eyebrows.
1997 — "K. D. Lang Wears Her 'Drag' Tour Quite Lightly", San Jose Mercury News, 24 September 1997:
The band hits Palo Alto's Edge tonight, premiering its new album, "Hang-Ups" (Mojo), an album with more seriousness than the debut album that launched them into the mallternative heights.
1999 — "Courtney's defection hurt Manson", Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 19 March 1999:
There will probably always be disaffected, mallternative kids ready to embrace his cartoon/Halloweenish take on scary rock 'n' roll, but the truth is that his dive into glam last year with Mechanical Animals didn't satisfy scads of the people who loved him when he sounded more like, well, Nine Inch Nails.
After the official Dashboard website announced that a limited-edition picture disc of two Mission tracks would be sold exclusively at the mallternative store Hot Topic, one fan groused: "This is just another tally mark in the 'selling out' column. […]
[…] and on Los Angeles' KROQ-FM (106.7), the taste-making station of mallternative-skateboarding teen chic, the song has been played several times a day since early October.
2004 — Brian Hiatt, "No 'Free Bird'", Entertainment Weekly, 19 March 2004:
At its best, neo-alternative is transcending nostalgia, lighting a brighter path for oft dreary rock radio. Many of the stations fill their new-music slots -- usually about 30 to 40 percent of their playlists -- not with "mallternative" fodder, but with the smart, indie-leaning music that radio tends to ignore.
Truth is, you like the new you, this Guitar Hero version of yourself: the mallternative bands, the squeaky-clean beer halls, the rooftop parties at glass hotels.
She looks like pop culture's idea of a fag hag: slightly chubby, with perfect crimson hair and clothing by Sanrio, Torrid and Hot Topic. She is fond of calling herself "mallternative."
Noun: "an alternative to a mall, particularly an open-air urban shopping district"edit
1987 — "St. Anthony Main's ads aim at malls", Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 14 December 1987:
St. Anthony Main, the riverfront specialty retail center that is fighting low occupancy, hopes to pull holiday shoppers with ads declaring itself the "Mallternative."
2003 — Atlanta Magazine, December 2003, page 66 (ad copy):
We're Atlanta's shopping "mallternative" for the holidays.
2004 — Kyle Ezell, Get Urban!: The Complete Guide to City Living, Capital Books (2004), →ISBN, page 163:
Although several energy-depleting surface parking lots remain, Mass Avenue's interesting mix of business and people is quickly turning it into a full-fledge window shopper's mallternative, full of energy.
