Definitely aging myself.

I don't even recall the genre alternative being used at the time. This I consider closest to what became considered alternative from my pre-teen years.

Depeche Mode - People are People

Fuck off I'm old. https://youtu.be/oJL-lCzEXgI

(Duran Duran, Hungry Like The Wolf).

I met them on a plane when I was 9.

Has to be Dinosaur Jr and the track Freak Scene off their 1988 album Bug. When I play it it always takes me back to a time when adult responsibilities were not a concern and life was less complicated. The song, for me anyway, encapsulates the late 1980s.

The Cranberries - Linger

This summer my mother decided for us to go from Germany via Italy to Greece by car and ferry with a lot of stops on the way. She bought a CD player with 10 CD slots for the car. This album was one of those 10 on rotation for almost a week. Dolores' voice is for me synonymous with summer since then.

If Nirvana counts, Smells Like Teen Spirit was one of my first exposures to anything outside of pop or rap, and it was pretty fucking awesome both then and now.

Edit: I never really looked up a definition of alternative before, but at least according to Wikipedia, Nirvana is a tentpole alternative band. I always would have described them as grunge/punk, and viewed alternative as generally more mellow as a genre.

So I was born in 92 and some of my early music exposure was the 90s alternative and pop music my older sisters were into. One CD that my sister would play a lot was Everclear's So Much For the Afterglow. I always liked the title track because of the choral intro transition into the punk sound.

So Much for the Afterglow - Everclear

And then I was 12 when Green Day's American Idiot came out so I was really into that for a while. My favorite track being the 9 minute epic Jesus of Suburbia.

Jesus of Suburbia - Green Day

I was 10 when the Cranberries released "Dreams". I remember the first time I heard it on my dad's fancy stereo in my parent's basement. I was fascinated from the moment I heard that opening guitar chord. This song ended up on many of my mix tapes (and later mix CDs) throughout the 90s. Still to this day it makes me feel like I'm at home sitting on the floor listening to the radio.

https://youtu.be/Yam5uK6e-bQ

Hybrid Theory by Linkin Park came out when I was 10, it would be hard for me to choose just one song off that album to love. I owe a lot of my musical tastes to that record and without it I would not be the same person

If I think back to my pre-teen years, my taste in music was mostly electronica and '80s synth-pop. However, if I we go back even further to the early 2010s, a song that I listened to a lot is "Broken Circles" by Levellers.

Edie Brickell & New Bohemians - What I Am

I remember this being one of the first "alternative" type songs I heard as a kid. Grew up hanging out with the (slightly) older heshers in the neighborhood so it was usually Maiden or Metallica or the like being played.

This song opened me up to a whole new thing and I thoroughly dug it. A few Cure and Violent Femmes albums later and I was head first into 90's suburban goth life.

There are a lot of choices here, so I’ll go with “Hold On When You Get Love, and Let Go When You Give It” by Stars. This song came out when I was 8, and that whole album became pretty iconic. I probably would have said something else at the time but this song I think still evokes the same feeling today as it did a decade ago, and that’s part of why I like it so much.

Take the weakest thing in you And then beat the bastards with it And always hold on when you get love So you can let go when you give it