Underground band

If I were to be talking about not so well known music bands, how might I say "underground band"? (a group that has had limited airtime/exposure)

Groupe de resistance?

Thanks!

Purists would most likely object to groupe underground, but it works fine for me.

Groupe de résistance would be a resistance group/organisation, wouldn't it?

Or else you may find some suggestions in the prior thread: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=702246

Non, pas groupe de résistance. Les francophones parlent parfois de "groupe underground" parce qu'il n'y a pas de mot vraiment équivalent en français. On peut dire aussi: groupe non commercial, groupe peu connu, groupe qui sort des sentiers battus...

Any better ideas?

cropje_jnr said:

Purists would most likely object to groupe de l'underground, but it works fine for me.

Hello
I'm not a purist (er... not always ...), so I woud say "groupe underground" (rather than groupe de l'underground).

Could you also say "groupe d'avant-garde"?

I think so, maybe a nuance "groupe d'avant garde" sounds more like precursor, could we say all underground bands are précursor ?

The problem with any of these genres is that they can mean whatever they want to different people. I for one would not have defined and underground group as one which has had limited airtime/exposure, for me that is simply a "group that has had limited airtime/exposure", not an "underground band"... otherwise every band that ever existed started off as an underground band, and that's not really what the term signifies to me... but then these genres are not exactly well defined anyway.

Unless you really have to find a one word term to describe a genre, I would be tempted to describe what you mean as succinctly as possible rather than trying to shoehorn into an ambiguous category.