There's a detached solemnity to it, like you can never quite penetrate its secrets, but that only adds to the song's msytique. 37 Alt Rock Songs You Haven’t Thought About Since The Late ‘90s. The Boston-based band, led by singer and bassist Marc Sandman, followed their own rules about what rock and roll should be. Normally a line like this would be in the midst of a tender love song, but here it's deliberately cruel and obsessively controlling. "Pepper" was a breakthrough single from the band's Electriclarryland album, spending three weeks at #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart during the summer of '96. © 1999-2020 PopMatters.com. 100hitz - 90's Alternative - 100hitz.com is an online radio network of free internet radio stations, featuring multiple genres of free internet radio stations, with the best in online radio and steaming audio music entertainment. How many of us had girlfriends we just *couldn’t* get rid of? British "shoegaze" pioneers Slowdive released their second album Black became more legendary because of how protective Eddie Vedder was of this song. to listen to this track again. There were so many songs, from so many incredible (and some not so incredible) bands. The term's original meaning was broader, referring to a generation of musicians unified by their collective debt to either the musical style or simply the independent, DIY ethos of punk rock, which in the late 1970… before launching back to the chorus at the 3:43 point with guitars all barrels blazing. Just like Lump, you can’t get this song out of your head. It was a spectacular smash on alternative radio, spending an incredible nine weeks at #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart starting in February 1995. Have an extra 3 hours and 35 minutes? "Seether" reached #8 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart and helped launch the band's debut album to significant success and acclaim. 2 and again in 2006 on the compilation Serene Velocity: A Stereolab Anthology. If you’re not, you still remember hearing this song. "Pepper's" sonic universe includes backwards guitar, tremolo effects during the chorus, weird vocalisms and other bits of inventive reality-twisting. Religion can consume one's heart, mind and soul. Pretend It's a City Proves Once Again, You Can't Argue with Fran Lebowitz, Stefano Mancuso's 'The Nation of Plants' Gives the Green Party a Podium, 'Queer Legacies: Stories from Chicago's LGBTQ Archives', Megan Rapinoe's 'One Life' Is Pitch-Perfect, The Mandalorian's Political Allegory: Diversity Is the Way, Beauty and Horror in George C. Wolfe's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Steve McQueen's 'Small Axe' and Emerging Institutions of Black Power, COVID-19 and Our Purgatory of Consumerism, Elvis Costello Gets Dark and Brooding on 'Hey Clockface'. The die-hard fans already know. "Seether" was their first single, a frazzled rocker sung by Nina Gordon about a sorta Jeckyl & Hyde scenario. The beautifully lush "Galileo" was the second single from Indigo Girls' fourth album, Rites of Passage, and has become one of the highly influential duo's signature tunes. It's not difficult to understand why "Pepper" connected with a large audience -- it's a wonderfully surreal slow motion acid trip that blurs the lines between "Strawberry Fields Forever" and Paul's Boutique. by Brian Galindo. It's a co-dependence that has persisted for decades, and seems to be worse than ever now as America struggles in the midst of a ghastly heroin epidemic stemming, in part, from rampant over-prescription of opioid painkillers. Still, The Nixons were the least impactful band on this list. Sandman was famous for his oddly-tuned two-string bass guitar, which he often played with a slide. Our playlist stores a Big R Radio - 90s Alternative Rock track list for the past 7 days. Not many bands that rose to prominence in the '90s can match Screaming Trees' top-notch musicianship. Their 1995 album Heartworm, a seething collection of viscerally intense hard-edged rock, deserves a much wider audience than it received upon release. You loved it the first time you heard it. Their first offering of the '90s came three years into the decade with Republic and its lead single "Regret". "We Don't Need Nobody Else" is a brutally chilling narrative from the point of view of a violent sociopath. When people found it as a B side single, they went nuts. Why did everyone love this song so much? 181.FM 90's Alternative - 181.FM Internet Radio - The Best Choice for Radio. They hit up their local record shop or FYE to buy the latest and greatest alt-rock albums they could get their hands on. It's hard to hear him sing, "I'm so sick of goodbyes, goodbyes," and not think, "so are we". Pirner's lyrics jive with the song's fidgety tone, as he sits in despondent boredom yearning for someone to stir him into some kind of action that will tear through his sullen malaise. With its repeated calls of "I want to die just like Jesus Christ", "Reverence" incorporates a gritty industrial vibe, heavy electronic beats and dense snarls of reverbed guitar. "Somebody to Shove" is a searing garage-rocker from Minneapolis-based Soul Asylum's sixth album Grave Dancer's Union, by far their most successful release. Also the song that made you realize that Kurt Cobain didn’t care. When you try to define the top 20 best alternative rock albums of the 90s, grunge plays an oversized role, but there was more to it. Play on Spotify It opens with a quick snarl of guitar before launching into a descending bass pattern that forms the backbone of the verses, sometimes anchored with a subtle cello (which I was hearing as a baritone sax all these years). Emotionally-driven hardcore, punk rock, and alternative from emo's '90s golden age to today. There are nods in "Nearly Lost You" to '70s-era psychedelic-tinged classic rock in the blistering jolts of guitar by Gary Lee Conner and relentlessly dynamic drum work by Barrett Martin. It's a nightmare scenario for the woman in the song, as she is awakened for the first time to the brutal nature of her lover. It hit #8 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart, Rancid's highest ever placement on that survey, and the track sounds as fresh and alive as the day it was baked. The line about the cop saying, "Just another overdose! Year: 1996Billboard Hot 100 Peak: No. If you’re a Radiohead fan, this song is probably the reason you started listening to them. Everyone knows the 90’s gave us some of the best alternative music in the history of the Universe. Veruca Salt released one more album with their classic lineup -- 1997's Eight Arms to Hold You -- but Nina Gordon soon left and Louise Post carried on the band for years with a revolving cast of musicians. This song is cool. Song after song this guy named Billie Joe Armstrong was unloading every feeling he ever had on anyone who would listen, but even the songs with depressing messages were delivered in a happy, up-beat manner like no one else had ever done. The track was propelled on to alternative radio thanks in part to its inclusion on the highly popular and influential soundtrack to the film Singles, which also included tracks by Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and Alice in Chains. The first of four major hits from Grave Dancer's Union (along with "Black Gold", "Without a Trace" and "Runaway Train"), "Somebody to Shove" hit #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart in December 1992. A lot of alternative artists at the time from Nirvana to Soundgarden incorporated grunge into their music style, but they were alternative all the same. His musical talent transcended what we knew of him from his earlier 90’s work. Although this song is definitely not a traditional blues riff, this song gave a lot of kids their first peek into the blues sound. Gibby Haynes deadpans the spoken-word lyrics during the verses, gusting wind audible in the background, and then jolts us back to attention during the hard-rock chorus. Stereolab are one of the most innovative and endlessly fascinating bands of the '90s. The performance is tight -- drummer Grant Young (or more likely Sterling Campbell, who producer Michael Beinhorn brought in because he was dissatisfied with Young's performances) amps up the energy and provides a rock-solid foundation. The shock and outrage over the police treating his brother as less than human is palpable, and there is little reason to believe this is an isolated case. Stereolab originally recorded "French Disco" for the 1993 EP Jenny Ondioline before revamping and improving it later that year, slightly changing the spelling to add the "k", and releasing it as a limited edition vinyl and CD single. Some people have said this song proves Kurt Cobain knew he was going to live a much shorter life than any of us wanted him to. Linkous was wise to take it back and get the most out of it. Alexakis was 12 at the time, and would endure his own struggles with addiction. After years of trying to cope with debilitating depression and addiction, Mark Linkous took his own life in March 2010, another in the seemingly endless string of casualties to depression and addiction that has been such a blight on society, in the '90s and beyond. Life changing. One of their finest tracks is "French Disko", a piece of hard-driving space-rock. AceRadio - 90s Alternative Rock Webplayer. "Regret" has a dense rock sound compared with the generally sparse and mostly electronic arrangements on their prior album, Technique. Drugs? Although best known for their 1989 classic Starfish, the Church's 1992 release Priest=Aura is arguably the Australian band's artistic pinnacle. You bought this single on cassette and listened to it over and over until the tape broke. This is the song everyone knows Soundgarden from. Whether it was your high school graduation ballad or the song that inspired you to make a big decision in you life, this song meant something to you during the 90’s. Even in this darkness Sandman never loses his acerbic sense of humor: "I propose a toast to my self-control / you see it crawling helpless on the floor". As we asked in our previous summary of the best alt rock of the 80s, what is alternative rock? 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