1990s Alternative Rock · Indie Rock · Death Metal

The band that broke grunge into the mainstream and reshaped 1990s rock.

Restless art-rock innovators reshaping what guitar music could be.

Seattle's enduring grunge standard-bearers with a deep catalog.

Sub Pop heavyweights bridging grunge and 1970s metal.

Seattle quartet with bleak harmonies and crushing riffs.

L.A. funk-rockers turned long-running alternative rock institution.

Dave Grohl-led rock workhorse, the most successful post-Nirvana band.

Bay Area trio who reignited mainstream punk and wrote a punk-rock opera.

Manchester swagger and Beatlesque hooks at the center of Britpop.

Britpop chameleons whose restless reinventions outlasted the era.

Politically charged rap-rock whose riffs fused funk-metal and protest.

Cerebral progressive metal whose albums treat heaviness as ritual.

Chicago dream-grunge band of double-album scale and shoegaze color.

Power-pop nerds with two iconic 90s records and a long, divisive run.

Bakersfield band that codified the down-tuned, hip-hop-flecked nu metal sound.

Texas groove-metal monsters who reshaped post-thrash heaviness.

The genre-defining shoegaze band whose 'Loveless' remains untouchable.

British shoegazers of glacial beauty whose reunion rebuilt the genre's audience.

Oxford four-piece blending Byrdsian jangle with shoegaze haze.

Oakland heavy-rock visionaries who married hardcore weight to ritualistic ambient.

California riff lords whose 'Dopesmoker' is a stoner-metal cornerstone.

Palm Desert pioneers whose desert sessions birthed stoner rock.

Massachusetts indie noise legends whose loud-soft template shaped 90s alt-rock.

D.C. post-hardcore exemplars of integrity, dynamics, and DIY ethics.

L.A. melodic-punk academy who proved punk could be erudite.

Bay Area skate-punk lifers and indie-label standard-bearers.

Bay Area street-punk torchbearers carrying the Clash's spirit forward.

Orange County punks whose 'Smash' is the best-selling indie record ever.

Gothenburg melodic-death-metal architects whose 'Slaughter of the Soul' is canon.

Finnish melodic power-metal stalwarts of operatic neoclassical scale.

Krefeld bards turning Tolkien epics into shredding speed metal.

Long-running German power-metal trio of relentless output.

Chicago industrial-metal pioneers whose grinding output reshaped extreme rock.

Trent Reznor's industrial-rock juggernaut whose 'Downward Spiral' is genre-defining.

Florida shock-rock provocateur whose late-90s peak roiled mainstream culture.

Rob Zombie's NYC pre-solo project, a 90s industrial-metal mainstay.

Hamburg-Chicago industrial provocateurs of relentless output.

Belgian electronic-body-music pioneers central to industrial rock's lineage.

Vancouver industrial pioneers of grim collage and biomechanical theatre.

Justin Broadrick's Birmingham project that helped birth industrial metal.

Quorthon's solo-vehicle Swedish project that pioneered Scandinavian black metal.

Notorious Norwegian black-metal originators whose 'De Mysteriis' is canonical.

Solo black-metal project whose lo-fi atmospherics shaped the genre's sound.

Norwegian duo whose 'A Blaze in the Northern Sky' is a black-metal touchstone.

Norwegian black-metal innovators of orchestral grandeur.

Norwegian black-metal stalwarts of frostbitten riffs and corpsepaint imagery.

Chuck Schuldiner's Florida band who effectively invented death metal.

Buffalo death-metal mainstay and one of the genre's biggest bands.

Florida death-metal pillar whose technical bite shaped the form.

Tampa swamp-and-grit death-metal lifers.

Tampa blasphemous death-metal band of single-topic notoriety.

Liverpool grindcore-to-melodeath pioneers whose 'Heartwork' is a touchstone.

Birmingham grindcore originators whose blast beats redefined extremity.

Coventry death-metal stalwarts of war-themed crawling riffs.

Stockholm 'Sunlight Studios' death-metal pioneers of the chainsaw guitar tone.

Stockholm death-metal cornerstones alongside Entombed.

Belo Horizonte band whose 'Roots' fused thrash with Brazilian rhythm.

Mexico City eclectics whose music spans rock en español, electronica, and more.

Guadalajara band who became one of the most popular Latin rock acts.

Mexico City rock-en-español pioneers of dark, danceable rock.

Bogotá rock-en-español band of folk-tinged genre play.

Zaragoza band who became one of Spain's biggest rock exports.

Bordeaux alt-rockers, one of France's most acclaimed rock bands.

Long Island progressive-metal flagship of arena-scale shred.

Bellevue, Washington band whose 'Operation: Mindcrime' defined prog metal.

Connecticut prog-metal pioneers whose patient compositions shaped the genre.

Newcastle teen-grunge phenomenons who matured into ambitious art rock.

Trans-Tasman rockers behind enduring hits like 'Don't Dream It's Over'.

Sydney indie-rock veterans whose 90s peak set Australian alternative rock.

Cave's Berlin-formed band of literary, often gothic alternative rock.

Kingston band synonymous with Canadian rock identity for three decades.

Quebec progressive thrash band of dissonant, sci-fi imagination.

Ottawa thrash-metal band of shred-virtuoso pedigree.

Leeds jangle-and-noise indie band beloved by John Peel.

Sheffield band whose Jarvis Cocker-led wit and class observation defined Britpop.

London band who lit Britpop's fuse with glam-tinged urban romance.

Wigan band whose 'Urban Hymns' is one of Britpop's biggest sellers.

Oxford trio whose 'I Should Coco' captured Britpop's youthful rush.

London band fusing Wire-leaning post-punk with Britpop crunch.

Olympia band who launched the riot grrrl movement.

L.A. all-women punk-grunge band whose 'Bricks Are Heavy' is a 90s classic.

Courtney Love-led L.A. band whose 'Live Through This' is a 90s pillar.

Anglo-American band fronted by Shirley Manson whose 90s alt-rock hits remain canonical.

Anaheim band whose Gwen Stefani-led ska-punk crossover defined late-90s mainstream rock.

Long Beach band whose ska-punk-reggae stew became a SoCal staple.

Omaha-via-LA band fusing reggae, ska, and rap-rock into a cult enterprise.

Boston ska-core veterans behind 'The Impression That I Get'.

Sacramento alt-rockers of trumpet-flecked deadpan and unmistakable groove.

Brooklyn duo of clever, durable alt-pop across many decades.

Chapel Hill piano-rock trio whose punkish virtuosity stood out in the 90s.

Berkeley band whose 'August and Everything After' became a 90s alt-rock standard.

Columbia, S.C. band whose 'Cracked Rear View' was a 90s mass-market behemoth.

Buffalo alt-rockers turned soft-rock hitmakers behind 'Iris'.

York, Pennsylvania alt-rockers whose 'Throwing Copper' was a 90s ubiquity.

London band whose post-Nirvana grunge-rock found massive U.S. crossover.

San Diego band whose Weiland-fronted grunge-rock topped 90s charts.

Soundgarden-Pearl-Jam tribute project whose lone album is a grunge cornerstone.

Pre-Pearl-Jam Seattle band whose lone LP previewed the grunge era.

Sub Pop fuzz-rock standard-bearers and grunge OGs.

Mark Lanegan-fronted grunge band of psychedelic shading.

Sub Pop heavyweights who bridged Seattle grunge and bigger riff metal.

Aberdeen, Washington sludge originators whose influence runs through Sub Pop's roster.

Texas chaos-rock band whose live shows were 80s underground legend.

Louisville band whose 'Spiderland' is a foundational text for math rock and post-rock.

Pittsburgh instrumental math-rockers of polyrhythmic intensity.

Boise indie band whose Doug Martsch-led guitar sprawl is hugely influential.

Hoboken indie lifers fluent in everything from drone to bossa nova.

Stockton lo-fi indie cornerstone whose albums remain indie-rock canon.

Lou Barlow's lo-fi indie band, an essential 90s touchstone.

Dayton indie-rock institution of Robert Pollard's prolific four-track songwriting.

Boston dream-pop band whose three records remain quietly enormous.

L.A. duo whose 'Fade Into You' is dream pop's best-known hit.

Oklahoma City psychedelic-rock band of cosmic ballads and confetti-cannon shows.

Rugby drone-rock duo whose riff-and-repetition aesthetic shaped indie psych.

London drone-rock band of motorik pulse and feedback haze.

Glasgow rock chameleons whose 'Screamadelica' fused indie and dance.

Manchester band whose self-titled debut anchored Madchester and shaped Britpop.

Manchester baggy-rave-rockers central to Madchester.

Oldham Madchester organ-rock band, an early 90s indie crossover.

Northwich indie-rockers and a long-running Britpop survivor.

Liverpool band whose lone LP gave us 'There She Goes' and a lasting myth.

Wallasey band whose hazy psych-pop briefly went chart-pop with 'Wake Up Boo!'.

Chester band of late-Britpop ambition and conceptual songwriting.

Welsh rockers whose literary, politicized arena-indie outlasted their dramatic 90s.

Welsh band fronted by Cerys Matthews, late-Britpop crossover hitmakers.

London band fronted by Skin, whose Britrock crunch broke into late-90s charts.

Belfast trio whose noise-pop crunch made them 90s UK rock mainstays.

Limerick band fronted by Dolores O'Riordan whose 90s alt-rock hits remain ubiquitous.

Dublin band of Celtic-tinged soulful rock.

Seattle emo originators whose 'Diary' shaped second-wave emo.

Texas emo band whose two 90s LPs remain genre essentials.

Tokyo visual-kei pioneers whose theatrical metal made them Japan's biggest rock band.

Osaka noise-rock collective central to Japan's underground.