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Great Nineties Alternative Artists...


Guest Judas

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  • 11 months later...

pj harvey

nick cave and the bad seeds

swervedriver

cocteau twins

carter usm

grant lee buffalo

luscious jackson

juliana hatfield

mazzy star

slowdive

pale saints

throwing muses

jon spencer blues explosion










Ween

:heart:

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Guest Len B'stard

How can you be alternative if you're in the charts and signed to a major record label? Alternative means just that, an alternative to mainstream, if you're signed to a major record label and in the charts you are the fuckin' mainstream.

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  • 9 months later...

The best music was the stuff that influenced that shit...such as:

Big Black

Butthole Surfers

Meat Puppets

Scratch Acid (CANA-BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL)

etc etc, where there was no name for it, just a bunch of slightly unhinged motherfuckers making a sublime racket for which there was very little reference point. I'd probably even through Mudhoney into that list although they ain't exactly correct for it. The Butthole Surfers are probably the most underrated and the most actually alternative of all the alternative bands i ever heard of, they were seriously fucking mental and their music sounded like it too.

Edited by Len B'stard
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I just think when punk went tits up and everyone realised it would never blow and be mainstream and the next big thing all these people that were really into the music realised that, OK, if we don't need to pander to commerce cuz we'll never get a wide audience then we can make whatever kinda music we want...and a lot of good bands came out of that. Like, improbable stuff...like James Chance and the Contortions and the aforementioned Surfers. That lack of commercial viability offered them all this room where they could be super creative and out there cuz, hey, we're only gonna sell like 8 copies anyway.

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Not sure if these all fit into what you are looking for, but here are some that come to mind when I look for "not too heavy" 90s bands.

Counting Crows

Placebo

Matchbox 20

Goo Goo Dolls

Our Lady Peace

3 Doors Down

Dexter Freebish

Toad the Wet Sprocket

Fastball

Gin Blossoms

Can't go wrong with anyone on the Empire Records soundtrack really.

God damn. What a horrible list. I do like the gin blossoms tho..

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Katastrophy Wife

7 Year Bitch

Angelfish

Babe The Blue Ox

Barkmarket

Bettie Serveert

Blake Babies

Chapterhouse

Cop Shoot Cop

Curve

Daisy Chainsaw

Dig

Gruntruck

Lush

Mojave 3

Morphine

Pale Saints

NoNoYesNo

Ride

Red Red Meat

Scarce

Shudder To Think

Skin Yard

Slowdive

The Jesus And Mary Chain

The Raincoats

The Swirlies

Velocity Girl

Unrest

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Big Black

Butthole Surfers

Big Black were great, I only ever had Songs About Fucking and a live bootleg called Deathwish but they were awesome.

There was Shellac and Rapeman too.

My girlfriend at the time loved Gibby Haynes and the Butthole Surfers, I never really got into them though.

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Katastrophy Wife

7 Year Bitch

Angelfish

Babe The Blue Ox

Barkmarket

Bettie Serveert

Blake Babies

Chapterhouse

Cop Shoot Cop

Curve

Daisy Chainsaw

Dig

Gruntruck

Lush

Mojave 3

Morphine

Pale Saints

NoNoYesNo

Ride

Red Red Meat

Scarce

Shudder To Think

Skin Yard

Slowdive

The Jesus And Mary Chain

The Raincoats

The Swirlies

Velocity Girl

Unrest

every band listed are great

add Swervedriver to that list ....

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Katastrophy Wife

7 Year Bitch

Angelfish

Babe The Blue Ox

Barkmarket

Bettie Serveert

Blake Babies

Chapterhouse

Cop Shoot Cop

Curve

Daisy Chainsaw

Dig

Gruntruck

Lush

Mojave 3

Morphine

Pale Saints

NoNoYesNo

Ride

Red Red Meat

Scarce

Shudder To Think

Skin Yard

Slowdive

The Jesus And Mary Chain

The Raincoats

The Swirlies

Velocity Girl

Unrest

Swervedriver

Archers Of Loaf

Boo Radleys

Cocteau Twins

Carter USM

Juliana Hatfield

Kitchens Of Distinction

The La's

Love Battery

Material Issue

Mazzy Star

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

Boss Hog

Royal Trux

Sloan

School Of Fish

Saint Etienne

The Wolfgang Press

Unsane

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Great overlooked band. Them and Sonic Youth.

One that's hard to count because they made it huge and ended up being part of the mainstream in the 90s, but REM. They were right in the middle of the 80s alternative scene coming up.

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Great overlooked band. Them and Sonic Youth.

One that's hard to count because they made it huge and ended up being part of the mainstream in the 90s, but REM. They were right in the middle of the 80s alternative scene coming up.

Many hard rock fans will cite Aerosmith (!) or Van Halen (!!) as the greatest American band ever. But R.E.M. are right there. They were at the forefront of what was called college rock or college radio that morphed into alternative. Incredibly important and influential band. They took awhile to get big, got huge, and then settled back down to a smaller audience, all the while releasing 5 star album after 5 star album. Great musicianship, great lyrics. Great band.

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One that's hard to count because they made it huge and ended up being part of the mainstream in the 90s, but REM. They were right in the middle of the 80s alternative scene coming up.

Many hard rock fans will cite Aerosmith (!) or Van Halen (!!) as the greatest American band ever. But R.E.M. are right there. They were at the forefront of what was called college rock or college radio that morphed into alternative. Incredibly important and influential band. They took awhile to get big, got huge, and then settled back down to a smaller audience, all the while releasing 5 star album after 5 star album. Great musicianship, great lyrics. Great band.

They really were, they helped start it. I don't think people realize how long they've been around. They were setting those trends not following. Just a band from a great college town that kept getting bigger. Even when they hit it big with Losing My Religion, that's still one of those different, kind of a surprise hit song. Especially when it came out.They still managed to keep things a little different even once they hit the mainstream.

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One that's hard to count because they made it huge and ended up being part of the mainstream in the 90s, but REM. They were right in the middle of the 80s alternative scene coming up.

Many hard rock fans will cite Aerosmith (!) or Van Halen (!!) as the greatest American band ever. But R.E.M. are right there. They were at the forefront of what was called college rock or college radio that morphed into alternative. Incredibly important and influential band. They took awhile to get big, got huge, and then settled back down to a smaller audience, all the while releasing 5 star album after 5 star album. Great musicianship, great lyrics. Great band.

They really were, they helped start it. I don't think people realize how long they've been around. They were setting those trends not following. Just a band from a great college town that kept getting bigger. Even when they hit it big with Losing My Religion, that's still one of those different, kind of a surprise hit song. Especially when it came out.They still managed to keep things a little different even once they hit the mainstream.

One that's hard to count because they made it huge and ended up being part of the mainstream in the 90s, but REM. They were right in the middle of the 80s alternative scene coming up.

Many hard rock fans will cite Aerosmith (!) or Van Halen (!!) as the greatest American band ever. But R.E.M. are right there. They were at the forefront of what was called college rock or college radio that morphed into alternative. Incredibly important and influential band. They took awhile to get big, got huge, and then settled back down to a smaller audience, all the while releasing 5 star album after 5 star album. Great musicianship, great lyrics. Great band.

They really were, they helped start it. I don't think people realize how long they've been around. They were setting those trends not following. Just a band from a great college town that kept getting bigger. Even when they hit it big with Losing My Religion, that's still one of those different, kind of a surprise hit song. Especially when it came out.They still managed to keep things a little different even once they hit the mainstream.

Absolutely. Plus, their use of left of center instrumentation was a breath of fresh air. You hear often that 80's music sucked, or 80's rock music sucked but there were so many great bands outside of the hair metal/hard rock genres. They were the alternative to what was the current mainstream and then somehow became the mainstream themselves. The list of great bands from that era goes on and on and on. Too bad they got overlooked then and still do now. But I feel the bands that are under the radar are the most important.

Sonic Youth, as you mentioned, are another that can make a claim as one of the greatest American bands ever. Even when they signed to a major label, they compromised nothing about their music. They are a band other bands should model themselves after

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