• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

I've been checking out 80s-90s rock music I missed from my younger years lately(because I was shallow). A lot of stuff I really love, like Nirvana

JCK75

Member
I'm stuck in the 90's.. played an Open Mic last week and did a Candlebox song, currently working on Black by Pearl Jam and 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins to do next month...
I've come a long way ,back when I actually had a band everyone said I was stuck in the 80's
 

Mr Hyde

Member
Listened to a lot of Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins in my teen years. I saw Smashing live a couple of years ago for the first time and it was great to revisit them since I haven't listened to them in probably 20 years. Even discovered a song I've never heard from them, called "Eye", which is probably the best song I've heard from them. Regarding Nirvana I think Nevermind and In Utero are their best work, a great mix of mainstream and underground. I was in complete shock when I read that Kurt had committed suicide. Ive watched tons of documentaries about Nirvana since then. I think Kurt would have been an even greater musician and star if he had gone on to live. It was sad.

Another group I listened to heavily back when I was younger was Placebo, but maybe they are more "britpop" than rock. It was more emo and depressing but they had a great sound that I liked and I always enjoyed Brians vocals and lyrics. It went deeper than most rock songs. It was sort of a guilty pleasure band. However , it was something I kept to myself. Most of my clique during that time were hardcore hip hop heads or techno aficionados so playing something like Placebo would be suicide and lead to being ostracized, lol.
 
Last edited:

calistan

Member
Creep is very funny, it's Radiohead's biggest song and yet far, far from their best song. A lot of fans hate it and most fans with a brain will tell you the album it's from is easily the worst.
Radiohead were at Glastonbury a few years ago (2017?) but I didn't bother with them because I'm not a fan and I'd heard they refuse to play Creep live any more.

So I was grabbing a cider on the way to see something else, and I could clearly hear the bastards playing Creep on the main stage. Oh well. I think I watched Status Quo that night instead.
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Radiohead were at Glastonbury a few years ago (2017?) but I didn't bother with them because I'm not a fan and I'd heard they refuse to play Creep live any more.

So I was grabbing a cider on the way to see something else, and I could clearly hear the bastards playing Creep on the main stage. Oh well. I think I watched Status Quo that night instead.

There was a good 7 years where they didn't, but it made it back in at times for the last tour. Wild that they haven't been on the road in so long. Need to stop faffing about with The Smile albums and a put out a new Radiohead one.
 

calistan

Member
There was a good 7 years where they didn't, but it made it back in at times for the last tour. Wild that they haven't been on the road in so long. Need to stop faffing about with The Smile albums and a put out a new Radiohead one.
At least I know for next time. I've avoided Radiohead on other occasions because of that (always liked Creep , it was on a free CD with Donkey Kong Country).

I think when bands play a festival they have an obligation to stick to their greatest hits. Bruce Springsteen at Glastonbury was a memorably terrible one - we wanted to hear Born in the USA, but apparently he only plays that in America, so he went on for about three hours, playing absolute dross. "This is a traditional mining song from the 1880s." Half the crowd were gone after the first hour.
 
  • Empathy
Reactions: AV

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
If we're gonna be like that then we can't forget The Specials.



---

I'd recommend OP to check out this list with music from all four Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games that are a goldmine of rock:






Speaking of Tony Hawk....this is a huge one.
 

ssringo

Member
I'm a big fan of Cinderella. Tom Keifer has a very unique voice and sounds fantastic swapping between his "clean" and "distorted" vocals though he doesn't do it for every track. Their debut album 'Night Songs' is one of the few non Iron Maiden albums I enjoy start to finish. Their first album was much more rock focused while their later stuff was more blues rock.





Butthole Surfers


Green Jello/Jelly. This video has lived in my mind rent free since I first saw it on MTV. I love how stupid it is.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
I can't believe you missed out on God's gift to human ears, Nickelback.

WHghyha.jpeg

Check this out DragoonKain DragoonKain







lol

 

Yerd

Member
I have to dig deeper, because most everything I thought of has been recommended already.

I remember being gym class locker room and the preppie kids were talking about liking Helmet and that blew my mind, because that's not something the preppie kids usually listen to. It was already listed in the thread.


Here's a few of the ones I could think up in my deep bag of 90s hits. They are hits to me, I'm sure many people never heard of some of these.





















Watch out, this band is christian ska/punk. Whoah dude.




This is bad ska though. Don't bad ska.
Don't you dare bad mouth the bosstones. That one song was a huge over played hit. But they are top of the list of ska bands.

This is my favorite Bosstones' song. One of my all time favorite simple guitar riffs.


In my defense I already posted Op Ivy in my previous post.

I never heard original Op Ivy songs until many years later. I used to go to the music store and find compilation albums for punk and ska music. They usually only cost a few dollars and they would have have tons of songs. It would introduce me to bands I never heard of too. One of them was an Operation Ivy tribute CD that I love because most of the songs were (IMO) better than original Op Ivy. As good as Op Ivy songs are they were shit musicians all around or maybe it was shit production. The tribute cd had much better production. Sure, that probably flies in the face of the idea of punk music, but I'd rather hear good music than sloppy music.

Here's one, and by one of my favorite ska bands.
 
Last edited:

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
As good as Op Ivy songs are they were shit musicians all around or maybe it was shit production.
This is just what punk sounded like until Green Day came along. It was raw and ragged and low-fi. They were teenagers too. That's what punk was supposed to be for a long time.

Fun fact: Green Day's first ever show was opening for Operation Ivy's last ever show.

Speaking of 90s pop punk, I totally forgot to get some Bouncing Souls on here.



 
Last edited:

Durien

Member
Jane's Addiction
Screaming Trees
The Cult
Queensryche
Pantera
Smashing Pumpkins
Corrosion of Conformity
Rancid
White Zombie
Korn
Tool
Filter
 

Pejo

Gold Member
Always makes me happy to see more ska fans in the wild. We used to have a GAF thread, I haven't checked up on it in a long while.
 
Last edited:

Boozeroony

Member
Listened to a lot of Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins in my teen years. I saw Smashing live a couple of years ago for the first time and it was great to revisit them since I haven't listened to them in probably 20 years. Even discovered a song I've never heard from them, called "Eye", which is probably the best song I've heard from them. Regarding Nirvana I think Nevermind and In Utero are their best work, a great mix of mainstream and underground. I was in complete shock when I read that Kurt had committed suicide. Ive watched tons of documentaries about Nirvana since then. I think Kurt would have been an even greater musician and star if he had gone on to live. It was sad.

Another group I listened to heavily back when I was younger was Placebo, but maybe they are more "britpop" than rock. It was more emo and depressing but they had a great sound that I liked and I always enjoyed Brians vocals and lyrics. It went deeper than most rock songs. It was sort of a guilty pleasure band. However , it was something I kept to myself. Most of my clique during that time were hardcore hip hop heads or techno aficionados so playing something like Placebo would be suicide and lead to being ostracized, lol.
I still love Placebo's first 3 albums. Such a defining band during my teenage years.

Kyuss is peak 90s for me though. Gotta respect that stonerrock sound.
 

Kraz

Member
Thread got me going through genres looking for gems and thinking about trends. As someone already mentioned there was so much going on.

The video theme for this alt rock song from late 1999 brings to mind how the youngest x'ers then 19 had to give cultural way to the leading edge of eldest millennials then 18 as they made their takeover with Avril Lavigne, Tatu and Linkin Park in the following years.


Going back a couple years to scratch a nostalgia itch with a nostalgia song. The rock guitar crescendo is so good. Wikipedia labeled it postgrunge lol.


Couple radio alt bands with a mystical vibe


 

BlackTron

Member
I skipped out on a lot of music as well and my solution to broaden my horizons and catch up was to just listen to the radio. Since about two years ago I stopped using MP3 CDs or using my phone to stream music I want in the car. I just use the bog standard radio. Of course a lot of the songs are familiar but now I can listen more carefully and actually remember the name of the song/band. Picked up on everything in the OP this way.
 

Jaybe

Member
Thread got me going through genres looking for gems and thinking about trends. As someone already mentioned there was so much going on.

The video theme for this alt rock song from late 1999 brings to mind how the youngest x'ers then 19 had to give cultural way to the leading edge of eldest millennials then 18 as they made their takeover with Avril Lavigne, Tatu and Linkin Park in the following years.


Going back a couple years to scratch a nostalgia itch with a nostalgia song. The rock guitar crescendo is so good. Wikipedia labeled it postgrunge lol.


Couple radio alt bands with a mystical vibe




Found the Canadian! I Mother Earth should get more love. Here are my favourites from them:





 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
Again, my current band obsession lol give Orange 9mm a listen. 1995-1999 post hardcore with Helmet and Quicksand DNA. Then add a black vocalist 😎🤝🏻







 
Last edited:

Kraz

Member
Found the Canadian! I Mother Earth should get more love. Here are my favourites from them:






They sure should! So many good songs. Wild melodies and lyrics openly imaginative. Got Dig through Columbia House.
The spring mentioned in So Gently We Go makes me think of Cadmus and the Dragon... Thebes! The build up to the crescendo over the entire song is fine.




It's difficult to pin one Nin song as my favourite, it'd be in the early albums, but Head Like A Hole was the first.

guitar sounds like Mass Effect ending song

Some women

Energy down the barrel of an Armalite.



When the needle drops it's like jumping into deep water with a strong current.
 

Kraz

Member
80s during the punk thrash metal crossover

get a proto grunge sense from it

You have to have heard the riff to Angel of Death so posting a cover by Slayer instead to segue into movie soundtracks


S.F.W. where I first heard Radiohead




 

Yerd

Member
Again, my current band obsession lol give Orange 9mm a listen. 1995-1999 post hardcore with Helmet and Quicksand DNA. Then add a black vocalist 😎🤝🏻








Never heard of them. I'm sure I would have loved them back in the day, but I find it kind of basic currently. That Alien track isn't too bad.

Kind of reminds me of the vocalist from The Urge.
 

Markio128

Gold Member
Don’t sleep on At The Drive-in. The group that went on to become The Mars Volta.

The Relationship of Command album kicks ass. Cosmonaut is probably my fave track on the album, but the album is riddled with great tracks.

 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
Never heard of them. I'm sure I would have loved them back in the day, but I find it kind of basic currently. That Alien track isn't too bad.

Kind of reminds me of the vocalist from The Urge.

Check these. The band went through constant member switches. Here, the old guitarist left to go play with Helmet and the BASSIST became the guitarist and they picked up a new bassist. Went super experimental. “Victim” sounds like a Rage Against The Machine ripoff until it turns into an At The Drive In-ish groove at the end. “604” sounds like it should’ve been in an old PS2 era racing game.



 
Last edited:

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
I just got tickets for Local H and Helmet playing the same show for $35. Might check to see if they're going to your city. Local H is mostly known for their single, but they're kinda similar to Nirvana actually. Helmet is significantly heavier, but classic 90s.
 

Sledge

Neo Member
I have a couple of days off coming up, and this thread should keep me going all the way through 'em. Some things I was either listening to in the 90s, or have discovered since, that I didn't see mentioned yet:

Baby Chaos / Deckard
Their music vids were showing up on late night telly alongside Oasis as the Mancs were taking off, but they never got anywhere near as big, meaning I get to delight people who have never heard of 'em. Trigger warning: Scottish water sports.


Jon Spencer
Across Blues Explosion and Boss Hog, there's a ton of material of varying levels of accessibility. He's almost always (deliberately) amusing though. Trigger warning: Bass drop of the old gods.


Trigger warning: Playlist = "Screaming Songs"


Music was a bit harder to discover in the 90s so if I saw an interesting compilation I would often snap it up, hoping to broaden my horizons. One such CD was Honest Don's Welcome Wagon, rammed full of American punk or slacker/skater rock or whatever (I dunno, I never got the genres handbook). It pleased me greatly, because it sounded like these next two...

Limp
Trigger warning: Will attempt to trick you into wanting to be eighteen again. Do not fall for it, it is a trap.


J Church
Trigger warning: Actually, now you put it that way, J Church, I might like to be eighteen again.


The Fall
Trigger warning: Sardonic bastard.


PJ Harvey
Quintessential 90s tornado of... hair and erm, pffft, chords? I was going somewhere else with that one, then I swerved off in a different direction. Trigger warning: What was the deal with performing on a rug back then?


XTC
Nonsuch is probably too pretty an album to be considered "rock" in any way, but, really, give the whole thing a listen -- it is quite magnificent. By the way, A Testimonial Dinner, is a rather fine compilation (oho!) of covers and a decent introduction to the band's well regarded tracks. Trigger warning: Makes modern songwriting seem even worse.


Pride & Glory
Oh was it rock you wanted? Was it rock you wanted? Well we don't got no rock, buddy, oh no. What we've got here is wall-to-wall, Southern-blues-infused, balls-to-blazes [falsetto] raaaaaawk! :messenger_horns:Trigger warning: Full album contains banjo. This is a banjo alert.
 
Top Bottom