top 5 bands of the 90s

0854-december17-2004

goodness, comm ave was a friggin zoo coming in today. just a skating rink.

also, this hurt my head to think about. i mean.... ok whatever, let's not get politlcal. yet at least.

so i asked in my away message last night for a list of your top 5 bands of the 90s. 2 people responded. yeah, i don't know why the rest of you didn't respond either, because i KNOW some of you fuckers read that and just said "i wonder what smarterchild is up to these days!" you guys are wankers.

anyways, let's go to the lists. clearly there are two ways to approach this, and both the entries i received took one approach, the "my favorite bands of the 90s" approach. i think, at least. the other approach is the "these are the most important bands of the 90s" approach. i'll do both below, but first, here's what trilling said to me in response:

(9:23:04 PM): in no particular order: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, possibly Rage, and i would say the Chili Peppers, but i feel like most of those are the popular choices. Pumpkins could easily crack that 5...they are interchangeable with Rage and the Peppers in my book

and geoff responded too, and i'm not sure if he was being ironic or not.

dooberfig (10:10:58 PM): ive thought about it
dooberfig (10:11:31 PM): and you must keep in mind that im trying to have a wide range of times and styles
dooberfig (10:11:43 PM): and in terms of influence
dooberfig (10:12:04 PM): well, not so much influence as being ahead of their time
dooberfig (10:12:13 PM): 5 -- fear factory
dooberfig (10:12:17 PM): 4 -- rage
dooberfig (10:12:20 PM): 3 -- pantera
dooberfig (10:12:24 PM): 2 -- deftones
dooberfig (10:12:27 PM): 1 -- nirvana

yeah. i don't know if he is joking either. you be the judge.

anyways, here are my top 5 favorite bands of the 90s:

5) weezer
4) soundgarden
3) deftones
2) foo fighters
1) smashing pumpkins

and here are my most important

5) metallica - the black albumwas one of the best albums of the 90s. thus metallica has to be considered one of the most important. also their impact on the music industry has been something, though not a very positive effect i must say.

4) weezer - blue album and pinkerton spawned basically alternative music from the last 2 years. i dunno if this is a good thing. anyways, all they have to show for it is 4th place here and 2 shitty albums in the aughts.

3) soundgarden - if you don't know how amazing badmotorfinger and superunknown are... well you should go learn. one of the more interesting and talented bands to come out of seattle (zing, pearl jam and nirvana! wait, the list isn't done yet.)

2) nirvana - ok well 2 and not 1 just to be a little difficult. and their impact on music cannot be understated. i mean, in reality i guess they are one of the 3 most important bands ever (elvis, beatles, nirvana). ok i feel dirty. i'm going to change them to #1 now. nirvana is #1.

real 2) smashing pumpkins - obviously you saw this coming. anyways, gish has about 8/10 amazing songs on it. siamese dream is definitely one of the best albums of the 90s. mellon collie is an incredible album that shows the range and the amazing talent behind this band. and they snuck in pisces iscariot in there with a buncha b-sides that make the current crappy bands out there blush and feel like criminals. and they even got 2 solid songs out of an album after one of their members died from an overdose and another one (the drummer, nonetheless) got kicked out for doing heroin with aforementioned dead member of band.

so, those are my top 5. metallica, weezer, soundgarden, smashing pumpkins, nirvana. what are your top 5 bands of the 90s?

comments

re: two lists

from: chad (2004-12-17 10:21:59)

5 faves:
weezer
counting crows (this is straight up 5 favorites, and I'm not going to lie to appease you, niv!)
nirvana
smashing pumpkins
pearl jam
(this list is in no order and is completely based on what came to the top of my head...I easily could do this list 5 more times and only weezer and CC would necessarily stay on...i like lots of bands)

5 most important:
metallica
smashing pumpkins
weezer
run dmc (how can the group that made rap mainstream not be up here?)
nirvana

done and done

re: not relevant but niv said to say this

from: chad (2004-12-17 10:23:36)

i had a coworker holiday party thing and then went to a bar last night, which is why i didnt respond to nivs away message

don't you all feel better now?

re: run dmc

from: niv (2004-12-17 10:34:35)

run dmc doesn't make this list because they aren't a 90s band. best work by far came in the 80s.

re: niv is a jerk

from: chad (2004-12-17 11:53:54)

but instead of run dmc, my list will now include soundgarden, just to appease niv

re: My Faves

from: er (2004-12-17 12:41:23)

oasis
pearl jam
weezer
nirvana
Dre/Snoop

by no measns the most important though

a longer list might include:
radiohead
green day
rem
beastie boys
soundgarden
pumpkins
stp

re: not a jerk

from: niv (2004-12-17 13:09:03)

chad, if "niv is a jerk" means "niv is factually accurate, where as i am not", then i accept.

re: hmmm...

from: chad (2004-12-17 15:34:00)

apparently i am using a slang definition of jerk. not the same slang definition niv is using, but slang none the less. apparently i technically mean that niv is a sudden, abrupt motion.

jerk1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (jûrk)
n.
A sudden abrupt motion, such as a yank or twist.
A jolting or lurching motion.
Physiology. A sudden reflexive or spasmodic muscular movement.
jerks Involuntary convulsive twitching often resulting from excitement. Often used with the.
Slang. A foolish, rude, or contemptible person

re: for the record

from: ira (2004-12-19 14:29:50)

1) nirvana
2) radiohead
3) weezer
4) smashing pumpkins
5) beck

'nuff said.

re: trills

from: if we are including rap (2004-12-24 20:10:38)

if we are including rap in here, how can the Wu-Tang Clan be left out. Everyone forgets about them because they for the most part have sought out solo projects. But 36 Chambers is by far the best rap album of the 90's. Hard beats, slow and fast paces that make your head explode. And it isn't even the more notable Clan members that make the album great. Its the GZA and Inspectah Deck who bring the album from good to amazing with rhymes that make you think "what the fuck?" Don't let me discount performances by Ghostface and Raekwon. I suggest everyone take a listen to 36 Chambers. A record that tooko the risk of being hard when everything else out there was poppy (c)rap. Even their late 90's double album release was spectacular. Wu-Tang cracks my top 5 easy.

re: you are all insane

from: i went to music school and am thus the only one qu (2004-12-29 11:29:27)

ok, so yeah, its hard to talk about music without letting personal taste get in the way. that's why its taken me so long to respond to this. it took me a while to choke back the little bit of vomit that came up when i saw weezer and metallica in some of your lists. i mean, metallica? come on niv. if run dmc doesn't qualify because they're not a 90s band, then niether does metallica. the black album was genius, but a day late and a dollar short in terms of influence. musically, if not culturally as well, metallica blew its load in the 80s. had the black album come out in 90, instead of 91, it might have had a chance at being as influential as nevermind, but as it is, no way. weezer is a tough call, because obviously they were the progenitors of all the alt/pop/emo we have to suffer through today, and thus quite important. but you have to acknowledge that they would never have seen the light of day without nirvana. so i question their qualifications as one of the top five most important. and they should never, under any circumstances, be ranked above, or on a list that doesn't contain pearl jam, and soundgarden. the triumvirate that broke alt. rock into the mainstream HAVE to be the top three. there is no rational argument to the contrary.

all that being said, here are the top five most influential/important bands of the 90s:
1)nirvana
2)pearl jam
3)soundgarden
4)chili peppers (rap/rock would have never went pop without them)
5)beastie boys (rap would have never gone mainstream without middle class white kids, and middle class white kids would never have started buying rap albums en masse if not for the beasties)

re: i'd agree with you but...

from: zach is a prick (2004-12-29 11:41:00)

pearl jam really hurts all your cred. nirvana and soundgarden were both artistically better and pearl jam tailed off worse than howard dean's presidential run

re: i hear you

from: my last name was nicely obnoxious but way too long (2004-12-29 11:47:30)

you're very, very right. pearl jam didn't age well at all. but the importance of ten cannot be denied. they might not deserve #2 for that album, but they def deserve a spot in the top five.

re: an update

from: chad (2004-12-29 11:48:16)

first, whoever went to music school, i wonder if they taught you in music school that "licensed to ill" came out in 1986? cause it did. which makes the Beasties FAR more important in the 80s than the 80s. So I don't think they can be on this list. second, seeing as soundgarden really hit the mainstream with "superunknown" which came out in 1994, 3 years AFTER Nevermind, I don't see how influential they really were. Great band, no doubt, but if they had never existed, Nirvana still has the influence in that genre to bring alt. rock to the forefront. "ten" on the other hand, dropped in 1991, around the same time as Nevermind. So I can definitely see Pearl Jam making the list. Definitely like the addition of RHCP to the list, as their sound is definitely different than any of the others and quite influential.

the issue i am running into is that i see rap/hip hop as exploding in the 90's, but the bands that made that happen are all 80's bands. so how do you reconcile this? i think Dr. Dre belongs on this list, as much for his personal musical contributions as for what he brought to rap in general. the entire rap world today i think is more musically descendant from him than the Beaties or run DMC. The top rappers who aren't his "discoveries" have a sound more like his than either of the other two.

and that leaves one last top 5 spot, and I am not sure who to give that to. I don't think you can write off Weezer as a Nirvana descendent, because i think they took alt. rock in a new direction that has become wildly popular these days. but i also think radiohead deserves some serious consideration. OK Computer and The Bends both created an environment for a new sound to really hit mainstream.

so, without further ado, my revised top 5 most influential bands of the 90's

1) Nirvana
2) Pearl Jam
3) Dr. Dre
4) RHCP
5) Radiohead

re: please excuse chad

from: niv (2004-12-29 11:53:13)

he doesn't know what "badmotorfinger" is.

here's a hint - just because it doesn't get huge radio play (ala black hole sun) doesn't mean people didn't listen to it and weren't hugely influenced by it.

1991 was one of the best years for music ever.

and zach, i think you should have put radiohead instead of pearl jam in your top 5.

re: it was tough

from: zach (2004-12-29 12:07:05)

i struggled with that very issue. in truth i think they are equally important. pearl jams inclusion in the explosion of 91, however, demanded that they take precedence.

i also struggled with beasties vs. dre. can influence felt in the 90s, but inspired by albums from the 80s be included on this list? tough call. dre was/is sick, and very influential, but would we have ever heard of him without the beasties and run dmc? in the end ill communication is what sealed the deal for me. the groundswell had already started by 94, but in my corner of the universe that album was the one that broke the glass ceiling on hip hop.

re: hip-hop

from: niv (2004-12-29 12:45:07)

what about tupac and biggy and puff daddy? hiphop wasn't touched by my list because i was implicitly ignoring it. but now i'm explicitly stating that hiphop/rap is different and for this exercise to be done properly i guess we should seperate genres. right?

re: yes

from: zach (2004-12-29 12:49:23)

that was my problem from the start. you either have to make one list with the one most influential from each genre, or you have to make seperate lists for each genre.

it was never really made clear which format this list should take.
i fault niv.
cause it gives me jollies.

re: well

from: er (2004-12-29 13:15:53)

If you're going to do the whole cross genre thing, don't forget country. Garth Brooks anyone?

re: 5 best bands of the 90s

from: NF (2005-01-14 23:46:41)

Metalica
Nirvana
Rage against the Machine
Guns and Roses
Megadeth

theses are the bands that made rock number 1

re: comment

from: mary (2007-10-02 00:01:04)

WOW you guys are missing one very important one.....SUBLIME!!!!