Category 1990s

Rivers Cuomo moved to Los Angeles from Connecticut with his heavy metal band in 1989. When they split, he formed a power-pop band with bassist Matt Sharp and drummer Patrick Wilson. They appeared with Keanu Reeves’ Dogstar on their first…

Ben Folds was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, also the birthplace of The dB’s and Let’s Active. He started playing piano when he was nine after his father received a piano as payment for some construction work. Folds dropped out…

Counting Crows formed in the Bay Area. Vocalist Adam Duritz was formerly in The Himalayans, who recorded an album with producer David Bryson in 1990. The album was unreleased until 2002, but Bryson and Duritz started playing together at open…

Introduction Rage Against the Machine were surprisingly successful in the 1990. They twice topped the Billboard 200 twice with albums espousing revolutionary left-wing politics. Guitarist Tom Morello and vocalist Zach de la Rocha were both children of immigrants to the…

Grant McLennan was taught to play and drafted into The Go-Betweens by Robert Forster. Because of this, he’d never played with another band when they split in 1990. After releasing an album with The Church’s Steve Kilbey as Jack Frost,…

Born Myra Ellen Amos, in North Carolina, Tori Amos took her stage name when a friend’s boyfriend told her that she resembled a Torrey pine. Her family moved to Maryland when she was two, where her father was a Methodist…

After leaving Hüsker Dü, Bob Mould released a pair of solo albums, before forming another power trio. Unlike Hüsker Dü, where Grant Hart was an important songwriter and Greg Norton was central to the band’s sound, Sugar is Mould’s show.…

Pearl Jam grew from the remnants of Mother Love Bone, whose singer Andrew Wood overdosed. Rhythm guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament started a new band with Mike McCready on lead guitar and recruited surfer Eddie Vedder as their vocalist.…

It’s not an overstatement that Jeff Buckley was one of the most singularly talented musicians of his generation; blessed with a beautiful and athletic voice, a more than adequate guitar technique and an ability to write songs that escaped from predictable…

Pavement’s debut album Slanted and Enchanted was recorded in 1991 and swansong Terror Twilight was released in 1999. Because their recording career so neatly covers the 1990s, Pavement are a very respectable choice for the best band of their decade. Their…

San Francisco’s Jellyfish were underappreciated during their existence in the early 1990s, but have since gained a devoted following. Their power-pop is fun and sometimes bombastic but is often sincere. They’re notable for their ornate arrangements, especially on 1993’s Spilt…

Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood met at Williams College in Massachusetts. They formed Fountains of Wayne, christening themselves after a garden furniture and statuary store in Wayne, New Jersey. Although the pair recorded their debut largely independently, they were joined…

Jeff Tweedy was always the junior partner in the pioneering alt-country band Uncle Tupelo. When the group split into two factions, all indications were that Jay Farrar’s Son Volt would be the more consequential band. But after 1995’s A.M., multi-instrumentalist…

Lauryn Hill was born and raised in New Jersey. She hit the big time, as a member of The Fugees and as a star of Sister Act 2, while still a teenager. Romantic tensions with Wyclef Jean caused the end…

1990s power-pop star Matthew Sweet was born in Nebraska – also the home of Josh Rouse, Conor Oberst, Randy Meisner, and JoJo Siwa. After finishing school he moved south to Athens, Georgia, to attend college and join the alt-rock scene.…

Not to be confused with the Sun Records boss of the same name, Sam Phillips started her career in 1980s Christian pop. She used her birth name, Leslie Phillips, in the 1980s and was marketed as the Christian Cyndi Lauper.…

Named after a Talking Heads song, Radiohead are the most critically acclaimed band to emerge in the 1990s. They convened informally in 1986 as teenagers while attending Abingdon School in Oxford, and were originally known as On A Friday. Front-man Thom…

It’s tempting to write Ween off as a novelty band – their biggest hit single, ‘Push th’ Little Daisies’, is gimmicky and stoned. But lurking beneath all the silliness is an ace duo who are students of popular music, with the…

Tired of making art by committee, Natalie Merchant left the 10,000 Maniacs in 1993. She wasn’t yet 30, but had served as lead singer for the alternative band for more than a decade. She immediately eclipsed her former band with…

Portishead formed in the city of Bristol, where a vibrant, multi-cultural music scene spawned trip-hop in the early 1990s. Trip-hop took the beats from hip-hop and slowed them down, adding textures and songs. Alongside Portishead, Massive Attack and Tricky also…

Americana artist Gillian Welch was born in New York and adopted by a pair of comedy music entertainers. Welch later learned that her mother may have grown up in the mountains of North Carolina, possibly an explanation for how her…