# Favourite 90's bands



## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I can and have been negative about 80's bands. So what about the 90's. I haven't been negative about that decades bands. Maybe because I really can not think of any 90's band right now that made an impression on me? (Except for Nick Cave but he's not just 90's).

How about you?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I quite like Belle and Sebastian. Ween is ok to me.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Forgot, I'm a huge fan of the Mekons. They had great albums in the 80's, 90's , and 00's.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Here I am with another shameful confession - I was a fan of Green Day back in the 90s!


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Bettina said:


> Here I am with another shameful confession - I was a fan of Green Day back in the 90s!


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I dunno, they were also hot with the critics, and Dookie kind of attained classic album status I believe. I just hated the singer's on-stage demeanor, a Johnny Rotten wannabe.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> Forgot, I'm a huge fan of the Mekons. They had great albums in the 80's, 90's , and 00's.


Never heard of them before.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Bettina said:


> Here I am with another shameful confession - I was a fan of Green Day back in the 90s!


That's quite allright . Never heard of them before either!


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## CDs (May 2, 2016)

Dave Matthews Band, Matchbox 20, Common Children. Probably many more buts that the three what were on the top of my head.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Blur (Modern Life Is Rubbish only), Ned's Atomic Dustbin (Are You Normal? only), Lush (some songs only like Deluxe, Breeze, Thoughtforms), Belle and Sebastian, and Stereolab. Echo and the Bunnymen and Ian Mcculloch doing good work those years.





Blur - Modern Life Is Rubbish (Full Album)





Lush - Breeze


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Casebearer said:


> I can and have been negative about 80's bands. So what about the 90's. I haven't been negative about that decades bands. Maybe because I really can not think of any 90's band right now that made an impression on me? (Except for Nick Cave but he's not just 90's).
> 
> How about you?


Nick Cave counts as a band (with the bad seeds)?
Because talking just of bands is very limited, a lot of the best stuff is done by artists doing their own projects (sometimes using a band like Cave).

Anyway talking just of bands some of my favorites are

Morphine





Dadamah





Monoshock





Mercury Rev





Black heart procession





Dazzling Killmen





Dirty Three





Labradford





And many others, Autechre, Codeine, Red house painters, Slint, Bark Psychosis, Eels, Jesus Lizard, Magnetic fields, Stereolab...


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

The 1990s gave us an unprecedented explosion of women in rock and pop that had begun as a trickle in the 1980s. Among the female artists of the 90s of whom I am particularly fond are: PJ Harvey, Maria McKee, Neneh Cherry, Björk, Ani DiFranco, Sarah McLachlan, L7, Joan Osborne, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, Mariah Carey. We also had Grunge favorites Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Alice in Chains. A few other groups: Smashing Pumpkins, Grant Lee Buffalo, No Doubt, Jeff Buckley...... I've posted Strange Magic clips of most of these.

A rich decade


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Wasn't that the time with all those fabricated boy / girl bands.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Porcupine Tree and Cranberries.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Either/Orchestra
Mike Keneally & Beer For Dolphins
John McLaughlin Trio w/ Trilok Gurtu
John Scofield Band w/ Joe Lovano
Ensemble Modern


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## Ekim the Insubordinate (May 24, 2015)

This is tricky - I liked several bands in the 90s that had actually started in the 80s, or earlier. But this was primarily my punk phase. I liked Bad Religion, Rancid, Social Distortion, Fugazi, Pennywise, NOFX (actually, quite a few bands on the Epitaph and Fat Wreck Chords labels). I liked some more regional bands from California on smaller labels, like the Mr. T Experience (which was on the Bay Area Lookout Records label, which is also where Green Day got its start). I never much cared for the punk bands that found more widespread popularity, like Green Day and Blink 182.

I still liked New Order, although its output slowed down, and Depeche Mode. While I had liked the Smiths, I never could get into Morrissey's solo career.

Finally, I really grew to enjoy the German rock/punk band die Ärzte - still do. Unfortunately, it is not as easy to get their stuff here in the U.S. iTunes only carrier their newer stuff - a shame, because their earlier stuff, with less distortion, was really good as well.


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

Bettina said:


> Here I am with another shameful confession - I was a fan of Green Day back in the 90s!


If it makes you feel better, I used to like 90's "happy hardcore".

Huh. There it was. No I can rest.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

That first track on the Blur album is a little misleading. The song Oily Water and others are innovative. I think they're a band at least on this album that at first can sound cliche but their finesse is amazing. You just have to keep listening for the bridges and such.





Blur - Oily Water - Modern Life is Rubbish


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Now I've got a confession to make. Of all the band names that have passed by so far I know maybe 5% by name and of even less of them I could name a song or recognize a song when it's played. Am I the only one or could we say the majority of these band names don't ring many bells with most of you (so everybody has his/her own small set of favorites from that period). 

When I guess right on this it means that by the nineties 'good bands' had already become a minority thing. Even their names never reached the masses that listen to popular music (except for people like Mariah Carey and Björk I've even heard of). 

And is this a good thing (for instance because popular music diversified in many directions and the supply grew enormously) or a bad thing (for instance because mass media stopped playing good music)?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Casebearer said:


> Now I've got a confession to make. Of all the band names that have passed by so far I know maybe 5% by name and of even less of them I could name a song or recognize a song when it's played. Am I the only one or could we say the majority of these band names don't ring many bells with most of you (so everybody has his/her own small set of favorites from that period).


That can't be the case with the names I listed. I'm a middle-of-the-bell-curve rock and pop fan, and I think all those I listed are/were widely known. Feel free to check out the Strange Magics on many of them.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Casebearer said:


> And is this a good thing (for instance because popular music diversified in many directions and the supply grew enormously) or a bad thing (for instance because mass media stopped playing good music)?


basically, in the history of popular music there's been a constant increase of number of bands and subgenres, and at the same time the quality of mainstream pop sunk. So while in the sixties and in the seventies many famous bands were also good or great (a great musician like Stevie Wonder was incredibly famous and he deserved to be famous), in later decades a lot of famous stuff has been crap, while to find the good stuff one has to dig a lot more (even simply because there a lot more music). 
For instance, if I have to say my single favorite album of the eighties, it would be Plux Quba of Nuno Canavarro, an incredible gem of electronic music twenty years ahead of its time that could have been recorded today. It was rediscovered only ten years becoming quite influential on glitch and electronic music, but in the mainstream is still basically unknown. The truth is, much of the best music is more and more hidden.
Quality is there, but it does not get the recognition it deserves because it has few listeners, and a lot of mainstream is not about quality at all (that's why a lot of people think that popular music is simply crap).
And today this situation is worse than ever. Even the critics are well aware that they can listen just a incredibly small fraction of what it's recorded. Maybe in twenty years will start to discover a lot of great music recorded now.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

@norman bates: your analysis is quite correct in my view, and the situation in rock and pop exactly parallels that in classical music; the only difference is that the dizzying expansion and diversification of rock and pop has been compressed into a much shorter timeframe. The multiplication of genres, groups, individual artists show the New Stasis at work here, just as it is at work throughout the arts. One must carefully sift through, pick and choose. The analogy of attempting to drink from a fire hose was never more apt than it is today.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Portishead.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate (May 24, 2015)

"The bands are good 'til they make enough cash to eat food and get a pad. Then they're sold out and their music's cliche. 'Cause talent's exclusive to bands without pay." Knowitall by Lagwagon

I cannot abide the "all the great music is behind us" and "the only great bands are the truly obscure ones that only I and some guy living in Iceland even know exists" arguments. It is a certain conceit that people develop to convince themselves of their own sophistication. If it is harder to identify really good bands now, it is probably because music has been democratized, and there is so much more out there to wade through, not because there are fewer great bands.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> "The bands are good 'til they make enough cash to eat food and get a pad. Then they're sold out and their music's cliche. 'Cause talent's exclusive to bands without pay." Knowitall by Lagwagon
> 
> I cannot abide the "all the great music is behind us" and "the only great bands are the truly obscure ones that only I and some guy living in Iceland even know exists" arguments. It is a certain conceit that people develop to convince themselves of their own sophistication.


Maybe you're right and I want to convince myself of my own sophistication (even if I prefer to see myself acquiring my own sophistication and discovering my own tastes), but I love Stevie Wonder, and the Beach Boys, and Bob Dylan, Prince, Aretha Franklin, Neil Young, Miles Davis, Jobim, Duke Ellington, Rem, Metallica, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and other very famous bands . If I like something I like it, I don't care if it's extremely mainstream or super obscure. 
But I can't say the same for a lot of mainstream artists in more recent times.
Anyway I haven't said that " "the only great bands are the truly obscure ones", and certainly I haven't even thought that "there are fewer great bands" (I don't know where did you read that) but that it happens A LOT MORE that the great bands are obscure, that is different. If this disturbs you, sorry.


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## maestro267 (Jul 25, 2009)

Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, Spock's Beard, Arena, Pendragon, Marillion*.

*I like their 80s, 00s, and 10s output too.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Black Crowes - unashamedly retro a lot of the time (especially the first two albums) but they were the kind of top-notch kick-*** rock band I was long waiting for after sitting out all that horrendous _widdly-widdly-spreeeeuuuunnnggg_ Hair Metal gash from the 80s.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Carryovers--Stones, Sting, Bowie, U2.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Pugg said:


> Wasn't that the time with all those fabricated boy / girl bands.


*"Some confused me."

*


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## Ekim the Insubordinate (May 24, 2015)

norman bates said:


> Maybe you're right and I want to convince myself of my own sophistication (even if I prefer to see myself acquiring my own sophistication and discovering my own tastes), but I love Stevie Wonder, and the Beach Boys, and Bob Dylan, Prince, Aretha Franklin, Neil Young, Miles Davis, Jobim, Duke Ellington, Rem, Metallica, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and other very famous bands . If I like something I like it, I don't care if it's extremely mainstream or super obscure.
> But I can't say the same for a lot of mainstream artists in more recent times.
> Anyway I haven't said that " "the only great bands are the truly obscure ones", and certainly I haven't even thought that "there are fewer great bands" (I don't know where did you read that) but that it happens A LOT MORE that the great bands are obscure, that is different. If this disturbs you, sorry.


Given that my post neither immediately followed yours, nor quoted yours, I'm not sure why you determined I was speaking to you. I was speaking to those who think in that way - if that doesn't include you, then it wasn't directed to you.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate (May 24, 2015)

Vaneyes said:


> *"Some confused me."
> 
> *


Surely you could have thrown in the New York Dolls, as well!


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> Given that my post neither immediately followed yours, nor quoted yours, I'm not sure why you determined I was speaking to you. I was speaking to those who think in that way - if that doesn't include you, then it wasn't directed to you.


because few posts before I said this



> basically, in the history of popular music there's been a constant increase of number of bands and subgenres, and at the same time the quality of mainstream pop sunk. So while in the sixties and in the seventies many famous bands were also good or great (a great musician like Stevie Wonder was incredibly famous and he deserved to be famous), in later decades a lot of famous stuff has been crap, while to find the good stuff one has to dig a lot more (even simply because there a lot more music).
> For instance, if I have to say my single favorite album of the eighties, it would be Plux Quba of Nuno Canavarro, an incredible gem of electronic music twenty years ahead of its time that could have been recorded today. It was rediscovered only ten years becoming quite influential on glitch and electronic music, but in the mainstream is still basically unknown. The truth is, much of the best music is more and more hidden.
> Quality is there, but it does not get the recognition it deserves because it has few listeners, and a lot of mainstream is not about quality at all (that's why a lot of people think that popular music is simply crap).
> And today this situation is worse than ever. Even the critics are well aware that they can listen just a incredibly small fraction of what it's recorded. Maybe in twenty years will start to discover a lot of great music recorded now.


And I think I'm the only one who has said something like that in the topic.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I'll assume that the OP means bands that started in the 90's, as opposed to bands that had a large output in the 90's.


Anglagard - Swedish band. Pretty much singlehandedly started the prog revival of the 90's. Somehow they take much of the classic period of prog and make it sound fresh. 


Anekdoten - Another Swedish band. Crimson inspired early, became more ambient later.

Mike Keneally and Beer for Dolphins

Deus Ex Machina - Italian band. One of the best modern prog bands. Influenced a bit by 70's greats, Area. Fusion, prog and a bit of avant garde.

Höyry-Kone - Extremely talented Finish band. A bit avant garde. Even some Klezmer influences. Very hard to describe.

Forgas Band Phenomena - French prog/fusion band. A bit of a Canterbury influence.

There are many more I could list.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Therapy? Troublegum is one of my desert island rock discs.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

norman bates said:


> basically, in the history of popular music there's been a constant increase of number of bands and subgenres, and at the same time the quality of mainstream pop sunk. So while in the sixties and in the seventies many famous bands were also good or great (a great musician like Stevie Wonder was incredibly famous and he deserved to be famous), in later decades a lot of famous stuff has been crap, while to find the good stuff one has to dig a lot more (even simply because there a lot more music).
> For instance, if I have to say my single favorite album of the eighties, it would be Plux Quba of Nuno Canavarro, an incredible gem of electronic music twenty years ahead of its time that could have been recorded today. It was rediscovered only ten years becoming quite influential on glitch and electronic music, but in the mainstream is still basically unknown. The truth is, much of the best music is more and more hidden.
> Quality is there, but it does not get the recognition it deserves because it has few listeners, and a lot of mainstream is not about quality at all (that's why a lot of people think that popular music is simply crap).
> And today this situation is worse than ever. Even the critics are well aware that they can listen just a incredibly small fraction of what it's recorded. Maybe in twenty years will start to discover a lot of great music recorded now.


I share your analysis as Strange Magic does. It's probably the same mechanism as we've had with television. In my youth there were 2 Dutch channels we could watch (and, living by the border, also 3 German, which was a luxury most Dutch people didn't have). Now I can watch over a 100 television channels (most of it complete rubbish) and it would take me a daytime to find out where the good things are.


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