10 Neglected Songs from the Forgotten 90s
--Compiled by Tzarathustra--
As a connoisseur of 90's alternative music, I'm always coming across lists with titles like "12 Forgotten 90s Bands" or the like featuring extremely well-known bands like Collective Soul and the Gin Blossoms. Bands you may not have thought of in a while, but you still hear their music on in-store radio and nostalgia blocks on modern rock stations.
Well here's a good ten song playlist of 90s bands that were neglected in their day and are barely even rumors now. These are the no-hit wonders, the opening acts and local scene stars. They're forgotten heroes of 90s alternative rock.
--all titles link to tracks--
Formed in 1994, Frogpond released their first album in 1996 on Sony. Which tells you something about the rate at which guitar bands were being snapped up. This largely female outfit went from the Missouri boonies to touring behind their own album with Everclear in two years. And if you'll recal, in 1996, touring with Everclear was a pretty big deal.
From the same Tempe, AZ breeding ground that spawned Gin Blossoms and The Refreshments, this crop of dead-ender guitar rockers helped put the lie to "Alternative" as a thoroughly northwestern and depressive phenomenon. Sometimes it was just open chords and open roads on endless summer nights.
The Fall Outs were A part-time concern of a handful of Seattle locals in the early 90s. They were the kind of band that results from compulsively creative people being in the same place for a long time and occasionally needing to have fun and make music. The title track off of their 1995 sophomore album is a spiky and ragged punk work out that in subject matter mirrors what was being expressed by Greenday, but retaining everybit of harried and authentic credibility Greenday never really even pretended to have. Credibility is depressing. Credibility gets forgotten. But the good news is it still sounds awesome!
Beneficiaries of the turbulent climate surrounding the Chicago music scene in the early nineties rush to find the "next Seattle," Fig Dish wer swept up in the same signing binge that brought us Smashing Pumpkins and Liz Phair. Later they were victims of a more litteral type of climate turbulence when a blizzard in Nebraska wrecked their van and equipment while on tour. Their sound lights the 90s synapse in anyone who formed that circuitry in record stores that smelled like incense, and on nights cruising that smelled like your friends' second hand smoke and fields of ripe corn.
An infamous "What if" of 90s Alt Rock, For Squirrels were on the verge of releasing their first album, but on the road back from a successful gig at the iconic CBGB's in Manhattan their van blew a tire and overturned. Their vocalist, bassist, and manager all died in the crash. About a month later their first album Example was released and got a surprising degree of positive notice thanks to its debt to early REM, cracking the Billboard top 200.
A band that had the backing of the critics and their peers and which still recieves positive rememberance among discerning list makers; Stockton, California's Grant Lee Buffalo never quite hit the commercial heights they were likely hoping for. They never had that one song that would have gotten them heavy traction on the nostalgia circuit twenty years later. But their rich textures blending earthy and ethereal are still something grand to discover and behold.
Perhaps best remembered for his appearance in the 90s nostalgia-mainline film Empire Records (Watching it now is like shooting a cocktail of Clinton era ennui, Crystal Pepsi, and Friends reruns right into your eyeball), eccentric rock journeyman Coyote Shivers also provided the capstone song for that film as sung by Renee Zellwegger (Sugar High). Leather Jacket Weather displays a ragged bounce and humor that recalls Stiff Records product of the late 70's but with big KISS-inspired guitars.
If you have an empty spot in your playlist right between Smashing Pumkins, HUM, and Our Lady Peace, might I recommend I Mother Earth. Formed in the same Toronto, Canada as gave us Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth was Perhaps lost in the buzz surrounding the hit machine release that was Our Lady Peace's Clumsy for the length and breadth of 1997/98. But there is no denying their ambition, and the time to circle back and pick them out, if you haven't already, is now.
Another example of how the nineties brought roots textures back into rock and roll mainstream. Even though Junkhouse never made it terribly big they were on a major label. And at the same time bands like Counting Crows were proving that the public were hungry for these sort of rustier home brewed sounds. Out of My Head has a straining urgency and a sense of building sonic excess that climbs from pensive to purgative.
Perhaps more easily recalled by 90s kids north of the U.S. Canadian border. For residents south of that line Salmonblaster are a fun late stage discovery. Especially if you're looking for that jolt of attitude and energy that always seemed to just barely peek through on 90s alt rock radio between Stone Temple Pilots singles. You know the kind of, "What the F#*K was that?" moment where you hear a song and get as close to the radio as you can to see if maybe they'll I.D. the band because you know they'll never play it again. Because that's just not how radio works.
But hey, "...there's this new band we think you'll enjoy. So strap in everyone for the first single off their debut album My Own Prison, it's Creed!"
And lo, dark days were upon us all.
