Dig Me Out: 90s & 00s Rock

Eclectic bands can be a tricky proposition. Too much genre-switching and musical diversity can strip a band of an identity, with the disparate parts not adding up too much. But done right, and finding a unified sound in the song-to-song evolution, can make for an exciting listen. Luckily, with Boston's Tribe and their 1991 album Abort, it's the latter. While chronologically they're at the start of...

Regionality isn't talked about much outside Seattle with regard to 90s rock, but just like how the Pacific Northwest was experimenting with punk and metal in unique ways, other parts of the United States had an impact on the bands from their locales. Like our recent Better Than Ezra episode, Cowboy Mouth is from Louisiana, a state which boasts a deep and rich musical history that can't help but im...

Lo-fi isn't unique to the 1990s, but it is the first decade that the recording technique (meaning literally "lo-fidelity") merged with indie rock and take on a genre identity. Artists like Pavement, Sebadoh, Guided By Voices, Liz Phair, and more found their bedroom and basement recordings appealing to more than just a tape-trading crowd with the advent of cheap CD reproduction and small labels wit...

After the early 90s explosions of Seattle grunge and alternative rock, labels swept up bands from across the country (and globe) that had any sonic resemblance to the chart toppers. By 1994, the signing frenzy was in full swing, and bands new and old found their way to major labels. Some were teenagers from Australia, while others might have veterans of midwestern hard rock and metal bands, as was...

Bands only get to make their debut album once, but for Jimmie's Chicken Shack , a few practice swings paid off. Taking tracks from several low-profile independent releases and combining them for the 1997 major label debut means the material on Pushing the Salmanilla Envelope sounds refined and well-thought-out without being stale and lifeless. Unlike some contemporaries who relied on thick, down-t...

We've listened to plenty of Australian 90s rock that made little to no impact in the United States many times but rarely has a band sounded so US-based in its influences as Hoss. On their third album Bring On The Juice, swinging punk rhythms recall Detroit's 70s action rock scene, while more dissonant moments sound like pre-90s grunge from the likes of Mudhoney or early Dinosaur Jr. Attitude, conf...

While 1996's Congratulations, I'm Sorry charted higher than 1992's New Miserable Experience for the Gin Blossoms, it failed to produce the same number of singles and managed only a quarter of the sales. The simplistic answer is to pin the decline on the loss of guitarist and songwriter Doug Hopkins, who penned their biggest and most enduring hit "Hey Jealousy." But as we have learned, the landscap...

By 1995, it was difficult for American "alternative" bands to make a dent in the US, let alone a rookie Australian band on a new label with just a handful of releases to crack MTV and radio. Ammonia did that with the quirky single "Drugs," which found singer/guitarist Dave Johnstone melding the quiet/loud bombast of Nirvana with a delivery more reminiscent of Wayne Coyne. But "Drugs" is the classi...

Of the all bands that scored alternative hits in the 90s rock, few managed to recapture that sales magic on ensuing albums. But that doesn't mean their follow-ups records were lesser, and in some cases they made superior albums that got overlooked by fickle record buyers. Case in point: Better Than Ezra . After having their 1993 self-released sophomore album Deluxe repackaged and reissued by Elekt...

The balance between the "pop" and the "punk" in "pop-punk" can be tricky, especially when a band comes from the latter scene. On the Shades Apart 1999 album Eyewitness, the punk of the 90s (i.e. Green Day, The Offspring, Blink-182, Rancid, etc.) is represented more in the songwriting than the speed, something a lot of those bands would incorporate as time wore one. But Eyewitness goes one step fur...

Count to four. Do it seventy-five times, only interrupted by blistering feedback, screaming, and manic drums. And do it in about thirty-one minutes. That is Tokyo An*l Dynamite by The Gerogerigegege . In the world of experimental and avante-garde, noise has been tackled by artists as big as Neil Young and Lou Reed. Sonic Youth made a career out of crafting feedback into a symphony of melody. But i...

Despite what the million-dollar deal with Virgin Records might have implied, Royal Trux we're never going to be hitmakers. The label bought their cool factor based largely on the 1993 album Cats and Dogs, their first to embrace the songwriting end of their lo-fi aesthetic that danced on the edges of 90s rock via critical praise and underground hype. Part droning Velvet Underground, part deconstruc...

Neil Young has always been one to buck convention and follow his own muse, but the 80s saw him fall out of favor with mainstream audiences as he explored rockabilly, synthesizers, hard rock, traditional country, etc. with half-baked results. By the end of the decade, he was back on solid footing with Freedom, setting up Young's renaissance in the 90s. 1990's Ragged Glory paired him again with Craz...

While stoner and desert rock has been associated primarily with California bands like Kyuss, Fu Manchu, and Sleep, in reality artists across the country were putting their own spin on Black Sabbath's tracks like "Sweet Leaf" for decades. Bands like Monster Magnet in New Jersey, Corrosion of Conformity in North Carolina, and Clutch in Maryland have each contributed to 90s rock and beyond. On Clutch...

With three decades of records to look back on, it's safe to say Polly Jean Harvey doesn't stand still for long. From the minimalist blues of To Bring You My Love to the eerie piano pieces of White Chalk, Harvey has become indie rock's David Bowie, evolving her style steadily and consistently, often at odds with expectations. On her second album as PJ Harvey, Rid Of Me stands the test of time thank...

While much is made of genres like punk breaking through and topping the mainstream of 90s rock, the late 80s success of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Living Colour and Faith No More just as successfully pushed underground/alternative funk metal onto MTV. In 1990, Primus unleashed their twist on the sound with the progressive rock-influenced debut Frizzle Fry. Within a few years, thanks to catchier an...

Is there a more crucial turning point for 1990s music and 90s rock than 1991? Artists released important albums weekly that would shape the decade (and even entire careers) such as Pearl Jam, U2, Soundgarden, Gun 'n Roses, Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primal Scream, Blur, Metallica, and more. Then there were the underground bands that lurked on college radio and outside the Bi...

Few bands can really be described as influential, most either affecting the latest pose or regurgitating a nostalgic vibe. On the other hand, some bands are so ahead of the curve, it can take time for the rest of the world to catch up. That's the case with Drive Like Jehu 's sophomore 1995 album Yank Crime, which in the worlds of 90s rock, sounded like a runaway train of mixed up genres - post-har...

Our look back at Season Ten of the podcast, during which we hit milestone episode five hundred, is a great recap to a not so great year. Our Patreon community continued to support us and lead way, picking interesting and unexpected albums to revisit via individual selections and our monthly polls. It allows us to check out noteworthy 90s bands we had previously missed like Mudhoney, that dog., Neu...

Mudhoney may have written some of the most recognized pre-Nirvana breakthrough tracks associated with the Seattle sound of the 80s like "Touch Me, I'm Sick," "Suck You Dry," and "In 'n Out Of Grace," but the band has had as much in common musically with the sound of Detroit punk and garage bands like MC5, Iggy & The Stooges, The Gories, Sonic's Rendezvous Band, etc. On their second full-length alb...

As we've discussed previously with episodes on Mötley Crüe and Skid Row, the 1990s were a weird evolutionary period for '80s hard rock and metal bands tagged with monikers "glam" or "hair" to describe their look even if it didn't describe their sound. So much so, there's always a caveat to their '90s releases as to whether the band tried to update their sound to fit in with the new alternative and...

While the calendar confirms that 2020 was a standard 365 days, March seemed to last seven months, and in total the year seemed like one endless anxiety attack. Luckily, music still provided a momentary reprise via albums in a variety of forms. Some were unexpected, like from Hum, Shiner, Sparta, and Criteria. Some were long in the making, like albums from Fiona Apple, Pearl Jam, Alanis Morissette,...

Fictional bands and artists have been a staple of movies and television shows for decades, from the heavy metal send-up of This Is Spinal Tap to Dan Akroyd and John Belushi getting the band back together in The Blues Brothers. The 1990s were no different, as movies and television were filled with bands we wished had put out full albums and toured, to some that were best left to thirty-seconds of s...

The third album by that dog. album didn't happen. 1997's Retreat From The Sun was intended to be lead singer Anna Waronker's debut solo album, but after pressure from her record label, it turned into a full-band effort. The result might be the highlight of the that dog. catalog, and one of the best guitar pop albums of the decade. Three minute mid and uptempo radio-friendly tunes with enough grit...

On this episode, we invited Drew Zakmin of the Songs Gone Wrong podcast on to discuss his pick of the 1998 Jerry Cantrell solo debut, Boggy Depot. While his guitar prowess and backing vocals in Alice Chains were well regarded in the 1990s, it wasn't clear what a large part Cantrell played in the overall sound of the band until this album, which features plenty of riffs and melodies on part with tr...