Well into the twenty-first century, the Pacific northwestern area still produces some of the best music in the country. The early alternative rock movement in the very early 1990s jammed the region's first stake into the soil, claiming the sister cities of Seattle and Portland as fertile grounds for new music. Stepping forward with a fresh foot... [+] Read More

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Following a well-publicized fall-out with frontman Guy Chadwick, guitarist Terry Bickers left the House of Love in 1990 to form Levitation with bassist Laurence O'Keefe, keyboardist Robert White, guitarist Christian Hayes and drummer Dave Francollini. A series of brilliant live gigs quickly cemented the fledgling group's status among the British... [+] Read More

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Not so much a band as a long, strange trip, the chaotic avant pop pranksters Mercury Rev formed in Buffalo, NY, in the late '80s. Originally comprised of vocalist David Baker, vocalist/silver pickup guitarist Jonathan Donahue, guitar shaper/single-exhaust clarinetist Grasshopper (born Sean Mackowiak), rooster-tail bass flutist Suzanne Thorpe,... [+] Read More

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Not so much underrated as unheard, Moose grew up in Britain's distortion-heavy shoegazing movement of the early '90s but soon shed the fuzzy wash of their compatriots to embrace a clean, acoustic-based style -- inspired by '60s icons Burt Bacharach and Tim Buckley as well as jangle merchants like the Byrds and R.E.M. -- that still relied on the... [+] Read More

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Radiohead was one of the few alternative bands of the early '90s to draw heavily from the grandiose arena rock that characterized U2's early albums. But the band internalized that epic sweep, turning it inside out to tell tortured, twisted tales of angst and alienation. Vocalist Thom Yorke's pained lyrics were brought to life by the group's... [+] Read More

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Revolver was a heavily melodic shoegaze band that released a trio of singles on Hut (Heaven Sent and Angel, Crimson, and Venice) a compilation of those singles, and one studio LP before calling it quits in the early '90s. Unlike a lot of their peers, Revolver focused on songs more than sounds, almost to an overambitious fault. Formed in London... [+] Read More

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Brian Aubert (guitar/vocals), Nikki Monninger (bass), Christopher Guanlao (drums), and Joe Lester (keyboards) comprise the swarthy indie rock stylings of Silversun Pickups. The quartet's textured melodies capture the hypnotic dream pop threads of My Bloody Valentine and pop bitter sweetness of Earlimart, and such a blend has wowed their native... [+] Read More

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Named after a word in one of Nick Chaplin's dreams -- not from a Siouxsie and the Banshees single -- Slowdive formed in Reading, England, in late 1989. The group orginally consisted of Neil Halstead (guitar/vocals), Rachel Goswell (guitar/vocals), Christian Savill (guitar), Adrian Sell (drums), and Chaplin (bass). Formed when they were mostly in... [+] Read More

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Formed from the ashes of the trance-rockers Spacemen 3, singer/guitarist Jason Pierce's group Spiritualized did not break away from his prior band's trademark hypnotic minimalism; instead, they perfected it. Drawing on the continued influence of the Velvet Underground, La Monte Young, and Steve Reich, Spiritualized staked out a common ground... [+] Read More

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After two solo albums, ex-Hüsker Dü guitarist/vocalist Bob Mould formed Sugar in 1992, with bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis; the band signed with Rykodisc in the U.S., Creation in the U.K.

Sugar's first album, Copper Blue, was released in the fall of 1992 to enthusiastic reviews and it became Mould's most successful... [+] Read More

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The band who brought the car song into the shoegaze era, Swervedriver was formed in Britain in 1990 by vocalists/guitarists Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge, bassist Adi Vines, and drummer Graham Bonner. Fusing the swirling textures of the shoegazer aesthetic with the more traditional boundaries of pop, the group debuted with a series of... [+] Read More

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Formed in Liverpool in 1988, the English guitar pop group the Boo Radleys developed a dedicated cult following in the early '90s before crossing over into the mainstream in the middle of the decade. Originally, the Radleys were one of the lesser lights of the loud, noisy My Bloody Valentine-inspired psychedelic trance pop bands labeled... [+] Read More

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