10 Most IMPORTANT Rock Musicians Of The 90s

10. Billie Joe Armstrong

For any self-respecting rock fan, 1994 was not really the best of times for the genre as a whole. After Kurt Cobain's tragic death by his own hand left the grunge scene all but dead, there was a hole in the rock world that wasn't going to be filled any time soon. The world desperately needed a pick me up, and Billie Joe Armstrong was just the guy to do it.

Compared to the sad sounds of grunge, Armstrong's emergence on the scene with Green Day was something entirely new for its time. Though the songs themselves had the punk attitude down to a science, the melodies laced throughout every single track was just poppy enough to sing along to every time it came on the radio. That's before you even got into the crux of what Billie was actually singing about, which often dealt with jaded love songs, the sounds of boredom, and occasionally giving yourself the creeps because of your own sorry state of mind.

As crazy as it sounds, this was just the thing that many rock fans needed to hear at the time after dealing with a colossal blow just a few months earlier. That kind of attitude only boosted once we hit the '00s, with Green Day becoming one of the biggest bands on the planet for a second time off the strength of American Idiot. Even though he may have looked like some random stoned out teenager, there was a lot more musical strength at work behind the safetypins and dyed hair.