10 Perfect Post Grunge Albums In Rock Music History

10. Leave a Whisper - Shinedown

As grunge fumbled its way into the next decade, the entire scene started to look a whole lot different. Along with the many different derivative bands trying to sound like a second rate Soundgarden, there was also the incoming realm of butt rock, having been started by the likes of Creed and rising to prominence with Puddle of Mudd. Right before things got too hectic though, Shinedown's first record felt like grunge built for the arena.

Being a much more rootsy band than the original grunge acts at the time, Brent Smith had a lot more gusto behind his delivery. Whereas people like Kurt Cobain were just pushing the most out of their voice every night, you could tell that this was a guy trained to belt to the rafters, especially when going for the long sustained notes on songs like 45.

Before you even get to the disaffected lyrics on here, the music is also a bit of a left turn than what we were used to at the time, like the ethereal melodies that come up on something like Lost in the Crowd and the hints of what was to come with their cover of Simple Man that appeared as part of the bonus tracks. We were definitely a long way away from the Sound of Madness, but this is a nice glimpse of what would happen if grunge music was given that kind of old school rock and roll swagger.