10 Rock Albums That Were Ahead Of Their Time
Nirvana really were trend-setters...
It's insanely difficult for any artist to capture the mass public. Not only do you have to have good songwriting skills, but also be able to hit on a topic that defines what your generation stands for. These records may not have exactly captured the mainstream at the time, but these records hold up surprisingly well after their day in the sun.
Whether it be through new techniques in sound creation or the beginnings of a new genre, these albums have helped shape the future of rock regardless of their popularity at the time. Given the mass innovations, some of these albums were treated with either confusion or outright disdain by the public at large. However, playing these tracks again and again have led many people to take a second glance at just what they were listening to.
Many of these albums were misunderstood at the time, but generation upon generation have returned to them as the foundation of their sound. Here is just a small sampling of the works of genius that we all got after the fact. Their popularity may vary across generations, but each of these records deserve to be celebrated for how much ground they covered at the time.
10. Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
The 80's will forever be remembered as a glorious neon-colored age for music. No matter what genre you were into, everything in this decade sounded absolutely massive from the drum sounds to the glittering keyboards underneath every other instrument. The scene was so concerned with their grand soundscapes that many seem to sidestep Violent Femmes' indie debut.
The Femmes are certainly not unknowns by any stretch, with songs like "Gone Daddy Gone" and "Blister In the Sun" becoming fixtures of the alternative rock scene. However, the band doesn't seem to get enough credit for launching the indie rock boom long before people were ready for it. Even though bands like the Pixies and R.E.M. were already paving the way for the alternative scene, those acts still felt like products of the 80's first and foremost.
With its ramshackle performances and blemished production, this is an 80's album whose heart belongs in the 90's. Ironically, the rest of the world seemed to think that too, with much of the band's famous songs gaining traction during the alternative explosion years after they had been released. Violent Femmes were not the first alternative band out there, but in terms of the typical alternative sound, they are the true antecedents for the 90's scene.