10 '90s Bands Everyone Forgets About
6. Failure
If there was any subgenre of rock that shouldn't have worked in the era of flannel, it should have been space rock. Given how many bands were turning up their fuzz boxes and complaining about their internal struggles, the idea of the return to the atmospheric instruments and ambitious song lengths didn't feel like it held as much water anymore. A funny thing happened towards the end of the decade though.
Adopting a straightforward approach to songwriting, Failure's rise to prominence with albums like Fantastic Planet brought a new sound to the rock charts that no one had heard in a while. Off the strength of songs like Stuck On You, Ken Andrews hit upon a formula that was able to stretch the boundaries of alternative rock beyond just the fuzz boxes. While the backing tracks may have been a bit unusual, the sound of Andrews' voice hit on a comfortable middle ground for rock fans, fitting somewhere between Kurt Cobain's growl and Thom Yorke's higher register.
Even after calling it quits after Fantastic Planet, some of the heavyhitters of rock were still listening, with A Perfect Circle co-opting their song The Nurse Who Loved Me for their album Thirteenth Step. For as much as alternative rock may have been called the future of modern rock, Failure was probably the most forward looking of them all.