10 Hard Rock Albums Everyone Takes For Granted
9. Fantastic Planet - Failure
After the grunge revolution rose and fell at the start of the '90s, the alternative spectrum wasn't all that sure where to go from there. Even though some tried to find a way back to normalcy by cribbing from the playbooks of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, the Britpop revivals happening overseas were also trying their hand at reaching for the rock throne. Though Failure was never in the running for the greatest of all time, Fantastic Planet at least showed us an outline of the way forward.
Compared to the other albums coming out around this time, there was an almost futuristic tone to each song on here, almost like these guys were taking the angst of someone like Nirvana and combining it with the dystopian visions of OK Computer era Radiohead. Along with a trademark grungey vocal delivery, songs like Stuck On You also paved the way for a new subgenre looming on the horizon: space rock.
Given the ethereal tones present on some of these songs as well as the off the wall melodic directions, Fantastic Planet feels like the missing link between the sci fi rock of the '70s and the modern takes on the space themes we find today with artists like Angels and Airwaves and 30 Seconds to Mars. While those subsequent acts do have their issues between them, Fantastic Planet is the greatest case of how to do atmospheric right.