10 Most Iconic Alternative Rock Albums

A lot of the greatest alternative rock ended up coming in off the coattails of the punk revolution. Although the nihilistic edge of bands like the Clash and the Ramones ended with a bit of a whimper, there were legions of kids more than willing to pick up the mantle and make some music of their own. And when you're in the thick of the New York punk scene to begin with, you sometimes manage to capture everything great in one go.

Absorbing everything they could from the post punk around them, Sonic Youth brought us a masterclass of art rock with Daydream Nation, capturing the atmosphere of the more gothic side of the spectrum and injecting even more chaos into the mix. Though you can definitely call the guitar work of Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo "experimental," it's almost as if you're hearing two wild guitars wrestling with each other from song to song.

That doesn't mean that the tracks begin and end at the chaos, with Teen Age Riot still holding up as one of the greatest songs about adolescent angst that ever came out of the '80s. Seeing how they ended up launching the careers of acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam in the coming decades, Sonic Youth were light years ahead of their time with this album alone.