10 Most Important Hard Rock Bands Of The 90s

The start of the '90s was just the beginning of a lot of shakeups for rock and roll. Combined with the alternative wave coming into much sharper focus, there were many bands coming out of the hair metal and thrash movement who just couldn't compete with the changing times anymore. Rock and roll knows how to adapt though, and the world still had a fair bit of hard rock at their fingertips.

Across every single genre that came through in these 10 years, there were still some grizzly as hell bands willing to shake up the system, whether it was through the way they played their instruments or the different things that were on their mind when it came down to actually writing the lyrics. Along with the incoming slew of grunge bands, you had the pop punk explosion as well as the industrial and nu metal boom that was about to take over the world in the next few years.

That's not to say that everything had to be brand new either, with bands from the old guard coming to the forefront and reminding us that they could still kick ass across two different decades. The '80s really had worn out its welcome at this point, and it was time for the new regime of rock and roll to take charge again.

At the very beginning, grunge was what really started the moodier side of rock and roll going. Though the likes of Soundgarden might have had a little bit more bite from the usual hair metal scene, you could still see the rootsy band at the heart of it all. It would take a few more years for the angst to set in, and Korn made their presence known from the minute they hit the scene.

In 1994, there was no real way to describe what these guys were even doing, playing guitars that were detuned to an absurd level and Jonathan Davis going on long rambling tangents that made him sound somewhere between a metal singer and someone who's just escaped from a mental institution and decided to front a band. As much as the lyrics themselves may have been really disturbing, we were on the cusp of something a lot more aggro than what had come before.

While there had been rap rock before, you can really credit Korn with pioneering the nu metal aesthetic. Sure, they may not have had the clear hip hop chops of someone like Linkin Park from a few years later, but the entire vibe of a tortured kid looking to lash out about all the pain in his life is practically the blueprint for what every heavy band tried to do later on. There was a lot of ugliness on display with those first records, but that's a darkness that touches a lot more hearts than people realize.