10 Most Important Hard Rock Bands Of The 90s

So...it probably seems a little cheap to put a band like Nirvana on the top of a list like this. From the thousands of documentaries to the media coverage that came out when they first broke onto the scene, Kurt Cobain's little band has been dissected far too many times to even keep count anymore. But do you call them a rock band, a pop band, or a metal band? Answer: all of the above.

Throughout their career, Kurt Cobain was a lot more experimental than just songs like In Bloom. Across their first album Bleach, you can clearly hear the band's fixation with thrash metal coming from songs like Mr. Moustache and Paper Cuts, only for the doors to be blown off the hinges with Nevermind, complete with a punkish energy for the masses. By the time that the band reached the top though, even In Utero had some off the wall moments of craziness, like going on weird art rock tangents and Dave Grohl's drums sounding pulverizing thanks to Steve Albini's production.

And for as much as the song has been played into the ground, Smells Like Teen Spirit is still one of the greatest hard rock songs to have come out at the time, taking an unstoppable pop melody and injecting it with fuzz, punch, and a whole lot of slacker attitude. Whereas Nirvana may have been called the Voice of Grunge back in the day, there was a lot more going on than just alternative music. This was music for the outsiders, and that usually comes with some heavy riffs to boot.