10 Most Underrated Bands Of The '90s
6. Pavement
If there was one thing that sold like crazy in the '90s, it was the idea of irony. No matter if you were jamming out to the sarcastic tone of grunge bands or trying to learn every lyric of the Alanis Morrissette song, people were never getting to the top without a taste for the ironic (don't you think). Though many acts made millions off of their disaffected attitudes, one of the first bands to make the practice popular never ended up rising to the top.
Ever since their formation, Pavement was a band that seemed to play to the outcasts. The band may not have had a solid following, but the real muscle was in their songs, which owed a little something to the golden age of rock and roll. For as slipshot as the delivery could be at times, each of the band's tunes on albums like Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain Crooked Rain had a great sense of melody that could never find its way onto stations.
In many ways, Pavement is like the '90s equivalent of a band like Big Star, an act that had all the potential of being amazing but could never quite capitalize on it. Seattle may have ended up on top in the end, but any of Pavement's first few releases is a good time capsule for what the sound of alternative was really like.