10 Most Underrated Rock Songs Of The 90s

In the coming decades, the '90s should be known as the decade where rock turned over a new leaf. As far as the '80s went, you could tell that the early reckless abandon of rock and roll was in dire need of an upgrade, which was kicked into high gear once the alternative movement reared its head. Hell, some of it worked so well that even some truly great songs ended up being relegated to also-rans.

In any other era, these kinds of tracks would have been the classics of their generation, if not absolute game changers in their respective fields. When you're overstuffed with classic material though, these managed to just get lost in the shuffle, only showing up on '90s retrospective nights and even the odd compilation album if they're lucky. It's a shame too considering some of the awesome cuts we were missing.

Aside from just being fine-written tunes, a lot of these marked a change of the guard for rock, either opening things up to a new genre or shifting the focus of rock altogether. At the end of the day though, some of these are just great songs that only saw the light of day for a little bit. You might remember the band, you might even remember the decade...but it's time to actually give these a second listen.

Most classic rock stalwarts would have killed to have had the career that Tom Petty had in the '90s. Not many other acts can claim to have been stars in the '70s and continued to ride the tide and have hits two decades later. While Wildflowers is seen as a career highlight for most Petty fans, the deep cut Honey Bee brings it back to much more gritty territory.

Compared to the usual acoustic sounds throughout this solo record, this is the kind of down and dirty blues track that is made for the garage rock circuit. Starting off with a fireball of a guitar lick, Petty is on full rock star mode for this one, as he approaches the metaphor of a honey bee with a kind of swagger that you would normally see from someone like Mick Jagger in his prime.

Aside from a few TV appearances though, this track was largely ignored by the public, wanting to hear something more like You Wreck Me. Although playing it on Saturday Night Live with future Foo Fighter Dave Grohl certainly didn't hurt its chances of being remembered. Out of all the classic rock schlock that was happening around the same time, this is the kind of gritty rock and roll that the Stones wish they could have been making at this stage of their evolution.