10 Underrated Hard Rock Albums Of The '90s

Hard rock had a few different faces once it reached the end of the century. After coming to fruition in the late '60s as an offshoot of the blues, everything that constituted hard rock was thrown for a loop in the wake of the alternative explosion. Rock suddenly had a few faces, but you could still find a few hard rock gems just underneath the surface.

It's not like the genre was suffering either, with acts filtering the hard rock tag through everything from grunge to metal to industrial and everything else in between. While the '90s were the decade where the wild experimentation was rewarded, these are the weird albums that never really got their just due. Whether it was in the wrong place at the wrong time or caught between two classics, these records have little flickers of greatness hiding just beneath the surface. Even though some of the songs themselves might not be underrated, these entire projects tend to get either overshadowed by one great song or ignored entirely just because they were too weird.

While these acts have certainly made some waves on the scene, these are the ones that were supposed to be great but fell short anyways. So next time you're itching for something from the era of irony, try these on for size and see what you've been missing.

There's a good chance that the name Third Eye Blind gets more than a few eyerolls these days. As opposed to the more celebrated acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam from this era, these alternative bros from California don't really get mentioned outside of the poppy Semi-Charmed Life all that often. On the other hand, that's no reason to ignore the phenomenal amount of kickass across the rest of their debut.

From front to back, this record is a perfect blend of pop smarts and creative melodies, all of which seem to fit nicely in between the sounds of Soundgarden and the Offspring. Instead of completely gelling though, these guys were on a bit of a different trip than their contemporaries. While most of the album is nothing but rock bangers throughout, these songs actually have a lot more to say than just good times, from the internal loneliness of How's It Going to Be to the near-suicide story that happens in Jumper.

Even if the poppier fare isn't really your thing, tracks like Graduate and Losing a Whole Year are still more than worth any hard rocker's time. Despite being one of the best first impressions you could possibly make, Third Eye Blind quickly fell out of favor with the public shortly afterward, never being able to reach their first heights. As it stands though, this first outing is one of those gems that deserves to be remembered for more than just a nostalgia trip.