12 Greatest Hard Rock Riffs Of The 1990s

It's pretty much a no brainer that a grunge band would end up defining the sound of the '90s. However, when you're nailing down one of the most inventive decades in hard rock, how do you find a single piece of music that says it all for the decade? It's not really that easy, but Pearl Jam's "Alive" captures all of the glory of the age of flannel in just a handful of notes.

Written while Stone Gossard was still playing with Mother Love Bone, the riff would ultimately be recycled for Pearl Jam after frontman Andy Wood died of a drug overdose.

Looking to start a new band, Gossard sent a tape of demos around containing this riff, which was picked up by a wayward San Diego surfer named Eddie Vedder. Enthralled by what he heard, Vedder immediately wrote words to it, after which Pearl Jam was born once he moved up to Seattle.

The riff itself is already killer from start to finish, but it may be even more important for what he meant for the Seattle scene. More than just a few notes, this entire song was a sign that the grunge scene could persevere through anything, which they ended up doing once it blew up just a few months later. Pearl Jam may have just made a good riff, but it ultimately became a sound that would turn the entire hard rock zeitgeist on its head.