That Good 90s
Description
Quickstats
Playlist Length
0 days, 10 hours, 32 minutes
Playlist Followers
15
Source
Playlist Last Updated
August 25, 2023
Mood
Amped
Track Popularity Rating
Deep
Style
Varied
Average Release Decade
1990s
Main Genre:
Punk
Reddit Info
Reddit Post
There's lots of post hardcore/emo bands that cross into the world of grunge sounds. Helmet is probably one of the biggest, alongside other NY bands like Quicksand, Orange 9mm, Handsome, Shift, and Rival Schools. On the west coast there was lots of crossover. Nirvana came from and was influenced by the same hardcore scene that spawned emo, as were a lot of underground grunge artists. Jawbox and Jawbreaker both toured with Nirvana and those two bands together more or less shaped the whole 90s emo rock sound, so I'd definitely check them out. Boilermaker is a California emo band that mixed Seattle grunge and indie with San Diego post hardcore, and had some really catchy slow rock songs. Samiam came up close to Jawbreaker in their early punk days and became more and more rocky as time went on. Farside is a similar band. Seaweed from Tacoma are definitely a band to check out if you like the softer side of grunge, and also from Washington are a handful of great classic emo/indie/post hardcore bands who I think everyone should know: Lync, 764-Hero, Hush Harbor, Strictly Ballroom, and the legendary Unwound. Back to Cali, Calm and Pot Valiant are cool rock projects of former emocore band members (Mohinder and Vagrants) which still retain the emotional edge, and Calm is the band that morphed into the critical darling Duster I'm sure people have already mentioned Sunny Day Real Estate, the Seattle rock band that was the other half of Foo Fighters alongside Nirvana members (Nate Mendel is still in the band, and he was formerly in hardcore bands like Christ on A Crutch and OGmo Galleons Lap). If you haven't heard the band Hum, you've been doing yourself a huge disservice, as they are some of the best rock music out there period. Their influence on the underground music world can not be overstated. Also from their suburban Chicago college town area of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois were Centaur (feat. members of Hum) and Castor, who have a similar space rock sound, though Castor lean into more of what the rest of the indie scene there is like - upbeat math punk. Braid, Cap'n Jazz, Sidekick Kato, Gauge, Traluma, The Sky Corvair, Orwell, Days In December, Sweater Weather, Radio Flyer -- all these incestuous bands, this is the (in)famous "twinkly Midwest emo" you've (maybe, maybe not) heard so much about. Or at least, the one flavor of it that got *extremely* popular with the younger generation of emo fans. For other flavors, look no further than states like Kansas, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Missouri. There were lots of emo rock bands doing cool things with sparse textures and catchy rock music. The Casket Lottery, Vitreous Humor, The Promise Ring, Rainer Maria, The Appleseed Cast, Broken Hearts are Blue, The Anniversary, and The Get Up Kids are all musts for fans of catchy emo rock. Sideshow from Kansas were one of the founders of the straightforward alternative rock Midwest emo style, but they get hardly any love these days - even less for labelmates Mercy Rule. Boys Life and Giants Chair from Kansas City built around more experimental song structures, influenced in equal measure by emo bands like Hoover or Native Nod, as well as Louisville post rock like Slint, Rodan, Crain, and The Telephone Man, and Chapel Hill indie rock like Polvo and Seam. Christie Front Drive, a band from Colorado, are usually mentioned alongside Boys Life as they had an excellent split 10" record towards the end of both bands' careers. CFD are an amazingly catchy and emotional rock band who manage to capture a very specific feeling of nostalgia, and were a big influence on the band Jimmy Eat World, who you may have heard of -- but you also may *not* have known that they were around since the early 90s, opening for emo hardcore bands like Indian Summer and Julia. They quickly joined this indiemo rock scene after befriending Christie Front Drive, however, which led to splits with a bunch of classic emo bands you should also look into: Jejune, Sense Field, Mineral, and Blueprint. There's honestly just so much. Kerosene 454 from DC are like the east coast Boilermaker, Dahlia Seed and Garden Variety both bring great combinations of emo and catchy rock, Nuzzle started out a bit more spazzy and noisy like their friends in The Fisticuffs Bluff but developed a really great sense of melody towards the end. Everyone Asked About You and Edaline offer a lighter, more indie take on bands like Ethel Meserve and Thumbnail. Getting back to specifically bands that sound more like Grunge, we do have to back out of emo a bit and go once again into post hardcore and alt rock. Failure is a band everyone should hear who are similar to Hum, though there is probably more grunge DNA in Failure's sound. Alongside Failure were a slough of similar rock bands coming from the post-hardcore scene such as Far, The Revolution Smile, Shiner, Chore, Shudder to Think, No Knife, Engine Down, Burning Airlines, Feverdream, and The Most Secret Method. If you think of grunge as "Seattle scene's post hardcore" then you can see how a lot of these bands are basically "grunge" that's just from somewhere other than the Seattle scene. Sorry this ended up being so long, I can try to throw together a playlist in the future but if you have Spotify, I think [this](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2TxqrbAQaKbBQuqjRPiT9r?si=2j0tl--wTxaF2QUxIQZF9g&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1) and [this](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0H8Naf0cBoZgpA4NK3eWo2?si=W5RiQyK1RdGMcV6s4Lnemw&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1) are excellent introductions to the underground rock music world which birthed both grunge and emo.
Upvotes
11
Subreddit
Emo
Reddit Username
kage6613
Reddit Timestamp
9/5/21 15:20
Reddit URL
Genres
New: Click a genre to explore further
Top Artists
Click an artist to open on Spotify