'90s Hard Rock

Few song snippets scream "'90s!" like the alt-rock-revolution-cry intro of Nirvana's generation-definer, "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Slapping you upside the head with sucker punch drums and windshield wiper guitars, it signified everything that was new and electrifying about the decade in music. And it was quite a decade in music, featuring the grunge of Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, and Alice In Chains; the B-movie metal of White Zombie, the industrial S&M throb of Nine Inch Nails, and the flapjack funk of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Screaming Trees, meanwhile, shimmied to the Singles soundtrack standout, "Nearly Lost You." Sprinkle some Veruca Salt and "Sugar" onto your '90s hard rock, in Next Steps.

The '90s hard rock scene split into as many sounds and subgenres as a high school canteen. Over at the table of bookworms and future philosophers, Weezer channelled the power pop of the Cars and Big Star, Veruca Salt whipped pale boys into a frenzy with scrambled guitars, and when the alt-metal kids asked for "Sugar" they didn't want anything sweet, just the delicious, heavy distortions served up by System of a Down. As for the bruisers, they enjoyed shouting about the big game over such shove-first/ask-questions-later staples as Godsmack's "Whatever" and Filter's "Hey Man Nice Shot." A diet of Korn and Limp Bizkit awaits you, in Deep Cuts.

Turns out that the '90s had a bucketload of everything, from the "puff-puff-pass" stoner rock of Kyuss ("Green Machine"), to the acid-laced bizarre-isms of Butthole Surfers ("Who Was in My Room Last Night?") and the mummy-never-loved-me sound-agonies of Korn ("Freak on a Leash"). Radiohead balanced the soft with the harsh, en route to decade anthem "High and Dry," Oasis welded the push of rock to the shove of punk ("Rock 'N' Roll Star"), and Limp Bizkit fused funk, rap, and nü-metal into tracks like "Nookie" from 1999's Significant Other.

The so-called slackers of the '90s were anything but, defying the decade's downbeat headlines with some straight-up rock 'n' roll — overheated amps, dustbowls of distortion, and drums that could punch holes through concrete walls. But the music was also accessible enough to crack the charts like a dozen eggs while filling airwaves and arenas with spastic turntable scratches and stabs ("Down"), valley-of-death drums ("The Beautiful People"), tantalizing yet terrifying metal ("Enter Sandman"), middle-finger masochism ("Killing in the Name"), and slice 'n' dice chord progressions ("Are You Gonna Go My Way").