Voting on the Best 90’s Rock Bands – Put Your Favorites on Top!

5 minutes read

Hey friends, After making the poll for the best artists and bands from the 70’s which was a great success, I wanted to turn and have you guys vote about another golden age of music! So who were the best 90’s rock bands?

The 90’s: The rise of grunge, alternative rock and many other great rock bands, some of them are still going strong today and definitely have a lot of influence on most of the stuff we’ve seen later – from pop to rock to indie. We surely needed it after way too much tasteless synthesizers in the 80’s…

I worked on creating a narrowed down list of the top 23 rock bands that probably had their most fruitful years during the 90’s. I left metal, hard rock bands and one hit wonders (which there are plenty of in the 90’s) outside for a different list, so if one of your faves might not be here, there surely are going to be a lot of your beloved ones who did make it in the list, so head down and vote for ’em!

Two unique differences between this list of top 90’s artists versus the 70’s list of top artists and bands that came to my mind while I worked on this list are:

  • The 90’s top rock lists consist almost exclusively of bands, while in the 70’s there was a lot more solo artists out there.
  • On the 70’s, a lot of the major powers in Rock N’ Roll were coming from the UK while in the 90’s other than Oasis and Radiohead there isn’t much from outside the USA, and especially from the west coast. Just food for thought.

The poll is at the bottom of the post, don’t miss it! Share this with your friends so we can get a wider and more reliable point of view of the 90’s favorites among musicians.

Click a name of a song to have a listen, click on the album for the Amazon page, and click on the name of the band to go to the matching Wikipedia page for some fun facts about your band. And since we all like fun facts, on the list I have added the hometown of the band or the town where they were formed at to be more correct. Enjoy!

Voting on Your Favorite Rock Artists and Bands From the 70’s – the 23 Runner-Ups

Weezer

Formed in Los Angeles, California

Among their most popular hits: Buddy Holly, My Name Is Jonas, Island In The Sun, El Scorcho

best 90s rock bands Weezer-blue-album11

Pearl Jam

Formed in Seattle, Washington

Among their most popular hits: Jeremy, Yellow Ledbetter, Alive, Even Flow

best 90s rock bands Pearl-Jam8

The Pixies

Formed in Boston, Massachusetts

Among their most popular hits: Debaser, Hey, Here Comes Your Man, Gigantic

best 90s rock bands pixies5

R.E.M.

Formed in Athens, Georgia

Among their most popular hits: Everybody Hurts, Losing My Religion, Man On The Moon, Shiny Happy People

best 90s rock bands rem6

Soundgarden

Formed in Seattle, Washington

Among their most popular hits: Black Hole Sun, The Day I Tried To Live, Jesus Christ Pose

best 90s rock bands soundgarden7


-Click the Album Pictures to see them on Amazon-


Dave Matthews Band

Formed in Charlottesville, Virginia

Among their most popular hits: Crush Into Me, #41, Two Step, Ants Marching

best 90s rock bands dave_matthews_band9

Third Eye Blind

Formed in San Francisco, California

Among their most popular hits: Semi-Charmed Life, How’s It Going To Be, Jumper

best 90s rock bands thirdeyeblind10

Bush

Formed in London, England

Among their most popular hits: Glycerine, Machinehead, Swallowed

best 90s rock bands bush1

Stone Temple Pilots

Formed in San Diego, California

Among their most popular hits: Plush, Big Empty, Trippin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart

best 90s rock bands stone temple12

Jane’s Addiction

Formed in Los Angeles, California

Among their most popular hits: Mountain Song, Been Caught Stealing, Superhero (Entourage theme song)

best 90s rock bands janes13

Oasis

Formed in Manchester, England

Among their most popular hits: Live Forever, Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back In Anger, Lyla

best 90s rock bands oasis14

Greenday

Formed in East Bay, California

Among their most popular hits: Basketcase, Time Of Your Life, Jesus Of Suburbia, When I Come Around

best 90s rock bands green-day-dookie15

No Doubt

Formed in Anaheim, California

Among their most popular hits: Spiderwebs, Just A Girl, Don’t Speak

best 90s rock bands no_doubt-tragic_kingdom-front16

Nirvana

Formed in Aberdeen, Washington

Among their most popular hits: Smells Like Teen Spirit, Come As You Are, Heart Shaped Box, Lithium

best 90s rock bands nevermind17

Foo Fighters

Formed in Seattle, Washington

Among their most popular hits: Big Me, Learn To Fly, Breakout, Everlong

best 90s rock bands foo fighters18

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Formed in Los Angeles, California

Among their most popular hits: Californication, Under The Bridge, Scar Tissue, Road Trippin’

best 90s rock bands MI000241328419

Everclear

Formed in Portland, Oregon

Among their most popular hits: Father Of Mine, Santa Monica, I Will Buy You A New Life, Wonderful

best 90s rock bands everclear20

Blur

Formed in London, England

Among their most popular hits: Song 2, The Universal, She’s So High

best 90s rock bands escape21

Blink 182

Formed in Poway, California

Among their most popular hits: All The Small Things, Adam’s Song, Man Overboard, What’s My Age Again

best 90s rock bands Blink-182_-_Enema_of_the_State22

Radiohead

Formed in Abingdon, England

Among their most popular hits: Karma Police, High And Dry, Creep, Fake Plastic Trees

best 90s rock bands radiohead23

Individual Artists:

Jeff Buckley

From Anaheim, California

Among his most popular hits: Lover You Shouldv’e Come Over, Grace, Hallelujah, Mama You Been On My Mind (Dylan cover)

best 90s rock bands Grace2

Alanis Morissette

From Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Among her most popular hits: You Oughta Know, Thank U, Ironic

best 90s rock bands alanis3

Beck

From Los Angeles, California

Among his most popular hits: Loser, Where It’s At, Guess I’m Doing Fine

best 90s rock bands beck4

That’s it! Now all that’s left is to cast the votes. Try to keep it down to your 3-4 absolute best favorites. Thanks for dropping by and voting and you’re more than welcome to share this! Peace.

[socialpoll id=”2296009″]

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Alon Cooper

Alon Cooper

Hey! I'm Cooper, and I hope I can be a helpful friend on your musical journeys. I'm a music artist based in Austin & Amsterdam, playing venues with a band / solo, and trying to learn with the most inspiring musicians wherever I go. In the last 8 years I've lived in Australia, northern Europe, the US and more.

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The Guitar Campfire Songbook

I hope this list has given you some great ideas, and if you want to have another bunch of song ideas in a fancy PDF songbook form, then feel free to download the songbook in this link.

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