Origin: Aberdeen, WA

Decades: 1980's and 1990's

Prior to Nirvana, alternative music was consigned to specialty sections of record stores, and major labels considered it to be, at the very most, a tax write-off. After the band's second album, 1991's Nevermind, nothing was ever quite the same, for better and for worse. Nirvana popularized punk, post-punk, and indie rock, unintentionally bringing it into the American mainstream like no other band to date. While their sound was equal parts Black Sabbath (as learned by fellow Washington underground rockers th... Read More

AC/DC, Big Star, Black Flag, Devo, Led Zeppelin, R.E.M, Sex Pistols, Sonic Youth, The Beatles, Neil Young, Meat Puppets, The Velvet Underground, The Who, Pixies, Cheap Trick, Buzzcocks, The Replacements, The Stooges, Black Sabbath, Butthole Surfers and Melvins

Beck, Ben Folds Five, Eels, Elastica, Everclear, Radiohead, Remy Zero, Weezer, Marcy Playground, Soda Stereo, Muse, Sunny Day Real Estate, Travis, The Vines, Hole, Placebo, Spoon, Supergrass, Silverchair, Ash, Bayside, blink-182, Breaking Benjamin, Candlebox, Days Away, Hawthorne Heights, Local H, Nada Surf, Rancid, Sleater-Kinney, Sponge, The Cooper Temple Clause, The Offspring, Velvet Revolver, Our Lady Peace, Idlewild, Souls, Dover, Bush, St. Johnny, The Presidents of the United States of America, The Flys, Toadies and Mansun