We all know the canon of 90s alt rock mainstream kind of bands some of us loved at the time but probably cringe at a little now… Chili Peppers, Green Day etc.

But as I mentioned in the Deftones Crap/Not Crap a lot of these bands opened up young Gramsci’s chakras to a much wider world of music, film and art.

I’m interested in other -probably Gen Xers- experience of the 90s mainstream explosion of alternative rock and the much deeper worlds it opened up.

RHCP probably introduced me to the biggest exponential widening of my interests because once you hit something like Dolphy that branches off and so on.

Nirvana turned me onto Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, Meat Puppets, the Vaselines and Screaming Trees.

I think there was a thread once about hearing a cover version first, but some less cool bands turned me onto cool bands by covering them.

Green Day -> Buzzcocks, The Who
Mighty Mighty Bosstones & NoFx -> Minor Threat
American Steel & Mineral -> Psychedelic Furs
Lifetime -> Husker Du

losthighway wrote: Sat Apr 19, 2025 7:45 am Nirvana turned me onto Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, Meat Puppets, the Vaselines and Screaming Trees.

Yeah, I also learned of the Melvins, the Germs, Steve Albini (as a 'producer', then musician) and the Pixies/Breeders through Nirvana.

Nirvana is really interesting because I think there’s a big difference between people for whom nirvana was a gateway band, and people who were older and probably more tuned in by 1991. I was twenty-one then.

For me, it was definitely the Police who opened me up to like IRS records and more indie stuff. This would have been 85, 86. And I’d say U2 were a big gateway band for me as well. I think that mid 80s period was weird because 120 minutes and the cutting edge were really influential but there isn’t a lot of talk about that. It was that generation before Nirvana, but after like Stooges/NY Dolls etc.

Awesome topic, by the way. It’s super interesting how people got turned on to indie and punk stuff.

Mommy’s Little Monster by Social Distortion was a big one for me. I was 15 and really into speed metal, but my metal friends were turning into losers and my new punk friends were a blast to be around. Someone let me borrow their copy of Mommy’s Little Monster and the punk thing started to make sense to me. I still love that record to this day. SD at the VFW hall was my first real punk show, too.

Killers by Iron Maiden was my gateway into more abrasive music when I was 13. I had just started playing bass, and I gravitated toward Steve Harris’ approach. Master Of Puppets by Metallica came out when I was in 8th grade, and that was my gateway into speed metal. It blew me away. I still love it.

Nirvana is a big one for me. I was 13 when Nevermind came out and then I fell absolutely in love with Bleach. Then, probably The Clash, Descendants and Minor Threat.

Oh I forgot the other big one: Metallica. I remember the day I bought a tape of And Justice, it's a crystal clear memory. It was just released and had a sticker on it that said, "Over 70 minutes of music!" I've been listening to that album almost my whole life and love it as much today as I did then. It turned me on to Kill Em All, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets, still my favorites today. Some of the songs from all of these put me right back into certain memories. Like, Blackened, sitting in my mom's car with my walkman, driving to the mall... For Whom the Bell Tolls, smoking cigarettes in my friends shitty Oldsmobile ditching school... Battery, listening to that banger of an opener on my boombox after getting back from the police station from getting caught shoplifting it from Kmart...

My gateways come from an earlier time.

In terms of music to which I voluntarily listened:

Saturday Night Fever soundtrack
ABBA
Blondie
Journey (held up poorly)
The Police (held up poorly, but good influence overall)
English Beat
Psychedelic Furs

Fairly discrete train tracks that nevertheless tangled up a bit and led to the places you might expect them to lead.

The fact that there wasn't a lot of meaningful hard rock in my life until later means it's less a part of my life now. I never really thought about that before.

R.E.M. x10

Achtung Baby. I've spent 33 years with that record and still love it.

you're gonna laugh, but The Spaghetti Incident? at age 14 or so.

Nine Inch Nails and Queens of the Stone Age as well. I had to take Bowie, ZZ Top, the entirety of the 1980's, and anarcho punk a bit more seriously thanks to them. Queens' cover of Romeo Void's eternal classic "Never Say Never" was so spooky, so sexy. Rock 'n roll.