Drawing equally from punk rock and new-music pioneers such as John Cage and Glenn Branca (whom guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo both played with), Sonic Youth employed a palette of white noise that deconstructed punk-rock orthodoxy into radi…

Scottish brothers Jim and William Reid formed the Jesus & Mary Chain in 1984. With their monotone vocals, feedback-drenched guitar sound, and notoriously chaotic gigs, the band garnered plenty of media attention and then backed up the hype with their…

Led by Black Francis (AKA Charles Thompson), this Boston band reveled in the raw, loud energy of punk, but harnessed it in service of catchy melodies laced with bizarre lyrics. Their 1989 album, DOOLITTLE, is widely considered to be one of the best a…

Formed in 1988 by Oxford art college students, the influential quartet Ride was signed to Alan McGee's now-legendary Creation label based on the strength of their live set. Combining distortion-drenched guitars with melodic vocals, frontmen Mark Gard…

Yo La Tengo started out in the mid-1980s and became perhaps the ultimate critics' band. Led by former NYC rock journalist Ira Kaplan, they syncretized numerous, often esoteric influences to eventually create a distinctive sound. They started out in h…

Formed in 1989, Slowdive was one of the key figures in the British shoegazer pop movement. As heard on their influential '91 debut album JUST FOR A DAY, the band's sound is full of ethereal vocals, gently overlapping waves of guitar, and an ambient p…

Inaugurators of the "lo-fi" alternative rock sound, Pavement set the course for college rock in the 1990s. Their skewed, shambolic guitar pop, slacker vocals, and dense wordplay endeared them to those disenchanted by lumpen grunge sounds. Over time, …

Joy Division virtually defined the term "post-punk." They combined punk's rawness and iconoclasm with an artier sensibility that encompassed poetic lyrics, existentialism, and a dark moody mix of guitars and keyboards that was a major influence on go…

Scotland's Cocteau Twins were one of the most distinctive bands to emerge within the splintering rock world of the 1980s. Led by producer, guitarist, and knob-twiddler Robin Guthrie and vocalist Elizabeth Fraser, the Twins explored a landscape of fuz…

From their early days as the house band for Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the Velvet Underground were the antithesis of late-1960s Flower Power optimism. Lou Reed's decadent lyrics and dour vocals proved to be the perfect match for the …

The Flaming Lips started out in the 1980s creating an anarchic, punky din, but eventually the psychedelic influences that had always been a major element of the band's sound became more prevalent. In 1994, after significant lineup changes, the Oklaho…

Led by depressive pop prince Robert Smith, the Cure have taken their legions of fans on a journey from post-punk to gothic to new wave to art rock, stopping only for refills of hairspray along the way. An amazing band both live and in the studio, the…

In 2002, Interpol helped lead the charge of New York bands influenced by the post-punk and new wave sounds of the early 1980s. With Cure-like moody guitar and synth riffs and dour, Ian Curtis-style vocals, they conjured up a dark but infectious sound…

Formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 1996, Mogwai are proponents of mostly instrumental, guitar-based indie rock that relies more on atmospherics than traditional pop song structures. Like their American counterparts Low, the band creates soundscapes that …

Radiohead burst onto the Britpop scene in the early 1990s with a clamorous, post-U2 take on guitar rock, buoyed by the hit "Creep." They subsequently developed their songwriting and production skills on THE BENDS and achieved iconic status with their…

Formed in 1996, and hailing from Scotland, Belle & Sebastian are a musical collective with a penchant for ellipticism, declining to have their pictures on album covers or in the press, shying away from interviews, and never listing their individual n…

Pair a disciple of Oscar Wilde (Morrissey) with an innovator of the electric guitar (Johnny Marr) and you have the most clever cult band of the 1980s, the Smiths. Though they made some of the most effortlessly catchy music of the era, the tension bet…

Shooting off of Spacemen 3 in the early 1990s, Spirtualized continued Jason Pierce's exploration of modern psychedelia by combining drugged-out weirdness with classic British pop/rock moves and a healthy dose of sweeping space-rock. Their music is c…

Recording for the ultra-hip indie label 4AD, Lush shimmered onto the UK music scene in the early 1990s with a series of "shoegazing" singles that owed a lot to bands like Slowdive, setting themselves apart with Miki Berenyi's distinctive vocals. Afte…

Elliott Smith started out as the leader of Portland-based alt-rock band Heatmiser, who made three mid-1990s albums achieving good reviews but disappointing sales. Eventually Smith reinvented himself as a solo singer-songwriter, and his first couple o…