Coming out of the grass-roots Gilman St. punk scene of the early-1990s Bay Area, Green Day exploded into the mainstream with their third album, 1994's DOOKIE. The trio's punk energy and pop hooks, influenced by first-generation punks like the Buzzcoc…

Unbeknownst to most Nirvana fans, its drummer David Grohl was also a singer/guitarist/songwriter who wrote numerous songs during his tenure with the band. After Kurt Cobain's death in 1994, Grohl decided to head out on his own and formed the Foo Figh…

The four neo-punk/pop upstarts from Toronto who make up Sum 41 formed the band while they were all still in high school, and the youthful exuberance of those days can still be strongly felt in their 2000 debut EP HALF HOUR OF POWER. The endearingly b…

California skate-punk trio Blink 182 employed a snappy mix of punk-pop and humor that appealed to a whole new generation of rock fans too young to have fully appreciated Green Day's initial impact. These third- (or fourth-) generation punks became th…

System of a Down may be seen as part and parcel of the nu-metal explosion of the late-'90s, but their style is less akin to the likes of Limp Bizkit and Korn than to vintage thrash from the '80s, spiced with a touch of hardcore punk. The band's sound…

These Vacaville, CA boys first got together in high school, influenced by the likes of Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More, they constructed their own rap-metal hybrid. Papa Roach was no overnight success; they toured relentlessly, building up…

Inspiring legions of imitators (especially among the rap-metal crowd), the Red Hot Chili Peppers combined biting rock guitar with funk rhythms and rap-influenced vocals for a thunderous, party-hearty sound. While the California band was popular on th…

Unbeknownst to most Nirvana fans, drummer David Grohl was also a singer/guitarist/songwriter who wrote numerous songs on his own during his tenure with the band. After Kurt Cobain's death in 1994, Grohl decided to head out on his own and formed the F…

Weezer's 1994 debut yielded the band two big hit singles in "Buddy Holly" and "Undone - The Sweater Song," whose quirky appeal gave the initial impression that the group was some kind of novelty act. Despite the wiseacre veneer though, Weezer went on…

Amidst a field overcrowded with teen-pop and nu-metal, Detroit's White Stripes emerged at the tail end of the 1990s as a new hope for gutsy, no-frills rock & roll. Their doggedly minimalist sound--just one guitar and a drum kit--heralded a return to …

Generally, the punk-inspired generation of bands that came to prominence in the late '90s fell into two camps; cred-soaked aesthetes in thrall to the art-punk approach of emo godfathers Fugazi and radio-friendly pop-punks following in the footsteps o…

While a select few hard rock bands incorporated rap into their sound (Anthrax, Faith No More, etc.), it was Rage Against The Machine that perfected and popularized the rap-metal genre in the 1990s. Unlike the aforementioned bands, the Los Angeles-bas…

While the 1980s Los Angeles rock scene will forever be associated with pretty-boy glam metal, it also spawned Guns N' Roses, one of the most in-your-face, streetwise, and controversial bands of the era. Axl Rose & company's roots lay in The Stones, A…

This quintet from Calabasas, CA, who started playing together in 1991, hit the road hard in support of Korn, Limp Bizkit, 311, and many others, before hitting it big. The Incubus sound is a mixture of melodic alternative rock, heavy, synth-colored ro…

New Jersey hardcore band My Chemical Romance achieved a surprising degree of success with their Goth-tinged, woe-is-me take on punk. Labeled everything from emo and pop-punk to post-hardcore and screamo, My Chemical Romance are one of several bands f…

Long Beach County skate-rockers Sublime played an infectious mix of ska, punk, hip-hop, and acoustic music that earned them both a devoted underground following and mainstream success during their run in the mid-1990s. Sublime were proud purveyors of…

Like Velvet Revolver (but with a more political bent), Audioslave appeared in the mid-2000s as a post-grunge supergroup pounding out stripped-down heavy rock. The band is spearheaded by Chris Cornell, whose wailing vocals formerly graced archetypal '…

Heavy metal was in danger of losing its hold on the mainstream by the early 1990s, but Korn helped jolt the genre back to life again. Combining rage-purging, rapped/shouted vocals and explosively heavy riffs, these rap-metal pioneers spawned a slew o…

The members of Three Days Grace began bashing punk chords when they were in their teens carving a derivative yet energetic sound that fueled their live performances Three Days Grace was formed in Norwood Ontario Canada in 1997 by Adam Gontier vocals …