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…

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…

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…

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 '…

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…

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…

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…

In 2000, Coldplay emerged seemingly out of nowhere to become a worldwide smash with their debut album PARACHUTES and hit single "Yellow." They're generally lumped in with the Britpop crowd, but, like Travis, they favor a more thoughtful, melodic pop …

Nirvana finally made it acceptable for U.S. top-40 fans to embrace punk rock, and bands like Green Day and the Offspring followed up the charts in their wake. While California's Offspring had been slugging it out since the late-'80s, it wasn't until …

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…

The mercurial term "emo" has meant many different things since its first appearance in the mid-1980s hardcore punk underground. By the mid 2000s, the term was best exemplified by the band Fall Out Boy. Playing an accessible brand of melodic rock mark…

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…

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 …

The Stone Temple Pilots are the result of a chance meeting between Scott Weiland (b. 27 October 1967, Santa Cruz, California, USA; vocals) and Robert DeLeo (b. 2 February 1966, New Jersey, USA; bass) at one of Black Flag's final shows in Los Angeles.…

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…

The Gorillaz is Blur frontman Damon Albarn's hip-hop/electronica cartoon concept band. While real-life participants have included such luminaries as Dan the Automator, Danger Mouse, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, De La Soul, and Shuan Ryder, the Gorillaz…

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…

U2's Bono was one of the few real rock heroes of the 1980s, leading the Irish band to international recognition with a charged, political approach to music. The band's early efforts brought a stadium-size presence to alt-rock, with Bono's expressive …

Pearl Jam strode the middle of the neo-hard rock road manfully with their angst-ridden anthemic tunes bearing echoes of 1970s riff-rock. They arrived as part of Seattle's grunge explosion, with a sound less "punk" than Nirvana and less "metal" than S…