Singer/songwriter Mark Oliver Everett started out under the moniker A Man Called E, releasing two albums of dark, melodic pop in the early 1990s. After forming Eels and signing to a new label, Everett's work became even darker, and the production bec…

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 …

Championed initially by Morrissey of the Smiths, James signed with their hometown record label, Manchester's Factory Records, in 1983. Their early singles, "What's The World?" and "Hymn From A Village", and the EPs JimOne and James II, were acclaimed…

When pioneering alt-country band Uncle Tupelo split in the mid-1990s, they broke off into two camps. Jay Farrar started the rootsy, twangy (if lyrically elliptical) Son Volt. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Jeff Tweedy, who co-led the band with Farrar, e…

Formed in New York City, New York, USA, Soul Coughing comprise M. Doughty (b. 10 June 1970; guitar/vocals/lyrics), composer Mark de Gli Antoni (b. 20 June 1962; keyboards/samples), Sebastian Steinberg (double bass) and Yuval Gabay (b. Israel; drums).…

Tom Waits started out in the early 1970s as a piano-based barroom balladeer with a penchant for beat poetry and West Coast jazz. By the late '80s he had mutated into a brilliantly adventurous artist whose style suggested an amalgam of Howlin' Wolf, K…

Bob Dylan began as a Woody Guthrie acolyte, imitating the dust-bowl balladeer as faithfully as a baby boomer from Hibbing, Minnesota, could. It wasn't long before he found his own voice, spearheading the early-1960s folk revival as well as the singer…

Indie singer-songwriter Chan Marshall somewhat reluctantly began recording under the name Cat Power in the mid-1990s. Often withdrawn and always unapologetically eccentric, Marshall nonetheless managed to win over a steadily growing following, thanks…

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…

b. 1 August 1958, New York, USA. The brother of actors Sean and Christopher Penn (the former the one-time husband of Madonna), Michael Penn achieved a mainstream breakthrough with his 1989 AOR debut for RCA Records, March. Extracted from it, the sing…

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…

With a voice like candy and winsome good looks, the Nebraska native Matthew Sweet was initially packaged as a cute, blue-eyed pop singer. But after an ambitious debut record that featured a bevy of rock luminaries, Sweet broke through with 1991's GIR…

The Washington Squares were a deliberate throwback to the days of earnest politically oriented folk groups like Peter Paul Mary even though they formed 20 years after the peak of the folk boom The New York City based trio comprising Lauren Agnelli T…

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…

Reminiscent of They Might Be Giants both in their music style, a bizarre folk/pop hybrid, and their loyal grassroots support, this US trio, originally known as Gus, formed in 1992. The members, Adam Gardner (vocals/guitar), Brian Rosenworcel (percuss…

Along with Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown is in many ways the quintessential alt-country band. Flaunting a boozy aesthetic more suited to CBGBs than the Ryman Auditorium, the band nonetheless produced some of the most heartfelt, twang-laden rock songs of …

A rowdy update of the 70s Californian folk rock fraternity, Cracker are fronted by Redlands natives David Lowery (b. 10 October 1960, San Antonio, USA; formerly the founder of skewed rock architects Camper Van Beethoven) and fellow guitarist Johnny H…

The Mountain Goats is essentially lo-fi singer-songwriter John Darnielle. Originally recording crude homemade tapes for obscure independent labels in the early 1990s, Mountain Goats records have seen increased fidelity and a maturing of songcraft and…

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…