Intro To Music: The Golden Age

This age focuses on grunge and post-grunge rock. Throughout this time, pop is going string, as well as hip-hop and rap. I will likely focus on rap and other forms of music (Elton John, etc..) later in case studies. We are strictly dealing with "rock" here.

Grunge. The word just sound dirty. Yet the music associated with it is considered quite pure: the artist do not conform for the sake of media, or image; they strictly play what they want to. A typical grunge scene is a bunch of young adults/men with long hair, wearing plad shirts, getting drunk and rocking out to music.

The best Grung Bands have a heavy metal sounds, with "manly" sounding voices, and lots of chords that don't sound pretty, yet they make sense. Also, they usually feature very cool solos.

The best, and obviously most famous bands;
Soundgarden
Pearl Jam
Nirvana
Alice in Chains
Stone Temple Pilots

Research their "#1 hits" in case you don't like or don't want to posses the full albums. IMO the hits from all of these bands are some of the best Rock in existence.

My personal ones consist of:

Burden in My Hand - Soundgarden
Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden
Alive - Pearl Jam
School - Nirvana
In Bloom - Nirvana
The Rooster - Alice in Chains
Man in the Box - Alice in Chains

After and during this era is mediocre Rock bands, setting the stage for Alternative Rock. Key songs from these bands in the Early 90's;

“Tomorrow” - Silverchair
“Far Behind” - Candlebox
“Hey Man, Nice Shot” - Filter
“Glycerine”, "This Cloud" - Bush
“Hey Jealousy” - Gin Blossoms

These bands (noted above) may have been in the mid 90's I'm not sure. Some other unique bands are R.E.M, and the Cure (span from early 80's to 90's).

Now like from '93 till like '96 is prolly my favorite era or music. Punk Rock, Grunge, and Alternative Rock, and catchy tunes, all dominated. Here is an extensive list of good songs:

Radiohead - Creep
Blind Melon - No Rain
The Smashing Pumpkins - Today
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Soul To Squeeze
Rage Against the Machine - Killing In The Name
Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way
Cracker - Low
The Offspring - Come Out and Play
Green Day - Longview
Weezer - Come Undone (The Sweater Song)
R.E.M. - What's the Frequency Kenneth?
Beck - Loser
The Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm
Nine Inch Nails - Closer
The Presidents of the United States of America - Lump
Sublime - Date Rape
Rancid - Time Bomb
PJ Harvey - Down by the Water
Beck - Where It's At
No Doubt - Spiderwebs
311 - Down
Butthole Surfers - Pepper
Garbage - Stupid Girl
Kula Shaker - Tattva
Bush - Machinehead
Oasis - Champagne Supernova
Primitive Radio Gods - Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand
Porno for Pyros - Tahitian Moon
Eels - Novacaine for the Soul
Spacehog - In the Meantime
Dishwalla - Counting Blue Cars
Daft Punk - Da Funk


Now these songs (above) may not include the one hit wonders that really pawned for a few months, nor do they include the "best" songs from the band. But by listening to all of them, you can begin to form your own interest, and start pursuiting bands you like. To me this era is "classic", "golden", "best". Mainly because timeless bands dominated it, and probably were releasing their best material during the time:

My favorite song by the bands are noted with a ();

Smashing Pumpkins (Bullet With Butterfly Wings)
Radio Head (Paranoid Android)
Green Day (Long View)
Foo Fighters (I'll Stick Around)
Beastie Boys (Sabatoge)
Sublime (Caress Me Down)
RHCP (Nobody Weird Like Me)
Nirvana (School)
Weezer (Undone - Sweater Song)

In 1997, music begins to deteriorate greatly w/ bands like 3rd eye blind, Might Mighty Bostones, and Smashmouth. Some decent bands were holding it up, like Blink 182, and crappier songs by the "golden age" bands, however the crash was inevitable. The music continues to suck from 1997 till about 2003. In 2003, rock begins to get better from what I call the "dark ages". Next we will briefly discuss the "dark ages", and mainly focus on the "modern phase".