The Decade's Music at a Glance
It cannot be denied that the 1990s were defined by the growth of alternative media and multiculturalism. Movements such as hip hop, teen pop, and the rave scene became widely loved across the world, strengthened by advances of the decade such as the World Wide Web and cable television. Then there was the renewed popularity of punk rock in 1994 thanks to Green Day, Blink 182, and Weezer.
U2’s groundbreaking Zoo TV and PopMart tours produced the best-selling concerts of 1992 and 1997, while Dr. Dre's 1992 album The Chronic created an environment for modern gangsta rap, opening up space for other artists to make the genre a tremendous commercial success during the early 1990s. The decade also launched female pop icons like The Spice Girls, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguillera, all of whom took the world by storm, enjoying their respective global success within the widespread scene of teen pop music.
The period also saw a worldwide phenomenon in country music courtesy of Shania Twain and Garth Brooks, with their wildly successful careers making music history. Brooks holds record-breaking sales and concert attendance figures throughout the decade. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has certified his recordings at a combined 128× platinum.
Despite the many music-related deaths of the decade (Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain, and Selena to name a few), the tunes of the ‘90s continue to influence today’s artists and audiences across the world through the legacy left by these remarkable entertainers of various genres.
The 5 Best Bands and Musicians of the ‘90s
Nirvana
Formed in Aberdeen, Washington by Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic, the immensely popular rock band Nirvana found monumental worldwide success in 1991 via their track Smells Like Teen Spirit. Nirvana's epic journey popularized alternative rock, and Cobain was dubbed the "spokesman of a generation." Their band has gone down in history as the "flagship band" of Generation X.
With more than 75 million records sold worldwide, Nirvana is considered one of the top-selling bands of all time. American music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that Nirvana redefined alternative music. According to Erlewine, following the release of their first major album Nevermind, "nothing was ever quite the same, for better and for worse." The album established "the cultural and commercial viability of alternative rock in general."
