Top 10 Indie Rock Records 1990-1995

[abcd]

pj harvey - dry

[Timko]

A whole lot of stuff released on Asian Man Records.

My favorite:

Slapstick - Lookit!

[josser]

As a Canucklehead, have to add some classic Canadian albums from that time:

Local Rabbits - You Can't Touch This
Inbreds - Kombinator
Super Friendz - Mock Up, Scale Down
Hardship Post - Somebody Spoke

[Parks]

i looked for new things that caught my interest. 96-97 is when i discovered braid's the age of octeen, the promise ring's 30 degrees everywhere, giants chair's purity and control, cursive's such blinding stars for starving eyes, rainer maria's past worn searching, compound red's first 4 7", boys life's self-titled, hot water music's forever and counting, very secretary's best possible souvenir, etc. and i found that stuff infinitely more interesting than the indie rock that was being spit out at the time.

I think that maybe your definition of indie rock is different than most people's. Although they often get tagged emo for lack of a better term, Braid, The Promise Ring, and Cursive all fall squarely under indie rock.

[A.Mutt]

Fugazi is a favorite of mine, and "Repeater" was a killer album, I can't help but rock out every single time I listen to "Greed"

Don't know if this ruins my street cred with the indie-crowd but, my favorite album from that era and I still absolutely love listening to, is Deftones "Adrenaline" (1995) ... every album after that got less and less appealing to me as they got away from that raw sound.

Another I'm not sure if its indie or not, but I love, is New Bomb Turks "Destroy-Oh-Boy!" (1993)

[Blake_T]

A whole lot of stuff released on Asian Man Records.

most asian man releases miss the 1995 cut date

I think that maybe your definition of indie rock is different than most people's. Although they often get tagged emo for lack of a better term, Braid, The Promise Ring, and Cursive all fall squarely under indie rock.

my definition falls to what it was defined when it was happening. in 1996 braid, the promise ring, and cursive were considered emo because that's what emo sounded like back then. it was bands like the get up kids and jimmy eat world that happened to survive long enough into the newer era along with the other swill that popped up over that span. actually, i grew to despise the later promise ring releases (anything that came out after nothing feels good). people who weren't "into it" back then forget that everyone hated cursive until domestica came out.

lots of people bash having labels and genre names, but it helps a lot describing more obscure bands as well as it tends to get weird when certain genre names become a dirty word.

the great divide back in the day between the bands that were emo then but considered indie now is what scene they were playing shows in. indie rock = play bars and cater towards 21-30 year olds. emo = play only all ages shows at venues that don't serve booze since its roots are the straight edge hardcore scene. emo = abbreviation for emo-core = abbreviation for emotional hardcore. i don't ever buy the whole sunny day real estate being emo thing because when they were originally around (93-94), emo was pretty heavy and screamy and nothing like the useless poo it is now.

in all honesty i'm surprised no one has tried to decry my statement of pavement's slanted & enchanted in favor of crooked rain crooked rain or wowee zowee.

[Timko]

A whole lot of stuff released on Asian Man Records.

most asian man releases miss the 1995 cut date

You're killing me. I'm not that old. I started listening to music seriously about 1994.

[Parks]

the great divide back in the day between the bands that were emo then but considered indie now is what scene they were playing shows in. indie rock = play bars and cater towards 21-30 year olds. emo = play only all ages shows at venues that don't serve booze since its roots are the straight edge hardcore scene. emo = abbreviation for emo-core = abbreviation for emotional hardcore.

Oh shit, then Fugazi is emo! Roots in the straight edge hardcore scene? Hell, Minor Threat pretty much started it! All ages shows? Always!

Uh, don't bring up Rites of Spring :D

For me, indie rock is just... independent rock. That could mean a band that is DIY, on an independent label, or even a band on a major label that does its own thing and has its own distinct sound. Its like rock music in general, there are many forms of it and subgenres galore.

in all honesty i'm surprised no one has tried to decry my statement of pavement's slanted & enchanted in favor of crooked rain crooked rain or wowee zowee.

Nah, Slanted & Enchanted is probably the best front to back Pavement album, although both the others you listed have some great songs.

[Monocacy]

Blake, thanks for reminding me about Fugazi. Repeater, on the turntable at the moment, still kicks butt. I seem to have mislaid Margin Walker, though. Bummer.

Re genres: Fugazi was a key part of the DC straight edge scene. I saw Fugazi play around the time Repeater came out, and I was probably the oldest person in the audience by at least 10 years.

A few years earlier and a different genre, but Stiff Records had my all-time favorite record label motto: Stiff Records. If It Ain’t Stiff, It Ain’t Worth a Fuck.

[Blake_T]

Oh shit, then Fugazi is emo! Roots in the straight edge hardcore scene? Hell, Minor Threat pretty much started it! All ages shows? Always!

Uh, don't bring up Rites of Spring

in the late 90's/early 00's the first 3 emo records were considered to be from embrace, one last wish, and rites of spring, all of which had guy or ian from fugazi.

fugazi achieved enough commercial success later on to make its way into the clubs that would do indie rock. i'm about 2-3 years too young to have known them before that time. got into fugazi in 1992 when i was 13. by then when fugazi played minneapolis it was at a 1500 capacity venue with alcohol served on the top floor and all ages down below. the last time i saw them it was $5.35 exact change only (even though it would have sold out at $15 per ticket)... citing that anyone who really wanted to be there would make the special effort to have exact change.

to contrast the magnitude of fugazi vs. bands still running in the sXe hc scene, i saw texas is the reason, the promise ring, compound red, and mIJ in spring 1997 in the basement of a house for $5. it took until a juice bar opened in 1999 to actually have a venue for the hardcore scene rooted bands to play at. also an example is that most of the mid-late 90's emo shows had 1-2 emo bands and 2-3 super brutal screaming hardcore bands. in 1998 i saw the get up kids play a show with botch hehe.

also of note, that by the time fugazi was a common in-house name (early-90's) emo-core had gotten a lot heavier (most would consider it hardcore if they only knew emo by today's standards). bands like still life, amber inn, anasarca come to mind (as well as countless other vinyl only ebullition bands). by the late 90's, bands that sounded like that were called screamo (although bands that are now called screamo no longer sound this way). saetia comes to mind.

For me, indie rock is just... independent rock. That could mean a band that is DIY, on an independent label, or even a band on a major label that does its own thing and has its own distinct sound. Its like rock music in general, there are many forms of it and subgenres galore.

that is a more modern definition. in 92-94 indie rock was a sub-genre of alternative to give it some differentiation from more traditional alternative music and punk rock. most bands called indie had a lot of commonalities... low fi recordings that were mixed with the guitars really high and vocals really low (partly due to budget, partly to keep it from sounding like an over-produced major label release), etc. these were usually bands on merge records, alias records, touch & go, etc. when someone used to ask me what indie rock was i would just play em some sebadoh.

that definition got expanded a bit when more and more indie acts were getting picked up by major labels.

Nah, Slanted & Enchanted is probably the best front to back Pavement album, although both the others you listed have some great songs.

you are one of a select few that agree with me here. loretta's scars still owns my bones.
i also thought someone would say that superchunk's on the mouth should be on there instead of foolish, but to this day i believe foolish is superior both in its song quality and artistic qualities (it's the only record where they really did anything different).

every album after that got less and less appealing to me as they got away from that raw sound.

this describes almost every band i liked that didn't break up.

[Parks]

Oh shit, then Fugazi is emo! Roots in the straight edge hardcore scene? Hell, Minor Threat pretty much started it! All ages shows? Always!

Uh, don't bring up Rites of Spring :D

in the late 90's/early 00's the first 3 emo records were considered to be from embrace, one last wish, and rites of spring, all of which had guy or ian from fugazi.

You mighta missed the joke on this one :D

that is a more modern definition. in 92-94 indie rock was a sub-genre of alternative to give it some differentiation from more traditional alternative music and punk rock. most bands called indie had a lot of commonalities... low fi recordings that were mixed with the guitars really high and vocals really low (partly due to budget, partly to keep it from sounding like an over-produced major label release), etc. these were usually bands on merge records, alias records, touch & go, etc. when someone used to ask me what indie rock was i would just play em some sebadoh.

Sebadoh is has the vocals mixed up front and is fairly vocal/lyric centric, although the guitars were certainly up there, too.

[Blake_T]

You mighta missed the joke on this one

i got the joke, but i'm not sure how many else did

Sebadoh is has the vocals mixed up front and is fairly vocal/lyric centric, although the guitars were certainly up there, too.

sebadoh's vocals are mixed much higher but a lot of that is due to many of their earlier recordings being done on cassette 4-track and 8-tracks and not a lot of processing. on those types of basic analog machines the vocals will nearly always be "up front." however, they were low-fi as can be hehe. bakesale definitely has their lowest vocal mix out of everything i've owned.

i would call them vocal-centric on many songs but i'm not sure if i'd call them lyric-centric. most of their songs are about getting high, sex, getting high and wanting sex, being an asshole to someone, or having someone be an asshole to them.

imo, most indie rock from that era didn't have all that much to say... and the ones that really were talking about their deeper feelings were incredibly convoluted by today's standards. that doesn't mean they weren't entertaining or told some good stories, i just haven't found much that could stack up lyrically to things that came out later in the 90's.

it's a shame that emo became such a dirty word (it became the new goth, or the new version of the kids in the 80's that would play dungeons & dragons while listening to the cure) because there was a handful of records that were truly great that came out but nowadays everyone is ashamed to recommend them to others because they'll have to answer the dreaded "what kind of music is it?" question

btw, are you familiar with small's "chin music" that came out in 94? it's a pretty rock solid indie record from that era that i've met maybe like 5 people who've heard it.

[Parks]

i would call them vocal-centric on many songs but i'm not sure if i'd call them lyric-centric. most of their songs are about getting high, sex, getting high and wanting sex, being an asshole to someone, or having someone be an asshole to them.

Particularly albums full of hate toward J Mascis after getting the boot from Dinosaur Jr :D

btw, are you familiar with small's "chin music" that came out in 94? it's a pretty rock solid indie record from that era that i've met maybe like 5 people who've heard it.

Nope, never heard of it.

[cmlasley]

don't get me started on dino jr. a couple of months ago a song was on the radio at work and i wasn't really focusing on it but upon hearing the guitar solo i immediately said "omfg, a guitar solo that bad has to be dinosaur jr." and low and behold, it was

LOL, so true.

My three:

Superchunk - Foolish
Sonic Youth - Dirty
Flaming Lips - Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (is this really Indy? I always thought so.)

I love a lot of the bands and albums already mentioned: Sunny Day Real Estate, Modest Mouse, Hum, etc.

[blueandgray]

no one's mentioned Braid