
For more alternative music, check out our list of the 100 best alternative songs of the 90s. Bands like Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers, though, continued to make sure that mainstream rock would continue to be a dominant force in the music industry into the 21st century. Jimmy Eat World helped usher in emo music’s ascension within mainstream rock, and Pavement brought slacker cool to campuses across the country. Elliott Smith appeared to be the second coming of Bob Dylan, infusing his folk-inspired 90s songs with tales of heartbreak and depression. Female stars like Fiona Apple and Alanis Morissette proved that women not only had a seat at the rock table, they were sitting at the head. In its stead came artists willing and insistent on changing the rules of the game in favor of something weirder, edgier, and rule-breaking. Gone were the days of hair metal and arena rock. The 90s saw an influx of alternative artists shape the sound of rock music. Here are just a few starting places for you to explore the decade.Ĭan’t get enough 90s music? Listen to our 90s Music playlist as you read our list of the best songs of the 90s below. The 1990s represented a grab bag of unimaginable wealth for music fans. Jazz saw an experimental renaissance after a tough decade, and Latin music started its long ascent to becoming pop music in the United States. Electronic music hit the mainstream with force, as both underground and mainstream acts helped define the dance culture we now see at festivals worldwide. Jamaican dub and reggae were prevalent in ska and punk music, and Afropop found its way into a variety of genres. Music from around the world, too, was becoming more popular in America. Country music took a bold step into the mainstream, and became a defining music of America thanks to a plethora of new stars. Alternative music saw a number of genres proliferate outwards from it in the 90s, like indie rock and emo. Rap and R&B dominated the charts, bringing Black American culture around the world thanks to the prevalence of MTV. But, because we often need reminders on what love is and what it feels like, here’s a list of hip-hop songs from the 1990s that you can listen to to get a refresher course.The best 90s songs reveal a simple fact: The decade was a Golden Age for many types of music. Some of hip-hop’s attempts to understand and explain love hit the nail on the head and became classic records that we often refer to as romantic source material. But, perhaps, the most universal subject that hip-hop ever touched on was love. Like many other art forms, hip-hop is and was a reflection of the many aspects of life, such as conflict, pain, aspiration and reward. Let’s make this clear, hip-hop always consisted of more than just party records some of the earliest songs we know of were social commentaries hidden under hypnotic beats and bouncy rhyme schemes. Part of this was due to the geographical and commercial growth of the genre’s popularity, but the newly attained level of respect that hip-hop found was also a result of people recognizing the true diversity of its subject matter. By the 1990s, hip-hop was clearly here to stay and was more than just a flash of youthful rebellion from the inner city.
