Radiohead
Five schoolmates from Abingdon who went from one self-loathing hit to the album that redefined what a rock band could be. Radiohead's 90s arc — Creep, The Bends, OK Computer — is rock's great escape from one-hit-wonder purgatory.
Radiohead formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire in 1985, five friends from school who named themselves On a Friday after their weekly rehearsal slot. The lineup never changed: Thom Yorke on vocals and guitar, Jonny Greenwood on guitar and keyboards, his brother Colin Greenwood on bass, Ed O'Brien on guitar and backing vocals, and Philip Selway on drums. Signed and renamed Radiohead, they released 'Creep' in September 1992 — and nothing happened. The single flopped in the UK, and the debut album Pablo Honey (February 1993) reached a modest number 22 there. Then America found 'Creep': it climbed to number 2 on the Modern Rock chart, cracked the Hot 100, and a September 1993 UK re-release sent it to number 7. The band spent the next two years touring in the shadow of a song they'd grown to resent, tagged as probable one-hit wonders.
The Bends (March 1995) began the escape — a leap in songwriting that critics kept discovering for years — and OK Computer (May 1997) completed it spectacularly. The album's anxious, pre-millennium vision of technology and alienation debuted at number one in the UK, won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, earned an Album of the Year nomination, and settled permanently into greatest-albums-ever lists. In five years Radiohead had gone from novelty single to the band other bands measured themselves against.
They ended the century by refusing to repeat it: Kid A (October 2000) traded guitars for electronics and still became their first album to debut atop the US Billboard 200. By 2011 the band had sold more than 30 million albums worldwide, and in 2019 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — with 'Creep', of all things, enjoying a massive second life — its video has passed a billion YouTube views.
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Creep
The self-loathing anthem that made Radiohead famous — and that Radiohead spent years refusing to play. Three crunching guitar stabs before the chorus, a whispered "I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo," and every alienated kid of the 90s had a theme song.
Nirvana
Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl didn't invent grunge—but their 1991 album Nevermind accidentally blew it up worldwide, displacing Michael Jackson from #1 and making flannel shirts and angst the uniform of the decade.
Pearl Jam
Seattle's other grunge titans: Eddie Vedder's baritone over the anthems of Ten, then a career spent actively refusing rock stardom — no more music videos, few interviews, and a one-band war against Ticketmaster.
Weezer
The Los Angeles band that made being a nerd sound like the coolest thing in the world. The 1994 "Blue Album" and its Spike Jonze videos — the Happy Days-themed "Buddy Holly" chief among them — turned Rivers Cuomo's sweater-clad geek-rock into a generational touchstone.