About four years ago I went through a massive grunge phase where that was most of what I listened to, but I still listen to a fair bit of grunge today. 1985-1995 had heaps of awesome music. Just for the record, I'm not the kind of person who puts bands into genres, I listen to whatever I like the sound of, not particular genres, but for the sake of the thread I'm just going to call these bands "grunge". So, nobody get angry!
You've got Sonic Youth for starters. They'd started in the early eighties, but still released amazing stuff while grunge was going on. Dirty is probably the most grunge-sounding album of theirs, and in my opinion is one of the best grunge albums of all time. You just have to listen to a song like
Drunken Butterfly or 100% for your mind to be blown.
There's other bands like Mudhoney and Nirvana (obviously) - most of the songs off Nirvana's
In Utero would describe grunge for me, and you feel somewhat dirty and weird after listening to Mudhoney, which I guess is just the feel of their music. Then there's bands like Hole (click to listen to
Violet) which were great back in the early 90s (unfortunately their singer Courtney Love is really easy to hate). One song which, to me, is the epitome of that 85-95 alternative rock music is
Siva by Smashing Pumpkins.
Basically, there's a tonne of music from this era that I love. I used to be a big fan of Alice In Chains (saw them live with their new singer and they were great) and Pearl Jam, but not so much anymore (not really my thing anymore).
