Hmmm...I've thought about that, but the alternative explosion in the early 90's was much more far reaching. If you look at the charts, it's still the post-grunge/alternative dinosaurs that rule. Think about the biggest rock bands in the world.

For example, I found a list of the best selling albums of the year so far, and if we are to filter out the hip-hop and pop....

Coldplay: formed 1998
Kid Rock: breakout album 1998
AC/DC: formed 1973
Metallica: formed 1981

That's not to say being "indie" is equivelant to outsider...I don't think it ever has.

And think about the last few HUGE rock bands constantly played on the radio: Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nickelback, Creed, Linkin Park...this is the equivalent of Ratt, Motley Crue, and Poison owning the charts in 1996...which as we know was not the case...instead it was a bunch of alterna-posers, an amount of which isn't nearly enough to warrant any comparisons to the early 90's explosion.

Then again, Radiohead is arguably more popular now than when they released OK Computer, and the local Boston station WBCN who's been rehashing the same alterna-hits/post grunge shite the last 10 years just went out of business, so who knows.

And thank god for that one. You can only hear RHCP and Pearl Jam on repeat so much before your head explodes.

So true!

I thought I was one of the few that got super tired of RHCP's "catchy" songs. Every time the singer tries to rap I can't help but laugh at how bad it is. Don't even get me started on what happens when they try to be emotional...

I'm all for creativeness, but trying to introduce someone to WHY? can prove to be difficult sometimes.

I can't stand the name Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, but the music is alright.

Just out of curiosity, what is it that makes "Black Moth Super Rainbow" a bad band name but at the same time "Neutral Milk Hotel" a good one? I love both of those bands, but I haven't the slightest idea where NMH got their name from... And to tell you the truth, I can't think how many times I've mentioned them before to people that haven't heard of them only to get the response "That's a dumb name." And no one has mentioned Mew yet; while they have a 3 letter band name their new album is called No More Stories Are Told Today I'm Sorry They Washed Away No More Stories The World is Grey I'm Sorry They Washed Away. That's pretty bad. Then, there's Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution, whose name isn't necessarily bad for an acoustic ska punk sounding band that plays loud acoustic music. But they have a song entitled "They Provide the Paint for the Picture Perfect Masterpiece That You Will Paint on the Insides of Your Eyelids." Both of those are pretty damn pretentious if you ask me... absolutely unnecessarily long.

You stole mine! You're a bastard.

There's a band called "We Were Promised Jetpacks". That's one I have trouble appreciating.

I quite like Black Moth Super Rainbow as a name. Obviously there isn't supposed to be a deep hidden meaning to it, it's a load of cool words which sound good next to each other which works with the music they make. Neutral Milk Hotel i'm less of a fan of but that's to be expected with throwing words together, can't please everyone.

what's in a name?

modest mouse
built to spill
red red meat

terrible names. great music.

but are they any worse than beatles? pink floyd? u2? zz top? all silly!

Flowers for the Man Who Shot Your Cousin
Jackie-O Mother****er
Hurray For The Riff-Raff
I could get into a ton of terrible band names for folk bands.