Alternative
Noah’s Barks pages relating to the alternative music genre. Combine with other tags for subgenres, e.g. “alternative+rock.”
-
Foo Fighters – “Foo Fighters”
In the running for the best Foo Fighters album. Being their first, it has a less-produced sound than their later albums and is essentially a garage rock album. Very melodic alternative rock with several great riffs and a lot of energy accompanied with Dave Grohl’s soft voice or tuneful yells. At times borders on noise… (read more)
-
Foo Fighters – “The Colour and the Shape”
Similar pop songwriting ideals of the debut album, but the hooks are bigger and the production is cleaner. Loses the more lo-fi, garage-y, punk feel of the debut that made it so charming. Almost all songs are midtempo, and there’s only two types of songs: brash rockers and strummed mellow electric guitar ballads. The latter… (read more)
-
Foo Fighters – “There Is Nothing Left to Lose” (1999)
On the Foo Fighters’s third album, Dave Grohl made a conscious effort to juxtapose the abrasive nu metal bands that had become popular during the album’s conception by making There Is Nothing Left to Lose the band’s most restrained album yet. Melodic and full of guitar lines that just glide by even during the loud… (read more)
-
Nirvana – “Bleach” (1989)
The sound of a band that hasn’t yet sharpened their strengths and reached their full potential, Bleach is Nirvana’s most “grunge” album; the influence of sludge metal and garage punk that defined the genre are very evident in this debut album. The band’s guitars are turned very low, making the riffs sound thick and lurching.… (read more)
-
Sonic Youth – “Dirty” (1992)
Dirty is commonly called Sonic Youth’s “sellout” album. Why, I have no idea, because this contains some of the band’s most abrasive material. I’m a big Sonic Youth fan, and the piercing noise some of these songs pivot around even gets on my nerves. My primary complaint is that Dirty runs too long at just… (read more)
-
Nirvana – “Incesticide” (1992)
Incesticide is the Nirvana album I tend to listen to the most these days, since I’m not overly familiar with it and it has the most variety out of any of their albums for obvious reasons. As a fan, I wouldn’t throw away any of the songs here, but at the same time there’s a… (read more)
-
Stone Temple Pilots – “Core” (1992)
The Pearl Jam influence on Core that everyone points out is obvious and true. But, the songwriting is better than Ten. Take the clever, vaudevillian-inspired riff of the album’s smash hit “Plush,” for example. Scott Weiland’s vocals have more conviction in them than Eddie Vedder’s as well, and hearing him roar his way through “Naked Sunday,” one of… (read more)
-
Nirvana – “With the Lights Out” (2004)
With Kurt Cobain having tragically passed away, Courtney Love continues to cherish his memory by building and spending the fortune he amassed for his work. With the Lights Out is a posthumous release compiling a bunch of rare and/or unreleased Nirvana tracks. The bulk of these are made up of live recordings and demos of… (read more)
-
Alice in Chains – “MTV Unplugged”
“Unplugged” albums are kind of a catch-22. It seems most often that their best tracks are ones that work naturally in an acoustic setting, and that’s usually because they’re similar to their original recordings in the first place. In that case, why redo an already mellow, stripped-back song? On the other hand, if you try… (read more)
-
Cheap Trick – “Cheap Trick” (1997)
‘Cheap Trick’ (1997) follows in the steps of ‘Woke Up With a Monster.’ Same grunge stylings, minus the embarrassing aesthetic. But is it as good? (read more)