Most Influential Artists of 1996 in 2021

first Pearl Jam album has aged well imo

Aic ruled

Soundgarden ruled

I know, this thread is not about “ruling”

things just rule and most are never understood

Well I guess what Eddie Vedder has over his contemporaries in Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains in terms of legacy is that he is still alive.

He even (prophetically) sang that!

Mark Arm is pretty good at dodging Vedder's assassins

This is King Buzzo erasure

I wish smashing pumpkins seemed more influential esp adore era but I don’t feel like they are really? I think the music has aged pretty well but idk about influential

I love AIC but to me they're mostly a throwback to 70s rock/Sabbath and not so much a blueprint for alt rock the 25 years afterwards? Of the major grunge bands I'd probably say they were the best but musically the least "influential".

idk i think they can lay claim to sludge metal

baroness, mastodon, they love aic and you can tell

At thirty years old, the impact and influence of Facelift shows no sign of slowing. Its trademark sound is indelible — traces of it can be found in the DNA of sludge metal and nu metal. The latter would also pick up distortion techniques to add extra grit and texture to their sound.

The combination of hard rock dirge and drawn out vocals is evident in music by Godsmack (who took their name directly from an AIC song title) Dilly Dally, Windhand, and Deftones. The same blend of ethereal vocals and guitar distortion layered over oppressive bass can also be found in dark, folky music by Emma Ruth Rundle and Chelsea Wolfe.

The angst-ridden, brutally honest lyrical themes made accessible in Facelift have become so hardwired into certain genres of metal that it’s hard to imagine what that music might be like without them.

I always associate Sludge Metal mostly with the Melvins/Eyehategod bloodline more than AIC but yeah now you mention it, there's definitely an influence there.

back when i worked in a club's booking office, they used to call sludge metal "butt rock"