Blind Melon

Blind Melon got lost in the shuffle after their big 1992 hit "No Rain" faded and that's a shame. Shannon Hoon's fatal OD in 1995 didn't help, either. This debut is anything but an effort befitting a one-hit wonder -- not one bad song, a range of brainy influences emerge and Hoon's lost outsider lyrics put it way beyond the trendiness of the grunge wave they were riding.

With the now-defunct Replacements and H'fcsker D'fc, Soul Asylum formed an unholy, '80s
trinity: hard-core Minneapolitans with bleeding hearts and big guitars. All three fought
punk dogma by actually improving with age; sole survivors Dave Pirner and his three
cohorts are now working up to legend status. Volume lowered but intensity intact, they
barely seem the band that once bore the moniker Loud Fast Rules: "Grave Dance... More >

The biggest *ssh*l*s yet to go alternative platinum share management with Guns 'N Roses and woodshedded in El Lay before moving to North Carolina to research their image. Musically they're kind of a cross between Rhinoceros and Savage Resurrection, although without the steamroller drive of the former or the messy idealism of the latter. They do boast better chops, however. A quarter-century down the line, that's what bizzers call progress--chops, and MTV. (Grade - C+)