Underground Inc explores the rise and fall of the 90's Alternative Rock scene. Told by the artists who pioneered a sonic sub-culture, this music documentary relives the triumphs, tragedies and ruckus energy of the underground punk world - and is a must see for serious music lovers!
Underground Inc: The Unsung Story of Alternative Rock, Underground Inc
Germany
Reeperbahn Festival (Hamburg)
Germany
Too bad Failure failed. Fantastic Planet was the best. It was like an album full of loud, atmospheric love songs to heroin, transmitted from beyond time and space. And when I would listen to Diary by Sunny Day Real Estate I loved it so much that I would compose letters of admiration in my mind during "Seven" and "In Circles". Is that weird? This doc and the music in it is super good, mostly. The mainstream didn't deserve these bands. Money and the blind pursuit of it is the destroyer of true art. I'm totally against the mainstream anyway.
I dabble in most music genres. That's largely because once every few years I'll get bored and decide to try something new, then I make my life about that new (to me) genre for the next few months. The obsession inevitably fades, but that doesn't mean I haven't made emotional connections in that time, so a lot of it sticks with me. However, if you took my iTunes library and said, "You have to delete everything except one genre," I wouldn't have to think hard about it at all: 90s alternative. A part of that is my oft-cited love of Sonic Youth, but I'd also be able to keep a lot of the sub-genres that I'm particularly besotted by: shoegaze,…
An extensive, if not always compelling, exploration of rock n roll "failures." Lots of undervalued music here to dive into. Lovely to hear about 90s bands outside of the big 12 everyone yaks about
This was a blast from the past. Much of this was spent with my girlfriend on the sofa exclaiming “Oh! I remember them!” Which is kind of the point of the excellent doco: these are the bands that shone brightly for a brief period in the wake of Nirvana’s success and the so-called “Seattle scene.” With a mixture of bands I was familiar with from the time (Afghan Wigs, Rocket from the Crypt) and ones I definitely have to check out (Drive Like Jehu) this was both a great snapshot of a scene and a cool playlist in the making. The tension between major labels and indies is palpable, anger has turned to bitterness for some, and lessons have been…
Excellent review of all the alternative you haven’t heard of from the 90s!
Btw the MTV show they refer to as getting all these “college” bands on the air was 120 MINUTES. It was a great time to see all kinds of new fun bands on cable who were from everywhere and played some sick cool shit.
Sure it ended badly but at least we all got hear of Rocket From the Crypt
Has all the same problems as every other music doc that attempts to celebrate/catalogue a certain scene or period, usually too expansive a prospect for a one-shot doc.
It bizarrely covers too much and too little in pretty equal measure, there's far too many talking heads and not enough footage of the bands in action. The review captions are annoying and only focus on the positive (and frequently retrospective) appraisals of the groups - part of the appeal of loving/hating some of these bands was because they were devisive even within the 'scene'. And why would I care what Amazon.com thinks of a band?
Good stuff (for me at least) on Cop Shoot Cop, Monster Magnet and CoC, always got…
FINALLY a low budget documentary that uses music videos as important subcultural touchstones. the only thing that could have made this better was if they had a cigarettes smoked counter in the bottom corner
This is probably the singular best thing I've ever watched on alternative/indie/underground rock music. Such a thorough, informative and in depth look into (in my opinion) the best era for rock music, brimming with a passionate, undying nerddom and love for the stuff it puts on full display. Save for some mild complaints with the editing and the technical side of things, I am just so impressed with this. Wow wow wow! 9.5/10
Interesting doc about the lesser known 90s alternative bands and working within the industry machine.
waiting patiently for the day moss icon is mentioned in a music doc its what they deserve
Peculiar assortment of interviewees sharing pretty much the same story we've all heard about the major label feeding frenzy in the post-Nevermind 1990s. Nice to check in with members of bands I still listen to like Quicksand and Jawbox, and hilarious to realize my hatred of Cop Shoot Cop hasn't diminished even a little bit in the last 30 years.
