Just because a band dominates one decade doesn’t mean they carry over into the next. This proved to be the case for many bands going into the new millennium. At the turn of the century, these 90s alternative rock bands never carried over into the 2000s.
L7
In the 1990s, L7 was one of the most dominant all-female punk bands. The band peaked commercially in the mid-90s with Bricks Are Heavy (1992) and Hungry For Stink (1994). By the 2000s, the group announced an indefinite hiatus. This was due to a number of reasons, including financial exhaustion following a drop in record sales and feeling burned out. They were dropped by their major label, Reprise Records, in 1997. They released Slap-Happy in August 1999, a low-budget effort produced by a friend of the band.
In the early 2010s, the band began discussing a possible reunion following bassist Jennifer Finch’s cancer diagnosis. They announced this reunion in 2014 and embarked on a world tour. In 2015, they released a documentary, L7: Pretend We’re Dead. The band released one more studio album in 2019, Scatter The Rats. Tragically, in July 2026, Finch lost her battle with cancer.
Neutral Milk Hotel
This highly influential group released two indie-rock staples in the 1990s. Their lo-fi debut, On Avery Island, was released on March 26, 1996. They brilliantly followed up with the cult classic, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, released on February 10, 1998. It’s the success and attention of the album that led to the group’s demise. Bandleader Jeff Magnum didn’t like the attention and began to shut himself inside his home. In 1999, he was worried about the possible Y2K theory and began hoarding rice in preparation for a major disaster. He distanced himself from his fame and became reclusive. Ultimately, the band reunited from 2013 to 2015, though they never released another album.
Screaming Trees
This band emerged from the same Pacific Northwest grunge scene as the “Big Four” grunge bands, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. Screaming Trees never reached the heights of these other bands, yet they’re still credited as pioneers of the genre. They penned a major grunge hit in 1992 with “Nearly Lost You”. It peaked at No. 5 on the Alternative Airplay chart and No. 12 on the Mainstream Rock chart.
On June 25, 1996, the band released their seventh and final studio album, Dust. Following this release, Epic Records dropped the band. Despite this, they began recording a follow-up in 1998 and 1999 at Pearl Jam guitarist Steve Gossard’s studio before breaking up in 2000. The unfinished albums sat untouched for many years, eventually released in 2011 as Last Words: The Final Recordings.
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