How Chicago Became an Alt-Rock Capital in the ‘90s

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By Dave Lifton (@daveeatschicago)

The alternative rock explosion of the ‘90s was synonymous with Seattle, thanks to four bands — Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains — hailing from there. However, that narrative overlooks the importance of Chicago acts.

Punk emerged in the city in the decade prior, with Naked Raygun, Big Black, and The Effigies among the major names, and labels Touch and Go, Ruthless, and Wax Trax. The last of those emerged from a Lincoln Park record store of the same name and helped popularize industrial music with early records by local stars Ministry and European bands like Front 242 and KMFDM. 

A force on the scene was Steve Albini, Big Black’s singer/guitarist. Proudly independent and highly critical of anything that had designs on commercialism, Albini would branch out into production. By 1990, he would helm seminal early records by the Pixies (Surfer Rosa), the Breeders (Pod), and the Jesus Lizard (Head).

Major labels started sniffing around Chicago, signing Eleventh Dream Day and Material Issue. Neither were massive successes, although the latter’s 1991 debut, International Pop Overthrow made waves by melding hormonal, ‘60s-inspired jangle-rock with a modern edge, particularly on “Valerie Loves Me,” which hit No. 3 on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart.

The harbinger would come a year later. The soundtrack to Cameron Crowe’s 1992 film Singles, which was set in Seattle, was a love letter to the music coming out of the Emerald City. But its closer, “Drown,” was a sprawling, eight-minute track by a little-known Chicago band with only one indie LP and EP to its name, Smashing Pumpkins.

Within a year, the Pumpkins would break through with its major-label debut, Siamese Dream. Frontman Billy Corgan blended aggression and tenderness with guitar pyrotechnics on hits “Today,” “Disarm,” and “Cherub Rock,” selling nearly 5 million copies along the way. 

Six weeks before Siamese Dream’s release, Urge Overkill put out their first major-label album, Saturation. It and the follow-up, 1995’s Exit the Dragon, received strong reviews but neither dented the top half of the Billboard album chart. However, the band placed its cover of Neil Diamond’s “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon,” which was on its 1992 indie EP Stull, in a key scene in Quentin Tarentino’s Pulp Fiction. 

However, Stull’s closer, “Goodbye to Guyville,” was based on Urge Overkill’s nickname for the male-heavy music scene in Wicker Park and Ukrainian Village, and alternative rock lovers around the country would soon know about it. 

Winnetka-raised Liz Phair channeled her mostly unanswered crush on Urge frontman Nash Kato (she would later laughingly say they had “a few entanglements”) into Exile in Guyville. Released on indie label Matador between Saturation and Siamese Dream, it was billed as a feminist, track-by-track answer to the Rolling Stones’ magnum opus Exile on Main Street. Guyville’s profane lyrics and stripped-down sound – it was mostly her and producer Brad Wood – turned heads, topping many critics’ end-of-the-year lists. 

Three acclaimed albums within a month and a half might have led people to believe that there was a singular “Chicago Sound,” but there wasn’t. Yes, Urge Overkill and Smashing Pumpkins were rooted in ‘70s rock, but Corgan leaned into the bombast and auteurism on the follow-up, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, while Urge’s crunchy riffs were tempered by a heady dose of ironic detachment. 

Guyville, by contrast, was decidedly lo-fi, an extension of Phair’s demos – she’d never performed live until after its release – made on a portable four-track cassette recorder. She’d soon sign with Atlantic, with subsequent releases being more polished. 

The lure of the majors was so strong in 1993 that even Albini set aside his antipathy for the mainstream to produce Nirvana’s In Utero. Although he took the job to roughen up their sound, Geffen Records balked after hearing his work, and brought in R.E.M. producer Scott Litt to remix a couple of songs to make them more radio-friendly. 

Labels continued to mine Chicago’s clubs. The next year, Veruca Salt was the subject of a $500,000 bidding war on the strength of one indie single, “Seether,” that was reminiscent of the Breeders. But the full-length, American Thighs, received mixed reviews and its sales of 500,000 was considered underwhelming given the investment. 

Over the next few years, Local H (who were from Zion, Ill.), Smoking Popes, the Jesus Lizard, Fig Dish and Triple Fast Action would all make the jump to the majors, with poor-to-middling results. The writing was on the wall, and Chicago’s era as an alternative rock haven had come to an end. By the dawn of the 21^st century, only Phair and Smashing Pumpkins still had major-label deals.

For the record, Wilco doesn’t truly count in this equation because it was formed out of the ashes of Jeff Tweedy’s previous band, Belleville, Ill.’s Uncle Tupelo, which had already been signed to Sire Records. 

The author’s favorite Chicago alternative band remains Material Issue, and still has an autographed setlist from their 1994 show at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C.