We Rock So You Don't Have to

the long version

Sired by '70s punk and nurtured through the indie '80s, the losers' revolution broke big in the '90s. Upstarts like Nirvana changed the whole climate of the music business; stalwarts like Sonic Youth and the Meat Puppets finally had their day in the sun. Yet when the alternative became the mainstream, the scene that spawned the music collapsed under the weight of its own self-contradiction. Option, the acclaimed independent music magazine published by Scott Becker, was there to capture the saga. Sometimes playful, occasionally painful, and always passionate, these profiles from the pages of Option - written by the country's top music journalists - trace the rise and fall of the best bands of the '90s.