100 Greatest Alternative Artists
Last Updated: April 14, 2012
Edited by: Piper

Criteria: Artists are ranked by their influence, impact, and popularity. List includes alternative rock, post-punk and new wave artists, as well as artists in the various alternative rock subgenres (including - but not limited to - indie rock, Britpop, grunge, shoegazing, post rock, emo, alternative dance, goth rock and dream pop).
1. R.E.M.
2. Nirvana
3. Talking Heads
4. The Smiths
5. Radiohead
6. Sonic Youth
7. Joy Division
8. U2
9. Pixies
10. Elvis Costello & the Attractions
11. The Cure
12. Pearl Jam
13. Hüsker Dü
14. Red Hot Chili Peppers
15. Fugazi
16. Nine Inch Nails
17. New Order
18. The Replacements
19. The Smashing Pumpkins
20. Beck
21. Soundgarden
22. Pavement
23. My Bloody Valentine
24. Depeche Mode
25. The Jam
26. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
27. The Fall
28. Flaming Lips
29. Kate Bush
30. The Jesus & Mary Chain
31. Wire
32. Green Day
33. Dinosaur Jr.
34. The Stone Roses
35. Cocteau Twins
36. Oasis
37. Blur
38. Bjork
39. Siouxsie and the Banshees
40. Public Image Ltd.
41. Manic Street Preachers
42. Bauhaus
43. Mudhoney
44. Jane's Addiction
45. Alice in Chains
46. XTC
47. Echo & The Bunnymen
48. Weezer
49. Pulp
50. Foo Fighters
51. They Might Be Giants
52. Suede
53. The White Stripes
54. Violent Femmes
55. Gang of Four
56. The Strokes
57. Yo La Tengo
58. Morrissey
59. Belle and Sebastian
60. Guided by Voices
61. Talk Talk
62. Meat Puppets
63. Jeff Buckley
64. Minutemen
65. Squeeze
66. Primal Scream
67. Stereolab
68. The Go-Betweens
69. Wilco
70. Elliott Smith
71. Coldplay
72. No Doubt
73. PJ Harvey
74. Sleater-Kinney
75. Beat Happening
76. Killing Joke
77. Midnight Oil
78. Beat Happening
79. Modest Mouse
80. Godspeed You! Black Emperor
81. Love and Rockets
82. The Verve
83. Mission of Burma
84. The Dismemberment Plan
85. Stone Temple Pilots
86. Swans
87. 10,000 Maniacs
88. Camper Van Beethoven
89. Phish
90. The Cranberries
91. The The
92. Mogwai
93. Throwing Muses
94. The Specials
95. The Feelies
96. The Soft Boys
97. Tortoise
98. Sebadoh
99. Madness
100. Galaxie 500

101. Morphine
102. fIREHOSE
103. Arcade Fire
104. The Jesus Lizard
105. This Mortal Coil
106. Built to Spill
107. Neutral Milk Hotel
108. Muse
109. The Birthday Party
110. Red House Painters
111. The Psychedelic Furs
112. The Church
113. The Pogues
114. Placebo
115. Sigur Ros
116. Low
117. Superchunk
118. Robyn Hitchcock
119. Happy Mondays
120. The Mekons
121. Mother Love Bone
122. Ride
123. TV on the Radio
124. The Housemartins
125. Butthole Surfers
126. The Chameleons
127. Gorillaz
128. Magazine
129. Liz Phair
130. The Killers
131. The Sugarcubes
132. Super Furry Animals
133. Eels
134. Franz Ferdinand
135. Phoenix
136. Death Cab for Cutie
137. Big Black
138. Screaming Trees
139. Ben Harper
140. Bonny 'Prince' Billy/Will Oldham
141. Lush
142. Half Man Half Biscuit
143. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
144. James Chance & The Contortions
145. Young Marble Giants
146. Spiritualized
147. Spoon
148. Slint
149. Interpol
150. Arctic Monkeys
151. Broken Social Scene
152. Prefab Sprout
153. Dream Syndicate
154. Swervedriver
155. The Magnetic Fields
156. of Montreal
157. The Charlatans
158. Sunny Day Real Estate
159. Catherine Wheel
160. ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
161. Royal Trux
162. The Wedding Present
163. The Pop Group
164. Television Personalities
165. Afghan Whigs
166. Sisters of Mercy
167. Orange Juice
168. Pylon
169. The Decemberists
170. Bright Eyes
171. Mercury Rev
172. The Blue Nile
173. The New Pornographers
174. Gene Loves Jezebel
175. The Microphones/Mount Eerie
176. World Party
177. Olivia Tremor Control
178. The Libertines
179. The Breeders
180. Redd Kross
181. The dB's
182. Daniel Johnston
183. Green River
184. Jimmy Eat World
185. Peter Bjorn and John
186. The Shins
187. Liquid Liquid
188. Let's Active
189. Don Caballero
190. Jawbox
191. Bloc Party
192. The National
193. Kings of Leon
194. Doves
195. Ween
196. Redd Kross
197. The Beautiful South
198. Catatonia
199. Broadcast
200. The Sundays

Sublist:
100 Greatest Influences on Alternative Music
Criteria: Includes which perform non-alternative genres (including some artists which pre-date the genre) which have had a noticeable and long-lasting influence on alternative rock music. Includes pre-alternative, 1970's punk, 1960's garage rock, protopunk, psychedelic rock, experimental music, alternative hip-hop, trip-hop and electronica artists. Artists are ranked by influence on alternative music, critical acclaim from alternative music publications and popularity within the alternative music culture and community. The list includes artists that predate the alternative music, as well as artists that are contemporaneous with the genre.

1. David Bowie
2. Velvet Underground
3. The Stooges
4. MC5
5. Patti Smith
6. Frank Zappa
7. Brian Eno
8. Scott Walker
9. Tom Waits
10. Ramones
11. The Sex Pistols
12. The Clash
13. Lou Reed
14. Iggy Pop
15. Television
16. Roxy Music
17. Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
18. Pere Ubu
19. Blondie
20. The Sonics
21. New York Dolls
22. Big Star
23. Suicide
24. Can
25. Leonard Cohen
26. Kraftwerk
27. Captain Beefheart
28. Sparks
29. Love
30. Warren Zevon
31. Richard and Linda Thompson/Richard Thompson (solo)
32. Nick Drake
33. Glenn Branca
34. The Stranglers
35. Syd Barrett
36. Throbbing Gristle
37. Cheap Trick
38. Devo
39. Silver Apples
40. Black Flag
41. Buzzcocks
42. Beastie Boys
43. Dead Kennedys
44. The 13th Floor Elevators
45. Robert Wyatt
46. Nick Lowe
47. Portishead
48. This Heat
49. Sparks
50. T. Rex
51. Richard Hell and the Voidoids
52. The Residents
53. The Seeds
54. Swell Maps
55. Cabaret Voltaire
56. The Damned
57. Todd Rundgren
58. Massive Attack
59. John Cale
60. The Red Crayola/Red Krayola
61. X
62. NRBQ
63. Stiff Little Fingers
64. The Undertones
65. Dr. Feelgood
66. Radio Birdman
67. The Slits
68. Hawkwind
69. The Cramps
70. Bad Brains
71. John Cooper Clarke
72. Graham Parker
73. Henry Cow
74. The Adverts
75. Brinsley Schwarz
76. John Cage
77. Herbie Hancock
78. The Prodigy
79. Laurie Anderson
80. Moby Grape
81. Squarepusher
82. Public Enemy
83. The Selecter
84. Negativland
85. Fatboy Slim
86. Tricky
87. De La Soul
88. Billy Bragg
89. Kirsty MacColl
90. DJ Shadow
91. The KLF
92. Faithless
93. Vic Chesnutt
94. The Pharcyde
95. The Art of Noise
96. Boards of Canada
97. Victoria Williams
98. Amy Winehouse
99. The Chemical Brothers
100. The Avalanches

Les Rallizes Denudes need to be on there somewhere in the top 100 I'd think. 150 at least. Predated a lot of music and did for Japan more than any other band until Boredoms. I can find vids if people want proof, but their influence is obvious if you just go to Youtube for 5 seconds and watch any of their videos.

mizutani ftw

Slint, The Arcade Fire and Neutral Milk Hotel look far, far too low for me.

How are all those behind Coldplay, Mogwai, The Go-Betweeners, The White Stripes, The Church and Tortoise to name a few?

Yeah, seriously, for having a No. 1 album, Arcade Fire are not high enough.

To play the devil's advocate, Coldplay have massive popularity that those indie artists could never dream of touching, Mogwai were one of the first tr00 post-rock bands so they were crazy influential and even brought popularity to the genre before bands like Sigur Ros, The Go-Betweens again just have massive influence on their side, The White Stripes have popularity and acclaim unlike few modern bands today, The Church and Tortoise were mainly just incredibly influential.

Surely, we should be judging on Popularity amongst Alt. music fans rather than record sales though in regards to Popularity? Does basing it on record sales not kind of defeat the point of it being Alternative music?

Coldplay and The White Stripes are a greater artists than NMH, Slint or The Arcade Fire, but absolutely no way are they a greater Alternative artists.

Yes, Mogwai were one of the first post-rock bands, but Slint were the first. Slint are far more influential than Mogwai.

Yeah, the Church and Tortoise were influential, but not to the same extent as the three artist mentioned, neither do they have anywhere near the popularity amongst Alt music fans.

Yeah but it's a greatest list, so I assume the criteria is popularity and impact, something that all of those bands have a lot of one way or the other. And Slint, Arcade Fire and NMH really have one influential album to their name when these bands have discographies worth (Coldplay's debatable, and I don't really care where they end up). I'm just saying it's all justified.

But it's a greatest Alternative Artists list not a list of Greatest Artists who could be labelled as Alternative. So surely we should be trying to be basing it on Alternative music alone, so using record sales doesn't really make sense. Popularity should be based on Popularity from Alt. fans only, surely?

If that's the route you wanna take, then most of the bands there would be off the list, which I'm cool with, but you'd basically have to rework the whole thing it seems like.

I don't think the list needs major work, I just don't see how record sales should have much of an impact on this sort of list.

Fwiw also, I would have the top 15 as:

1. The Velvet Underground
2. David Bowie
3. Radiohead
4. R.E.M.
5. Pixies
6. Sonic Youth
7. Nirvana
8. Joy Division
9. Talking Heads
10. Television
11. The Smiths
12. Elvis Costello
13. The Stooges
14. The Cure
15. The Fall

I guess I'll have my take at it too then, I pretty much agree though.

1. The Velvet Underground
2. David Bowie
3. R.E.M.
4. Radiohead
5. Talking Heads
6. Pixies
7. Sonic Youth
8. The Smiths
9. Joy Division
10. U2
11. Iggy Pop & the Stooges
12. Nirvana
13. Brian Eno
14. Elvis Costello & the Attractions
15. Television
16. The Cure
17. MC5
18. Blondie
19. The Jesus and Mary Chain
20. Pavement

I see we both agree that Pixies are too low and Nirvana are too high. Anyone else feel the same?

Oh, and I love JAMC, they are one of my favourite bands and I think they are maybe a bit low on the original list, but no way should they be ahead of the Fall, as British alt. rock goes.

I missed the Fall, you could put them in in Blondie's place.

Skullkid disappeared off the face of the earth mid-revision earlier this year. I agree it could use some major work too.

Oh, as for the lack of punk bands? A user called dinss pitched a fit about including them, so we took all of them off to shut him up.