A List of Indie Rock and Alternative Music Singers

A list of the best indie rock and alternative music singers. Discover new music and find your favorite artists.

Introduction

The artists on this list are some of the most popular indie rock and alternative music singers. These singers have been making music for many years and have amassed a large following of fans.

-Eddie Vedder
-Thom Yorke
-Billy Corgan
-Isaac Brock
-Win Butler

Indie Rock

Jeff Buckley

Jeff Buckley was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He was known for his eclectic musical style and for his covers of other artists’ songs, such as Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. Buckley released one studio album during his lifetime, Grace, in 1994. A few posthumous releases have been issued since his death in 1997, including Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (1998), which comprised material recorded shortly before and after Grace.

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain was an American singer-songwriter and musician, best known as the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Nirvana. Cobain formed Nirvana with Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1985 and established it as part of the Seattle music scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

With Bleach (1989), Nirvana achieved a underground following and popularity with their single “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from Nevermind (1991). Nirvana’s sudden success widely popularized alternative rock and grunge music, opening doors for a wave of new bands such as Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Cobain’s own band Foo Fighters.

Cobain is remembered as one of the most iconic and influential rock musicians of his generation. Kurt Cobain took his own life at his home in Seattle on April 8, 1994.

Thom Yorke

Thom Yorke is an English singer, songwriter, and musician who is best known as the lead singer and main lyricist of the alternative rock band Radiohead. He is also a solo artist, with his debut solo album, The Eraser, released in 2006. His work as a solo artist and with Radiohead has received critical acclaim, and he has been ranked among the greatest singers of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.

Alternative Music

Indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the United States and United Kingdom in the 1970s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with subgenres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, emo, noise pop, slacker rock, and more. Alternative music is a broad umbrella term that can refer to many different genres of music. These genres include punk, post-punk, new wave, indie rock, grunge, and more.

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She is known for her distinctive, raw vocals and her eclectic mix of musical styles. Harvey began her career in 1988 as a member of the band Automatic Dlamini. Her first solo album, Dry, was released in 1992 to critical acclaim. She has since released nine more solo albums and has collaborated with a variety of other artists.

Björk

Björk Guðmundsdóttir (born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Over her four-decade career, she has developed an eclectic musical style that draws on a range of influences and genres spanning electronic, pop, experimental, classical, and trip hop. Björk has been nominated for 15 Grammy Awards, one Academy Award, and one Golden Globe Award. She has won four Brit Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, one MOJO Award, three Q Awards, two Satellite Awards, and one Stockholm Film Festival Award.

Liz Phair

Liz Phair is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. She began her career in the early 1990s by self-releasing audio cassettes under the name Girly Sound, before signing with the independent record label Matador Records. Her 1993 debut studio album Exile in Guyville was released to acclaim; it has been ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Ten years after the release of her debut, Phair’s fourth studio album, Liz Phair, was released on Capitol Records and marked a departure from her earlier work.

Phair has sold nearly three million records worldwide. She has been nominated for four Grammy Awards. Phair’s songs “Supernova” and “Why Can’t I?” were both featured in major motion pictures; her song “Extraordinary” was used as the lead single for the television series Nash Bridges; and her song “6’1″” was used in a commercial for Gap Inc.. In September 2010, Phair announced she would be releasing a new album entitled Funstyle on July 3, 2020.