Pavement

If the indie-rock boom of the early '90s has a boy band, it’s Pavement: The sweet melodies, the carefree delivery, they way they can be the smartest guys in the room without making a point of it.

At a time when some of their post-punk peers were still waging musical revolution, they embraced the rosy warmth of classic rock (Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain), and even at their most challenging (Westing (By Musket and Sextant, the stoned sprawl of Wowee Zowee) were more playful than rebellious, the sound of collegiate guys who liked sports and poetry in equal measure, who were always interesting but never pretentious.

Courtney Love once described their frontman, Steve Malkmus, as “the Grace Kelly of indie rock”—an invocation not only of the band’s charm, but their poise and effortlessness.