Alternative rock in the 90's was neither revolutionary nor innovative. It was just rock music marketed well.
But I still love it.
We've talked a lot about this on these message boards over the years.
Rock music really hasn't changed much since the early/mid 90s. Many songs that come out now, sound like they could have come out in 2013, or 2003, or 1993. One of the main drivers for that, is the lack of rapid invention/innovation in musical instrumentation and musical production, that we saw in decades prior to that.
In 1993, you could absolutely tell the difference from a song that came out in 1983. And in 1983, you could tell the difference from a song that came out in 1973, and the same for 73 versus 63, and so on.
Synthesizers, electric guitars vs. acoustic, the advent of guitar pedals, advances in production techniques, and the changes from analog to digital recording and reproduction, are just some of the factors that dramatically changed the sound of music over all of those decades prior to the 90s. But since then, the rate of advancement has significantly slowed. And consequently, the rate of change in the sound of music has effectively stagnated.
I'm not complaining or saying it's a good or bad thing-- a lot of the "experimentation" that went into the evolution of music from the 50s through the 80s ended up sucking. There's plenty of bad music from all decades and from all genres. But I do find it interesting to discuss and explore how music has really stopped evolving at a rapid pace, in recent decades.