The Artists

The patron saint of Cigarette Mom Rock. Jagged Little Pill didn't just sell 33 million copies -- it gave an entire generation of women permission to scream in their cars. If CMR had a Mount Rushmore, Alanis would be all four faces.

A piano prodigy who turned confessional songwriting into a contact sport. She showed up at the VMAs, called the world "bullshit," and then spent the next three decades proving she was right. The thinking person's CMR icon.

She had one song, and that song was a manifesto. "Bitch" was the karaoke anthem for every woman who was tired of being pigeonholed, and it still hits just as hard at 2 AM in any bar in America.

She walked onto the Wembley stage with an acoustic guitar and stopped the world. "Fast Car" is a masterclass in storytelling that's made more people cry in traffic than any other song in history.

She lived in her van, wrote poetry in coffeehouses, and sold 30 million albums. Jewel was the folk-pop CMR archetype -- big voice, bigger feelings, and a yodeling trick she could deploy at will.

She scored a number one hit without a record deal, which is the most 90s sentence ever written. Those iconic glasses and that heartbreak vocal on "Stay" defined a very specific flavor of smart, bookish CMR.

She left 10,000 Maniacs at peak fame to go solo, because of course she did. Tigerlily was the album your cool English teacher played on the last day of school, and "Carnival" made you feel things you couldn't name yet.

The literal founder of Lilith Fair and the voice behind every ASPCA commercial that's ever made you ugly-cry. She built the infrastructure for CMR to exist as a touring movement, and the songs held up too.

An Australian soap opera star who became a global pop-rock sensation with a cover song. "Torn" was so ubiquitous in the late 90s that it basically replaced oxygen in certain demographics.

She was seventeen, she had a guitar, and "Everywhere" was inescapable in 2001. Michelle Branch was the bridge between 90s CMR and the pop-rock wave that followed, Buffy soundtrack and all.

Johnette Napolitano had a voice like whiskey and heartache, and "Joey" was the drunk-dial ballad that launched a thousand tearful bar singalongs. Goth-adjacent, punk-adjacent, and deeply, devastatingly real.

She came out at the Clinton inauguration, won Grammys, beat cancer, and never stopped rocking. "Come to My Window" is arena-rock yearning at its most raw and unguarded. A true CMR lifer.

She just wanted to have some fun until the sun came up over Santa Monica Boulevard, and that carefree energy became the sound of an entire decade. Sheryl Crow is the aviator sunglasses of CMR -- effortlessly cool.

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers harmonized their way through college campuses, folk festivals, and Lilith Fair stages for decades. "Closer to Fine" is the philosophy degree you got from your car stereo.

Shirley Manson fronted a band of legendary producers and made alt-rock sound like it was wearing black lipstick and a sneer. They were goth enough for the weirdos and catchy enough for the radio -- a perfect duality.

Amy Lee turned Hot Topic angst into a legitimate cultural moment. Fallen was the gateway drug that led a generation of mall-goers from nu-metal into actual piano-driven drama. Gothic CMR at its most theatrical.

She went from lo-fi indie royalty with Exile in Guyville to unapologetic pop with her self-titled album, and somehow both versions are essential CMR. The rare artist whose sellout era produced a banger too.

Anne Danielewski made two brilliant albums, got screwed by her label, and vanished into cult-legend status. Her debut Hello mixed trip-hop, rock, and spoken word into something nobody else has ever quite replicated.

Courtney Love was chaos incarnate, but Live Through This is one of the greatest rock albums of the 90s and nobody can take that away from her. Celebrity Skin proved she could do glamour without losing the edge.

Named after the bratty kid in Willy Wonka, they delivered fuzzed-out harmonies that sounded like sugar-coated grenades. "Seether" predated the band that stole their song title by a decade.

Boston's power-pop sweethearts got a massive boost from 10 Things I Hate About You and never looked back. Kay Hanley's voice was the sonic equivalent of a cherry-red convertible doing 80 on the Mass Pike.

Kim Deal left the Pixies and somehow made something just as iconic. "Cannonball" is the sound of the 90s condensed into three minutes of gloriously weird, bass-driven perfection.

Tanya Donelly left Throwing Muses and the Breeders to form her own band, and Star was a dream-pop gem that deserved way more attention than it got. "Feed the Tree" is an underground anthem hiding in plain sight.

They threw a used tampon into the audience at Reading Festival, which honestly tells you everything you need to know. L7 were punk-metal feminists before anyone had a hashtag for it.

Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker built a two-guitar assault force that Greil Marcus called America's best rock band. They brought riot grrrl fury into the mainstream without losing a single decibel of intensity.

Polly Jean Harvey made art that was equal parts blues, goth, and sheer British will. She could be hauntingly beautiful or terrifyingly raw, often in the same song. Too cool for any single genre to claim.

Kathleen Hanna wrote "REVOLUTION GIRL STYLE NOW" on the flyers and meant every word. Bikini Kill didn't just play punk -- they invented riot grrrl and gave CMR its most radical ancestor.

She played the piano like she was exorcising demons, and her lyrics made you reach for a mythology textbook. Tori made confessional art-rock that was too intense for pop radio and too beautiful to ignore.

Hope Sandoval barely whispered, and it was the loudest thing in the room. "Fade Into You" is the song playing in every 90s teen drama when two people almost kiss, and it works every single time.

She tore up the Pope's photo on SNL and the world lost its mind, but history proved her right about everything. "Nothing Compares 2 U" remains one of the most emotionally devastating vocal performances ever recorded.

She distilled the entire CMR ethos into one song: sitting on the floor at 2 AM, trying to breathe, trying to make sense of it all. "Breathe (2 AM)" is the late-night existential crisis anthem of a generation.

A classically trained pianist who turned a walking-through-the-city daydream into a piano riff that lodged itself in the collective consciousness. "A Thousand Miles" is the most triumphant commute song ever written.

A Christian alt-rock band that made the most secular-sounding kiss anthem of the 90s. "Kiss Me" floated through every rom-com trailer like a butterfly made of jangly guitars and pure dopamine.

She wrote the Dawson's Creek theme song and was nominated for seven Grammys, which is a wild range. "I Don't Want to Wait" soundtracked a million teen melodramas, and "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" was slyly subversive.

Before she went full Timbaland pop, she was a folk-trip-hop chameleon making breezy, genre-defying music. "I'm Like a Bird" was whimsical and wistful in equal measure -- peak early-2000s CMR energy.

She was already huge in the UK when Eminem sampled her and introduced her to every rap fan in America. "Thank You" is a gorgeous, understated love letter that became a CMR staple through sheer emotional resonance.

Gwen Stefani in a crop top, doing backflips on stage, singing about how society underestimates women. "Just a Girl" was sarcastic, furious, and impossibly catchy -- a ska-punk feminist anthem for the ages.

Dolores O'Riordan had a voice that could shift from a lullaby to a battle cry mid-verse. "Zombie" turned Irish rage about The Troubles into one of the most recognizable rock songs on Earth.

One album, one massive hit, and a legacy that grows stronger every year through memes and karaoke. Linda Perry screaming "What's going on?" is the primal scream therapy session that never ends.

They criticized a president on a London stage and got blacklisted by country radio, then won five Grammys for the album about it. "Not Ready to Make Nice" is the ultimate CMR revenge song in any genre.

She went from scrappy Pacific Northwest folk-rocker to six-time Grammy winner without ever losing the raw, throat-shredding intensity. "The Story" is vocal performance as an extreme sport.

A Scottish singer-songwriter who built entire songs from loop pedals and sheer charisma. "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" sounded like a one-woman rock band because it literally was one.

She fought her label, went indie before it was cool, and wrote songs so perfectly melancholic that Paul Thomas Anderson built a whole movie around them. The intellectual's CMR pick, every time.

She screamed "I'm doing fine, Mother!" while very clearly not doing fine, and a generation of daughters felt represented. "Mother Mother" is the angriest phone call home ever set to a violin riff.

She didn't give a damn about her bad reputation, and she told you so. Joan Jett was the blueprint -- the leather-jacketed godmother who proved women could own rock and roll without asking permission.

Four consecutive Grammy wins, a voice that could cut glass, and an arsenal of power-pop anthems. Pat Benatar was doing CMR before the cigarettes, the moms, or the subgenre name existed.

Ann and Nancy Wilson were rock royalty in the 70s and 80s, proving that women could shred as hard as anyone in the game. "Barracuda" still has the greatest opening guitar riff written by a woman -- or by anyone.

Debbie Harry was punk, new wave, disco, and rap before any of those genres had rules against mixing. "One Way or Another" is a stalker anthem that somehow became a joyful singalong, which is pure Blondie.

The Gold Dust Woman herself -- twirling in shawls, writing songs about Welsh witches, and making every woman who heard her want to move to a cottage and commune with the moon. An eternal CMR patron saint.

The original. The one who kicked the door open so hard it never closed again. Janis sang like she was setting herself on fire, and "Me and Bobby McGee" proved that freedom really is just another word.

Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie turned the band's personal implosion into one of the greatest albums ever made. "The Chain" is the sound of a relationship falling apart while the music holds it together by force.

She started as an R&B act, pivoted to pop-rock, and became one of the most reliable hitmakers of the 2000s. "So What" is post-breakup empowerment turned into a stadium-sized party, and she meant every word.

She showed up in a tank top and a tie, said "Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated," and every suburban teenager felt seen. The sk8er boi era bridged pop-punk and CMR in ways nobody saw coming.

Hayley Williams screamed, sang, and dyed her hair every color of the emotional spectrum. Paramore carried the CMR torch through the emo era, proving that women-led rock bands didn't end with the 90s.

She won the first American Idol and immediately proved she was too big for reality TV. "Since U Been Gone" is pure catharsis -- the song you play at full volume when the relationship finally ends and you finally feel free.

Her label wanted a love song, so she wrote a song about not writing a love song, and it became a massive hit. "Love Song" is a masterclass in cheerful defiance wrapped in an irresistible pop-rock hook.

She sold 27 million copies of a jazz-folk album in the age of Napster, which shouldn't have been possible. "Don't Know Why" is the musical equivalent of a rainy Sunday with good coffee and zero obligations.

A once-in-a-generation voice who channeled 60s soul through a deeply modern lens. "Rehab" was defiant, funny, heartbreaking, and prophetic all at once. She burned impossibly bright.

A punk-rock force of nature who survived everything life threw at her and turned it into anthems. "I Love Myself Today" is exactly the kind of unapologetic self-affirmation CMR was built for.

A Bermuda-born singer-songwriter whose atmospheric rock was perpetually underrated. "Walk This World" deserved to be a massive hit, and everyone who heard it knows it. The definition of a hidden CMR gem.

Justine Frischmann led the Britpop charge from the women's side, delivering wiry, angular post-punk that was tighter than a two-minute song has any right to be. "Connection" is pure nervous energy, perfectly bottled.