February 1990: Quincy Jones receives the Grammy’s Living Legends Award.

1990: Seattle band The Posies releases “Dear 23,” its first album for Geffen Records.

1990: Alice in Chains’ first album, “Facelift,” comes out on Columbia Records, giving the Seattle scene a commercial jump-start.

March 1990: Andy Wood, lead singer of Seattle rock band Mother Love Bone, dies of a heroin overdose just before the release of the band’s debut album, “Apple.”

Summer 1990: Former Mother Love Bone members Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard form a new band, Mookie Blaylock, that later evolves into Pearl Jam.

November 1990: Milli Vanilli, winners of the best new artist Grammy, are exposed as a fraud.

April 1991: “Temple of the Dog,” an Andy Wood tribute album, is released. The album features Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Mike McCready and Eddie Vedder.

August 1991: Women punk musicians, the so-called “riot grrrls,” have their day at an underground rock convention in their honor in Olympia, Wash. Seven Year Bitch and Bikini Kill are among the performers.

August 1991: Epic Records releases “Ten,” Pearl Jam’s debut album.

September 1991: American indie rock’s commercial breakthrough arrives with the release of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” LP and its hit single “Smells Like Teen Spirit ” Seattle’s music scene would never be the same.

September 1991: Country singer Garth Brooks reaches the top of the pop charts, creating the biggest boom in country music since the “Urban Cowboy” craze of the early ’80s.

1992: Fueled by the success of Nirvana, the Seattle music scene explodes. Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Alice Chains, Tad and other bands create an insatiable appetite for grunge, a genre marked by flannel, distortion and angst.

1992: Seattle rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot records “Mack Daddy,” featuring the breakthrough Northwest rap single “Baby Got Back.” The hit song later wins a Grammy Award.

July 1992: Lollapalooza, an innovative alternative-rock festival that made its debut in 1991, achieves a commercial milestone and creates a blueprint for ’90s rock festivals. Pearl Jam, Ministry and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are among the bands that perform locally at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds in Bremerton.

September 1992: Pearl Jam performs at “A Drop in the Park,” a free (but ticketed) concert for 30,000 fans at Magnuson Park. Cypress Hill, Pete Droge and the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow share the bill.

October 1993: Eddie Vedder appears on the cover of Time magazine.

1993: Chris Ballew, Dave Dederer and Jason Finn form quirky Seattle punk-pop band The Presidents of the United States of America and gain notoriety by playing at a Bill Clinton rally.

July 1993: The body of Mia Zapata, singer for Seattle band The Gits, is found on a Seattle street. Her killer isn’t found until years later, but friends form the self-defense collective Home Alive.

1993: Seattle band Candlebox, led by singer Kevin Martin, releases a blockbuster debut album with a back-to-basics rock sound.

March 1994: Trying to keep ticket prices for its summer tour below $20, Pearl Jam challenges Ticketmaster over what it considers to be unjust service charges.

1994-1995: Sleater-Kinney, an all-woman punk band named for a boulevard in Olympia, gains national recognition.

1994: Northwest singer-songwriter Pete Droge records the alternative-rock hit “If You Don’t Love Me (I’ll Kill Myself),” featured on the “Dumb and Dumber” movie soundtrack.

April 1994: Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain is found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a room above the garage at the Denny-Blaine home he shares with wife Courtney Love. It becomes one of the biggest new events in rock history.

April 1994: Geffen Records releases “Live Through This,” a new album by Courtney Love’s band, Hole.

May 1994: Pearl Jam files a memo with the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division, claiming that Ticketmaster controlled a monopoly in the marketplace and pressured promoters not to handle the band’s shows.

1994: Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl forms Foo Fighters (Korean War fly-boy slang for UFOs) in the aftermath of Kurt Cobain’s death.

September 1996: Rapper and movie star Tupac Shakur is shot four times and dies a few days later. Shakur’s murder preceeds that of the Notorious B.I.G. Their deaths are blamed on the violence surrounding “gangsta” rap.

August 1995: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opens in Cleveland, Ohio. Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Little Richard are among the rock celebrities performing.

1997: Tired of touring and weary of each other, Soundgarden breaks up — a sad milestone for the once-hot Seattle scene.

July 1997: Singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan launches her first Lilith Fair, a national summer tour celebrating women in music.

December 1997: U2, touring North America with its “PopMart” show featuring a giant LED screens, performs the final rock concert at the Kingdome.

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