Whatever Happened to Rock + Metal's Class of 1996?

The year 1996 was a truly pivotal year in the progression of heavy music.

It was a year in which we saw the last vestiges of grunge dominance as Pearl Jam had started to shift away from grunge, Soundgarden released the last album of their first era and Alice in Chains' Unplugged special would be the last we'd see of them for quite some time.

That led to a more significant shift going on in rock and metal, one in which the more melodic alt-rock sounds were still thriving, but the nearly-decade long downturn on metal acts started to lift. It was a period where many music listeners were ready for something fresh and a variety of sounds and styles were being presented in hopes of finding our next music revolution.

The year of 1996 was one of the more fruitful years of the '90s, providing an abundance of new acts vying for attention. We were introduced to post-grunge future hitmakers Nickelback and Tonic in 1996. The Wallflowers were locking up hit singles and Grammy attention, while Tracy Bonham's made a chart-topping start with one of the decade's better debut singles.

It was a year in which Zakk Wylde broke free for his first solo record and Arch Enemy would kick off their first iteration after Michael Amott split from Carcass three years earlier. And a group of cellists named Apocalyptica changed the way we thought about Metallica's music.

So let's travel back 30 years to see which emerging bands from 1996 are still going strong today and which were only around for a short time.