Refused

Swedish rock band Refused wasn’t just ruminating about the lasting impact of popular culture when it began its 1998 album The Shape Of Punk To Come with a lyric about classics never going out of style it was also taking stock of its own turbulent existence, which met an ignominious end later that year in front of 50 kids at a basement show in a Virginia college town. Indeed, Refused came and went before the true power of its music could be understood, even by its own members. And in the ensuing years, the band cast a giant shadow over the world of underground rock, with the boundary-exploding Shape rising to all-time legendary status as it influenced a new generation of musical revolutionaries.