Lizzie Borden

Although essentially following the glam-metal trend of the ’80s, the members of Lizzie Borden never embarrassed themselves as egregiously as many of their contemporaries. Instead of draping simperingly saccharine pop in faux-gender-bending rock-satyr guise, the group opted for the harder-edged rock and visually engaging live shows embodied by bands like Alice Cooper and KISS. The outfit’s appearance in Penelope Spheeris’s The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years was also refreshingly free of the self-destructive excesses and inarticulateness of other acts of the era. After breaking up in 2004 following the death of guitarist Alex Nelson, Lizzie Borden re-formed in 2006 with a greater emphasis on the type of shock-rock theater its namesake elicited in her day.