Okay, so the Finnish / Nordic edition.
Ismo Alanko. My great musical love and a true icon of Finnish music, both alternative and mainstream. 40 year career, tons of great lyrics, huge variety of genres.
CMX. Great band, and excellent for setting the right mood in the alternative scene, if you know what I mean
(In the 90's I was a horny teenager, so sue me.)
YUP. One of the best live bands I've ever seen, and that's including all those international best sellers. Of course, you had to be into really morbid humour and an eclectic hardcore art punk metal pop, or what ever this crazy stuff was
These guys, along with the two other artists mentioned above, were a huge reason why the international "alternative" scene of the nineties mostly didn't affect me much. The Finnish scene was already so far out in musical experimentation and generally more hardcore. Plus the lyrics were generally just much better if you ask me. Early to mid nineties was a great time to live in Finland in that sense.
Also, Kingston Wall. Absolutely brilliant prog/acid rock.
Also from the nineties, an underground phenomenon but important in my circles, the birth of the modern Nordic folk scene. World music with some bite to it, not that hippie stuff and none of the pretend "authenticity". If you were into roleplaying games like I was, you pretty much couldn't miss this stuff.
Btw, did you know that a rather unique feature of the Finnish larp scene is that it has a clear majority of girls/women? (Something like a 2/3 majority I think.) I'm not saying that longs nights of drinking with hot girls who wanted to teach me lyrics to really dirty folk songs is in any way related to my love of folk songs, but okay yes it's obviously related
Garmarna from Sweden:
Gjallarhorn from Finland:
And Hedningarna from Sweden and Finland: