The 90’s gave us a lot of stuff. Video Games, Britney Spears and well… OK not a lot. But there still was some great music around before the age of the internet and the iPod came and took it back to the Neanderthal single loving times. So here are the 25 greatest albums from the golden age of Compact Discs.
25. Blood Sugar Sex Magic: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Right before they became the massive unit shifters they are now, there was a time when these four drugged up white boys were the greatest straight up nu-funk band in the world. And here is their holy grail.
Best Song: Under the Bridge. Kiedis never sounded more profound.
24. Dookie: Green Day
Before their discovery of social lyrics and rock operas, Green Day were a normal punk band with all its lacunae and made great music which sold like crazy, but didn’t sound commercial.
Best Song: Basket Case. Stoners and Weirdo’s Unite.
23. (What’s The Story) Morning Glory: Oasis
Often, the Brits come up with an album that just numbs the senses and makes us think that there’s no other place we’d rather be than England. But this is not of them. Instead, it brightens up whichever corner you’re in.
Best Song: Wonderwall. The best song any English bloke has written in 20 years.
22. The Score: The Fugees
Lauryn Hill could have been the next Aretha Franklin. But instead she chose to just be Lauryn Hill. But this album is her trying to be Franklin and to a certain extent it pays off.
Best Song: Killing Me Softly. It even saves a little spot for Wyclef to mooch some fans over.
21. Superunknown: Soundgarden
The last great grunge album by the band that might just be the first of its genre. And the granddad’s show exactly why they’re held in such high esteem.
Best Song: Black Hole Sun. There was never a better amalgamation of Cornell, Thayil, Cameron and Shephard ever.
20. The Chronic: Dr. Dre
If there ever was a West Coast vs. East Coast rivalry, this is the one album that breaks the tie-breaker Tupac and Biggie would have in the future.
Best Song: Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang. Before the disses and the heartbreak, there was just plain gangsta rap. And here is its zenith.
19. Heaven or Las Vegas: The Cocteau Twins
Often overlooked in the 80’s due to their rather modest commercial success, here is the album that gave them the recognition they deserved.
Best Song: Heaven or Las Vegas. Melancholy and Joy all in one song. And if you try hard, you can hear the lyrics this time.
18. The Downward Spiral: Nine Inch Nails
Trent Reznor is the ultimate alternative rock outsider. There has never ever been this kind of brooding darkness over a piece of music and the best part is that it makes us want to come back to it again and again.
Best Song: Hurt. Hurried, condescending music laced with bile covered lyrics. Reznor in his element.
17. Achtung Baby: U2
On the hells of the shambolic Rattle & Hum, Achtung Baby is U2’s best effort at encapsulating all of humanity’s flaws into one single album. And there are some great tunes too.
Best Song: One. Not even a trillion instances of Mary J. Blige screeching this song out can ruin its sheen.
16. Metallica (The Black Album): Metallica
Often criticized as a needless attempt by Metallica to achieve commercial acceptance, the album still has the band at its peak. Of course we miss the thrash and the energy. But that’s no reason to throw away this genuine masterpiece of a record.
Best Song: Enter Sandman. Hammett’s riff is all that’s needed to turn this song from a good one to a monstrous classic.
15. Bossanova: The Pixies
This is the best example of what a band that sounded like both extremes of alternative music would sound like. And there would never ever be another.
Best Song: Velouria. Doolittle’s melody and the seductive harshness of Surfer Rosa contained in one 3 and a half minute tour de force.
14. Selected Ambient Works: 85 – 92: Aphex Twin
At the time, there was nothing that sounded like it. And as if to justify its legacy, everything the techno world brings out now has a few drops of the ocean of genius that this album is.
Best Song: Xtal. Breathe in Breathe Out.
13. Dirt: Alice in Chains
Of the big four of grunge, AIC was the smallest. But none, with the exception of Cobain on In Utero could hold their bleeding soul out for everyone to see as Alice in Chains did on this magnum opus.
Best Song: Down in a Hole. The best example of how well Cantrell and Staley blended together.
12. Blue Lines: Massive Attack
The original trip-hop album by the creators of the genre has a certain sense of urgency and iconoclasm that even they would never be able to match.
Best Song: Unfinished Sympathy. The Achilles Heel of every person who ever smoked something they shouldn’t have.
11. Siamese Dream: The Smashing Pumpkins
Before the whole goth phase and the tricking sentimentality, there was one tall non-bald man who made the music he wanted the world to make. And this is that man, Billy Corgan’s shot at the title.
Best Song: Geek USA. Everything the Pumpkins would ever do in one neat little package held together by Chamberlin’s wizardry.
10. Souvlaki: Slowdive
Heavily overlooked, most people would not even know about this album today if it wasn’t for the internet. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing as consumerism would tear its grandeur apart.
Best Song: Souvlaki Space Station. The soundtrack to the Big Bang.
9. Spiderland: Slint
Another heavily overlooked album, Spiderland is dark, colloidal and full of songs most people would never have the patience to go through. Maybe it’s the starkness, maybe it’s the chilly sounds or maybe it’s the sheer insane beauty that this album represents.
Best Song: Goodbye Captain. McMahan shrieking his last words of pathos is the clearest version of the needle pointed austerity this album slowly injects into your soul.
8. Ten: Pearl Jam
Even the band’s obtuse shenanigans with their follow up albums cannot sully this albums impact on the slightest level. Yes, there was a time when Eddie Vedder was the greatest singer in the world and also the only one like him.
Best Song: Black. Vedder never sounded this good.
7. All Eyez On Me: Tupac Shakur
From the lone man on the cover to the loveable hooligan in the How Do You Want It video, Shakur showed all his facets in this double album and may just represent the peak of hip-hop’s coming of age era before the music industry gobbled it up.
Best Song: California Love. So good that even Eric Cartman covered it.
6. Dummy: Portishead
Portishead seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere. Sheer out of the blue came these two messiah’s who made women all over the world look cool thanks to one of the greatest front-ladies ever.
Best Song: Glory Box. The antithesis of penis envy.
5. OK Computer: Radiohead
If Oasis are to be credited with restoring British Music, then Radiohead have to be created with destroying it. Because no other British band could ever be held in the same light after Radiohead came up with their third album and its only now that most bands are catching up.
Best Song: Karma Police. Hatred for the monotony of life never sounded this better.
4. Grace: Jeff Buckley
With his only album, Buckley did absolutely nothing to progress the world of music. Instead he created his own world with his voice as all his instruments.
Best Song: Grace. The one song Page/Plant forgot to write.
3. Automatic for the People: R.E.M.
Say what you will, REM were college rock maestros for most casual listeners till Automatic for the People came out. Then came the first two minutes of Drive and any such misconception related to maturity was thrown out of the window.
Best Song: Man on the Moon. If Andy Kaufman is still alive, he’s performing this somewhere as Tony Clifton.
2.Loveless: My Bloody Valentine
If alternative rock has something to fall back on, it’s this album and for good reason. Past the hype and the grandeur and the multi-page articles, you will find that this actually is every bit as great as everyone says it is.
Best Song: Soon. Imagine a pile of obscene noise sounding so strangely soothing that you need it like a fix.
1. Nevermind: Nirvana
The album that destroyed hair metal. The album that destroyed Michael Jackson. The album that destroyed rock excesses to the point of ridicule. And the music is great too by the way.
Best Song: Smells Like Teen Spirit. Come on, you know you’re just trying to be cool when you say you don’t like it that much. Truth is, you actually want to die in your Cobain T-shirt.
