So…there seems to be a lot of posters looking forward to this latest thread in the Albums For Each Year series and so here it is.
By now you should all know the drill…pick your Favourite Album for each year of the 90s…and stop fence sitting you wimps…pick a favourite and be done with it
90 The Hard ons - Yummy
91 Kyuss -Wretch
92 Mudhoney - piece of Cake
93 Dinosaur Jr - Where you been?
94 The Melvins - Stoner Witch
95 Fu Manchu - Daredevil
96 The Hellacopters - Super ■■■■■■ to the Max
97 Grinspoon - Guide to Better Living
98 Refused - The Shape of Punk to
Come
99 Turbonegro - Apocalypse Dudes
And I’m Including photographic evidence there really was an era when CDs were bought (or at least physically stolen)
90 Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea: Play.
Brilliant musos playing around with familiar tunes. Weirdly creative and funny too.
91 Joe Lovano: From the soul.
Classic track from a classic album. Lucky enough to see him perform this with the the legendary John Scofield at Wangaratta. The opening nearly blew the top off the temporary tent.
92 Maria Schneider: Evanescence.
Maria served her apprenticeship with the great Gil Evans, the man whose arrangements and conducting helped shape Miles Davis’s seminal work of the late50s and early 60s. She’s a Grammys darling but don’t hold that against her. This is her first CD and played a major role in resurrecting the Big Band format. She’s at war with streaming and youtube so it’s hard to find her stuff other than the Artists Share site.This is a rare live clip.
93 Mark Simmonds Freeboppers: Fire.
You’ve heard the apocryphal tale of the genius who creates one great work and then disappears? This is our version. Regularly cited the best Oz recording ever. Needs to be played loud.
94 Keith Jarrett Trio: Blue Note Sessions. Best 6 cd release ever for sure. My musical high point of the decade.
95 Keith Jarrett: La Scala.
Koln was good but this is his solo masterpiece.
96 Keith Jarrett: Multitude of Angels.
A 4 cd release recorded in 96 but it only saw daylight 2 years ago. Jarrett considers it to be the peak of his extended solo works and it is also the last of them as he succumbed to chronic fatigue at the end of 96 and has never returned to long form solos.
97 Michel Petrucciani: Au Theatre Des Champs-Élysées.
Petrucciani lived his whole life in pain, he regularly had to be carried to the piano, but you wouldn’t notice it from his music. He played piano with a French accent, if that’s possible, and he swung with the best of them. Best right hand attack of all time.
98 Dave Holland Quintet: Points of View.
Once they lock in the groove there’s no turning back. The great modern quintet.
99 Branford Marsalis Quartet: Requiem.
A tribute to Kenny Kirkland, the mecurial and ultimately self destructive pianist who died of an OD during the production of the album. Bit of talent in the Marsalis family.
1990 Ride - Nowhere
1991 My Bl00dy Valentine - Loveless (two shoegaze masterpieces I had to borrow from my older brother’s collection when he wasn’t playing them)
1992 Buffalo Tom - Let Me Come Over (ridiculously good year for albums, but Buffalo Tom was MY band, the first time I didn’t have a band introduced to me by anyone, a band I could see live, get to sign my cds, and get all my friends into)
1993 Archers Of Loaf - Icky Mettle (I was late to this, so it rocked much of the late 90s for me)
1994 Jawbreaker - 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (absolutely bonkers year for good albums, but this album was there for every breakup, every car trip, every night out, every deep chat over a bottle or six. Unbeatable for a demographic of punk kids who had to hand Green Day over to the masses and needed their own heroes no one else was cool enough to know about.)
1995 Jawbreaker - Dear You (and then they sold out and crafted this divisive gem)
1996 Modest Mouse - This Is A Long Drive… (some emo kid put a couple of tracks on a mixtape for me and I never looked back)
1997 Built To Spill - Perfect From Now On (masterpiece)
1998 Refused - The Shape Of Punk To Come (everyone had their minds blown when this dropped. The playing, the ideas, the power - phenomenal stuff that really did shape punk to come)
1999 Jimmy Eat World - Clarity (emo finally landed a classic after a few years of near hits)
1990 Pantera - Cowboys from hell
1991 Pearl Jam - Ten
1992 Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
1993 Pearl Jam - Vs
1994 Stone Temple Pilots - Purple
1995 The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
1996 Tool - Ænima
1997 - Foo Fighters - The colour and the shape
1998 Powderfinger - Internationalist
1999 Rage Against The Machine - The battle of Los Angeles
1990 Sinéad O’Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
1991 REM - Out of Time
1992 REM - Automatic For The People
1993 The Cranberries - Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?
1994 The Mavericks - What a Crying Shame
1995 Annie Lennox - Medusa
1996 Sheryl Crow - Sheryl Crow
1997 Sarah McLachlan - Surfacing
1998 Tori Amos - From The Choirgirl Hotel
1999 The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
90 X - INXS
91 Ten - Pearl Jam
92 Dirt - Alice In Chains
93 Undertow - Tool
94 Jar of Flies - Alice In Chains
95 Garbage
96 Placebo
97 Elegantly Wasted - INXS
98 Version 2 - Garbage
99 Showbiz - Muse
1990: Black Crowes -Shake Your Money Maker
1991: U2 - Achtung Baby
1992: REM - Automatic For The People
1993: Crowded House - Together, Alone
1994: Oasis - Definitely, Maybe
1995: You Am I - Hi Fi Way
1996: Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go
1997: Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen
1998: Neil Finn - Try Whistling This
1999: Silverchair - Neon Ballroom
1990: Rust In Peace - Megadeth
1991: Cause of Death - Obituary
1992: Check Your Head - Beastie Boys
1993: Wolverine Blues - Entombed
1994: At Action Park - Shellac / Betty - Helmet / Mellow Gold - Beck
1995: King For a Day - FNM
1996: Songs of Love and Hate - Godflesh
1997: The Mollusk - Ween
1998: End Hits - Fugazi
1999: California - Mr Bungle
Some I just can’t split. I could do at least 4 for every year, easily.
The vast majority of my music would definitely have to come from the 90’s. I’m extremely surprised that there has not been any Hip-Hop albums mentioned as this was the golden age and there are that many classic albums which were released in these years. My musical taste has changed over the years, but many of these albums bring back great memories and I will always have a soft spot for them.
1990 A Tribe Called Quest - People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
1991 A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
1992 Gang Starr - Daily Operation
1993 Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
1994 Nas - Illmatic
1995 GZA/Genius - Liquid Swords
1996 Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt
1997 Elliott Smith - Either/Or
1998 Gang Starr - Moment of Truth
1999 Rage Against the Machine - The Battle of Los Angeles
Damn that was hard. Many classics had to miss out!