BEST ALBUMS OF THE 1990s
Twenty-five albums that will give your system a good workout
The 1990s has come of age. Like all decades, and like so many bands, it went through that period of mild embarrassment immediately following its heyday – the kind you feel now for the haircut you wore in 2006 – but is now very much back in fashion.
Not that the music was ever really in question. In fact, when it came to cutting our choices down, this list presented our most difficult challenge yet. Snipping our recommendations to below three figures was a headache, and taking them to a quarter of that has inevitably led to a selection that many people might think reveals some glaring omissions. So be it.
Some would say this was the decade the album said its final goodbyes as a format, before downloads, streaming and the shuffle feature took over, so you’ll have to forgive us for ignoring a number of veritable classics.
The thing is, there is just so much to take in. The 90s saw hip-hop reach its teenage years, dance music explode, and guitarists experiment frenetically in order to fight back. This list attempts to cover most of that. It might not be an exhaustive compendium, but who needs to be told to listen to (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? or Different Class, anyway?
Most of all, though, it will be a walk down memory lane that really stretches the legs of your hi-fi system, awash with electronics and polyrhythm, delicacy and outright mayhem. Now the job’s done, we’re happy with our choices. But we’re sure you’ll let us know if we’ve got it all wrong.
OBEY THE TIME
The Durutti Column (1990) Influenced by the emergence of acid house, Vini Reilly wrote and recorded this album almost by himself. Introducing his guitar to the electronic music scene, Reilly eschews genre without disgracing the styles from which he pinches tropes. A more ambient affair than most 90s club-ready music, Obey The Time nonetheless captures a lot of the era’s buoyant soul.
FREQUENCIES
LFO (1991)
How otherworldly Frequencies sounds now only goes to emphasise how alien it must have appeared upon its release 30 years ago. A masterpiece of the UK’S acid house explosion, LFO’S debut album has the industrial eeriness of Kraftwerk mixed with the energy of hip-hop and house that followed. One of the greatest electronic albums ever recorded.
SCREAMADELICA
Primal Scream (1991)
Recipient of the first Mercury Prize – where it beat competition from Erasure, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Simply Red and U2 – Screamadelica is the sound of an indie band embracing house music and the consciousnessexpanding drugs associated with it. Its infectiously uplifting set includes timeless singles such as Movin’ On Up and Loaded.
VIOLATOR
Depeche Mode (1990)
In Violator, their seventh studio album, Depeche Mode crafted the perfect synth-pop album – and the world evidently agreed. This is a collection of nine songs, any of which could have been released as a single (almost half were), that remains strikingly fluid despite the apparent rigidity of their rhythms. The wide-open space in the mix is a great test of your kit.
LOVELESS
My Bloody Valentine (1991) Arguably the poster album for shoegaze, Loveless is a masterpiece combining elephantine riffs with dream-pop haze, awash with reverb and overdriven guitars. While Vini Reilly had changed opinion on where the guitar was welcome with The Durutti Column, Kevin Shields here altered ideas of how it could be used as an instrument.
SPIDERLAND
Slint (1991)
The optimism of Screamadelica could barely be in starker contrast to the atmosphere of isolation and unease cooked up by Slint on their second and final album. Spiderland’s brooding blend of tightly controlled dynamic shifts and vocals alternating between spoken word, singing and shouts has been widely aped but never more keenly felt.
THE ORB’S ADVENTURES BEYOND THE ULTRAWORLD
The Orb (1991) As its name
suggests, The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld is less an album and more a psychedelic sonic journey built on ambient electronics, eclectic samples and found sounds. The result is undoubtedly a record built to be listened to in its entirety with a spacious sound system and an even more open mind.
NEVERMIND
Nirvana (1991)
Another muchmaligned genre of the period, grunge has still yet really to recover its reputation from the hordes of cheap imitators who flooded the airwaves in Nirvana’s wake. Despite this, Nevermind still sounds as bitingly hostile as it did 30 years ago – a testament to the genius of Kurt Cobain and the band’s undeniable place at guitar music’s top table.
AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE
R.E.M. (1992) Alongside the
preceding Out Of
Time (1991), Automatic For The People is one of the two R.E.M. records with, arguably, the most mainstream pop sensibilities, and led to the band becoming one of the biggest in the world. Where others can falter in combining hits with poignancy, Berry, Stipe, Buck and Mills created a beautiful and pensive record.
LOVE DELUXE
Sade (1992)
Sade Adu’s velvet vocal is no better showcased than here. The Nigerianbritish singer is often sonically at odds with the instrumentation, distorted guitars and trip-hop percussion, which at times pierce the album’s soulful grooves, but the juxtaposition only ever serves to highlight further her gorgeous tonality. An album made to please your system’s midrange.
RID OF ME
PJ Harvey (1993)
This follow up to critically acclaimed debut Dry finds Polly Jean Harvey’s twisting songwriting meld beautifully with the abrasive production of Steve Albini, forging an edgy 14-song set that jags between loud and quiet without a moment’s notice. Its contrast with the album before it provided early insight into Harvey’s marvellously varied output.
TURBULENT INDIGO
Joni Mitchell (1994)
Few artists can reach their 15th album while still displaying such illuminating artistry; but then few artists have a mind to parallel that of Joni Mitchell. As ever, not a word is wasted in the topics discussed and the songcraft is some of her most achingly beautiful, reaching its apex with The Sire Of Sorrow (Job’s Sad Song), the album’s triumphant conclusion.
MEZZANINE
Massive Attack (1998)
While Blue Lines is arguably an even better album – and arguments have been had aplenty – this, Massive Attack’s third album, features one of the sternest tests your bass driver will face in opening track Angel. It’s a darker, less jazzy atmosphere than on the group’s previous records, and one that relies on keen dynamic expression to deliver its full terror.
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE (1992)
Rage Against The Machine’s brutal eponymous debut seems to present as metal, but in many ways it is more a hip-hop record with guitars. Tom Morello’s guitar is made to squeal like a scratched record within riffs that could easily be used by artists such as Public Enemy or N.W.A., and Zack de la Rocha’s spat lines are painfully poignant even three decades on.
DUMMY
Portishead (1994)
Involving menacing looped beats contrasted with Beth Gibbons’s gorgeously mournful vocal, and some mean work on the theremin, Portishead’s debut was hugely influential in the 90s ascent of trip-hop and yet it doesn’t seem to have aged a day. That’s in part due to the inventiveness of its hooks and guitar playing in particular.
TIMELESS
Goldie (1995)
Like almost everything else on the album, Goldie got its title perfectly right. It feels apart from the jungle and drum ’n’ bass scenes it came to define, because it feels totally apart from anything else at all. It soars high and crashes brutally and purposefully, it is both winged and industrial, and about the finest rhythmic test a pair of speakers will ever have to pass.
MUSIC HAS THE RIGHT TO CHILDREN Boards of Canada (1998)
While electronic music was broadly in a race to reach the future, and a new millennium that would see it permeate almost everything, Boards of Canada were rooting through old tapes, layering found sounds on top of warbling synths and hypnotic beats to create a record that is as familial and menacing as its cover art.
DEBUT
Björk (1993)
If the concept weren’t such a paradox, Björk’s debut solo record could well be used as a ‘how to’ companion on creating experimental pop music. Debut is a collage of ideas that refuses to let the listener rest for more than a moment, and where it dips into other genres it does so with passion and love. Your system should revel in the idiosyncratic soundscapes.
ILLMATIC
Nas (1994)
More than a record that reinvigorated East Coast rap at a time when the genre’s cutting edge appeared to be elsewhere, Illmatic is a hip-hop gem. The complexity and maturity of Nas’s lyricism on this debut makes it seem inconceivable that he struggled to get a recording contract, and it rightly sees him feature on any list of the best rappers of all time.
BADUIZM
Erykah Badu (1997)
Erykah Badu’s debut album is at once very 90s, entrenched in that jazzy RNB and hip-hop inspired style, but with a voice that sounds as if it could have come from decades in the past. That’s not to say Badu’s voice is an imitation – she has had scores of imitators since – but her tone is mature, timeless and knowing, even at the age of just 25.
THE MISEDUCATION OF LAURYN HILL Lauryn Hill (1998)
Another album by a solo artist whose band could also easily have made our list –this time Fugees miss out – this is the product of turmoil, impending motherhood and a gargantuan talent. “It was my idea to record it so the human element stayed in,” said Hill of this eclectic record that takes in elements of soul, RNB, gospel, hip-hop and reggae.
INCUNABULA
Autechre (1993)
It is understandable why the term ‘intelligent dance music’ has been used to pigeonhole artists such as Aphex Twin, The Orb and Autechre, but Incunabula transcends it. It beckons the listener closer to the speaker cone for inspection of its electronic textures, and rewards them with multiple subtle melodies that then slink away through the air like smoke.
READY TO DIE
The Notorious B.I.G. (1994)
The Notorious B.I.G.’S largely autobiographical debut was as crucial to East Coast rap’s fightback as Illmatic (left). Its title is tragically portentous – Biggie was murdered in 1997 – and nods to some of the album’s heavier, more personal moments. Tracks such as Suicidal Thoughts stand out in an industry that generally still finds mental health difficult to discuss.
OK COMPUTER
Radiohead (1997)
In many ways, OK Computer hits fast forward to the end of the 90s. It is an alienated record, and a record for the alienated, at odds with a world rapidly losing its innocence as it hurtles toward a new millennium where technology waits, coldly poised to overtake all else – including the Radiohead discography – and for which we are all ill-prepared.
OPERATION: DOOMSDAY
MF DOOM (1999)
At the end of last year, Daniel Dumile’s wife revealed that the monumental British-american rapper had passed a couple of months earlier. Operation: Doomsday marked the beginning of a second career for MF DOOM, a triumphant return to hip-hop eight years after his last album with KMD, and a kind of origin story for this mythic rapper.