Top Albums of the 1990s

As this has apparently turned into a music blog, here's a year-by-year rundown of my top ten albums for each year of the 1990s. As you can see, I clearly didn't start becoming obsessed with music until closer to the middle of the decade. I find it kind of incredible that I couldn't come up with 10 albums for the year 1998, but I guess I was so obsessed with "Phantom Planet is Missing" that I didn't bother to listen to too much else.

1999

10) Dr. Dre: The Chronic 2001
9) Muzzle: Actual Size
8) Fountains of Wayne: Utopia Parkway
7) Blink-182: Enema of the State
6) Stroke9: Nasty Little Thoughts
5) Lit: A Place in the Sun
4) Showoff
3) Eminem: The Slim Shady LP
2) Cherry Twister: At Home With Cherry Twister
1) Foo Fighters: There is Nothing Left to Lose

Definitely a strong year, highlighted by my personal favorite Foo Fighters album, "There Is Nothing Left to Lose." Yes, I know "The Colour and the Shape" is better, but that doesn't mean "Lose" can't be my favorite. Other highlights include Showoff's self-titled debut (of all the cookie-cutter pop-punk bands to emerge in the 1990s, these guys were actually quite good; it's a shame they didn't stick around longer. They actually recorded a never-officially-released second album, "Wish You Were Her," which is also excellent, and worth digging around for on the interwebs if you can find it), Eminem's debut, Lit's first record ("My Own Worst Enemy" was probably the best song of the year) and Stroke9's debut.

1998

8) Eve6
7) A Tribe Called Quest: The Love Movement
6) Home Grown: Act Your Age
5) Fastball: All the Pain Money Can Buy
4) Pernice Brothers: Overcome by Happiness
3) MxPx: Slowly Going the Way of the Buffalo
2) Marvelous3: Hey! Album
1) Phantom Planet: Phantom Planet is Missing

I listened the hell out of the top three on this list. As outrageously good as "Hey! Album" is, "Phantom Planet Is Missing" single-handedly turned me onto power-pop and I never looked back. It was basically the "Dookie" of 1998. Whereas Green Day's brilliant major label debut introduced me to a world of music I'd never known, "Is Missing" was essentially a graduation of sorts, having such a profound impact on me that it literally changed the way I listen to music.

I've written about it before, but I'll still never forget the first time I ever heard "So I Fall Again." I had never heard anything like it, and I still haven't to this day. Unfortunately it seems unlikely that Phantom Planet will ever go back to the pure, unadulterated pop goodness of their debut, but a boy can dream. Either way, were I to ever create a list of my top albums of all time, there's an excellent chance that "Is Missing" would be at the very top.

1997

10) NOFX: So Long and Thanks for all the Shoes
9) Apples in Stereo: Tone Soul Evolution
8) Everclear: So Much for the Afterglow
7) Green Day: Nimrod
6) Harvey Danger: Where Have all the Merrymakers Gone
5) Bracket: Novelty Forever
4) Goldfinger: Hang-Ups
3) Fig Dish: When Shoves Goes Back to Push
2) Kara’s Flowers: The Fourth World
1) Foo Fighters: The Colour and the Shape

Without doing any serious research, I would've guessed that 1998 or 1999 would've been the hardest top tens to pick, but '97 proved to be the most difficult. Surprisingly, a lot of quality music came out 11 years ago. In any other year, albums #2 and #3 could easily make cases for #1 status, but it's tough to edge out the Foo Fighters' seminal album. Still, the criminally underrated "The Fourth World" makes one wish Adam Levine & Co. would ditch Maroon 5's boring adult-contemporary and go back to the power-pop genius of Kara's Flowers.

1996

10) Reel Big Fish: Turn the Radio Off
9) A Tribe Called Quest: Beats, Rhymes & Life
8) Sublime
7) Muzzle: Betty Pick-Up
6) Fountains of Wayne
5) Nada Surf: High/Low
4) Stone Temple Pilots: Tiny Music
3) Goldfinger
2) MxPx: Life in General
1) Weezer: Pinkerton

An interesting mix of music on this list. Nothing really truly outstanding, although "Pinkerton" is obviously excellent. MxPx's classic "Life in General" really set the group apart from the pop-punk pack, especially since I was so heavily entrenched into the pop-punk scene at this point that I was practically buying everything that Fat Wreck Chords put out that year, not realizing that 99% of the bands were fucking terrible.

1995

6) Rancid: …And Out Come the Wolves
5) Green Day: Insomniac
4) Zoinks: Bad Move Space Cadet
3) Foo Fighters
2) Bracket: 4-Wheel Vibe
1) Fig Dish: That’s What Love Songs Often Do

Fig Dish's debut is probably the most obscure #1 of all these lists, but for fans of straight-up melodic rock, it doesn't get much better than this. I discovered the band after hearing "Seeds" on the radio (in retrospect it's pretty amazing that such an under-the-radar band even scored radio play, but I'm pretty sure I heard this on Q104 back before the station switched formats to classic rock, and I seem to recall Q104 actually being a pretty good place to hear a lot of new, relatively unknown bands. Also see "Stars," by Hum), and to my utter joy, the entire album was filled with hook after hook. I also can't say enough great things about Bracket's "4-Wheel Vibe," a true gem of a pop-punk album. To this day, I still don't know of any other bands that can take a highly limiting genre like pop-punk and make it sound fresh and original on every new outing. Also, Dave Grohl's initial Foo Fighters offering is just as good as the two albums that succeeded it, making the band's continued inability to release anything worth listening to in the present decade extremely frustrating.

1994

5) Soundgarden: Superunknown
4) Stone Temple Pilots: Purple
3) The Offspring: Smash
2) Weezer
1) Green Day: Dookie

I already touched on the significance of "Dookie" to me, but I'll reiterate that this was probably the most important album of my life. In addition to just being flat-out amazing, it not only drove a full-on obsession with pop-punk for years to come but inspired me to learn how to play guitar. In fact, the first song I ever learned how to play was "Basket Case." Not only that, but I still wear my guitar with the strap on the lowest setting possible thanks to Billie Joe Armstrong, for Christ's sake.

1993

4) Snoop Doggy Dogg: Doggystyle
3) Nirvana: In Utero
2) Jellyfish: Spilt Milk
1) A Tribe Called Quest: Midnight Marauders

It's funny; I didn't even discover the top two albums on this tiny list until nearly 10 years after they each came out. For all the props and name-checking Jellyfish receives among power-pop die-hards ("fathers of modern-day power-pop" and all that), I don't even think "Spilt Milk" is really that great. I know, blasphemy and all that, and I should probably check my power-pop-lover's membership card at the door, but truthfully, I would put many of the power-pop records I've written about during the last several years ahead of this album. Not that it's a bad album by any stretch -- were one to look power-pop up in the dictionary, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more representative song than the incredible "Joining a Fan Club" -- but despite repeated listens, it's never quite sunk its claws as deep into me as I would have hoped. Fortunately it's alumni have gone on to do some pretty amazing things, including 2008-Album-of-the-Year contender "Catnip Dynamite" by Roger Joseph Manning Jr. Seriously, the album is fucking ridiculous. First Bryan Scary, and now this. If you have any interest in power-pop whatsoever, please get yourself a copy of "Catnip Dynamite."

1992

2) Dr. Dre: The Chronic
1) Stone Temple Pilots: Core

1991

2) Teenage Fanclub: Bandwagonesque
1) Nirvana: Nevermind

1990

1) They Might Be Giants: Flood

I didn't really start seriously listening to music until 1994, hence why the early years of this decade are significantly underrepresented.


Miscellaneous Unranked Albums from the Aughts that I either Liked a Lot But Didn't Quite Make Top Tens or Discovered After Establishing a Given Year's Top Ten

A: Hi-Fi Serious (2002)
American Hi-Fi (2001)
Ash: Free All Angels (2002)
Bleu: Redhead (2003)
The Davenports: Hi-Tech Lowlife (2004)
Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)
Handsome Devil: Love and Kisses from the Underground (2001)
Jackdaw4: Gramophone Logic (2004)
Motion City Soundtrack: I am the Movie (2003)
Steve Ward: See and Be Seen (2003)
Student Rick: Soundtrack for a Generation (2001)
Sugarcult: Start Static (2001)
The Tories: Upside of Down (2001)
Verve Pipe: Underneath (2001)
Weezer (2001)
Yellow Second: Still Small (2002)


Miscellaneous Unranked 1990s

Blink-182: Dude Ranch (1997)
Moby: Play (1999)
Smash Mouth: Astro Lounge (1999)
Stir: Holy Dogs (1999)
The Tories: Wonderful Life (1997)