The 150 Best Albums of the 1990s

In the 1990s, the escalating pace of popular music’s evolution hit critical speeds. Hip-hop, electronic, pop, rock, punk and metal each underwent radical periods of change and growth, birthing myriad subgenres and finding potential for crossover between seemingly disparate sounds. The ’90s likewise also saw perhaps the biggest infiltration of underground music into the mainstream, shining a spotlight—however briefly—on the cult acts that primarily lived left of the dial, and making legends out of a significant few. As we continue ’90s Month on Treble, we offer our headlining event, celebrating a decade that’s given us too much great music to capture in a single list (though we did our best) and which highlights an era that probably the majority of us here would say proved to be formative in how we listen to music. Enjoy our list of the 150 Best Albums of the 1990s.

Note: When you buy something through our affiliate links, Treble receives a commission. All albums included are chosen by our editors and contributors.

150. Oasis – Definitely Maybe (1994)

The album that finally helped break Britpop stateside also begins not by invoking alternative rock, but actual rock ‘n’ roll. “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” is a glam-flecked, riff-driven celebration of all things over-the-top in rock music that offers a good first impression of Oasis as a band with greater ambitions than the fringes. Yet “Live Forever,” their earnestly Beatlesque radio hit, saw them settling for nothing less that immortality. There’s nothing ironic about the Manchester group’s debut album other than occasional similarities to Coca-Cola jingles—by the mid-’90s, angst and apathy had lost some of its flavor, and the brothers Gallagher responded in kind with songs designed to be bigger than the underground. The kinda-grungy highlight “Supersonic” is one such standout, the shoegaze-tinged “Slide Away” is another, teetering toward seven minutes long and spectacular enough to justify six or seven more. As the group made their inevitable ascent to being the biggest band in Britain, so did the ambitious conceits behind their subsequent records, but the sheer airtight enjoyability of these 11 songs marked Definitely Maybe as an instant classic. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

149. 16 Horsepower – Low Estate (1998)

Formed by members of The Denver Gentlemen, a gothic country band and progenitors of the “Denver Sound,” 16 Horsepower channeled Old Testament fury through a sound that approximated Gun Club-style post-punk through vintage acoustic instruments (concertina, banjo, etc.). Unlikely candidates for a major label signing though they might have been, that’s exactly what happened, and in working with PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish for sophomore album Low Estate, the group supercharged their haunted Americana with more fiery punk gallop and blazing slide guitar to pair with David Eugene Edwards’ fire-and-brimstone narratives, sung with the terrifying conviction of a man who sounds like he’s looked the devil straight in the eyes. Where alt-country’s most celebrated bands frequently borrowed from the spirit of outlaw country, 16 Horsepower’s dirges approximated spirit photography through analog distortion. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

148. Sonny Sharrock – Ask the Ages (1991)

“Everyone knows the name Coltrane, but maybe they don’t know Sonny Sharrock. Here is an opportunity to connect to some of the electric music. Energy music,” Bill Laswell told me in an interview almost ten years ago. In a bar in Berlin, Sonny Sharrock shared with the bold, progressive producer Laswell that for his next project, he wanted to reach out and work with his old friend Pharoah. That’d be Pharoah Sanders to you and me. “I want to reconnect with the music of John Coltrane. That energy, that possession, that power. I want to get back to that level, that quality again. Make something serious.”

Ask the Ages, which returned both Sanders and Sharrock to that energy music indeed, was the last album released by jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock before he died in 1994 at the too-early age of 53. It carries the full barometer of the musician’s life work within those six songs. Produced by Bill Laswell and Sharrock, who performed with Pharoah Sanders, bassist Charnett Moffett, and drummer Elvin Jones, it presents face-melting vistas in “Promises Kept,” heart-rendering emotion with “Who Does She Hope to Be,” and fully alive and breathing Coltrane chi on both “Little Rock” and the cataclysmic standout “Many Mansions.” In under an hour, Sharrock and Sanders, with expert production from Laswell, connect with that greater spirit, unrelentingly, for one last time. Thirty-some odd years later, artists like Irreversible Entanglements have picked up that hot torch and are attempting to honor and carry it forward. Ask The Ages remains a modern classic, still connecting legacies. – John-Paul Shiver

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

147. Gustavo Cerati – Bocanada (1999)

Argentine singer/songwriter Gustavo Cerati had established himself in the ’80s as the leader of new wave group Soda Stereo, one of the most influential Latin American rock bands of all time, and one of the earliest Spanish-speaking rock groups to embark on a headlining tour of the U.S. But in the ’90s, Cerati began to take on a more experimental sound with his solo material, offering up a uniquely ambitious and eclectic set of songs with 1999’s gorgeous Bocanada. Intertwining psychedelia, dream pop and trip-hop with a lounge sensibility shared by the likes of Air and Stereolab, Bocanada is lush and luxurious and otherworldly at once. Just as his famous band broke records and new ground, Bocanada laid out even more untread paths to explore. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify

146. Coil – Musick to Play in the Dark (1994)

Despite their best efforts, mainstream alt-rock success was never in the cards for UK industrial pioneers Coil. The score they submitted for cult-horror film Hellraiser was rejected, and their planned major label release through Trent Reznor’s Nothing Records, Backwards, never realized during Jhonn Balance and Peter Christopherson’s lifetimes. With the turn of the millennium, they instead embraced the darkness, transitioning into a compositional phase they deemed “moon musick,” a mystical and more expansive hybrid of their synth-laden industrial sounds with kosmische and progressive electronic sequences. The first installment of the two-part Musick to Play in the Dark revealed an inspired new phase for the group, pulsing with haunted energy and noir-jazz intrigue, channeling the cosmic and the supernatural in a display of gorgeous, occult psychedelia. In one hour and one second, Coil re-centered their energy and renewed their focus, harnessing a new kind of energy fueled by lunacy. – Jeff Terich

Read More: A Beginner’s Guide to Coil’s experimental industrial

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

145. Johnny Cash – American Recordings (1994)

If Gen X’s entry point into Johnny Cash’s catalog wasn’t their older family members’ vinyl of his San Quentin or Folsom Prison performances, dollars to donuts it was a purchase of the CD of this release produced by RIck Rubin, its title centering both Rubin’s boutique label and The Man in Black’s sonic brand. The choice to record just Cash and a guitar was a back-to-basics move after years of overproduced, underperforming LPs. His measured growl and spare strings carried listeners through original lyrics (“Delia’s Gone,” “Drive On”) as well as songs by country royalty (Jimmy Driftwood’s “Tennessee Stud”) and contemporary rockers (Tom Waits, Glenn Danzig). Flowing into the rising singer/songwriter tide of the time, he also managed to reach the same humorist and nihilist goals of grunge. – Adam Blyweiss

Read More: Johnny Cash’s “Delia’s Gone” began a new act through an old tradition

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon

144. Cap’n Jazz – Analphabetapolothology (1998)

Emo is not supposed to hold up. You get older and maybe you feel the same, but the same just feels different. Returning to Cap’n Jazz should not hit after 25, but (spoilers!) it does. Much like Built to Spill’s coming-of-age record There’s Nothing Wrong With Love, Cap’n Jazz’s existentialist zest is enduringly charming and ostensibly naive. Tim Kinsella’s mushroom-fueled lyrics are occasionally pedantic but totally exceptional. They capture the wide-eyed sensation of unbridled youth; the slushy lawns, the bottles of Boone’s, the dizzy stupid. You can feel the anxious-creative energy spill out of these songs, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t once copy the “Little League” lyrics into an old journal. Analphabetopolotholoogy is the near-complete collection of Cap’n Jazz’s firecracker punk embodying real emo before “real emo” was ever a thing. – Patrick Pilch

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

143. Scott Walker – Tilt (1995)

An American crooner in the hitmaking 1960s UK group The Walker Brothers—something akin to The Ramones of baroque pop, wherein every member had the same fictitious last name—Scott Engel turned his attention away from pop sharply in successive years. Delivering a masterful suite of four records each titled Scott before losing direction in the ‘70s and eventually refinding it by the end of the decade, Engel arrived upon his true medium: orchestrated aural terror. The Walker Brothers’ sleazily harrowing Nite Flights provided the prototype, but on 1995’s Tilt he saw its full realization. Tilt juxtaposed funereal dirges with jump-scare industrial percussion, expressive vocal operatics with uncomfortable silences. He mined subjects like Pier Paolo Pasolini (“Farmer in the City”) and the trial of Adolf Eichmann (“The Cockfighter”) for inspiration, and features the only song he performed live from the ‘70s on up to his death, the strange and disorienting “Rosary.” Loathed by longtime fans like Soft Cell’s Marc Almond (whose own work with Coil, curiously, isn’t all that far removed from Walker’s own), and met with a mixture of praise and revulsion from press and prior fans, Tilt seemingly accomplished what it set out to do—provoke absolutely anything but a passive reaction. – Jeff Terich

Read More: Treble 100: No. 44, Scott Walker – The Drift

Listen/Buy: YouTube Music | Amazon (vinyl)

142. Angelo Badalamenti – Twin Peaks (1990)

This past April, I got to have my own Twin Peaks day—visiting Twede’s cafe (the Double R Diner), and Snoqualmie Falls, where some of the shots of the show’s opening theme were filmed. Being in front of the shimmering waterfalls, I of course thought of Angelo Badalamenti’s haunting score written for Twin Peaks, David Lynch’s one-of-a-kind TV show. “Twin Peaks Theme” is a majestic ode full of swells and somber undertones, seemingly upbeat on its surface but brimming with something darker beneath. “Laura Palmer’s Theme” plays this in a different way, as dark synths erode the track’s first half into despair, until the piano finds its way into the light, churning Badalamenti’s score full of emotion. Each track has its own unforgettable moments that connect back to the show, a reminder of Badalamenti’s ability to truly convey Lynch’s complex characters through music. Twin Peaks wouldn’t have been what it was without its iconic score. – Virginia Croft

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

141. John Zorn – Naked City (1990)

In the ‘80s, avant garde jazz saxophonist and bandleader John Zorn paid tribute to cinematic and literary influences with homages to Ennio Morricone and Mickey Spillane, The Big Gundown and Spillane, respectively. But toward the end of the decade, he assembled a new band—comprising prolific session ringers Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz, Fred Frith and Joey Baron—to test the limits of a rock/jazz ensemble. The group’s introduction, Naked City, pushes every possible limit and explores every potential avenue of jazz and noise, interspersing covers and standards from Henry Mancini and Ennio Morricone against grindcore outbursts, with occasional vocal freakouts from Boredoms’ Yamantaka Eye. Eclectic and multifaceted, violent and often hilarious, Naked City is both cohesive and untamed, but it’s at its best when showcasing the musicality within the chaos, whether through the gangster noir of “The Sicilian Clan” or creating a noisy mashup of Ornette Coleman and Roy Orbison on “Lonely Woman.” – Jeff Terich

Read More: John Zorn’s Naked City was a gleeful jazz-noise science experiment

Listen: YouTube

140. Unwound – Repetition (1996)

A noise rock trio raised in grunge’s backyard, Tumwater, Washington trio Unwound initially built their house on a foundation of scuzz and feral barks. They never really turned down the volume, not until portions of their 2001 swan song Leaves Turn Inside You at least, but with each subsequent album they tightened up and continuously embraced a more elegant approach, achieving an early peak three years after their debut with 1996’s Repetition. Justin Trosper, Vern Rumsey and Sara Lund honed their dynamic instrumental chemistry to something more like a psychokinetic connection, merging taut post-punk economy with hypnotic groove on defining anthem “Corpse Pose.” Similarly revelatory are the stark tension and explosive release of “Lowest Common Denominator” and the psychedelic post-hardcore-gaze of “For Your Entertainment,” drawing their antagonistic impulses and experimental tendencies out into their own new shape of punk to come. – Jeff Terich

Read More: Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You was a breathtaking final bow

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

139. Tricky – Maxinquaye (1995)

Adrian “Tricky” Thaws leaving Massive Attack was like the cinematic cracking of the Dark Crystal. Blue Lines was a sly, fun transformation of hip-hop into trip-hop, but Tricky’s departure afterwards would send that group hurtling down a path to universal critical acclaim, shadowed as it was by dub and gothic soul. His solo debut turned out to be as giant and brooding a next step as that of his old bandmates. While Maxinquaye leans heavily on music pulled from other places—a Public Enemy cover, scraps of lyrics heard in Massive Attack songs, many vocals ceded to the lovely Martina Topley-Bird—it also shows Tricky in peak form as a producer and performer. It’s a singular collection of music, its syrupy rap and 21st century torch songs propelled by nearly industrial banging, scraping, droning. – Adam Blyweiss

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

138. Goldie – Timeless (1995)

Before Roni Size & Reprazent planted the drum and bass flag stateside, riding the momentum of winning the Mercury Prize for their debut studio album New Forms in 1997, Goldie created a template with Timeless that got Americans interested in the UK’s rising art form. Supposedly upon release, Goldie couldn’t get his 1995 double-album debut played on the airwaves in the UK, but stateside alternative rock stations, college radio stations, and esoteric soul stations all were piqued and interested in this combo of breakbeats, vibey progressive soul, and sound-system-ready bass drops. “Inner City Life” became a secret handshake among DJs, tastemakers, and everyone in the culture who were already grimacing from the oncoming hair-metal phase of commodified hip-hop. Goldie’s Timeless is that great leap into the soulful progressive unknown that adventurous ears were ready for and, in kind, rewarded kindly. – John-Paul Shiver

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

137. The Jesus Lizard – Goat (1991)

Noise rock legends The Jesus Lizard developed their sound on Pure and Head, but second LP Goat was the first full demonstration of their considerable talents for songwriting and musicianship. Goat was stuffed with now-classic Lizard songs such as “Monkey Trick.” The abrasiveness of Duane Denison’s guitar sound was tempered by an intricacy and melody to his riffing, while David Sims’ bass and Mac McNeilly’s drums locked into step with each other in a manner that at times evoked Led Zeppelin and could later be heard in contemporaries such as Shellac. A new generation of noise rockers like Pissed Jeans and KEN mode owe this album a considerable sonic debt. – Greg Hyde

Read More: The Jesus Lizard’s Goat captured a prolific band at the peak of their powers

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

136. Autechre – Tri Repetae (1995)

If you’ve ever said the phrase “Intelligent Dance Music” with a straight face, then color me very curious about what you think dancing is actually meant to look like. But Manchester duo Autechre at least bridged the gap between cerebral BPM mathematics and actual human movement in a way that felt logical if not necessarily natural, given their predilection for curious shapes and textures and unintelligible naming conventions. Their third album Tri repetae made that undercurrent of 4/4 pulse explicit even while what was happening in their upper stratosphere seemed wilder than ever. Moments like “Clipper” and “Eutow” delivered actual dance music, while the album as a whole showcased the promise of their earlier instances of buzzing, oddball techno in vivid, stunning colors. – Jeff Terich

Read More: A Beginner’s Guide to the innovative electronic music of Autechre

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

135. Brainiac – Hissing Prigs in Static Couture (1996)

Early records by Dayton, Ohio’s Brainiac arrived like pirate transmissions hijacking an already inscrutable college radio broadcast, with mangled art-punk songs full of oddball samples and distorted vocal shrieks. With 1996’s Hissing Prigs in Static Couture, recorded with Steve Albini and Girls Against Boys’ Eli Janney producing, the group brought a welcome dose of fire and urgency to their twisted new wave, hypercharging their analog synth dirges into crunchy punk anthems. Singer Timmy Taylor barked and wailed, sometimes in falsetto, through songs about cracked machines and 70-kilogram men while the group barnstormed like Devo souped up with a V8 engine. Hissing Prigs also, tragically, became the band’s closing statement when Taylor died in a car accident the next year, just as the group had been courting major label interest, but its legacy is one of energized, oddball possibilities that speak to the physical as much as the cerebral. – Jeff Terich

Read More: Brainiac’s Hissing Prigs in Static Couture is built on abrasive, oddball energy

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

134. Everything But the Girl – Walking Wounded (1996)

Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt arrived at the dawn of the ‘90s at the intersection of crisis and opportunity. Recovery from surgery to treat an autoimmune disorder left Watt in search of new ways to record and compose, increasingly embracing electronic tools, while the group’s British label finally dropped them with the disappointing performance of 1994’s Amplified Heart. But an unexpected chart behemoth in the form of a Todd Terry remix of “Missing,” along with Thorn’s collaborations with Massive Attack, guided them ever closer to the dancefloor. The resultant album, 1996’s Walking Wounded, blends the group’s understated indie pop with trip-hop, jungle and downtempo, creating a late-night album that seems to comprise everything that happens after midnight—physical, sensual, melancholy and otherwise. A comeback that paved a necessary if abbreviated path forward, Walking Wounded found Everything But the Girl creating a template for genre-blurring acts like The xx to come, while pivoting toward a more forward-thinking embrace of pop and club BPMs. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

133. Blur – 13 (1999)

If Pulp’s This Is Hardcore murdered Britpop, Blur’s 13 provided the wake. Too somber to be a bacchanalia, but damaged by drugs and alcohol all the same, the group’s final album of the ‘90s offered little indication it was made by the same fresh-faced band up to boyish antics in the video for “Parklife” or “woo-hoo”-ing their way through a grunge pisstake in “Song 2.” 13 is bookended by break-up songs, the gospel choir-backed epic opener “Tender” and the stark weeper “No Distance Left to Run” at the close, each written in response to leader Damon Albarn’s breakup with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann. And in between are songs of addiction and struggle, of recovery and, uh, Adidas trainers. Set to masterful production from William Orbit, 13 made Blur sound more massive than they ever had, as well as more distant, more agitated and disillusioned. In between the musical triumphs of moments like “Caramel” and “Trimm Trabb” are the sounds of everything falling to pieces. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

132. Gillian Welch – Revival (1996)

The dust storm of y’all-ternative in the mid-’90s didn’t quite account for an artist like Gillian Welch. Though frequently mentioned in the same breath as the Merle-and-‘Mats-inspired guitar slingers of alt-country, New York-born Welch drew inspiration from far earlier in the 20th century, an aesthetic that would in due time make her a natural fit for the soundtrack of the Coen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou? Her debut album Revival is steeped in the rustic harmonies of the Carter Family, and there’s a consciously timeless quality to stripped-down ballads like “Annabelle.” She and partner David Rawlings would shake up the formula on standouts such as the dusty, electric blues of “Pass You By” and the gorgeously jazzy swing of “Paper Wings,” but if not for the grace of modern recording technology, Revival might have led one to believe it arose from another era entirely. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

131. Fishmans – Long Season (1996)

Long Season is the dreamiest album of the 1990s, no small accomplishment given the decade’s lucid pop and shoegaze. As a single track stretched across 35 minutes, Long Season operates on dream logic. Its gargantuan stature feels like it came from a vision rather than human effort. The Japanese trio behind it indulge their curiosity to push their dub stylings into new, psychedelic pop pastures. They connect this psychedelia to the weightlessness of dreams, where drama bubbles and the world is painted in water colors. And yet, even with these hard-to-grasp qualities, Long Season’s enduring quality lies in how it captures one sentiment, – “Feeling kinda happy, feeling kinda lonely.” – Colin Dempsey

Listen: Spotify

130. Faith No More – Angel Dust (1992)

Riding the success of the rap-rock anthem “Epic,” Mike Patton gave commercial radio the middle finger and decided to bridge the gap between his day job and his band Mr. Bungle, creating a more chaotic mood on Faith No More’s subsequent full-length. Lyrically darker, Angel Dust captured all the depravity of a David Lynch film and translated it into a more aggressive vocal attack from Patton that brought about added heft to the band’s playing. The result was an album that almost single-handedly created the template for nu-metal. Deftones’ Chino Moreno must’ve taken notes from the pterodactyl screams Patton unleashes on the climaxes of songs like “Jizzlobber” and “Malpractice.” – Wil Lewellyn

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon

129. Three 6 Mafia – Mystic Stylez (1995)

Coming from a city that spawned an urban legend about cursed tapes, Three 6 Mafia’s debut is a blockbuster by comparison. As defining albums in regional hip-hop scenes go, Mystic Stylez is still pretty damn terrifying. At the time church-burning Norwegian black metal artists armed themselves with four-tracks and corpse paint, this Memphis crew were pairing druggy lo-fi beats with a similar sense of blood-curdling darkness via lo-fi trap that creeps with palpable menace. Invoking the mark of the beast in their very name while indulging in acts of horrorcore violence that felt visceral enough to be real, Mystic Stylez nonetheless occasionally offers a moment or two of hedonism in “Da Summa” and “Tear da Club Up.” But these are islands in a sea of charcoal and crimson, the rare moments of relief amid a gauntlet of terror. – Jeff Terich

Read More: How Memphis rap tapes in the ’90s spawned a chilling legend

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

128. Darkthrone – A Blaze in the Northern Sky (1992)

Black metal, the Norwegian scene centered around it, and Darkthrone all existed before A Blaze in the Northern Sky. But the group’s sophomore record marked the schism between black metal of old and its second-wave by being one of the genre’s earliest full-length albums from that second wave. To sing its praises is to celebrate an entire scene that followed it, though it’s never been usurped as the de facto black metal album. As time progressed, Darkthrone revealed their deep understanding of rock and roll’s hedonism, a truth that was housed beneath A Blaze in the Northern Sky’s rough exterior. Being aware of that posits A Blaze in the Northern Sky as more than just an artifact; it is an evergreen expression of pleasure in its most vile form. – Colin Dempsey

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

127. Fiona Apple – When the Pawn… (1999)

In the lead single to her sophomore album When the Pawn…, backed by a frantic and skittering rhythm, Fiona Apple presents a partner or perhaps the public at large with a challenge: “You think you know how crazy/how crazy I am?” In the preceding years, and even with the release of the album itself—in part because of its full, record-breaking 90-word poem of a title—Apple was met with the worst kind of media attention as a result of her uniquely confrontational honesty that had a tendency to make people uncomfortable (see: “This world is shit”). Through some of her most dazzling collaborations with producer Jon Brion, When the Pawn… finds Apple at times self-deprecating (“Fast As You Can,” “Paper Bag”), scathing (“Limp”), introspective (“A Mistake”), and creatively boundless throughout. At once more ambitious and visceral than her 1996 debut Tidal, When the Pawn… also reaffirmed Apple as “pissed off, funny, and warm,” as she’d later describe herself—and a force to be reckoned with. And as for the title? It’s essentially a rhyming verse about the importance of standing your ground. When it’s too soon to forgive, you fight again, again, again, again, and again. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

126. Madonna – Ray of Light (1998)

For at least the first half of her career, Madonna had a deft, expert ear to the ground of dance music. Her rise to popularity in the 1980s was powered by house-adjacent genres like freestyle and hi-NRG. Then, she spent about another decade (from Erotica through 2000’s Music) carried by the same digital winds lifting up new geniuses from the underground and getting co-opted by fellow arena-fillers like David Bowie and U2. Ray of Light from 1998 feels like her apex of fluency with such stylistic language, embracing direction from producer William Orbit to incorporate and legitimize ambient, trip-hop, techno, and more from the electronica trends that were closing out the 20th century. From the joy and euphoria in the title track and “Little Star” to the murmuring drama of songs like “Frozen,” Madonna here is at her most convincingly serious in vocals and themes, focusing on spirituality and her own motherhood. – Adam Blyweiss

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

125. David Bowie – Outside (1995)

The musical reunion of David Bowie with Brian Eno after more than 15 years found the two collaborators chasing some of their wildest and most baffling creative pursuits. Outside, an album inspired by the surrealist murder mystery of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (in which Bowie himself portrayed Philip Jeffries) and Eno’s “Oblique Strategies” cards, eschews linear storytelling and never saw a proper sequel (you’d be forgiven for not even noticing that it ended on a cliffhanger, given the disorienting nature of its narrative). But the story itself remains nonetheless secondary to some of the boldest Bowie compositions since, well, the Berlin trilogy, incorporating experiments with noir-jazz with pianist Mike Garson, as on “A Small Plot of Land,” in addition to industrial-rock barnburners like “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson” and “Hallo Spaceboy.” However labyrinthine its presentation, Outside still leads down some of the most fascinating pathways of Bowie’s post-’70s career. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

124. Orchid – Chaos Is Me (1999)

The dissonant stabs of strings that provide the chilling introduction to the debut album by Massachusetts’ Orchid is merely a subtle prologue for the 19 minutes of violence that follows. One of the premier documents in the evolution of screamo, Chaos Is Me drips with sweat and bile and is punctured by the splinters earned from jostling DIY spaces off their foundations. Though there are melodies to speak of, as on the triumphantly turbulent “New Jersey vs. Valhalla,” the album is driven less by hooks than by sheer bruising force, given added impact courtesy of production from Converge’s Kurt Ballou two years ahead of their own Jane Doe. Their rhythms are agile and acrobatic, their dynamics precise, but every show of elegance here is in service to unfiltered, throat-scorching aggression. – Jeff Terich

Listen: Spotify

123. The Prodigy – The Fat of the Land (1997)

Tense and lean, The Fat of the Land is an exercise in aural debauchery. Gritty, grimy and full of concussive, wall-to-wall blasts of bass-drenched mayhem, The Prodigy’s 1997 big beat breakthrough shares more in common with punk aesthetics than it does with any other breakbeat-centric electronic act of its time. The concentrated prominence of Keith Flint’s vocals did more than just accentuate the already gigantic sounds of Liam Howlett’s big-beat production, it brought about an accessibility within the growing electronic field that hadn’t yet crossed over at the time. The sheer dynamism of this album is particularly noteworthy—not a single of its ten radically different tracks bear an overlapping theme, and it’s a much stronger album for it. – Brian Roesler

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

122. Foo Fighters – The Colour and the Shape (1997)

Is there anything in the history of popular music that quite compares to the supernova of serotonin unleashed by the transition of The Colour and the Shape’s gentle opening track, “Doll,” into track 2, the frenetic, fervid fan-favorite “Monkey Wrench”? I believe—and perhaps I shall receive pushback on this matter—that there isn’t. The first Foo Fighters album to be recorded with a full band, The Colour and the Shape embraces the beloved loud-quite-loud orthodoxy with a bear hug, and treats us to an electrifying blend of power and emotion (with classics like “My Poor Brain” and “Enough Space”) with a wonderful tenderness and vulnerability—not just with “Everlong” but also via woefully underrated tracks such as “See You” and “February Stars.” – Ed Brown

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

121. Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Ragged Glory (1990)

Emerging from an ‘80s decade during which Geffen sued him for not being Michael Jackson, Neil Young and his best-known associates kicked down the hangar doors and cranked it up. Ragged Glory presaged the grunge epidemic by bridging Young’s introspective writing with a flood of distortion, loosely assembled with feedback and bursts of harmony. The effect could be uplifting (“Country Home,” “Mansion on the Hill”), enraging (“F*!#in’ Up” — the censored title is Neil’s, not fuckin’ ours), and entrancing, especially in long doses (“Over and Over,” “Love and Only Love”). Maybe the most representative track is their ramshackle cover of the Premiers’ “Farmer John” — loud and joyful, with background vocals completely optional. – Paul Pearson

Read More: The Best Neil Young live albums

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

120. The Dismemberment Plan – Emergency & I (1999)

The loneliest party album, the most anxious pop record, and the most melancholy set of songs you’ve ever danced your ass off to—at least I know I sure as hell have. Emergency & I, The Dismemberment Plan’s almost-major-label debut until they called off a deal with Interscope, arrived just in time for Y2K panic right at the end of 1999. But the 12 songs on the Washington, D.C. band’s third album are steeped in more everyday sources of worry—breakups, isolation, twenty-something aimlessness. That is, except for when they’re imagining dystopian devices on the post-hardcore freakout of “Memory Machine” or twitching their way through nuclear warfare on “8 1/2 Minutes.” As the group tumbles through a gauntlet of time signatures and panic attacks, Emergency & I presents a surprisingly fun form of new wave abrasion, backing it with a Bonham-sized stomp on “What Do You Want Me To Say?” and hypnotic minor-key disco on “The City.” Yet in the “throw your hands in the air” chants of “Back and Forth” or the open-armed invocation to outsiders on “You Are Invited” (“You are invited/by anyone to do anything“), The Dismemberment Plan remind us that even when you feel bad, you can still channel that into a good time. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

119. Jawbox – For Your Own Special Sweetheart (1994)

As part of the Washington, D.C. Dischord/post-hardcore/punk scene, Jawbox experienced a certain level of discomfort being part of the mainstream, but they didn’t let that get in the way of making the best album of their career (controversial: potentially tied with their overlooked self-titled album). For Your Own Special Sweetheart doesn’t smooth down the bristle and scrape of their brawny songs but rather renders them in pristine focus—juxtaposed with a radio-friendliness that complemented rather than clashed with their most abrasive elements. The jangly drone of “Savory” and driving rave-up “Cooling Card” hit MTV, though even their most dissonant moments—the aptly titled “Cruel Swing,” the bait-and-switch of the intricate, stunning “Reel”—revealed a keen sense of melody that transcended agitation for its own sake. – Jeff Terich

Read more: Jawbox strived to be the best version of themselves on For Your Own Special Sweetheart

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

118. Gas – Zauberberg (1997)

In 1997, Wolfgang Voigt embarked on a trip which to date has no end in sight. Inspired by the composer’s own experiences with taking LSD in a German forest, the whole of the Gas project is unified by that singular event, driven by the mission of merging the club with Voigt’s own visions of sylvan serenity. He’s up to seven installments by the time of this writing, but its origin point is Zauberberg, a dense and blurry pulse of dark ambient techno in which its verdant inspirations are captured well after midnight. Whether this is Voigt’s darkest entry is a matter of perspective, of subtle shades rather than primary colors, but it’s an experience every bit as intoxicating as it promises. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

117. Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx (1995)

Raekwon didn’t invent the mafioso-rap subgenre, but he might’ve perfected it with 1995’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. The Chef had a diverse, well-stocked arsenal for his debut: RZA’s most inventive grime-funk production to date (check “Incarcerated Scarfaces” and “Ice Water”); Ghostface Killah as rhyming partner on more than half the tracks; support from every other Wu-Tang Clan member (notably GZA and the always-underrated Masta Killa) plus a legendary Nas feature. But above all, Raekwon (and Ghost) each had a head full of all-too-true stories from their upbringing, which grounded the grandiose drug-kinpin narrative in grim reality. (That grimness is more apparent—and brutal—on 2009’s OB4CL Pt. II, a sequel nearly as good as the original.) – Liam Green

Listen: Spotify

116. Maxwell – Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite (1996)

I once had a debate with a college roommate about what precisely constituted “fuck jams”; this was the key record of my argument, a hybrid of quiet storm, funk and just enough psychedelia to make it lurid and sensual but not so much that it all gets lost in the sauce. People might wonder why we can have seemingly infinite patience for Maxwell to put out literally anything. This record is a key reason why, setting the stage for a career of work that rides the line perfectly between the cutting edge, the throwback and the intensely mood-rich. – Langdon Hickman

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

115. Underworld – dubnobasswithmyheadman (1994)

“Intelligent techno” is largely lost to the world of print, its assignment to albums tucked away in used-bookstore racks and in magazines scanned to the Internet Archive. I first and will always associate that term with Romford’s Underworld, transformed to a trio at the dawn of the big beat era with DJ Darren Emerson joining OG band members Karl Hyde and Rick Smith. dubnobasswithmyheadman was “intelligent” because it used and reused elements across songs to tell new stories. “Intelligent,” because it combined grooves and feelings into epics like “Mmm Skyscraper I Love You” and “Cowgirl” that morphed and shifted in ways traditional house and electro did not. “Intelligent,” because Hyde’s lyrics had qualities of pop mantras and Beat poetry riding atop barnstorming loops years before “Born Slippy” blew up. dubnobasswithmyheadman isn’t home to the chatter and fog of what we now call intelligent dance music (IDM)—it’s just well put together as anything. – AB

Listen: Spotify

114. Ryuichi Sakamoto – 1996 (1996)

Ryuichi Sakamoto’s most overtly cinematic arrangements tell their own stories. The visionary composer’s synesthetic pieces mimic the dramatic sights, colors, and scenes of the silver screen, and the late pianist’s 1996 compilation contains some of the finest soundtrack music of the 20th century. Comprising two new pieces and choice cuts from Babel, The Last Emperor, Smoochy, and more, the collection serves as a perfect introduction into the arranger’s genius interpretation. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s compositions are profoundly aware, both emotionally and aesthetically. Listening to a soundtrack compilation like 1996, one can surmise what may be happening before ever turning on the TV. – Patrick Pilch

Listen: Spotify

113. 2Pac – All Eyez on Me (1996)

The last album 2Pac released while alive seems more like a Greatest Hits album, kicking off with “Ambitions as a Ridah” and “All About U.” Love “Only God Can Judge Me” or “I Ain’t Mad At Cha”? That’s this. Love “How Do U Want It,” “2 of Amerikaz’s Most Wanted” or “California Love”? That’s this. Not everything on it has aged for the better but this remains not just an all-time album with regard to ’90s hip hop, but one of the most impactful albums released ever and has barely aged in 30 years. – Butch Rosser

ListenBuy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

112. PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love (1995)

Left to her own devices, PJ Harvey’s third studio album marks an inward turn toward experimentation. Retaining a grungy ethos and blues influence, she added industrial beats, orchestral arrangements, vocal modulation, and even more chillingly evocative vocal performances. Harvey’s trademark themes of love, loss, and vengeance are feverishly refined to a spiritual level of abstract desperation. To beg is to pray and vice versa. This is the nightmare of emotional isolation as inscrutable parable. – Forrest James

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

111. Sigur Ros – Ágætis byrjun (1999)

Retroactively shoehorning Ágætis byrjun into the post-rock canon does little to encapsulate it. Much of Sigur Ros’ second album is not conventionally post-rock and instead something more innocent. It’s a cradle of textures and wonder that dismisses the thematic overtures post-rock had accrued during the ’90s and returns it to the genre’s inoculation, Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden. Hell, there’s a rousing harmonica to prove it. Yet, it’s more than just a throwback—Ágætis byrjun is scope incarnate. Emotionally enveloping but as slow as sediment, it was the peak of post-rock’s maturation in the ’90s. – Colin Dempsey

Read More: Sigur Ros’ Ágætis Byrjun was a new beginning

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

110. Judas Priest – Painkiller (1990)

It’s a rare band that decades into their career drops what many consider their best album. Priest of course had unimpeachable classics under their belt by this point, three in the ’70s and two in the ’80s, but Painkiller seamlessly fuses all the elements that made those records great (dalliances with progressive rock and the foundations of NWOBHM) with just enough thrash edge borrowed from bands they inspired to make a near perfect metal album. You might have metal bands you prefer, but there is no doubt Priest is the most metal, the very central heart of the genre. – Langdon Hickman

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

109. Duster – Stratosphere (1998)

You know what? God bless TikTok. What a few years ago was a brilliant undersung slowcore group, a genre which blended the proto-post-rock elements of the alternative rock and emo worlds with a bit of dour country-folk, suddenly exploded, garnering over 200 million streams on one song from this record alone. They underscore the more melodic and song-driven wing of what post-rock can do, especially with vocal arrangements. Importantly, it feels vast and empty like its cover, cinching itself to post-rock not just by its drone-rock approach but that imagistic and emotional directionality, a sparrow in the desert. – Langdon Hickman

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

108. Jay-Z – Reasonable Doubt (1996)

It’s remarkable in a real sense that Jay-Z took roughly 25 years to make a proper follow up to this record in 4:44, waiting until he was already stacked with cash to produce a proper sequel to what many critics consider his best record. A jazz-rap classic, the completion of the growing esteem the ciphers and stray tracks the young wunderkind had produced back when he was sincerely battling for the throne of best in New York. That he launched an all-star career following this, pinballing between cutting edge and commercial works, all of quality, is hardly a surprise hearing this one. – Langdon Hickman

Listen: Spotify

107. Tool – Ænima (1996)

Building off their knack for writing brooding grooves that lead the listener through a nightmarish labyrinth, Tool expanded their grim horizons with the dystopian prog of their 1996 masterpiece. Where Undertow was consumed by the angst of inner struggles, this album was a sardonic commentary of the world around them. The slither of its basslines and unparalleled drumming set the bar almost too high not only for the band but for heavy music as a whole. They resonated with audiences in such a way it established a cult-like legacy for the band that finds them living off their mythology to this day. – Wil Lewellyn

Listen: Spotify

106. Magnetic Fields — 69 Love Songs (1999)

I’ll have more to say about this record later soon. But I will say that, for most of the decade after its release, 69 Love Songs was like Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus for a remarkable cross-section of music fans. Stephin Merritt took a gazetteer’s approach to popular music, channeling Cole Porter’s wit, Elvis Costello’s musical exploration, and Harry Partch’s using whatever he had lying around. Stripped of most appurtenances, this 3-CD package puts forth the art of songwriting, whether Merritt’s bending genres (“A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off”) and genders (“Come Back from San Francisco,” “Papa Was a Rodeo”), cranking out instantly memorable pop (“The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side,” “Yeah! Oh Yeah!”) or advocating for the assassination of structural linguists (“The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure”). Maybe he could do a song about Luigi Serafini next. – Paul Pearson

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

105. Bikini Kill – The C.D. Version of the First Two Albums (1994)

Bikini Kill dared an entire, malignant ecosystem. Kathleen Hanna, Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Billy Karren confronted a punk music domain that only reserved a small corner for women. Their first two albums (more accurately, EPs) annihilated expectations of what the Olympia band could carry out. Hanna explicitly railed against the lazy sexism that informed a lot of popular genres in the 20^th century, even (especially?) punk. She rails against objectification in “Double Dare Ya” (“You get so emotional baby,” dude says), attacks sexual abuse with haltering sarcasm (“Carnival,” “Suck My Left One,” “White Boy”), and finds internal drive and motivation moments before the reissued record ends (“Rebel Girl”). Few records inspired true, revolutionary efforts, but Bikini Kill’s work created an action-oriented philosophy in the riot grrrl movement. Their current renaissance makes me a proud local (I live near Olympia, and most of our music scene has not been on Stephen Colbert like BK was this summer). That they’ve nicked the edges of 21^st century mainstream culture raises two seemingly conflicting senses: (a) people are ready to act on their message, and (b) there will still be a lot of work to do. – Paul Pearson

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

104. Silver Jews – American Water (1998)

American Water isn’t Silver Jews’ magnum opus, but The Natural Bridge doesn’t start with “Random Rules.” That song is one of acceptance, and it connects both records. On The Natural Bridge, the Silver Jews frontman couldn’t handle it—random ruling. But American Water assents to the chaos, even though Berman would eventually question if it was ever random at all. It’ll be five years this month and it’s hard not to wonder what he might think now, everything considered. In an empty room, behind walls of medication, here’s to shining out in the wild kindness. – Patrick Pilch

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

103. Ulver – Bergtatt: Et eeventyr i 5 capitler (1995)

In 1994, an album of Gregorian chants from the Benedectine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, titled Chant, became just one of a handful of new age curiosities to crash the charts in the 1990s. Just one year later, a group of iconoclastic Norwegians paired similar chants to a black metal song cycle about trolls, or something. One of only a couple actual black metal albums Ulver released before eventually transitioning into electronic and other experimental forms, Bergtatt is a singular black metal debut, alternately serene and sinister, harnessing vile darkness while invoking the sacred. While it retains the rawness of black metal at its most (im)pure, Bergtatt offered an early glimpse of what more it could be—playful, meditative, even beautiful. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

102. Air – Moon Safari (1998)

The word on the street from the French duo of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel is that copious amounts of red wine went into the making of Moon Safari—and your ears allow you to believe that sexy lie does in fact track. Refreshing, slow-moving orchestrations, those summery electric organ colors. Fashionable yet grounded Moog charts and deconstructed the ‘60s and ‘70s era dance-club atmospheres, Moon Safari was built for the Wes Anderson chill-out room—where Sofia Coppola happened to be grabbing a smoke. – John-Paul Shiver

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

101. Bonnie “Prince” Billy – I See a Darkness (1999)

Will Oldham is at once an enigma and an open book. His lyrics follow a clear path even while twisting in circles, projected beautifully by a crystal clear voice that’s rife with conflicting emotions. I See a Darkness is characteristically both soft and rough, full of hope and despair not as separate ideas in discord but as a blurry dialectic. Perhaps a poet above all, adept with both rhyme and clever diction, Oldham seems compelled like an oracle by rapturous visions of truth and pain.  – Forrest James

Read More: A Beginner’s Guide to the Music of Bonnie “Prince” Billy

Listen/Buy: Apple Music | Amazon (vinyl)

100. Tortoise – TNT (1998)

One thing that stands out about TNT is the way in which the various parts are stitched together, creating memorable grooves that unfold organically. Jeff Parker’s guitar, the percussion, and the meticulous texture throughout all come together effortlessly like furniture in a cozy living room. When that trumpet comes in to join the guitar and drums toward the end of the opening title track, everything seems to click into place. The way the album brings together songwriting cues from jazz, ambient, electronic music, and minimalism make it one of the most distinctive works given the post-rock label. – Tyler Dunston

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

99. Refused – The Shape of Punk to Come (1998)

The Shape of Punk to Come hasn’t lost any of its fearsome power. It casts shadows 10 miles long over so much heavy music in general that followed. As if attempting to sonically echo their leftist politics, most of Shape’s cuts treat song structure as a comical conceit, like the raging “Deadly Rhythm” and the brutal dirge of “Tannhӓuser/Derivè.” Even the relatively straightforward tunes (the title track, “New Noise,” “Liberation Frequency”) thrash against their boundaries. Dennis Lyxzén’s unpredictable talk-sing-scream-whisper vocal style, the pulverizing Jon Brännström/Kristofer Steen synchronized guitars, the funkier-than-usual rhythms from Magnus Björklund’s bass and David Sandström’s drums—all have been imitated to varying degrees, sometimes by reasonably skilled mimics. They will never, ever be duplicated. – Liam Green

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

98. Jane’s Addiction – Ritual de lo Habitual (1990)

Forget the singles. The heart of this album is the 11-minute journey of “Three Days.” “Been Caught Stealing” just gets you in the door, but the sex and drugs that flow in the blood of who they were when making this can be heard in the sensual bass line of the album’s sprawling, standout track, essentially the band’s “Stairway to Heaven.” You never heard it on the radio—nor should you. Jane’s Addiction became the band that wrote the hits, and debauchery played a huge part in their story. But this is the soundtrack to a celebration of that seedy story that bears little in common with the grunge bands that would rule the airwaves in their aftermath. – Wil Lewellyn

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

97. Failure – Fantastic Planet (1996)

It’s not entirely inappropriate to think of Fantastic Planet as a grunge album, at least in part, but then again how many grunge bands have released a 67-minute, 17-track song cycle about heroin addiction as wrapped in sci-fi imagery? The Los Angeles trio’s then-final album found them building on the heavy, riff-driven sound of 1994’s Magnified with a work of outsized ambition, each chapter connected through instrumental segues and created as a closed loop—the very same looping chime that opens the album also closes it. But it’s the cosmic drama and widescreen sound between those parallel bookends that makes it an exception to alt-rock rules, blurring the lines between shoegaze’s effects-laden euphoria and grunge’s brawny crunch on standout moments like “Stuck On You” and “Another Space Song,” capturing a dark narrative in gorgeously vivid colors. The band broke up within a year of its release, but its legacy eclipsed its modest commercial success at the time, their still-going second act proving that their unique space-rock opus just needed a longer countdown before it could really take off. – Jeff Terich

Read more: Failure’s Fantastic Planet was a triumphant closing chapter

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

96. Botch – We Are the Romans (1999)

Tacoma’s Botch never took themselves overly seriously, dismissing some of their early material as “the worst music you ever heard in your life,” selling homoerotic t-shirts declaring themselves “The Best Boy Band Ever” and giving their songs titles like “C. Thomas Howell as the ‘Soul Man.’” That immediately set them apart among a landscape of heavy music that played it too straight-faced, but they didn’t half-ass it on the actual songwriting, crafting a masterpiece of rhythmically intricate hardcore on their second and final album. Released in a landmark year that saw similarly groundbreaking records from the likes of peers Cave In and Dillinger Escape Plan, We Are the Romans paired heavy metal groove with dizzying time-signature changes, stacking riffs upon riffs beneath Dave Verellen’s throat-scorching screams, while standouts like “Frequency Ass Bandit,” “I Wanna Be A Sex Symbol On My Own Terms” and the epic closer “Man the Ramparts” revealed that they knew their way around a good hook. A hybrid of hardcore and metal this ferocious is no laughing matter. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

95. They Might Be Giants — Flood (1990)

There was a meme a few years ago urging fellow TMBG fans not to “think too much” about their comic songs’ meanings — just nod, smile, and listen. I felt that shortchanged one of the Two Johns’ biggest strengths: injecting just enough substance to lift the subgenre without getting dark. Flood is a prime example of these efforts. “Birdhouse in Your Soul” is a sweet love song that happens to mention Jason and “countless screaming Argonauts.” “Particle Man,” a loopy fan favorite, might be about existentialism’s difficulty in an unforgiving universe. “Your Racist Friend” is a cautionary tale that’s all too apropos in today’s climate. And their cover of the Four Freshmen’s “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” is all about — well, syllables. We don’t give syllables enough credit. Running between the songs are They Might Be Giants’ patented, swirling, practically I Ching adventurism. – Paul Pearson

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

94. Built to Spill – Keep It Like a Secret (1999)

Built to Spill’s fourth album is bombastic, raucous, but most importantly, an elevated extension of the indie rock they had been perfecting throughout the decade. There’s a sense of joy in the instrumentals and added playfulness from frontman Doug Martsch’s vocals. Standout track “Carry the Zero” feels all encompassing, with a sound as big as the sun, as Brett Nelson’s bass and Scott Plouf’s drums blend blissfully with Martsch’s guitar and vocals. Martsch’s ecstatic guitar solos are a treat, but the band as a whole shines brightest on moments like “Broken Chairs,” the album’s longest and closing track, finding room to experiment and extend in the ways that they had done on past albums, allowing themselves to take it all in. – Virginia Croft

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

93. Sinéad O’Connor — I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got (1990)

“I’ve said this before now / You said I was childish and you’ll say it now.” The line is from “Black Boys on Mopeds,” a lacerating song about Thatcherite racism on Sinéad O’Connor’s sophomore album. In the year since her death, the line affects me as much as any she wrote. She could not rest with the shallow allure of fame as she addresses in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Sinéad sounds like she’s fighting upstream against a choir, one that cannot fathom loss or grief and believes they’re just juvenile outgrowths. Much of I Do Not Want feels like a prayer or mantra, even the up-tempo songs. They’re rituals for mourning (“I Am Stretched on Your Grave,” “You Cause As Much Sorrow”), righteousness delayed (“Jump in the River”), or romantic sorrow (“Nothing Compares 2 U”). “The Last Day of Our Acquaintance” is a jump-scaring blend of sadness, blasé process, and finality’s rage. It might be the best song she ever did. Like her countryman Van Morrison (pre-COVID), Sinéad could not suffer hypocrisy or frivolity. On this mostly austere masterpiece, her contempt for dissociation cuts like a blade. – Paul Pearson

Read more: Sinéad O’Connor communicated the truth on I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

92. Cryptopsy – None So Vile (1996)

Tech death has acquired a reputation of being sterile to the point of staleness, endless exercises in technical acumen without either a songwriter’s pulse or the necessary savagery of death metal at its best. This was not always so. See, for example, Flo Mournier’s legendary drumming on this record, evolving similar work in Atheist that feels just on the verge of falling apart. This doesn’t even touch the string work, which is savage and unhinged, let alone the vocals of Lord Worm, a singer who perfectly meshes the menace of death metal with the real sense of threat black metal of the era possessed. – Langdon Hickman

Listen: Spotify

91. Digable Planets – Blowout Comb (1994)

Digable Planets scored a massive hit with their effortlessly cool jazz rap on “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” in 1993, but instead of seeking to replicate it a second time out, the hip-hop trio dug deeper into the crates—literally, having collected stacks of records while touring the world behind their debut album. As such, their sophomore effort Blowout Comb is reflective of that impeccable curation, featuring deep-cut jazz-funk samples intertwined with live instrumentation so seamlessly that it’s hard to know where the vinyl ends and the kick drum begins. It’s a richly layered musical statement, one of the most consistently fascinating full-album soundscapes in hip-hop, right down to its Afrocentric, Black Panthers-inspired lyrics, which are mixed low enough to require the listener to lean in a little closer. It didn’t produce another hit, but its immersive analog funk preceded a rare-grooves renaissance, connecting Black music’s past to an ever progressing present. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

90. TLC – CrazySexyCool (1994)

Atlanta R&B trio TLC arrived in the early ‘90s as playful newcomers in the New Jack Swing scene, their youthful sound incorporating elements of hip-hop while wearing socially conscious messages on their sleeves (including literal condoms in the video for “Ain’t 2 Proud to Beg”). Two years later, the group embraced a more mature approach with their 12-times platinum CrazySexyCool, juxtaposing more overtly sexual highlights such as “Creep” and “Red Light Special” with topical cautionary tales like “Waterfalls.” With interludes provided by Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest, a cover of Prince’s “If I Was Your Girlfriend” and nods to Stax and Philly soul, CrazySexyCool offered a glimpse of R&B’s future while acknowledging and celebrating its past. Yet for how much TLC seemed to grow up on their sophomore album, skits like “Sexy” still reaffirmed them as New Jack pranksters. – Jeff Terich

Listen: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

89. Buena Vista Social Club – Buena Vista Social Club (1997)

Introducing one of the music world’s most beautiful mistakes, an album that might not exist but for the passport problems of musicians from Mali forcing American guitarist Ry Cooder and the London label World Circuit to change plans during an excursion to Cuba. They ended up seeking out local artists versed in the island’s traditional song and dance forms like son, trova, filin, bolero, and danzón. The second and far more successful of two 1997 albums (and ensembles) born from this curation, Buena Vista Social Club is a template for endlessly romantic Afro-Cuban cool, as if pulled from the background of a Hemingway watering hole or a Tarantino exposition scene. It’s the music of the oldest of the old-school stereotypical Latin lovers played with reverence and grace, shining a light on treasured melodies now up to a century old and giving brief but deserved exposure to Compay Segundo and other aging artists long blockaded due to Communist rule. – Adam Blyweiss

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

88. Fugazi – Repeater (1990)

Off the back of two explosive EPs, Fugazi seemed destined to gift the world the post-hardcore archetype that has inspired generations of punks well beyond its 1990 release. Distant from Ian MacKaye’s hardcore bruising in Minor Threat, and far more polished than Greg Picciotto and Brendan Canty’s influential-but-scrappy proto-emo project Rites of Spring, Repeater took the group’s D.C. punk roots in one hand and tore them apart at the seams with the other. Joe Lally’s meandering, dub-inspired bass pulse vibrantly under dual guitars that grind away like machinery while the frontmen’s blasting of commodification (“Merchandise”), consumerism (“Greed”) and bigotry (“Styrofoam”) was enough to coax the alt-rock appetites of major labels the band wanted nothing to do with. Repeater signaled a spark of creative, and independently successful, flair to grotty underground scenes where their DIY-first ethos to music making, promotion and $5 gigs feels more precious than ever. – Elliot Burr

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)

87. Metallica – Metallica (1991)

Plenty of hardcore Metallica fans point at this self-titled release as the point where the band sold out. For millions of others, however, it was merely a gateway drug to the sort of headbanging fellow fans Beavis and Butthead would make (in)famous years later. Behind the scenes professional and personal dramas ultimately all got washed away by the sonic force of all time tracks like “Enter Sandman” and underrated gems like “Don’t Tread On Me.” To the uninitiated they came off as violent mooks (which they could be) but to the underclass willing to wade in there was a world of layered craftsmanship and pathos-driven storytelling that simply fucking rocks. – Butch Rosser

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

86. D’Angelo – Brown Sugar (1995)

“Let me tell you ‘bout this girl, maybe I shouldn’t/ I met her out in Philly and her name was brown sugar,” goes the opening line from D’angelo’s 1995 debut Brown Sugar. It provided a shot of adrenaline for R&B, so much so that it helped lay the foundation for what would later be dubbed “neo soul.” Who knows what it means, or even what it meant but what is clear, especially in hindsight, is that D’angelo delivered a classic. He name drops weed strains and swears like a sailor, making Chocolate Thai sound like an aphrodisiac, and expletives feel like come-ons, “shit, daaamn, mutherfucker”—smooth as satin outta his mouth. It’s definitely a vibe, a kind of boom bap R&B, like if A Tribe Called Quest played instruments with Q-Tip in possession of a godlike sense of melody. Eternally immaculate and forever timeless, as appealing as brown sugar itself. – J. Smith

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

85. Deftones – Around the Fur (1997)

Before they became the one band that truly transcended nu metal, Deftones delivered the genre’s finest hour. Around The Fur’s defining features — seven-string riffs, rhythmic groove and horny lyrics — may be common signifiers of this oft-reviled era, yet no other band pulled them off with such nuanced and exhilarating aplomb. While Deftones’ love of dense, viscous and often erotic textures would shine brighter on subsequent records, bouncy anthems like “My Own Summer” and “Be Quiet and Drive” and dark, moody excursions “Mascara” and ‘Dai the Flu” make Around The Fur a commanding calling card. – Tom Morgan

Read more: Deftones traded aggression for mystique on White Pony

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

84. Spiritualized – Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (1997)

Spiritualized’s 1997 psychedelic opus Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space came emblazoned with cover art designed to resemble pharmaceutical drugs, complete with dosage, usage and warnings—which in spite of its heavy emotional weight served as a reminder that Jason Pierce still had a sense of humor about it all. Drugs and psych-rock are essentially interlinked, after all, and Floating in Space is itself a cycle of highs and comedowns—of achieving an otherworldly feeling of transcendence and attempting to kill an ache that never entirely goes away. Not one of its 70-plus minutes is less than sublime, chaotic when energized (“Electricity”), gorgeous even when devastating (“Broken Heart”), and ending on 17 minutes of bluesy, cacophonous, Dr. John-assisted ellipsis (“Cop Shoot Cop”). This is where Spiritualized fully embrace the promise that their name suggests, a head-spinning work of artistic grandeur that feels like religious ecstasy. – Jeff Terich

Read more: Spiritualized’s Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space rendered pain with grandeur

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

83. Erykah Badu – Baduizm (1997)

In a decade that saw so many monumental achievements in hip-hop, R&B, and soul, few albums stood athwart the history of those genres like Baduizm. In her debut release, Erykah Badu channeled Nina Simone, Gil Scott-Heron, Queen Latifah, and the creative testosterone of her Soulquarian collaborators with confidence and ease. Its songs burst with creative energy, from their jazz inflections and wandering basslines to intimate lyrics and syncopated grooves. Through it all, she remains in complete control of the flow, whether singing, rapping, scatting, or simply speaking. Nearly 30 years later, new soul singers still cut their teeth following the template set by this visionary artist. – Adam P. Newton

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

82. The Roots – Things Fall Apart (1999)

At a self-admitted do-or-die point heading into their fourth album, The Roots added production from a nascent J. Dilla and guest spots from Common, Mos Def and Beanie Siegel. But it was label interference that led to Erykah Badu singing the Jill Scott written book on “You Got Me,” the high water mark on Things and maybe in the Roots’ entire discography. Add tracks like “Adrenaline!” and “The Next Movement” to ?uest’s drumming and Black Thought’s razor sharp lyricism, and you have the Illafelph icons at the height of their powers. – Butch Rosser

Listen/Buy: Spotify

81. Mazzy Star – So Tonight That I Might See (1993)

If R.E.M. is Velvet Underground’s favorite child, Mazzy Star is the evil twin. Both bands are clearly inspired by Lou Reed’s simple structures and melodies, especially early on, but Mazzy Star latched on to the droning edge of VU’s catalog on 1993’s So Tonight that I Might See. While every young singer with an acoustic guitar knows “Fade Into You,” songs like “Bells Ring” and “Into Dust” lull the listener into a trancelike state as Hope Sandoval whispers morosely. Even the more upbeat numbers like “She’s My Baby” are no match for Sandoval’s moody delivery, but that’s also what makes this album so indispensably ‘90s. – Chad Gorn

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

80. Snoop Doggy Dogg – Doggystyle (1993)

For many this album epitomizes the West Coast sound. Listen to this with eyes closed in the depths of a gray Michigan winter and you might still be able to trick yourself into thinking there’s sun streaming in through your eyelids, a cold drink in your hand. Snoop Dogg’s flow on this album—agile and acrobatic and yet relaxed, never in a hurry—embodies sprezzatura. This album makes something incredibly difficult sound like the easiest thing. Part of this is due to Dr. Dre’s production—decades later, we are still hearing the reverberations of that classic synth-driven G-Funk sound. – Tyler Dunston

Listen: Spotify

79. Tom Waits – Bone Machine (1992)

Comebacks from the likes of Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones and—to quintuple-platinum success—Meatloaf proved that the boomer canon still owned the airwaves, and without much change in their typical M.O. (other than an embrace of the music video format). If you turned on MTV in the early ‘90s, you also would have seen Tom Waits, but probably only after midnight, barking his way through dark noise-blues songs while clad in blackened goggles and bashing away at toy instruments. After abandoning the more traditional balladry of his ‘70s output, Waits continued his descent into Beefheartian nightmares and some of his most sinister material with 1992’s Bone Machine. Satirical, violent and loaded with Waits’ trademark fabulism, Bone Machine is rife with cacophonous bravado (“Goin’ Out West”), scuffed-up vulnerability (“I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”), ironic fatalism (“The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me”), and on “Black Wings,” the kind of tall-tale mythmaking that’d become his stock in trade: “Some say he once killed a man with a guitar string.” After two decades of making music, Waits only found darker yarns to spin and louder megaphones to shout them through. – Jeff Terich

Read more: Treble 100, No. 63: Tom Waits – Rain Dogs

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

78. Yo La Tengo – I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One (1997)

Of all 17 albums across Yo La Tengo’s dynamic career, I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One is the best sampler for their style. There’s a staggering variety packed into this hour and change: punishing dirges, pop gems, whimsical studio goofs and even shades of electronica (the X-factor in the classic “Autumn Sweater.”) Somehow, Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew manage to pull off just about every flavor of rock music without compromising themselves. They do what they do best: let us in on domestic life and private emotion with heroic honesty and a healthy distrust for refinement. – Casey Burke

Read more: Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One set a benchmark in indie rock

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

77. Drive Like Jehu – Yank Crime (1994)

Terms like “math rock” do the disservice of sterilizing albums like Drive Like Jehu’s second and final album, Yank Crime, a set of scorching post-hardcore songs too unhinged and untamed to be quantified via charts and graphs. When the disparate parts of the San Diego band’s sound interlock (see: the clashing of John Reis and Rick Froberg’s guitars against Mike Kennedy and Mark Trombino’s 5/4 rhythms in leadoff track “Here Come the Rome Plows”), they’re as much like a well-oiled machine as an engine coming dangerously close to careening off the tracks. There’s a serrated ballet that happens on standouts like “Do You Compute” and the slow-burn and wildly satisfying payoff of “Luau,” but that elegance is always in perfect balance with their aggression. Intricate? Yes. Impeccable? Absolutely. But above all, relentlessly intense—for they driveth furiously. – Jeff Terich

Read More: Drive Like Jehu built a symphony of tension and repetition on Yank Crime

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

76. Pulp – Different Class (1995)

“What’s the point of being rich / If you can’t think what to do with it? / ’Cause you’re so bleeding thick,” Jarvis Cocker sings on “Mis-Shapes,” the album’s opener, arguing that one of the greatest crimes of the rich is their lack of imagination. It’s a perfect example of the barbed irony and witty bitterness of the so-called misfits whose voices appear across the album which sent Pulp into the stratosphere. Sonically, Different Class employs a kind of maximalism reminiscent of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust—often, when a song seems to have settled, it suddenly shifts into another gear. – Tyler Dunston

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

75. Neurosis – Through Silver in Blood (1996)

During the ’90s peak of death metal and black metal, where style was often prioritized and overt humanity buried, Through Silver in Blood posed a threat on a personal level. Neurosis’ fifth album returned American metal to a mortal state by moving even further away from the group’s hardcore punk roots and toward a looser, novel interpretation of metal. By 1996, they were already a sludge metal act, but Through Silver in Blood solidified their existentially crushing weight. They retained their everyman appeal carried over from punk and absconded gory lyrics and gothic nihilism. As such, there are no veils between the self and Through Silver in Blood. – Colin Dempsey

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

74. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Let Love In (1994)

Let Love In represents some of the Bad Seeds’ most dramatic tendencies: expansive yet tightly cinematic arrangements backdrop Nick Cave’s mythic performances. Like some kind of trickster god, Cave alternates between spectral whispers and manic regurgitations. As viscerally embodied, dripping with blood and vomit and adrenaline, as they are abstracted to the purely unconscious. The border in between those modes is thin, say Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and to linger there invites both madness and magic. These are modern myths as ambiguous as our own collective anxiety, alchemically transcendent from the amalgamation of themes and melodies that gives them form. – Forrest James

Read more: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ Let Love In is a balance between elegance and menace

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

73. Carcass – Heartwork (1993)

To the outside observer, it might seem absurd to call a death metal act known for their tongue-twisting medical-text song titles and Unnecessary Surgery Land visual aids a party band. And it probably is, but it’s also true. As a live act, Carcass deliver the rollicking, line-’em-up-and-knock-’em-down goods, and their evolution from grindcore noisemakers into melodic riff-slingers ultimately led to the best material of their career. But that doesn’t mean they don’t take the fun of death metal very seriously. Their 1993 album Heartwork saw the UK group embrace melody and more sophisticated songwriting, incorporating Maiden-like harmonies and hard rock hooks into their airtight death metal pummelers. Jeff Walker’s monotone growl suggested that any crass move toward commercialism wasn’t necessarily in the cards, but through the vicious grooves of “Buried Dreams,” “No Love Lost” and the title track, they made death metal about as accessible, even catchy, as it’s ever been. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

72. Missy Elliott – Supa Dupa Fly (1997)

In 1997 Missy Elliot debuted with Supa Dupa Fly, an innovative full length that owes much of its magic to producer Timbaland and his avant space bops. From the beginning of “Busta’s Intro,” the album’s opener (featuring Busta Rhymes), the aquamarine warble that sounds like Timbo was underwater when he made it signals “game on.” There’s a new era upon us, with Missy and Tim at the forefront. Throughout the project’s 17 songs, Elliott sings, raps and hits ‘em with the “hee.” It’s a fun, flirtatious LP—the Virginia legend carving out her own lane. A genuine one of one, super duper fly. – J. Smith

Listen: Spotify

71. Fiona Apple – Tidal (1996)

Fiona Apple’s debut set a high bar for a transcendental, ceiling-shattering career. Simple, shuffling percussion and twinkling orchestration adorn her timeless piano playing and elegant vocals. Similarly sophisticated, her metaphors are concise yet potent, cutting straight to the bones of modern love with little elaboration needed. Compared to her own ensuing discography Tidal appears relatively straightforward, maybe even straight over the plate, but compared to her peers it’s a knuckleball strikeout. – Forrest James

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

70. Daft Punk – Homework (1997)

The “home” in this debut album title references the DIY spirit Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo brought to recording, to releasing music, even to working on videos. Theirs was a fun, freewheeling commitment to the groove that turned into a set of songs suddenly big enough to turn into a proper album. As big as their studio setup might have seemed, and as big as their robot-helmed reputation would grow, it all presaged a now ubiquitous bedroom-production aesthetic. Homework sounds nowhere near as complex as their contemporaries in Orbital or Underworld. It’s a different kind of siren-like than Fatboy Slim or Chemical Brothers. It’s even less obviously sample-based than Discovery would be in 2001. What’s left is a relentless, deceptively simple, deeply satisfying throb. Songs like “Rollin’ & Scratchin’” and “Da Funk” turned acid to rock and back again. “Around the World” and “Phoenix,” meanwhile, delivered 33RPM Kraftwerk hypnosis at 45. They called it the French touch; it grips us to the present day. – AB

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

69. Jeff Buckley – Grace (1994)

When ironic detachment and cynical disaffection reached a cultural high, Jeff Buckley dared to be earnest. The sole full-length album released during the singer/songwriter’s too-short lifetime, Grace seems to be entirely of its time and existing out of time entirely—the studio product of a mercurial artist influenced by Van Morrison and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who previously collaborated with a former Captain Beefheart bandmate, and who was bold enough to cover Nina Simone a cappella during solo performances. Grace is unabashedly maximalist, often exquisitely beautiful in ways that alt-rock—as a genre, as a radio format—simply wouldn’t allow, guided by a voice prone to heroic flights of fancy (“Lover, You Should Have Come Over”), cryptically serious emotional range (“So Real”) and psychedelic mysticism (“Dream Brother”). It’s over the top, driven by unguarded emotion and a voice unlike any other on the radio at the time. It’s a perfect all-or-nothing statement that, tragically, will forever remain one of a kind. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

68. MF Doom – Operation: Doomsday (1999)

Technical virtuosity—particularly in a genre that’s already as boastful as hip-hop—can often tip into eye-roll-inducing gimmickry. Rap can be trivialized into something soulless when excessive emphasis is placed on the fastest flow or the most internal rhymes at the sacrifice of all else. But when the masked MF DOOM entered the fray, his virtuosity, his ridiculously dense rhymes, his breathless flow, and his endless parade of niche pop culture references seemed so nonchalant, so effortlessly funny, and so musical, it proved captivating. His solo debut, adorned with velvet quiet-storm samples, introduced—or rather re-introduced after the tragic dissolution of KMD—a rapper who would eventually come to define the underground. –  Noah Sparkes

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

67. Pixies – Bossanova (1990)

“The mainstream one”, “actually their best one”, “the one about aliens”: take your pick for a definition of the first of two ‘90s records before Pixies’ implosion. Sure, Black Francis wasn’t screeching and hollering about disfigured limbs or driving cars into the Pacific, but even Bossanova’s more “stable” set of songs included milking an innocuous phrase to death to sound like the most profound lyric of all time (“Stormy Weather”), Area 51 conspiracies (“The Happening”) and a nautical humdinger about, possibly, fish lovers (“Ana”). With Gil Norton’s glossy production, the band transitioned from obscure alt-rock curiosities to the real deal without compromising their strange, diverse themes and sounds that should never have worked together on paper in the first place. The original four-piece’s genre-fuckery is most convincing played here—an enthralling piece of dark and delicious songcraft. – Elliot Burr

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

66. Bob Dylan – Time Out of Mind (1997)

It’s not often that an artist undergoes a renaissance at age 56, but Dylan did just that in 1997 with Time Out of Mind. His first album to chart in the top 10 since 1979, it followed two collections of traditional folk songs, leaving fans to wonder if his days of brilliant songwriting were done. On the contrary; Time was followed by six more top-10 albums (not counting his 2009 collection of Christmas tunes). Time has a luscious, dark, booming sound that simultaneously authenticated the blues dirges he wrote and aligned it with recordings from the current generation. And in the long tradition of other artists finding hits within his compositions, “Make You Feel My Love” was recorded by the likes of Garth Brooks, Billy Joel and Adele. – Chad Gorn

Read More: Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind was the start of something new

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

65. OutKast – ATLiens (1996)

Dre 3K and Big Boi dropped a Cadillac on the dreaded sophomore slump by getting more firmly behind the producing wheel and rapping about growing up instead of champagne bashes while draping the album in Afro-futuristic instrumentals and the kind of bass that lives rent-free in a listener’s head. When you go on a five-track run that begins with “Two Dope Boyz” and ends with “Elevators (Me & I)”, it’s easy to see why people have been saying oh yeah-yur ever since. – Butch Rosser

Read More: Treble 100: No. 80, Outkast – Stankonia

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

64. Death – Symbolic (1995)

It only took a few years after Death’s debut album for Chuck Schuldiner to grow weary of the tropes of the band’s namesake genre. By the dawn of the ‘90s, he had grown more interested in pursuing music that was more progressive and, as indicated by the title of their fourth album, human. With 1995’s Symbolic, he nearly abandoned death metal altogether; demos apparently exist with clean-sung vocals that he ultimately decided against including. The compromise was a form of death metal that doesn’t feel so hostile to outsiders, its crisp production and bright melodies on standout moments like “Sacred Serenity” and “Crystal Mountain” showcasing death metal as a vessel for immediate, magnetic songwriting, touched up by flourishes of jazz fusion and classical guitar. The ambition and accessibility of Symbolic provided a path that the likes of Blood Incantation, Tomb Mold, hell, even Mastodon, have used as a map. That Schuldiner very nearly dropped the name Death from this album is a funny irony, given that it’s now regarded as one of the late artist’s defining works. – Jeff Terich

Listen: Spotify

63. Sunny Day Real Estate – Diary (1994)

“Emo” was far from a household phrase when Sunny Day Real Estate dropped their debut album in 1994, featuring songs that blended the urgency of punk with a more progressive approach to songwriting and an earnestly poetic lyrical perspective. Though the Seattle group hailed from the epicenter of grunge—and half the band even ended up joining Foo Fighters not long thereafter—they represented something different. The band’s start-stop dynamics and rhythmic complexity, along with a searing dual guitar interplay, found them more aligned with a band like D.C. underground icons Fugazi than Nirvana, while the the throat-shredding purge of vocalist Jeremy Enigk felt about as far as you could get from Gen X disaffection. The legend that grew in its aftermath is complicated—several breakups, Christianity, the Foo Fighters thing—but Diary couldn’t help but turn heads once lead single “Seven” had the opportunity to reach listeners’ ears. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

62. Low – I Could Live in Hope (1994)

It’s easy enough to see the logic: When everyone else is getting louder, embracing all the angst and full-throttle abrasion of grunge, you can leave your impact by writing softly sung and sweetly harmonized lullabies instead. Duluth, Minnesota’s Low had precedents before they released their 1994 debut I Could Live In Hope—Galaxie 500, the Velvet Underground, The Cure’s early ’80s gloom—but none of them came together in such a beautifully haunting way as they do here. Free of distortion, gliding on brushed drumbeats and ascending via Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s vocal harmonies, the 11 songs on Hope, each titled with one word, do the most with less, floating between rainy-day goth dirges and early morning semi-lucid hymnals with grace and patience—all with only the slightest shifts in tonal palette. – Jeff Terich

Listen: Spotify

61. The Cranberries – Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? (1993)

Dolores O’Riordan remains one of the most iconic vocalists of the ’90s. It’s not just in her vocal talent or her lyrics but also the idiosyncratic way she delivers the lines. Combine this with those reverbed guitars and orchestral arrangements and you have something special. There’s a reason songs like “Dreams” and “Linger” have been popular with movie soundtracks; immersive as a good film, they get right to the heart of some of life’s most pivotal experiences—from the giddiness of falling in love, that feeling of standing on the edge of a precipice, to the pain of losing it. – Tyler Dunston

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

60. Wilco – Summerteeth (1999)

Wilco’s prettiest album is also the one that’s at times the hardest to listen to. Written in the grips of loneliness and Jeff Tweedy’s struggle with an addiction to painkillers, Summerteeth sounds like a divorce album for a couple who’s still happily married, and a break-up album for a band that managed to stick it out. Amid gorgeous arrangements of Mellotron, horns, piano, Moogs, chirping birds and Big Star-style heartaching power pop, Tweedy casually croons lines such as “I dreamed about killing you last night,” “When I let go of your throat/sweet throttle,” and craving “something in my veins/bloodier than blood,” taking inspiration from writers like Henry Miller in an effort to channel something within himself that reflects a reality other than the one in which he actively resides. And all the while, the short-lived “alt-country” of the group’s first 1.5 records falls away in favor of lush, Pet Sounds-style in-studio sorcery and anything-goes orchestrations. For all the harrowing imagery that seeps through the sweetness, however, Tweedy insists that the outlook is a “hopeful” one; in “Via Chicago,” a few verses after his murderous dreams, he sings in a weary, cracking voice, “I’m coming home,” and it’s like seeing the sun finally, slowly emerge over the horizon. – Jeff Terich

Read more: Summerteeth is Wilco at their most vulnerable

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon

59. Stereolab – Dots and Loops (1997)

Stereolab spent much of their career on a major label and wrote pop songs—pop songs with one-note drones and lyrics rooted in Marxist politics, but still. Dots and Loops, however, is another story. Recorded with Tortoise’s John McEntire and featuring contributions from German IDM architects Mouse on Mars, it weaves in and out of styles with effortless, breezy ease, juxtaposing cool midcentury lounge-pop with immersive arrangements and complex rhythmic patterns. They even crib a page from their collaborators, situating a 17-minute long suite of shifting musical ideas on side three, not unlike Tortoise’s own sidelong masterpiece, “DJed.” Dots and Loops is also still a pop album at heart—a strange, unconventional, complex and visionary pop album but still. – Jeff Terich

Read More: 10 Albums to Hear If You Like Stereolab’s Dots and Loops

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

58. The Breeders – Last Splash (1993)

Last Splash, the Breeders’ second album, was an unexpected success in 1993. Originally a side project for Pixies guitarist Kim Deal, the unlikely collection aimed to pierce the heart of the alternative rock landscape and was led by Deal’s innate ability to bring any song up to a boil. Nonsensical lyrics, distorted vocals and pedal effects are laid alongside pristine harmonies from Deal, twin sister Kelley, and bassist Josephine Wiggs. Elsewhere, frothy euphoric drum beats match driving tempos that seethe and simmer. Genres swirl effortlessly on Last Splash, from the surf rock jaunt of “Flipside” to the haywire guitar notes of “SOS,” to the acoustic “Driving on 9,” with its sincere country twang, flowing fiddles and imagery of a life on the road. If that wasn’t your thing, “Divine Hammer,” and “Cannonball” both hit the sweet spot as pop crossover confections and runaway classics. Last Splash is a ‘90s summer companion for the ages. – Emily Reily

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

57. The Cure – Wish (1992)

Wish can hardly be faulted for living in the shadow of Disintegration—a career-defining work that grand and imposing tends to blanket the landscape. But the triple-platinum success of that gothic epic gave the post-punk legends the added benefit of room to breathe, so much that Robert Smith felt at ease enough to follow an album with scant few choruses with “Friday I’m in Love,” a hit that’s essentially one long hook. Yet Wish isn’t that far afield from its predecessor, its greatest moments like the seven-plus-minute “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea” building on a similar sense of stylized brooding but with drive and energy to spare. It’s just that there’s a little more sunshine, a bit more lightness amid the intricate goth-psych strata. The darkness isn’t gone, but it’s no longer so formidable and Smith, if “Doing the Unstuck” is any indication, no longer feels so paralyzed by the spider-man’s bite: “It’s never too late to get up and go.” – Jeff Terich

Read more: Treble 100: No. 2, The Cure – Disintegration

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

56. Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes (1992)

In an era of inward-looking male angst, female songwriters were still often relegated to safer sentiments and softer voices. That is, until Tori Amos came along with Little Earthquakes. In a dozen songs, she cuts deep into her own history with brutal honesty and catharsis, including tales of rape (“Me and a Gun”), toxic relationships (“Precious Things”) and doubt (“Crucify”). Her vibrato-laden vocals and energetic piano playing set her apart from contemporaries like Kate Bush and Jane Siberry and categorized Little Earthquakes with grunge albums of the early ‘90s. And the lyrics stay with you forever; I still think I’m Confucius when I do crossword puzzles with a pen (h/t “Happy Phantom”). – Chad Gorn

Read more: Treble 100, No. 98: Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

55. Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger (1991)

In my view, the greatest heavy rock record ever produced. Trying to follow in the footsteps of all-time greats like Led Zeppelin, the Beatles and Black Sabbath is generally speaking a bad idea, let alone trying to follow them all up at once. So the fact that Soundgarden does so this capably, in turns deeply proggy and then wickedly punky, heavy as fuck and then rippling with the songwriting genius of Lennon and Harrison at their peaks, is a pure and perpetual delight. All the works of Soundgarden are worthwhile: that said, if you distilled your knowledge of them to this record alone, you would still understand the complete shape of their greatness. – Langdon Hickman

Read More: Treble 100: No. 94, Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger

Listen/Buy: Spotify

54. Fugees – The Score (1996)

The fusion of hip-hop, pop and R&B is standard practice now, but when The Fugees released The Score in 1996, nothing else sounded like it. That seamless, singular sound didn’t happen overnight; their ragga-fied rap on 1992 debut Blunted on Reality went mostly overlooked upon release. For their follow-up, the New Jersey trio leaned heavier into their soul influences, including a last-minute addition of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” that became a backdoor smash, as well as a stack of well-curated samples that reflected their impeccable taste in addition to heralding a new era of cut-and-paste innovation. The end result was nothing short of reinvention, a rap-soul masterpiece that showcased the possibilities of genre cross-pollination along with the group’s own uncanny talents—not the least of which belongs to Ms. Lauryn Hill, a voice that could outsing and outrap any peer in a single verse. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify

53. Modest Mouse – The Lonesome Crowded West (1997)

The Lonesome Crowded West is a wasteland of rotating pretzel carousels and pulped ___ For Dummies deadstock, the unmistakable scent of Orange Julius syrup blanketing its ever unfolding horizon of parking lots. More hostile than Built to Spill and more primal than Pavement, Issaquah, Washington trio Modest Mouse on their sophomore album—much as with their 1996 debut—embarked on a road trip through nowhere worth marking on a map, documenting breakups, existential crises and human absurdities as measured by trailer parks and stripmalls. Not so much a concept album as a tour through a kind of uniquely American wasteland, The Lonesome Crowded West is bleak and belligerent, but with a strange kind of hope and humanism at its core. Against the persistent rumble of Jeremiah Green’s drums in the 10-minute epic “Trucker’s Atlas,” singer Isaac Brock barks, “I’m going up to Alaska/I’m going to get off scot-fucking-free!”, embodying the optimism of a movie outlaw making his escape from this ready-mix cement jungle after one final score. – Jeff Terich

Read More: Treble 100: No. 97, Modest Mouse – The Lonesome Crowded West

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

52. Green Day – Dookie (1994)

Green Day’s major label debut got them banned from punk venues. To their credit, the trio did turn their noses up at several labels searching for the next Nirvana clone before finally cashing in with Reprise. There they were given the freedom to polish punk rock to a never-before-seen mainstream palatability. I first heard Dookie while going to middle school in the post-Monster, pre-Juul 2000s, too young to be cool but too old to be doomed. Green Day was the perfect soundtrack: they were on my radio and every friend’s iPod, they were singing about my suburb. – Forrest James

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

51. Rage Against the Machine – Rage Against the Machine (1992)

Rage Against the Machine laid the groundwork for their near-perfect self-titled debut via a deadly combination of funk, metal and grit to make one of the best and most incendiary albums of the ’90s. Singer Zack de la Rocha’s vitriolic rap style dominates, but never drowns out, the album’s heavy metal riffs, funk bass and infectious, explosive anthems that promised rebellion against a toxic status quo and white privilege. Tom Morello’s virtuoso guitar work sears as much as de la Rocha’s vocals blister and bleed. And it didn’t hurt that these anthems were so damn easy to remember. Relentless and unforgettable, RATM is as much essential listening for any rock fan as it is a primer in politics, rebellion and global injustice. – Emily Reily

Read more: Treble 100, No. 45: Rage Against the Machine – s/t

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

50. Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream (1993)

It may have taken Billy Corgan 80 overdubbed tracks in a single song to prove it, but Siamese Dream put the guitar back on its pedestal. Risking the future of the band was a drastic measure he was willing to take to mastermind “the sound” with Butch Vig: a blend of dreamy cleans, sharp leads, hefty stadium grunge riffs and rip-roaring fuzz solos that absolutely nobody else could have captured. Then again, not even the gold standard of guitar tones can hold an entire record on its shoulders; Corgan’s personal songwriting (“Today,” “Spaceboy”) hit at its most evocative, Jimmy Chamberlain’s octopus limbs provided the enticing marching beat to open proceedings (“Cherub Rock”) and drive the thunderous “Geek USA,” while the loud/soft dynamics trope got its most over the top treatment in “Silverfuck” and “Soma.” Guitars have become cool again since, but rarely since Siamese Dream have they, or rock music in general, captured such profound feeling. – Elliot Burr

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

49. Beastie Boys – Ill Communication (1994)

Ill Communication is the most comprehensive exhibition of the Beastie Boys’ musical repertoire: You’ve got Native Tongues-inflected hip-hop (“Sure Shot,” the Q-Tip-blessed masterpiece “Get it Together”), instrumental funk (“Sabrosa,” the fuzzed-out “Futterman’s Rule”), spirited hardcore (“Tough Guy”), a Licensed to Ill rap-rock throwback minus the fratboy juvenilia (“Sabotage”), and tracks that defy easy categorization (“The Update,” “Bodhisattva Vow”). Some might peg it as Check Your Head II, but Communication is more cohesive, adventurous, mature, and just plain fun. Ad-Rock, Mike D, and MCA offer declarations of feminist allyship, urgent environmental messages, a symphony of shit-talk similes invoking everyone from Rod Carew to Brim Fuentes, tenets of Buddhism woven into a rap anthem, and so much more. Somehow it all works. – Liam Green

Read More: On Check Your Head, Beastie Boys pulled off an incredible reinvention

Listen/Buy: Spotify

48. American Football – American Football (1999)

Given the era of emo-pop I grew up through, I spent years thinking I didn’t like the genre. Color me surprised when this was pressed into my hand, a startling combination of King Crimson-style deft instrumentalism and a singer-songwriter‘s tender lyrical acumen. Midwest emo produces a lot of mediocre pretenders; this record is chief among the reasons why, a series of surprisingly subtle and rich compositions that deceive you into thinking what they’re doing is easier than it is. What if Nick Drake hired prog players to write a post-rock classic? Now we know. – Langdon Hickman

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

47. Pearl Jam – Ten (1991)

I was in seventh grade when I heard Ten for the first time, the sound of it like an updated version of the ‘60s and ‘70s rock albums my mom played for us kids on vinyl. But something about Eddie Vedder’s bellow seemed otherworldly to me. And the singles were everywhere. I snuck over to friends’ houses to watch the videos on MTV. I tuned my Walkman away from the Christian radio station to the alternative rock station whenever my parents weren’t looking. While I also enjoyed the music of their contemporaries, this band’s brand of flannel hit me harder and deeper. I felt a simmering anger where the other Seattle denizens struck me as angsty, morose, or simply weird. This was my rock ‘n’ roll awakening. – Adam P. Newton

Listen/Buy: Spotify

46. Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998)

When Jeff Mangum recorded Neutral Milk Hotel’s sophomore album, he and producer Robert Schneider captured a uniquely lo-fi sound, one where a microphone too close to the amp was employed instead of a distortion pedal. The end result is akin to being in the front row at a NMH concert. The acoustic guitar is bright and sharp and the electric is big and noisy. These extremes match Magnum’s urgent and nasal voice. When he yells, you feel it and when he’s quiet, you lean in. While this sound is emblematic of the ’90s Elephant 6 collective sound, what makes the album stand out is the quality of the songwriting, with daring and infectious melodies. Aeorplane has become an essential listen for singer/songwriters, with songs covered by the likes of Phoebe Bridgers, Glen Phillips and The Swell Season. Listen to “Two-Headed Boy” and immediately become captivated by its strange, beautiful charms. – Chad Gorn

Listen/Buy: Spotify

45. Sonic Youth – Goo (1990)

Goo proved that no major-label record deal could make an avant-garde rock group take a straight and narrow path. After already constructing sprawling noise epics on Daydream Nation, Sonic Youth’s idea of a more mainstream blowout was to situate properly catchy punk songs among blissful two-minute builds (“Dirty Boots”), and take aim at misogyny and hero worship among one of the grooviest rock riffs of all time (“Kool Thing”). Alongside a song made out of a combusted amplifier, a snotty ditty about the mysterious titular Goo, an ode to Karen Carpenter, the Lee Ranaldo-penned drug-inducing cavalcade of “Mote,” and a range of other middle fingers to radio-friendly expectations, there’s also some iconic artwork inspired by the Moors Murders. Clearly the band took the stance that high and low culture, and beauty and ugliness, could all sit alongside each other in a brilliantly chaotic mess, and boy did they make it sound great. – Elliot Burr

Read More: Sonic Youth’s dark American trilogy

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

44. De La Soul – De La Soul Is Dead (1991)

Making art—cleverly, after being tired, disillusioned, and clowned out on the hip-hop touring roads, getting their manhood challenged at each stop—it’s that hippie-dippy MTV Randy of The Redwoods marketing—causing all that bullying. De La Soul, who had a strong foothold in the burgeoning rap culture, hit reset with De La Soul Is Dead. With a pot of daisies tipped over on the cover and numerous skits dissing themselves, De La Soul pulled undoubtedly the most gangster punk-rock move by killing off the manufactured image and handling business; expressing the blues of blowing up too quick. With Prince Paul still in the production chair, they wrote roller-skating jams, made hilarious shout-outs on the fictitious WRMS radio station, and rapped about confrontations in Burger King, and domestic disturbances involving a sibling with a substance abuse problem. Even angry, grumpy, and rightfully so pissy—De La Soul still delivered brilliance, sounding just like themselves. – John-Paul Shiver

Read More: Treble 100: No. 55, De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

43. Aphex Twin – Richard D. James Album (1996)

Some albums on this list – as tremendous as they are – feel intimately connected to their place and time, the best of an era that has since slipped into “classic” territory. Richard D. James Album by Aphex Twin is the exception that proves the rule, an incandescent project that feels as if it could have been released last week. It overflows with the sort of glitchy, time-signature-bending yet curiously accessible dance music that lesser artists have been attempting to recreate for nearly 30 years now. Few albums can be both a primer for new electronic music fans and the pinnacle of achievement for seasoned electronic music creators, but Richard D. James did just that. – Adam P. Newton

Read More: Treble 100: No. 56, Aphex Twin – Richard D. James Album

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

42. Radiohead – The Bends (1995)

In mid-’90s England, Britpop and the concomitant laddism, triumphalism, and chauvinism dominated the pop-cultural sphere. This made for an incongruous backdrop against which Oxfordshire five-piece Radiohead released their second album. Before chronicling a pre-millennial, societal-wide ennui on OK Computer, and after making their deceptively jangly debut with Pablo Honey, Radiohead sang and played tales of a deeply personal angst on The Bends. Definitely the most guitar-driven of the band’s first four albums, Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien dominated songs like “My Iron Lung,” “Just,” and the title track with their satisfyingly jagged and muscular riffing.  – Greg Hyde

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

41. Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville (1993)

Exile in Guyville succeeds on so many levels. These 18 songs are a literary collection: fiercely intelligent kiss-offs, startling emotional tell-alls, uncompromising humor. But Liz Phair’s guitar speaks just as honestly: often razorbent and ragged but always eager and propulsive. Phair’s alluded to the album’s track-for-track connection with Exile On Main Street; as the Stones did, she stirs in different sounds from jagged rock to singsongs to ballads. But Exile in Guyville is 100 percent Liz Phair, and even when she transitioned to music with a lot more pop production value, honesty stayed non-negotiable. All the more remarkable for being a debut album, Exile has been a primer for too many indie rockers to count. – Casey Burke

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

40. U2 – Achtung Baby (1991)

After the self-indulgence of Rattle and Hum, U2 arrived at a crossroads. A live show celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall didn’t ease tensions about the band’s future. Musical deconstruction and subsequent reinvention seemed the only solution. During a Berlin recording session, one of The Edge’s improvised chord progressions generated the tender ballad “One,” which began the reunification process and jumpstarted Achtung Baby. The initial buzzing guitar riff and fuzzed-out drums on “Zoo Station” signaled this radical, experimental approach, which exchanges honest pop and rock takes on love and human rights with industrial and electronic dance music influences. Achtung Baby’s greatest reveal: Bono’s transformation as “The Fly,” a bitter yet perceptive persona who wrote puzzling lyrics filled with biting contradictions. Achtung Baby was a singles factory: “One,” “Mysterious Ways,” “The Fly” “Even Better Than the Real Thing” and “Zoo Station” reinvigorated the group and righted the ship. – Emily Reily

Read more: How U2’s Achtung Baby began the band’s strangest era

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

39. Pavement – Slanted and Enchanted (1992)

It’s almost too on the nose that an album with the cult status of Slanted and Enchanted had circulated on cassette for nearly a year before it saw commercial release, a closely held secret quietly becoming a legend before anyone realized it. At the time Pavement was more a concept than a proper band, their debut recorded by Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg (a.k.a. Spiral Stairs) with drummer Gary Young, who was more than a decade older than his bandmates and moved on shortly thereafter. But what a concept it was: lo-fi rock anthems stitched together from surrealist lyrics and spare The Fall riffs, charmingly unpolished and perfectly imperfect—when Malkmus’ facade cracks and he chuckles during the last verse of “Summer Babe (Winter Version)” it feels curiously natural, like it’s supposed to be there. More than 30 years later, songs such as “Here,” “In the Mouth A Desert” and “Jackals, False Grails: The Lonesome Era” seem just as ageless and weathered as they did then, and they make it all sound so effortless. – Jeff Terich

Read More: Slanted and Enchanted—Pavement’s unabashed masterpiece

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

38. Notorious B.I.G. – Ready to Die (1994)

Biggie’s debut is a gangster rap album fulfilling its maximum potential, purifying and perfecting each and every aspect of the genre. Biggie’s flows and rhyme schemes are technically dazzling but effortless and unpretentious. His writing is unrelentingly bleak but deeply comic, genuinely intimidating but unserious too—his gangster persona requires no insistence but is instead dynamic and self-assured, content to move between many moods. He is smoothly accessible and fun while being hilariously alienating to the uninitiated. There’s a genuine introspective depth to the record too, a subtext that reveals itself in retrospect after what was once the final track, “Suicidal Thoughts.” In the final moments, we hear a character who through his endless nihilism, misogyny, violence, and criminality has pushed everyone away, leaving a despondent, isolated, self-loathing figure. A seminal East Coast take on the tragedy and comedy of the gangster archetype. – Noah Sparkes

Listen/Buy: Spotify

37. Alice In Chains – Dirt (1992)

They were somewhere around Seattle on the edge of depression when the drugs began to take hold… While Facelift put Alice In Chains on the radio, it still held the strut of the Seattle group’s hair metal past. Yet on Dirt, songs like “Rain When I Die” were a prophetic glimpse into the tragedy to come, and it still resonates—this was real pain and suffering being bled out there with the crunch of minor chords. Few rock bands since have been as unflinchingly real and honest as Layne Staley was on this album, which is just one reason why Dirt still carries such a heavy emotional impact today. – Wil Lewellyn

Read more: With Dirt, Alice in Chains showed how heavy grunge could be

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

36. Sleater-Kinney – Dig Me Out (1997)

Corin Tucker’s voice is impossible to ignore; a violent, wavering, jagged yelp, shockingly candid in its wounded rage. On the opening title track, she asks “do you get nervous watching me bleed?” That sentiment of unapologetically publicizing the hurt one shoulders underpins the record, pushing Tucker’s personal lyrics into a broader feminist narrative. It’s confrontational, forcing listeners to pay attention to what’s being said. It follows then that Dig Me Out is not a stylistically diverse record. No time is wasted, no experiments indulged. This is an album wholly committed to its sound. There is only a driving purpose, a message wrapped in scuzzy guitars and pummeling punk drums. – Noah Sparkes

Read more: Treble 100, No. 85: Sleater-Kinney – Dig Me Out (Patreon)

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

35. Slowdive – Souvlaki (1993)

Hardly anyone at the time could have predicted the remarkable afterlife of Slowdive and their seminal text—especially not with those reviews. Thirty years later, Slowdive and the genre they helped define are more beloved now than they were in shoegaze’s brief heydey. Given its swathe of imitators, few of whom have nudged the genre all that far forward, Souvlaki no longer sounds quite as singular as it once did. Nonetheless, it remains a stunning piece of work; an impressionistic swirl of color and light, an effervescent slab of trance-inducing indie psychedelia that’s also often deeply moving. From the heartrending guitars of “40 Days” to Rachel Goswell’s transcendent vocals on “Machine Gun,” Souvlaki saw Slowdive master the art of gentle music that packs a hefty emotional wallop. – Tom Morgan

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

34. Soundgarden – Superunknown (1994)

Veterans of both SST and Sub Pop, Seattle’s Soundgarden cut their teeth in a scene that the world at large wouldn’t know as “grunge” until about a half decade later, releasing their major label debut at the tail end of the ’80s just after Nirvana delivered their own first LP. Five years on, with the release of Superunknown, Soundgarden had evolved into something else completely, surpassing the already towering bar they had set for themselves with increasingly more sophisticated albums of metal-influenced grunge and progressive takes on alt-rock. The album that translated into their greatest pop success likewise featured their most ambitious musical statements, which is how they ended up turning the apocalyptic psychedelia of “Black Hole Sun” into a radio and MTV hit (though the creepy video certainly didn’t hurt). But it’s in moments like the sludgy “4th of July” and “Mailman,” the spiraling riffs of the title track and the exotic head trip of “Head Down” where the group showcased a sound that existed outside the buzzwords and fast fashion of an alternative subculture. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

33. Beck – Odelay (1996)

On his fourth album, Beck delivers a set of songs that most strongly evoke California. Opener “Devils Haircut” could score surf footage, and “Where It’s At” exudes one long slacker daze. It’s no coincidence, either—have been entirely recorded in California, it’s clear Back let his environment seep into his writing more than ever. “Minus” brings to mind punk rock demos, Beck layering his own vocals and saturating his instrumentals to an almost washed-out sound. Like his past releases, Odelay finds Beck shining most when he showcases his guitar playing, especially on “Hotwax,” a humid, hazy track made ready for Beck to lean into. – Virginia Croft

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

32. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – F# A# ∞ (1997)

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven might have brought them more widespread critical and commercial attention, but it was on F♯ A♯ ∞ that Godspeed You! Black Emperor cultivated the sound that garnered them acclaim. Devoid of conventional lyrics and affectingly reliant on samples of street speech for narration, GY!BE delivered an album dominated by gradual, evocative, instrumental build-ups that climaxed in powerful guitar wig-outs, the haunting, slow rise of “East Hastings” serving as a particular standout. In 1997, F♯ A♯ ∞ likely sounded to most listeners like a completely new musical form. – Greg Hyde

Read more: Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s F# A# ∞ made the apocalypse beautiful

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

31. Dr. Dre – The Chronic (1992)

Few sounds are as immediately identifiable or as regionally and temporally specific as G-Funk. That amalgam of tinny synths, thick funk basslines, and hard beats is inseparable from ’90s California, a genre that so effectively matched its environment; LA’s stoned, sun-scorched answer to the East Coast’s claustrophobic, concrete grit. No record better encapsulated that sound than Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. Such was the potency of that particular formula, several hits from Dre’s debut (not least the swaying grooves of “Nuthin’ But A G Thang” and the trashy synth-funk of “Fuck Wit Dre Day”) pushed gangsta rap into the stratosphere, forcing the underground into the mainstream. – Noah Sparkes

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

30. Björk – Homogenic (1997)

It might be backhanded to Bjork’s previous works to call Homogenic one of the most stunning leap forwards in musical history, given the innovations of her prior two solo albums and teenage work with the Sugarcubes. Nonetheless, Homogenic is a jaw-droppingly accomplished piece of work, one that remains its creator’s most gracefully beautiful album, even when compared to the stream of brilliant albums she continues to put out. Beyond its immense emotional depth, courtesy of Bjork’s stunning voice (“Jóga” is almost overwhelmingly gorgeous), Homogenic remains a totem because of its timeless quality; its abstract textures have not aged a single day in over a quarter of a century. A heart-stopping work that stakes a serious claim as one of the greatest collections of electronic music ever created. – Tom Morgan

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

29. Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (1992)

For being self-described as an “ambient” album, Aphex Twin’s debut isn’t all that quiet or calming. Rather, it’s the electronic chameleons like “Schottkey 7th Path” that best capture its identity. Its shapeshifting nature (the album touches on techno, ambient, rave, and dance) is where multitudes of techno’s personalities emerged from, spanning the idiosyncratic to the reserved. Hell, there are tracks on the Billboard Hot 100 now that owe something to “Ptolemy.” Listening to Selected Ambient Works 85-92 in 2024 is like entering a broken time machine that simultaneously transposes you to bygone eras and unexplored what-ifs. For all its influence, there are still potential realities that have yet to be mined and sound as fresh as ever here. – Colin Dempsey

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

28. Janet Jackson – The Velvet Rope (1997)

Reinvention became standard operating practice for Janet Jackson as far back as her 1986 statement of independence, Control. As she reached the peak of her success a little over a decade later, she opted to let listeners into her own personal space with The Velvet Rope, an extravagant act of introspection and to date her most radical musical statement. Commentary on her own struggles with depression collide with social commentary and sexual desire through a gallery of production that still sounds ahead of its time. She calls out homophobia through jazz-fusion breakbeats on “Free Xone,” grieves friends lost to AIDS on the gospel-house uplift of “Together Again,” and opens up access to a safe space through what feels like a P-Funk “Tubular Bells” on the title track. To say nothing of how deep the album’s funk goes on “You” and, er, “Go Deep.” The Velvet Rope is an all-access pass—no topic too taboo, no stylistic permutation out of reach. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

27. Talk Talk – Laughing Stock (1991)

Talk Talk made a career of upping the experimentation with every album. To record Laughing Stock, their fifth, final, strangest record, frontman Mark Hollis gathered 18 players in a completely dark room for extended jams over a lengthy period of time, encouraging them to meander. The process took a year, and most of the resulting music was discarded. But even in its abridged final form, Laughing Stock roams so far outside the box that it’s credited with birthing the whole genre of post-rock. Whether that’s true or not, these six compositions undulate in widescreen, from the pounding “Ascension Day” to the regenerative organ of “New Grass” to the threadbare “Runeii.” They’re best absorbed in utter silence. – Casey Burke

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

26. Slint – Spiderland (1991)

In 1989, Slint released their debut, Tweez, an album packed full of short, fast noise punk songs à la Scratch Acid. Yet in 1991, their second album likely would have shocked listeners familiar with that opening shot. The compositions on Spiderland’s are uniformly melancholic and contemplative, reflecting the melancholy hovering over the band’s late 1990 dissolution. Although its initial reception was modest, over time, the album came to be regarded as a seminal work, its combination of gentle yet foreboding bass hums, intricate treble guitar lines, and sparse, affecting vocals having an audible impact upon generations of post-rock and math rock greats, from Mogwai to black midi. – Greg Hyde

Read More: The haunting of Slint’s “Good Morning Captain”

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

25. Sade – Love Deluxe (1992)

It’s easy to imagine Love Deluxe soundtracking an after hours spot, following a night out, in any global cosmopolitan locale—New York, London, Milan. There’s a sophisticated feel to it, a kind of point of origin for the grown and sexy. Tempos crawl and basslines throb, while lead singer Helen Sade Ads coos her way around it, all via free-and-easy inflections. It makes for not only an intimate listen but also a seductive slow burn. Laced with soul and smooth jazz, this is no ordinary effort. Rather it’s a 46-minute time capsule, when premillennial pop music was at its most alluring. – J. Smith

Listen/Buy: Spotify

24. GZA – Liquid Swords (1995)

The early albums from Wu-Tang alums are a stone-cold classic collection of dark, charismatic and eerie hip-hop, each painting the mean New York streets in various shades of intense cinematic grandeur. GZA’s sophomore solo effort Liquid Swords — in essence, a second debut — is the most enigmatic and mysterious of the bunch, a fog-shrouded but fiercely-alive collection that reaches toward some serious philosophical heights. The key track is “Cold World,” whose scintillating final verse features some of the greatest hip-hop bars: “Life is a script, I’m not a actor but the author/Of a modern day opera, where the main character/Is presidential paper, the dominant factor.” GZA’s internal language of existential musings, gritty street imagery and martial arts and chess references is deliciously absorbing, adding up to one of hip-hop’s most fascinating puzzle boxes. – Tom Morgan

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

23. Elliott Smith – either/or (1997)

Elliott Smith had already begun his solo career before his band Heatmiser had broken up, but 1997’s either/or—an album that benefited from having several of its songs featured in the film Good Will Hunting—felt like the start of something new. A set of songs both solitary and with full-band arrangements (but performed mostly by just one man), either/or is a stellar showcase of the capabilities of solo acoustic music, hushed and gentle in the alcoholic lullaby “Between the Bars,” hypnotic and raga-like in the open-tuned strum of “No Name No. 5,” and aggressive and agitated in “Cupid’s Trick.” There remain traces of the grungier band of which Smith was once part of, but left to his own devices, Smith built a world more kaleidoscopic and deeply affecting through tape hiss and subtly virtuosic guitar playing, taking the familiar terrain of weighing his own participation in a problematic music industry in “Angeles” and making it feel like something more heartaching and deeply personal. – Jeff Terich

Read More: Treble 100: No. 66, Elliott Smith – either/or

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

22. Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998)

Considering it infamously took almost three years to make, Lucinda Williams’ breakout 1998 album doesn’t sound overproduced or fussy. If anything, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road flows effortlessly. You know the instrumentation is 90 layers of overdubs, but you’re too focused on Williams’ wistfulness-and-whiskey voice and the subtly excellent arrangements to care. Williams spins tales of real-life love, rage, joy, and hardship not as epics, but with stark, simple imagery: the overburdened mother cooking breakfast on the title track, the duct-taped shoes of the doomed-troubadour “Drunken Angel,” broken glass and other post-barfight detritus in “Greenville” … you get the idea. And sometimes, as on the furious blues-rock of “Joy,” only repetition will do: “You took my joy, I want it back,” Williams snarls, and woe to whoever took it. – Liam Green

Listen: Spotify

21. Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children (1998)

The way Music Has the Right to Children captures nostalgic yearning and unsettling strangeness evokes the affective potential of memory and dreams. It comes through on the album cover with its mysterious, faceless family photo, in the vocal clips scattered throughout the record, and in the traces of melody which wind over tactile beats. The melodies linger but never stay for too long. There is an air of mystery and mischief about this album, but more than anything it feels wistful and playful like a daydream, as if reflecting the capacities of the imagination itself. – Tyler Dunston

Read More: Treble 100: No. 60, Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

20. The Sundays – Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (1990)

Not gonna lie, I never figured I’d get to write up this album on any significant level, and certainly not with the force of editorial consensus behind me. Released just two weeks into 1990, this English band’s debut feels like a carefully guarded secret, a preliminary marker of college rock radio’s coming transition to the alt, indie, and modern. I was fortunate to jump on the bandwagon early by hearing it that summer, imported by British teens working with me at an overnight camp. The band burned through the most subtle of earworm melodies (“Here’s Where the Story Ends,” “A Certain Someone”), and the vocals of Harriet Wheeler were yearning (“Joy”) and clear (“Skin and Bones”). Reading, Writing and Arithmetic is a deep-cut master class on jangly dream-pop, the sounds striking a fine balance between confidence and fragility as well as evoking strong emotional reactions. Trust me on that part: the album’s reputation as an unofficial soundtrack for new, first, and fleeting loves has only grown as years have passed. If you know, you know. – Adam Blyweiss

Listen: Spotify

19. Björk – Post (1995)

From the earliest moments on Post, it’s clear Bjork approached this work with a different energy than on Debut or her previous bands, including The Sugarcubes. Opener “Army of Me” is unapologetic, both in its harsh synth instrumentals and Björk’s own words. As she sings, “And if you complain once more / you’ll meet an army of me,” there’s a cathartic release, which carries along throughout the whole of Post. Björk’s vocal stylings meld effortlessly with her more heavier rock and experimental electronic approach, painting an almost mythological tale within her songs. The production on Post feels otherworldly, like the unidentifiable noises on “Possibly Maybe” that prop up Bjork’s lilting tone. And on “I Miss You,” she blends a harried, punchy beat with her daydreaming lyrics, building up her imagination as conga drums and trumpets explode in agreement. – Virginia Croft

Read More: Treble 100: No. 32 Björk – Post

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)

18. Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)

No pressure, no diamond. Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Nina Simone, and Sister Nancy are the voices of strong Black women in conversation with one another on the genre-changing, career-defining Lauryn Hill magnum opus that feels as hefty as a Stevie Wonder double album of the ‘70s. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill did give promise of a career to come that could be just as prolific. It documents a life transformation from a butterfly, into a dove, and then a panther over 16 songs almost stretching to 90 minutes.

All of the pro-feminist headway Latifah, Salt-N-Pepa, and even Lil’ Kim made in the wind, Hill lit a fire underneath it and jettisoned the misogynistic side of hip-hop with musicality, breath control, bars, and Grammys. Five of them proved the Fugees was an incubator, and when Hill got staked, her debut solo album went certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America for 10 million units consumed in the US and over 20 million copies sold worldwide. So yes, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is among the best-selling albums of all time, but its influence can’t be numerically calculated: Her influence stays in the cloud. – John-Paul Shiver

Listen/Buy: Spotify

17. Depeche Mode – Violator (1990)

The impact of Depeche Mode’s decade-opening masterpiece Violator resounds deeply across multiple genres and fandoms. With this album, Depeche Mode brought together goths, new wavers, and pop fandom at large into a big tent where everyone could dance with abandon. The lyrical ideas and musical moods created across these nine songs found the quartet darkening their aesthetic in fresh ways. Synth-pop and rock had already been fused together by contemporaries like New Order, but this Essex-born act popularized the sound without cheapening it. When an icon like Johnny Cash chooses to cover one of your songs because he loves the music (and appreciates the joke), you know you’ve created something enduring. – Adam P. Newton

Read More: Treble 100: No. 22, Depeche Mode – Violator

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

16. PJ Harvey – Rid of Me (1993)

With 1993’s Rid of Me, PJ Harvey established herself as a painfully honest singer and undeniably unique songwriter, no longer willing to follow the rules that rock had established for female acts up to that point. Recorded by Steve Albini, Rid of Me features bare, exposed drumbeats, chaotic guitar licks and monstrous riffs laden with feedback that simply howl. Harvey uses brutally vivid imagery to subvert sexual norms as she plays with concepts of romantic love, whether it’s a one-night-stand or a dream of domestic bliss that never arrives. In between those sexually explicit lyrics are deconstructed notes, abrasive violins, and heavy collisions of sound. Stunted, halting beats grind like machinery. Towering over everything is “50ft Queenie,” a devastating diatribe on the untapped power and potential that women possess, a punk rock powerhouse that even the ‘90s wasn’t prepared for. – Emily Reily

Read more: Treble 100, No. 77: PJ Harvey – Rid of Me

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

15. Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet (1990)

If Public Enemy’s sophomore album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is their piece de resistance, a masterwork of virtuosity, then the group’s follow up Fear of a Black Planet is the group at their most surly. There’s plenty of social commentary and progressive ideology but both take a backseat to the band’s fiery indignation. Indeed, Chuck D rope-a-dopes evil by way of “righteous bobbing and weaving,” calls Elvis “racist…simple and plain,” and even dismisses Bobby McFerrin’s 1988 hit “Don’t Worry Be Happy” with all the animus of the bogeyman. Over Bomb Squad production, a mix of tumult and rhythm, the crew pulls no punches. Uncompromising and confrontational, full of dissonance and vitriol, it’s middle finger provocation set to noise. PE at maximum strength, yeah boy — welcome to the terrordome. – J. Smith

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

14. OutKast – Aquemini (1998)

“Even though we got two albums, this one feel like the beginning,” Big Boi raps—and honestly, that could be this whole blurb. Not that there’s any shortage of things to say about Aquemini, OutKast’s warm, raucous, kaleidoscopic southern raveup of a third record. Books could be written about Big Boi and Andre 3000’s flows alone. But Aquemini is as much a testament to these two legendary emcees’ talents as it is to communal songwriting (producer Neal H. Pogue compared the organic, star-studded studio sessions to Motown). Aquemini may not be OutKast’s most maximalist album—they still had Stankonia and Speakerboxx/The Love Below up their sleeves—but it made joyful unpredictability the norm. From then on, it was their only constant. – Casey Burke

Listen/Buy: Spotify

13. Massive Attack – Mezzanine (1998)

Massive Attack established Bristol trip-hop as a new force in popular music with 1991’s Blue Lines, and then seven years later dismantled it through some of the darkest, most sinister sounds they ever crafted on Mezzanine. The product of a process of “making tracks, tearing them apart, fucking them up,” Mezzanine leaned heavier on Massive Attack’s goth and post-punk influences, as made explicit through their collaborations with Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser. Yet their dub and reggae influences remain an essential part of this descent into a grimy netherworld, the legendary Horace Andy providing vocals for “Angel” and “The Man Next Door,” while a trunk-rattling bassline drives the industrial soundsystem throb of “Risingson.” More goth than stiltwalking shock-rockers, with more bass than your subwoofers can handle, Mezzanine is a glorious act of creative deconstruction. – Jeff Terich

Read more: Treble 100, No. 68: Massive Attack – Mezzanine

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)

12. Nas – Illmatic (1994)

It’s only natural to be cautious of declaring something as perfect when evaluating a vaunted entry in pop music’s canon, finding the nuances whilst not being shy of praising a ground-breaking work. But if there’s any album that it’s objectively correct to anoint as front-to-back faultless it’s Illmatic. Every aspect remains, over 30 years on from its creation, faultless. Nas’ famed wordplay is jaw-droppingly vivid and intricate. The tracklist comprises a tight 10 songs, free from even a speck of baggage. The production comes via some of the greatest to ever do it; Large Professor, DJ Premier, Q-Tip and others. Its tone is perfectly modulated, tilting from the sunny chill of “Memory Lane (Sittin’ In The Park)” to the hardcore knockout “N.Y. State Of Mind”; one of the most acute portrayals of life in the projects ever recorded, in any art form. An effortless, complex and wholly engrossing classic of hip-hop. – Tom Morgan 

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

11. Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas (1990)

A blissful product of a period of extreme upheaval for Grangemouth, Scotland’s Cocteau Twins, Heaven or Las Vegas materialized amid grief (Simon Raymonde’s father’s death), struggle (Robin Guthrie’s intensifying drug addiction), and new beginnings (the birth of Guthrie and Elizabeth Fraser’s daughter, Lucy Belle). Yet to hear the album is to be adrift in a sea of transcendent sound, the pinnacle of dream pop and the group’s then-most-accessible album to date. Yet there’s a grounding element here that takes different shapes, whether through the more deeply physical groove on “Pitch the Baby” or the increasingly more intelligible lyrical performances from Fraser, who nonetheless still seemed as if she were being channeled from another dimension, just in higher definition. In its pristine sound and broad spectrum of emotions, Heaven or Las Vegas nonetheless feels brighter and more celebratory than any of Cocteau Twins’ other albums; in one of Fraser’s clearest yet nonetheless puzzling invocations, she sings, “You’re the match of Jericho that will burn this whole madhouse down,” and it sounds like ecstasy. – Jeff Terich

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

10. Nirvana – Nevermind (1991)

It took legions of believers with sledgehammers to take down the Berlin Wall and essentially end the ’80s as we knew them; it only took three guys from the Pacific Northwest who were into Killing Joke’s “Eighties” about nine seconds worth of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to end ’80s music as we knew it. It turns out all you need to do to change pop culture and music history is make an airtight album overstuffed with catchy songs and epic riffs. Even while Cobain’s myriad toxic relationships with the world were slowly consuming everything up to and including himself, he, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl blinded the world with their skills and helped shape the sound of the ’90s. – Butch Rosser

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

9. Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral (1994)

Few 1990s albums have aged as little as Nine Inch Nails’ signature ode to self destruction. The Downward Spiral sounds like it could’ve been made this year. Nothing in the implacable hell’s-dancefloor beat of “Closer,” the punishing riffs on “Heresy” and “I Do Not Want This,” the shapeshifting industrial-punk of “March of the Pigs” or the factory clank of “Reptile” would sound out of place on recent albums by HEALTH, Uniform, or clipping. Above all else, The Downward Spiral has stood time’s test because of Reznor’s uncanny ear for hooks and knack for distilling human darkness. It’s tempting in our hyper ironic age to chuckle at lyrics like “God is dead/And no one cares” or “Don’t you tell me how I feel/You don’t know just how I feel!” But virtually everyone reading this has felt both of those things, at that level of brutal simplicity and despair. Quite a few albums on this list have saved lives; I know this one saved mine. – Liam Green

Read More: Treble 100: No. 46, Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

8. DJ Shadow – Endtroducing… (1996)

“What is hip-hop if it doesn’t have violence?/Chill for a minute, Doug E. Fresh said silence.” The question asked by A Tribe Called Quest in 1994, with an initial answer rooted in East Coast rap’s “Self Destruction” charity single of 1989, ends up getting clarified on the West Coast, from inside this decade’s turntablism craze. As DJ Shadow, Josh Davis crafted lionesque beats that could lope and pounce, opening up possibilities of genre cross-pollination and relocation, and atmospheres that calmed or concerned as rap might not have explored before. It’s a bracing and, yes, even violent refocusing on hip-hop’s element of the DJ, what sounds they could use, what those sounds could create, and their development of musical power even with sounds at low volume. Samples making vocals unnecessary, blowing up spots with nary a hint of a weapon or malicious act, all wrapped in a sci-fi time-travel concept? Endtroducing… is an album—maybe one of the albums—that burns shit down in order to build it back up again. – Adam Blyweiss

Read More: Treble 100: No. 17, DJ Shadow – Endtroducing…

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

7. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless (1991)

My Bloody Valentine is the common denominator of shoegaze. Peers, successors, and even progenitors agree; the Bloodys are peak. After over 30 years, much has been written about Loveless, an album nearly synonymous with an entire genre, so do you really want to hear about the guitars again? Or maybe how they nearly bankrupted Creation Records? Or how they’re big on TikTok or whatever? Maybe we get to that, but first let’s talk about taste. 

In an interview with Earl Sweatshirt, the rapper defends ‘the album’ in the streaming era, calling it “an institution.” Previously, interacting with an artist meant acquiring and consuming a body of work. If you’ve bought an album for the single, chances are you’ve experienced the growing pains of listening to the record. But sure enough, Earl explains, “through repetition…you start to acquire taste.” 

I found Loveless in high school. At first, I only liked “When You Sleep,” but in time I learned to love its preface “To Here Knows When.” Both hit harder together. Later, I watched Lost in Translation and after, almost embarrassingly, “Sometimes” clicked. Sure enough, “Soon” followed suit, and years later I’d sob to “Come In Alone” in the car. Click. I believe in the power of the album as a parallel to one’s life. Loveless is an infinite revelation, endlessly explorable, and a true sum of its parts. Singles are great, and my attention span is shit too, but I delight in the lasting power of records like Loveless and the revealing moments listeners will hear for eons to come. – Patrick Pilch

Read More: Treble 100, No. 24: My Bloody Valentine – Loveless

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

6. Portishead – Dummy (1994)

Portishead’s simple framework of repurposing familiar hip-hop tools like scratching and sampling mutated a genre into a seductive and elusive specter. Look beyond that fact that it’s affable enough to soundtrack nearly any low-stakes occasion, perhaps because lo-fi hip-hop owes its soul to Dummy, and you’ll find the Bristol group’s debut driving a stake through the heart. It is as dangerous as it is beautiful, distinctive yet incredibly shy, and it’s aged marvelously because of those qualities. Geoff Barrow originally gave a quote regarding his impressions of Beth Gibbons, but it more readily applies to Dummy’s stature 30 years past its release; “Like all good people, you spend your life learning about them.” – Colin Dempsey

Read More: Treble 100: No. 71, Portishead – Dummy

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

5. R.E.M. — Automatic for the People (1992)

Automatic for the People, R.E.M.’s eighth album, returned the Athens, Ga. band to the amorphous, dreamlike elements that defined their first few albums before their 1991 smash Out of Time. But these dreams were different. Automatic was their most reserved album up to that point, restraining Peter Buck’s circling guitars and Bill Berry’s locked-in drumming. Michael Stipe held forth on the impulses of a disappointed subculture possibly hung over from the whole grunge thing. Stipe hints at their uncertainty in the stark opener “Drive,” quoting both David Essex and Bill Haley. Pop culture imagery permeates a few songs here, from an overused pay phone (“The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight”), disgraced movie actors (“Monty Got a Raw Deal”), comedy experimentalist Andy Kaufman (“Man on the Moon”), and the selfish moral posturing of ‘80s American politicians (“Ignoreland”). But a gentle grace unfolds over the more personal, reflective numbers (“Sweetness Follows,” “Nightswimming”). Still, when the centerpiece of an album is “Everybody Hurts,” that’s a big sign there’s some wistfulness in the zeitgeist. Fun fact: R.E.M.’s next album Monster was a full-on rocker. – Paul Pearson

Read more: Treble 100, No. 75: R.E.M. – Automatic for the People

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Amazon (vinyl)

4. A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory (1991)

At once one of the simplest and most masterful introductions in hip-hop history, to rap the opening bar over a mere bass line is the kind of subtle, confidently humble flex that distinguishes A Tribe Called Quest. Righteous complaints of being famous, lofty political sloganeering, and unsettling allegories are all boiled down to the universally relatable demand for respect. Earworm jazzy beats simmer pleasantly throughout, and the resulting concoction is both palatable and nourishing. – Forrest James

Read More: Treble 100: No. 21, A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory

Listen: Spotify

3. Nirvana – In Utero (1993)

To many, and understandably so, this is the band of the ’90s, as pivotal to that decade as The Beatles were to the ’60s or Prince to the ’80s. This above all others is their most complete recording. Bleach, the debut, leaned Sabbathian while Nevermind, the breakthrough, leaned pop. Here, the two halves are fused with noise rock grit and the best lyrics Cobain ever put to tape. As tender as it is savage, pinwheeling between the most sorrowful melodies and turns of phrase that show Cobain could have had a beautiful second life as a country singer had he lived, this above all others is the record that cemented Nirvana’s legacy as not merely popular, not merely great, but among the very greatest of all time. “Heart-Shaped Box” forms the thesis of the record, the band, Cobain himself, a single song that thrusts like a spear into the heart no matter how many times it’s heard. – Langdon Hickman

Read More: Treble 100: No. 36, Nirvana – In Utero

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

2. Radiohead – OK Computer (1997)

In 1997, the front cover of Vanity Fair’s March edition featured an image of Liam Gallagher and his fiancee, Patsy Kensit, reclining in a bed covered in Union Jacks. Bands like Blur and Oasis were wearing that amorphous quality of “Britishness” on their sleeve, tapping into a resurgent sense of national pride (“Cool Britannia” was the name coined for that particular cultural moment). The public, reeling in Thatcher’s wake, could now see the end of John Major’s feeble Tory government and were looking with enormous hope toward Tony Blair’s trendy New Labour movement. It was an era of chirpy optimism. 

In the same year as Vanity Fair’s garish cover, Radiohead released perhaps the most doom-laden, claustrophobic, cynical record of the ’90s, an album that saw no such bright future, indulged no patriotic fantasies. The future presented on OK Computer is one of technological dread (“Airbag,” “Fitter Happier”), despondent, apathetic compliance (“No Surprises”), and crippling, inescapable anxiety (“Climbing Up the Walls”). In the years that followed, the band were vindicated. Blair’s capitulation to Bush in Iraq forever soured whatever faith had been placed in him, the quotidian existential anxiety of late-stage capitalism and its accompanying environmental crises has become ever-present, and the amoral talons of Silicon Valley have sunk progressively deeper into our inner lives. It’s one of the most horrifyingly prescient releases of the ’90s, its operatically grim forecasts growing more and more justified every year. – Noah Sparkes

Read More: 10 Albums to Hear if you like Radiohead’s OK Computer

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

1. Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)

Thirty years in the rearview, the likelihood of Wu-Tang Clan’s 1993 debut actually coming together feels just this side of impossible: A nine-piece Staten Island hip-hop group on a limited budget and a studio too small to fit every emcee at once, backed by grimy, lo-fi samples and frequent references to samurai films and martial arts. A crackly, gritty hardcore hip-hop free-for-all, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) seemed destined to be a cult classic in the vein of the samurai films sampled by producer and ringleader RZA.

Enter the Wu-Tang introduced a singular hip-hop crew and launched an empire in one fell swoop, a half dozen or so equally stellar solo debuts from its various personalities (a few of which are on this list) materializing in the years after its release—only for the long-awaited follow-up Wu-Tang Forever to debut at number one four years later. But 36 Chambers remains the group’s mission statement and greatest single work, a clash of personalities and flows, oddball humor juxtaposed with harrowing and sometimes tragic realism, eerie samples undercut with boom-bap beats that snap like broken fingers. It took a lot of things to go right, or at least just well enough, for Enter the Wu-Tang to see the light of day, and truth be told, it remains a cult classic. It’s just that it’s a really big cult. – Jeff Terich

Read More: Treble 100: No. 9, Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl)

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