AlbumLove (November 2023): 1990-1994
Time Period: 1990-1994
Choose one album
that you love
that you think deserves more love
Tell us what it is, and why.
Additional Details
Why AlbumLove?
In this day and age, algorithmic recommendations for music are easy to come by, and it's trivial to seek out new music that interests you by searching online. AlbumLove offers an opportunity to sift through music loved by others, including those who might have divergent tastes from you. Think of this as an opportunity to listen outside of your comfort zone, with music that you know someone else adores, from a small pool of thoughtful hand-selected options.
What do I post?
Any album that you love and that you feel deserves more appreciation. There are no restrictions on genre, year, or anything else, and nothing is “too popular” or “too niche”. If you think it needs more love — for whatever reason — then it’s welcome in AlbumLove.
Name the artist and the album, and then, most importantly, share what you love about the album. It could be the music itself, but it could also be your associations with it -- maybe the album reminds you of someone you love, or you saw the band live and got a new appreciation for the studio songs.
Also, commenting on others' recommendations is encouraged! If you love something that someone else shared, let them know!
Do I have to listen to what everyone else posts?
Nope. You don't have to listen to anything if you don't want to. This is about creating a menu of options that people can explore as they wish.
Can I post more than one album in a month?
Nope. Limit one! This helps us be more selective about what we choose, as well as preventing the threads from getting flooded with too many contributions to keep track of.
Why albums and not songs/artists?
I like albums. :)
Seriously though, I feel like it's a very different thing to like an album as a whole versus a few songs or just an artist's general vibe. I like the idea of quantizing music for appreciation in the same way we might do with books or movies.
What about EPs?
Fair game!
While I feel that it is an album that gets a lot of love, I reckon it does go under appreciated, especially in comparison to its peers such as Ten by Pearl Jam or Nevermind by Nirvana.
Siamese Dream by The Smashing Pumpkins released in 1993 was the bands second album after the 1991 release of Gish, which is itself a fantastic album that contains elements of psychedelic rock, alt rock, dream pop and heavy metal.
Siamese Dream's recording and production was fraught with issues, Billy Corgan's tyrannical perfectionism put strain on already frayed band relationships with him rerecording many of James Iha and D'Arcy Wretzky's parts. Jimmy Chamberlin would dissappear on 2 or 3-day drug benders and the album went $250,000 over budget with Virgin executives becoming frustrated at how long the album was taking to complete.
However, upon release the album received universal acclaim, being regarded as one of the best albums of the year.
It's by far my favourite album and has been since I first listened to it back in 2006. That snare fill leading into Cherub Rock is just wonderfully circus-like. Geek USA is just non-stop start to finish and the guitar solo is absolutely crazy, Soma is a beautiful track (with over 40 guitar overdubs) with an emotive, shrieking guitar solo. Two of my favourite tracks on the album though are Hummer and Mayonaise, sweeping, dreamy, and fuzzy with angst-wracked vocals and a great balance between the harsh tones of Corgan vocals and Chamberlins thundering drums and the soft of the smooth guitars and bass.
Its truly a wondrous album, one of the best recorded and produced albums of all time in my opinion and it deserves its place in every best of list that it's in.
I will never pass the opportunity to shill for Mike Oldfield’s Amarok, released in may 1990. I’m phoneposting right now, so no links or extended commentary today. Give it a listen or six. It’s disorienting and chaotic at first, but repeated listens reveal the inner structure and easter eggs.
That's a fun album, thanks for linking it. There are some very very Mike Oldfield melodies and harmonies (and electric guitar!) but with some fun interesting ideas. I've only listened to tubular bells and its sequel which was incredibly popular for a brief period when I was a kid.
Tubular Bells! I ran into that album at one point. This whole thread is kind of eye opening. This era was a time when I was actually plugged into a network of music people. I actually recognize some of these!
I want to add more albums to the thread so much- but I’m respecting the rules.
A not-very-well-known album by a well-known band: Fugees - Blunted in Reality.
https://music.apple.com/au/album/blunted-on-reality/169704381
Released in 1994, two years before their (imo perfect) album The Score, the Fugees hadn’t quite landed on their unique sound - though there are flashes of it in some tracks, like Vocab - but it holds up as a solid album.
If you like early 90s hip hop you’ll probably like this
Meta: Trying something new moving forward based on our conversation here. My current plan is to try half-decade slots for the 1990s (the second half will be next month). If this takes, we’ll do the 2000s and 2010s, then maybe jump back to earlier decades.
Eventually I would also like to try loose, open-ended themes that could be interpreted lots of different ways (e.g. “strings”, “loss”, etc.).
As always, if you have any thoughts or suggestions on structuring these, let me know! Also sorry for posting this so late. Between Timasomo and the Backlog Burner I’ve been busy!
The album (or tape cassette in my case) that really got me started on appreciating music was Genesis - We Can't Dance. The tracks on side A got a lot of radio play but I like side B just as much. Way of the World is still a great listen after reading news headlines most days.
I love that album, too. In fact, as strange as it may sound, I think it's my favourite Genesis album. Not necessarily their best, but the one I like the most.
And that actually makes it something of a conundrum to me. I tried to explain my love of the album to someone just a couple of weeks ago but I don't think I really managed to make my point. I can fully understand why many see it as something like a bland, unadventurous pop release, and perhaps it is that, but I think that it is not only well written, performed and produced, but it also has heart. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for the 90s sound in music? I don't know.
You mention nostalgia and continued lyrical relevance. But I was wondering, is there also something else that made you pick the album? Maybe you can put it into words better than me.
To be honest it's not even my favorite album, though I do really like it. However it is an important album to me because all the music I happened to listen to before it didn't really mean anything to me. But once that door was opened all kinds of new music started to affect me deeply and I was able to get through some difficult times because of that.
Wow, this was much more challenging than I thought it would be. Most of what I now enjoy from the early 90s tends to be relatively known stuff, even "underground metal" from the 90s often has a pretty big following in the metal scene these days. Also, all of the stuff I love from the 90s, especially early 90s, I found much later in life, because religious music restrictions in my childhood kept me from listening to anything outside of Christian music (I would have been 5-9 years old in 90-94). None of the music I was listening to at the time, nor through most of my pre-adult life is anything I hold in any regard today. 98% of it was awful.
Overall, I'm going to go with what maybe(?) is still aan underground / unknown release from the 90s, except for those in hardcore/crust-punk circles, and what is somewhat of a recent find for myself that I have thoroughly enjoyed. Maybe it's more popular than I realize, I have a hard time determining that.
That is, Disrupt's Unrest. It is crust-punk/anarcho-punk from 1994 with some grindcore influence. Unrest has since been re-released/remastered a couple of times with extra tracks. I currently listen to this release from Bandcamp. It is aggressive, angry, political social-commentary. Its genuine fire instantly made me a fan. Nearly 30 years ago and all of the anger is still relevant and necessary today, which is ultimately somewhat depressing, but it is music like this that kicks me into fight mode instead of sulk mode.
Very straightforward criticism / opposition to religion, animal testing, police/brutality, toxic masculinity, white supremacy, homophobia- again this is in 94! Love it.
@SpruceWillis's post got me thinking about grunge and Neil Young's 1994 album Sleeps with Angels.
The title track was a response to Kurt Cobain's suicide, an event that had personal meaning to Young. Not only had he by that point been labelled "the godfather of grunge", but Young had also been trying to get in touch with Cobain to offer his support just days before his death. Sadly, his message had never reached Cobain and instead, there was a message back. Well, sort of. Cobain's suicide note quoted Young's lyrics from Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black): "it's better to burn out than to fade away".
While much of the album was already recorded by the time of Cobain's passing, the event affected song selection, and the mood is certainly mournful throughout. Beautifully, raggedly so. The lyrics talk about death, decay, longing, and the passing of time. Many of the vocals are almost spoken, whispered, or just buried under other lyrics or sounds. The prevailing mood is dark, bereft and foreboding.
While it is actually a very melodic album, those melodies are constantly challenged and distorted by gloomy and murky guitars, a raw, slightly off-beat rhythm section, and deliberately slightly off-note performances. This is one of those albums that would be completely destroyed by a standard modern production approach with pitch correction and quantisation. These songs need to find those notes that exist between notes and beats that move between beats, that's how they come alive.
Something similar is going on with the track listing. Two of the songs (Western Hero and Train of Love) share the same melody, but have different lyrics. Or so it seems on the surface. But instead of offering safety through familiarity, the slight differences between the two increase your unease and further distort your listening experience, as you think you know the song but then it suddenly goes ever so slightly differently than you expected. And while the album as a whole is a song cycle with a fairly unified mood and style, there is one song (Piece of Crap) that sticks out like a sore thumb and breaks that pattern completely.
Sleeps with Angels is one of my personal favourites. You can't find it on Spotify as Neil pulled his music from there as a response to Joe Rogan's covid commentary. The album should be in other streaming services though, and in Neil Young Archives, a website and streaming service that looks just like the artist.
The Jurassic Park soundtrack (composer John Williams) came out in 1992 and was the first movie soundtrack I ever bought (and the first non-Weird Al album I ever bought). Totally captures the magic and awe I felt while watching JP in the theaters when I was 11 and I still often find myself humming the main theme over 30 years later. I don't think I can say that about any other album from that time period (except for Weird Al stuff).
The debut album from sludge metal band Fudge Tunnel - Hate Songs in E Minor (1991). This album brings back so many great memories for me. Just a fantastic groove through the entire album. Each song blends seamlessly into the next. I've driven hundreds of miles hypnotized by the road and Fudge Tunnel.
This from the person with the alias SeeNipplesAndDo :).
DAD - Riskin' it All (1991)
Most famous for the single and music video Bad Craziness
I've always wondered why this didn't do better abroad. I my book there's is literally not a bad track on this album. Juvenile lyrics is mentioned as one reason it didn't stick in the US but I find that kinda hard to believe because they we're goofy at the time (still are to some degree) and the music was fun so great deep lyrics weren't really to be expected. I don't know but I've always wanted to recommend this to anyone who likes rock because I find it hard to believe that they wont like it or at least think it's fun and catchy.
The 1993 album Incunabula by Autechre for me. It still holds up as a great electro album these thirty years later. Perfect for hiking about the hills with your headphones on or working in the studio. Dreamy, mysterious, futuristic, a little bit edgy, some bubbling energy, a feast for the ears and mind.
It's nice to see their early work being discussed! Of course people love to laud what they became, the Confields and elseqs and the like, and rightly so—they're still some of the most strange and beautiful and completely unreplicated works even two decades after the release of the former—yet there's such a beauty and innocent joy in the first albums by the duo. Such fun!
in 1992 this kind of experimental indie pop band Unrest put out Imperial F.F.R.R.
I first heard them by chance. in high school i was looking for nirvana stuff on soulseek. someone mislabeled a song called 'Yes She is My Skinhead Girl' as a nirvana song and i thought the title was hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDFIgKmSKvA&ab_channel=bekoicons
immediately i was like 'this is NOT nirvana', although now in hind sight i guess i can see how someone would think this is like a nirvana demo or whatever. either way, this introduced me to one of the most inspirational (i make music) bands i've ever heard, and that basically no one gives a shit about. i could probably count on one hand how many times i've met people who know them. i'm so glad for that soulseek mistake.
what i love about their music is how all over the place their stuff is. you can tell its the same band song to song but you know they're always like 'let's fuck around with this thing, make it weird.' and that's basically become my ethos when i make stuff. and the main guy behind it, Mark Robinson, is just like such a freakin' character. he also does like graphic design and stuff. once you see a bit of his work you just know 'this is a mark robinson piece', he has such a distinct style that in my opinion actually the music and the visuals compliment each other. he's very much about precision/intention, even though some stuff may sound amateurishly put together it's supposed to sound like that, which i think is so insane. i love that the album begins with a literal volume reference tone. anyway.
my favorite song on that album is 'i do believe you are blushing'. i love that he relishes the sound of a plain guitar tone, but like emphasizes the mids and treble to make it sound almost like aggressively pristine, in a way its own kind of distortion, but graceful and intensely clean. an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKFzD1-9uzY&ab_channel=Unrest-Topic
anyway. if anyone knows similar sounding bands let me know! hopefully somebody vibes with this cause this is totally my shit
I’ll go with this old deep cut I return to every now and then: Quicksand’s debut Slip.
https://youtu.be/72bi3MCyqvY?si=sBS-r1o8y4o8vC95
Sorry for the raw link- also on phone.
They’re described as post-hardcore. The drums are amazing though. All sorts of weird time signatures.
Along with Helmet, Quicksand really paved the way for the many post hardcore bands that followed. "Slip" is indeed an excellent album!
There might have to be a post-hardcore rabbit hole I fall into in the near future.
When you do, please check out the Danish band Tvivler. I think they're one of the best bands to come out of Denmark in recent years.
I think the best band of the late 80s into the early 90s is the Pixies. Their music is so chaotic, playful, literate, and inspiring. So much of 90s indie rock, punk, and grunge owes a tremendous debt to the Pixies. Kurt Cobain was a huge fan. To specifically answer the question this thread poses, I nominate 1991's Trompe le Monde.
When a lot of people think about the Pixies, they probably think about Surfer Rosa and Doolittle, which are both amazing albums. But there's something special about Trompe le Monde for me, something far more punk about it. It's at times abrasive, loud and screaming, while other times mellow and plaintive. From start to finish it feels natural in its highs and lows. It reminds me of better times, driving around with my friends as a teenager, no responsibilities. It's just a fun record. Quirky songs about aliens and space, engineering and math, disenchanted and angry punk kids, all wrapped up absolute lyrical poetry.
I feel so grateful that I got to see the Pixies in the early 2000s (with Kim Deal!) when they reunited. I haven't really listened to their more recent albums because I did give Indy Cindy (2014) a chance and felt they'd lost the spark. I really do need to give their modern albums a shot, though without Kim I'm apathetic and it's just so hard when their early work is perfection.
This was tough for me. I was going to go with Soundgarden but they've got accolades out the wazoo.
I'll go with Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version
I'm having a hard time writing about this album. It's "drone metal," and arguably the first instance of the genre. It essentially created Sunn 0))), who are still carrying the torch this album it.
To describe the sound, it's as if Brian Eno used heavy guitar riffs. Long, slow passages composed of slow, often chuggy riffs overlaid on each other with looped guitar/bass-based drones. You have this dark, heavy, low-end sound with textures floating through and above it, giving it a sense of gentle movement throughout. There are sudden riff changes that are disguised slightly by the underlying wall of sound, making the change significantly less jarring, and simply giving a feeling of change.
An interesting effect that emerges is in the track "Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine," you have the same low-end drone, but the leading riff is played higher up, giving it a beautiful, transcendent quality. The leading riff changes but still maintains this pattern of sitting above the rest of the drone.
The final track, "Like Gold And Faceted" drops the low drone, focuses on a harmony between layered guitars, and introduces percussion. Despite having drums, this track feels like it has been cast adrift, eschewing a conventional riff in favor of textured drones.
I always thought Prong - Cleansing was underrated I love how groovy this is while still being thrash and even including some hardcore and industrial elements. No wonder the singer/guitar player has played for Ministry afterwards.