Best Albums Of The 1990s, Pt. 5

#10
Gentlemen
Afghan Whigs
1993

Breakups suck. This is a universal fact, but few musicians have made breakups sound quite as horrifying as the Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli on Gentlemen. Screaming, howling and gurgling in the name of shattered love, Dulli’s vocal chords are positively abused on this album, resulting in songs that are both emotionally and physically painful to listen to. However, all this agony yielded a tremendous tour de force for the Cincinnati band, finally finding that middle ground between abrasive 90s rock and old-fashioned soul music that they’d struggled so hard to find. Some songs are immediate and in your face (“Debonair”) while others seethe and glower (“Be Sweet” and the heart-wrenching “My Curse”), but through the whole album, the band hurls acidic music at every failed relationship in history. It may have been cool to sing about how alienated and misunderstood you were during the 90s, but Dulli and the Whigs were just fine with writing about the ol’ romance blues.

#9
Jar Of Flies
Alice In Chains
1994

There are several things amazing about the fact that Jar Of Flies debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts in 1994. First of all, it was actually an EP, featuring only seven songs over the course of half-an-hour, making it the very first EP to ever claim the top spot on the charts. Second, it didn’t sound anything like the music Alice In Chains were famous for. Despite a variety of electric instruments used during the recording, Jar Of Flies has a decidedly stripped down, unplugged feel to it, emphasizing the intricate guitar work of Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley’s expressive, emotionally charged vocal performances. Jar Of Flies also contains some decidedly upbeat numbers, particularly “No Excuses”, which was quite a one-eighty turn from their previous album, which was all about heroin addiction. Yet, it’s “Nutshell” that steals the whole show, a semi-acoustic tearjerker which stands as the finest single song to come out of the entire Seattle grunge scene (eat your heart out, “Teen Spirit”!). Eight years later, Staley would be dead and grunge the victim of some major cultural backlash. To this day, I couldn’t imagine a better epitaph for either the man or the genre than this exquisite EP.

#8
To Bring You My Love
PJ Harvey
1995

From the moment its first tentative guitar lick oozes out of your speakers, you know you’re in for something special with To Bring You My Love. After two albums of barbed fury and psychodrama, PJ Harvey pulled out all the stops with her third album, releasing a sprawling collection of songs that sounded like they just crawled out of a Louisiana swamp. As strange as it is to hear a woman raised in South England performing such a startling approximation of raw, American blues, the resulting album feels so natural for Harvey that you wonder why she’s never recorded another one like it. Her dynamic voice is in full effect, leaping from the bombastic “Long Snake Moan” all the way down to the wallowing “I Think I’m A Mother”. To Bring You My Love is genuinely frightening at times, especially during the whispered closing segment of “Down By The Water”. This is not a healthy album by any means, but PJ Harvey never sounds all that great when she’s comfortable. Her music thrives on passion, anger and desperation. To Bring You My Love has all three and more.

#7
Mezzanine
Massive Attack
1998

Despite starting the decade by releasing Blue Lines and then watching an entire genre of music pop up in its wake, Massive Attack had evolved far beyond trip-hop by the end of the 90s. Jettisoning trip-hop’s smoky atmosphere and retro-romantic cool, they released the dark and ominous Mezzanine, one of the most oppressive and claustrophobic records of the entire decade. Singles like “Risingson” and the slow-burning “Angel” heralded this new sound, leaving much of the band’s hip-hop influence behind them and replacing them with tricks stolen from modern hard rock, as well as electronica. From beginning to end, Mezzanine closes in around you, only loosening its grip on a reimagining of the reggae standard “Man Next Door” and the stunning “Teardrop” (since co-opted by FOX as the House theme song). Outside of those brief moments of relief, you’re trapped in Mezzanine’s pitch-black world.

#6
Loveless
My Bloody Valentine
1991

“Ethereal” and “noisy-as-all-hell” usually aren’t adjectives used to describe the same thing. Yet, they’re the two most appropriate words to describe Loveless, My Bloody Valentine’s jaw-dropping monument to the power of guitar overdubbing and thousands upon thousands of dollars. The three years it took to record the album destroyed MBV’s internal chemistry and almost bankrupted their label, but two generations of music lovers are more than thankful that they put in all that extra work. Loveless is nothing less than an ocean of guitar. You don’t listen to these songs; your ears surf on them. Yet, the whole thing doesn’t have any of the sinister weight of metal or the abusive energy of punk. All those multilayered guitars end up creating something very dreamlike and even whimsical in a way. It helps that the band’s virtually wordless blend of male and female harmonies creates a sonic atmosphere where things are blurred and barely intelligible. There are even a few catchy numbers stirred into the mix, culminating in the addictive closing song, “Soon”. My Bloody Valentine have never released a follow-up to Loveless and perhaps it’s a good thing. Music can’t really get much bigger than this.

#5
The Bends
Radiohead
1995

It seems hilarious in retrospect, but Radiohead where originally predicted to be one-hit wonders, joining all the other flash-in-pan bands that rode to success in a post-Nirvana era. “Creep” was certainly a great song, but did this odd English band actually have a future outside of Best Of The 90s compilations? Any and all skeptics were silenced by The Bends, which may not have featured “Creep 2.0”, but instead offered up twelve balanced, nuanced and frankly astonishing alterna-rock anthems. Radiohead were still a pop-oriented band (literally half these songs were released as successful singles), but The Bends showed that there were some much bigger ambitions under the surface. From the guitar spazzfest of “Just” to the wondrous ballad “Fake Plastic Trees”, The Bends transformed Radiohead overnight into a “serious” band, who were pushing the boundaries of modern music. Of course, people still weren’t prepared for what they would do next, but for the time being, The Bends announced that a new, bold musical force was arriving on the scene for good.

#4
Liquid Swords
Genius/GZA
1995

Wu-Tang solo records tend to be crapshoots. Without the collaborative magic that fueled Enter The Wu-Tang to push them along, most of the group’s nine members tend to sound a bit lost and overwhelmed when they go and record on their own. The grand exception to this rule is the GZA, whose Liquid Swords does the unthinkable and actually leaves Enter The Wu-Tang in the dust. Much of the credit goes to the RZA’s close production, conjuring up a dark, swirling atmosphere out of old samurai movie clips and insistent keyboards. Liquid Swords sounds cold and emotionally distant, lacking the party edge you hear on most other Wu-related albums. All this compliments the GZA’s style perfectly, letting his no-nonsense verses cut you to the core. Liquid Swords may be rather humorless and icy, but it’s not just heavy-handed preaching. GZA’s words are smart, always approaching his target from an unexpected angle, revealing some subtle details in the process. GZA may not have been Wu’s most dominating personality, but on Liquid Swords, he stakes his claim as their smartest and most piercing lyricist and storyteller.

#3
Laughing Stock
Talk Talk
1991

Some albums take a long time to be appreciated. They stretch and grow inside your imagination, going from “oh, that’s nice” to “my god, I have to listen to this album every eight minutes.” Discovering these “growers” is one of the things I enjoy most about being an obsessive music nut. That said…Laughing Stock was not one of those records for me. From the very moment I heard the shattered guitar strum that opens “Myrrhman”, I knew this would be a very important album in my life. This is an album built on a trembling skeleton of songwriting, letting open space and slow tempos set the mood, before sparse guitar and some relentless jazz drums flesh things out. But the real appeal of Laughing Stock lies in the stark and fragile emotions that are present in each and every moment of its all-too-brief forty minute running time. These songs should howl with desperation and hopelessness, but instead they whisper, making those powerful forces feel all the more strained and urgent. This is a very sad record, but it never fails to lift its head up high and compose itself with grace and dignity.

#2
This Is Hardcore
Pulp
1998

“This is the sound of someone losing the plot,” Jarvis Cocker sings, “making out that they’re ok when they’re not.” As always, Jarvis’ words render everyone else’s unnecessary and that brief quip, from This Is Hardcore’s opener, “The Fear”, remains the single best description of this seedy, warped and deeply troubled masterpiece. After becoming an inexplicable pop star (and sex symbol to boot) on the back of Different Class, Jarvis could have done several things to capitalize on this newfound success. Instead, he wrote “Party Hard” and then watched as the world desperately tried to come to terms with music this depressed, caustic and downright rotten. Fame did not sit well with Cocker, and the repulsion you feel when you first hear these songs is mutual. You don’t like them and Cocker doesn’t like you. Still, the thoroughness with which this album pushes you away is impressive. Whether it’s the terrifyingly obsessed “Seductive Barry” or the bitterness that lurks around every turn in “Help The Aged”, This Is Hardcore is never willing to throw the casual pop listener a bone. By the time you get to the world-obliterating title track, you realize that things are beyond your control. Nothing will get in the way of Cocker’s self-sabotage and listeners can only sit back and try not to get hit by the debris.

#1
OK Computer
Radiohead
1997

Radiohead defined the 90s with two key musical statements. The first was “Creep”, a song so perfectly suited to its time that the band almost never escaped from its imposing shadow. “Creep” takes its place alongside Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Beck’s “Loser” as songs that completely capture the odd zeitgeist of apathy and negativity that characterized so much of 90s music and pop culture. “Creep” ensured that even if Radiohead never recorded another note, they’d be remembered. But that’s not what happened. Who could have predicted that five years later, that very same band would release the single best album of the entire decade, in the process slamming the door closed on the 90s (and three years early, to boot)? It’s still mind-boggling when you realize that “Creep” and OK Computer were recorded by the same band. One captures a moment in time. The other captures the entire future! The new millennium was already beginning to peek its big bald head over the horizon and Radiohead beat the Y2K craze to the punch by releasing an album positively quaking with modernist paranoia and existential fear. And yet…it all sounds so pretty.

This is the weirdest element of OK Computer. How does an album this distraught and unstable end up sounding flat-out beautiful? How can a song about alien abduction (“Subterranean Homesick Alien”) end up as a shimmering, sparkling wall of guitar textures and arpeggios? Much of the credit goes to Thom Yorke, whose voice is unlike any sound heard on Earth. Yorke’s slurred wail is both beautiful and deeply frightening, especially when all you can really understand are choice lyrical snippets like “this is what you get when you mess with us.” But what really galvanizes OK Computer is the chemistry between these five men from Oxford and the bond between them that has continued to give us incredible music more than a decade later. Ed O’Brien’s guitar textures and backing vocals give the music depth and resonance. Colin Greenwood’s bass gives it weight, while his brother Jonny contributes an endless supply of jarring guitar riffs and dissonant noise. Holding everything together, you’ve got Phil Selway, a drummer who can literally do anything. He can make drums sing if he needs to. When you put these five men together, amazing things happen. You get “Karma Police”. You get “Paranoid Android”. You get the blissful escapism of “No Surprises”, as well as the psychotic extremes of “Climbing Up The Walls”. You get songs about little people, clinging to anything they can to stay strong in the face of an uncertain and dehumanizing future. You get OK Computer.