Green Day, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and 35 other bands who made the word "alternative" lose all meaning
At no point between “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Nookie” was the alternative bubble more booming than 1994. A record breaking eight alt-rock albums topped Billboard that year, and Lisa Loeb’s “Stay” let alternative nation plant a rare flag atop the singles charts. The Offspring sold more of their indie label record than Pink Floyd did on their major label record. Green Day stole Woodstock ’94 from Bob Dylan. New Kids on the Block broke up and Earl Sweatshirt was born. Here’s the 40 best albums from the year where the losers finally won.
40
Live, ‘Throwing Copper’
The Pennsylvania-bred Live broke out of the Buzz Bin with their first full-length Mental Jewelry, a self-righteous whirl of pummeling bass lines, arena-ready riffs, and didactic lyrics thrown down by preacher-like frontman Ed Kowalczyk. Throwing Copper (which, like Jewelry, was produced by Talking Heads' Jerry Harrison) continued down the latter path with abandon, and audiences responded in kind — the album spawned four singles that hit the top ten on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, including the jittery "Selling the Drama," the tortured slow-burn "I Alone," the kinda power-ballady "All Over You," and the mini-epic "Lightning Crashes" (Number 12 on the Hot 100) which forever seared the image of a placenta falling to the floor into radio listeners' collective cortex.
39
Bush, ‘Sixteen Stone’
The six-times-platinum debut from the London-based Bush currently sells for as little as $.17 on Amazon, a ridiculous bargain for an album packed with the adrenaline of a Surge 2-liter, quite possibly the most notorious example of grunge excess for the sake of excess. Seasoned producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley (Elvis Costello, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Madness), sculpted frontman Gavin Rossdale's affected wails and the rotating knives of guitarist Nigel Pulsford — lobbying the first warning shot that this "grunge-as-pop" thing might be bigger than the insular arguments about West Coasters like Candlebox and Stone Temple Pilots. The album would yield three Top 40 singles — as many as Nirvana would have over an entire career — and the biggest hit, "Comedown," plays in the 2010 video of Miley Cyrus smoking salvia.
38
The Cranberries, ‘No Need to Argue’
Aided by longtime Smiths' producer Stephen Street, The Cranberries went unexpectedly multiplatinum with the well-tooled dream-pop of Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? in 1993. Just a year later, with Street still onboard, Noel Hogan's guitar jangle was both edgier and spookier and Dolores O'Riordan's ethereal swoop was deeper and harsher — whether she was implanting a hooky protest of IRA bombings in your hey-ee-ay-ead ("Zombie"), feeling set adrift in the loneliness of early adulthood ("Ode to My Family"), or mooning with pretentious abandon at "Yeats' Grave." O'Riordan proved a key transitional figure as Sinéad O'Connor's proud yelp evolved into the Lilith Fair lilt, the stepmother to mid-Nineties commercial breakthroughs like Sarah McLachlan's swoon or Alanis Morissette's quirk.
37
Various Artists, ‘The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack’
The soundtrack to The Crow was 1994's most effective gateway drug: Taken to Number One by Stone Temple Pilots' ubiquitous modern rock staple "Big Empty," the soundtrack ripped the flannel off millions of alterna-teens, sealed them in black vinyl and minted a new generation of goths. Pantera, Nine Inch Nails and Rollins Band laid their influences bare, covering late-Seventies/early-Eighties alt-icons like Poison Idea, Joy Division and Suicide, shoving new fans down a pre-blog rabbit hole of discovery. And in the days when albums didn't leak and hunting for B-sides was a sport, The Crow was a treasure trove: Rare one-offs from the Cure, Violent Femmes and Rage Against the Machine; a pre-album look at new music from Helmet; and a quick industrial education via Machines of Loving Grace and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult.
36
Tori Amos, ‘Under the Pink’
The second solo effort from Tori Amos continued marching down the path of righteous questioning — the piano-tickling redhead stormed the gates of patriarchy, religion and sexual violence on the loopy "God" and the pained "Past the Mission" (which features backing vocals from Trent Reznor). Amos's blunt poesy and audacious composition resulted in Under the Pink's initial reception being all over the map — critics couldn't quite decide if she was content or unsettled, perhaps because the clarity of her artistic vision came packaged with lyrics that poked holes in all sorts of institutions. Ultimately, though, Pink helped Amos shed the "American Kate Bush" tag that accompanied her initial turn in the spotlight.
35
Toadies, ‘Rubberneck’
Emerging from the alt-rock desert of Fort Worth, Texas, the Toadies scored a gold record via some weirdo Southern gothic doom-choogle that existed somewhere between Kiss, the Blasters, ZZ Top and the Pixies. Not really punk, not really pop, not really metal, their hit, "Possum Kingdom" rode an errant bar of 2/4 years before "Hey Ya" — but with lyrics about a lake murder. "I roamed around all sort of places in Fort Worth actively trying to get murdered and it never happened," lead singer Todd Lewis told Austin Monthly with a laugh. "It was a pretty sketchy town. In that era there was always a part of town that people didn't want to go, and that's where bands would get together to drink beer and play." Due to label drama that left an entire second album stashed in the Interscope vaults, Rubberneck was the first and last commercial gasp from the band — but you can see their legacy in other place. "Everybody thinks it's hilarious that my favorite band is the Toadies," fellow Texan Kelly Clarkson told MTV.
34
Neil Young and Crazy Horse, ‘Sleeps With Angels’
Bob Dylan? Not alternative. Paul McCartney? Not alternative. Eric Clapton's laid-back unplugged "Layla?" Come on, now. But Neil Young, whose Eighties output was a spotty as any Sixties rock icon's, rebounded into punk relevance once a new generation of noisemakers admitted to his influence. Nineteen-ninety's slovenly Ragged Glory was "grunge" before that marketing term stuck, his 1991 tour openers Sonic Youth inspired him to release the noise composition Arc, and Pearl Jam backed Young on 1995's Mirror Ball. But Sleeps With Angels is the ornery coot's most coherent recorded message to the kids. Though only the title track was written after Kurt Cobain's suicide, that event lends an elegiac tone to the album, especially its centerpiece, the extended workout "Change Your Mind," a pricklier counterpart to R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts."
33
Soul Coughing, ‘Ruby Vroom’
Soul Coughing. What was the elevator pitch for these guys? Slam-poet, pulp fiction enthusiast, and occasional rock critic from the downtown NYC avant-jazz scene teams with a heavy cocktail-funk rhythm section and a sampler player prone to bursts of Ren & Stimpy's favorite composer, Raymond Scott. Oh yeah, and producer Tchad Blake is gonna run the vocals through mufflers and bullhorns sometimes. If leader Mike Doughty's memoir, The Book of Drugs, is to be believed, then his bandmates were musically gifted egomaniacs whose quirks kept him from making the songs he wanted to hear. But maybe it was that very friction that made Ruby Vroom an unlikely hit.
32
Dinosaur Jr., ‘Without a Sound’
In 1994, "Feel the Pain" served as the friendliest entry point into Dinosaur Jr.'s spiraling, hazy, feedback-drenched catalogue, hooking newcomers with a clean arrangement and Spike Jonze–directed golf-in-Manhattan music video. ("I was into the aspect of violence and having violence in golf carts — you know, beating people with the clubs," singer-guitarist J Mascis said in the commentary of Jonze's DVD anthology.) Its album, Without a Sound, a disappointment at the time, was the band's least ear-bleeding but most country. Mascis' flat delivery and exhausted songwriting gave listeners the idea of what Uncle Tupelo might sound like had they added a rack of guitar pedals and dropped some of the rural affectation.
31
Corrosion of Conformity, ‘Deliverance’
Corrosion of Conformity have always been scene-hoppers, starting life as a hardcore band in 1983, becoming a groove-minded Sabbath-gone-thrash hybrid by 1991's Blind, and riding the crest of alternative to commercial success for 1994's Deliverance. Sure, the record as a whole was a big toke of stoner metal, but thanks to frontman Pepper Keenan's Muppet-like snarl and a singles with radio-friendly guitar lines that sounded like Stone Temple Pilots in reverse ("Clean My Wounds") or Pearl Jam on 'ludes ("Albatross"), the group finally broke. The album's non-metal legacy stretched a lot farther than the band, whose popularity petered out after releasing the more metal-focused follow-up Wiseblood in 1996. Deliverance B-side "Big Problems" made it onto the Clerks soundtrack and the interlude "Mano de Mono" and opening track "Heaven's Not Overflowing" got placement in Robert De Niro and Michele Pfeiffer movies, respectively.
30
Various Artists, ‘Reality Bites: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack’
This blend of tweaked radio standards (Squeeze's revisiting of their pensive "Tempted"; Big Mountain's island-tinged cover of Peter Frampton's "Baby, I Love Your Way") and new tracks from alt-nation flag-bearers (Juliana Hatfield, Dinosaur Jr.) was more of a hit than the slacker romantic comedy that spawned it. The inclusion of "My Sharona" helped spark a mini-comeback for the Knack ("[The song] sends me right back to my high-school lunch room," Bites director Ben Stiller told USA Today) and Lisa Loeb's breakup-chronicle "Stay (I Missed You)" brought lady-led confessionals to the top of the Hot 100 a full year before Jagged Little Pill. Loeb was quite literally the "girl next door" for Ethan Hawke, the movie's enfant terrible — the two lived near each other in New York City, and Hawke wound up directing the song's single-shot video.
29
Smashing Pumpkins, ‘Pisces Iscariot’
In the days before file sharing, odds 'n' sods comps were the ultimate in fan service. Between their numerous B-sides, EPs, and compilation cuts, Smashing Pumpkins had enough material to release a rarities collection a mere two albums into their career, and, as Rolling Stone declared upon its release, "It's better than a lot of albums that bands labored hard to put together." This pile of songs cohered because of Billy Corgan's musical vision being squarely at its center, though there are a few clear standouts. "Starla" is an 11-minute opus of guitar pyrotechnics, and "La Dolly Vita," which originally appeared on the Pumpkins' contribution to the Sub Pop Singles Club (which the band recorded the day they met Butch Vig) begins placidly then opens up into a pummeling coda.
28
Bad Religion, ‘Stranger Than Fiction’
As if a major-label deal floating towards a hardcore punk band in their 14th year wasn't unlikely enough, Bad Religion's Stranger Than Fiction somehow united Rancid's Tim Armstrong (he duets on furious lambaste "Television"), Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski (he directed the video for "21st Century [Digital Boy]") , and CHiPs cop Erik Estrada (he cameos in the clip for the hook-filled, sinister "Infected."). Following seven records on guitarist Brett Gurewitz's indie stronghold Epitaph, the Los Angeles veterans released their venomous Atlantic Records debut, a Taser-proof preview for the end time and home of their three highest-charting Modern Rock singles. Even if life is the crummiest book Ph.D.-holding frontman Greg Graffin ever read, he absorbed enough to make these rants feel awfully cathartic.
27
Sugar, ‘File Under Easy Listening’
Many indie trailblazers of the Eighties grew embittered as Nineties alt-rock youngsters eclipsed them commercially. But Bob Mould was inspired by these newer bands, particularly My Bloody Valentine, and he formed a new power trio dedicated to yoking the transcendent noise of their Loveless to the concise pop-punk he pioneered with Hüsker Dü. Mould's obsessive attention to detail (he scrapped the initial sessions and started from scratch) paid off in the enormous yet nimble guitar sound he captured, all muscular jangle, hydraulic pulls and a reminder that you can only call them "hooks" when they draw blood. We'd heard the power and thrust of Mould's guitar before, but not its three-dimensional electronic nature. This time we got not just the burst of the bottle rocket, but the vast twinkling of its afterglow. The results made Hüsker Dü LPs sound like field recordings.
26
Frank Black, ‘Teenager of the Year’
"I'm into just doing all kinds of things," Frank Black told an interviewer who'd asked a question about the "sprawling" sound of second solo album Teenager of the Year. "People get bent out of shape when someone that isn't country tries to do country, or someone that's country tries to do rock." After the Pixies broke up, the former Black Francis reinvented himself as an eclectic L.A. rocker with a wry view of the alt-rock scene he'd helped invent. The 22-song double-album Teenager of the Year produced a minor hit in "Headache," and Pere Ubu keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman helped Black get a spacey sound that incorporates everything from ska to vintage rock & roll to surf-pop to punk. The best moment is "Freedom Rock," a biting yet loving song about an alterna-dude that's worthy of Randy Newman: "My name is Chip and I'm different/I don't conform/I wear a different uniform," Francis sings, before adding what might be a maxim for the album's freewheeling spirit: "Nobody owns the pleasure of tones."
25
Rollins Band, ‘Weight’
Weight wasn't beat poetry, it was beat-down poetry. A decade after Henry Rollins made his spoken-word debut on Black Flag's hodgepodge Family Man, his heavily slammed verses on the 1994 track "Liar" became an alt-rock staple, crashing the MTV Buzz Bin with screams of "Hahahaha, sucker!" In the seven years since Rollins formed his eponymous band, the group had evolved into a jazz-metal hybrid with tight grooves that could either play it cool or sizzle and seethe along with him as he preached about being an individual ("Disconnect"), pondered sexism ("Wrong Man") or condemned gun culture ("Civilized"). Though it was a hit at the time, Rollins did not expect his newfound mainstream popularity to last long. "When everyone who is now 18 turns 40, they're not going to be saying 'Oh, Henry Rollins,'" he told Rolling Stone in 1993. "They're going to be saying, 'Oh, Eddie. Oh, Kurt.' That's the way it is."
24
Rancid, ‘Let’s Go’
Twenty-three songs recorded in just six days, Rancid's second album — and their first recorded with blazing guitarist Lars Frederiksen — hit just as bands like Green Day and the Offspring were having radio hits, helping the young East Bay punkers reach Number 97 on the Billboard charts. Rancid proved that speedy, catchy, class-conscious thrashing could make sense to Beavis & Butt-head fans. "Salvation" was breakthrough shout-along hit, while "Nihilism" and "Radio," the latter co-written by Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, were infectiously optimistic, cutting against alternative-rock's tone of whining self-analysis. Comparisons to the Clash abounded. But the band was hardly retro. "I mean, look at 'Let's Go,'" said bassist Matt Freeman. "They never played anything that fast."
23
Korn, ‘Korn’
Korn's debut album wasn't a huge success when it was first released but it eventually sold more than 10 million copies — one of the most prophetic rock records released in 1994. The Bakersfield, California band fused the grim, angsty side of alt-rock, industrial metal's turgid grind and — most importantly — the syncopated aggression of gangsta rap to create the nü-metal fusion that would dominate the last half of the decade. Singer-lyricist Jonathan Davis indulged images of predatory violence that made Kurt Cobain's most harrowing moments seem cozy — reading evil, disease, and racism in nursery rhymes on "Shoots and Ladders." The deeply uncomfortable crowning achievement is "Daddy," where Davis addresses the trauma of being sexually abused as a child, ending the track by breaking into tears. Though the song topped a fan-request poll taken in 2003, the band hasn't played it live since Korn was released.
22
Stone Temple Pilots, ‘Purple’
Spawning three big rock hits and a couple smaller ones, topping the Billboard 200, and selling six million or so, Purple served as sweet vindication for fake grunge's most archetypal ensemble. Seeing how their 1992 debut had sounded suspiciously similar to a certain yaaarghling band who'll remain nameless here (plus STP were clearly phonies because Long Beach isn't really San Diego), cool kids hoped they'd whiff bigtime like the Seattle Pilots they weren't. But they foiled haters by upping the glam-hook quotient — especially in sticky masturbation ode "Unglued," which bops along approximately like the Ramones covering Pete Shelley's "Homosapien," and carefully misspelled fly-in-ointment smash "Vasoline." "Interstate Love Song" and "Big Empty" are (purple)-hazy, dusky, rustic road-trippers — unabashed inspirations for Hootie and the Blowfish, who covered the former live. At album's end, hidden saloon croon "My Second Album" even shouts out to Johnny Mathis. Who needs Eddie Vedder?
21
Veruca Salt, ‘American Thighs’
Two Chicago women harmonizing on voice and guitar in front of two guys smart enough to stay in their place, Veruca Salt had been together for barely a year before they hit with "Seether," a song that churned like a less self-conscious Breeders and bombarded you with neither/nor constructions either about a cat, a female body part, just plain seething or none of the above. Years later, the single's title would inspire a perplexingly popular corporate post-post-post-grunge band who no more resemble "Seether" than American Thighs resembled AC/DC. But the album's juxtaposition of chunky crunching, wallflower whispering, and intermittently violent young adult literature (Veruca Salt being a Roald Dahl character) held undeniable charms, chasing Spiderman with spider monkeys and shambling toward two diary entries about being set in one's ways — though the fuzz-riffed "25" repeatedly quotes the American Breed's 1968 soul-rock nugget "Bend Me, Shape Me" in search of free alterations.
20
Helmet, ‘Betty’
Helmet made rhythmically complex, steely-riffed alterna-metal that punished your body from odd angles (when forming, they placed an ad in The Village Voice searching for an "asexual bass player"). Touted as the "next Nirvana," their 1992's Interscope debut Meantime made the New Yorkers the most successful band to come out of the thuggy, noise-cretin Amphetamine Reptile scene; and while Betty wasn't as immediately exciting as its predecessor, it spun their sound into jazz, blues and improv, challenging their art-jock fanbase ("Beautiful Love" begins as a Brazilian guitar piece then explodes into abstract free-rock jamming). They still managed to score a minor modern rock hit with "Milquetoast" and deliver one of the year's truly crushing major label rock albums.
19
Oasis, ‘Definitely Maybe’
Like a Britpop Dr. Dre, guitarist-songwriter Noel Gallagher made multi-platinum pop by liberally lifting recognizable hooks from his heroes. On Oasis' brash and noisy debut, Definitely Maybe, bits from the Beatles and the Jam ranged from affectionate ("Live Forever" was inspired by the Rolling Stones' "Shine a Light") to the obvious ("Cigarettes and Alcohol" bangs T. Rex's gong pretty heavily), to the potentially illegal (the repurposing of a Coca-Cola jingle for the infectious "Shakermaker" sparked a lawsuit). Impressively, Noel and bratty lead singer bro Liam's dust-ups with each other (and Blur) didn't bleed into pessimistic songs, and "Live Forever" turned out as jangly an antidote to Nirvana's dourness of the day as any. (You wouldn't know it from Liam's funeral-face performance style, though.) Production-wise, Definitely Maybe's semi-botched studio sessions yielded rough-edged, mid-fi salvage miracles replete with fuzz, studio banter and an alertness they've tried (and failed) to recreate ever since.
18
Liz Phair, ‘Whip-Smart’
In October '94, a month after her second album arrived, Liz Phair appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in a story titled Liz Phair: A Rock & Roll Star Is Born, in which she explained her follow-up to Exile in Guyville (a sort of concept album twisting the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street into a feminist sexual statement) was a sort of concept album about — a relationship. "I made a rock fairy tale," she said. "A little myth journey – from meeting the guy, falling for him, getting him and not getting him, going through the disillusionment period, saying, 'Fuck it,' and leaving, coming back to it." It seems even at that early moment, Phair knew her slightly shinier second effort had left some alienated. "The first album is for Your People," she explained. "The second is for the People; the third is for Everybody. Your People hate your second album because it isn't for them, but you have to attract the attention of the People, who will get a sound, get an idea, digest and spit it out. And the next time you can get revolted by that and go back to the original Your People mentality, which is more intimate." Phair didn't end up following her own formula exactly, but fuck the haters. Whip-Smart has a fuzzy radio-friendly hit ("Supernova") sitting right next to a spare doodle about foreplay ("Chopsticks"). It's dirty and confessional and atonal and tuneful and above all, honest and ballsy — she did, after all, stick her face in the middle of a star on its album over. Not very '94, and therefore bolder than you'd remembered.
17
Offspring, ‘Smash’
In the early Nineties, Brett Gurewitz's Epitaph label put out plenty of albums featuring straightforward punk stomps — and the Offspring's Smash was certainly no exception. But thanks to two breakout singles, they convinced millions of kids they loved straightforward punk stomps, ultimately enough to make Smash the best-selling indie album of all time. Pop-punk as double-edged novelty music, "Come Out and Play" recognized inner city turf warfare, for all its murderous consequences, as a kids' game at its core, with Noodles' surf guitar indicating the breadth of the band's Cali roots. "Self Esteem," which started suspiciously like "Smells Like Teen Spirit," rendered angst as drunken sing-along, helped ordinary kids get in touch with their inner loser. When Dexter Holland protested "I'm not a dweeb!" in his nasal bark while complaining about getting laid too much, suddenly teen sexual confusion sounded aggro enough for regular dudes to admit to.
16
Blur, ‘Parklife’
For American Anglophiles, it was wonderful being in a neutral country during the great Oasis/Blur wars of 1995. The proper warm-up for Team Blur was 1994's Parklife: All snot-nosed, neo-mod, track-jacket guitar-pop proudly in the tradition of the Kinks, the Jam and anything ever described as "cheeky." Conceived by Damon Albarn as a concept album a bit like Martin Amis' novel London Fields (its working title was "London"), Parklife was a zippy reminder that middle class didn't necessarily mean middle-brow. In spite of four hit-in-England singles (and one minor U.S. hit with "Girls & Boys"), Pulp went on to do all of this about a billion times better the following year on Different Class. Still, it's one of the most London-y albums that ever Londoned.
15
R.E.M., ‘Monster’
Guitarist Peter Buck called Monster a "rock record with 'rock' in quotation marks." R.E.M. turned up the guitars for the first time since 1987's Document and came up with a searing album about the wages of celebrity — from the media-study "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" to the noise-drenched "Let Me In," an elegy for the recently departed Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix. At the height of an alternative moment that would've been unthinkable without them, R.E.M. came up with a critique of star culture from the inside that didn't get bogged down in self-indulgence or feel like old-timer moralizing. The following year drummer Bill Berry would suffer a brain aneurysm, forcing him to eventually retire from music, removing the driving force behind their sound. They wouldn't even try to rock like this again for years.
14
Sonic Youth, ‘Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star’
Sonic Youth's eighth album lacked obvious catchy college-radio-ready singles like "Kool Thing" and "100%," both of which put Sonic Youth on the corners of the mainstream map years earlier. But the record succeeded on the strength of one single — the shimmering, huffy avant-rock sex-romp "Bull in the Heather" — and the general alt-rock zeitgeist of the time. The era was something Sonic Youth reveled in — one song on the album, "Screaming Skull," name checked alt-rock signposts like the Lemonheads, SST Records, Hüsker Dü and Germs guitarist Pat Smear — and their indie-days nostalgia paid off. The record went on to become their highest-charting LP until their 2009 swan song The Eternal. "We were so sick of the big, homogenized rock sound, and we didn't want to get to the point where we would overdo something and just drain all spontaneity out of it," Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo told Rolling Stone at the time. "After a certain number of takes, Butch [Vig, producer] would ask us to do another one, and we'd say no."
13
Meat Puppets, ‘Too High to Die’
Thanks to the promotional efforts of Nirvana, who'd covered three 1984 Meat Puppets songs with brothers Curt and Chris Kirkwood in their MTV Unplugged set the previous fall, Too High to Die is the only gold album of these brain-dusted desert rats' long career; Top 50 single "Backwater" would be the biggest Neil Young hit since "Old Man" if it was one, which it almost is. But Too High is of a piece with their whole three-decade catalog: two-step mirages ("We Don't Exist"), Appalachian spirituals ("Comin' Down"), white blues ("Roof With A Hole"), surf twang ("Evil Love"), Oktoberfest oompah ("Station"), Marshall Tucker cowboy choogle ("Flaming Heart") and classic rock shuffles (check the Cheap Trick and Blue Öyster Cult echoes in "Things"). And if you need more roots clues, the album's promo singles featured covers of Marty Robbins' border-country "El Paso City" and Arizona anarcho-punk brats the Feederz' "Fuck You."
12
Alice in Chains, ‘Jar of Flies EP’
The bleakest of the big bands to emerge from Seattle during the Great Grunge Land Rush, Alice in Chains were adept at creating indelible music from hard times — take this short follow-up to 1992's arid Dirt, which came about after the band wound up getting evicted from their living space post-Lollapalooza 1993. The band, including new bassist Mike Inez, relocated to the familiar climes of Seattle's London Bridge Studio and spent seven days writing and recording this comparatively airy and mellow EP, which showcases the band's ability to set a dark mood without the aid of massive amps. Its brevity makes it hard to pick a standout: "I Stay Away," which split the difference between the band's softer and harder sides (and even included strings!), rightly remains an alt-rock radio staple; Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell's harmonies skate along the groove of "No Excuses"; and "Rotten Apple" closes with a shimmering, feather-light guitar freakout.
11
Beck, ‘Mellow Gold’
Sure, the breakthrough was "Loser," an independently released mush-mouthed novelty rap 12-inch that walked on Johnny Jenkins' "Gilded Splinters" and tried its best to evoke a beat-poetry Chuck D — the "I'm a loser, baby" chorus wasn't some slacker-generation zeitgeist-grab, it was Beck's honest reaction to his own rapping skills. "I mean, I never had any slack," he told Rolling Stone in 1994. "I was working a $4-an-hour job trying to stay alive. I mean, that slacker kind of stuff is for people who have the time to be depressed about everything." He was picked up by Geffen and the single vaulted into the Top 10 — but anyone expecting a full album of quirky goofs was in for a shock. Recorded on an 8-track, Mellow Gold was an ambitious genre pastiche of coffeehouse strum, blasts of Melvins feedback, screwed ballads, sludge-punk and offbeat raps for a generation that grew up with hip-hop as their folk music.
10
Beastie Boys, ‘Ill Communication’
The first (and maybe only) record where the Beastie Boys felt comfortable being Adam, Adam and Mike — none of the beer-spraying slapstick of Licensed to Ill, none of the clever Wikipedia carpet-bombing of Paul's Boutique, none of the feeling-around-our-instruments reinvention of Check Your Head. The moral center of Ill Communication was Adam "MCA" Yauch, who side-stepped rap brags in order to admit to his grey hairs, take responsibility for his misogynist missteps and talk about quitting cheeba. The trio just explored anything that was going through their heads: vintage New York hardcore ("Tough Guy"), mic-passing cyphers with Q-Tip ("Get It Together") or Tibetan Buddhist chants ("Bodhisatta Vow)." Was their first Number One record since 1987 an act of brilliant curation? "I think we are creative, but in terms of being masterminds, no," Ad-Rock told Rolling Stone in 1994. "We're just making some music we like."
9
Pearl Jam, ‘Vitalogy’
In 1993, no band felt bigger than Pearl Jam — not just the cover of Rolling Stone, but the cover of Time — and by 1994, they were biting the hand that feeds, bashing Ticketmaster to a House of Representatives subcommittee and writing songs about how the spotlight is a drag. Probably the most famous band to ever see fame as nuisance, Vitalogy almost plays like an attempt at commercial suicide — Neil Young in 5/4, Wipers-style punk tantrums, tape-loop slurry and one buggy detour on a thrift-store accordion. Instead it was, as Rolling Stone wrote in a four-star review, "a portrait of an artist in crisis."
8
Hole, ‘Live Through This’
Courtney Love became a widow just days before her band Hole released their breakthrough album, giving Live Through This a grueling, ripped-from-the-headlines intensity. Written while her husband Kurt Cobain's life was spinning out of control and recorded by a band mired in drug problems (bassist Kristen Pfaff would overdose in June '94), it still managed to move past the scabrous noise of Hole's 1991 debut Pretty on the Inside with a clear, catchy urgency that made songs like "Miss World," "Doll Parts" and "Violet" instant alt-rock classics. Debate raged about how much Cobain had assisted in Love's amazing transformation as a songwriter (his backing vocals appear on the album, and his influence his everywhere). But this was Love's show and she stormed through it, demanding to be "the girl with the most cake" and eating it too.
7
Johnny Cash, ‘American Recordings’
He was once one of most visible establishment performers, boasting 13 Number One Country singles and his own TV show. But with 23 years since since his last Top 100-charting solo outing and an "outlaw" presence as timeless as blue jeans, his 1994 comeback was marketed as "alternative" with grace and ease. With American Recordings, producer Rick Rubin established a production technique that he would later use with artists like Metallica, Kanye West and Black Sabbath: He stripped the Man in Black's sound down to its bare essentials. Johnny Cash's rawest-sounding record in decades found him revisiting the themes that defined his career early on, including songs about shooting people ("Delia's Gone"), culling from a diverse collection of iconic songwriters (Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Waits, Glenn Danzig) and a few of his own stark, haunting numbers ("Redemption," "Like a Soldier"). No longer a cog in Nashville's well-polished hit-making machine, putting out sleek and comparatively mediocre pop-country numbers like 1991's "Goin' by the Book," American Recordings was a declaration of freedom.
6
Soundgarden, ‘Superunknown’
Nirvana had fused punk and metal on Nevermind but no band wore its hesher, Zeppelin-loving integrity with as much as pride as Soundgarden. Having proven themselves masters of Seattle sludge, the band worked to expand their sound on Superunknown and came up with grunge that's aged as well as anything else from the era. "There is a degree of maturity at work," said guitarist Kim Thayll. "You can hear it in our decision not to rev the engine so high. In the end I think it's more powerful." Emphasizing fluid rhythm and sinewy dynamics as much as torpid, throbbing riffs, songs like "Black Hole Sun" and "Head Down" opened up new emotional possibilities for singer Chris Cornell who emerged as Nineties metal's greatest druid existentialist: "When the whole thing washes away don't run to me," he growls on "Limo Wreck." We wouldn't think of it!
5
Nirvana, ‘MTV Unplugged in New York’
Shake the image of Kurt Cobain, hunched in his cardigan, wracked by a voice extracting greater demands than his frail body could handle, intimating mortality more than poetic license can excuse. Think instead of the newly matured artist, showcasing his overlooked craftsmanship, championing his favorite music, displaying not just the intensity of his fandom (three consecutive songs from Meat Puppets II) but the range of his taste (Vaselines hymn, Bowie obscurity, Leadbelly showstopper). Hear the most soulful white singer of his generation explore nuances of pain — from gasping anxiety to writhing agony — that language can only approximate. Interpret it not as a desperate cry for help but as a man mastering the sources of that pain, if just momentarily, through his art. Believe nothing was inevitable.
4
Jeff Buckley, ‘Grace’
After Jeff Buckley shrugged off comparisons to a father he barely knew, avant-folk pioneer Tim Buckley, a few tone-deaf critics lumped him in with saccharine soul propagator Michael Bolton. Suddenly, drooling record execs, including Arista's Clive Davis, frequented his Lower East Side solo shows in coffeehouses like Sin-é. His revenge was the schizophrenic, jazz-rock fever dream Grace. The only full-length released during Buckley's all-too-short life reveals a misunderstood man inspired by the boundless, and often androgynous, spirit of Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis, Edith Piaf and Nina Simone. From the barreling "Eternal Life," to the quieter riot of "Last Goodbye," to the dewy cover of "Lilac Wine," Buckley's emotional honesty is the strongest tie. His essential, falsetto-rich rewrite of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," eventually became a go-to for talent shows and sentimental singer-songwriters, but deeper listens reveal an adventurous spirit owing nothing to anyone.
3
Weezer, ‘Weezer’
Plenty of Nineties rockers had reps for shrugging off their success, but only one applied to Harvard at the height of his band's debut-album acclaim and said, "I really want to disappear, grow a beard, not talk to anyone, not make any friends. I just want to disappear and study." We present Rivers Cuomo, ladies and gentlemen, the bespectacled, Kiss-loving guitar god who grew up on an ashram before relocating to L.A. to live out his metal dreams. But rather than turn into a grizzled Sunset Strip lizard, Cuomo wrote power-pop songs about decomposing sweaters and his love of Dungeons and Dragons, and became one of the most endearing anti-stars of his generation. Weezer's 1994 album Weezer was the first of three eponymous albums and one of the strongest debuts of all time, from the loud-quiet-loud chug of "My Name Is Jonas" to the jangly punch of "Say It Ain't So" to the spaced-out closer "Only in Dreams," which is where the awkward, angsty Cuomo — like many of the band's fans — seemed happiest living out his fantasies.
2
Nine Inch Nails, ‘The Downward Spiral’
Every generation needs its shock-rock icon and Gen X's was undeniably Trent Reznor. "Nine Inch Nails are theater," Reznor told Rolling Stone in 1994. "What we do is closer to Alice Cooper than Pearl Jam." How else could he explain lyrics like "I want to fuck you like an animal" and "God is dead and no one cares" — as well as the fact that he had recorded his second record, The Downward Spiral, in the house where the Manson Family murdered Sharon Tate, at a time when Eddie Vedder was asking not to be called "daughter" over acoustic guitars? But while Cooper's shock tactics often included a moralistic twist, Reznor's allegories were mostly about nihilism and hopelessness: Reznor said that "Big Man With a Gun" was a satire about misogyny in gangsta rap after drawing scorn from the National Political Congress of Black Women, who thought NIN were hip-hop. "I can make something loud, but how can I make it the loudest, noisiest, most abrasive thing I've ever heard?" he asked in 1994. "Can I go 10 steps past the goriest horror film you've ever seen in a way that's more disturbing than cheesy? I know I can."
1
Green Day, ‘Dookie’
If Pearl Jam were too epic was for you, Nirvana too oblique, if your suburban teen inertia sprang from tedium not trauma — well, these nagging brats were here to spill hair dye on your living room carpet. Tré Cool's stop-start drum swats, Mike Dirnt's back-talk bass melodies, Billie Joe Armstong's nuanced machine-gun chording — each element in these 15 simple little tunes (save the goof bonus track) had a twitchy precision that'd get a fancier band called "arty." The noodling bass line for "Longview" may be Mingus compared to the heavy-thumbed pulse Dee Dee Ramone bequeathed to punk's low-end, but it's also every bit as aimless as a song about jerking off in front of the TV demands. "Basketcase" belittles its own stoner panic, "When I Come Around" is a punchy shrug of lovers' squabble, and the fierce sweep of "Welcome to Paradise" hints at the rock operas to come once they grew up to become a fancier, even artier band.
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