Best rock album of the 90's

Pearl Jam Ten, Metallica, Achtung Baby are tied for second.

But above all, Day for Night and Fully, Completely, both by the Tragically Hip are tied at number one, IMO.
Purple by STP was right up there too.

Defining song of had to be Smells Like Teen Spirit, followed by Even Flow.

Personal favorite song from the 90'2 is Scared, again by the Hip.

I saw GNR in 1987, backing up INXS, and AFD was on the shelf. I know because I bought it after the concert.

Jim
 
Good thread , If someone had a gun to my head I still couldn't pick just one .
Here are some of my favorites in no particular order .

Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual - 1990 (One of my all time favorites)
Mother Love Bone - Apple - 1990 (Another all time)
Tool - Aenima - 1996
Alice in Chains - SAP - 1992
Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream - 1993
Soundgarden - Superunknown - 1994
Radiohead - the Bends - 1995
Urge Overkill - Exit the Dragon - 1995
Gov't Mule - Dose - 1998 (R.I.P. Allen Woody)
Beastie Boys - Ill Communication - 1994
Guns and Roses - Use Your Illusion I & II - 1991
311 - Music - 1996
Seal - Seal - 1994
Dave Matthews Band - Crash - 1996
Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes 1991 - and Under the Pink 1994

There are more that elude me at the moment and that's a good thing :D .
 
Alice In Chains - Facelift

Released on August 28, 1990.

This was the album that started it all for me. AIC was so underrated at the time because of Nirvana's quick rise to fame.
 
I will 3rd Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream. It is an amazing work of art.

Close seconds would be Frank Black's Teenager of the Year, Pixies' Bossanova and Trompe le Monde, Camper van Beethoven's Key Lime Pie, Drivin-N-Cryin's Fly Me Courageous, Urge Overkill's Saturation, The Connell's One Simple Word, The Jayhawks' Tomorrow The Green Grass, The Silos' The Silos, Paw's Dragline, etc.

Jim Craig mentioned the Tragically Hip. I love that band, but mostly their stuff from the eighties. Up To Here and Road Apples I would put at the top of the list for best eighties rock albums, right after Pixies' Doolittle.
 
Man I forgot about AIC , I used to love that band.

Ahh this was late 90's, 1999 I believe but I forgot , what about Static X's Wisconsin Death Trip.
I recall many nights driving with a fat caffiene buzz listening to that cd , lol.


**oh man how could I forget !!!
Read down for Slaytanic's choice..... Good one !!!
 
My overall 1st place vote:

Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power
R.I.P. Dime.......

For my overall 1st choice for mellow music:
Catherine Wheel - Ferment (big thumbs up)
 
Wow, good thread! :thumbup: I must confess, it's just too frickin' hard to pick just one album! Of course, I'm also torn between picking what I think was the best musically, what I think was the most influential, and what my personal favorites are! So, as a sampling of all three categories:

Tool - Aenima. Wholly unique sound, to this day. In many ways, I think Tool has reinvented the parameters of what a rock album and rock sound consist of.
Metallica - self titled. I love this album; it's what first got me into the Mighty Met. And, nope, I don't think it's a sell-out album! :p
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik. It seems to me that it was this album that really vaulted them to the mainstream public's attention.
Nirvana - Nevermind. Eh, I'm not a big fan, but there's no denying the popularity and influence of this, and subsequent, albums.
Alice in Chains - Dirt, Jar of Flies, etc. I love a lot of this band's music. It's often such a brutally realistic look at Staley's life; he pulls no punches with himself, which I appreciate.
Pearl Jam - Ten and STP - Purple. Again, defined the sound of mainstream '90's rock.
Poor Old Lu - Sin. I'd be surprised if anyone on this board has heard of this band. They were a Christian rock band that didn't last long enough. I listened to this album basically every day for a year+.

Huh, there were so many good albums and bands then. Well, that was my teenage era, too, so that may have something to do with it :D
 
It's a tough call...Opeth, Sigur Ros, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Spiral Architect, Six Organs Of Admittance...so many great albums.

Tossing my vote towards one album in particular though. Death - Individual Thought Patterns

This is one of the best albums ever. Any time period, any genre. Absolutely everything about this is good. Lyrics, Musicianship, complexity, riffs, drum fills....it comes together oh so well.
 
Bush sixteen stone was a fun album was grat as well as the Cranberies "No need to argue" CD.

Megadeath's "Hidden Treasures" was good as well.
 
Jude Cole; 'Start The Car' or 'A View From 3rd Street.' He wrote it all, does all the vocals and plays most of the instruments, so that makes them both just studio masterpieces, but brilliant, nevertheless. Great stuff for us guys who grew up in the sixties and seventies. :) :) :)
 
Metallica - Metallica
Stone Temple Pilots - Core
Alice In Chains - Dirt

Anyone of these three albums I would consider tops on my list for the 90's. This was a tough choice, there were a lot of great rock albums in the 90's.
 
Jeez....hardly nothin' but metal head bangin' noise - ;) ....and then Jude Cole shows up. :thumbup: Start the Car was an awesome listen but now I'll have to throw Dada (Dada, El Subliminoso, or American Highway Flower) into the mix as the genre morphs to rock-that's-easier-on-the-ears listening. While we're headed that way, Pink Floyd's Pulse - CD (with or without the blinkin' heartbeat), LD, or DVD - works wonders and includes most of their other 90s release, The Division Bell.


(Still holding out for Metallica as the original Best Rock-o-the 90s Album though) :)
j
 
All great music listed above but I must digress. For me the best rock album of the '90s was Jethro Tull's "Rock Island". first for the variety of instruments used (flute, glockenshpeil, mandolin and on and on); second for the fact that this band was able to adapt a bit to a more modern style of music while keeping their original flair; third for the stories told by the music (albeit most from Europe they still have impact and similarities to us here in the stes).

Yes the Flute is a heavy metal instrument. Also either in the very late 1980's or early 1990's Jethro Tull won an award for "Best heavy metal guitar" beating out Metallica and Van Halen.

I also firmly believe that there were four band that were way ahead of their time as some of the styles they were using are now being used or some of their music is being used as the base for newer artists lyrics. These bands are and were: Jethro Tull, Yes, The Moody Blues, and finally E.L.O (who has had a score or two stollen by the black eyed peas, who put there beat boxes to it and added lyrics)
 
lizardman_u said:
All great music listed above but I must digress. For me the best rock album of the '90s was Jethro Tull's "Rock Island". first for the variety of instruments used (flute, glockenshpeil, mandolin and on and on); second for the fact that this band was able to adapt a bit to a more modern style of music while keeping their original flair; third for the stories told by the music (albeit most from Europe they still have impact and similarities to us here in the stes).

Yes the Flute is a heavy metal instrument. Also either in the very late 1980's or early 1990's Jethro Tull won an award for "Best heavy metal guitar" beating out Metallica and Van Halen.

I also firmly believe that there were four band that were way ahead of their time as some of the styles they were using are now being used or some of their music is being used as the base for newer artists lyrics. These bands are and were: Jethro Tull, Yes, The Moody Blues, and finally E.L.O (who has had a score or two stollen by the black eyed peas, who put there beat boxes to it and added lyrics)
Click to expand...
I agree that Jethro Tull has put out some great music over the years, and I do remember them getting the Grammy nod over Metallica back then. The Grammy voters were the butt of a lot of jokes over that one - it proved how out of touch they were with the genre of "Heavy Metal". Jethro Tull - a great band? Yep. Could they be heavy when they needed to be? Yep. But Metal? Nah.

BTW I vote for the triangle over the flute when it comes to Metal instrumentation. :D
 
I agree with ya Torz, Jethro Tull is your "basic" rock/folk band and not a metal band, I enjoy their earlier stuff (think "thick as a brick") where they start out playing Classical music and fade into a Thumping, whoop arse metal rift and back and forth. I also really enjoyed Ian Anderson's flute pieces such as "Bouree" and some of the blues pieces that they did. All in all Jethro Tull has added new sounds/styles/content and intermingled them into their music over the years to stay current in the style of music being played on the radio (with the exception of rap and hip hop, of course). :)

But this thread was the best "rock" album of the '90s not the best "metal" album. and what about maybe a set of Chimes as the new metal instrument:p :D
 
This is a question with way to many answers.

Alice in Chains---Dirt
Tool--- Undertow
Pearl Jam ---Ten
I know that's more than one.:D On a side note for something completely different for the AIC and Pearl Jan fans check out Mad Season"Above" released in 1995.It was a one shot deal with a mix of members from both bands with Layne at his haunting best,IMO.
 
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