# The Very Best Rock Album Of The 1990's **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 21, 2017, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478 "2017-10-21T21:13:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/21 "2017-10-21T22:49:40Z")
Oh wait, wait, wait…the OP now wants influential, as well as great. Here’s a list that might help: 🙂 > **[The 25 Most Influential Bands Of The '90s](http://www.houstonpress.com/music/the-25-most-influential-bands-of-the-90s-6776377)** > > As a music writer, we are asked constantly to compare the new with the old, to decipher the periphery where modern bands' influences come from to understand where we are going and what we are seeing. We can hear everything Keith Richards stole from... ETA: really, check this list out, in particular the Honorable Mentions. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/22 "2017-10-21T22:55:34Z")
> [@Anamorphic](#): > > A) Your original post asked for opinions on the very best rock albums of the 1990s, not the ones with the “greatest impact”. Liz Phair’s record was very well received at the time, and got a ton of play on college-type radio stations. > > B) I find it amusing that you started off your original post with “I would like your opinions”, and you have gone on to make it very clear with your responses again and again that, no, you don’t want anyone’s opinion. You’re right. I apologize. “Influential” is highly subjective and I should have known that. I wasn’t trying to move the goalposts as much as promote my favorite album from that time. I ask forgiveness. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/23 "2017-10-21T22:59:16Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Oh wait, wait, wait…the OP now wants influential, as well as great. Here’s a list that might help: 🙂 > > [The 25 Most Influential Bands Of The '90s | Rocks Off | Houston | Houston Press | The Leading Independent News Source in Houston, Texas](http://www.houstonpress.com/music/the-25-most-influential-bands-of-the-90s-6776377) > > ETA: really, check this list out, in particular the Honorable Mentions. I guess I’m guilty of thinking primarily of the early 1990’s I forgot about Sublime, one of my favorite bands ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/24 "2017-10-21T23:06:58Z")
FWIW, _Rolling Stone_’s list of the [100 Best Albums of the 90s](http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-albums-of-the-nineties-20110427) has _Exile in Guyville_ at #20 and _Blood Sugar Sex Magic_ at #19. It’s at least theoretically possible that the Very Best Rock Album of the 1990’s is quite obscure because for whatever reason it never got the attention it deserved. Many of my own personal favorite albums from that decade never make it onto these kinds of lists. Maybe they deserve to be. Maybe they don’t, and I just like them so much because they hit my own personal sweet spot. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/25 "2017-10-21T23:08:01Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > That’s your entry? A concept album written at the very end of the decade comprised of love songs? Look, personal opinion matters, but shaping the genre of rock and record sales matter more. Anything wrong with a concept, or the end of the decade, or love songs? It’s actually 69 songs about love and love songs, but not a concept. OK sorry. Here’s my #3 of the decade: > **[Bee Thousand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_Thousand)** > > Bee Thousand is the seventh album by American indie rock band Guided by Voices, released on June 21, 1994, on Scat Records. After its release the band became one of the more prominent groups associated with the "lo-fi" genre, a movement defined by the relatively low fidelity of audio releases. Musically, the album draws inspiration from British Invasion-era rock music and punk rock. Following the release of Bee Thousand, the band began to attract interest from other record labels, eventually sign... ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/26 "2017-10-21T23:11:14Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Anything wrong with a concept, or the end of the decade, or love songs? It’s actually 69 songs about love and love songs, but not a concept. > > OK sorry. Here’s my #3 of the decade: > > [Bee Thousand - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_Thousand) You misspelled “Alien Lanes”. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/27 "2017-10-21T23:14:29Z")
I suppose under my newfound guidances for subjectivity I have no choice but to include everyone’s choices. Sigh,I should have worded my OP better. For instance, none of drad\_dogs choices resonate with me at all. Never even heard of them. I chose the RHCP record because it sprang out of hair metal’s era, was completly different from the grunge that followed AND was commercially accessible. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/28 "2017-10-21T23:15:00Z")
_Loveless_ and _Blue Lines_ both came out in 1991, certainly more interesting than RHCP’s cocks-in-socks dullery. The third biggest tune on the Hot 100 that year was C+C Music Factory’s _Gonna Make You Sweat_, and that had way more influence than anything guitar-based that year. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/29 "2017-10-21T23:17:19Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > _Loveless_ and _Blue Lines_ both came out in 1991, certainly more interesting than RHCP’s cocks-in-socks dullery. > > The third biggest tune on the Hot 100 that year was C+C Music Factory’s _Gonna Make You Sweat_, and that had way more influence than anything guitar-based that year. You’ve got to be kidding me. RHCP’s playing on that album is as funk as it gets for white boys. Frusciante and Flea LEAP off the album tracks. I cannot agree. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/30 "2017-10-21T23:18:51Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I suppose under my newfound guidances for subjectivity I have no choice but to include everyone’s choices. Sigh,I should have worded my OP better. > > For instance, none of drad\_dogs choices resonate with me at all. Never even heard of them. I chose the RHCP record because it sprang out of hair metal’s era, was completly different from the grunge that followed AND was commercially accessible. Sorry, but it’s just that there were lots of choices in the 90s, so people went in different directions. And I haven’t even mentioned Pavement’s “Brighten the Corners” yet. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/31 "2017-10-21T23:20:58Z")
> [@Anamorphic](#): > > Liz Phair is “obscure shit”? Jesus. Yeah, I was seriously taken aback by that. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/32 "2017-10-21T23:21:27Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Wait…influential: infinite > > But the very best albums of the 1990’s??? I’m trying to imagine a world where **all** bands are influential. Oh yeah, it’s like the R and R HOF! ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/33 "2017-10-21T23:28:20Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Did Liz Phair make a greater impact than Nirvana, Chilis, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, etc? > > I don’t think so. Therefore, she is obscure compared to them and the grunge movement that rocked the early 1990’s. Fuck, Courtney Love was more influential than Liz. Impact is silly record reviewer nonsense. It’s the attempt to marginalize the disliked and support personal preference through the citing of the unmeasurable. Exile in Guyville was formative. And hell, the RHCP were never that great a BAND…largely due to Kiedis’ weakness as a lyricist and singer. Flat and unlistenable, in my opinion. I’d be more willing to offer Everclear’s ‘Sparkle and Fade’ and the preeminent CD of the 90s. But it’s an intensely personal and opinion-oriented question. It could easily be Nevermind, or The Gin Blossom’s New Miserable Experience or the Bosstone’s Let’s Face It or several other albums that dominated for a time. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/34 "2017-10-21T23:29:24Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Yeah, I was seriously taken aback by that. By sheer volume of record sales, she was. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/35 "2017-10-21T23:30:45Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Impact is silly record reviewer nonsense. It’s the attempt to marginalize the disliked and support personal preference through the citing of the unmeasurable. > > Exile in Guyville was formative. And hell, the RHCP were never that great a BAND…largely due to Kiedis’ weakness as a lyricist and singer. Flat and unlistenable, in my opinion. > > I’d be more willing to offer Everclear’s ‘Sparkle and Fade’ and the preeminent CD of the 90s. But it’s an intensely personal and opinion-oriented question. It could easily be Nevermind, or The Gin Blossom’s New Miserable Experience or the Bosstone’s Let’s Face It or several other albums that dominated for a time. True, I’ve come to realize how fraught with subjectivity this question becomes. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/36 "2017-10-21T23:34:29Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > You misspelled “Alien Lanes”. Wait I’m gonna go get my _ **suitcase.** _ Robert Pollard is a true american treasure. If he’s obscure then, well that explains a lot about the world. (I’m talking guided by voices here) This guy writes like lennon, davies, and zappa, and he has put out 1000 songs. He would not have a singles career in any universe we know, but his songs would be the best, in the universe, and a lot of times they are. It’s harder to find the great stuff, as time goes on. So that’s a problem, in our musical culture, since rock became a large technocratic industry. The great people who were inspired by the rock revolution to go forward after the “end of music” or punk or whatever, and keep trying to write good melodies, may be obscure, for you, alt least until someone has heard them. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/37 "2017-10-21T23:37:22Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > By sheer volume of record sales, she was. It was as an overachiever though. It was a huge underground sensation. Record of the year in the Voice. Think pieces up the wazoo. The critical darling who lived up to it and made the critics look good. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/38 "2017-10-21T23:54:48Z")
Who didn’t tap their feet and sing along with the anthemic choruses of [Very Emergency](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK3bG1OQeLw) by the Promise Ring? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/39 "2017-10-22T00:28:04Z")
If the 90s were all about obscure albums by very white guys (and Liz Phair, who was neither obscure nor a guy) then how can anyone forget Thomas Dolby’s 90s comeback triumph, _Astronauts & Heretics_? ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478/40 "2017-10-22T00:30:26Z")
I came in to post, after about ten seconds though, Liz Phair’s ‘Exile’ From beginning to end, not a clunker to be found. And it _flows_, almost Abbey Roady. And this is exactly what the OP was asking about. mmm [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-very-best-rock-album-of-the-1990s/799478.md?page=3)