[tortoise]

Since we're a good half decade removed, we can now safely commence the '90s nostalgia movement. This was the decade that irrevocably shaped my musical taste, so I'm eternally grateful that it was such a golden age for independent and adventurous music.

Okay, so without further ado, here are my personal favorites, listed first in chronological order. I will re-arrange them in order of preference later. Please feel free to make your own list(s), or snicker at mine, or whatever.

1. Sonic Youth - Goo (1990)
2. The Chills - Submarine Bells (1990)
3. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (1991)
4. Slint - Spiderland (1991)
5. Talk Talk - Laughing Stock (1991)
6. Nirvana - Nevermind (1991)
7. Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted (1992)
8. Beastie Boys - Check Your Head (1992)
9. Tom Waits - Bone Machine (1992)
10. Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand (1994)
11. Portishead - Dummy (1994)
12. Tricky - Maxinquaye (1995)
13. Beck - Odelay (1996)
14. DJ Shadow - Endtroducing... (1996)
15. Radiohead - OK Computer (1997)
16. Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (1997)
17. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998)
18. Tortoise - TNT (1998)
19. Massive Attack - Mezzanine (1998)
20. Calexico - The Black Light (1998)
21. Godspeed You Black Emperor - F# A# Infinity (1998)
22. The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin (1999)
23. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See A Darkness (1999)

For no particular reason, I decided to limit the list to one album per artist, else Yo La Tengo, Massive Attack, and The Beasties would each have a few more listed.

 

[zoboomofo]

Primal Scream - Screamadelica
Aphex Twin - S.A.W 85-92
Pulp - His N Hers
Oasis - Definitely Maybe
Radiohead - Pablo Honey (yes, that's right!)
Radiohead - My Iron Lung EP (8 tracks isn't that short of a proper album)
Mercury Rev - Yerself Is Steam
REM - Automatic For The People
Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Nirvana - In Utero

Hmm, no Verve in my 90s Top 10. That's a first.

I've also got 3 songs from the 90s that are in heavy rotation as Carlo used to say.

Ozzy - No More Tears
Sisters Of Mercy - More
Belle & Sebastian - I Fought In A War.

 

[Borat]

My favorite is Radiohead's OK Computer.

The rest are in no particular order:

Dismemberment Plan - Emergency and I
Bjork - Homogenic
Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the 36 Chambers
Raekwon the Chef - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
The Sundays - Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic
The Sundays - Static & Silence
Radiohead - The Bends
Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Elliott Smith - Either/Or
Wilco - Summerteeth

 

[Masonjar]

It's been a while since I worked on my 90's list.. Here's from my working version.. top 25:

01 Slint - SPIDERLAND
02 My Bloody Valentine - LOVELESS
03 The Jesus Lizard - GOAT
04 Bark Psychosis - HEX
05 Mercury Rev - YERSELF IS STEAM
06 Hum - DOWNWARD IS HEAVENWARD
07 The God Machine - SCENES FROM THE SECOND STOREY
08 Coil - LOVE'S SECRET DOMAIN
09 Radiohead - OK COMPUTER
10 Massive Attack - MEZZANINE
11 Dazzling Killmen - FACE OF COLLAPSE
12 Kyuss - SKY VALLEY
13 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - HENRY'S DREAM
14 Slowdive - SOUVLAKI
15 The Flaming Lips - TRANSMISSIONS FROM THE SATTELLITE HEART
16 Nirvana - In Utero
17 Tool - AENIMA
18 Pavement - SLANTED AND ENCHANTED
19 Acid Bath - WHEN THE KITE STRING POPS
20 Pale Saints - IN RIBBONS
21 Moonshake - EVA LUNA
22 Cocteau Twins - HEAVEN OR LAS VEGAS
23 Wedding Present - SEA MONSTERS
24 Clutch - Clutch
25 Rain Tree Crow - Rain Tree Crow

-jar

 

[CRESCENDOPOWER]

Here are some of my favorite albums from the 90's:

Metallica – Metallica (Black Album)
Marilyn Manson – Antichrist Superstar
Tool – Aenima
White Zombie – La Sexorcisto Devil Music Vol. #1/ Astro Creep 2000
No Doubt – Tragic Kingdom
Nirvana- Nevermind
Ozzy Osbourne – No More Tears
R.E.M. – Automatic For The People
Pearl Jam – Ten / Vs.
The Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie, and the Infinite Sadness
Depeche Mode – Violator
Faith No More – Angel Dust
Rammstein – Sehnsucht
Rob Zombie – Hellbilly Delulxe

 

[chronoso]

well, we've stumbled upon just about my favorite decade of music...let's see...

Fugazi - Repeater + 3
TMBG - Flood
Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend
PJ - Ten
Spin Doctors - Pocket Full of Kryptonite
Temple of the Dog - Temple of the Dog
the Last of the Mohicans soundtrack
Mother Love Bone - Mother Love Bone
R.E.M. - Automatic for the People
Roger Waters - Amused to Death
Counting Crows - August and Everything After, Recovering the Satellites, and Across a Wire (get this one, it's a moral imperative)
the No Alternative compilation
Nightmare Before Christmas sndtrk
The Afghan Whigs - What Jail Is Like EP (this one needs to make it to my daily listening pile more often)
the DGC Rarities comp
Green Day - Dookie
Page and Plant - No Quarter (you cant beat this version of Gallows Pole)
Nirvana - Unplugged
Oasis - Definitely Maybe
The Offspring - Smash
Pink Floyd - Division Bell
Portishead - Dummy and Roseland NYC Live
Sebadoh - Bakesale (this is one of the few albums i cannot figure out how i stumbled upon. i cant find any way i would have heard of this, but...im glad i found it)
Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstacy
Sponge - Rotting Pinata and Wax Ecstatic
Weezer - Weezer (Blue) and Pinkerton
Alice in Chains - Alice in Chains
Collective Soul...
Guster - all three albums they released that decade
Harvey Danger - Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? (possibly the best alt-rock album made...next to Matthew Sweet)
Modest Mouse - Lonesome Crowded West and This is a Long Drive..
OLP - Clumsy
Radiohead - OK Computer (i have a feeling this one is going to come up a lot in this thread)
Sneaker Pimps - Becoming X
Third Eye Blind - Third Eye Blind
Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen
Cake - Fashion Nugget, Prolonging the Magic, and Motorcade of Generosity, in that order
Live - Throwing Copper
The Rentals albums
The Presidents of the Uni...USA - PUSA and II
Rolling Stones - Stripped (amaaaaazing recording)
Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie (sorta a touchstone of a generation, i spose)
Beck - Odelay
Gin Blossoms - Congratulations, I'm Sorry (such pretty alt-pop)
Nerf Herder - Nerf Herder
both Neutral Milk Hotel albums
Tool - Undertow (hah, didnt expect that to come after neutral milk hotel, didja?)
Everclear - So Much For the Afterglow (my friend will argue that Sparkle and Fade is the better album until the band shows up and says different, but i..disagreee. i think afterglow is better)
Conehead Buddha - The Man With the Hat
Eve6 - Eve6
The Ghastly Ones - A-Haunting We Will Go (yay horror-surf-rock)
Johnny Lang - Wonder This World
The Living End - The Living End
Semisonic - Feeling Strangely Fine
Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
Sublime - Acoustic - Bradleu Nowell & Friends (for some reason, this is my favourite sublime disc)
The Tragically Hip - Phantom Power (if you live outside of canadia and have heard (of) these guys, consider yourself lucky)
Allister - Dead Ends and Girlfriends
Angry Samoads - The '90s Suck and So Do You
Blue Man Group - Audio
Buckcherry - Buckcherry
Fiona Apple - When The Pawn... (i vote this for top 10 mastered/produced albums of all time, listen to it hard sometime)
Gigolo Aunts - Minor Chords and Major Themes
Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape
the Royal Tennenbaums soundtrack
the Singles soundtrack
Metallica - S&M
the Short Music for Short People compilation
Polaris - Music from the Adventures of Pete and Pete
...actually, anything that was playing in that show (you can likely easily find a bootleg named WART Radio if you look hard enough)
The Promise Ring - Very Emergency
The Rapture - mirror
Pearl Jam - Merkinball

...and that's the way it was

-james

 

[Jasper994]

Too many to name them all (I like R&B, Hip Hop/Rap, Rock, Country, Jazz, etc), but to be totally honest, I really miss the male vocal groups from the early 90's (Boyz II Men, Az Yet, All-4-One, Shai, and (dare I say) Color Me Badd; 112 is still around but they really weren't that great). It's a sub-genre I'll really miss until it makes a return... if ever. The boy bands that came out later like the Backstreet Boys and *Nsync couldn't even come close to the same caliber, and focused more on slick dance moves then vocal talent... LAME!

 

[tortoise]

And here, as promised, is my list in order of preference (as of this moment, subject to change without notice, your mileage may vary, professional driver closed course, caveat auditor, side effects are generally mild and may include death):

• My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (1991)
• Slint - Spiderland (1991)
• Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (1997)
• Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand (1994)
• Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted (1992)
• Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998)
• Talk Talk - Laughing Stock (1991)
• Radiohead - OK Computer (1997)
• Beck - Odelay (1996)
• Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See A Darkness (1999)
• Portishead - Dummy (1994)
• DJ Shadow - Endtroducing... (1996)
• Massive Attack - Mezzanine (1998)
• Tortoise - TNT (1998)
• Calexico - The Black Light (1998)
• Beastie Boys - Check Your Head (1992)
• Godspeed You Black Emperor - F# A# Infinity (1998)
• Tricky - Maxinquaye (1995)
• The Chills - Submarine Bells (1990)
• The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin (1999)
• Tom Waits - Bone Machine (1992)
• Sonic Youth - Goo (1990)
• Nirvana - Nevermind (1991)

Note: These aren't necessarily listed in order of [cue hosannas] "greatness" or even my favorites at the time. Rather, I'm ranking them in order of how likely I am to select them on my iPod today. My scroll wheel has ADHD, so for it to stop on a given album, that album must verily rock my world.

 

[tortoise]

And, as I suppose is inevitable with any list like this, I just remembered another amazing album that I listen to at least once a week:

1. The Olivia Tremor Control - Music from the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle (1996)

It should go right below Neutral Milk Hotel in my "favorites as of this moment" list.

 

[SunByrne]

Hmm, I currently own 179 CDs released in the 1990s. There are the ones which jump out:

The Cure: Mixed Up
Cocteau Twins: Heaven or Las Vegas
Depeche Mode: Violator
William Orbit: Strange Cargo III, Hinterland
Enigma: MCMXC a.D.
The Crystal Method: Vegas, Tweekend
Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes
U2: Achtung Baby
Bjork: Debut
Curve: uhh, pretty much all of it, especially Come Clean
Garbage: Version 2.0
Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral
Underworld: Dubnobasswithmyheadman, Beaucoup Fish
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult: Hit and Run Holiday
Sounds from the Ground: Kin
Tool: AEnima (can I vote for this twice?)
Art of Noise: The Seduction of Claude Debussy
Electronic: Twisted Tenderness
Soundtracks: The Cool World, The Crow, The Fifth Element, The Matrix, American Beauty (score)

Not even close to my 80s list but longer than my 70s list, I'm sure...

 

[Enverxis]

White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol.1 (1992)
Alice in Chains - Dirt (1992)
Alice in Chains - MTV Unplugged (1996)
The Corrs - Forgiven Not Forgotten (1995)
Angels of Venice - Angels of Venice (1997)
Tura Satana - Relief Through Releas (1997)
Lacuna Coil - Lacuna Coil (1997)
Kittie - Spit (1999)
Enigma - MCMXC a.D. (1992)

 

[Aman]

One word:

Any Nirvana record.

Not only is "Nevermind" one of my favorite albums of all time, it's by-far what defined the music of that era.

 

[juneamour]

The Eagles- Hell Freezes Over
Enya- Shepherd Moon
Sinead O'Connor- I do not want what I haven't got
Nirvana- Nevermind
GNR - Use your Illusion
Tori Amos- Little Earthquake
Radiohead- OK Computer
Coldplay- A rush of blood to the head

 

[crazyfrenchman27]

Pennywise - About Time (1995) is clearly the best album of the nineties, in both spirit and musicality.

Stick it to the grunge movement!

-Matt

 

[altezza]

Great decade for music, here are my favorites in chrono and alpha order:

1. Operation Ivy - Energy (1990)
2. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (1991)
3. Slint - Spiderland (1991)
4. Aphex Twin - Richard D. James Album (1996)
5. Modest Mouse - This is a Long Drive With Nothing to Think About (1996)
6. Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West (1997)
7. Mogwai - Young Team (1997)
8. Radiohead - OK Computer (1997)
9. Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children (1998)
10. Godspeed You Black Emperor! - F# A# Infinity (1998)
11. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998)
12. Tortoise - TNT (1998)
13. Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun (1999)

My top 3 would be OK Computer, The Lonesome Crowded West, and Young Team.