The 50 greatest rock albums of the 1990s

Your parents, or potentially your grandparents, will try to convince you the 1960s was the best ever decade for music, or more specifically guitar music. Now, granted, they might have a point to some degree given rock was essentially entirely invented and popularised in that decade, along with The Beatles basically coming up with almost every conceivable genre of music within a seven year span.

But you are well within your rights to tell them to go and take a hike (once you know the inheritance is secure) because the best decade ever for guitar music was actually the 1990s. It was when we waved goodbye to soft rock and hair metal and instead opened the door to ten years of albums that were endlessly inventive, packed full of incredible anthems, wide-ranging styles and experimentation that admittedly sometimes borrowed from the past, but that kicked off in Los Angeles with the exuberant solos of Guns ‘N Roses and ended up in Oxfordshire with Radiohead turning everything upside down and inside out.

Here, in no particular order, are just 50 examples of why the ‘90s was the greatest decade for rock albums in all of history, so take out a bank loan, buy them all on vinyl immediately and then worry about paying it back later. But If your favourite isn’t on the list don’t “at” us ok? Remember, even on the internet, opinions are not facts.

50. Nirvana - Nevermind (1991)

The best albums in history somehow seem to constantly improve as more history arrives. Nevermind is no exception. Every song is a landmark, Kurt Cobain’s voice becomes as iconic to us as Lennon’s was to him and the stomach-bothering, Butch Vig produced bass/guitar/drum sound still outdoes anything on the radio to this day. It will always be held up as a classic, and deservedly so.

49. Pearl Jam - Vs. (1993)

While ‘Ten’ might have had the hits, this second album is where Pearl Jam really showed what they were about. The thunderous, recalcitrant screams of ‘Leash’, ‘Animal’ and ‘Go’ contrast with the delicate, wistful acoustic strumming of ‘Elderly Woman Behind the Counter…’ One of the best "difficult second albums" in rock history.

48. Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine (1991)

Slamming Led Zeppelin-esque riffs up against enormous hip-hop beats and savage, quick-fire political rap, this was a middle finger in musical form, getting everyone angrily pogoing across the globe from Compton to Cricklewood. It gave every teenage boy in the British suburbs an excuse to slam the bedroom door really rather hard.

47. Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

Recorded in just two weeks, the prodigiously talented Noel Gallagher gave a yearning UK public the anthems they needed for two summers of singing, beer, football and partying. Not just ‘Wonderwall’, not just ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’, but ‘Champagne Supernova’ too. Era-defining.

46. The Black Crowes - Amorica (1994)

The Black Crowes kicked off the decade as a solid throwback rock and roll band doing covers of ‘Hard to Handle’. This album showed how the Robinson brothers had matured in four years with a stunning collection of southern-fried songs that ranged from classic Sticky Fingers-era Stones on ‘Gone’ to the gorgeous, "one of the best piano outros ever" last track ‘Descending’.

45. Embrace - The Good Will Out (1998)

As Britain looked for successors to Oasis, it was Huddersfield’s Embrace who talked the talk and for a moment looked like they had the chops to do it. In even attempting it they produced a fantastic album of country-conquering intent, with arms aloft choruses on ‘All You Good Good People’, the incredible, soaring outro of ‘Retread’ and even a ‘Na na na’ refrain to sing while at the end of the gig a la 'Hey Jude' with the anthemic ‘The Good Will Out.’

44. Weezer - Weezer (1994)

Rivers Cuomo and his west coast buddies never got better than they did the first time out with this near-perfect, all killer, no filler mix of Beach Boys harmonies and heavy, crunchy guitars with so much bite and bottom end they were used as a reference in recording studios around the world for years to come. Pretty much every song is outstanding, but especially ‘Undone - The Sweater Song’ and ‘My Name is Jonas’.

43. Radiohead - The Bends (1995)

Not just a bridge between Pablo Honey and OK Computer, this album was an announcement of how special a band Radiohead were becoming. The last time they did anything traditional they did it better than almost anyone else, with the exquisite, anti-consumerist ‘Fake Plastic Trees', and the big single ‘High and Dry’. It was ‘Just’ though and the accompanying video that made waves globally and signified that Yorke’s band were going to be history-making.

42. Super Furry Animals - Radiator (1997)

The Welsh wizards built on the excitement generated by their debut the previous year and produced this; a melody-packed, experimental delight that included three minute pop singles, 90-second punk rock, electronic squiggles and the epic, closing tribute to home, ‘Mountain People’.

41. The Breeders - Last Splash (1993)

If you doubt The Breeders had the staying power to be included on a list like this, you only needed to be at a summer festival this year to witness what happens when ‘Cannonball’ is played over a PA or before a band comes on stage. You'd see kids in their teens inexplicably bouncing along and singing to a tune you wouldn’t think they could possibly know. They do though, and the Pixies spin-off album still finds new fans.

40. Jeff Buckley - Grace (1994)

Blessed with a talent and a voice that defied description, Jeff Buckley blended original compositions and covers to make an album that stood entirely apart from anything that year or decade. It crackles throughout with magic and that transcendent vocal. God knows what he would have gone on to achieve had he lived to reach his thirties.

39. The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (1993)

It’s staggering that Billy Corgan wrote and recorded not just this but Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness too, both before turning 27. A wall of guitars, screaming solos, delicate breakdowns and radio friendly hits like ‘Today’ make for one of the finest, best sounding rock records ever made.

38. Tom Petty - Wildflowers (1994)

A bit like Weller did over here, Petty took stock of his 1980s fame as one of the decade’s alternative rock greats and went back to basics with an acoustic guitar. In doing so he produced a beautifully reflective album, the title track being a particular highlight along with the heartfelt ‘Crawling Back to You’. “I’m so tired of being tired.” We hear you Tom.

37. U2 - Achtung Baby (1991)

You have two options once you’ve made it. You repeat the trick again and again or you do something completely different. For all the criticism thrown at U2 they have never stood still, and in 1991 they embraced the growing influence of EDM and hip-hop with the production of this album that still found room for more bread and butter (but still truly great) singles like ‘One’ and ‘Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses’.

36. Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral (1994)

Trent Reznor threw the lot at this. The Downward Spiral plays host to a mix of genres and industrial beats and features not only a song that seems genuinely conceived of solely for carnal exploits in the form of ‘Closer’, but also a heady mixture of commercial and challenging, as the furious ‘I Do Not Want This’ showed all too well.

35. Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion 1 (1991)

Almost like a final, glorious swansong to the hard drinking, hard smoking, hard hairspraying days of the late ‘80s, Guns n’ Roses went all-in with a two-parter that featured awe-inspiring histrionics in the shape of ‘November Rain’, plus a foot to the floor cover of ‘Live and Let Die’ and more sensitive fare with ‘Don’t Cry’. Still sounds fantastic.

34. Alice in Chains - Dirt (1992)

On occasion too heavy for the grunge crowd, Alice in Chains were still a supremely gifted band, more obviously on albums than singles. This one nevertheless featured ‘Down in a Hole’ - one of the finest songs of the ‘90s. Vocalist Layne Staley has sadly passed away but guitarist Jerry Cantrell still puts out quality work thirty years on.

33. R.E.M. - Automatic for the People (1992)

While 1991’s Out of Time had the fun, bouncy pop of ‘Shiny Happy People’, this went in entirely the other direction to wondrous effect. The car-stopping beauty of songs like ‘Everybody Hurts’ and 'Nightswimming' were rarely matched by any other band that decade.

32. Blur - 13 (1999)

Emerging blinking from the coke blizzard of Britpop, while Oasis won the war, Blur remained in a bunker working on far more interesting and introspective music before delivering this. 13 is a fine collection of songs that includes the gospel-kissed ‘Tender’ and one of the finest break-up letters of all time with Albarn’s excoriating ‘No Distance Left to Run’.

31. Pearl Jam - Ten (1991)

This may have been the slightly less fashionable counterweight to Nevermind, what with it featuring *gasp* guitar solos, but the songs were too good, the vocals too attention-grabbing and the musicianship too accomplished to do anything other than sell by the many millions. To truly get why it worked so well, check out the live version of ‘Porch’ on the MTV unplugged performance.

30. Oasis - Definitely Maybe (1994)

An album that completely changed the cultural landscape of the UK. The Gallagher brothers arrived fully-formed from Burnage with a suitcase full of generational tunes borrowing from the best of the Beatles, the Sex Pistols and the Stone Roses. They invited the country to get involved and all of us did. Nothing was the same in Britain for years.

29. The Verve - Urban Hymns (1997)

Richard Ashcroft and his gang had been building to something very special. After for two albums and four years it duly arrived with this string-laden, zeitgeist-capturing classic. It was essentially the anthemic sound of Ashcroft baring his soul in prayer and asking millions to sing along with him. “Try to make ends meet, you’re a slave to money and you die” is pure truth in art.

28. Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go (1996)

The Manics transformation from overly-serious tortured poets to chart-conquering behemoths was completed with this album, bursting with sing-alongs that featured one of the finest British rock songs ever recorded in the form of ‘A Design for Life’. It, guitar fans, is one of the few songs Noel Gallagher openly admits he wishes he’d written.

27. Paul Weller - Stanley Road (1995)

Already an institution from The Jam and the Style Council, Weller jumped on-board an early Britpop train and nailed the sound and spirit right out of the gates. Stanley Road revisits the sound of 1960s British guitar bands in order to underpin some superb songs. ‘Broken Stones' is a Fender Rhodes-backed beauty, while ‘The Changingman’ and ‘You Do Something To Me’ illustrate Weller’s prowess perfectly.

26. Alanis Morisette - Jagged Little Pill (1995)

An album that made a lot of guys under 20 suddenly look at their girlfriend with genuine and deserved fear, this was a game-changing record. It contains not just proper MTV-dominating hits but an understanding about life that completely belied Morrisette’s 21 years. The opener ‘You Oughta Know’ is an outrageously good rock song.

25. Green Day - Dookie (1994)

While everyone was still wondering what Pearl Jam and Nirvana were going to do next, along came Billie Joe Armstrong with a pocket full of punk-rock-pop earworms and altered the direction of US music, paving the way for the likes of Blink 182 to follow a few years later. While they had many hits for decades, this is the best, distilled Green Day.

24. Teenage Fanclub - Grand Prix (1995)

About as perfectly melodic an album as you could imagine, this is the sound of a band at their artistic peak, wearing influences (Big Star, The Byrds) on their sleeves and sounding like they know exactly how good what they’re producing is. It’s an unbelievable record, the highlights of which are multitudinous, but start off with ‘Neil Jung’.

23. The Stone Roses - Second Coming (1994)

Underservedly thought of us ‘meh’ by the press on release simply because it wasn’t the iconic debut, and took so long to make, this is a massive album full of great songs, great lyrics (“You should have been an angel, it would have suited you”), plus incredibly cool basslines, drumbeats and scorching guitar solos. Try to stick on ‘Love Spreads’ without immediately turning it up loud and saying "AHHHH". Impossible.

22. Counting Crows - August and Everything After (1993)

Utterly timeless, desperately beautiful, with maybe the greatest opening lyrical stanza of any rock album since. While the big radio hit ‘Mr Jones’ got them in the door, they stayed for the quality of songs like ‘Rain King’, ‘Perfect Blue Buildings’, and the heartbreaking declaration of new-found love, ‘Anna Begins’.

21. The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995)

Billy Corgan’s magnum opus rewards more and more every time you go back to it. An astonishing achievement that took music out of grunge and into something far more complex and multi-layered. Aside from the obvious ‘1979’ and ‘Tonight, Tonight’ there are true stand-outs like ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ and ‘Zero’.

20. Pearl Jam - Yield (1998)

While many of their contemporaries had fallen by the wayside, Pearl Jam were taking stock and starting to put together some of their best work yet, including this tune-packed effort that got off to a stormer with ‘Brain of J’. It takes a turn for the anthemic with ’Given to Fly’ and allowed Eddie Vedder to do that awesome screaming thing on ‘Do the Evolution’.

19. Sugar - Copper Blue (1992)

Bob Mould combined a load of poppy hooks with very fuzzy guitars and made an album that many rock fans put at the top of their best of lists come the end of 1992. Stand outs are ‘A Good Idea’, ‘If I Can’t Change Your Mind’ and the "turn this up quick" prog-rock synth outro on ‘Hoover Dam’.

18. Dinosaur Jr. - Where You Been (1993)

J Mascis's voice is an acquired taste and that’s putting it mildly. But this album contains moments of majesty, like the string-laden outro of ‘What Else Is New?’. And if you enjoy lead guitar that makes your arm hairs stand up on end, put track 6 (‘Get Me’) on and witness the closing three minutes. You can thank us later.

17. Shack - HMS Fable (1999)

Possibly the unluckiest musicians in history, Liverpool’s Head brothers John and Mick made this "should have been huge" masterpiece at just the wrong time. ‘Comedy’ is one of the finest songs of the decade and there are utter gems at every turn, especially the stirring, anthemic ‘Cornish Town’ and ‘Beautiful’. They’re still active so keep an eye out for live dates.

16. Spin Doctors - Pocket Full of Kryptonite (1991)

Spin Doctors were never a cool band, but this New York City blues-inspired group made an album of upbeat, drink-in-the-air pop rock that outdid most others that year. They highlighted the summer with perfect three-minuter ‘Two Princes’ and the shimmering ‘How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me)’. People have forgotten this album and it’s well worth a replay.

15. Depeche Mode - Violator (1990)

Another band who were full-on pop in the 1980s but embraced a much darker sound as the decade turned, Depeche Mode hired the same producer, Flood, who would go on to knob-twist on NIN’s The Downward Spiral. The result was a shadowy synth-pop masterpiece, punctuated by the simple yet memorable guitar riff of ‘Personal Jesus’.

14. Ocean Colour Scene - Moseley Shoals (1995)

If you weren’t around at the time it’s hard to convey just what a huge band Ocean Colour Scene were in the UK, and that literally everyone owned this album on CD. It was unashamedly 1960s in sound and style, but that didn’t detract from it at all. Moseley Shoals is packed with riffs, tunes and singalongs, and is one of those albums that has a genuinely fantastic opening four tracks.

13. The La's - The La's (1990)

Much as the word genius has been rendered redundant through overuse, Lee Mavers was a genius. He hated this album and the way it sounded and would have spent twenty years rerecording it no doubt. But it stands as a textbook on how to write simple, effective guitar pop. Far more than just ‘There She Goes’, “The melody always finds me” sings Mavers, and he is right.

12. Soundgarden - Superunknown (1994)

The sadly missed Chris Cornell really did have a voice that was totally unique in its scale and effect. You only have to have witnessed Audioslave long after Soundgarden peaked to know that. In 1994 they produced their best album in Superunknown and conquered MTV with the monstrous ‘Black Hole Sun’, quite aside from including future classics like ‘Spoonman’.

11. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991)

Californian skate punks Red Hot Chili Peppers were about as big as bands got at the start of the decade, mostly due to the crossover majesty of ‘Under the Bridge’. It is surely the most commercially successful track about heroin addiction ever released. It led masses of people to this album of funky, bottom-heavy basslines and borderline rapped verses.

10. Metallica - Metallica (1991)

An enormous record, and some purists felt Metallica sold out with this one. They band couldn’t have cared less, though, as they poured every bit of talent, emotion, songwriting and guitar playing into this self-titled effort also known as the Black album. It spans from delicate (‘Nothing Else Matters’) to thunderous (‘Enter Sandman’). Another "somehow gets better with every passing year" album.

9. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (1991)

Without this album there is no Siamese Dream from The Smashing Pumpkins. Kevin Shields got hold of every guitar amp and effect pedal imaginable and visited 19 different studios to produce an ambient, psychedelic, ear-encompassing rock experience that’s never really been replicated. If you put this on in a room with anyone else in it they will ask within the first ten seconds, “Woah, what’s this?” - guaranteed.

8. Beck - Odelay (1996)

Before Beck moved into orchestrally backed, acoustic beauty but after the fallout of a global number one Loser, he channeled every influence he had into this hip-hop/dance/guitar double album that opens with the toe-tapping ‘Devil’s Haircut’. It then takes the listener on a journey into 80’s rap and electro and still finds time to sample Van Morrison’s 'Them' on ‘Jack-ass’.

7. Screaming Trees - Sweet Oblivion (1992)

Before Mark Lanegan and Josh Homme were in Queens of the Stone Age there was this, a throwback album still rooted in the heavier sound of grunge. It features the ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’-referencing ‘Dollar Bill’ and ‘Nearly Lost You’, which featured on Cameron Crowe’s era-capturing Singles soundtrack.

6. Pulp - Different Class (1995)

Although much loved at the time, there were a lot of people who derided Pulp as a kind of art rock for students, with Jarvis Cocker too clever by half and too knowing in his society-skewering lyrics. The reality though, as you’ll know if you’ve ever watched their performance of Common People at Reading in 2011, is they were a high quality rock band, and had brilliant songs, several of which are on this album.

5. Nirvana - In Utero (1993)

How do you follow Nevermind? It was a question people had been asking for two years by the time In Utero provided the answer. The tormented Kurt Cobain walked the line between radio play, fans and a record company wanting hits, and his own desire to go as far away from that as possible and just make noise. The result was this, on which you couldn’t keep his gargantuan talent quiet, the less accessible parts contrasted by the incredible ‘Heart-Shaped Box’.

4. Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape (1997)

Although he’d found his own audience post-Nirvana and made an excellent debut album with his new band, it was on this record Dave Grohl stepped into the limelight and announced himself as a songwriter and performer to rival anyone around. ‘Everlong’ will be listened to in fifty years time while ‘My Hero’ and ‘Walking After You’ signposted what the band would go on to achieve with the superb Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace.

3. Elastica - Elastica (1995)

Angular, punky guitar riffs and catchy, dismissive choruses were the order of the day on this still somewhat overlooked album that you imagine in years to come people will still be discovering. ‘Line Up’ and ‘Stutter’ would have been hits in any decade while ‘Connection’ can still be heard on countless indie movie soundtracks even now.

2. Suede - Dog Man Star (1994)

This went under the radar as the arriving Oasis swept all before them but Dog Man Star is an album tinged with genuine magic, especially on the towering, orchestral ‘Still Life’ and the song that all told is probably Suede’s best, ‘The Wild Ones’. Thirty years on it has that indefinable quality of sounding fresher than ever.

1. Radiohead - OK Computer (1997)

The sound of five men spurring each other on to push every sonic boundary they could while harnessing the songwriting genius that ran amok among them. An epic maelstrom of sound, shot through with almost limitless creativity. Even if this had just been ‘Paranoid Android’ and nothing else it would still be incredible. But it isn’t.

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