Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s by buzzdainer

The nineties were an adventure-filled, geographically complicated decade for me. I began the decade in college, where I hosted a weekly alternative rock show on the campus radio station and worked part-time at an independent record store. After that I worked in various jobs--high school social studies teacher, naturalist, ESL instructor, food service flunkie, wilderness trip leader, outdoor program director, and (believe it or not) children's television game show host. During the nineties I lived in places as far-flung as Maine, Vermont, New York, Western Australia, Alaska, North Carolina, and South Korea. Songs about travel and displacement were especially meaningful to me.

My musical tastes from the nineties reflect what I was doing at the time. Toward the beginning of the decade I can see the way my involvement in disc jockeying and selling records affected my taste, as there's a lot of alternative rock and underground rock in my collection from that period. Once I moved to North Carolina, I started listening a lot to WNCW, a great community station out of Spindale, which plays a ton of folk, bluegrass, and Americana. A lot of the music I listened to then, and since, is a product of my love for WNCW. As a result, I didn't pay very much attention to developments in boom bap, gangsta rap, shoegaze, post-rock, math rock, metal, or TV soundtracks. I'm retrospectively expanding my tastes into some of those areas. As always, I'd love to receive your feedback on this chart, and I'd appreciate any musical recommendations you might have.

• Chart updated: 5 days ago
• (Created: 02/16/2016 18:46).
• Chart size: 100 albums.

There are 20 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s has an average rating of 92 out of 100 (from 18 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.

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1. (=)

Anodyne 

 Uncle Tupelo

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In the spring of 1994, a group of friends and I followed Uncle Tupelo around New England on what turned out to be their final tour, in support of this outstanding album. They were playing small venues then; one friend from that tour recently reminded me, for instance, of a bizarre venue in Providence, Rhode Island--Club Babyhead--that had on its men's room wall a mural of some sort of pseudo-psychedelic imagery involving all manner of demonic, disturbing, devilish-looking eyes. But I suppose that's part of the fun of the small venue circuit. By the second show, the band recognized us, gave us comp tickets, and invited us to join them on their tour bus to play Sega hockey with them after the shows. We were treated like family. Every time I hear this terrific album, the crowning achievement of the alt-country genre, I'm grateful to have shared a few moments of the great musical odyssey that was Uncle Tupelo, before Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar went their separate ways to form Wilco and Son Volt, respectively. "Chickamauga" is a searing rocker that showcases Jay Farrar's talents as songwriter and lead guitarist, and is probably the most thoroughly self-aware band breakup song that I've ever heard. [First added to this chart: 02/16/2016]

Year of Release:

1993

Appears in:

149 charts

Rank Score:

844

Rank in 1993:

30

Rank in 1990s:

359

Overall Rank:

1,977

Average Rating:

 78 (165 votes)

Comments:

8

2. (=)

Let Me Come Over 

 Buffalo Tom

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Recently I was part of a conversation with some friends about the career trajectory of Buffalo Tom. Among my friends in college, it was undisputed conventional wisdom at the time that Buffalo Tom's first two albums, their self-titled debut and Birdbrain, are alternative-rock classics. The album where we began to split is Let Me Come Over. Some missed the raw, imperfect production of the first two albums, whereas others liked the slicker production of the new album. By the time Big Red Letter Day came out, most of my friends had moved on, rolling their eyes at the band's "selling out." I have always been in the camp that thinks Let Me Come Over is the band's high point: a loud, guitar-driven, three-chord rock album with some surprisingly tender moments layered into the album's overall arc. For me the clean production is a sign of the band's increasing maturity and development, and I for one welcome the change from the band's fuzzier early sound. Any discussion about this album has to begin with the driving rocker "Velvet Roof," which was about as close to a hit single Buffalo Tom ever came. A great, emotional statement from one of the best bands of the Northampton scene of the early nineties. [First added to this chart: 02/27/2016]

Year of Release:

1992

Appears in:

62 charts

Rank Score:

421

Rank in 1992:

60

Rank in 1990s:

601

Overall Rank:

3,480

Average Rating:

 75 (62 votes)

Comments:

5

3. (=)

Trace 

 Son Volt

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I have approached few albums in my lifetime with as much anticipation as I did this one when it was first released in 1995. At the time I was fully convinced that Jay Farrar was the real talent behind Uncle Tupelo, so when they broke up it was Farrar's work, rather than Jeff Tweedy's, that I most wanted to hear. This was Farrar's first album with Son Volt coming off the last, and greatest, Uncle Tupelo album, Anodyne. So when it came out I persuaded the woman I was seeing at the time to drive with me into Portland, Maine, to my favorite independent record store to buy it, and we listened to it in the car on the way back to Ferry Beach. I loved it immediately, of course. "Windfall" is one of those songs that, upon first listening, sounded to me like something I'd known and loved all my life, with its timeworn, world-weary wisdom: "May wind take your troubles away / Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel / May the wind take your troubles away." [First added to this chart: 08/07/2016]

Year of Release:

1995

Appears in:

112 charts

Rank Score:

953

Rank in 1995:

37

Rank in 1990s:

329

Overall Rank:

1,777

Average Rating:

 77 (129 votes)

Comments:

9

4. (=)

Wildflowers 

 Tom Petty

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When I was living in Korea back in 1997, my sister mailed me a cassette tape of this album. It was one of three tapes I had with me at the time (for some reason I didn't have the presence of mind to bring more music with me), and I wore the thing out. The title track is one of the sweetest love songs I've ever heard, and while it's probably overplayed, it still moves me every time. It reminds me sense of kinship that I always experience when I'm in the wilderness, and the profound longing I feel when I hear the words, "You belong with your love on your arm." [First added to this chart: 02/16/2016]

Year of Release:

1994

Appears in:

256 charts

Rank Score:

1,913

Rank in 1994:

29

Rank in 1990s:

182

Overall Rank:

941

Average Rating:

 79 (311 votes)

Comments:

22

5. (=)

Homegrown 

 Blue Mountain

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This album was the soundtrack for a long drive from the Adirondacks in upstate New York down to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee for a backpacking trip with a woman I loved at the time. We sang at the top of our lungs all the way down. I think now, though, that she might have thought I identified a little too much with the opening lines to the rollicking banjo stomper "Bloody 98": "I got a wife in Hattiesburg and a lover in Mobile." For the record, I don't, never did, and don't want to. As for the album itself, this is one of the best entries in the alt-country genre in the nineties, a collection of well-written songs with effects like barking dogs as a constant reminder of the Mississippi woods from which these songs originated. [First added to this chart: 02/17/2016]

Year of Release:

1997

Appears in:

16 charts

Rank Score:

123

Rank in 1997:

173

Rank in 1990s:

1,621

Overall Rank:

9,670

Average Rating:

 76 (15 votes)

Comments:

1

6. (=)

Nevermind 

 Nirvana

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Around four o'clock in the morning on September 24, 1991, I was asleep in my room in my apartment in Perth, Western Australia, when there was a loud, insistent knock on the door. I opened the door, and my buddy Josh was there, looking even wild-eyed and manic than ever. He'd been at a CD release party downtown and had taken a cab back to the apartment complex where we both lived. He slapped some headphones over my ears and made me listen, way too loud, to the opening of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I felt the smile come over my face, knowing that groggy early morning in September would always be a landmark moment in the history of music, even though the term "grunge" hadn't yet gone mainstream. There was an immediacy, an urgency, to Nirvana's sound, combined with a clarity of production values, that made it unlike anything I'd ever heard before. Obviously Nirvana had a huge influence on other bands, especially those from the Seattle area, but I still can't say I've heard anything quite like Nevermind since. [First added to this chart: 02/17/2016]

Year of Release:

1991

Appears in:

3,114 charts

Rank Score:

42,273

Rank in 1991:

1

Rank in 1990s:

2

Overall Rank:

14

Average Rating:

 87 (4,237 votes)

Comments:

407

7. (=)

Black Sheep 

 Martin Sexton

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Martin Sexton is one of those people who just seems to have been born to write, record, and perform music. I don't know if there's a better live performer alive today, and I know that's saying something--but I ask you to withhold judgment unless you've actually seen him play live. I've seen him live five or six times over the past 25 years or so--sometimes alone with his guitar, sometimes with a drummer--and he never ceases to completely blow me away. He does amazing things with his guitar and his voice; he whistles; he knocks on his guitar and beatboxes into the microphone for percussion; he sings falsetto. He is just a remarkable talent. On top of all that, he writes memorable songs about the usual musical troubadour subjects: lost love, life on the road as a traveling musician, and, of course, food. He has several terrific albums, but Black Sheep is the one I heard first, and probably has the most consistently great songwriting. [First added to this chart: 05/23/2016]

Year of Release:

1996

Appears in:

4 charts

Rank Score:

106

Rank in 1996:

217

Rank in 1990s:

1,862

Overall Rank:

10,978

Average Rating:

 73 (5 votes)

Comments:

1

8. (=)

It Had To Happen 

 James McMurtry

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[First added to this chart: 05/04/2024]

Year of Release:

1997

Appears in:

7 charts

Rank Score:

116

Rank in 1997:

182

Rank in 1990s:

1,718

Overall Rank:

10,146

Average Rating:

 78 (9 votes)

Comments:

0

9. (=)

Cruel Moon 

 Buddy Miller

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[First added to this chart: 11/22/2022]

Year of Release:

1999

Appears in:

7 charts

Rank Score:

98

Rank in 1999:

193

Rank in 1990s:

1,984

Overall Rank:

11,738

Average Rating:

 75 (2 votes)

Comments:

0

10. (=)

Grace 

 Jeff Buckley

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Before Jeff Buckley decided to wade fully clothed into the Mississippi River late one night and get himself caught in the wake of a passing boat, he recorded this one and only proper full-length album. It's the one I had in the CD player of my truck for most of the year I lived in Bennington, Vermont, while I mourned the loss of my longest and most important relationship to date. It is raw, lean, impulsive, deeply emo stuff--one of the most inspired and engaging albums ever made. People know the brilliant cover of Leonard Cohen's "Halleljuah," but for me the starting point is "Lover, You Should Have Come Over." [First added to this chart: 02/16/2016]

Year of Release:

1994

Appears in:

1,672 charts

Rank Score:

19,286

Rank in 1994:

1

Rank in 1990s:

10

Overall Rank:

58

Average Rating:

 84 (1,907 votes)

Comments:

169

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Total albums: 100. Page 1 of 10

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Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s composition

Year	Albums	%
1990	6	6%
1991	6	6%
1992	10	10%
1993	8	8%
1994	11	11%
1995	11	11%
1996	10	10%
1997	13	13%
1998	10	10%
1999	15	15%

Artist	Albums	%
Uncle Tupelo	4	4%
Greg Brown	4	4%
Beastie Boys	3	3%
Blue Mountain	3	3%
Wilco	3	3%
Sloan	2	2%
Steve Earle	2	2%
Show all

Country	Albums	%
	89	89%
	4	4%
	4	4%
	2	2%
	1	1%

Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s chart changes

Biggest climbers
Up 16 from 46th to 30th Too Far To Care by Old 97's

Biggest fallers
Down 1 from 30th to 31st Strangers Almanac by Whiskeytown
Down 1 from 31st to 32nd Your Favorite Music by Clem Snide
Down 1 from 32nd to 33rd March 16-20, 1992 by Uncle Tupelo

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• Top 87 Music Albums of the 1990s by EveryCheapHood (2014)
• Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s by jwammo12 (2023)
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Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s similarity to your chart(s)

Other decade charts by buzzdainer

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Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s ratings

Showing latest 5 ratings for this chart. | Show all 18 ratings for this chart.

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Rating	Date updated	Member	Chart ratings	Avg. chart rating
95/100	05/26/2023 09:09	Johnnyo	2,015	80/100
95/100	10/17/2020 06:48	leniad	686	85/100
95/100	08/29/2020 03:28	areminder	48	78/100
100/100	08/28/2020 23:52	Lgk21	141	95/100
100/100	08/28/2020 13:25	LedZep	1,079	84/100

Rating metrics: Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some charts can have several thousand ratings)
This chart is rated in the top 1% of all charts on BestEverAlbums.com. This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 92.5/100, a mean average of 96.1/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 96.1/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 5.4.

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Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s comments

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Rating:  

95/100

From Johnnyo 05/26/2023 09:09

Outstanding chart. One of the best ‘90’s charts on the site

Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

From buzzdainer 07/28/2021 23:08

Thanks for those great suggestions, Larcx13! For some reason Blowout Comb never quite clicked for me, but I also haven't spent anywhere near as much time with it as I did with Reachin'. I agree that A Tribe Called Quest has made a bunch of great albums, and I probably need to find room for more of them in my decade charts. Phife Dawg (RIP) and I are both Type 1 diabetics, so I feel a kinship with that band that I might not feel so strongly otherwise.

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Rating:  

100/100

From Larcx13 12/05/2020 15:41

Nice to see Digable Planets all the way up there, though I prefer Blowout Comb. Of course A Tribe Called Quest! Id say check out more releases from Tribe in the 90s as well The Pharcyde, maybe even The Roots. There's also Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Guru from Gang Starr's Jazzmatazz vol. 1, as well as De La Soul for similar music.

Cheers!

Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

Rating:  

95/100

From areminder 08/29/2020 03:31

What a interesting journey you had. Great chart and wonderful taste, really enjoyed the genuine stories and comments on the albums. Look forward to revisiting some of these albums.

Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

Rating:  

100/100

From Lgk21 08/28/2020 23:52

This is a killer chart.

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Rating:  

100/100

From Larcx13 08/28/2020 11:17

Great effort on here.

Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

From buzzdainer 11/29/2016 17:42

Thanks for that kind comment, Stover75! I really enjoyed viewing your nineties chart, as well. I definitely can't disagree with OK Computer at #1, as it's such a fantastic document of everything that went right in the nineties. A lot of people think it was the last--or at least most recent--truly great, transformative, landmark album. I can't quite agree with that (because I love lots of things that have come out since), but I do think it's deserving of the accolades it gets. Thanks for taking the time to have a look at my chart!

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Rating:  

90/100

From CharlieBarley 11/25/2016 23:07

Good 90s chart. Like you said 11 in common. Loads of albums for me to check out. Good notes too.

Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

From buzzdainer 09/09/2016 16:46

Thanks for that nice comment, sethmadsen! That's funny that you mention the skits on The Carnival. I have found the skits on a number of nineties hip hop albums to be really annoying (and unfunny). Take, for example, Fugees' breakthrough album The Score: an interesting album musically, but the Chinese restaurant skit in "The Beast" is so insipid and offensive it's enough to knock it out of my nineties decade chart (though it did make my 1996 year chart). I gravitate to hip hop artists who seem to be all about the music, hence my love of Digable Planets, A Tribe Called Quest, and others.

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Rating:  

100/100

From RoundTheBend 09/09/2016 04:43

Your love of music shows well in your memories with it. Fantastic chart and thanks for letting us peak into your experiences with these albums. Oh and The Carnival- skip the skits your first listen - just get into the music.

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