Top 100 Music Albums of 1994
by 
desh79 
The year I moved from Germany to England with my parents (Spoiler: I have returned since) and I discovered the NME, Melody Maker and all the other British music publications. Plus 1994 was generally a great year for music - it seemed like there was at least one good album coming out every week. A lot of albums outside of the top 10 easily would have made it most other years.
- Chart updated: 06/04/2025 09:15
- (Created: 12/30/2016 18:05).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
There are 0 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Music Albums of 1994 has an average rating of 91 out of 100 (from 6 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.
View the complete list of 57,000 charts on BestEverAlbums.com from The Charts page.
This chart is currently filtered to only show albums from United States. (Remove this filter)
Buy album 
- #Sponsored
An album that is best played at full volume. On vinyl, of course.
[First added to this chart: 01/09/2017]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,725
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
Plenty has been said about the band Nirvana could have been had Cobain kept it together, but it bears repeating here. Cobain, aware as anyone of rock history and his own band's potential standing within it, famously spoke of wanting Nirvana to make a similar transition the Beatles made from I Wanna Hold Your Hand to Sgt. Pepper. This was a step in the right direction. Alas, alas, alas.
[First added to this chart: 01/09/2017]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
9,200
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
Prior to this album, my only real known frame of reference regarding the Beastie Boys was Fight For Your Right, so suffice to say that Ill Communication - an album that mixed rap with rock, funk, dub, Buddhist chanting and whatnot, plus a music video (Sabotage) that was hipsterish before the term was invented (let's face it, Spike Jonze is THE original hipster) - completely blew my mind. Little did I know that it was simply a logical step in a long period of the Boys' musical development, starting with the commercial wilderness of the Paul's Boutique-years and the straightforward punk of Check Your Head, but Ill Communication remains my favourite album of theirs.
[First added to this chart: 01/09/2017]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,377
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
"So good they named it twice", Melody Maker wrote about this album. For once, I agreed with them.
[First added to this chart: 01/09/2017]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
8,701
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
An interesting concept(?) album about personal/mental decline and suicide that is occasionally undermined by Reznor's adolescent musings (even at the age of 15, I thought that these ceaseless phallic allusions - lyrics like "How did it get so hard/How did it get so long", or the whole of "Big Man With A Gun", were a bit silly - and no, I don't buy the "But it's a character! It's just an act!"-argument. More often than not, what you see really is what you get), and would probably feature in the top 10 were it not for that. All that said, A Warm Place and The Becoming are some of Reznor's best work.
[First added to this chart: 01/09/2017]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
9,480
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
[First added to this chart: 01/09/2017]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
8,562
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
The fact that this was No.1 on the Billboard album charts is further proof that 1994 was a really rather awesome year.
[First added to this chart: 07/06/2017]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
708
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
Not the epic 10/10 five-star masterpiece I - and, I suspect, a LOT of people - expected or rather demanded after Out of Time and Automatic, but in retrospect an album that contains some of REM's best work (Strange Currencies, What's The Frequency Kenneth).
[First added to this chart: 01/09/2017]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,966
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
Another legacy of Nevermind's success was that the mid-90s saw many bands, who were inspired by, say, REM or late-80s lofi acts like Beat Happening, reaching heights in the Billboard chart that seemed utterly utopian just a few years prior. (Only to subsequently disappear without trace.)
Needless to say that Live (pronounced as in "to live", and not as in "the band is playing live", or so I've been told) were one of those bands. A good album with some strong songs (Lightning Crashes, I Alone, Selling the Drama) that reached the top of the Billboard album charts.
Followed by tumbleweeds.
On another note, I actually had (and still have!) this album on music cassette, just to keep this commentary retro and zeitgeisty. [First added to this chart: 07/06/2017]
Needless to say that Live (pronounced as in "to live", and not as in "the band is playing live", or so I've been told) were one of those bands. A good album with some strong songs (Lightning Crashes, I Alone, Selling the Drama) that reached the top of the Billboard album charts.
Followed by tumbleweeds.
On another note, I actually had (and still have!) this album on music cassette, just to keep this commentary retro and zeitgeisty. [First added to this chart: 07/06/2017]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,601
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
- #Sponsored
[First added to this chart: 04/21/2017]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,032
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 36. Page 1 of 4
Don't agree with this chart? Create your own from the My Charts page!
Top 100 Music Albums of 1994 composition
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
| Various Artists | 3 | 3% | |
| The Auteurs | 2 | 2% | |
| Nirvana | 1 | 1% | |
| Jeff Buckley | 1 | 1% | |
| Madonna | 1 | 1% | |
| Soundgarden | 1 | 1% | |
| The Smashing Pumpkins | 1 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
| Country | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
 |
48 | 48% | |
| |
36 | 36% | |
 |
4 | 4% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
| |
2 | 2% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 100 Music Albums of 1994 chart changes
| Biggest climbers |
|---|
| Up 54 from 94th to 40th Everyone's Got One by Echobelly |
| Up 23 from 82nd to 59th Live At The BBC by The Beatles |
| Up 12 from 91st to 79th Middle Class Revolt A.k.a. The Vapourisation Of Reality by The Fall |
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
| Down 44 from 46th to 90th Amber by Autechre |
| Down 42 from 45th to 87th Dookie by Green Day |
| Down 14 from 43rd to 57th Troublegum by Therapy? |
| New entries |
|---|
| Amplified Heart by Everything But The Girl |
| Leavers |
|---|
| Give Out But Don't Give Up by Primal Scream |
Top 100 Music Albums of 1994 similarity to your chart(s)
Not a member? Registering is quick, easy and FREE!
Why register?
- Join a passionate community of over 50,000 music fans.
- Create & share your own charts.
- Have your say in the overall rankings.
- Post comments in the forums and vote on polls.
- Comment on or rate any album, artist, track or chart.
- Discover new music & improve your music collection.
- Customise the overall chart using a variety of different filters & metrics.
- Create a wishlist of albums.
- Help maintain the BEA database.
- Earn member points and gain access to increasing levels of functionality!
- ... And lots more!
Register now - it only takes a moment!
desh79 has created 71 other 1994 year charts - click here to explore them all.
Top 100 Music Albums of 1994 ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
N.B. The average rating for this chart will not be reliable as it has been rated very few times.
Showing latest 5 ratings for this chart. | Show all 6 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 04/10/2023 20:53 |  Larcx13 | 1,145 | 86/100 |
| ! | 08/14/2021 11:38 |  zwiebel | 189 | 86/100 |
| ! | 08/27/2020 19:20 |  CharlieBarley | 477 | 94/100 |
| ! | 04/27/2020 20:12 |  Leonard | 341 | 88/100 |
| ! | 05/06/2019 05:57 | DJENNY | 4,365 | 100/100 |
Top 100 Music Albums of 1994 favourites
Top 100 Music Albums of 1994 comments
Be the first to add a comment for this Chart - add your comment!
Your feedback for Top 100 Music Albums of 1994
Let us know what you think of this chart by adding a comment or assigning a rating below!
If you enjoy our site, please consider supporting us by sparing a few seconds to disable your ad blocker.
A lot of hard work happens in the background to keep BEA running, and it's especially difficult to do this when we can't pay our hosting fees :(
We work very hard to ensure our site is as fast (and FREE!) as possible, and we respect your privacy.
A lot of hard work happens in the background to keep BEA running, and it's especially difficult to do this when we can't pay our hosting fees :(
We work very hard to ensure our site is as fast (and FREE!) as possible, and we respect your privacy.
