Best rock album of the 90s?

[mishkin]

So in your opinion the 90s best rock album was Odelay?

[Roma_Victrix]

You could probably argue this is the best:

[RubiconDecision]

So in your opinion the 90s best rock album was Odelay?

Hardly, but it's a relevant top rock album. If we're looking through a decade, and discussing the evolution of rock, the alteration of what that means, then you'd have to at least discuss 100 CDs.

I would never include Lucinda Williams, but these folks have her at #4.

http://www.metroweekly.com/2014/08/5...of-the-90s/10/
4. Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998)

[Kyriakos]

The most obvious/standard answer would be Nevermind. I mean even the album cover would likely be illegal now

[mishkin]

Yesterday I was thinking the same^ . (Although I hated Nirvana back then).
In a few days we can open a poll with options

[RubiconDecision]

It has to be a Tool album.

[Killerbee]

It has to be a Tool album.

Ofcourse not, Tool are nowhere near as well known as Nirvana, nor have they ever had a big impact on (rock) music. Basically any big post-Nirvana rock band, ranging from QOTSA to Radiohead, shows influences that trace back to Nirvana.

[RubiconDecision]

http://www.metroweekly.com/2014/08/5...of-the-90s/11/

1. Tool – Ænima (1996)
http://loudwire.com/top-11-metal-albums-of-the-1990s/



5
'Aenima' (1996)

Tool





It's hard to categorize Tool, a group that arrived with the alternative gold rush of the mid-'90s, yet didn't subscribe to the genre's major tenants. Led by enigmatic frontman Maynard James Keenan, Tool play more of a relentless prog-metal groove -- the groove part being their tendency to drag out songs into sweeping passages of sonic exploration. But 'Aenima' is about more than jamming, no matter how many comparisons to King Crimson it gets.





Read More: Top 11 Metal Albums of the 1990s | http://loudwire.com/top-11-metal-alb...ckback=tsmclip

#5 Tool Aenima
http://ppcorn.com/us/top-ten-music-a...990s-part-one/
[QUOTE]Number Five: Ænima by Tool. Formed in 1990, Tool has always been an innovative band, breaking away from the mold of popular genres around them. Released in 1996, Ænima reveals why they could be labeled progressive rock, heavy metal or experimental, if labeled anything at all.
Well-known tracks off the album include “Stinkfist,” “Eulogy,” “Forty-Six & 2″ and the title track. The latter won the band their first Grammy for Best Metal Performance, while the album received 4 ½ stars from All Music Guide and was given an A- by Entertainment Weekly. The title of this second release from the band is supposedly a combination of “anima,” Latin for soul and the emotional life force, and “enema,” meaning anal cleansing. Together this forms “aenima,” or cleansing of the soul.
Indeed, Tool is renowned for using their music to explore the darker and more mysterious side of the human psyche, but in a clever and captivating way. It has been said by even the most devout Tool fan that in order to truly appreciate their music, it requires patience. It takes a few listens of their albums to identify the true craft put into these songs.
[QUOTE]

5. Ænima, Tool (The 15 Best of All Time)
http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/c...nt?oid=5107222

[Killerbee]

Yeah just quoting some sites and their meaningless lists doesn't really do much for me in the ways of argumentation.

[RubiconDecision]

Ofcourse not, Tool are nowhere near as well known as Nirvana, nor have they ever had a big impact on (rock) music. Basically any big post-Nirvana rock band, ranging from QOTSA to Radiohead, shows influences that trace back to Nirvana.

If it's the Best Mass Appeal CD Selling 90's Album, it's a dubious and insipid honor.
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/abyss...the_90s__usa_/
Metallica (1991)
16.1 million

All music is otherwise about Aesthetics largely communicated by critics as purveyors and arbiters PLUS personal subjectivity.

Are you proposing a metric to quantify musical worth?

Metallica's Black album (1991) is a live album, so acoustically compromised regardless.


If it's most influential of the 90's rock bands? For what length of time? To the present? In what way influential? Musically? Maybe Soundgarden or Temple of the Dog(gave birth to grunge and post-grunge).

Rage Against the Machine for political influence affecting most rock thereafter.

[Kyriakos]

RATM has something like one known/hit song, though

Yes, of couse i mean the ' you i won't do what you tell me'...

Might as well mention Cypress Hill and their own one-hit wonder, which at least is funnier

[RubiconDecision]

RATM has something like one known/hit song, though Yes, of couse i mean the ' you i won't do what you tell me'... Might as well mention Cypress Hill and their own one-hit wonder, which at least is funnier

RATM IS the zeitgeist of 90's Rock.

[Halie Satanus]

It was once said of the Velvet Underground 'They didn't sell a lot of records, but everyone who heard them started a band.' There are very few bands of whom the same could be said, maybe none. Nirvana/Nevermind managed not only to inspire a generation of musicians but they sold a huge amount of records as well. Cobain was THE teen idol of the 90's, when you consider the usual template for teen idols Cobain and Nirvana's music were way off the norm.

Whether that makes Nevermind the 'best' album of the 90's is subjective, but that record started a huge change to the music landscape, it's very possible many of the bands who followed Nirvana might never have made it without their rise to fame.

Weezer/Stained/Stone Temple Pilots/L7/Hole/Silverchair/Puddle of Mudd/Tad/Screaming Trees/Veruca Salt/Godsmak/Soul Asylum/Dinosaur Jr/Bush/Alice in Chains to name a few, all owe a debt to Nirvana. We might never of heard of seminal bands such as Green River/Muddhoney/Mother Love Bone/Melvins/Malfunkshun/Earth/Fugazi.

Others such as Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, even RATM, Smashing Pumpkins, RHCP maybe wouldn't have enjoyed such a breakout.

[Kyriakos]

But there would still be



Any Cairns>other grunge-kin

[Roma_Victrix]

If it's the Best Mass Appeal CD Selling 90's Album, it's a dubious and insipid honor.
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/abyss...the_90s__usa_/
Metallica (1991)
16.1 million

All music is otherwise about Aesthetics largely communicated by critics as purveyors and arbiters PLUS personal subjectivity.

Are you proposing a metric to quantify musical worth?

Metallica's Black album (1991) is a live album, so acoustically compromised regardless.


If it's most influential of the 90's rock bands? For what length of time? To the present? In what way influential? Musically? Maybe Soundgarden or Temple of the Dog(gave birth to grunge and post-grunge).

Rage Against the Machine for political influence affecting most rock thereafter.

Oh man, I almost cried watching that footage there of Metallica playing in Moscow in '91. Holy crap, man, the Soviet Union wasn't officially dissolved until December 26th! God, the ing energy in that crowd is immense! Those Soviet security guards look afraid for their lives! It reminds me of the footage of Pantera playing in Moscow in the same year.



WARNING: some language (duh, it's Pantera, dude). I think we should class Metallica and Pantera purely as metal, though, not rock. A person who doesn't understand what metal is would probably call them hard rock bands, but that's besides the point. In any case, I got another case of "deja vu" watching that Metallica video since they started with that score from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. That's exactly what they did when they opened their show in California when I saw them back in 2008! And they showed the cemetery scene at the end of the movie on the huge screens above the stage. However, they opened with "Battery" from Master of Puppets, not Enter Sandman, when I saw them. And they also had a huge fire display like this video.

[Kyriakos]

I was tempted to post the eponymous track from St Anger

[Killerbee]

RATM has something like one known/hit song, though

Yes, of couse i mean the ' you i won't do what you tell me'...

Might as well mention Cypress Hill and their own one-hit wonder, which at least is funnier

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Neither RATM nor Cypress Hill are hardly one-hit wonders. Cypress Hill sold 20 million records and had several critically acclaimed albums, and RATM released 4 innovative albums inspiring a whole offspring of bands. Sure they both might have that one iconic stand-out song but you could say the same for almost any band (Nirvana, Radiohead, even Led Zep, ...)

[Halie Satanus]

But there would still be

Any Cairns>other grunge-kin

Indeed, Therapy? were/are a great band though they became more grunge metal after Nirvana's rise. Before that they were far more industrial. Their version of 'Diane' being one of the most twisted songs ever, not just because of the content, but the arrangement far outstrips the original (though that is still an awesome track). Screamager was more pop but I always loved Infernal Love for it's arrangements and complexity, almost a cross between Floyd and grunge.

From Infernal Love: 1995.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Co-incidentally, the original of Diane was by Husker Du who were a big influence on Cobain. Another band he name dropped many times (as with the Melvins and the Vaselines) Cobain gave them notoriety and a new audience, though they'd split in the late 80's.







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Also.

Butthole Surfers - Electriclarryland.





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As well as..

Thee Hypnotics - Live'r than God.. 95/96

More psychedelic stoner than Grunge, ahead of their time really.

[Kyriakos]

^ Jude the obscene was easily my favorite from that album

I like a lot of their songs. Andy (apparently) had BDD in the early records (including Infernal Love). He sounds like a very nice person from the interviews

Likely the song of theirs i love most: (although they have, as noted, tens of great songs...)

[RubiconDecision]

Came back to visit and get some suggested groups. I like Thee Hypnotics. It's brain melting Doors."Come Down Heavy" is magnificent.

Why didn't this song rocket them into stardom?

or this?

That's road trip music. Trippy and hypnotic.


This is so much like the Rolling Stones that it's eerie.