1995

1995 was a bit more balanced, with not as many legendary albums. This was a tough year, because a lot of bands got popular out of nowhere and put out albums with 5 or 6 good songs (Alanis Morisette owned 1995), but, at least to me, the rest of their albums weren't worth listening to. Most of my runners-up and the albums that fought with them for a spot (like No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom) were basically what those 5 songs meant to me and how much I liked them, while ignoring the others. It's weird to do that, but as you'll see by my 3rd spot, some albums can have an entire half of them be "just whatever" while still being legendary in my book. 

Oasis- What's The Story Morning Glory?: I'm guessing most of my readers would put this WAAAY higher, but frankly, I never really got that into it. The hits are all classic, and I originally put this much higher, but I had to be honest- other than the hits and "Hello," I never really cared about the rest of this album. The hits though... Damn.

Jars Of Clay- Self Titled: Yup! Jars of Clay. Deal with it. This is completely over the top religious music, but once you get past that (if you can- I could), there are some great songs on here with fantastic vocals that I reaaally liked singing along with (and singing acapella with a friend in high school). The end of "Worlds Apart" can be rough to someone who cringes from religion, but it's a beautiful song.

Goo Goo Dolls- A Boy Named Goo: Half of this is flat out terrible, based on their bassist's need to sing (they've finally pretty much stopped letting him sing songs), but the half with Johnny Rzeznik show the early signs of what would soon be a hit machine. "Name" still gets to me- it's one of my favorite songs ever.

311- Self Titled: A lot of this is hard to listen to nowadays, but enough still works or works through reminiscing that this still gets a runner-up spot. I think they got WAY better when they started incorporating more melody and reggae sounds rather than the white-boy rap on this, but some of the songs on her are classics- from the obvious "Down" to the (I'm assuming) fan-favorite, "Purpose."

Green Day- Insomniac: This may be the most obvious example of a lazy, "we just put out a huge album" strike-while-the-irons-hot, phoned-in album I've ever heard. It's absurdly short, very few songs are memorable, and it definitely showed a band trying to get something out fast that probably wasn't their best work. But it says a lot for Green Day's songwriting, as this is still better than a lot of what came out in 1995. 

10. White Zombie- Astro-Creep 2000: Songs Of Love, Destruction And Other Synthetic Delusions Of The Electric Head 

The cover and layout of this album perfectly describes the album- mean metal filled with everything in the world they felt fit, from samples galore to weird sounds, to crazy lyrics to dance beats. This is THE White Zombie album, and the best thing Rob Zombie has ever done- it's the last time he made music that was consistently heavy while still being catchy. Sure, his monotone vocals get old after awhile, but the music doesn't. Although some riffs are sometimes boring and repetitive, this album is pretty much riff city, with a dance party thrown in- songs usually build enough to work. It's like Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails realizing they love clubbing. To 90's reference it, it's hard to not Beavis-headbang while Butthead-dancing to it. I listened to it a lot on bus rides to JV basketball games to get pumped up. Sadly, after this album, Rob Zombie pretty much ran out of ideas and eventually switched to being a bad director. But, thanks for this album Rob.

Best songs: "Electric Head: The Agony) Pt. 1," "Super-Charger Heaven," "More Human Than Human," "Blur The Technicolor," "Blood, Milk And Sky"

9. Red Hot Chili Peppers- One Hot Minute

This was the worst Red Hot Chili Peppers album in an otherwise fairly flawless 15 year block (starting with Blood Sugar Sex Magik and ending with the newest one), but it's still good enough to get the number 9 spot on my list. The problem is that it's pretty inconsistent and weird to the point where it at times feels forced. They also had the fact that MTV/radio played the singles so much I never want to hear them again for the rest of my life (at least "Aeroplane") going against them. But when the different sounds worked, they worked very well- from the intense rockers ("Warped") to sunny pop songs ("My Friends") to creepy stoner funk ("Falling Into Grace") to an odd but effective solo song by Flea, "Pea, " the album works- just not as good as any of their other albums (or at least the albums featuring John Frusciante (which could easily be argued are the only true RHCP albums) 

Best Songs: "Warped," "Aeroplane," "My Friends," "Pea," "Falling Into Grace," "Transcending"

8. Nine Inch Nails- Further Down The Spiral

Going against my own rules again, I have to feature this Downward Spiral remix album, because, in what I would soon learn is true Trent Reznor behavior, Nine Inch Nails' remixes are more often than not entirely different songs. This collection took the dark hopeless nihilism of The Downward Spiral and well, went further down the spiral. The 3 part "Art Of Self Destruction" and "Eraser" remixes are lessons in production- what you can do to already creepy songs if you're a crazy genius. The sounds are distorted and digusting, and right when they're verging on being solely background/mood music, fragments of the original song make their way in, reminding you that you are in fact listening to a remix album. The best song ("At The Heart Of It All") is a building bit of evil that relies on a distorted drum and bass loop and Inception-like doom horns/synths/HAARP sounds to create a soundtrack to falling, well, fine- I'll go there again- further down the spiral.

Best songs: "Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now)," "Art Of Self Destruction (Part One)," "Eraser (Polite)," "At The Heart Of It All"

7. God Lives Underwater- Empty

The first time I heard "All Wrong" on 94.3 WCYY, I freaked out. I instantly loved everything about it and had to wait to hear it again a week later to finally find out who it was. This band mixed driving and catchy alternative rock with industrial/techno sounds and wrote melodic songs with nasal and airy vocals in the vein of Layne Staley's (Alice In Chains). Of all of the bands trying these sounds, this is probably my favorite attempt, right down to the awesome cover and even more awesome band name. Stabbing Westward was really good too, but these songs had more variety and this album is pretty consistent all the way through, save for a few mistakes ("Fool"). I used to sing these songs with a friend in high school hallways (I wonder why I wasn't more popular?) and it was pretty awesome to find out that a recent co-worker loved this album, prompting me to revisit the hell out of it last year. Although the abundance of techno sounds dates this quite a lot, the songs still work because, well... they're good. "All Wrong" is one of the best alternative rock songs to come out of the 90s, and "Weaken" remains one of the better examples of techno, beautiful melodies and super evil riffery somehow working together to create a fantastic song.

Best songs: "Still," "All Wrong," "Empty," "No More Love," "Weaken"

6. Faith No More- King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime

I got this on tape the day I got on a bus to take me to a plane and off to Washington D.C. with my entire 8th grade class. It's impossible to listen to it without thinking of that bus ride, and it's impossible to listen to the beautiful country ballad "Take This Bottle" without thinking of my super emo nights listening to it when I went to bed in a hotel room, thinking about Alisa Young, the girl I had a crush on at the time. But reminiscence aside, this remains my second favorite Faith No More album. I'd argue that it has the most variety of all the albums, while maintaining the most consistent songwriting. Every song is catchy, and whether the song is a standard rock song ("Get Out"), a disgusting exercise in screaming/being ridiculous (still one of my favorite FNM songs, "Ugly In The Morning"), being beautiful in a grand, musical-esque way (the wonderful "Just A Man," which took me years to realize the perfection of), or whatever the hell genre of music "Evidence," "Star A.D." or "Caralho Voador" were, everything worked through the strength of their songwriting and Mike Patton's endlessly awesome vocals. This album proved Faith No More could do anything they wanted well, and it makes me forever sad that they don't exist anymore. This doesn't get the credit it deserves, both as a great FNM album, and a great rock album in general.

Best Songs: "Get Out," "Ricochet," "Evidence," "Ugly In The Morning," "Take This Bottle," "Take This Bottle," "King For A Day," "Just A Man"

5. Everclear- Sparkle And Fade

I bought this because I really liked "Santa Monica" and wanted more. Let's be honest here- 75% of Everclear songs are pretty much exactly the same. But something about this album just stuck with me, and although there are clunkers, it's generally all good. Stop and go riffing mixed with Art Alexakis' completely unique voice mixed with absurdly catchy hooks- how could you go wrong? Although not as catchy or strong as So Much For The Afterglow and held back somewhat by serious topics making lyrics feel sometimes lame, I liked the whole album, but have mostly stuck with the 5 or 6 that original struck a chord with me. With time, they sound even better. The key one of these is "The Twistinside," and I can't listen to it without thinking about my father. My dad and I have always had a small collection of songs that we used to listen to on long drives to Celtics games or to and from college. "The Twistinside" became one of those, with its odd beginning evolving into a full on air guitar/mouth guitar rock out at the end that still gives me shivers today. My dad always loved the lyrics and felt they worked pretty perfectly for rides to college- "Gotta get ready for the real world, yea, gotta grow up." The song showed what Everclear was capable of, and sadly, they never quite lived up to the power and uniqueness of it, but this album still launched a career of lots and lots of great songs.

Best songs: "Heroin Girl," "Santa Monica," "Strawberry," "Heartspark Dollarsign," "The Twistinside"

4. Foo Fighters- Self Titled

In the wake of Kurt Cobain's death in 1994 and the inevitable end of Nirvana, Dave Grohl was probably pretty sad and confused as to what to do with his life. Instead of doing nothing or becoming the drummer of Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers (had no idea about this- just read it on wiki), he did the first of many things that make him a personal hero of mine- he went into a studio 5 months after Cobain died and recorded every instrument on an album full of songs he had been secretly writing. Hype exploded and nowadays I may have been cynical, but then, I pretty much watched the video for "I'll Stick Around" in pure awe. Holy crap, I thought. He can sing and play guitar?! And he is that good? Holy crap. I was blown away and after the song was played another 400 times on MTV (another thing that makes him a personal hero is his sense of humor and pure awesome, which would be fairly consistently shown in their videos), I got the album and was blown away for the entire thing. The songs were like Nirvana, but more complicated, more melodic at times with his sunny harmonies, and at times heavier and even more headbangy (like in "I'll Stick Around" and "Watershed"). I used to wonder what these songs would have sounded like as Nirvana, but now I don't care (although now that I type that, it would be interesting)- they're perfect as they are, and the variety of these songs while every one of them manages to still connect with me shows that although Kurt Cobain was a fantastic songwriter, they really missed out by not having Dave contribute more. Foo Fighters' career further solidifies that, but they have still yet to replicate the perfection of this and their second album, which will be written about soon. 

Best songs: "This Is A Call," "I'll Stick Around," "Big Me,""Alone+Easy Target," "For All The Cows," "X-Static," "Watershed"

3. Radiohead- The Bends

I feel weird having this album not be higher because of just how much I love "Fake Plastic Trees," "High And Dry" and "Streep Spirit (Fade Out)." I've been saying "Fake Plastic Trees" is my second favorite song for about 10 years now (you'll have to wait for number 1), and the strength of those as well as about half of this album makes this album pretty important to me (and the reason why it's ahead of albums that are, as a whole, better). The other songs just aren't strong enough though. This is one of the best examples of an album being carried by half of it- none of the songs are bad, but the better ones are light years ahead of the lesser ones. I usually only listen to about half of this album and even made a mix of the best from this mixed with the best from OK Computer (it's amazing). While Radiohead still had some of their brit rock that dominated Pablo Honey, they discovered the sound that I feel they did best- melancholy melodies, and flat out sad and beautiful songs. The first single was "Fake Plastic Trees," and featured Thom Yorke sitting in a shopping cart in a supermarket filled with unhappy people. I hadn't really heard a band focus so much on sadness and melodies like this before, and for someone who loves sad music, this was mindblowing. This album is overflowing with memories of high school. I learned how to play some of the songs when I got into guitar, I sang songs in the halls with different people, and mixtapes with the hits dominated my car rides to and from school and many, MANY art classes. The sadness of the songs made the girls I liked more beautiful, and my teenage angst more important. And to this day, these songs still hit me the same way and bring up the same feelings. Why couldn't you stay this way, Radiohead? 

Best songs: "High And Dry," "Fake Plastic Trees," "(Nice Dream)," "Just," "Bulletproof... I Wish I was," "Black Star," "Street Spirit (Fade Out)"

2. Deftones- Adrenaline

My favorite Deftones album switches quite often from this to Around The Fur to White Pony. This one usually wins though, as it's arguably the most consistent and heavy. I found Deftones shortly after Korn, around the same time as Limp Bizkit. I heard Around The Fur first, and was immediately pretty excited about them. They were heavy and nu-metal-ish, but had a ton of melody, both in memorable guitar lines and Chino's creepy, nearly always minor-key vocals. His scream sounded truly painful, and his spastic spit-filled raps were pretty awesome too. Some of the songs on this sound a little too much alike, but this is such a good headnod, moody album- not super moshy or angry, just kind of cool in its heaviness- a sound Deftones would come to fully embody and often perfect in the 17 years since this. I think the best songs to illustrate the perfection of this album are "Bored" and my favorite, "Birthmark." Both start creepy and cool with quiet minor singing, slowly evolve into high pitched and long-held choruses of just a few words, and eventually explode into extremely heavy headbangers with Chino screeching like a lunatic. Some people would call this formulaic. I call it perfect aggressive music. All the heaviness of this album (except for "7 Words" and "Engine No.9") is earned through building melodies and creepiness. And best of all, this album isn't even close to dated- they were doing things no other bands were doing then, and they're pretty much in the same boat now.

Best songs: "Bored," "Root," "7 Words," "Birthmark," "Engine No. 9"

1. The Smashing Pumpkins- Mellon Collie And the Infinite Sadness

This album hasn't meant as much to me as some of the others on this list, but I feel weird putting it anywhere else on the list for the sheer amount of good songs on it. A 28 song album that my extremely critical "if I don't like a song, it's gone" self felt had only 3 duds says a lot. 25 songs that are either great on their own or work perfectly with the flow of an album? That's impressive. And what's truly the most impressive is that this is a double disc album, and it's just that- an album. It's not a collection of songs from a band who wrote too many songs and couldn't trim the fat like a lot of double albums represent, it's a band at its all time creative peak, putting 25 songs together to form a cohesive album where all the songs, as drastically different as some of them are, work together perfectly. To truly understand how ridiculous The Smashing Pumpkins were at this time, they were able to put out a boxed set with 33 B-sides from the same recording sessions (The Aeroplane Flies High), and the majority of those songs are pretty solid, and some, like "Cherry" and the title track are good enough that I think they should have been on Mellon Collie. 

There are hits all over this album, but for me, some of the non-hits were what made me love this. Songs like "Love," (especially the solo) "To Forgive," and "We Only Come Out At Night" are nearly as special to me as the best of the hits- "1979," (how could anyone not like that song?) "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," "or "Thirty-Three." This album also features one of the best openings ever. The gorgeous and yes, melancholy title track into the astonishing "Tonight, Tonight" works so well that although the variation of the rest of the album is its strength, I kind of wish the whole album was as magical as those two songs. This may not mean as much to me on a personal level as some of the other albums on this list, but it's the best album of The Smashing Pumpkins' career, one of (if not THE) best double albums ever, and truly a masterpiece in a time when Hootie And The Blowfish dominated the radio (sorry, hootie (don't worry, I had the album too)). 

Best songs: "Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness," "Tonight, Tonight," "Zero," "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," "To Forgive," "Love," "Thirty-Three," "1979," "We Only Come Out At Night"