150 Best Albums of 1994/’95

So much in the middle ’90s gravely anticipated what came after. Newt Gingrich’s so-called Contract With America and claim that Bill Clinton had abandoned his promised neo-Liberal welfare reform for too-Liberal healthcare reform helped Republicans swing 54 House seats in November 1994, flipping the body rightward for the first time since the middle ’50s. Five months later, far-right extremist Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 and ushering in an era of white supremacist terrorism that would be overwhelmingly ignored by American intelligence agencies at least until January 6, 2021. Future white supremacist cheerleader Rudy Giuliani became the mayor of New York, future Abu Graibh enabler George W. Bush the governor of Texas. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon, Pierre Omidyar founded eBay, America Online connected the nation to the World Wide Web, and WXYC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina pulled off the world’s first Internet broadcast. All that amid Kurt Cobain’s suicide, Selena’s homicide and Bosnian and Rwandan genocide. For the most part, the future did not look terribly bright ahead.

What I was mostly listening to at the time was rock en español mainly but far from exclusively from Mexico, much of which holds up quite well as the list below suggests but which may have been on its last legs as myspace-style networks soon blunted regional distinction in favor of global “alternative” homogeneity, and pop punk, which mostly holds up horribly but which unfortunately continues to inspire eternally diminishing later generations, even rappers like Machine Gun Kelly and Juice Wrld now; this week’s New York Times Magazine hypes “pop punk prodigees” I never heard of called Meet Me @ the Altar, aiming to “put a whole scene back on the charts.” Oh goody, I can’t wait.

But let’s start there anyway. Pop-punk was ancient news even in the mid ’90s, obviously; the Buzzcocks and Ramones and Generation X and Vibrators and so on had done it all a decade and a half before. Yet I somehow managed to get excited anyway. Spin sent to me interview the Offspring, Rancid and Green Day — the former two bands’ features went fine if unmemorably while the latter band walked out on me over dinner in Salt Lake City, leaving me with the check thanks to not liking my questions about goofy late ’70s haircuts and “When I Come Around”‘s riff echoing “Sweet Home Alabama” (a compliment, I swear.) I also contributed (equally unmemorable) writeups about Green Day and the Offspring to Spin‘s ’95-published Alternative Record Guide, and in subsequent years wrote lead reviews of an Offspring album for Rolling Stone (one of only two leads I ever did for them) and Everclear for Spin (one of only two I remember there, off hand.) In Entertainment Weekly, I gave Rancid’s …And Out Come the Wolves what I’m fairly certain was my only-ever A+.

I still like Rancid’s tough’n’touching Clash/ska/oi! cosplay, though not quite as much as I did then; their third album makes my top 25 of ’94/’95, and their second easily lands in my top 100. But Green Day’s Dookie finishes much lower, and the Offspring’s pop-hard-rockish Smash, Everclear’s pop-grungish Sparkle and Fade, Urge Overkill’s pop-AORish Exit the Dragon, D Generation’s pop-glammish self-titled debut, and Weezer’s pop-emoish self-titled debut (not to mention Green Day’s merely double-as-opposed-to-octuple-platinum followup Insomniac) couldn’t even squeak into my top 150. Neither did Therapy? (who had an outside shot) or Manic Street Preachers (who didn’t) or Spacehog (I forget.) All of whom I swear I re-listened to.

My list does have its share of guitar-oriented post-powerpop — Enuf Z’Nuff channeling Cheap Trick, Ruth Ruth bubblegrunging or is it bubblegaraging, Supergrass on the one album before they inadvisedly slowed down, Upper Crust aiming for Bon-era AC/DC and coming out presaging the Donnas with funnier jokes and a maler singer, Wildhearts running the gamut of loud British rock. Cinderella, Kix, Warrant and White Trash (plus Tesla and Electric Boys, out of the money) were meanwhile doing their part to keep ’80s-style pop-metal viable, adapting by various degrees to post-Nirvana flannel. But no shock, they all still rather feel like vestigial relics of a passing epoch.

If Hole and Elastica — or maybe even more so the rock-riffs-under-rap-chants of Gillette and Shampoo — feel less so, that’s probably a tribute to the continued rarity-or-is-it-novelty of women playing what unfairly remains a male-dominated game. Which might explain how Live Through This was the second of three consecutive alt-rock albums fronted by women (after Liz Phair, before P.J. Harvey whose “Down By The Water” little-fishy whispering I still rank with the ’90s’ most gratingly mannered moments) to top the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll. Beyond Hole (and Gillette?), the top woman-fronted rock bands on my list are metal (the Gathering), industrial (Ajax, Ec8or), en español (Santa Sabina, Aterciopelados) or just too twisted to be any kind of pop (Dog Faced Hermans, Moonshake if all the tracks sung by Stereolab’s Katharine Gifford or one Polly Jean Harvey count, Violent Green, Antietam, Geraldine Fibbers, four-female Juned.)

Of course I honor plenty of non-rock women as well — Natacha Atlas, Daúde, Waiting to Exhale (w/ Whitney, Aretha, Chaka, TLC whose crazysexycoolness I couldn’t much connect with beyond “Creep”), Shania Twain, Selena, Fey, Debbie Deb, Lisette Melendez, and so on. But what I’m mostly deducing here, in terms of the “crucial polarity” Robert Christgau laid out in his ’95 P&J essay, is my tastes for mid ’90s rock swerving from songcraft to soundcraft. Pop-punks, whatever their sins, clearly concentrated on the former. But the swerve would also explain my quarter-century-on predilection for such blurry stoners and droners, some perhaps identified with “shoegaze” or “post-rock” I’ve long derided, as Caroliner Rainbow, Notwist, Blumfeld, Prolapse, Young Gods, Th’ Faith Healers, Bunny Brains and Dead C. (I apparently have a higher tolerance for “blurry” than “shaggy”; hence my unsung ability not to be overly impressed by middle ’90s rock records from Black Crowes, Blind Melon, Drivin’ N’ Cryin’, Echolyn, Faith No More, King’s X, Latin Playboys, Marillion, Oasis, Pavement, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Tea Party, etc.)

And then there’s all those electronic (“trip-hop,” “rave,” “new beat,” “EBM” as opposed to “EDM,” good ol’ “synth-pop”?) entities that, nominally at least, present themselves as equivalents of rock bands (does this even happen anymore? if not, when and why did it stop?): Sensation, Leftfield, Asian Dub Foundation, µ-ziq, Cause & Effect, Neon Judgement, Prodigy, Rockers Hi-Fi, Intermix (bhangra but still), Mo-Do, Scooter, Yello, Bigod 20, Bomb the Bass. And that doesn’t even include all the cheery children of Chicago house still bouncing around the planet, long after I’d proclaimed that sound over and done with — Real McCoy, Mr. President, Technotronic, M People, dirty-minded and Gillette-associated Chicago production team/compilation currators 20 Fingers (who also took inspiration from the Jimmy Castor Bunch, Stacey Q, S.O.S Band and early dancehall reggae).

Hey, at least I didn’t say Rednex. Though I could have. As novelty minstrels mining hoedowns for ridiculous comedy and rhythm they weren’t born to, the Swedish Eurodance modernizers of “Cotton-Eye Joe” would presumably appreciate the ’94/’95 release I’ve almost definitely played the most over the decades — a Columbia /Legacy compilation called White Country Blues: 1926-1938 A Lighter Shade of Blue — even though as an archival reissue, it wasn’t eligible for this list. Excellent years for dance compilations of all stripes, regardless — In ’95, Pazz & Jop even initiated a separate category of the things. Macro Dub Infection Volume One won. The category was gone by ’97.

Re-investigating, I was also charmed by how hip-hop of the time — particularly relative lightweights like Coolio and Fu-Schnickens who don’t always make you feel you’re getting yelled at — was still in love with referencing pop culture, especially of the kiddie variety. Mr. Rogers, Elmer Fudd, Kermit the Frog, New Zoo Revue, like that. Bugs Bunny makes multiple appearances. I get the idea that’s another thing that doesn’t much happen anymore — at least not outside of the extreme backpacker (or whatever undie rappers are called these days) realm. But is that because hip-hop decided it was too cornball, or just because rappers got too young to have grown up on that stuff? (Best accidental segue while I streamed 1994 and ’95 on random shuffle, by the way: either OutKast “Git Up, Git Out” into Coolio “Get Up Get Down” or Ec8or “Cocaine Ducks” into Eddie Palmieri “Doctor Duck.”)

Either way, it’s clear to me now that not only electronica and indie/ underground rock, but also hip-hop, metal, jazz, r&b and c&w were much more fruitful than I gave them credit for at the time. If not quite 150 albums a year (as I’ve been doing with the ’70s, ’80s, and ’00s), I could have easily gone way beyond 150 total. Sorry, Offspring and Everclear and Weezer and TLC. Sorry, Cathedral and Trouble and Uriah Heep and Kyuss (whose “One Inch Man” isn’t Gillette’s “Short Dick Man,” but it’s not bad). Sorry, MX-80 and Von Lmo and Voivod. Sorry, Garth and Toby and Kathy Mattea. Sorry, Moloko and Fortran 5. Sorry, unplugged Nirvana. Sorry, all those Wu-Tang solo joints that have way-cool moments but are too damn long-winded and busy-bodied to sift and/or sit through as if I should talk (order of preference: GZA/Genius, Raekwon, ODB, Method Man.) Sorry, lightweights Heavy D and Lighter Shade of Brown. In a better decade, you all would have made the cut. Portishead, I’m not so sure. Ted Nugent (Spirit of the Wild is halfway entertaining, big deal), who gives a flying fascist fart.

One of my favorite Mexican rock en español bands, Caifanes, got shut out too; after their first three albums, El Nervio Del Volcan was a letdown, and hasn’t much improved with time. Five other Mexican albums did make the tally, though, along with four from Spain, three each from Brazil and Nuyorican New York, and one each from Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Chicano East L.A., Tejano Texas and Andalusian Canada if there is such a place (ask Los Del Mar next time you do the macarena.) And wide geographical horizons don’t end with Latin/Hispanic localities; my top 20 alone, along with Um-Pah Pah from Catalonia in Spain and Nuyorican Eddie Palmieri, has three CDs from Germany (Teutonophile, who me?), two each from Sweden and Jamaica, and one each from the Czech Republic and Cameroon.

One demographic that is largely absent from the list, though, is one that now counts me as member — Namely, old people. Or at least, old people who don’t play jazz. Unless I’m missing somebody, the highest possibility I see is ex-Angry Samoan/Vom/Creemster Gregg Turner’s Mistaken in the high ’80s; I figure he was maybe in his low 40s back then. Which isn’t even that old, obviously, so you’d have to dig deeper, into the bottom 20: Warren Zevon (48 in ’95), Mick Ronson (48 in ’94 if he hadn’t died in ’93), Isaac Hayes (53 in ’95). All several years younger than I am now. Though I suspect this blip says more about me than about the middle ’90s. Every time when I look in the mirror, all these lines in my face getting clearer. The past is gone. Except when it isn’t even past.

1. FSK The Sound of Music (Flying Fish ’95)
2. Sensation Burger Habit (550/Epic/One Little Indian ’94)
3. Už Jsme Doma Fairy Tales From Needland (Indies Europe ’95)
4. Malachi Thompson & Africa Brass Featuring Lester Bowie Buddy Bolden’s Rag: 100 Years of Jazz (Delmark ’95)
5. Eddie Palmieri Palmas (Elektra Nonesuch ’94)
6. Gillette On the Attack (SOS/Zoo Entertainment ’94)
7. Kix $how Bu$ine$$  (CMC International ’95)
8. Caroliner Rainbow Customary Relaxation of the Shale/Self Heal Holler/Your Glorious Burden (BullsHit ’95)
9. New Kingdom Paradise Don’t Come Cheap (Gee Street ’95)
10. Heart of the Forest: The Music of the Baka Forest People of Southeast Cameroon (Hannibal ’95)
11. Tiamat Wildhoney (Century Media ’94)
12. DJ Red Alert’s Propmaster Dancehall Show (Epic Street ’94)
13. Rednex Sex & Violins (Battery ’95)
14. The Notwist 12  (Intercord/Community/Big Store Germany ’95)
15. Mutabaruka Melanin Man (Shanachie ’94)
16. Blumfeld L’Etat Et Moi (Big Cat ’95)
17. Leftfield Leftism (Hard Hands/Columbia ’95)
18. Ornette Coleman & Prime Time Tone Dialing  (Verve/Harmolodic ’95)
19. Umpah-Pah Bordell (BMG Ariola Spain ’94)
20. Fu-Schnickens Nervous Breakdown (Jive ’94)
21. Maleen Mahmoud Ghania with Pharaoh Sanders The Trance of Seven Colors (Axiom ’94)
22. Asian Dub Foundation Facts and Fictions (Beggars Banquet ’95)
23. Rancid …And Out Come the Wolves (Epitaph ’95)
24. What Is Bhangra? (I.R.S. ’94)
25. Hole Live Through This (DGC ’94)
26. Natacha Atlas Diaspora (Beggars Banquet/MCA ’95)
27. 20 Fingers (SOS/Zoo Entertainment ’95)
28. Djavan Novena (Epic Brazil ’94)
29. Dog Faced Hermans Those Deep Buds (Alternative Tentacles ’94)
30. Cle Magazine No. 3X (Big Wave ’95)
31. Daúde Daúde (Tinder ’95)
32. Waiting to Exhale (Arista ’95)
33. Shania Twain The Woman in Me (Mercury ’95)
34. µ-ziq Bluff Limbo (Rephlex UK ’95)
35. James Carter The Real Quietstorm (Atlantic Jazz ’95)
36. Seo Taiji & Boys IV (Bango South Korea ’95)
37. The Gathering Mandylion (Century Media ’95)
38. The Auteurs Now I’m a Cowboy (Hut USA/Virgin Yard ’94)
39. Los Fabulosos Cadillacs Vasos Vacíos (Sony Latin ’94)
40. Cause & Effect Trip (Zoo Entertainment ’94)
41. The Neon Judgement At Devil’s Fork (Synthetic Symphony Germany ’95)
42. Khaled N’ssi N’ssi (Mango ’94)
43. Course Of Empire Initiation (Zoo Entertainment ’94)
44. David Murray Jug-a-Lug (DIW Japan ’95)
45. Prolapse Pointless Walks to Dismal Places (Cherry Red UK ’94)
46. Nana Vasconcelos Storytelling (Hemisphere ’95)
47. Moonshake The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow (Too Pure/American ’95)
48. The Young Gods Only Heaven (Interscope/Play It Again Sam ’95)
49. DJ DB: The History of Our World Part 1: Breakbeat & Jungle Ultramix (Profile ’94)
50. Cornershop Woman’s Gotta Have It (Luaka Bop/Warner Bros. ’95)
51. Santa Sabina Simbolos (Cluebrea/BMG Mexico ’94)
52. Selena Dreaming of You (EMI Latin ’95)
53. Violent Green Eros (Up ’95)
54. Real McCoy Another Night (Arista ’95)
55. Henry Threadgill Song out of My Trees (Black Saint Italy ’94)
56. Banda Bahia Ghostbusters (Fonovisa ’95)
57. The Coup Genocide & Juice (Wild Pitch/EMI ’94)
58. New York Ensemble For Early Music Istanpitta: A Medieval Dance Band (Lyrichord ’95)
59. Beck Stereopathic Soulmanure (Flipside ’94)
60. Mr. President Up’n Away: The Album (WEA Europe ’95)
61. The Bottle Rockets The Brooklyn Side  (East Side Digital ’94)
62. Aterciopelados El Dorado (BMG Latin ’95)
63. Henry Threadgill Makin’ a Move (Columbia ’95)
64. Supergrass I Should Coco (Capitol ’95)
65. Coolio It Takes a Thief  (Tommy Boy ’94)
66. Ata Kak Obaa Sima (Ata Kak Ghana ’94)
67. The Prodigy Music for a Jilted Generation (Mute/XL ’95)
68. Claw Hammer Thank the Holder Uppers (Interscope ’95)
69. Gang Starr Hard to Earn (Chrysalis/ERG ’94)
70. Intermix Double Impact (Nachural UK ’94)
71. Rockers Hi-Fi/Original Rockers Rockers to Rockers (Island/Gee Street ’94)
72. Playa Dance 95 (Ibiza/BMG Latin ’95)
73. OutKast Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (LaFace ’94)
74. Ajax Aphrodite (Zoo Entertainment EP ’95)
75. Scatman John Scatman’s World (RCA Germany ’95)
76. My Dying Bride The Angel and the Dark River (Peaceville ’95)
77. Mo-Do Was Ist Das?  (ZYX Germany ’95)
78. Fey Fey  (SDI/Columbia ’95)
79. Desorden Publico Canto Popular De La Vida Y Muerto (SDI ’95)
80. Skyclad Prince of the Poverty Line (Noise International ’95)
81. Barrio Boyzz Una Vez Mas (SBK/EMI Latin ’95)
82. Rancid Let’s Go (Epitaph ’94)
83. Moonspell Wolfheart (Century Media ’95)
84. Coolio Gangsta’s Paradise (Tommy Boy/East West ’95)
85. Sentenced Amok (Century Media ’94)
86. Umpah-Pah Triquiñuelas Al Óleo (BMG Spain ’94)
87. Charlie Haden & Hank Jones Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs  (Verve France ’95)
88. The Mistaken Santa Fe (Triple X ’94)
89. Monster Magnet Dopes to Infinity (A&M ’95)
90. El DeBarge Heart, Mind & Soul (Reprise ’94)
91. Debbie Deb She’s Back! (Pandisc ’95)
92. The Mavericks What a Crying Shame (MCA ’94)
93. Th’ Faith Healers Imaginary Friend (Elektra/Too Pure ’94)
94. Return of the D.J. (Bomb Hip-Hop ’95)
95. Technotronic Recall (EMISBK ’95)
96. Antietam Rope-a-Dope (Homestead ’94)
97. Macro Dub Infection Volume One (Caroline ’95)
98. The Notorious B.I.G. Ready to Die (Bad Boy ’94)
99. Scooter …And the Beat Goes On (Club Tools Germany ’95)
100. White Trash ¿Sí O Sí, Que? (Elektra ’94)
101. Sergio Arau Mi Frida Sufrida (Sony Discos ’94)
102. Handraizer (Moonshine ’95)
103. Lisette Melendez True to Life (Fever/Chaos/RAL/Columbia ’94)
104. Warren G Regulate…The G-Funk Era (Violator/RAL ’94)
105. Penance Parallel Corners (Century Media ’94)
106. The Ex Mudbird Shivers (Ex/RecRec Canada ’94)
107. M People Elegant Slumming (Epic ’95)
108. The Bunny Brains Bunny Brains (Matador ’95)
109. The Geraldine Fibbers The Geraldine Fibbers (Sympathy for the Record Industry ’94)
110. Butch Thompson Yulestride (Daring ’94)
111. The Wildhearts Fishing For [More] Luckies (East West UK ’94)
112. Ec8or Ec8or (Digital Hardcore Recordings Germany ’95)
113. Maria Fatal Maria Fatal (Aztlan ’95)
114. Junior Boy’s Own Collection (Junior Boy’s Own UK ’94)
115. Héroes Del Silencio Avalancha (El Dorado ’95)
116. Juned Juned (Up ’94)
117. La H.H. Botellita De Jerez Forjando Patria (BMG Latin ’94)
118. Release End of the Light (Century Media ’94)
119. Yello Zebra (4th and Broadway ’94)
120. Ruth Ruth Laughing Gallery (Venture/American ’95)
121. New London Children’s Choir, Ronald Corp Britten: A Ceremony of Carols/Friday Afternoons/Three Two-Part Songs (Naxos Germany ’95)
122. Limpopo Crazy Russian Folk And Rock’n’Roll (Rainbo ’94)
123. Cinderella Still Climbing (Mercury ’94)
124. Enuff Z’Nuff 1985 (Big Deal ’94)
125. Shampoo We Are Shampoo (Food/I.R.S. ’94)
126. Warrant Ultraphobic (CMC International ’95)
127. Bigod 20 Supercute (Sire/Zoth Ommog ’94)
128. The Bunny Brains Beach Bunny Bingo (The Now Sound EP ’95)
129. Upper Crust Let Them Eat Rock (Upstart ’95)
130. Green Day Dookie (Reprise ’94)
131. Los Del Mar Macarena (Lime/Quality Canada ’95)
132. Warren Zevon Mutineer (Giant ’95)
133. Apache Indian Make Way for the Indian (Island ’95)
134. The Dead C The White House (Siltbreeze ’95)
135. Seguridad Social Una Beso Y Una Flor (WEA Latin ’95)
136. The Dambuilders Ruby Red (East West ’95)
137. Beck Mellow Gold (DGC ’94)
138. Solitude Aeternus Through the Darkest Hour (Pavement ’94)
139. Lordz of Brooklyn All in the Family (American ’95)
140. Elastica Elastica  (DGC ’95)
141. Naughty By Nature Poverty’s Paradise (Tommy Boy ’95)
142. Mick Ronson Heaven and Hull (Epic ’94)
143. Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments Bait and Switch (Onion/American ’95)
144. Isaac Hayes Branded (Pointblank ’95)
145. Bomb the Bass Clear (4th & Broadway UK ’95)
146. Collin Raye Extremes (Epic ’94)
147. Montell Jordan This is How We Do It (PMP/RAL ’95)
148. The Tractors The Tractors (Arista ’94)
149. Sophie B. Hawkins Whaler (Columbia ’94)
150. Pulp Different Class (Island ’95)