Top Ten Rock Albums of Each Year 1990-1999

[Brian]

Criteria: These Albums were chosen for their immediate and lasting popularity, impact, influence, originality, and acclaim from critics and musicians.

Edited By: Brian
Last Updated: 2023-03-08

A link to the top 100 of each year follows the top 10 of that year.

1990
1. Fear of a Black Planet – Public Enemy
2. Violator – Depeche Mode
3. AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted – Ice Cube
4. Ritual De Lo Habitual - Jane's Addiction
5. I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got – Sinead O’Connor
6. Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em – MC Hammer
7. Mama Said Knock You Out – LL Cool J
8. Shake Your Money Maker – Black Crowes
9. Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches - Happy Mondays
10. Ragged Glory – Neil Young & Crazy Horse

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/albu ... _1990.html

1991
1. Nevermind – Nirvana
2. Ten - Pearl Jam
3. Achtung Baby - U2
4. Metallica (a.k.a. The Black Album) – Metallica
5. Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers
6. The Low End Theory – A Tribe Called Quest
7. Out of Time – R.E.M.
8. Use Your Illusion I - Guns N Roses
9. Use Your Illusion II - Guns N Roses
10. Blue Lines – Massive Attack **

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/albu ... _1991.html

1992
1. The Chronic – Dr. Dre
2. Automatic for the People – R.E.M.
3. Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine
4. Dirt - Alice In Chains
5. Unplugged – Eric Clapton
6. What’s the 411? – Mary J. Blige
7. Check Your Head – Beastie Boys
8. 3 Years, 5 Months, & 2 Days in the Life of… - Arrested Development
9. Slanted and Enchanted – Pavement
10. Vulgar Display of Power – Pantera

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/albu ... _1992.html

1993
1. In Utero – Nirvana
2. Enter the Wu-tang (36 Chambers) – Wu-Tang Clan
3. Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins
4. Doggystyle – Snoop Doggy Dogg
5. Vs. - Pearl Jam
6. August and Everything After - Counting Crows
7. Debut – Bjork
8. Tuesday Night Music Club – Sheryl Crow
9. Midnight Marauders - A Tribe Called Quest **
10. Exile in Guyville – Liz Phair

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/albu ... _1993.html

1994
1. Dookie - Green Day
2. Ready to Die – Notorious B.I.G.
3. Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails
4. Illmatic – Nas
5. Superunknown – Soundgarden
6. MTV Unplugged in New York – Nirvana
7. CrazySexyCool – TLC
8. Weezer – Weezer
9. Definitely Maybe – Oasis
10. Grace - Jeff Buckley

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/albu ... _1994.html

1995
1. Jagged Little Pill - Alanis Morissette
2. (What's the Story) Morning Glory – Oasis
3. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - Smashing Pumpkins
4. Me Against the World – 2pac
5. The Bends – Radiohead
6. Tragic Kingdom – No Doubt
7. Post – Bjork
8. Different Class – Pulp
9. To Bring You My Love - PJ Harvey
10. Daydream – Mariah Carey

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/albu ... _1995.html

1996
1. The Score – Fugees
2. All Eyez on Me – 2pac
3. Odelay – Beck
4. Aenima – Tool
5. Sublime – Sublime
6. Reasonable Doubt – Jay-Z
7. Endtroducing… - DJ Shadow
8. Yourself or Someone Like You – Matchbox 20
9. Pinkerton – Weezer
10. ATLiens – Outkast

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/albu ... _1996.html

1997
1. OK Computer – Radiohead
2. Life After Death – Notorious B.I.G.
3. Baduizm – Erykah Badu
4. Urban Hymns – The Verve
5. Supa Dupa Fly - Missy Elliott
6. The Fat of the Land – The Prodigy
7. Time Out of Mind - Bob Dylan
8. Homogenic – Bjork **
9. Homework – Daft Punk
10. Dig Your Own Hole – Chemical Brothers

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/albu ... _1997.html

1998
1. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill – Lauryn Hill
2. Aquemini – Outkast
3. Ray of Light – Madonna
4. Hello Nasty – Beastie Boys
5. Devil Without a Cause – Kid Rock
6. You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby – Fatboy Slim
7. Follow the Leader – Korn
8. Mezzanine – Massive Attack
9. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel **
10. Moon Safari – Air

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/albu ... _1998.html

1999
1. The Slim Shady LP – Eminem
2. Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers
3. Supernatural – Santana
4. Play – Moby
5. 2001 – Dr. Dre
6. The Battle of Los Angeles - Rage Against the Machine
7. Black on Both Sides – Mos Def
8. Things Fall Apart – Roots
9. The Soft Bulletin – Flaming Lips
10. The Writing’s on the Wall – Destiny’s Child

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/albu ... _1999.html

** indicates new entry

[ManPerson]

Spice seems low on the 1996 list. It had very strong sales in both the US and UK, spearheaded the late 90s teen pop movement with solid acclaim as well.

Comparing it to some 1996 albums above it.
Spice vs If You're Feeling Sinister
Popularity: Spice by a landslide
Acclaim: IYFS easily
Influence: Spice fairly easily

Spice vs Evil Empire
Popularity: Spice fairly easily
Acclaim: Spice slightly
Influence: Spice

Spice vs Antichrist Supertar
Popularity: Spice easily
Acclaim: Antichrist Superstar fairly easily
Influence: Spice

Spice vs ATLiens
Popularity: Spice easily
Acclaim: ATLiens fairly easily
Influence: Leaning towards ATLiens

Spice vs Pinkerton
Popularity: Spice easily
Acclaim: Pinkerton easily
Influence: Spice

Spice vs Yourself or Someone Like You
Popularity: YoSLY close
Acclaim: Spice fairly easily
Influence: Spice fairly easily

Spice vs Endtroducing
Popularity: Spice by a landslide
Acclaim: Endtroducing easily
Influence: Close

Spice vs Reasonable Doubt
Popularity: Spice easily
Acclaim: Reasonable Doubt easily
Influence: Reasonable Doubt

Spice vs Sublime
Popularity: Spice close
Acclaim: Sublime
Influence: Spice

Based on this it should be somewhere in the 6-8 range.
Personally, I'd suggest:
5. Reasonable Doubt
6. Spice
7. Sublime
8. Endtroducing

[Brian]

I'm starting to look over this part of the '96 list. It does at least seem clear that Spice should be ahead of Evil Empire. I'm also looking at the placement of Tidal. I see no reason for it to be behind Evil Empire and Antichrist Superstar.

If You're Feeling Sinister might be more influential than what you're crediting it with. I don't mean more influential than Spice, but likely more influential than some of the other albums in that range. Note this from WIkipedia:

Reflecting on it 20 years on, Stereogum's Tom Breihan claimed that Sinister could be "too influential", despite it taking "a long time for [the band's] influence to spread." In time, their impact would "fully sink into the bloodstream of the indie rock world." He saw the band's timidity taken, "Americanized", and introduced to a new audience in US college kids by American band Death Cab for Cutie. He also credited them with impacting the development of "sensitive and proudly bookish" indie stars like the Decemberists and Sufjan Stevens.[32] Other groups that critics have noted Sinister inspiring include Alvvays, Hovvdy, Kings of Convenience, and the Shins.[33][34]

[ManPerson]

Yes, IYFS does seem to have more influence than I previously thought.

[ManPerson]

I agree, If You're Feeling Sinister definitely had more influence than it first seemed. It's a slow burn that really shaped indie music later on. As for Spice, it was huge in pop, but its influence doesn't quite match something like Endtroducing. Still, it can’t be denied how popular it was.

I'm not sure about this. Endtroducing was more innovative for sure, but its influence is far more niche than Spice's.

[Brian]

I'm looking at the entire range of the decade list from Yourself or Someone Like You to Spice, which is positions 105-141, because I think there are other things in that range that can be improved besides moving up Spice. Actually, I'm looking at 105-143, because of the next 2 albums after Spice,The Fragile should probably be a couple of positions higher, and Tidal should probably be more than a couple of positions higher.

I don't know yet where Spice will end up on the '96 list, but it will probably be somewhere in lower part of the top 10. If so, something will have to fall out of the top 10, almost certainly either ATliens, Pinkerton, or Yourself or Someone Like You. The latter easily has the best sales and chart numbers of the three, but it doesn't beat the other two albums in anything besides that. I think ATliens is the most influential of the three, but Pinkerton has been credited with influence over emo, while I don't know if YOSLY has any influence. It's pretty derivative, basically classic rock with some Pearl Jam touches. YOSLY is also the least acclaimed of the three, while Pinkerton probably beats ATLiens in that. The lasting popularity indicators, flawed as they are, point toward YOSLY being the least enduringly popular of the three. So I'm inclined to think that overall, YOSLY does a little less well in the critreria than the other two, and is the one that should drop out of the 1996 top 10.

[ManPerson]

Fwiw, here are the total spotify streams for each album
YOSLY: 954m
ATLIENS: 434m
Pinkerton: 222m

If you subtract the streams of the most popular song from the total streams (to deal with cases where one song has a lion's share of an album's streams), you get
YOSLY: 597m
ATLiens: 226m
Pinkerton: 152m

Based on this, I'd probably give YOSLY lasting popularity

Here's how I'd rank them in each criterion
Acclaim: Pinkerton > ATLiens >>> YOSLY
Popularity: YOSLY >>> ATLiens > Pinkerton
Influence: ATLiens > Pinkerton > YOSLY

Overall, I'd say
ATLiens > Pinkerton > YOSLY

So I'd agree with YOSLY leaving the top 10.

[ManPerson]

Brian, could I give a list of suggestions for the yearly lists, similar to what I did for the 2010s list?

Edit: Are your yearly lists also for all genres (like Ryan's)?

[Brian]

My lists aren't all genres. The part of each list that overlaps with the decade list is intended to be entirely rock. Below that point, I go a little bit broader, including such things as The Bodyguard Soundtrack and Shania Twain's Come on Over, but with the intention of only including things that are close, and leaving off things that definitely aren't rock.

Work on lists comes at me faster than I'm able to get it done. Awhile ago, I think it was you that made a suggestion on the '90s songs list that got me looking at a big chunk of that list, but then other projects took me away from that and I still haven't gotten back to it. So I would ask that you just pick out a few changes that you think are especially needed, so that I can fit that into everything else that I'm doing. I think that usually the most important thing for lists is what's on the list and what isn't, and that except for the upper part of lists, exact positioning is of secondary importance, but you can pick out what you think is especially important as you wish.

[ManPerson]

All of my suggestions will involve fairly significant changes (i.e. moves of more than 30 spots within the top 100, more than 50 spots in the 100-200, and additions or removals from the list)

I'll also try to bold the couple suggestions I think are most important.

[Fido]

A sidebar list of maybe 20 greatest non-rock albums would be a cool idea for the future.

[ManPerson]

My lists aren't all genres. The part of each list that overlaps with the decade list is intended to be entirely rock. Below that point, I go a little bit broader, including such things as The Bodyguard Soundtrack and Shania Twain's Come on Over, but with the intention of only including things that are close, and leaving off things that definitely aren't rock.

Work on lists comes at me faster than I'm able to get it done. Awhile ago, I think it was you that made a suggestion on the '90s songs list that got me looking at a big chunk of that list, but then other projects took me away from that and I still haven't gotten back to it. So I would ask that you just pick out a few changes that you think are especially needed, so that I can fit that into everything else that I'm doing. I think that usually the most important thing for lists is what's on the list and what isn't, and that except for the upper part of lists, exact positioning is of secondary importance, but you can pick out what you think is especially important as you wish.

I'm curious why you don't consider it rock. It has some adult contemporary influences, but its sound isn't all that different from her earlier ballad work, and (while neither of these places are gospel) Wiki and RYM both list it as an r&b album.

[Brian]

All of my suggestions will involve fairly significant changes (i.e. moves of more than 30 spots within the top 100, more than 50 spots in the 100-200, and additions or removals from the list)

I'll also try to bold the couple suggestions I think are most important.

Since you mention the 100-200 part of the list, and my yearly lists only go to 100, it sounds like you're talking about suggestions for the decade list, with the yearly lists only affected when necessary to keep them consistent with the decade list. That would be more manageable than what i thought you were talking about before, which was lots of suggestions for each of the yearly lists. Since I'm planning to soon get back to looking at the decade list anyway, this would actually be a good time for suggestions about that.

[Brian]

My lists aren't all genres. The part of each list that overlaps with the decade list is intended to be entirely rock. Below that point, I go a little bit broader, including such things as The Bodyguard Soundtrack and Shania Twain's Come on Over, but with the intention of only including things that are close, and leaving off things that definitely aren't rock.

Work on lists comes at me faster than I'm able to get it done. Awhile ago, I think it was you that made a suggestion on the '90s songs list that got me looking at a big chunk of that list, but then other projects took me away from that and I still haven't gotten back to it. So I would ask that you just pick out a few changes that you think are especially needed, so that I can fit that into everything else that I'm doing. I think that usually the most important thing for lists is what's on the list and what isn't, and that except for the upper part of lists, exact positioning is of secondary importance, but you can pick out what you think is especially important as you wish.

I'm curious why you don't consider it rock. It has some adult contemporary influences, but its sound isn't all that different from her earlier ballad work, and (while neither of these places are gospel) Wiki and RYM both list it as an r&b album.

My sense is that early in Whitney's career, she sometimes did R&B and sometime AC, in kind of the same way Elton John and Billy Joel mixed rock and AC, but that later in her career he was closer to a more purely AC artist.

[Brian]

A sidebar list of maybe 20 greatest non-rock albums would be a cool idea for the future.

If you mean for the decade list, I'll consider that.

[ManPerson]

All of my suggestions will involve fairly significant changes (i.e. moves of more than 30 spots within the top 100, more than 50 spots in the 100-200, and additions or removals from the list)

I'll also try to bold the couple suggestions I think are most important.

Since you mention the 100-200 part of the list, and my yearly lists only go to 100, it sounds like you're talking about suggestions for the decade list, with the yearly lists only affected when necessary to keep them consistent with the decade list. That would be more manageable than what i thought you were talking about before, which was lots of suggestions for each of the yearly lists. Since I'm planning to soon get back to looking at the decade list anyway, this would actually be a good time for suggestions about that.

Yes, I was mostly referring to the top 20-30 albums each year that are in contention for the decade list.