Unlucky For Some: The 13 most underrated albums of the 1990s
The 1990s saw music diversify more than ever before; a tummy-rubbing banquet of classic genres was sprinkled with Britpop, grunge, hip-hop, trip-hop, shoegaze and a galaxy of other innovative sounds spawned from the previous four decades of recorded music.
The ’90s sealed off a millennium and a century that had seen the two most catastrophic wars in recorded history: mind-boggling technological advances and some great tunes. The last century is divided, in my mind, into two parts. My mental timeline shows the 20th century as black and white prior to the 1960s, then suddenly a burst of colour for the rest of the century.
Of course, this is likely because colour TV and photography were developed in the latter half of the century. However, a huge factor in this for me was the explosion of pop music spawning from the roots of rock and roll. The ‘peace and love’ movement throughout the 1960s brought on a cultural revolution; music was at the heart of this revolution. Over the last 40 years of the 20th century, music evolved exponentially, often into strange territory at the fringes.
Today, we’re picking out the 13 most underappreciated albums of the ’90s. Unluckily for these artists, the below albums didn’t receive as many ears as they perhaps deserved. In many of these cases, the albums weren’t given due attention because the music wasn’t what one might deem radio-worthy or had yet to become an established sound.
For this reason, you would be excused for missing the train on some of these records, but I implore you to give these albums some renewed attention.
The 13 most underrated albums of the 1990s
Talk Talk – Laughing Stock
By the late 1980s, frontman Mark Hollis brought Talk Talk a long way from their synth-pop roots. By the time they released their 1988 album, Spirit of Eden, they had stripped away the pop element of their music and left behind a post-rock sound of unbound beauty.
This late Talk Talk sound was more ambient, consisting of protracted jazz, blues, classical, and dub excursions strung together with meticulous production. Spirit of Eden is often critiqued favourably to its 1991 follow-up, Laughing Stock, but I feel the latter deserves just as much attention, if not more.
Morphine – Cure for Pain
I always have a soft spot for musicians who try something a little different but manage to remain very much in the realm of enjoyable listening. Combining smooth jazz and blues sounds, the Massachusetts band stuck mainly to a stripped-back bass, saxophone and percussion triad.
For me, Morphine perfected their characteristic sound with 1993’s Cure for Pain, best known for ‘Buena’, which featured in the first season of The Sopranos. But under the surface, the album has much to offer with highlights like ‘Cure for Pain’, ‘Sheila’ and ‘In Spite of Me’.
The Orb – The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld
The early 1990s marked the rise of rave culture as the synth-pop of the 1980s began to take an even more electrifying turn. The advanced technology in the realms of sampling, sequencing and synthesising gave one person the power of an orchestra at their fingertips.
The Orb joined a swathe of aspiring electro producers, and alongside the likes of Aphex Twin, Underworld and Autechre, they pushed the preconceived norms of sonic exploration. Their debut, The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, arrived in 1991 and was a truly astonishing and eclectic double album. The continuous, progressive composition emulates a two-hour psychedelic trip – a stroke of genius from Alex Paterson.
Julian Cope – Peggy Suicide
Julian Cope’s musical journey began in the late 1970s alongside Echo and the Bunnymen frontman Ian McCulloch in the short-lived Crucial Three. After gathering a cult following as the LSD-popping figurehead of The Teardrop Explodes, he embarked on a rollercoaster solo career.
These solo exploits undoubtedly hit an apical ecstasy in 1991’s Peggy Suicide. The eclectic album follows spirituality, politics, the occult and ecology themes with sprawling tempos and styles from neo-psychedelia to funk to punk. This post-rock powerhouse has it all, including contributions from The Smiths’ former drummer Mike Joyce and future Spiritualized lead guitarist Mike Mooney.
Arab Strap – Philophobia
Falkirk duo Arab Strap perhaps weren’t expecting or even hoping for chart success; naming themselves after a penis ring mightn’t have been the most prudent of moves if they were. Alas, they achieved a respectable following in 1996 with their debut, The Week Never Starts Around Here, thanks to its lead single, ‘The First Big Weekend’.
Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat followed up with likely their greatest all-rounder album, Philophobia, in 1998, which saw a maturation of their unique, brooding sound characterised by Middleton’s spoken word vocal delivery. While recording Philophobia, the pair were joined in the studio by Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch, Chris Geddes and Sarah Martin.
Mazzy Star – She Hangs Brightly
Dream pop, post-folk, neo-psychedelic, whatever way you might try to categorise Mazzy Star, it seems to fall short of describing their very unique and delicate sound. The core duo, consisting of Hope Sandoval and David Roback, pioneered a detached and often depressing style of music in the 1990s, which has since gathered a strong cult following.
Their 1993 sophomore album, So Tonight That I Might See, is broadly deemed Mazzy Star’s masterpiece buoyed by its popular hits: ‘Fade Into You’, ‘Five String Serenade’ and ‘Into Dust’. I feel the prior debut album, She Hangs Brightly, which introduced Mazzy Star’s unique sound to humble levels of commercial attention, was worthy of equal attention.
The Jesus and Mary Chain – Honey’s Dead
The Jesus and Mary Chain, much like The Velvet Underground before them, never seemed to garner the respect they deserved in their time. However, they weren’t widely popular in their time because their sound was such a fresh cut against the grain. It wouldn’t be so revered today if it were not so original.
Their 1985 post-punk hangover debut LP, Psychocandy, is now hailed as the holy grail of noise rock and shoegaze. Along with Darklands, Psychocandy is considered a seminal classic, but their shoegaze-meets-dance-music fourth album, 1992’s Honey’s Dead, has criminally slipped under the radar and deserves another look.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – F# A# ∞
I’ll admit, it’s easy to see why Godspeed You! Black Emperor have never been the talk of the town and the cream of the charts. If these Montreal-based wizards wanted to be there, they wouldn’t create albums consisting of just three epic tracks.
Frankly, everything Godspeed You! Black Emperor have put out is novel and intriguing, but their 1997 debut is one of the experimental 1990s albums that seemed to slip under the radar. The three songs, ‘The Dead Flag Blues’, ‘East Hastings’ and ‘Providence’, create absorbing soundscapes and themes that are split into highly palatable movements. The listen will take up an hour of your time, but it’s more than worth it.
The Verve – A Storm In Heaven
The Verve struck a chord with the Britpop movement in 1997 with the release of their third studio album, Urban Hymns. The music was punchy, anthemic and chorus-orientated, a surefire combination for chart success when coupled with Richard Ashcroft’s towering vocal prowess.
When The Verve dropped their debut album, A Storm In Heaven, in 1993, they weren’t fussed about charting. Their initial sound was to focus on an experimental psychedelic blend. According to bassist Simon Jones (via udiscovermusic), guitarist Nick McCabe “didn’t treat the guitar like a guitar… He didn’t want to be a guitar hero. He wasn’t into Jimmy Page… It was all about texture.” This shimmering textural beauty undoubtedly deserves the ears that enjoyed the band’s next two albums.
Lush – Gala
Lush crept along in the background of the British rock scene in the 1990s. Their early material drew from the dreamy shoegaze sound of Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine, but toward the mid-1990s, they skewed towards a more defined and punchy Britpop sound.
Lush achieved their closest simulation of commercial and critical eminence with their fourth and final album, Lovelife, in 1996. While ‘Ladykillers’ and the like may have been all the rage in the Britpop hysteria, the group’s debut album, Gala, carries much better through the years and wrestles with 1992’s Spooky for the top spot.
Fugazi – Steady Diet of Nothing
Fugazi’s 1991 second album, Steady Diet of Nothing, is often overlooked by critics in favour of its follow-up, In On The Kill Taker, or 2001’s The Argument. While I agree that these latter two might be just about superior, Steady Diet of Nothing showed Fugazi finding their character and contains some of their most memorable material.
The record was the first the band would mix by themselves and has been criticised for its chaotic production, but for me, this meets the Fugazi DNA head-on most organically and fruitfully. ‘Long Division’ and ‘Exit Only’ are personal highlights.
New Fast Automatic Daffodils – Pigeonhole
The Madchester surge of the late 1980s and ‘90s brought the might of New Order, The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Oasis to the world. Understandably, these titans were going to eclipse some great ancillary bands off the map.
One such intriguing sound came in 1990 with New FADS’ funky and fresh-sounding debut album, Pigeonhole. The band formed from the ashes of the punk group Pariah, with a new direction of danceable energy akin to their neighbours Happy Mondays. The album retains a classy groove throughout, with ‘Big’ and ‘Fishes Eyes’ as its highlight moments.
Bowery Electric – Beat
Bowery Electric were a New York post-rock duo who seemed to pass many people by in the 1990s. Their second album, 1996’s Beat, is an hour of enveloping low-fi trip-hop magic that marks the peak of Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener’s powers.
Chandler told Alternative Press: “Beat is the beginning of us learning our way around a proper sampler and software which allows us to work with samples on the computer. We can sample ourselves, manipulate sounds, create our own beats and basically work with fewer restrictions.”
