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Q Albums of the 90s: 1994

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Welcome back to the Q Albums of the 90s thread. If you weren’t here for 1990-93, this is a thread where we get the chance to review Q’s choices for the top albums from each year between 1990 and 1998 as published in the December 1999 edition of Q.

So, let’s see which 10 albums Q thought were the pick of 1994 (“The Year of Transition”):

Beastie Boys – Ill Communication
Jeff Buckley – Grace
Morrissey – Vauxhall & I
Oasis – Definitely Maybe
Nirvana – Unplugged in New York
Portishead – Dummy
Soundgarden – Superunknown
Underworld – Dubnobasswithmyheadman
Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Blur – Parklife

Quite a list. It’ll be interesting to read what we think about these albums 30 years on (what do people think of Grace these days?). Elsewhere in 1994, Radio was going through its great upheaval, as satirised by Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse in Smashie & Nicey: the End of an Era, and there was also the first issue of Loaded and, perhaps most notably of all, the first season of Friends.

What do you think of the list? Does it represent 1994 for you? What’s missing? And of course, how many have you got?

2

Comments

  3. A great year for music for me. Of the Q list, only Dummy was one I rated at the time. But I feel it was too successful and became ubiquitous. I don’t need to hear the wounded vocals schtick any more. Others will probably have more expertise in the other nine.

    Pulp released His’N’Hers, Radiohead put out The Bends. There were good albums from Luna, June Tabor, Dead Can Dance, St Etienne. The Backbeat film had a great soundtrack with an amazing namecheck of musicians to play Beatles playing songs!

    There were some great trance/ambient/trip hop releases from the likes of 9 Lazy 9, Deep Forest, Global Communication, Jam & Spoon, Massive Attack, Real Life, The Irresistible Force, The Sabres of Paradise, etc. But these would be the 10 I take away from 1994:

    Chumbawamba – Anarchy
    My favourite, barring the live Showbusiness! Album, before they ‘sold out with TubThumper’
    Laurie Anderson – Bright Red
    peak Laurie – instant and enduring love
    The Grid – Evolver
    pop and trance in beautiful harmony
    The Prodigy – Music For the Jilted Generation
    Punk meets dance
    Jan Garbarek & Hilliard Ensemble – Officium
    perfect bathtime music
    MC Solaar – Prose Combat
    Love hearing fluid rap in French
    Fun-Da-Mental – Seize The Time
    Studying in Bradford, this was the music that fitted the scene
    Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Sleeps With Angels
    A brooding, reflective, cathartic album with so many good songs -possibly my favourite, particularly Trans Am, Safeway Cart and the marathon that is Change Your Mind, all bookended with tinkling piano
    Ali Farka Toure & Ry Cooder – Talking Timbuktu
    I’m not a fan of his solo work, but Ry Cooder just works wonders in his collaborations
    Little Axe – The Wolf That House Built
    Rich blues soundscape with the On-U rhythm section

      • Whoops! As they say, if you want people to pay attention, don’t ask a question, but make a mistake – That will reel them in.

        This wasn’t a deliberate mistake, I’ll hold my hand up (I’m quite surprised there aren’t more), but I’m delighted to be corrected and to make my data one little bit more accurate.

        Thank you, Diddley (Are you related to Lord Farquar of Shrek fame?)

          • Good to see a shout for Anarchy. BTW, they no more sold out than consolidated: what would you do if circumstances gave you a hit? Reject it? It may not have been their best, but it gave them a platform to espouse their views and opinions, with vast sums recycled back into causes they supported.
            Anarchy was where I first jumped aboard, catching them at an inaugural Guilfest. Smitten and still am.

            • There was a reason why I put I put tabloid headline commas around that phrase – recognizing it was a thing, but not necessarily agreeing with it. I don’t have a problem with big selling albums, I just don’t really connect with them – at least not when the heat of full public attention is on them.

              Apart from Tubthumping, there aren’t any memorable tracks on that album for me, which is unusual for the Chumbas.

              Interesting that Anarchy was your first taste – there were some great singles around that time. Did you dip your feet into the earlier albums after?

      • That bass, the growly voice, the copious references to old blues tropes, it is as effortless as ‘Woke Up This Morning’ acne does things Moby could only dream of with ‘Play’.

  4. I have 5 from the Q list – Blur, Oasis, Jeff Buckley, Portishead & Nirvana. Still think all are good albums, although not played too often.

    What’s missing from my perspective…

    Milla / Divine Comedy
    The (only?) album from the actress Milla Janovich. I love this album – can’t explain why and I know it’s not universally popular, but I guess that’s the fun of music.

    Suede / Dog Man Star.
    I probably prefer this to the debut.

    Sophie B Hawkins / Whaler
    “As I lay Me Down” and “Right Beside You” are both epic tracks.

    Tom Petty / Wildflowers
    Probably my favourite Petty album and the track “To Find A Friend” is definitely up there as amongst his best.

    Seal / Seal
    Epic production from Mr Horn, great tunes gives an album that still stands up today (and is still played regularly).

    Primal Scream / Give Out But Don’t Give Up.
    Bobby does the Stones. I prefer the more recently released “Original Memphis Sessions” version but its still a cracker of an album.

    Overall, I would say “Dummy” is my favourite album of 1994.

        • I kind of agree, they’d have left a small but perfectly-formed discography. But Bernard left before it was released, and their gig at Oxford Apollo (first of the UK tour, I think) with young Richard was one of the best I’ve ever witnessed, so we’d have missed the chance to hear DMS live.

          I kept buying the later records but I never listened to them more than once.

    • I really have a soft spot for Sophie B. Hawkins, but more for her singles, than her albums – maybe because she puts so much into those that the other songs just don’t seem to match up.

  5. Of those featured I got Oasis, Nirvana and Portishead. At the time they all seemed definitely outstanding, now maybe not so much. Although whenever I hear a track off Dummy it sounds tremendous. Particularly Roads and Sour Times. It sort of became a record to play at dinner parties, which riled Geoff Barrow who seems a rather earnest type. He wanted our full attention so we’d wallow in the power of the angst. It was kind of pretty music. It fitted in with trip hop and the trend for easy listening and chill out. One should be glad for the success. These things are short lived and inevitably people don’t always see your meisterwerk in the same way you do as the artist.

    • I got put off Geoff Barrow when he formed a group and called it Quakers. We don’t own a copyright – see also the porridge oat company – but it felt a bit near the knuckle.

  6. This list looks more definitive than some others – a proper Best 10.
    I’ve got three (Portishead, Morrisey, Blur) and I still consider them great albums, though I do think there was better to come from two of them. I am surprised that Talking Timbuktu isn’t in there; it was being raved about even at the time. Exactly like Sal above, I don’t go for solo Ry, but this is just a joy.
    The only other album I really remember making a mark on me that year was the self-titled David Byrne, but I’m not suggesting it was era-defining; he did enough of those in other years.

  7. Much better than 1993!

    Exact same as Chrisf, I have Blur, Oasis, Jeff Buckley, Portishead & Nirvana with Dummy my fave.

    Missing:
    Primal Scream – GOBDGU
    I only really like two Scream albums, this and the other one. Though I do prefer the Memphis version of this though.
    Naz – Illmatic
    Chorus of the year: “Life’s a bitch and then you die, that’s why we get high,
    ‘Cause you never know when you’re gonna go”
    Beck – Mellow Gold
    Loser was track of the year for me. Still sounds brilliant. Great lyrics, tune, hook, such a memorable opening line.
    Robbie Robertson – Music for The Native Americans
    not a great album, but a couple of very beautiful tracks.
    Malcom Mclaren – Paris
    I’ve many-a-time bemoaned Steve Jones’s comment that Malc had “no musical talent whatsoever”. Then how come he made such great albums while Jones produced such dross? The title track remains one of my all-time favourite songs, the video is fantastic and Catherine Deneuve was the most attractive human being to ever walk the earth .

    Disappointment of the year: Pink Floyd – The Division Bell.
    I’d quite liked AMLOR. Not as good as Waters’ Floyd, but I liked it. But The Division Bell sounded and still sounds dirgey and dull.

    • 100% agree on illmatic. Of all albums mentioned on this thread, this is the one that I think holds up best in 2023. It could be released today & still sound fresh.

    • I much prefer His ‘n’ Hers to 95’s Different Class. Intro was one of my faves of ’93, I should go and add it to that thread.

      Grace created a whimper when it first came out, I picked it up in an HMV sale for a couple of quid. I absolutely loved it. I missed seeing him live, twice (long story I’ve told on here before) and then he died. Only then did Grace become popular.

          • It was on 1993’s compilation Intro – The Gift Recordings, which collected together the three 12″ single As and Bs of O.U., Babies and Razzmatazz released on Gift Records. I sometimes prefer Intro to His ‘n’ Hers. Any album where Babies isn’t the best track is onto a winner.

            The version of Babies on (some copies of) His ‘n’ Hers was slightly remixed from the Gift recording. It wasn’t on the original vinyl of His ‘n’ Hers, but was on the CD.

    • If memory serves Grace didn’t really sell at the time. My mate Becky had it and really raved about it, but to my 19 year old years it sounded “a bit radio 2.” I did go and see him in March ’95 at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, but I don’t remember much about the gig apart from a cover of kick out the jams. The LPs grown on me over the years, but it’s not a favourite (and I can’t think of many people who rate it).

  9. I bought the Jeff Buckley at the time, at least in part because of his Dad, but never really got on with it. My picks:

    Cornflake Girl (Tori Amos)
    American Recordings (Johnny Cash)
    What a Crying Shame (The Mavericks)
    I Love Everybody (Lyle Lovett)
    Wildflowers (Tom Petty)

  10. I think Sleeps With Angels deserves to be on such a list. It has something to say about 1994 and what happened that year. I remember hearing the news about Kurt on Nick Abbot’s evening show on Virgin Radio. One of those deaths that sticks in the memory. The album also happens to be outstanding. I guess maybe they thought they’d had enough Neil in the 90s already.

    Views on REM Monster are mixed but I don’t feel the need to rank it in their albums. I don’t know where it would sit. It doesn’t matter. It has enough excellent material for it to be picked out as a highlight of the year. Let Me In, Crush With Eyeliner stand out for me.

    These days I play single songs on Spotify quite often and I would pick things like Massive Attack Protection, Black Hole Sun, Mazzy Star. Also the St Etienne Tiger Bay album. Like A Motorway is ace. Veruca Salt Seether.

    • Like A Motorway is astounding, particularly one of the longer mixes, allowing the full motor in best to play out, unhurried. Leaving the title line to the end is such an explosive spoiler of a reveal, it transforms the rest of the song just heard.

  12. Portishead and Beck for me.

    I was also a massive, massive Pink Floyd fan at the time (still am), so Division Bell was a huge disappointment. I quite like Poles Apart and Wearing The Inside Out, but that’s about it.

  13. I resisted Dummy at the time (you couldn’t avoid hearing it) but I have come to think it’s a classic. Parklife, in contrast, has shrunk in size (never liked Oasis).Others from that time:

    Stereolab–Mars Audio Quartet (their peak-drone period)
    Massive Attack–Protection (surprised this was not on the list)
    Flying Saucer Attack–Distance (still a bit niche, but the successor to MBV)
    4 Hero–Parallel Universe (Drum and Bass loomed large this year; see below )
    V/A-Ambient 4: Isolationism (this was one of those great Virgin compilations they put out in the 90s, this one of techno/postrock curated by Kevin Martin)

    But this was also the year of great Jungle compilations, especially Suburban Base label’s Drum & Bass Selection volumes 1 and 2.

    The one that got away:Disco Inferno– D.I. Go Pop (great sleeve, but I passed this by and didn’t discover it until much later)

  14. Live at the BBC – The Beatles.
    The biggest group of all finally get a reissue worthy of them, with new material, paving the way for the Anthology series.
    Should be housed somewhere among the first four LPs in the ol’ collection.

    Has dated far less than Oasis, and it was already thirty years older.

  15. Illmatic – Nas
    Grace – Jeff Buckley
    Dummy – Portishead
    The Downward Spiral – NIN
    Definitely Maybe – Oasis
    Live Through This – Hole
    Ready To Die – The Notorious B.I.G
    Ill Communication – The Beastie Boys
    Tical – Method Man
    MTV Unplugged – Nirvana
    Dookie – Green Day
    Homegrown – Dodgy
    Selected Ambient Works II – Aphex Twin
    Weezer – Weezer
    Dog Man Star – Suede
    Pisces Iscariot – Smashing Pumpkins
    The Holy Bible – Manic Street Preachers
    Monster – REM
    Music For The Jilted Generation – Prodigy
    Vauxhall & I – Morrissey
    Throwing Copper – Live
    Dope on Plastic 1
    Headz
    His N Hers – Pulp
    Let Love In – Nick Cave
    Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik – Outkast
    Roman Candle – Elliott Smith
    Teenager of the Year – Frank Black
    6 Feet Deep – The Gravediggaz
    The Second Coming – Stone Roses
    Blunted on Reality – Fugees
    My Life – Mary J Blige
    Smash – Offspring
    Mellow Gold – Beck
    Dubnobasswithmyheadman – Underworld
    Hard to Earn – Gang Starr
    Protection – Massive Attack
    Korn – Korn

    This was a really, really strong year. Maybe as strong as the decade got. Hugely exciting developments in Hip Hop, whatever you want to call guitarry music, and EDM. Amazing new releases most weeks.

    I don’t get the “year of transition” thing. This felt like a destination to me.

    The Q list is very strong, but it increases the sense that they’re playing the “1 album a year by black rappers so I don’t look racist” game. 36 Chambers is amazing (albeit in the wrong year), but how in god’s name do you leave off Illmatic? It has a decent shout to being the best album of all time in its genre. I love the Beastie Boys as much as anyone, but not even they would suggest that Ill Communication is better than Ready to Die.

    For the rest, Grace and Dummy are brilliant, brilliant records that became overly ubiquitous (particularly the latter). If you listen to them with fresh ears they remain completely singular and inspired. Two acts who nailed it first time out the gate.

    Slightly surprised The Downward Spiral didn’t make the list. It’s a tough listen, but it’s had an outsized influence down the years.

    Tical is the single most overlooked Wu solo album. Superb from start to finish and such an exciting moment. The Gravediggaz album is also much overlooked.

    Weezer would make my own top 10. Not a single duff track, and in Say It Ain’t So one of the best songs anyone released in the 90s. 1994 for me will always be the year my dear friend Al came to visit and brought with him 3 c90 tapes with an album on each side. Dodgy, Weezer, Green Day, Baby Chaos, Pisces Iscariot (what a lovely album that is) and Smash by Offspring (still recall hearing Nitro for the first time – great opener). The absolute jackpot, one brilliant record after another.

    I enjoyed and still enjoy both The Second Coming and Monster. The former is patchy but contains some great songs. The latter is a lovely counter move following Automatic, and had Let Me In, which is a fave.

    In 1994 I was starting to really dig my way further into Drum n Bass, but the albums hadn’t yet really arrived on that front. What did arrive, were two seminal Trip Hop comps, in the form of Dope on Plastic and the immortal Mo Wax Headz. The latter took some tracking down but was well worth it.

    Finally, this was a year of early steps for several acts who would go on to become enormous. Great music by Outkast, Korn, Elliott Smith and the Fugees.

    • Writing the above has sent me back to The Burial by Leviticus. Such a tune, absolutely ruled 1994.

      Also shouts for Original Nuttah by Shy FX, Maxi(mun) Style by Tom & Jerry, Terrorist by Renegade, Incredible by M Beat, Selecta by Ed Rush, and I think Terminator by Goldie was around this time (or at least this was when we all discovered it). What a fun year.

    • “The Gravediggaz album is also much overlooked”

      Agreed…in another world, this is held up as one of the all-time great hip hop albums. Spooky, weird and musically and lyrically dense, it’s completely unique. And, weirdly, in Europe, we got a bonus track, Pass The Shovel, that’s the best song on the album.

      And you know you won’t find me disagreeing with Pisces Iscariot. As an odd’n’sods collection, it’s a good one.

  16. Out of the Q list, the only one I bought was the Portishead. Excellent. Still like it and still play it.

    I borrowed from the library or friends the Morrissey, Blur and Oasis albums. No, not really for me.

    I’m a huge Tim Buckley fan, but I’ve never really got on with Jeff. Don’t know why.

    My 3 favourite albums of the year were:

    Jackie Leven – The Mystery of Love is Greater than the Mystery of Death. After the demise of Doll by Doll, his heroin addition and the years of virtually living rough, the Big Man from the Kingdom of Fife rose again. Better than ever. Incredible record.

    – Waterson : Carthy – “Waterson : Carthy” – one of those folk albums that sounds 600 years old – in the best possible way. One listen to “Midnight on the Water”, and I was hooked.

    – Grant McLennan – “Horsebreaker Star” The best solo album by one of my favourite songwriters of all time. That rare thing: a double CD of new material with no weak tracks.

    I also enjoyed:

    Nick Lowe – the Impossible Bird. The start of Nick’s big comeback in the autumn of his career. Super record!

    Divine Comedy – Promenade. Neil Hannon’s second best album, I think.

    Ry Cooder & Ali Farka Touré – Talking Timbuktu. I’d go on to buy a lot more Touré albums. What a performer.

    R.E.M. – Monster. About 60% of this is really good – proper R.E.M. standard. The rest? Not so much

    Neil Young – Sleeps with Angels. Well up to standard by Old Neil.

    Ben Harper – Welcome to the Cruel World

    The Hilliard Ensemble & Jan Garbarek – Officium

    1994 also saw the release of the greatest live jazz album of all time: the full 6CD set of the Keith Jarrett Trio at the Blue Note (the Complete Recordings). Admittedly I didn’t listen to it back in 1994, but in recent years it’s been my constant companion.

    • Dunno about Monster.

      It was my Emperor’s New Clothes moment with REM, when a band who could previously do little wrong did, well, everything wrong. They made the mistake of making a rock album when their albums had always had great rock songs (and ballads, folk songs and everything else) without the rock stodge of Monster.

      Good luck to anyone who likes it but there’s a Monster-shaped hole in my REM collection as I can’t bear to have it with the rest.

  17. Of the 10 from Q, it was the Nirvana Unplugged one that I listened to most in 1994. Sometimes the nostalgia kicks in & I will give it a spin & it still sounds pretty damn good. Anyone else buy the Meat Puppets album on the back of this though?!? That was a waste of £15….

    Dummy was an album that I just didn’t get at the time, but the penny dropped about 15 years ago & I curse myself for missing out on a great album for so long. Wandering Star is one of my desert island discs, it’s wonderful.

    A couple that are missing & still on rotation at mine, are Divine Comedys Promenade (as highlighted by @duco01 above) & CrazySexyCool by TLC. That was a fantastic album & has some absolute classics on.

    Have to say that 1994 is clearly a great year though, I own & have loved a hell of a lot of the albums mentioned. Right, i am off to listen to Superunknown

      • memory is a cruel thing! For some reason i have it as a soundtrack to my 1994 summer, but it must be 1995. I am not sure why i did not check this, I can’t even remember what I had for tea last night!

        Apologies to anyone else who has got a year wrong on these (wonderful) threads & had an eye roll from me….. ha!

  18. The Mercury Prize (UK only of course)
    M People Elegant Slumming (winner)
    Blur – Parklife
    Ian McNabb – Head Like a Rock
    Shara Nelson – What Silence Knows
    Michael Nyman – The Piano Concerto/MGV
    Primal Scream – Give Out But Don’t Give Up
    The Prodigy – Music for the Jilted Generation
    Pulp – His ‘n’ Hers
    Take That – Everything Changes
    Therapy? – Troublegum
    Paul Weller – Wild Wood

    A very straightforward list, and I would say a good first take on history. Therapy? a bit of a curveball, but they were pretty big at the time.

  19. Superunknown still gets frequent spins from me. It must be 70+ minutes long but has barely an ounce of fat on it (the spoon solo on Spoonman, if you’re looking for it). For a heavy rock (not sure it really counts as grunge) band, they were extremely musical, unusual time signatures, interesting keys. The Day I Tried to Live is a cracking song.

  20. Another memory from 1994: Live Forever. It was already a very exciting year, with lots of great music, but when that released in August it felt like a real milestone.

    I can remember being at a train station in the middle of nowhere with some mates that month and seeing another bunch of teenagers on the platform opposite sat in the sunshine, day drinking and singing Live Forever at the absolute tops of their lungs. It felt like a unifying moment – the generational anthem had arrived. We were 15 years old, and obviously we went across and joined them.

    Oasis were a weird band. They were never really my guys, I could never relate to them deep down. But they were such a massive crossover event – they were one of the first UK bands of that decade that everyone young seemed to be on board with. Those early single were crazy good, we hadn’t yet fully got to know the – ahem – personas, fame hadn’t yet really bitten and they just sort of felt like the future for a minute or two.

    I think there was quite a lot of angst in the early part of the decade, and Oasis were the moment where it was just like nah, we’re all going to have a massive party together. And it just felt so welcome in that moment.

    Another release from that year which bears mentioning is Trailer by Ash. Overlooked first mini-album. Ash were the first band any of us had ever seen who were roughly our age – I think Tim Wheeler was 15 or 16 when they recorded it. That seemed like a really big deal at the time. We all loved Ash.

      • Live Forever is quite an anthem, once you get past the playing, singing and – yikes! – the production, so I can imagine it would be best experienced in a crowd full of youthful optimism..
        And then the same guy did a similar number on Ash; people who moan that female politicians or football commentators sound “shrill” should be forced to listen to Owen Morris productions* until they understand what the word means (*and as a punishment, obvs..)

        • Can’t speak to the production, but I’m fine with the singing.

          Obviously, he’s a boor and his schtick got old, but Liam nailed those first few singles. His voice is just perfect for them – in fact, I’m not sure it’s physically possible to sing Live Forever better (or at least more aptly) than he did.

          You have to bear in mind that on that sunny day on the provincial train platform we did not know he was a bellend and, as a consequence of our happy ignorance, we were still enjoying that song in its original purity.

        • I loved Oasis until Be Here Now came out and I saw them live (for the second time), they were an awful live band and I went off them, did see them one more time (without Noel, as they had had a falling out) and it was nowhere near enough to bring me back

      • 1977 is excellent, think that was 96.

        95 saw the release of Kung Fu though. One of the most exciting single purchases I ever made. Wonderful song, wonderful cover art, wonderful B side. Joy.

  23. A brilliant year. I can rattle off 15 records from ‘94 better than my second favourite album of 1990.
    From the Q list I owned Blur, Portishead and Underworld (the SR 44 minute edit of Parklife is ace, the other two don’t come out so much anymore). Beastie Boys, Morrissey and Oasis were also in the house and had a couple of good tracks each.
    The best, then and now, would be the Manics, Nick Cave, Pulp, Orbital Suede and the P.E. album no-one but me calls a comeback.
    Further observations:
    I’m surprised none of you have mentioned Costello’s Brutal Youth – there was a lot of noise about it being a fantastic return to form at the time.
    1994 was the year when A Girl Like You by Edwyn Collins was still a fair to middling song on an under-the-radar album.
    The song that did seem to be everywhere was Regulate by Warren G and Nate Dogg. Although it came out fourteen years after Rapture and four after The Power by Snap had been “rap number ones”, I always thought Regulate marked a shift in the mainstream mind, accommodating hip hop as a Top Of The Pops force and being emblematic of that Coolio -> Nelly period when, suddenly, my brother, who had earlier turned up his nose at any hip hop proffered, was now blasting these jams at me in his car without any sense that he had budged an inch.
    Nice to see the Fugees’ debut mentioned upthread, too.

  24. Only 5 for me this year, my lowest so far. May also have a copy of Grace somewhere, never really got it though. I thought Parklife was a near masterpiece, Definitely Maybe also brilliant, as was Dummy so I moved to Bristol. Vauxhall and I in the top 2 solo Morrissey’s, Nirvana Unplugged was the best one of these MTV releases I think.

  25. NME Top 20:

    Correctly includes the Manics masterpiece

    1. Definitely Maybe – Oasis
    2. Parklife – Blur
    3. Ill Communication – Beastie Boys
    4. Unplugged In New York – Nirvana
    5. The Holy Bible – Manic Street Preachers
    6. Dummy – Portishead
    7. Snivilisation – Orbital
    8. Dog Man Star – Suede
    9. Music For A Jilted Generation – The Prodigy
    10. Let Love In – Nick Cave
    11. Sleeps With Angels – Neil Young
    12. Live Through This – Hole
    13. Protection – Massive Attack
    14. Monster – Rem
    15. Workshy – Animals That Swim
    16. Orange – Jon Spencer Blues
    17. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain – Pavement
    18. Dookie – Green Day
    19. His ‘N’ Hers – Pulp
    20. Muse Sick ‘N’ Hour Mess Age – Public Enemy

        • It’s not a knock to Ill Communication – it’s an album I have a lot of time for.

          But Illmatic, Ready to Die and Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik all came out in 1994. Three of the all time great Hip Hop albums.

          It’s all opinions, but I highly doubt the Beasties themselves would place Ill Communication over those three, not least because large swathes of the album arguably aren’t Hip Hop at all.

    • Nestled in at number 15 are Animals That Swim. I really liked Workshy but I can’t think of anyone else I know who’d even heard of that band. I think they bagged a couple of ‘single of the week’ from the Melody Maker but they were never destined to be top 40 stars.

  26. 1994 was surely the year when dance was fully absorbed into the mainstream. Some key developments:
    The dj mix album (first seen by me as dodgy cassettes at Camden Market) was now a legit release. Mix of the year was undoubtedly Sasha and Digweed’s Renaissance The Mix Collection – a fantastic triple CD set which starts with 3 different versions of Leftfields Song of Life mixed together. Mixmag and Journeys By DJ had both started series which enabled fully cleared CD-length mixes. These would go onto sell millions throughout the nineties.
    Mixmag, Muzik and DJ International sold tens of thousands of copies of magazines with club listings at their heart.
    Pete Tong’s Friday night show was firmly established as the place to break big new tunes and the start of the weekend.
    Cream, the Misery of Sound, Back to Basics, Renaissance etc had all started – the rise of the superclub which would see clubbing commodified as a completely mainstream under-30 leisure activity. The era of unlicensed raves was long past.
    Ibiza was now becoming a massively popular summer holiday destination, again completely sold on the clubbing vibes.
    A group of superstar djs – Sasha, Digweed, Rampling, Tong, Healy, Oakenfold were starting to dominate the ‘mainstream house’ scene.
    Away from this house was already splintering into different genres – jungle, ambient and techno would in turn endless mutate and transform.
    I can’t say I was at the centre of all this, being already 29 and into my career, but the music of the year for many people didn’t look like an artist album at all.

  27. Lots of great records already mentioned, and there’s not much worth in repeating how brilliant Illmatic and Dummy are, but one that I suppose very few others will have heard is The Big Eye Am by Poisoned Electrick Head.

    PEH were from St Helens, where I suspect they consumed substantial amounts of hallucinogens on a regular basis. The music is flamboyant post-punk with enormous wedges of prog and space rock in there as well, somewhere between Hawkwind, Devo, and the Cardiacs, with twisted melodies and constant pace changes. The live presentation was equally colourful, with the two frontmen wearing boiler suits and engaging in weird jerky robot dancing all over the stage, while the musicians behind them, stood impassive in flowing robes and HR Giger inspired latex masks. My key memory is seeing them late one night at a free festival somewhere in the East Midlands, playing on Wango Riley’s Travelling Stage while some crusties climbed up on top on of the buses that were parked nearby and started breathing fire out into the night sky. Reader, I believe my DNA underwent spontaneous rearrangement that night.

    This was the single from the album, and the closest thing they ever had to a hit (ie, not very).

  28. Four more from me:

    Tortoise
    Walter Becker – 11 Tracks Of Whack
    G. Love And Special Sauce
    Jan Garbarek, Anouar Brahem, Shaukat Hussain – Madar

    Plus one huge disappointment: I expected Eno’s involvement in Bryan Ferry’s Mamouna to result in a much better album.

  29. Morrissey was on form here. Amid much strong work, I return to this album most frequently. It’s pretty much an assumption that one comes to Moz for his voice and lyrics; less frequently noted is his band. While Boorer and Whyte were excellent songwriting collaborators before and after, this album has a rhythm section unique to this particular LP and, under Steve Lillywhite’s production, this record has a shimmering and evocative sonic personality Moz sadly never returned to. While much the same team (with live band stalwarts Day and Cobrin returning to the band) recorded the next album Southpaw Grammar, they then went for a harder vibe which, although compelling sonically, lacked the nuance of Vauxhall and I.
    Overall, while Morrissey’s sonic palette up until the Los Angeles years could be described as Smiths-inspired with few surprises, with hindsight, this record shows glimmers of greater production nuance that it’s a shame he didn’t follow further.
    A major record for me, particularly on a rainy sunday morning.

  30. From the Q list: Nirvana, Oasis, Beastie Boys, Green Day.
    Bought since then: Soundgarden, Wu Tang.
    Not on those lists that I bought: Troublegum – Therapy?; Dookie – Green Day; Jackie Leven; Stone Roses.

    So, not a bad year for me. Graduating, getting a real job and moving to Glasgow.

  31. A really strong year.
    Have 6 from the list.

    Grace is good but perhaps a bit uneven? And Hallelujah is of course completely ubiquitous now, but Christ, it is pretty extraordinary isn’t it?

    Vauxhall & I is Morrissey’s best. The lyrics of course, but also some great tunes and melodies here.

    Definitely Maybe is brilliant? What a debut! This, the follow up, and the Masterplan all hugely derivative and utterly wonderful!

    Unplugged in New York is for me the best of the series. Well, maybe Neil Young’s.

    Dummy sounded so different to me from anything else I’d heard. Beautiful.

    And Parklife is a complete classic. They never looked back after this.

    Best album of the year and best gig probably Primal Scream at Brixton with George Clinton and others doing Give Out…

    I know it’s my age and it’s not always a great idea to look back, but weren’t the 90’s a good decade? Maybe it’s just getting married, kids, house buying etc, but I remember the decade with such positivity and hope and enjoyment.
    All gone to rat shit now if course.

    • Ah yes, that Primals/Clinton gig at Brixton was a late one. Bobby came back on for the encores and announced that Kurt Cobain was dead, but he had such as strong Weegee accent that we didn’t hear what he said. It was only listening to the news on the car radio on the drive home (as dawn was breaking) that the penny dropped.

    • I think it was a good decade, but also I was in my 30s, young, free and single and had more disposable cash than at any other time in my life. To me there seemed similar optimism in the decade like there was in the 60s

      • The second half was better I think. Black Friday in 1992 and John Major unexpectedly winning the General Election marred the early 90s for me. Admittedly, Major wasn’t awful in the way that the current shit show are and Kinnock probably wasn’t a great candidate anyway but those years were grim for me personally.

      • You’re right Dai.
        There was an optimism that seems completely lacking for my now similar aged children, certainly from about 94 onwards.

        But I do also remember Black Friday a couple of years earlier, sitting in our open plan office, and the Marketing Manager, a man of 60 plus, openly weeping as the ramifications of what was happening hit him.

    • These nineties threads are reminding me how out of touch I was, because of the mortgage/kids. Last time I went to The Hacienda was 31st December 1988, I think. I was buying new music but it wasn’t the thick of the action, it was sitting down music, old favourites’ latest albums, boxed sets and jazz.

    • The 90s, and particularly the mid to late 90s, were a lovely moment. That period between the wall coming down and 9/11 when history ended, we’d won, technology was going to solve (rather than create) our problems, and our biggest practical concern was Bill Clinton’s libido.

      We were Utopians, I guess. It probably wasn’t a healthy, or sensible, way to be, but it felt like we were living in the proverbial best of times – no more boom and bust, the first Prime Minister in living memory who didn’t seem to feel the future was something to be avoided, and the music was pretty great too.

      Personally, 1994 was the worst year of my life (Homer Simpson correction: the worst year… so far). I was trapped in a school full of repulsive, backwards-ass Neanderthals (the students weren’t great either), and escape felt far away. The only music anyone seemed to listen to was Jamiroquai and Ministry of Sound compilations. No one read anything, or thought anything or felt anything. It was grim.

      My one comfort was that every few weekends I would get to escape down to London see my old mates. We’d buy comics, watch movies (94 was an in-cred-ible) year for cinema and listen to records. I’d get to meet proper teenagers who dyed their hair, didn’t dress like townies, read things they weren’t meant to read and listened to amazing music, lots of which I had never heard and never would have heard otherwise. Those kids gave me hope and taught me to use music and film and novels to construct my own little world. They were a lifeline.

      Oasis hit my school in late 95. Definitely Maybe didn’t hit, but What’s The Story was undeniable, and not even my peers could ignore the national moment that was now occurring. Euro 96 cemented it. They discovered Hip Hop with I’ll Be Missing You and the Fugees. Life got a little better – the world started to look a tiny bit more like the inside of my head, which is always gratifying.

      In retrospect, the seeds had been sown in 1994. It was my worst year, but also so foundational, as worst years can sometimes be. I learned a lot about myself, not least how to navigate life through music. Good bad times….

  32. Just a couple from me which haven’t been mentioned yet (apologies if I missed them):

    Hips & Makers – Kristen Hersh
    Last Day on Earth – John Cale & Bob Neuwirth
    Teenager of the Year – Frank Black

    Also, up for box set of the year – Thirty Years of Maximum R&B by The ‘Orrible ‘Oo.

  33. As a somewhat clichéd student I bought Oasis, Jeff Buckley and Blur off that list. Not listened to any of them for years, and not likely to change my mind. Particularly Grace. That really is pants.

    I also bought Nick Lowe’s The Impossible Bird. Quite liked it but took it back as it was too middle aged. Now I’m middle aged myself its undoubtedly in my top ten of all time. A masterpiece.

    Other than that it wasn’t a great year for me. Sleeps With Angels was probably Neil Young’s last good album (and the first I bought on release). I also like Autogeddon a lot but it’s not a patch on Peggy Suicide or Jehovahkill.

  34. Simon Mayo played Badhead by Blur on his album show, and it reminded me just what a strong album Parklife is. I may be a man alone in liking London Loves and Tracy Jacks, but I always played the album it in its entirety.

  36. Only three this year, although going through the list of albums released in 1994, it wasn’t that I was buying less, more that, as others have mentioned, the Q list is a bit, “One from that genre…and one from that…and one of those…etc” So only Wu Tang, Blur and Beastie Boys from this year.

    And as for Wu Tang, it was an exceptional release then and there’s still so much to discover in it. Rarely has any group emerged sounding so unique, original and fully formed. And what’s incredible is that not only so many great solo albums came out of this group but they sounded complete as the Wu Tang clan and not a bunch of solo rappers jostling for the spotlight.

    And speaking of which, the Gravediggaz album was even better. Instead of martial arts, we got a creaky, horror-themed hip hop album that, almost thirty years on, still sounds wholly original. Loved this album at the time and it’s still an increadible release.

    Ill Communication and this same year’s G Love And Special Sauce are New York albums through and through. No green fields here, these are the sound of hot city summers.

    Anyway, the release of 1994 isn’t anything that’s on the list. Dog Man Star isn’t just the best album this year, nor of the nineties but one of the greatest albums ever released.

    From the dank, sodden cover the colour of mildew, this is submerges the listener in freezing bedsits, sleaze and drug addiction with only the occasional glimpse of pleasure. But, mostly, it sounds like an album in which its guitarist burns his bridges, drags this thing to a close, slashes his way through the songs and, finally, gets thrown out of the band for his efforts.

    The recent Channel 5 doc on Britpop and the BBC story on Britpop reveal a a few things about Suede. Justine and Brett feeling like they weren’t taking it seriously as a band until Bernard joined and he pulled them into shape. Justine leaving so that Bernard could take full hold of the musical direction and shape it without feeling like it needed to compromise for what she wanted. And Suede always feeling that it wasn’t a matter of if Bernard would leave the band but when. Dog Man Star might be full of Brett’s usual lyrical concerns but the music goes from the slinky Introducing The Band through ballads, the glam stomp of New Generation, the riotous This Hollywood Life and, finally, the swooning glory of the final four songs – The 2 of Us, Black or Blue, The Asphalt World and Still Life.

    The Asphalt World alone is remarkable. It’s the kind of song that a band records when they stretch out and are unconstrained. Three Days, Echoes, The End, Sister Ray…The Asphalt World is in this company, building layers until it finally collapses under its own weight.

    And yet, for all its brilliance, it could be made that little better. The Power is clearly the playing of session musicians. It doesn’t have that particular Butler style of guitar and, if they didn’t get that right, they could have left it off. The Asphalt World could and should have been longer as it’s the Suede manifesto in song form. As could Still Life…it ends much too suddenly.

    No wonder Butler left the band at the end of the recording. Or was thrown out…but where could Butler-era Suede have gone from here. Dog Man Star is the sound of a band burning themselves out in excess.

  37. And outside of that huge comment…other albums of the year were:
    Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Orange
    Kristin Hersh – Hips And Makers
    And She Closed Her Eyes – Stina Nordenstam

    24 Hour Revenge Therapy by Jawbreaker is great. They played a fantastic show at Giro’s in Belfast. West Bay Invitational and Jinx Removing are the highlights.

    And, I don’t know, but much as I love Exile In Guyville, I probably prefer Whip-Smart by Liz Phair. Supernova is one of her best songs and the album closes out in style.

  38. Cuh. Once again I’m flabbergasted that no-one, no-one has mentioned Sometime Anywhere by Bondi’s finest The Church.

    After the magnificence of the sprawling P = A just , just two years earlier, came this , erm, sprawling piece of work. Slimmed down to just two band members and a drum machine, it slipped out to some fanfare. Or at least I was aware of it and ordered the Ltd double disc version to the Our Price shop I was managing at the time.

    It was a bit disappointing and remains disappointing though I have become aware that over the years other fans have come to rate it. The double disc has one good song with a great lyric about “statues of Sharon Stone.”

    Cuh.

    Don’t suppose anyone else has heard the latest album?

  39. I turned 16 in 1994 and therefore am correct and infallible about all the following:

    10: Parklife – Blur. Their joint best album (Blur being the other.) The title track rather overshadows its reputation, which is a damn shame, because it’s the perfect apotheosis of what they began on Modern Life Is Rubbish: lyrical, wistful, intensely English. They’d never do anything better than This Is A Low or To The End.

    9: Method Man – Tical. Hard to release this while the world was still reeling from 36 Chambers, but damn if he didn’t make his presence felt. Bring the Pain and Meth Vs. Chef are as great as anything in the entire Wu catalogue.

    8. TLC – CrazySexyCool. Does precisely what it says on the tin. Slinky, smart, gorgeous hip-hop RnB which more or less put the seal on the genre. A total landmark, chock with bangers.

    7. R.E.M. – Monster. The extent to which this record threw *everyone* is still detectable in the standard Gen X view of it: “this doesn’t sound like Automatic! Boo!” Except it does – if you played Automatic through a Big Muff and a tremolo. The delicate beauty is all there, but fuzzed and filtered in a way which really scared the horses. You can hear Monster’s antecedents in Pageant, Document, in Ignoreland and Man On The Moon – and actually the way the band played the Automatic songs (particularly Drive) on the ill-fated Monster tour made it all make even more sense. It’s a great record. (Incidentally – it took seeing it live to make me realise what a bop I Took Your Name is. They’d open with it, and… fucking hell. Bald glitter-rock-insect Stipe! Nudie-suited sex god Mills! Buck throwing Kiss shapes! Berry… being exactly the same as always, but now with added dungarees. Amazing.)

    6. Radiohead – My Iron Lung. Ok, nominally an EP, but a really long one and a game changer. The recorded version of the title track was a board recording of the song live at the Astoria, and it’s just savage. And for the first time, on the remainder, Radiohead are really properly interesting. Still melodic, still often lovely, but with the “let’s fuck it up” instincts that made them do the CHUGGA! CHUGGA! on Creep dialled up to 11. Their turning point.

    5. Oasis – Definitely Maybe. I don’t like Oasis at all, but this can’t be denied. Bingo has said it all above.

    4. Portishead – Dummy. I can’t tell you how exciting it was, as a sort-of West Country boy, to see Bristol on the map. Massive, Tricky, Portishead, all being weird and gorgeous and defiantly not from London, with their accents like the kids I worked with at Pizza Hut. The word iconic is ridiculous, but nothing sounds like Dummy. It’s impossibly sad, impossibly beautiful.

    3. Nas – Illmatic. It’s hard to overstate the impact of Illmatic. It’s like someone did for hip-hop what Paid In Full had done, again, better, more. Yes, Wu-Tang are the greater because they had that impossible run of albums, and 36 Chambers has a subjective place in my heart that Illmatic will never have, but Jesus Christ this record is incredible. The sheer ingenuity of Nas’s flow, the wordplay, the fabulous beats, the *excitement* of it. This must be what football fans mean when they talk about Maradona. A Back To The Future streak of flame leaving nothing but amazed bewilderment in its wake. Jesus Christ.

    2. Manic Street Preachers – The Holy Bible. This is the greatest album of rock music ever produced by a British group. That is all.

    1: Nirvana Unplugged in New York. This isn’t a live album, although it is. It isn’t a compilation, although it is. It’s a letter of goodbye in which the songwriter of his generation seems to rewrite new originals from the ground up, in real time. Yes, the point of Nirvana was always the ferocious power of the actual live shows – how could three weird, scruffy weeds from the Pacific Northwest possibly be making this unbelievable racket? – but this is a different document. The fact that Unplugged made Nirvana quiet enough for marketing execs to put on at dinner parties doesn’t cancel out its beauty and power: you have to *listen* to this record, and when you do, it’s like nothing else. It’s sad that it birthed the Militant Tedious Tendency’s insistence that you can tell if something is a good song by its ability to be strummed on an acoustic guitar – I’m looking at you, Ryan Adams; I’m looking at you, Travis’s criminal live lounge Baby One More Time – but that’s not the record’s fault. You come away from Unplugged really wishing the sixth Nirvana album (this really is their fifth; Incesticide counts too) could’ve been born. I wonder what they’d have done next.

    • That mini-album of My Iron Lung was originally a US-only release, combining the seven tracks from the two UK CD singles and a 1993 KROQ performance.

      The My Iron Lung single was released at the end of September and only grazed the top 30. I bought both CD singles for a quid (50p each) at a record fair on Nov 6th. Radiohead were considered a busted flush as the wait for their second album felt like an eternity (it eventually came out in mid-March 1995, a whole two years after the debut LP) and rumours of Parlaphone dropping the band were rife on the Oxford grapevine.

      The US mini-album of My Iron Lung was given a UK release, as a stop-gap, as the label were getting jittery, with similar underwhelming chart fortunes.

      I was at the May 1994 Astoria gig when it was recorded, there’s a DVD of it, you can see me down the front. The band I was in at the time split because they booked a gig for the same night without asking me and the keyboard player, and we refused to return our tickets, because we’d had to miss a previous opportunity to see Radiohead live due to a similar diary clash. I stand by my decision.

  41. Only own two, both on my list, which is in order of how much I enjoyed them at the time:

    1. Suede – Dog Man Star
    2. Soundgarden – Superunknown
    3. TLC – Crazy Sexy Cool
    4. Morrissey – Vauxhall and I
    5. Papa Wemba – Papa Wemba
    6. Sinéad O’Connor – Universal Mother
    7. The Latin Kings – Välkomna till förorten (not the best Swedish hip-hop album ever made, but the most influential)
    8. Edwyn Collins – Gorgeous George
    9. Brainpool – Soda (jangly Swedish pop)
    10. The Prodigy – Music for the Jilted Generation

  42. I recall going into Virgin Records in Leeds with my son he would have been five. He put some headphones on at a listening booth while I had a mooch around.
    When I caught up with him ” Dad I’ve heard some music it’s loud but I like it”
    It was Definitely Maybe I must ask him how he rates it now.

  43. The Pretenders – Last Of The Independents.

    I was late to this, and heard it via my Best Man. I’d really gone off the ‘Tenders, with the previous albums increasingly becoming Chrissie Hynde solo vehicles. But this was the return of Martin Chambers on drums and it was magnificent. I saw them live, and they were fantastic – CH was back on form – I can remember saying to my pal Bob “I hope I’m having that much fun when I’m 43!” – I can just about remember being 43…

  44. I hadn’t contributed to this thread until now as I couldn’t really identify anything from that year that I still play until the 1996 thread led me to see when Stina Nordenstam’s album Memories of a Colour was released. Turns out it was 1994. I’m sure I didn’t become aware of her until years later but it’s an album that still sounds perfect for those quiet hours when the rest of the family are asleep. The production really impresses me to this day – intimate isn’t a word I would usually use but it fits.

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