The Best Album From Every Year of the 1990s

Image via Capitol Records Published May 15, 2026, 9:14 PM EDT Jeremy has more than 2500 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows. His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings). When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account. He has achieved his 2025 goal of reading all 13,467 novels written by Stephen King, and plans to spend the next year or two getting through the author's 82,756 short stories and 105,433 novellas. Sign in to your Collider account Even going through a decade like the 1990s year by year, and selecting a different album from each of those years, it’s hard to summarize everything and cover all the genres and movements popular at the time. This is maybe a slightly easier task than trying to decide on a certain number of albums from the entire decade being that entire decade’s best, but only slightly. It’s the sort of exercise where there might be tears, and vigorous head scratches, and maybe even tearful vigorous head scratches. Or yelling at your screen of choice, whatever you're looking at this on. But an attempt’s going to be made here to cite one album from each year of the ‘90s as that year’s best. Getting through this – and the comments section – in one piece might not be possible, but getting through it in two or three pieces (certainly no more than four)… eh, that’s doable; a good enough trade-off. 10 'Violator' (1990) Depeche Mode If you ever want to alarm a bunch of people, suggest Depeche Mode’s Violator is the best album of the entire decade. Guaranteed to work. If you want to alarm considerably fewer people, though (hopefully), maybe just suggest it’s the best album of 1990, the year it came out. It’s the most striking and consistent batch of songs Depeche Mode has ever put out, and it feels like the band taking all the good elements from their ‘80s albums and condensing them all into about three-quarters of an hour. That’s an admission that this ‘90s album sounds quite ‘80s, but oh well. It’s a good kind of ‘80s sound, and slightly menacing synthpop has probably never sounded better. For the year of 1990, honorable mentions should go out, though, to Cocteau Twins (Heaven or Las Vegas) and Megadeath (Rust in Peace). 9 'Nevermind' (1991) Nirvana Grunge and the alternative rock of the 1990s more or less signified that classic rock’s dominance was over, and that doesn’t seem so bad when the alternative (and the alternative rock) is Nirvana. The band’s debut, Bleach, actually came out at the very end of the 1980s, but it was Nevermind that really exploded in popularity and made Nirvana one of the defining bands of the 1990s. And Nirvana were only active for part of the decade, since Kurt Cobain took his life in 1994, making In Utero the final studio album of Nirvana’s (that’s one lots of people like to say is better than Nevermind; it’s the cooler pick), or there’s also MTV Unplugged in New York, with that being released as a live album after Cobain’s death. For 1991, though, Nevermind feels worthy of being singled out. 8 'Down Colorful Hill' (1992) Red House Painters If you don’t think Down Colorful Hill is the best album of 1992, maybe you'll be able to settle for the idea of it being 1992’s heaviest album. It is an absolutely soul-crushing listen, but thankfully, it’s a sometimes beautiful sort of sad, and there’s catharsis to be gained from pieces of art that elicit such emotions, for hopefully obvious reasons. There are only six songs here, but the album’s nearly 45 minutes long, so they're lengthy tracks. Down Colorful Hill belongs to a fairly obscure genre called slowcore, and the band Red House Painters certainly earns that label. There are songs here called “Medicine Bottle” and “Lord Kill the Pain,” which about sums it up. “24,” the opening track, might not sound melancholic from the title alone, but it’s a dirge about fearing the notion of turning 24, and subsequently getting old from that point onward. Something, something, “my sweet summer child.” 7 'Souvlaki' (1993) Slowdive Slowdive gets labeled as a “dream pop” band, which is indeed a real genre, and it’s a very fitting one for Souvlaki in particular. It’s an easy album to zone out to, and it really does sound very dreamy throughout, but not sleepy or lazy necessarily. It’s peaceful and then a bit sad at the same time, or possibly bittersweet, depending on just how peaceful you find the majority of the songs here. “Alison” opens the album, and is probably the best track on the whole thing, but it’s not like a So Tonight That I Might See (the album by Mazzy Star) situation, where things kick off with the perfect “Fade Into You” and then nothing else comes close. “Alison” is nearly matched by several other songs on Souvlaki, quality-wise, and then it’s overall strong enough to best pretty much anything else from 1993. Sorry, Wu-Tang Clan… but Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) is still great. 6 'Dog Man Star' (1994) Suede The 1970s was when glam rock was at its peak, popularity and quality-wise, but Suede carried the torch and kept it going. Call them a “New Generation” of glam rockers, if you want to be corny. And hey, that’s also the name of a song on Dog Man Star, and it’s a great one, albeit maybe not even a highlight because Dog Man Star just has an undeniable volume of great songs on it. Suede gets the balance between satisfying pop/rock stuff and more experimental moments just right here, because Dog Man Star sounds great if you're after something punchy, and then it’s also wonderful to disappear into (and get lost in) if you're after a few more out-there songs and sounds. Calling it the best album of 1994 might be more controversial than calling any other album here the best of its year, so have some honorable mentions as an apology: The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails, Dummy by Portishead, and Illmatic by Nas. 5 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' (1995) The Smashing Pumpkins Like Nevermind, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is an album that more or less fits within the grunge genre, but The Smashing Pumpkins were going for more here than just grunge. It’s a double album, so the variety makes sense, and over nearly 30 songs, The Smashing Pumpkins tackle hard rock, a little by way of alternative metal, and then some dream pop (almost Slowdive-style, just a bit heavier) at other points. Siamese Dream is the other absolute classic album The Smashing Pumpkins had in the 1990s, with that one predating Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by two years, but their 1995 double album is arguably better. Okay, maybe not as consistent. Siamese Dream is tighter and more to the point, but the almost endless-feeling sprawl of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is special, and helps it fulfill the “Infinite” part of its title pretty well. 4 'Soundtracks for the Blind' (1996) Swans While it’s not an actual soundtrack, Soundtracks for the Blind is often cinematic, just not in ways that are particularly fun, much of the time. This album is scarier than the majority of genuinely frightening horror movies, and it’s also a good deal longer than most horror movies, as it’s made up of 26 (oftentimes lengthy) tracks, and runs for just a bit shy of 2.5 hours all up. Swans aren’t exactly a household name, but they’ve got a dedicated cult following for good reason. Basically, it’s a collection of ominous and sometimes shocking songs that are about various difficult things, thematically, yet it’s also always interesting to listen to, and the music is compelling, even if it’s a lot to take in and handle for so long. Swans aren’t exactly a household name, but they’ve got a dedicated cult following for good reason, and this album is probably the best at highlighting the band’s versatility, just because it really does tackle so many different genres and ideas. 3 'OK Computer' (1997) Radiohead Unlike the picks for 1994 and 1996, here’s the most “duh” pick of the bunch: OK Computer, which is far from the only great Radiohead album, but it is to Radiohead what Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is to The Beatles, and what The Dark Side of the Moon is to Pink Floyd. It’s just one of those untouchable and more or less sacred albums, though maybe a bit touchable if you think it’s been overpraised and overrated, to some extent. Still, it’s the perfect entry point if you're only familiar with individual songs Radiohead have released, because sure, this features a bunch of great songs, but it’s even more than the sum of its parts, since OK Computer is perfectly sequenced and paced. And the comparisons to The Dark Side of the Moon make sense, because OK Computer also manages to feel a bit like a broad (and unsettling) concept album where the concept is kind of just “everything and life in general.” 2 'In the Aeroplane Over the Sea' (1998) Neutral Milk Hotel While OK Computer could be seen as overrated generally speaking, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea more has a reputation of being overrated and talked about too much within certain circles. The average person stands a better chance of being familiar with Radiohead than Neutral Milk Hotel, but within certain online spaces, the latter is inescapable, and has sort of inspired a similar cult following to Swans. But if you're in a place where they're popular, suggesting either band is a cult band would get you laughed at. People can be pretty cruel when they talk about music online. Anyway, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is phenomenal, and it earned the borderline-fanatical devotion it picked up as the years went on, and what it was going for musically became a bit trendier. It’s very ahead-of-its-time, in other words, in terms of having a 2000s indie rock/folk sound before the actual 2000s came around and bands like Arcade Fire and The Decemberists took clear influence from Neutral Milk Hotel. 1 'Ágætis byrjun' (1999) Sigur Rós If you want the single greatest song Sigur Rós has ever made, you might be better off looking in the 21st century, because that’s when “Hoppípolla” was released. As for the band’s strongest album… okay, 2002’s ( ) (sometimes called The Bracket Album) is right up there, but it’s still probably 1999’s Ágætis byrjun that most qualifies for magnum opus status. You can say this regarding both Ágætis byrjun and Sigur Rós generally, but it’s hard to emphasize what makes it/them so special without just sitting down and listening to them. You can understand and feel what makes the music special, but it’s so much harder to put into words. Really beautiful, spacey, atmospheric, and oddly moving music can be found throughout the entirety of Ágætis byrjun, and it’s a pleasant surprise how consistent it manages to be throughout with its decently lengthy 72-minute duration. Sigur Rós Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with melodic, classical, experimental, and minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound and lead singer Jónsi’s falsetto voice. Sigur Rós means Victory Rose, named after Jonsi's little sister (information via Universal Music Publishing Group).