My Favorite Album from Every Year I’ve Been Alive (Part Three: 1990–1999)

It was a weird decade for me

If you lived through the 1990s, I don’t have to tell you that it was a weird decade. For me it opened with joining the Army at the outbreak of the First Gulf War, had a wedding in the middle, the birth of a Springsteen-loving daughter toward the end, and wrapped up with wondering if the world was going to end because of Y2K.

Musically, it was just as chaotic, which is why Part Three of this ongoing series covering my favorite albums from each year I’ve been alive is vastly different from Parts One and Two. I wrote a much-debated piece a while back asking if rock died in 1995, which is why I was not surprised that my picks here became harder from 1996 on. For the ’70s, ’80s, and early ’90s there was almost too much to choose from; for 1997 I struggled to find one I even like.

Despite this, the show must go on. I want to say again that this list contains my personal favorite albums for each year of the ’90s. For a couple of the years I had a lengthy debate with myself, so it’s inevitable that your favorite will differ from mine at several (perhaps all) points.

Now on to the albums.

1990: Social Distortion by Social Distortion. When you’ve reached the point in your life that potentially dying in the desert to liberate a country you can’t find on a map is your best option, you naturally gravitate toward music that reflects that state of mind. This was how I first found Social Distortion’s self-titled third album, and man was all that suffering worth it. The record (and the band, and lead singer Mike Ness) perfectly encapsulates the “it just can’t get any worse, so fuck it” mindset. From “Story of My Life” to “Ball and Chain” to a scorching version of “Ring of Fire” even better than Johnny Cash’s original (sorry, Johnny), no other album comes close to this one in 1990. How they weren’t as big as Pearl Jam or Nirvana I will never understand.

1991: Ten by Pearl Jam. This may be the hardest year of the decade to pick a favorite. Nirvana’s Nevermind obviously came out this year as well, along with Metallica’s Black album and Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I and II (I see them as one record). Yet amid all that greatness there’s no question which one I’ve played more over the years, with Ten placing Eddie Vedder in my holy trinity of rock voices along with Bruce and Bono. It released during my first year in the Army, and my barracks roommate believed that if he played it loud enough, I would not be distracted by his girlfriend’s cries of passion (his words) when she visited from Georgia Southern University. His fears were unfounded, as there was no chance of him ever generating enough heat to overcome Eddie’s vocals on “Black,” “Alive,” “Even Flow,” or really any of them. He gets points for trying, though.

1992: New Miserable Experience by Gin Blossoms. 1992 was a solid year, with It’s a Shame About Ray by The Lemonheads and Dr. Dre’s The Chronic both high on my list, but nothing was going to top NME. And yes, Springsteen’s Human Touch and Lucky Town both released in 1992 (sadly, without the E Street Band). The fact that neither of them are in this spot should say all I need to about my feelings for New Miserable Experience.

1993: August and Everything After by Counting Crows. This was the year that saw Nirvana’s In Utero, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville, and Yes I Am by Melissa Etheridge released, and all are favorites, but the one that blew them all away was the album I’ve written about before as my favorite debut of all time. Everyone knows the four singles from this album (“Mr. Jones,” “Round Here,” “Rain King,” and “A Murder of One”), but the deep cuts are equally as good, especially “Omaha,” “Raining in Baltimore,” and “Perfect Blue Buildings,” a song that made my funeral playlist. August and Everything After may be actually be the perfect debut album, and it’s no coincidence that I’m listening to it as I type this.

1994: Dulcinea by Toad the Wet Sprocket. Both Dookie by Green Day and Ready to Die by Notorious B.I.G. competed for this spot, but Toad wins out (a choice confirmed by this serendipitously-timed article about them by Sarah Paris that I read this morning). Toad was one of the great bands of the 1990s, and Dulcinea remains my favorite for songs like “Something’s Always Wrong,” “Fall Down,” and “Nanci.” I am hoping to see Toad and Gin Blossoms together in concert this summer, damned COVID willing. One side note about 1994: many remember it as the year of Cracked Rear View, the abomination by Hootie & the Blowfish that has somehow sold 21 million copies. If you’re looking for the exact date the American experiment in democracy failed, it was when people voluntarily chose to buy this record.

1995: Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette. This one fought it out with Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt for the better part of last night, but as much as I loved Gwen and the boys back before she started believing her own press, the Angry Canadian was always going to triumph. There is a reason it holds up so well more than 25 years later; just try to pick a favorite song between “Hand in My Pocket,” “Ironic,” “You Oughta Know,” and “Head Over Feet.” If you have not seen the documentary Music Box: Jagged about Alanis and this album, you need to. Springsteen released a solo album this year, The Ghost of Tom Joad, but it’s never been one of my favorites.

1996: Congratulations, I’m Sorry by Gin Blossoms. It was always going to be hard to follow an album like New Miserable Experience, but the boys from Tempe did an admirable job. “Follow You Down” hit #1 on the Billboard Adult Alternative chart and “Til I Hear It From You” (originally on the Empire Records soundtrack) reached #9 on the Hot 100, but as was the case with NME, some of the best songs were the deep cuts like “Not Only Numb” and “Perfectly Still.” Sadly, there wouldn’t be another Gin Blossoms album for ten years after this.

1997: Supertones Strike Back by O.C. Supertones. I seriously considered leaving this spot blank, that’s how bad the year was. I had stopped listening to rap at this point, so Biggie’s Life After Death wouldn’t be an honest pick, and as I was neither a Radiohead nor a Spice Girls fan, there wasn’t much left to choose from. By default, I’m going with a Christian ska album (you read that right) a friend from church gave me. Think The Mighty Mighty Bosstones with a biblical bent.

1998: Dizzy Up the Girl by the Goo Goo Dolls. The Goo Goo Dolls thankfully kept the decade from having consecutive bad years. You know the classics like “Iris” and “Slide,” but the whole record is solid. This is another band that should have been bigger. Natalie Merchant’s Ophelia was a decent record from ’98, but not enough to make it my favorite. A closer second was the Dixie Chicks’ Wide Open Spaces.

1999: Enema of the State by blink-182. This was another hard year for me; it was the era of Backstreet Boys and ’N SYNC, and even the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication was only so-so as an album. And in the interest of full disclosure, this didn’t become my favorite from 1999 until well into the 2010s, when my oldest daughter played it for me (you will see her influence in future picks as well). “What’s My Age Again” and “All the Small Things” are the best known, but dig deeper and you will be rewarded. The video below mocks the late ’90s better than I ever could.

At this point, those of you who read me regularly are scrolling back up through the list, wondering if you missed something or if I somehow skipped a year, but you didn’t and I didn’t. The thing that makes the ’90s the weirdest decade of my life is that it is the only one in which Bruce Springsteen does not have an album represented. He was fairly quiet during the Dark Decade of the Dissolution of the E Street Band, and as mentioned earlier the three albums he did release couldn’t beat out others from that year. If Human Touch had been released in 1997, it would be there; against New Miserable Experience, not so much. It seems like blasphemy (especially to Mark Holburn and Alex Markham), but I said what I said.

Fear not, however. For the remaining decades of this series Bruce will be back with a vengeance, and with the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, love-making, earth-quaking, Viagra-taking, justifying, death-defying, legendary E Street Band. Just as God intended it.

As with earlier installments, the playlist below reflects my current favorite song from each of the albums; the links to Parts One and Two are below that. Next up, the 2000s. Until then, keep on rockin’.

Parts One and Two:

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