Decades pass, but the reasons some albums get passed by or are forgotten seem to remain the same. No matter what a decade brought along in diversity or innovation, the 1990s were no exception.
Sure, everybody remembers grunge, Nirvana, Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley or what big commercial names came up with, but there’s always a large chunk of albums that got hailed by some rock critic(s), or gained a cult fandom, or simply just passed by the wider audience in a fleeting second, without getting the attention they deserved.
The Internet? Sure, it was winding up, but would that have helped, or would it have muddied the field even more, as the big releases would have dominated (and did) anyway? Still, the twenty albums below deserved much more than they really got at the time, or didn’t get anything.
20 forgotten gems from the 1990s you need to hear
The Chills - Submarine Bells (1990)
When late Martin Phillipps and his the Chills reached other shores that were not their native New Zealand in the 1980s, every critic was raving about them, based on a series of singles or compilations.
Still, their formal first album, Brave Words, got panned for some reason or other, and this, its follow-up, seems to have had its cloud hanging over it, even though it was miles ahead of its predecessor. "The Heavenly Pop Hit" (which it was) didn’t help much.
Bitch Magnet - Ben Hur (1990)
Straddling a fence between heavy, prog, hardcore, and something that would later be labeled as post-rock, it took this Squirrel Bait offshoot three albums to get in stride with this one, where that fence-straddling work to its fullest with only a tiny cult audience taking notice it deserved.
American Music Club - Everclear (1991)
The music of American Music Club and its main songwriting force, Mark Eitzel, was never easy to pin down as it covered as much ground as Eitzel thought it was necessary, and his acerbic and usually dark lyrics were an acquired taste for many. And even though they never seem to have faltered, this album is where it all came into place, coupled with some excellent production.
Tom Waits - Night On Earth OST (1992)
A big name with a forgotten album? Sure, it could happen, as it did for Waits here, with a mostly instrumental Jim Jarmusch film score and with Waits vocally going back to his pre-Swordfishtrombones style, at least for a second here. Why it was passed by, even by some hardcore Waits fans, is hard to tell.
The Lemonheads – Come on Feel the Lemonheads (1993)
If there’s an artist out there whom the term slacker fits perfectly, it is The Lemonheads mastermind Evan Dando. Still, he was able to come up with some brilliant music, particularly after toning down his hardcore inclination for a more melodic fare on It’s A Shame About Ray (1992), and while this, its follow-up, was no less brilliant, some critics thought it was much of the same, which it wasn’t.
The Posies - Frosting On The Beater (1993)
The Posies’ masterminds, Jonathan Auer and Ken Stringfellow, were true power pop torchbearers, whose combination of detailed melodies and crunching guitars reached an almost perfect balance on this album, but then, power pop was not exactly in vogue at the time, and this album never got the attention it really deserved.
Uncle Tupelo - Anodyne (1993)
When the title of your debut album (and the music within it) practically becomes a blueprint for a sub-genre, you know you are doing something right. Yet, when you have two truly strong songwriters at the helm, and Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy proved it throughout their careers, some tensions are bound to arise, and that tension came up with this, the band’s best album, but that tension also made it its last.
The John Spencer Blues Explosion - Orange (1994)
Scuzz-blues? Whatever that term means, it was tied to one left-field guitarist that was John Spencer who led projects like Pussy Galore and Royal Trux, here taking his view of what roots of rock really are, all done solely based on instincts and pure energy, with some astounding results, particularly on this album.
Kevin Salem - Soma City (1994)
Salem is one of the big names among indie artists from the 1990s on, but as a producer, rather than as an artist in his own name. Yet, on this, his initial solo album, he presents himself as a brilliant songwriter and a killer guitarist, as he comes up with one of the best solos of the decade on the closer “In A Whisper” here.
Self - Subliminal Plastic Motives (1995)
When you start writing songs at four and become a professional drummer at 12, what can you come up with on your first solo album? And you can take that solo term in its literal meaning as Self, aka Matt Makaffey does practically everything here, from the instruments to samples, making a rapid fire combination of power pop and hip hop.
Lotion - Nobody’s Cool (1995)
How do you gain somebody as a fan, somebody like a renowned novelist, Tomas Pynchon, as your fan and get him to write liner notes for your album (this one), and still almost get unnoticed by a wider audience? Truly hard to say, as the music, even with its complex structures and combination of styles, is truly so easy and involving to listen to.
Belly – King (1995)
Throwing Muses were critics' darlings and had quite a solid fan base (still do), but when its core songwriters, Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly, went their separate ways, neither seemed to fare that well commercially, although that fan base remained with both.
And while Hersh remained her introspective self, Donelly came up with an intriguing psych pop combination with Belly that didn’t get as much attention as it truly deserved.
Eric Matthews - It’s Heavy In Here (1995)
What can you expect from a classically trained trumpeter when he turns his capabilities to create something that is not classical music? Well, some exquisite and intricate modernized baroque pop, that Matthews started with one Richard Davies as Cardinal, and then continued on his solo albums, starting with this one. Maybe it was too sophisticated and intricate.
The Olivia Tremor Control - Music from the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle (1996)
All of the members of the Elephant 6 collective have (and still do) have a staunch cult following, most of them deserving it to its fullest, particularly Olivia Tremor Control, as one of the collective’s most prominent exponents. They created almost any kind of music - from incredible psych pop to equally incredible ambient snippets, and here, on their initial offering, you have it all in one place.
Jason Falkner - Presents Author Unknown (1996)
Falkner started out first as a member of Paisley Underground, prominent Three O’Clock, and then as quite successful power poppers Jellyfish, and then as a member of The Grays, but his roles in all were mostly songwriting and producing (something he continues to do). It all came to light when he created a series of excellent solo albums, starting with this one, but it seems that the bright light didn’t reach as many listeners as it should have.
Labradford - Mi Media Naranja (1997)
Post-rock fans often recognize Labradford as one of those bands that really added that post prefix to rock with a series of thoughtful, detailed albums, with this one probably being their best, and its two concluding tracks showing what great music can be created within the post-rock boundaries, if those really exist.
Beck - Mutations (1998)
Of course, Beck is a well-known name and has a huge fan base, with most of them naming almost any album in his canon, except probably this one. Its problem was not in its high quality or wild variety, but it came after Odelay, one of his best-known and most lauded, and there was almost no trace of its sound here.
Mark Hollis - Mark Hollis (1998)
The former Talk Talk leader was always a sound explorer, taking an introspective look not only at notes, but also at spaces between those notes, making this (sadly) his only solo album, which some critics called the quietest rock album ever.
The Fall - The Marshall Suite (1999)
Even if you asked any of the longest-serving members of The Fall, and, unfortunately, we cannot ask the band’s guiding force, late Mark E. Smith, how many albums The Fall recorded (those are still coming out), they wouldn’t be able to tell you. It would be an arduous task to pick the best there, but this one even some of the staunchest fans forget.
June & The Exit Wounds - A Little More Haven Hamilton, Please (1999)
A product of the (rich) imagination of one Todd Fletcher, first member of groups that few remember these days like Twiggy and Very Secretary, this band with a name to refers to an equally obscure character from Robert Altman’s film Nashville, came up with this sole album of some exquisite Todd Rundgren/the Beach Boys - style pop rock that raised the eyebrows of quite a few critics, but then promptly disappearing like the Parasol record label it was released on.