With so many albums to choose from, it’s hard to pick the album of the year. It’s even harder to pick the album of the decade.
Don’t worry though, we narrowed down the list for you. Reveille staff members picked their favorite album of each decade from 1960 through 2010. From The Beatles to Harry Styles, we covered every era of music.
Today is ’90s day.
Will Nickel
“In Utero” by Nirvana
The ‘90s were defined by Nirvana. It is one of the most influential and well-known bands of the past several decades and one of its albums had to be on this list. “Nevermind” might be the more popular album, but “In Utero” deserves just as much, if not more, praise.
With so many albums to choose from, it’s hard to pick the album of the year. It’s even harder to pick the album of the decade.
While I was tempted to put other rock essentials like Slint’s “Spiderland” or loveless’ “my bloody valentine,” neither band quite reached the level of influence or popularity that Nirvana did.
John Buzbee
“The Lonesome Crowded West” by Modest Mouse
The more recent Modest Mouse had grown bittersweet and cheerful, but the band’s older selves were angsty. Most of these titles are embedded with sarcasm and it’d be fair to find some funny.
Highlights include “Cowboy Dan,” which is about a professional cowboy who’s a leader in his field but lacks fulfillment in life and “Bankrupt on Selling,” a song about Jesus’ apostles and a manifesto that everyone’s a fraud in their own right.
Alison Agena
“Tragic Kingdom” by No Doubt
Gwen Stafani is one of the biggest celebrities from the ’90s. With songs from “Don’t Speak”, “Just a Girl” and “Spiderwebs”, this popstar’s music helped her launch her career from being part of a group to creating her own solo career.
Without this group and these hits, we may have never gotten songs like “Sweet Escape” or “Rich Girl”.
Madison Heydari
“Come On Over” by Shania Twain
“Come On Over” is a beacon of female empowerment. Shania Twain disrupted mainstream country with this album and paved the way for future female country singers.
With the perfect mix of twang, pop and hints of rock, this album is a gem, and the defiant “Man! I Feel Like A Woman” should be all the proof you need.
When Shania says, “Let’s go, girls,” I go! It really is that simple.
Nyx Crooks
“When The Kite String Pops” by Acid Bath
With so many albums to choose from, it’s hard to pick the album of the year. It’s even harder to pick the album of the decade.
The ’90s was a time of musical innovation. Metal divided into a thousand sub-genres with nu metal going mainstream near the end, and grunge music dominated most of rock radio.
For me though, I have to look local. Louisiana legends Acid Bath released its first album in 1994 and used a blend of death metal, goth, blues, southern rock and doom metal to create something entirely new that became known as the New Orleans metal sound: the sound of sludge metal.
Dax Riggs gets his start here before he goes off to form other groups eventually writing the intro song “Stop I’m Already Dead” off of the TV show “iZombie.” His vocals are otherworldly with a strange combination of brutally vicious screams and tranquil moody singing.
Mix in the manic rambling lyrics that seem like a beautiful trip inside a mad man’s mind and you get an album that’s unlike any other and has never been replicated.
Not to mention, Sammy Duet’s legendary guitar riffs that inspire future sludge metal bands for decades. Acid Bath did something new, and the album always scratches an itch in my head. From the calm psychedelic trip of “Scream of the Butterfly” to the slow brutality of “The Blue,” the album does it all.
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