We love the 90s. Not everything about it. We’re not nostalgic for dial-up-modems, Blockbuster late fees, JNCOs, 90210, Troy Aikman, Crystal Pepsi, or the Rodney King riots.
But the music…
When we started our Townie ensemble, we were a few original songs and a Wagon Wheel shy of being a 90s cover band. We honored icons (Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Weezer, Sublime), one-hit-wonders (Spacehog, Cracker), artists whose fame has faded (Collective Soul, Counting Crows, Big Head Todd & the Monsters), grown (Ween, Daniel Johnston), and neither was nor is (Mad Season, Kenny Wayne Shephard). We declared 1994 the best year for music, and we’ll stomp our Doc Martins through the Tamagotchi of anyone who disagrees.
We came of age in the 90s, albeit at different paces. We started the decade recording the radio on Casio cassettes and ended it burning Napster downloads. John fled the country and got married. Nate toured with Ozzy. Adam watched Woodstock burn. Caleb spread awareness of HIV and spinal meningitis by blasting Chocolate and Cheese from an ’83 Volvo station wagon in his high school parking lot. We lost Tupac and Jerry, found Jigga and Trey, and gained Cardi and Harry. We grew. We loved. We crushed on Alicia Silverstone. We used box cutters to lacerate stain-washed jeans. We wore flannel—one shirt around our waist and another around our torso. We partied like it was 1999, even when it was 1998, and survived Y2K.
We reminisce, but if these ever become our best days, we must have died too young.
Here is some of our favorite music from the 90s.
What did we miss?
Adam’s Thoughts
My immediate thought goes to Temple of the Dog, especially the song Hunger Strike. It’s the perfect confluence of 90s rock. Mix of dudes from Soundgarden & Pearl Jam, Cornell’s voice & Vedder’s voice fit together just right, and the band is a tribute to Andrew Wood, who was the real center of the Seattle grunge movement.
If any of us could sing like Cornell, I’d definitely push to cover Hunger Strike.
Nirvana is awesome but gets too much credit for the era. Rock at the time was too diverse to be captured by one band, and they didn’t want that moniker anyway.
Underrated album of the 90s: “Example” by For Squirrels. These dudes put out a rad debut album, and then a couple of them died in a car crash. End of band. Appropriately 90s.
Every 90s band that defines the generation owes their success to the 80s. Faith No More, Pixies, NIN, Jane’s Addiction, Joy Division… they were all doing 90s music before the 90s existed.
Caleb’s picks
1. Radiohead - Ok Computer (1997)
2. Outkast – Aquemeni (1998)
3. Sublime (1996)
4. Nas – Illmatic (1994)
5. Pearl Jam - Ten (1991)
6. U2 - Achtung Baby (1991)
7. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magic (1991)
8. A Tribe Called Quest - Low End Theory (1991)
9. Ween - The Mollusk (1997)
10. Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998)
11. Beck - Odeley (1996)
12. Nirvana - Nevermind (1991)
13. Nirvana - Unplugged (1994)
14. Tom Petty - Wildflowers (1994)
15. Sublime - 40oz to Freedom (1992)
16. Flaming Lips - Soft Bulletin (1999)
17. Rage Against the Machine (1991)
18. Whiskeytown - Faithless Street (1995)
19. Outkast - Atliens (1996)
20. Black Crowes - Shake Your Moneymaker (1990)
21. Counting Crows - Recovering the Satellites (1996)
22. Bob Dylan - Time Out of Mind (1997)
23. Wilco - Summerteeth (1999)
24. Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)
25. Jeff Buckley - Grace (1994)
26. Portishead – Dummy (1994) and Portishead (1997)
27. Uncle Tupelo – Anodyne (1993)
28. Bruce Springsteen - Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
29. Dr. Dre - The Chronic (1992)
30. Notorious BIG - Ready to Die (1994)
31. Radiohead - The Bends (1995)
32. Weezer (1994)
33. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Murder Ballads (1996)
34. Tom Waits - Bone Machine (1992)
35. Elliott Smith - Either/Or (1997)
36. Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies (1994)
37. Jayhawks - Hollywood Town Hall (1992)
38. Erykah Badu - Baduism (1997)
39. Ween - Chocolate & Cheese (1994)
40. Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun (1999)
41. Magnetic Fields - 69 love songs (1999)
42. The Fugees - The Score (1996)
43. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998)
44. Mos Def & Talib Kweli - Black Star (1998)
45. Counting Crows - August and Everything After (1993)
46. Green Day - Dookie (1994)
47. Phish – Billy Breathes (1996)
48. Tool - Aenima (1996)
49. Ben Harper - Burn to Shine (1999)
50. Old 97s - Too Far to Care (1997)
John’s Picks
Radiohead.
The Cranberries (song pick: “Zombie”).
Television - the ultimate 90s band. I know they are 1977 but they were influential. Sound like a 90s band. Marquee Moon is one of my favorite albums ever.
Nate’s Thoughts
I was a huge skate punk fan in the mid 90s. Bands like NOfX, Bad Religion, Pennywise, and Rancid. Then I discovered the Grateful Dead and Phish and it was over from there!