785. Dookie

Dookie
Green Day
1994

Tracks
1. Burnout
2. Having A Blast
3. Chump
4. Longview
5. Welcome To Paradise
6. Pulling Teeth
7. Basket Case
8. She
9. Sassafras Roots
10. When I Come Around
11. Coming Clean
12. Emenius Sleepus
13. In The End
14. FOD

It was nice to hit an album that didn't take itself so seriously. This was just a fun bit of pop punk that sounded like the soundtrack to every 90s movie I watched as a kid.

I suppose some wet blankets would say this is a sell out, and then argue that punk shouldn't be so shiny. To them I say, "Pah. The Sex Pistols were basically One Direction." And then I would duck as they throw urine balloons at me.

So a pretty great album to end 1994 with. 1995 is sure to be a special year, as that's when yours truly appeared on the scene.

RATING: 5/5

784. Music for the Jilted Generation

Music for the Jilted Generation
The Prodigy
1994

Tracks
1. Intro
2. Break And Enter
3. Their Law
4. Full Throttle
5. Voodoo People
6. Speedway
7. Heat (The Energy)
8. Poison
9. No Good (Start The Dance)
10. One Love
11. 3 Kilos
12. Skylined
13. Claustrophobic Sting

I am tempted to give this three star for the sole reason that there were a few bearable stretches in there, and that's pretty unusual for a techno album. It's not a musical style I tend to click with. But then I suppose that wouldn't be fair to the other albums that earn their three stars honestly.

So yes, there were some good rhythms sprinkled throughout the album. Unfortunately, the album completely overstayed its welcome at 75 minutes and I've never been good at politely telling somebody to leave.

And the album cover looks like something that would be found on the back of Professor Quirrell's head.

RATING: 2/5

783. Downward Spiral

Downward Spiral
Nine Inch Nails
1994

Tracks
1. Mr Self Destruct
2. Piggy
3. Heresy
4. March Of The Pigs
5. Closer
6. Ruiner
7. Becoming
8. I Do Not Want This
9. Big Man With A Gun
10. Warm Place
11. Eraser
12. Reptile
13. Downward Spiral
14. Hurt

I almost took off running when I saw this was an industrial album. Then I remembered in 2020 there is nowhere to run to. Fortunately, this album attempts to bring the industrial music into the mainstream, and that involves toning it down a bit.

Consequently, I suppose some industrial fans will feel that they compromised the sound, while the heavy industrial influence might alienate the normies. But there were moments I enjoyed in this and I appreciate what the band was trying to do. 

I don't really connect with the darker themes here, but for an industrial album it is positively chipper.

RATING: 2/5

782. MTV Unplugged in New York

MTV Unplugged in New York
Nirvana
1994

Tracks
1. About A Girl
2. Come As You Are
3. Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam
4. The Man Who Sold The World
5. Pennyroyal Tea
6. Dumb
7. Polly
8. On A Plain
9. Something In The Way
10. Plateau
11. Oh Me
12. Lake Of Fire
13. All Apologies
14. Where Did You Sleep Last Night

Either I've forgotten how good Nirvana is, or they've never been this good before. 

Strangely, almost half of the songs are covers. I would have thought on MTV they would have played all their hits and certainly not David Bowie or the Meat Puppets. We haven't had a live album in awhile and this album really gave the feeling of being there. Remember when we could be places?

I thought the glamor of a posthumous release might lend the album more prestige than it deserved, but fortunately that was not the case. Cobain's vocals are amazing and he really was insanely talented. He could have become so much more. 

RATING: 5/5

781. Snivilisation

Snivilisation
Orbital
1994

Tracks
1. Forever
2. I Wish I Had Duck Feet
3. Sad But True
4. Crash And Carry
5. Science Friction
6. Philosophy By Numbers
7. Kein Trink Wasser
8. Quality Seconds
9. Are We Here?
10. Attached

I am not a big fan of techno music, so even an exceptional album of the genre isn't going to get more than a three from me. We've already had an Orbital album on this List, but evidently they had more to say. 

They don't use very many words to say it though. I think I enjoyed this more than the previous Orbital entry on the List, but I wouldn't categorize either album as essential. It did make for pretty easy listening, even if on two separate occasions I mistook the noises I was hearing as signals my laptop was in severe distress.

Kind of dated, but still fairly enjoyable.

RATING: 3/5

780. Grace

Grace
Jeff Buckley
1994

Tracks
1. Mojo Pin
2. Grace
3. Last Goodbye
4. Lilac Wine
5. So Real
6. Hallelujah
7. Lover, You Should've Come Over
8. Corpus Christi Carol
9. Eternal Life
10. Dream Brother
11. Forget Her

My sister and I spent a couple hours together today working at our kitchen table. She was busy with lesson plans for her kindergarteners and I was busy with something equally as important as educating the youth of tomorrow. Somewhat trepidatiously, I asked whether she minded if I played an album while we toiled away. I didn't know if the next entry on the List would involve screamed obscenities or bongo rock, neither of which are/should be conducive to lesson planning. Thankfully, the next entry on the List was Jeff Buckley and he rose to the challenge of good taste admirably.

So this was just a good album, with my personal favorite songs being the covers. I guess Jeff Buckley accidentally drowned a few years after this was released. Why are there so many victims of mysterious, untimely deaths featured on the List lately? Maybe releasing an album in 1994 invoked some sort of ancient curse. 

Overall, a great album and my sister's innocence about what this List entails remains intact.

RATING: 4/5

779. Ready to Die

Ready to Die
Notorious B.I.G.
1994

Tracks
1. Intro
2. Things Done Changed
3. Gimme The Loot
4. Machine Gun Funk
5. Warning
6. Ready To Die
7. One More Chance
8. Fuck Me
9. What
10. Juicy
11. Everyday Struggles
12. Me And My Bitch
13. Big Poppa
14. Respect
15. Friend Of Mine
16. Unbelievable
17. Suicidal Thoughts
18. Who Shot Ya
19. Just Playing (Dreams)

The List continues its eerie trend of featuring artists who were uncomfortably prophetic about their impending demise. Biggie Smalls even has a track called "Who Shot Ya." 

Predictably, I hated this and even more predictably, he had to have a track that was just the sounds of two people having sex. Is that to be funny? Is it to prove to the listener that a woman will actually have sex with him? Fair point, I have difficulty believing it myself. Anyway, it's immature and, at this point on the darkest timeline, not even original. I am surprised this is an East Coast album, it sounds much more West Coast (lyrically speaking).

Just a lot of ego with the usual recommended dosage of misogyny. But at least now I understand a few more Hamilton allusions.

RATING: 1/5

778. Dog Man Star

Dog Man Star
Suede
1994

Tracks
1. Introducing The Band
2. We Are The Pigs
3. Heroïne
4. The Wild Ones
5. Daddy's Speeding
6. The Power
7. New Generation
8. This Hollywood Life
9. The 2 Of Us
10. Black Or Blue
11. The Asphalt World
12. Still Life

I keep wanting to write Dog Star Man, which is a series of experimental films that the 1001 movie list subjected me to. I guess some wounds don't heal, no matter how much time has passed. Fortunately, this was much more enjoyable than the movie that haunts me.

I didn't really take to the previous Suede album on the List, but I think they have found their sound with this one. They clearly are influenced by prog rock, which is a nice change of pace from what we have been listening to lately.

There were a couple of misses there, but overall, a fairly decent album.

RATING: 4/5

 

777. The Holy Bible

The Holy Bible
Manic Street Preachers
1994

Tracks
1. Yes
2. Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart
3. Of Walking Abortion
4. She Is Suffering
5. Archives Of Pain
6. Revol
7. 4st 7lb
8. Mausoleum
9. Faster
10. This Is Yesterday
11. Die In The Summertime
12. The Intense Humming Of Evil
13. P.C.P.

If you didn't know, 70% of the lyrics in this album were written by Richey Edwards, who disappeared in 1995. He was obviously a deeply troubled person, which is very apparent in this album.

Which kind of sucks the fun out of listening to it. I am sure to some it lends the album a good deal of mystique. But to me it just felt pretty morbid. This isn't the kind of music I would like to listen to anyway.

And I'm not a fan of the cover art either.

RATING: 2/5

776. Protection

Protection
Massive Attack
1994

Tracks
1. Protection
2. Karmacoma
3. Three
4. Weather Storm
5. Spying Glass
6. Better Things
7. Euro Child
8. Sly
9. Heat Miser
10. Light My Fire

I had high hopes at the beginning of this album, because Protection is a really good song. But from there, the album kind of peters out. This isn't the first band to front load their album, which always makes for an awkward, top heavy experience.

The rest of this album was rather blah, and to me just sounded like music nurses play when they put you on hold. I guess it's supposed to be calming, but it always makes me fussy.

Protection was good, but overall, this was fairly skippable.

RATING: 3/5

775. Live Through This

Live Through This
Hole
1994

Tracks
1. Violet
2. Miss World
3. Plump
4. Asking For It
5. Jennifer's Body
6. Doll Parts
7. Credit In The Straight World
8. Softer, Softest
9. She Walks On Me
10. I Think That I Would Die
11. Gutless
12. Rock Star

It's a little eerie listening to this album, knowing that Kurt Cobain died just four days after this was released. I mean, I am not one of those troubled people who thinks Courtney Love killed him. But it's weird to listen to music created by somebody right before their life is blown to smithereens. 

At least, it's pretty good music. It has a clear Nirvana influence, but definitely its own distinct flavor. And that distinct flavor comes from Courtney screeching her head off. But it is still really fun.

Also, Miss Love spoke out against Harvey Weinstein when no one else really would. I think her words are worth listening to, even if she is screaming them.

RATING: 4/5

774. Talking Timbuktu

Talking Timbuktu
Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder
1994

Tracks
1. Bonde
2. Soukora
3. Gomni
4. Sega
5. Amandrai
6. Lasidan
7. Kelto
8. Banga
9. Ai Du
10. Diaraby

Here we have an album from Mali, and I am pretty sure it is our first foray into that country on the List. If I'm wrong, sorry Mali. Of course, it's always interesting to hear from underrepresented countries on the List. That doesn't necessarily mean you will click with every sound.

I don't really have any qualms with this album, only that I obviously didn't understand any of the lyrics, so there was a limit to how much I could connect to this. It took me awhile to get my footing, but by the middle of the album I was really enjoying it.

So it was nice to step outside of the US/UK for awhile with this album, especially since my world feels pretty small right now in the quarantimes. 

RATING: 3/5

773. G. Love and the Special Sauce

G. Love and the Special Sauce
G. Love and the Special Sauce
1994

Tracks

1. The Things That I Used To Do

2. Blues Music

3. Garbage Man

4. Eyes Have Miles

5. Baby's Got Sauce

6. Rhyme for the Summertime

7. Cold Beverage

8. Fatman

9. This Ain't Living

10. Walk To Slide

11. Shooting Hoops

12. Some Peoples Like That

13. Town To Town

14. I Love You

I hadn't heard of this band, and I was nervous we were going to have a poor imitation of the Beastie Boys on our hands. Lo and behold, this was actually really enjoyable. 

These were pretty catchy songs. They clearly have a heavy blues influence, and a healthy dose of folk as well. They managed to create their own sound, without sounding like copies of anybody else.

I guess these guys are from Philadelphia. Thanks for representing the Keystone State in a way that doesn't bring shame on my people. We already have to atone for Bill Cosby and James Buchanan (when I was in school we learned that he was the worst ever president of the U.S., a factoid that hasn't particularly aged well). 

RATING: 4/5

772. Parklife

Parklife
Blur
1994

Tracks
1. Girls And Boys
2. Tracy Jacks
3. End Of A Century
4. Parklife
5. Bank Holiday
6. Debt Collector
7. Far Out
8. To The End
9. London Loves
10. Trouble In The Message Centre
11. Clover Over Dover
12. Magic America
13. Jubilee
14. This Is A Low

One of my British professors showed the music video for "Parklife" in class once. I forget for what purpose, but the class mostly consisted of him telling us stories from his rave days, so maybe he was providing context for a story. That really makes me nostalgic for before the quarantimes, where I could visit London and be forced to watch Britpop videos. 

So yes, this is a pretty great album, even if it groin kicked me in the feels. You can see a clear influence here from the Kinks, but they manage to put their own spin on it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go eat a sadness cookie. 

RATING: 4/5

771. Yank Crime

Yank Crime
Drive Like Jehu
1994

Tracks

1. Here Come The Rome Plows

2. Do You Compute

3. Golden Brown

4. Luau

5. Super Unison

6. New Intro

7. New Math

8. Human Interest

9. Sinews

The albums have been pretty "this is okay, I guess" lately. I am hoping something comes along soon to knock my socks off. This morning however, my feet remained warm and toasty as I listened to this album.

I liked the tone of this album, but it was just kind of dull and sounded like something we have had heard literally hundreds of times before. If you really dig noise rock, you'll like this. But we all know by now how I feel about a genre that has the word "noise" in its title.

So this is okay, I guess. 

RATING: 2/5

770. Smash

Smash
The Offspring
1994

Tracks
1. Time to Relax
2. Nitro (Youth Energy)
3. Bad Habit
4. Gotta Get Away
5. Genocide
6. Something to Believe In
7. Come Out and Play
8. Self-Esteem
9. It'll Be a Long Time
10. Killboy Powerhead
11. What Happened to You?
12. So Alone
13. Not the One
14. Smash

I think even diehard Offspring fans would admit that the quality of their music took a turn for the worse post 1994, and this is considered by many to be the best thing the band ever did. Or, you know, they would tell me to go have intercourse with my person, to put it politely.

I'm not really the target audience of this album. The music tackles some angst that I am sure is much more relatable if you are a teenage boy. I think the singles were the best, with "Self Esteem" and "Gotta Get Away" standing out in particular. 

I liked the punk vibe that had a decidedly 90s spin on it. It felt like it was bringing the genre to a new generation. 

RATING: 3/5

769. Superunknown

Superunknown
Soundgarden
1994

Tracks
1. Let Me Drown
2. My Wave
3. Fell On Black Days
4. Mailman
5. Superunknown
6. Head Down
7. Black Hole Sun
8. Spoonman
9. Limo Wreck
10. The Day I Tried To Live
11. Kickstand
12. Fresh Tendrils
13. 4th Of July
14. Half
15. Like Suicide
16. She Likes Surprises

I was all prepared to dislike this album, with its indecent runtime and lack of spaces. I was actually pleasantly surprised to find I quite enjoyed this, even if forty minutes might have been a slightly more digestible album.

There were some boring tracks on the album, but songs like "Black Hole Sun" made up for the dull stretches. Overall not too exciting, but I find I am enjoying the meh 90s albums more than the meh 80s albums.

Too long, but could be great if a few songs were cut.

RATING: 3/5

768. Definitely Maybe

Definitely Maybe
Oasis
1994

Tracks
1. Rock 'N' Roll Star
2. Shakermaker
3. Live Forever
4. Up In The Sky
5. Columbia
6. Supersonic
7. Bring It On Down
8. Cigarettes & Alcohol
9. Digsy's Dinner
10. Slide Away
11. Married With Children

I was actually looking forward to this album. I haven't heard much of Oasis (although I probably have and didn't recognize it), but I heard they were like the Happy Mondays meets the Beatles. That sounds pretty good to me.

And it was okay, but I was pretty disappointed by the lyrical quality. "Supersonic" made me "oof" a couple of times. The songs were more of the "oh, this is going to be stuck in my head now" variety than the "I actually like this song" ilk. 

So far, 1994 isn't living up to 1993 musically, but, to be fair, it was an extremely high bar.

RATING: 3/5

767. CrazySexyCool

CrazySexyCool
TLC
1994

Tracks
1. Intro-Iude
2. Creep
3. Kick Your Game
4. Diggin' On You
5. Case Of The Fake People
6. CrazySexyCool-Interlude
7. Red Light Special
8. Waterfalls
9. Intermission-Iude
10. Let's Do it Again
11. If I Was Your Girlfriend
12. Sexy-Interlude
13. Take Our Time
14. Can I Get A Witness-Interlude
15. Switch
16. Sumthin' Wicked This Way Comes

It's interesting to see the beginning of female R&B bands, with a style of music that would later inspire bands like the Pussycat Dolls and Destiny's Child. Also, "No Scrubs" is such a banger.

Of course, this album doesn't contain the track "No Scrubs." Actually, no song is as good as that one. "Waterfalls" and "Creep" sound pretty dated, and the other tracks are nothing to write home about. 

So an album that I wouldn't label timeless or essential, but fun nonetheless.

RATING: 3/5

766. Vauxhall and I

Vauxhall and I
Morrissey
1994

Tracks
1. Now My Heart Is Full
2. Spring Heeled Jim
3. Billy Budd
4. Hold On To Your Friends
5. The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get
6. Why Don't You Find Out For Yourself
7. I Am Hated For Loving
8. Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning
9. Used To Be A Sweet Boy
10. The Lazy Sunbathers
11. Speedway

We've seen artists put on some obnoxious personas over the years, but this one really takes the cake. Actually, I guess he isn't really putting anything on. I get the sense this is his genuine personality.

That personality is a very sanctimonious one, wronged by everybody and understood by no one. You can even glean that from the track titles without listening to any of the songs. I actually just read Billy Budd recently, which lends its name to track three, and I can totally see why that story would appeal to him. 

He's a vegetarian who includes literary allusions in his songs. I should love him, but he just makes me roll my eyes. 

RATING: 2/5