This may be all over the place...but that there was the 90's. Great Decade for music. Some awesome lists so far, so here goes:

BLue Lines/Massive Attack (91)
Loveless/Bloody Valentine (91)
Woodface/Crowded House (91)

Rites Of Passage/Indigo Girls (92)
Fully Completely/Tragically Hip (92)
Wish/The Cure (92)

Siamese Dream/The Smashing Pumpkins (93)
You Gotta Sin To Get Saved/Maria Mckee (93)
The Piano SDTK/Michael Nyman (93)

The Downward Spiral/NIN (94)

To Bring You My Love/PJ Harvey (95)
The Bends/RAdiohead (95)

Boys For Pele/Tori Amos (96)
...Endtroducing/DJ Shadow (96)

OK Computer/Radiohead (97)
Adam & Eve/Catherine Wheel (97)
Homogenic/Bjork (97)

Brothers Gonna Work It Out/Chemical Brothers (98)
Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill (98)
Permutation/Amon Tobin (98)

Play/Moby (99)
Cobras & Phases Group.../Stereolab (99)

Making the list also:Green Mind/Dino Jr.(91), Rage Against the Machine(92), Aenima/Tool(96), Aquemini/Outkast(98).

Hmm..I've mostly only heard stuff that got some mainstream attention in the 90s, I really didn't start looking for indie stuff till 2002.

But...here goes. No particular order.

Nirvana - Nevermind
Nirvana - In Utero
Tool - Aenema
Radiohead - OK Computer
REM - Automatic For The People
Flaming Lips - Transmissions From The Satellite Heart
Beck - Mellow Gold
Beck - Odelay
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Air - Moon Safari

This list will probably massively change when I start looking into the pazznjop lists from 1990-1999 and trying to find the good indie stuff from this period.

I would say right now

1. OK Computer (Radiohead)
2. Automatic for the People (REM)
3. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (NMH)
4. The Bends (Radiohead)
5. Pinkerton (Weezer)
6. Soft Bulletin (Flaming Lips)
7. Slanted and Enchanted (Pavement)
8. Nevermind (Nirvana)
9. Loveless (MBV)
10. Mutations (Beck)

Roughly in order of how often I play them now, and edited down to one album per artist to avoid excessive domination by two groups. I know it's a heresy to prefer Crooked Rain to S&E or Wowee Zowee, but there goes.

1. Pavement - Crooked Rain Crooked Rain
2. Radiohead - OK Computer
3. Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die
4. Tindersticks - 2nd Album
5. PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
6. Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs
7. Pulp - Different Class
8. Tricky - Maxinquaye
9. Divine Comedy - Casanova
10. Supergrass - I Should Coco

I like a list that gives props to the Tindersticks and the Divine Comedy. Nice list, Phil!

01 Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane, Over the Sea
02 Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted
03 Dismemberment Plan - ...is Terrified
04 Built to Spill - There's Nothing Wrong With Love
05 Beck - Odelay!
06 Pavement - Wowee Zowee
07 Les Savy Fav - The Cat and the Cobra
08 Silver Jews - American Water
09 Spoon - A Series of Sneaks
10 12 Rods - Split Personalities

Summerteeth- Wilco
Crooked Rain Crooked Rain - Pavement
Ladies & Gentlemen we are floating in space - Spiritualized
OK Computer - Radiohead
Lonesome Crowded West - Modest Mouse
Either/Or - Elliott Sith
Moonpix - Cat Power
Screamadelica - Primal Scream
I Can See the Heart Beating as One - YLT
Being There - Wilco
Soft Bulletin - Flaming Lips

Couldn't reduce down to ten. 90's was a great decade

Haha, Elliott meets Star Wars. like it.

here ya go

1. NMH - In the Aeroplane...
2. Built to Spill - Keep it Like a Secret
3. Pavement - Wowee Zowee
4. Beck - Mellow Gold
5. Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I
6. YLT - I Can Hear the Heart Beating...
7. System of a Down - S/T (It's true! It's awesome!)
8. Pavement - CRCR
9. Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet
10. Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right...

NMH wins the 90s, with Wilco's Summerteeth and OK Computer lurking just behind.

edit: Jeff Buckley - Grace is up there too. Man, the things he would have done if he hadn't died...

Hmm...I need to pick the consensus bests that I've never heard and maybe pick them up well before I actually get them chronologically. Right now I'm specifically targetting Aeroplane Over The Sea and Slanted and Enchanted..

My favorite CDs from the '90s:
Beastie Boys, Ill Communication
Chemical Brothers, Surrender
Elliott Smith, Either/Or and XO
Fatboy Slim, You've Come a Long Way Baby
Hole, Live Through This
Human Waste Project, e-lux
Jane's Addiction, Ritual de lo Habitual
Love/Hate, Wasted in America
Marilyn Manson, Mechanical Animals
Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral
Nirvana, Nevermind
Prodigy, The Fat of the Land
Radiohead, The Bends
Sublime, Sublime
White Zombie, La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is available from www.mergerecords.com, I think the price is something like 11 dollars.

Damn, this is difficult. There are too many albums to mention. I have 25 or 30 I want to list.

Top ten:

"Maxinquaye" -- Tricky
"The 3 E.P.s" -- The Beta Band
"OK Computer" -- Radiohead
"Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" -- Pavement
"69 Love Songs" -- The Magnetic Fields
"Different Class" -- Pulp
"My Life" -- Iris DeMent
"Grand Prix" -- Teenage Fanclub
"X/O" -- Elliott Smith
"If You're Feeling Sinister" -- Belle & Sebastian

Honourable Mentions:

"Lazer-Guided Melodies" -- Spiritualized
"Dusk at Cubist Castle" -- The Olivia Tremor Control
"Perfect From Now On" -- Built to Spill
"Wake Up!" -- The Boo Radleys
"Black Sunday" -- Cypress Hill
"Wrecking Ball" -- Emmylou Harris
"The McGarrigle Hour" -- Kate & Anna McGarrigle
"Suede" -- Suede
"Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches" -- Happy Mondays
"New Adventures in Hi-Fi" -- R.E.M.
"I Do Not Want Want I Haven't Got" -- Sinead O'Connor
"Dry" -- PJ Harvey
"Dubnobasswithmyheadman" -- Underworld
"New Wave" -- The Auteurs
"Screamadelica" -- Primal Scream
"Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" -- Lucinda Williams
"What I Deserve" -- Kelly Willis
"Grace" -- Jeff Buckley
"Bossanova" -- Pixies
"Protection" -- Massive Attack

10. Aimee Mann "Magnolia" (OST)
9. Ride "Nowhere"
8. Beck "Odelay"
7. Sonic Youth "Goo"
6. Weezer "Pinkerton"
5. Air "Moon Safari"
4. Radiohead "OK Computer"
3. Wilco "Summerteeth"
2. My Bloody Valentine "Loveless"
1. Teenage Fanclub "Bandwagonesque"

Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie...
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar
Metallica - Metallica
Tool - Undertow
Spell - Spell (collaboration between Boyd Rice and Rose McDowall)
Frontline Assembly - FLAvour of the Week
KMFDM - NIHIL
The Cure - Wish
Morrissey - Your Arsenal
David Bowie - Hours
Bad Religion - Stranger than Fiction
Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle
Eminem - Slim Shady LP
Boyd Rice and Friends - Hatesville
Current 93 - All The Pretty Little Horses
Hole - Live Through This
Switchblade Symphony - Serpentine Gallery
London After Midnight - Psycho Magnet
Rosetta Stone - Adrenaline
RATM - RATM
Garbage - Garbage
Black Tape for A Blue Girl - Remnants of A Deeper Purity
Live - Throwing Copper
Alice In Chains - Dirt
Pearl Jam - Vs.
HIM - Razorblade Romance
Lycia - Empty Spaces
Bella Morte - Remains

i doubt some of you would know some of the ones i listed but there you go!

I think I'll do a list with a few choices for each year, since my top 10 would be a little too Elliott Smith heavy...

in fact, there's not much point since the albums I would have picked have already been mentioned.

So special mentions to Roman Candle, Elliott Smith, Either/or and Xo.

Most of these have been mentioned already, a few haven't....

1. Nine Inch Nails: The Fragile
Some of the most interestings sounds and production I've ever heard. There's lots of filler-instrumental tracks.... and I love filler instrumentals!
2. Bjork: Homogenic
Utterly amazing from beginning to end
3. Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral
Dark pathos meets dance-techno. Does it get any better than this?
4. Nirvana: Nevermind
Utterly memorable songs, inspired singing, catchy melodies
5. Radiohead: The Bends
Great, tight song-writing
6. Alice in Chains: Dirt
Epic darkness, distilled through haunting vocals
7. VAST: Visual Audio Sensory Theater
Amazing production and great song-writing
8. Stone Temple Pilots: Core
9. Red Hot Chili Peppers: Californication
Some songs on here are achingly beautiful
10. Oasis: What's the Story, Morning Glory?
Whenever I think of this album I automatically think "that's the 90s"... and vice-versa

Honorable mentions:
Incubus: Make Yourself (my guilty pleasure), Madonna: Ray of Light, Bjork: Debut and Post, Nirvana: In Utero, Nine Inch Nails: Further Down the Spiral and Closer to God, and U2: Zooropa

Yes, I am a 90s child. I didn't get into music until Nirvana: Nevermind, and have recently tried to build up a collection of the music that I missed out on from the 80s (yay for The Smiths) and the music I was too naive to understand during the 90s.

1. Massive Attack: Blue Lines & Mezzanine
2. R.E.M.: Automatic for the People
3. Portishead: Dummy
4. A Tribe Called Quest: The Low End Theory
5. The Roots: Organix & Things Fall Apart
6. Radiohead: OK Computer & The Bends
7. Nirvana: Nevermind
8. Smashing Pumpkins: Siamese Dreams
9. Blackstar: Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Blackstar
10. Weezer: Blue Album
11. Bjork: Debut
12. Flaming Lips: Clouds Taste Metallic & The Soft Bulletin
13. Beck: Odelay
14. Alanis Morissette: Jagged Little Pill
15. DJ Shadow: Entroducing...

1 – Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
2 - Radiohead – OK Computer
3 - Radiohead – The Bends
4 - Neutral Milk Hotel – On Avery Island
5 - Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children
6 - Eels – Electro-Shock Blues
7 - Beta Band – The 3 EPs
8 - Paul Simon – Rhythm of the Saints
9 - Flaming Lips – Soft Bulletin
10 - Counting Crows – August and Everything After
11 - Bedhead – What Fun Life Was
12 - Bedhead – Transaction De Novo
13 - Grandaddy – Under the Western Freeway
14 - Elliott Smith – XO
15 - Neil Young – Harvest Moon
16 - Bedhead – Beheaded
17 - Poole – Among Whom We Shine
18 - David Francey – Torn Screen Door
19 - George Winston – Forest
20 - Bedhead – 4SongEP19:10
21 - Elliott Smith – Either/Or
22 - Guster – Lost and Gone Forever
23 - Magnetic Fields – 69 Love Songs
24 - Olivia Tremor Control – Dusk At Cubist Castle
25 - Hippos – Heads Are Gonna Roll


I actually made a top-64 list, but as someone pointed out elsewhere, I don't think anyone wants to see such a long list except the person making it.

I know my list looks a little lopsided with the top 4 spots all claimed by 2 bands and Bedhead nabbing 4 spots in the top 20, but I just listed them in the order that I look forward to listening to them.

One album up there that never gets talked about much around here is George Winston - Forest. I like several of Winston's albums, but this one stands far above the rest. Brilliant solo piano. I just wish he would sell some sheet music so I could learn how to play his stugg.

I looked through every post on this topic and I can't believe that no one else listed Neil Young - Harvest Moon. I think it's on a par with his best stuff. If he hadn't included the horrid song "Such A Woman" I think it might crack my top 10.

And how can anyone think that Graceland is better than Rhythm of the Saints?