Top 10 for 1991

TheBigBlack's Rock Top 10

Lenny Kravitz
Mama Said

Rock | Album | 2 April 1991

Screaming Trees
Uncle Anesthesia

Grunge Rock | Album | 29 January 1991

'Uncle Anesthesia' is the fifth studio album by Screaming Trees. The band supported the album with a North American tour that included shows with Nirvana. Dan Peters of Mudhoney played drums on much of the tour.

U2
Achtung Baby

Rock | Album | 19 November 1991

U2 had been slowing climbing to success for a number of years, and the recent studio & live combo album Rattle & Hum had positioned them at the top of the pack for the new decade. Their music now oozed with Americana charm, and it seemed obvious what would come next - and this is why the music world was left stunned when the first single 'The Fly' hit the airwaves. Reinvention is common in bands, but reinvention is about stripping back to the basic parts and rebuilding. This new U2 felt like none of those basic parts had ever existed. That first single, and the album that followed, was light years from anything the band had done before - and just about as far from anything else being played on the radio at the time. Be it by expert design or by total fluke, Achtung Baby positioned U2 at the forefront of the alternative movement that was about to flood the airwaves. The album sampled songs and sounds, it compressed and altered the instruments, it used odd song timings and arrangements, and Bono used his voice in ways he never had before. 'Zoo Station' bolts from its pen, its brazen overwrought guitar signalling like a warning of what is to come, and even mega hits like 'One' are produced to within an inch of their lives, deliberately removing any trace of the band that existed in the 1980s. 'Mysterious Ways' is so groovy you just need to move with it, and that is what makes the soul of the album - building a set of songs that regardless of how many overdubs are put on them, you can still hear the greatness of the tunes beneath it all. The Edge truly shines here, with tracks like 'Ultra Violet (Light My Way)' really showing his versatility. The album ends with some sombre moments, closing with 'Acrobat' and 'Love Is Blindness', ending a damn near perfect album.

Soundgarden
Badmotorfinger

Grunge Rock | Album | 8 October 1991

'Badmotorfinger' is the third studio album by Soundgarden. The band began the recording sessions for the album with new bassist Ben Shepherd in the spring of 1991. The album maintained the band's heavy metal sound, while featuring an increased focus on songwriting compared to the band's previous releases. In 1992, Badmotorfinger was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance. It was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1996.

Smashing Pumpkins
Gish

Alternative Rock | Album | 28 April 1991

Motorhead
1916

Hard Rock | Album | 26 February 1991

Nirvana
Nevermind

Grunge Rock | Album | 24 September 1991

'Nevermind' is the second studio album by Nirvana. It was their first release on a major label and the first to feature drummer Dave Grohl. Produced by Butch Vig, it features a more polished, radio-friendly sound than the band's prior work. It was recorded at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California, and Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, in May and June 1991, and mastered that August at the Mastering Lab in Hollywood, California. The album became an unexpected critical and commercial success, reaching the top 10 on charts across the world. On January 11, 1992, it knocked Michael Jackson's 'Dangerous' out of the number one spot on the U.S. Billboard 200 and was selling approximately 300,000 copies a week. The album also garnered the band three Grammy Award nominations in total across the 34th and 35th Grammy Awards, including Best Alternative Music Album.

Guns n' Roses
Use Your Illusion I

Hard Rock | Album | 17 September 1991

Guns n' Roses
Use Your Illusion II

Hard Rock | Album | 17 September 1991

Pearl Jam
Ten

Grunge Rock | Album | 27 August 1991

'Ten' is the debut studio album by Pearl Jam. Following the dissolution of their previous band Mother Love Bone in 1990, bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard began rehearsing with new guitarist Mike McCready. The group recorded a five-song instrumental demo tape that included contributions from Matt Cameron on drums. Copies of the demo were eventually given to drummer Dave Krusen and vocalist Eddie Vedder, both of whom were invited to audition for the band in Seattle. Many of the songs on Ten were instrumental jams or reworked Mother Love Bone songs for which Vedder provided lyrics. The album was not an immediate commercial success, but by late 1992, it had reached number two on the Billboard 200. Beyond its role in consolidating the mainstream success of grunge rock in the early 1990s, the album is generally considered to have been instrumental in the rise and dominance of alternative rock throughout the decade. It has since been ranked by several publications as one of the greatest albums of all time. By February 2013, it had sold 13 million copies in the U.S., becoming the 22nd record to do so in the Nielsen SoundScan era, and has been certified 13? Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

TheBigBlack's Rock Honourable Mentions

Bob Dylan
The Bootleg Series Vols. 1-3, Rare & Unreleased (1961-1991)

Classic Rock | Compilation Boxed Set | 26 March 1991

TheBigBlack's Metal Top 10

Cannibal Corpse
Butchered At Birth

Death Metal | Album | 1 July 1991

Carcass
Necroticism, Descanting The Insalubrious

Death Metal (Grindcore) | Album | 30 October 1991

Darkthrone
Soulside Journey

Black Metal | Album | 13 January 1991

Death
Human

Death Metal | Album | 22 October 1991

Ozzy Osbourne
No More Tears

Heavy Metal | Album | 17 September 1991

Sepultura
Arise

Thrash Metal | Album | 20 March 1991

'Arise' is the fourth studio album by Sepultura. Upon its release, the album received top reviews from heavy metal magazines such as Rock Hard, Kerrang! and Metal Forces, and is considered Sepultura's finest hour among longtime fans.

Metallica
Metallica

Thrash Metal | Album | 12 August 1991