Over the last year, music pundits have bombarded the Internets have published a series of articles celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the most significant year for album releases. It’s true; 1971 was an era of solid LPs. Albums such as Blue by Joni Mitchell, Tapestry by Carole King, and Led Zeppelin IV absolutely belong in the pantheon of musical achievement. Indeed, it was a banner year for the record industry.
However, celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, 1991 is a very close second. I’d even argue that 1991 was a more important year. There was a seismic shift in music, forever changing the landscape of the music industry. It was the year that we finally put hair metal out of its misery (and ours too), and we changed how we viewed alternative music. Pearl Jam and Massive Attack launched paradigm-altering debuts, while R.E.M., U2, and Metallic (although I’m not a fan) released their magnum opus albums.
Plus, there’s one thing that 1991 had that 1971 didn’t have, an absolute monster of a month of new releases. That September the release of some of the greatest albums of all time, with one particular week that had many tape measure homerun albums hit the shelves.
There had never been a month like it before, and it likely will never happen again.
September 2, 1991 – Tin Machine II – Tin Machine
Once upon a time, David Bowie decided he never wanted to make solo music again, until he did. Tin Machine was the collaboration that Bowie needed to regain the creative juice that was leached from him post Let’s Dance. Tin Machine was less a second act and more of a delightful intermission. Initially, the critics were less than kind to this album. However, as time has gone by, music nerds have seen this album for what it was, a side of Bowie that only a few saw at the time. A through-line from Tin Machine II and the latter-day Bowie continued to The Next Day and Blackstar. It’s one of those albums that marks its significance from a 20,000-foot view.
September 16, 1991 – Foxbase Alpha – Saint Etienne
While Foxbase Alpha didn’t see the inside of record stores in the United States for another four months, it qualifies because of its British release. The band’s debut album took the elements of British dance-pop that mand Manchester the “X” capital of the world and substituted the psychedelic influences of Happy Mondays, and featured more ‘60s pop elements. It became the spark of change in the English club scene. As the cover of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” and “Nothing Can Stop Us Now” are the headlines of this album, the hypnotic “Stoned to Say the Least” is one of those tracks that will stay with you forever. If I were ever to write a movie in early ‘90s London, I would pay whatever the band would want for the rights to use that song.
September 16, 1991 – Laughing Stock – Talk Talk
Laughing Stock was the inevitable conclusion of the band’s evolution, starting with The Colour of Spring. It’s also not your father’s Talk Talk album. It’s the total opposite of tracks such as “It’s My Life” and their eponymous song. “Myrrhman” is less like the synth-pop ‘80s shot of whiskey and is more a sip of eighteen-year-old single malt Scotch. The album is much more mature and reflective, much like the elder spectrum of Gen Xers. While their final album had critics look at it sideways in 1991, it has become a mainstay of multiple best of lists.
September 17, 1991 – Use Your Illusion I and II – Guns and Roses
Honestly, I don’t give a shit about Guns and Roses. Growing up in southern Indiana, any asshole with a guitar would constantly play “Sweet Child of Mine” to any girl on the off chance it would get them laid. I associate Axl Rose with the more shitkicker elements of my youth. However, I also believe in giving credit where credit is due. These two albums helped GnR defy the odds and survived the hair metal purge that rooted out some of the crap bands from the ‘80s. The one thing that I will say is that “November Rain” was a song that was featured often when I started my first job in commercial radio in November 1991. Any eight-minute song is a Godsend when you need a bathroom break.
September 23, 1991 – Trompe le Monde – Pixies
Only one person at the time this album was released knew that this would be the Pixies’ farewell album, and that was Black Francis. The album was seen as a departure for the band. In retrospect, it was a preview of what a solo Frank Black would sound like. In a way, it almost seemed like the album was set as the passing of the torch. The Pixies were the standard-bearers of college rock in the ‘80s, and a new decade was coming. Trompe is a fitting final (20th Century) act for a band that set the stage for what was about to come. The cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Head On” reimagines the song with shades of the Sex Pistols.
September 23, 1991 – Screamadelica – Primal Scream
Another album with an asterisk next to it if your musical context stops at the Eastern Seaboard, as it was released stateside the next month. However, as a musical globalist, Primal Scream’s third album absolutely deserves to be on this list. While “Movin’ On Up” was the album’s American lead-off single, “Loaded” is the stand-out song that makes us want to be free…to do what we want to do. The album was the first recipient of the Mercury Music Prize, the stand-out album by an artist from Great Britain and Ireland. Primal Scream earned the prize over stalwarts U2, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Erasure.
This month, the band announced tour dates and where they will play the album in full live in Glasgow, Manchester, and London. A very compelling reason to get a passport, wouldn’t you say?
September 24, 1991 – Nevermind – Nirvana
What can I say about Nirvana’s sophomore effort that hasn’t already been written? It really is the album that changed everything. It has been the en vogue thing to throw shade on the band and “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “In Bloom,” and “Lithium,” and pointing out that “Come As You Are” is a rip off of Killing Joke’s “Eighties” (okay…that one’s valid). Sure, there’s a lot of Nirvana fatigue from the band’s heyday, but that doesn’t discount what this album actually did. As I wrote in my second book, Postgraduate (yes, a shameless plug), it was the most significant shift in music since “Rock Around the Clock.”
Even if you don’t like the Nevermind, you must admit it was Gen X’s coming-out party. It was that cultural changing of the guard. It was like Clay beating Liston or the introduction of the Internet. Once it happened, you knew shit would never be the same again.
September 24, 1991 – Blood Sugar Sex Magik – Red Hot Chili Peppers
Mack Robinson, older brother of baseball legend Jackie, broke the Olympic record in the 200-meter at the Berlin games in 1936. However, he’s lost to history because he took home the silver . . . finishing behind some guy named Jesse Owens.
That’s kind of how I think about Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Yes, it was released the same day as Nevermind. The fifth album from the Red Hot Chili Peppers was certified platinum five months before Nirvana was even certified gold, yet it plays second fiddle for albums released that day.
That’s gotta hurt.
While I preferred “Give it Away” and “Suck my Kiss,” the song “Under the Bridge” is the song people think of the most with this album. I have to tell you, I fucking hate that song. So much! There has been no other song I had dropped from my playlist more than that crap song in my radio career. I don’t know precisely how many times I did that, but it had to be in the hundreds. In fact, I’m pretty sure the last year and a half working at WTTS, I never played that song.
Not once.
September 24, 1991 – The Low End Theory – A Tribe Called Quest
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not an expert in hip-hop.
Shocking, I know.
So, when I call The Low End Theory the most essential hip-hop album of the 1990s, I won’t be offended if you go to the kitchen and fish out one grain of salt to take with that statement. However, I’m not the only one who would say it. A Tribe Called Quest didn’t even show up on my radar until I moved to Denver. Even a few years ago, I couldn’t name one Tribe song or album. Anyone who talked about A Tribe Called Quest pointed me to The Low End Theory as a starter kit. It was one of those albums I had to listen to twice in a row to absorb it fully. “Jazz (We’ve Got)” is the one track that has stuck with me, mostly because I have been invited to dance along because I dig the Cameo joke.
Ian Shane is the author of In Ten Years, Postgraduate and Radio Radio and creator of the blog, Liner Notes. His “almost memoir,” Sundry Notes of Music, is now available in paperback and Kindle. He currently lives in Denver with his cats.