Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Classics Collected, where we at Spotisfaction continue our work as Music Time Lords going backwards this time instead of forwards. The SpoTardis this week has stopped on the year 1994 and all our albums (with 1 cheeky exception) were released in what turned out to be a very succesful year for those of you who love to rock, and love the sound of good guitar music!
Apologies to those looking for our usual mix of musical diversity – I’m afraid this list stems from a recent jump through old albums and a conversation with some colleagues. Originally this list was going to include the excellent Ten by Pearl Jam and following a chat with some friends (and some divided opinion on its greatness) I wanted to make a classic list that started with Ten and then had some other albums to compare it to in order to seal the deal once and for all. In searching for good albums of the age it quickly appeared that a number of truly great albums of the genre(s) were released in 1994 and in fact 1994 was a real golden age.
Weezer ”“ Weezer – aka The Blue Album. As debuts go this record really ticks all the boxes. At the time it was pretty original in terms of sound, and there certainly weren’t many similar acts. It spawned a couple of hit singles to get it into the mainstream consciousness, and in this writers opinion is still their finest work despite the many great albums which have followed it. If nothing else, this release should be remembered for the Happy Day’s inspired video for Buddy Holly and the Guitar Hero mainstay, My Name Is Jonas.
Green Day ”“ Dookie – Whilst not their first album, it was certainly the first album that gained them any serious attention and made them MTV darlings of the age thanks to the anthemic Basket Case (which also happened to have a great video). At the time I was very into the “extreme sports” scene and this record seemed to be on constant play at parks, tracks and events across the land. In many ways this was their peak, more refined than its excellent predecessor (Kerplunk) and the next couple of follow ups were strong but never quite as complete.