Smashing Pumpkins’ third studio album was a sprawling, two-disc opus that became an unlikely hit in 1975. Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness combines the band’s typical heavy metal and grunge sound with softer, more experimental songs, resulting in a 28-track marathon.
There’s a theory that every double album would be better if culled down to its best 12 songs (see my recent editing of Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department). That is definitely the case with this one.
As Throwback Weekends have made clear, Mariah Carey was dominant in the mid-90s. The singer’s fifth studio album, 1995’s Daydream, became the most biggest her career and one of the top-selling albums of all time.
Buoyed by three #1 hits, the album reached Diamond status. Those three chart-toppers (‘Fantasy,’ ‘One Sweet Day,’ and ‘Always Be My Baby’) spent a collective six months atop the Hot 200.
This sort of pop-inflect R&B is definitely not my thing, so I didn’t find a ton to like in this album. But I will admit an affection for two of those hit singles.
I’m far more intrigued by the story of Foo Fighters’ debut album than I am by the album itself.
Six months after the suicide of Kurt Cobain, Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl channeled his grief into a six-day recording session, hoping to have some fun in the studio and take his mind off the loss of his friend.
He recorded songs he had written during his time with Nirvana but never shared with the band for fear of not stacking up to Cobain as a songwriter.
Over the next two weeks, I’ll look at 1995 albums that didn’t make my personal top ten, either because I’ve never heard them or I haven’t heard them enough to qualify.
Or, in today’s case, because the album isn’t a favorite but it’s too big to deny.
Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill was not only the top-selling album of 1995, it is the 14th top-selling album worldwide of all time, and the highest-selling debut album in history.
Concluding a countdown of my favorite albums of 1995…
#1 – Ben Folds Five – Ben Folds Five
This is the third debut album in my top five, making a case for 1995 as a banner year for new talent.
Of all the acts I discovered in the 90s, none blew me away quite like this amusingly named trio out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Singer-songwriter Ben Folds on piano, drummer Darren Jesse, and bassist Robert Sledge quickly cemented their status as one of my favorite bands, largely on the strength of this wonderful album.
