What’s the best year in music? It’s a tricky question with hundreds of different answers, rattling around in our brains as we consider all the mutations that alternative culture has experienced over the past several decades. Naturally, we figured it’d be best to turn to our readers and ask them to weigh in instead. Their responses made us feel time, ranging from the counterculture ’60s up into the ’90s and early 2000s. These are the top picks, ranked accordingly below.
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5. 2003
2003 was a major year for emo, alternative, and pop punk. It was a time of burned CDs and sweaty afternoons at Warped Tour, which mirrored the music. blink-182 made a left turn with Untitled, stepping away from bathroom vulgarity and digging deeper into their emotions, whereas Fall Out Boy made their ferocious debut with Take This To Your Grave. Linkin Park stepped out from the shadow of Hybrid Theory, taking everything that worked and making it more radio-friendly with Meteora. Meanwhile, AFI and Alkaline Trio returned with ghoulishly impressive, career-defining albums.
4. 1991
Back in 1991, grunge was taking over alternative culture, strangling hair metal and making way for a new generational angst. Nirvana’s Nevermind broke big in the latter half of the year, selling a million copies in its first month. Shoegaze was bubbling up as well, yielding the genre’s most essential album in My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. Meanwhile, the first Lollapalooza — back when it was a traveling festival — was hitting the road, toplined by Jane’s Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Living Color. We’d also be remiss not to mention hip-hop essentials like A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory and De La Soul’s De La Soul Is Dead.
3. 2006
By 2006, alternative music was having a definitive “scene moment” and dominating mainstream consciousness. Thanks to MySpace, which reigned as the primary mode of social media, bands could surge in popularity once they uploaded music and score a record deal. It was a whirlwind year, punctuated by My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade, the first (and only) album from the blink-182 side project +44, and final records from modern greats (J Dilla and Amy Winehouse).
2. 1994
1994 was a pretty unbeatable year, according to our readers. It began on a high note when Green Day erupted into the mainstream with Dookie — a moment where nothing would ever be the same again for the Bay Area crew. Meanwhile, Beastie Boys, who’d transformed from frat-boy rappers to crate-digging maestros in a matter of years, reached a new level with Ill Communication. Both Biggie and Weezer released perfect debuts. Nine Inch Nails brought industrial rock forward with The Downward Spiral. Over in the U.K., Oasis and Blur made waves, becoming the biggest sensation since the Beatles. Nirvana went unplugged on MTV — the band’s last major performance before Kurt Cobain passed in April.
1. 2004
In terms of the greatest year, though, our readers landed on 2004. It was, quite simply, stacked. Green Day unleashed their political blockbuster American Idiot, launching the band into the stratosphere and making them into the giants we know today. My Chemical Romance, who amped up their theatrical fury with Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, and Avril Lavigne proved the sophomore slump was nowhere in sight. Now, all of those indelible albums are celebrating 20-year anniversaries, making us feel a mix of complicated emotions (but mostly old).
