The first stirrings of neo-soul appear on an otherwise uncategorizable list that, even twenty-four years (!) later, portended no movements. “With no consensus culture to fall back on, the voters listened more catholically and/or grasped at straws,” Bob Christgau wrote in his essay. He also perceived the discontents of the Gingrich Era in which younger voters saw no consensus on which to draw. Yet explain Everything is Wrong, whose decent beats and New Age chansonnerie failed to compensate for a below average tune sense. A fan of his eponymous debut, his ambient recordings, and, atop this list, the Move EP, I had trouble even in spring 1995 assimilating this insta-masterpiece.
Otherwise I have no patience for Son Volt, a little more for Wilco, and hear nothing worth lingering on in Oasis’ sodden, underwritten and barely inhabited American breakthrough.
The Hague
Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?
Son Volt – Trace
Meh
Alanis Morissette – Jagged Little Pill
Moby – Everything Is Wrong
Emmylou Harris – Wrecking Ball
Bruce Springsteen – The Ghost of Tom Joad
Neil Young – Mirror Ball
Guided by Voices – Alien Lanes
Goldie – Timeless
Wilco – A.M.
Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Dionne Farris – Wild Seed — Wild Flower
Sound, Solid
Garbage – Garbage
Sonic Youth – Washing Machine
Matthew Sweet – 100%
Prince – The Gold Experience
PM Dawn – Jesus Wept
TLC – CrazySexyCool
Foo Fighters – Foo Fighters
Dwight Yoakam – Gone
Good to Great
The Notorious B.I.G. – Ready to Die
Elastica – Elastica
Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx . . .
Bjork – Post
PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love
D’Angelo – Brown Sugar
The Chemical Brothers – Exit Planet Dust
The 6ths – Wasps’ Nests
James Carter – The Real Quietstorm
The Geraldine Fibbers – Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home
Yo La Tengo – Electr-O-Pura
Ol’ Dirty Bastard – Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version
Luna – Penthouse
Pavement – Wowee Zowee
Rancid – . . . And Out Come the Wolves
Tricky – Maxinquaye
The Jury’s Out
The Bottle Rockets – The Brooklyn Side
Ben Folds Five – Ben Folds Five
Humanizing The Vacuum 
The PJ Harvey opus still stuns. I should listen to it more than I have over the 29 years. But I have to say that as of last month, with a brace of Prince albums from the last 30 years making their way into my Record Cell en mass, I can’t stop playing “The Gold Experience.” I found it a great blend of the smoov R+B he was into in the early 90s + rock/funk + vulgarity. His powerful mixture of falsetto and vibrato on “P Control” finally mined the electric shock of Little Richard that had lay dormant for far too long to bracing effect.
To Bring You My Love was my pick for best album of 1995. I may prefer PJ “suffering” to her “being in love” later offerings if that means being in a sinister pagan ritual of indigenous-like juju dance around a bonfire, calling the spirits of carnal love, which is exactly what’s in my mind when I play “Send His Love to Me”.
I totally disagree about Mellon Collie position, of course. You may not like that voice and it’s ok, You may not like the whine and it’s ok. You may not like the songwriting and it’s ok. But the panoply of sounds? The carrousell of infinite sonic details? The arrangements? I’m an audiophile and that’s an audiophile’s orgasm.
The voice is a locked door, though.
I undrstand that. To me it’s just another strange instrument in the mix. As if Corgan knows it and surrounds himself with scallops to smother it. It’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea but I myself keep hearing the things around it, cause the layers are indeed insane. I also love that album is not just for the angst tennagers; it’s for the depressive ones and doesn’t bloat on that feeling, sonically. But Corgan got the zeitgeist for the ones who “only came out at night”, like The Cure used to do before but ceased to do it after Disintegration. And I sort of see Nevermind and this as bookends. There’s no way grunge could go forward after this. And it did not. Thankfully.