Best albums of 1992

Visceral. Seething. Brutal. Mind-blowing.

Changed the way I listened to music forever the first time I heard it, with its honest lyrics delivered with such raw anger you can feel it, buzzsaw guitars and undeniable hooks. It may technically be an EP, but broken works as well as any proper album despite its shorter run-time. My favorite EP of all-time.

Favorite song: "gave up"


See also: Nine Inch Nails: From Best to Worst

At the beginning of '92, I found Pantera & they immediately replaced Metallica as my favorite band (thanks in part to the fact that I hated the black album). Their brand of metal-punk was the most brutal thing I'd ever heard, and the whole album kept getting better every time I listened to it. It became my new outlet of aggression, turning it up & screaming along with every word. Dimebag slayed on guitar, Vinnie Paul beat the drums like red-headed step-children, and Rex's basslines...well honestly I paid the least attention to them. Probably because Phil Anselmo was pissed off at everything, and delivered his lines with complete sincerity. -- from I was a preteen metalhead

Favorite song: "No Good (Attack the Radical)"

No explanation necessary.

Favorite song: "Fistful of Steel"

Possibly my favorite Beastie Boys album. I don't get why of their first 4 major albums this is the only one that isn't on the "1001 albums to hear before you die" list.

Favorite song: "Gratitude"

I spent many hours singing along to this in cars with my friends throughout high school. My favorite song is easily "Fingertips", which I was later disappointed to find out had been divided into separate tracks on the CD (my friends & I had the album on tape). It's a neat trick, but I'd much rather be able to hear it all as one thing (which is mostly only a problem when the tracks pop up on shuffle). Pleased to find a youtube video with the entire thing.

Favorite song: "Fingertips"

My (and most people's) introduction to White Zombie. I was as much in love with the music & vocals as the horror movie samples that run throughout each song.

Favorite song: "Thrust!"

The best album Rollins Band ever recorded.

Favorite song: "Obscene"

Favorite song: "Give It"

But the key to Helmet’s thorny legacy (and the reason so many people write them off) is the shadow they’ve cast over heavy music in the 90s and early 00s. Like a heavy metal Velvet Underground, Helmet was never a household name, but their records found their way into the earholes of a lot of angry kids in bands. Helmet were pioneers of drop-D tuning and staccato, groove-based riffs, both of which would become ubiquitous in the decade following their earliest releases. While there were a fair number of bands who took elements of this sound and ran with them in interesting directions (Pantera, Tool, and, hell, maybe even The Jesus Lizard), this also means that Helmet had a hand in birthing nu metal. ...

Regardless of what they helped give birth to, Helmet wrote the kind of funny, catchy, and utterly brutalizing songs that the Korns, Limp Bizkits, and Static Xes that sprang up in their wake could only dream of. Helmet was a mutant gamete swimming around in alt-rock’s uterus, an abrasive genetic suicide bomb stuffed with a stew of punk and metal chromosomes that somehow gave rise to a new breed of commercially accessible heavy music. Check ‘em out for the history lesson. Come back to them for the riffs that’ll take the top of your goddamn head off.
--from TinyMixTapes

In the wake of The Real Thing, this album was very hard to appreciate. It's far more experimental than its predecessor, and I used to think the album lacked a proper flow.

But as time passed I checked out Mike Patton's other projects, and as I did his talent grew in my estimation as did my enthusiasm for the music he created. After being blown away by Mr. Bungle and Fantomas, I started listening to this album again and found I really liked it. And as you can see from my rating below, now I love it. The flow IS there, I just was focusing too much on the oddness of some of the songs to notice it before. And were it not for the fact that The Real Thing had such a big impact on my music tastes, I'd hold this one up above it. -- from Albums that grew on me

Favorite song: "RV"

Dark, aggressive, and raw...not to mention flawless as far as Jesus Lizard albums go. They weren't a band everyone could appreciate, but I love them.

Favorite song: "Puss"

Arguably AIC's best album.

Favorite song: "Hate to Feel"

Tripping Daisy's debut album makes me smile from one end to the other. I love everything about it, and the only thing that holds me back from giving it a perfect score is the existence of Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb (which is even better).

On a side note, my CD copy of this album is one of the ones released independently (in 1992, hence its inclusion in this list) before they got signed to Island Records. Island re-released it in 1993, but dropped the cover song "My Tambourine" (I'm guessing due to some kind of permission issues) & added the untitled tracks that closed the album out onto the end of "Triangle".

Favorite song: "Miles & Miles of Pain"

The pair of instrumentals that close this album are the only things holding me back from giving it a perfect score. Which isn't to say that they're bad...I just don't find them necessary to listen to every time I spin the album.

Favorite song: "TV II"

I've lost some of my appreciation for this album over the years, but I'll still concede its importance.

Favorite song: "Happy Phantom"

STP's debut is still excellent even all these years later. It's not as good as the album that followed, but definitely far better than critics claimed it was at the time of its release.

Favorite song: "Crackerman"

I prefer this collection of b-sides over the Nirvana albums it fell between, even if it is a little uneven. This is possibly the only album where it sounds like Nirvana was having fun.

Favorite song: "Hairspray Queen"

It's a little rough, but still infinitely better than anything they released in the '00s.

Favorite song: "Opiate"

This album would be perfect if "Friday I'm in Love" had never been recorded. I hate that song.

Favorite song: "Doing the Unstuck"

Favorite song: "Gumbo" which can be heard on their MySpace page

Re-released nationally by Zoo Entertainment in 1992 (which is the version I have), but originally released independently in 1990. It sold over 5000 copies in Dallas, TX, alone prior to the re-release, which should indicate how good this album is (though odds are most of those sales were at concerts, and these guys were always excellent live so selling the album after a show should have been easy enough). Unfortunately they never got popular, so most people don't even know of their albums.

Favorite song: "God's Jig"