No Skips: 3 Perfect Grunge Albums From the ’90s

Any songwriter knows, it’s very difficult to write a truly great song. For most people, it might happen once in their lives. But then there are the select chosen few who seem to do it over and over again. Sometimes—it’s rare, but it does happen—an artist or band can collect eight or dozen perfect songs on an entire album, making it a perfect record.

Here below, we wanted to explore three such examples. A trio of grunge albums released in the 1990s from bands that helped to grow and promulgate the genre. A threesome of LPs that you can put on and never worry about skipping a song.

Indeed, these are three perfect grunge albums from the ’90s that don’t include a single dud.

1. Nevermind by Nirvana (1991)

Released in September of 1991, this was the sophomore LP from the Pacific Northwest grunge band. But before we get into the music, the album cover is just as well-known as the substance within it.

Featuring the naked baby in the swimming pool chasing a dollar, the cover raised as many eyebrows as the tunes themselves. But now for the music: opening with “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the rousing guitar-driven number named by riot grrrl Kathleen Hanna, the album continues with songs like “In Bloom,” “Come As You Are,” and “Lithium.”

While there are some difficult subjects discussed on the record, particularly on the track “Polly,” the LP, which has been certified diamond, is unimpeachable.

2. Ten by Pearl Jam (1991)

Released just weeks before Nevermind in August of 1991, Pearl Jam’s debut album, Ten, was a masterclass in songwriting, mood, tone, and musicianship. For the Seattle-born band that only got together in earnest seemingly months before, their debut was impeccable.

It features songs like “Once,” “Even Flow,” “Alive,” “Black,” and “Jeremy,” the famous song about childhood gun violence. Lifted by musicians like Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, and Mike McCready and solidified by frontman and lead vocalist Eddie Vedder, Ten has gone down in grunge history as one of the genre’s most significant contributions.

3. Dirt by Alice in Chains (1992)

Released a year after Nevermind in September of 1992, Alice in Chains’ sophomore record might be the most quintessential grunge album of the 1990s. It’s dark and brooding, mystifying and tortured.

The offering includes iconic grunge songs from the band, including “Them Bones,” “Down in a Hole,” “Rooster,” and “Would?”

It features odes to Jerry Cantrell’s father, a former military man with PTSD, and the late Seattle grunge artist Andrew Wood. But best of all, it showcases the outstanding lightning bolt voice of co-frontman Layne Staley, one of the great singers of the entire decade.