ROLLING STONE'S ESSENTIAL ALBUMS OF THE 1990s

by Rob Brookman

The casual reader might be forgiven for confusing Rolling Stone's recent "Essential Recordings of the '90s" feature for a buyer's guide to the best discs of the decade. I myself felt a sharp wave of revulsion as a quick scan of the magazine's picks (fashionably ghettoized into categories such as "Alternative," "Hip Hop + R&B," etc.) uncovered titles by decidedly un-epochal artists such as Jewel, the Spice Girls and - come on, now - Peter Wolf. The publication that once championed Hendrix now thinks I can't live without Hanson?

But I looked closer, and a brief explanatory paragraph by Joe Levy set me straight: "The recordings that follow are those that Rolling Stone's editors and writer have chosen as essential to understanding the Nineties." Once again for emphasis: "essential to understanding the Nineties."

For English majors and other fans of semantics, it's a nice save. In the turn of a phrase, Levy leads us away from the impression that Rolling Stone is holding up, for example, Eric Clapton's From the Cradle as one of the must-have records of the last 10 years. Instead, Levy says, listen to these recordings and you'll get a pretty fair snapshot of pop music in the Clinton years.

Not only is Levy's position a face-saver for him and his magazine (which is running a perpetual credibility deficit anyhow), it's also hard to argue with. What makes an album or an artist "essential" to understanding a decade? Good, influential records might be one yardstick, which probably explains why such small gems as Sleater-Kinney's Call the Doctor, Iris DeMent's My Life and Yo La Tengo's I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One made the cut despite Jann Wenner's fondness for things big, old and reliable.

Raw sales might be another valid benchmark for defining the decade, and since Rolling Stone has long been at least as impressed by market muscle as it is by talent, it's no surprise to find bland-but-popular artists sprinkled liberally throughout all the lists. To be fair, Levy's definition makes at least as much room for the Spice Girls and the Counting Crows as it does for Pavement, who will undoubtedly have a decades-longer shelf life but didn't exactly saturate the airwaves in the '90s. Likewise, I'll grudgingly admit that personal dislikes like the Smashing Pumpkins, Dr. Dre, Radiohead and Guns n' Roses did make more of a splash in the pop firmament than listmates whose work I prefer, like Tricky, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, L7 or PJ Harvey.

Levy's thesis hold water up to a point. Artistic merit and marketplace influence both seem legitimate ways to rate an album as "essential to understanding the Nineties," even if it does mean having to devote valuable column space to the odious Jewel. But, Rolling Stone being Rolling Stone, it doesn't stop there. Keep scanning the list, and a host of bizarre, inexplicable picks float to the surface. Billy Joel's River of Dreams? Peter Wolf's Fool's Parade? John Fogerty's Blue Moon Swamp? The Rolling Stones' No Security? Do we need yet another flate live version of "Gimme Shelter" to help us understand the '90s?

Jann Wenner seems to think we do. And it's why - despite the best efforts of Joe Levy and a host of talented contributors - Rolling Stone's "Essential Recording of the '90s" seems sadly haunted by the ghost of rock and roll past. The magazine's middle-aged tendency to look for the past in the future not only weakens its once mighty influence on the rock music canon but ultimately makes it about as relevant to popular music in the 1990s as, well, Billy Joel.