Top 50 Albums of 1993: 

1. Morphine - Cure For Pain
2. Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle 
3. The Posies - Frosting On The Beater
4. Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
5. A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders
6. Wu Tang Clan - 36 Chambers
7. Nirvana - In Utero
8. The Boo Radleys - Giant Steps
9. U2 - Zooropa
10. Fugazi - In On The Killtaker
11. Janet Jackson - janet.
12. Scarface - The World Is Yours 
13. Black Moon - Enta Da Stage 
14. Maria McKee - You Gotta Sin To Get Saved
15. Counting Crows - August And Everything After
16. Lungfish - Rainbows From Atoms
17. Terence Trent D'Arby - Symphony Or Damn
18. Superchunk - On The Mouth  
19. Primus - Pork Soda
20. 2Pac - Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.... 
21. Pearl Jam - Vs. 
22. James - Laid
23. Jungle Brothers - JBeez With The Remedy
24. De La Soul - Buhloone Mindstate
25. Dinosaur Jr. - Where You Been
26. The Geto Boys - Till Death To Us Part
27. Mudhoney - Five Dollar Bob's Mock Cooter Stew EP
28. Tony! Toni! Toné! - Sons Of Soul 
29. Donald Fagen - Kamakiriad
30. Neil Young - Unplugged
31. R. Kelly - 12 Play
32. Liz Phair - Exile In Guyville
33. Sarah MacLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
34. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Extra Width
35. Bjork - Debut
36. Jellyfish - Spilt Milk
37. Guns N Roses - The Spaghetti Incident? 
38. fIREHOSE - Mr. Machinery Operator
39. E-40 - Federal
40. Sting - Ten Summoner's Tales
41. Onyx - Bacdafucup
42. Polvo - Today's Active Lifestyles
43. Sun Ra - Somewhere Else
44. Aerosmith - Get A Grip
45. Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen 
46. Tears For Fears - Elemental
47. Jeff Buckley - Live At Sin-E EP
48. They Might Be Giants - Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas) EP
49. Arrested Development - Unplugged 
50. Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell 

After spending the last few months talking up '94 as the best year of the decade and the era through '96 as perhaps my favorite era of music, I've been getting better acquainted with '93 and thinking maybe that it should be included in that era. I was only 11 in '93, and it was kind of my first full calender year as an obsessive follower of pop music, radio listener, MTV viewer -- the year I started staying up for "120 Minutes" and "Headbanger's Ball." Still, I heard barely more than a dozen of these albums at the time, many of them the older-skewing ones that my parents bought. To give you an idea of how fucking lame I was back then, Arrested Development's Unplugged was the first rap CD that I ever bought. And I didn't even have their studio album. What the fuck was wrong with me?















Top 100 Singles of 1993: 

1. Smashing Pumpkins - "Cherub Rock"
2. A Tribe Called Quest - "Award Tour" 
3. The Proclaimers - "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)"
4. Lenny Kravitz - "Are You Gonna Go My Way?"
5. James - "Laid"
6. 2Pac - "Keep Ya Head Up" 
7. Nirvana - "Heart-Shaped Box"
8. Janet Jackson - "If"
9. Alice In Chains - "The Rooster"
10. Ice Cube - "It Was A Good Day"
11. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - "Someday I Suppose"
12. The Breeders - "Cannonball"
13. Tears For Fears - "Break It Down Again"
14. Dr. Dre f/ Snoop Dogg - "Let Me Ride"
15. Danzig - "Mother '93"
16. Souls Of Mischief - "'93 Til Infinity"
17. White Zombie - "Thunder Kiss '65"
18. Belly - "Feed The Tree"
19. Positive K - "I Got A Man"
20. H-Town - "Knockin' Da Boots" 
21. 2Pac f/ Digital Underground - "I Get Around"
22. Naughty By Nature - "Hip Hop Hooray"
23. Rage Against The Machine - "Killing In The Name"
24. Sade - "No Ordinary Love"
25. Dr. Dre f/ Snoop Dogg - "Nothin' But A G Thang" 
26. Tool - "Sober"
27. Tom Petty - "Mary Jane's Last Dance"
28. Sting - "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You"
29. Cracker - "Low"
30. Sarah McLachlan - "Possession"
31. Alan Jackson - "Chattahoochee" 
32. Guns N Roses - "Civil War"
33. K7 - "Come Baby Come"
34. MC Lyte - "Ruffneck"
35. Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Soul To Squeeze"
36. Aerosmith - "Livin' On The Edge"
37. Bjork - "Big Time Sensuality"
38. Jodeci - "Cry For You"
39. Cypress Hill - "Insane In The Brain"
40. R.E.M. - "Nightswimming" 
41. New Order - "Regret"
42. AC/DC - "Big Gun"
43. Mick Jagger - "Don't Tear Me Up"
44. Afghan Whigs - "Gentlemen"
45. Nirvana - "Sliver"
46. Gin Blossoms - "Hey Jealousy" 
47. Dr. Dre f/ Snoop Dogg - "Dre Day"
48. R. Kelly - "Your Body's Callin' Me"
49. Depeche Mode - "I Feel You" 
50. U2 - "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" 
51. Pearl Jam - "Go"
52. Onyx - "Slam"
53. Biz Markie - "Let Me Turn You On"
54. Stereo MC's - "Connected"
55. Snow - "Informer"
56. Salt-n-Pepa f/ En Vogue - "Whatta Man"
57. Whitney Houston - "I Have Nothing" 
58. Haddaway - "What Is Love"
59. Morphine - "Thursday" 
60. Kix - "Girl Money"
61. SWV - "Weak"
62. Prince - "The Morning Papers"  
63. Zhane - "Hey Mr. DJ"
64. Pearl Jam - "Daughter"  
65. Soul Asylum - "Black Gold"
66. Redman - "Time 4 Sum Aksion"
67. Megadeth - "Sweating Bullets"
68. Snoop Doggy Dogg - "What's My Name" 
69. Wu-Tang Clan - "Protect Ya Neck"  
70. Primus - "My Name Is Mud"
71. Run DMC - "Down With The King"
72. The Pharcyde - "Passin' Me By"
73. Stone Temple Pilots - "Wicked Garden"
74. Mariah Carey - "Dreamlover"
75. Janet Jackson - "That's The Way Love Goes"
76. Ice Cube f/ Das EFX - "Check Yo Self"
77. Prince - "7" 
78. Alice In Chains - "Down In A Hole"
79. Nirvana - "Sappy" aka "Verse Chorus Verse"
80. Pearl Jam - "Crazy Mary"
81. Blind Melon - "Tones of Home"
82. SWV - "I'm So Into You"
83. Bjork - "Human Behavior"
84. R. Kelly - "Bump N' Grind" 
85. Radiohead - "Creep"
86. Stone Temple Pilots - "Creep"
87. Salt-n-Pepa - "Shoop" 
88. Ween - "Push th' Little Daisies"
89. 10,000 Maniacs - "Because The Night"
90. The Posies - "Dream All Day"
91. U2 - "Lemon" 
92. The Lemonheads - "Into Your Arms"
93. King Missile - "Detachable Penis"
94. Porno For Pyros - "Pets"  
95. Pearl Jam - "Black"
96. Urge Overkill - "Sister Havana"
97. INXS - "Beautiful Girl" 
98. Duran Duran - "Come Undone" 
99. Primus - "Mr. Krinkle"
100. DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - "Boom! Shake The Room"

Great, great year for singles, once again nearly all of them conjure some memory of seeing the video for the first time on "120 Minutes" or "Yo! MTV Raps" or whatever. I remember listening to the radio alone in my bedroom when they said they were going to play the new Nirvana single and I very dramatically turned off the lights to blast "Heart-Shaped Box," really maybe my earliest memory of hearing an 'anticipated' new single like that (which is funny because at that point I had only really been into "In Bloom," In Utero was the first album I ended up buying by them).  

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