Rolling around in ’90s nostalgia

Nineties nostalgia is so thick in the air these days, you can practically taste the teen spirit — and it bears the unmistakable flavor of cold, hard commerce, now that Nirvana tunes are being used to hawk video games on TV.

Scads of bands from that era — Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, Afghan Whigs, Slint — have reunited of late to bring back the sounds of that dead decade.

With so many folks robbing that corpse and stealing all the change from its pockets, I figured I’d get in on the action as well.

And so, with some “Quantum Leap” reruns playing in the background, here’s a rundown of my favorite ’90s discs.

1. Nirvana, “In Utero”: The arsenic in the alt-rock Kool-Aid, this disc slammed the door on the grunge fad it unwittingly — and unwantingly — popularized. Stripping the varnish off its woolly riff rock, the group bashed out petulant, acid-washed punk battle cries and soot-black ballads that questioned everything from fatherhood to fame to their own status as a big-time major-label unit shifter. Nirvana’s “Nevermind” may have defined an era, but “In Utero” defined the era’s best band.

2. Hole, “Live Through This”: The grit beneath the glam, this disc exposed the acres of scar tissue soon to be hidden beneath all that makeup and mascara on Hole’s “Celebrity Skin.” An album of bruised pop tunes that trade in bliss and bile in equal measure, this album proved that Courtney Love really is worth all the trouble. And when J Mascis drops by to add still more stampeding guitars to the raging “She Walks Over Me,” you get flattened right along with the tune’s protagonist.

3. Mark Lanegan, “Whiskey For The Holy Ghost”: Speaking of whiskey, Lanegan’s voice is its own intoxicant, a desperate, world-weary howl marinated in nicotine, sorrow and a thousand long, lonely nights. His second album cuts straight to the bone, a collection of equally broken and beatific razor-blade ballads and dusky torch songs that distill more pathos in two minutes than the collected works of Cormac McCarthy.

4. Elliott Smith, “Either/Or”: Smith’s tunes are so delicate here, they sound as if they could be blown apart by a well-timed sigh. Smith’s voice is impossibly fragile, as is his grip on his own pinwheeling emotions, which lend this disc of stark acoustic longing a sense of urgency and wounded spite. Smith’s life would end too soon, but these songs will last just as long as heartache does.

5. Wu-Tang Clan, “Wu-Tang Forever”: Wu-Tang’s equally crucial debut, “Return to the 36 Chambers,” may have been a more direct shot to the jugular than this sprawling, lead-dense sophomore set, but this two-disc collection is hip-hop at its most elaborate and head-spinning. A mix of Far Eastern mysticism, murky, serpentine beats, endless kung fu references and iron-jawed rhymes, “Forever” has managed to sustain the longevity that its title implies.

6. New Bomb Turks, “Destroy-Oh-Boy!”: Equally literate and ill-mannered, the Turks were smart kids who acted up like the troublemakers in the back of class, firing spitballs at the world. Informed by an audiophile’s knowledge of top-notch ’60s garage rock, the band tore punk a new one with jet-engine guitars and frontman Eric Davidson howling like a hound dog with its tail caught in a car door.

7. Daft Punk, “Homework”: Bass lines you could feel in your chest. Day-Glo beats that slathered techno in honey and caffeine. Two masked French dudes with a fetish for robotics. On its adrenalized debut, Daft Punk proved themselves to be a big sweaty bundle of larger-than-life absurdities that congealed into a disc that hit the dance floor like mortar fire.

8. Dwarves, “Blood Guts And … “: As nasty as an infected wound, this album is everything that punk rock is supposed to be, but never is: lewd, unrepentant, oversexed and about as inviting as a crowbar to the groin. Blasting out 13 songs in less than 15 minutes, the Dwarves delivered a monument in debauched, maltempered rock ‘n’ roll that still managed to be as infectious as the many contagions swimming in these heathens’ blood. File this next to your Offspring and Green Day CDs, and watch those babies melt on contact.

9. Pavement, “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain”: Sure, Pavement’s classic debut, “Slanted and Enchanted,” may have helped catalyze the lo-fi movement and gotten thousands of bohemian stoners reaching for their thesauruses, but it was its sophomore disc where the band really came into its own as indie rock’s most lovable arcane pop wunderkinds. The album’s a rarity: a batch of intricate, largely nonlinear tunes that a 5-year-old could hum along to.

10. Pantera, “Vulgar Display of Power”: Upon first listening to this disc, you couldn’t help but feel like the dude on the album cover getting his nose crushed like it was made of papier-mache. Ferocious, unrelenting and tight as a clenched fist, these dudes practically sweat venom on “Vulgar,” pairing carpal tunnel syndrome-inducing guitar acrobatics with singer Phil Anselmo’s cocksure, drill sergeant bark. You will experience at least a 150 percent growth in chest hair upon spinning this triple-helping of testosterone.

Jason Bracelin’s “Sounding Off” column appears on Tuesdays. Contact him at 383-0476 or e-mail him at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com.