10 Best Debut Rock Albums Of The 1990s

The 1990s was a great time for rock music, especially with these new bands bursting onto the scene.

Pearl Jam Ten Cover
Epic Records

If you were a rock music-loving time traveller whose machine broke down and you were trapped in a certain year, then you could do much worse than to be stuck in any from the 1990s.

All of that was to say that the 90s was a good decade for rock.

In the US, the rise of grunge and later pop punk gripped fans of young men jumping around and playing power chords.

On the other side of the pond, Britpop and the beginnings of indie gripped the UK's young people, as their parents tried to figure out just what the hell anybody was actually saying.

Plenty of new acts got their start in the 90s, going on to define music in that time period and those yet to come. Some of these albums are now considered among the best that the 90s had to offer, whilst some are often put in the company of the greatest records of all time.

The 90s are a time that a lot of people are nostalgic for these days, so why not indulge yourself in some of the best debut albums of the decade.

10. Adrenaline - Deftones

Releasing in 1995, Deftone's first album Adrenaline actually serves as the perfect midpoint between the major rock movements of the early 90s and the end of the decade.

There's a clear grunge influence here, but you can also pick out the early rumblings of nu metal. It's like if Kurt Cobain and Fred Durst had a baby... ok, it's not like that at all.

Also, what a horrible image.

The band drew on plenty of other sources to create their sound, ranging from heavy metal to new wave to hip-hop. It sounded like nothing else on the market when it first came out, creating legions of lifelong Deftones fans in the process.

It actually made money too, gradually shifting over 220,000 copies as more and more people came to learn of its existence. It was a slow burn success, only achieving gold status in the US four years after it was initially released.

Adrenaline serves as both a snapshot of rock at the time and a look forward into the genre's future. Give it a spin next time you get the chance - although make sure your grandma isn't around to hear it.

It gets a bit sweary.

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Jacob Simmons has a great many passions, including rock music, giving acclaimed films three-and-a-half stars, watching random clips from The Simpsons on YouTube at 3am, and writing about himself in the third person.