10 Perfect Debut Rock Albums Of The 90s
6. Grace - Jeff Buckley
Once the rock scene exploded in the early '90s, any genre was up for grabs as the decade wore on. In just a few short years, we went from grunge to pop punk to ska to power pop and it all seemed to make sense in some weird way. When you have genres that are that fluid though, you sometimes have artists that sound like they're coming from another planet.
The minute that you turn on a record like Grace, Jeff Buckley's voice puts you in a trance, having just the right amount of grit and beauty to keep you hanging on. One minute you'll be listening to the delicate sounds of a song like Lover You Should've Come Over, and then a song like Eternal Life will come on and give you a Led Zeppelin like stomp of energy in the first few minutes.
And no matter how many times that the song has been covered, Buckley's take on Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah will always be the definitive version, having just a few bare elements and Buckley giving a world class performance behind the mic. The good times weren't meant to last though, since Jeff would pass away a few years after this release of an accidental drowning. In many ways his career feels just like his music, absolutely beautiful while it lasted and then gone before any of us were ready for it to stop.