10 Greatest Final Rock Music Albums Of The 1990s

From 1 January 1990 to 31 December 1999, music underwent a lot of changes, especially rock music.

Hair metal was out, nu metal was in. Weird underground acts that had made no impact in the previous decade, were now amongst the biggest sellers of the day. Many bands were formed and, inevitably, many more called it a day.

Whilst some bands from the ’90s have since made comebacks, owing to increased nostalgia for the decade in recent years, some have stayed firmly broken up, either because of deep rifts between the members, everyone being too busy, or, tragically, because certain members are no longer with us.

This isn’t going to be a happy list, in places.

Whatever the reason, at least these ten artists all bowed out with their best foot forwards, putting out one final stellar album before riding off into the sunset for good.

Some of them knew that this would be their swansong, whilst others were caught off guard, but all of these bands will all be remembered for going out on a peak, rather than in a trough like so many of their contemporaries.

As the punk scene began to fade away in the mid-1970s, a new breed of bands started to emerge and found a genre known as “post-punk”.

As with all “post-” genres, this one is basically impossible to define and only really exists to make music critics feel good about themselves, but the impact it had on culture was profound nonetheless.

One of the leading lights of the post-punk was Siouxsie Sioux (pronounced “Susie Sue”) and her band, The Banshees. Through tracks like Hong Kong Garden, Christine, and Spellbound, the group pushed the boundaries established by the previous genre whilst maintaining its rebellious, no-nonsense spirit.

This sense of experimentation continued right until their farewell record, 1995’s The Rapture, which was produced in part by The Velvet Underground’s John Cale. With a vast array of instruments on display, from mandolins to cellos to entire brass sections, The Rapture showed just how far the band had come since their days associating with The Sex Pistols.

The Banshees went their separate ways shortly thereafter, but left behind quite the musical legacy and an incredible back catalogue of make-up in their wake.