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You'd be hard-pressed to find a more blanketed and ultimately meaningless musical term than "alternative" — and yet, looking at the Top 30 Albums of 1994, it's somehow the most apt description for such an eclectic year.Rock had already experienced several seismic shifts in the first half of the decade, spearheaded by Nirvana's generation-defining Nevermind. The diamond-selling album kicked off the grunge revolution in earnest, and multiplatinum releases from the likes of Pearl […]

The year 1974 brought about a number of noteworthy debuts, shifts in creative direction, inspirations, reunifications and more.It saw the introduction of bands like Kiss, Judas Priest and Bad Company, all of whom released their very first albums."We were bursting at the seams to get into the recording studio," Paul Rodgers of Bad Company would later say of making their first LP. "Led Zeppelin had a mobile studio together at […]

1984 was a pivotal year for music. MTV's dominance and influence made its strongest impact on the charts, bringing previously niche subgenres like synth-pop and metal to the forefront of mainstream attention.The music network also helped spur the popularity of new music that probably would have had little chance of commercial success only a few years earlier. In addition to the usual progression of rock and pop acts, college rock and […]