After combining every vote from Patreon and Substack, Freakshow and Lost Highway finished in an exact tie for first place.
So we’re going to overtime to decide which 90s album deserves a deep dive podcast.
Freakshow is a band mid-fall , sensing the ground shifting beneath them, pivoting hard and making something rawer and stranger than anything they’d done before. Lost Highway is David Lynch assembling the decade’s darkest sonic voices into something that felt like a transmission from the underside of the whole era.
The 24-hour runoff is live now
🤘 Bulletboys — Freakshow (1991) — A California metal band swinging hard into post-grunge territory, trying to survive the shift, and making one of the more interesting albums of the transition era
🎬 Various Artists — Lost Highway (1997) — David Lynch’s fever dream of a soundtrack, featuring Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, and Smashing Pumpkins woven around Angelo Badalamenti’s score
Poi Dog Pondering pulled 15% of the vote and Monster Voodoo Machine closed out at 5% — both going back to the suggestion pool for a future ballot.
This one is yours to settle.
What’s your gut? Did the right two albums make it to the runoff — or did this ballot rob somebody? Drop it in the comments.