2. Sebadoh III (1991)

Considering how haphazardly it veers between styles, III is a curiously cohesive album, and perhaps the most epochal in the band’s catalog. It synthesized Barlow’s predilection for lo-fi pop with bizarre, miasmatic tangents from Gaffney. Lowenstein’s songs were at times forgettable, but they provided a nice middle-ground between the polar extremes of Barlow and Gaffney.

They were something of a three-headed hydra, but for whatever reason, it just clicked, forming a sort of divine alchemy in its disparateness. Barlow really hits the mark on threadbare numbers such as “Kath” and “Total Peace,” which foreshadow his later, more successful dalliances with confessional songwriting, along with the anthemic “Freed Pig,” his kiss-off to J Masis following his acrimonious dismissal from Dinosaur Jr. And the frayed acoustic ballad “Spoiled” will live in perpetuity as the exit music for Larry Clark’s film Kids.

It’s hard to find a song on III, with the possible exception of “Spoiled” or “The Freed Pig,” that might make a fan’s top 10 list, but there’s something so magical about what the trio nailed here — it’s as indispensable an artifact of ’90s indie rock as Slanted And Enchanted or Bee Thousand.