In a sense, the 1990s "were" the decade of the singer songwriter, as more and more artists decided to go "solo" rather than look for a band. Both the technology (that allowed individuals to arrange their own compositions) and the loose networking of the post-punk generation (that favored more fluid partnerships) helped increase the number of musicians who recorded simply under their own name.

In general, singer-songwriters of the 1990s tended to be more subdued and humbler than in the 1980s and in the 1970s. Their masters were Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, not Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen. One of the most influential styles of the 1990s was the moody and depressed one pioneered by Chris Isaak, Smog and American Music Club in San Francisco. It spread like a disease and almost became a stand-alone genre. Bleak dirges were strummed everywhere.

Georgia's Vic Chesnutt (2), confined to a wheelchair, shared with Smog the honor of having pioneered the style. West Of Rome (1992) and Drunk (1994) took southern gothic to a very personal and highly emotional level. Later his art became not only more pensive but also more austere via longer compositions and a penchant for sound that sometimes obscured the singing: Silver Lake (2003), with a full-fledged roots-rock band; Ghetto Bells (2005), with VanDyke Parks on accordion and Bill Frisell on guitar; North Star Deserter (2007), with a small orchestra of post-rock soundsculptors.

The Screaming Trees' Mark Lanegan (12) sculpted the agony of Winding Sheet (1990), a journey through the eternal damnation of a soul that was both lyrical, existential and lugubrious. Even more rarified and metaphysical, Whiskey For The Holy Ghost (1993) ventured deeper inside in a tender and doleful register, halfway between Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave, while the atmosphere was reminiscent of David Crosby's first solo album, and occasionally claustrophobic like in Tim Buckley's psychedelic nightmares. Lanegan's dilated mind seemed to be imploding on the fragile Scraps At Midnight (1998).

In Los Angeles, Mountain Goats (2), John Darnielle's project, was a bizarre experiment for voice, acoustic guitar and cheap organ whose major career was devoted to concept albums such as Zopilote Machine (1994), Sweden (1995), and Tallahassee (2003), mostly about disintegrating relationships, which were as lyrically ambitious as musically humble.

In Oregon, Heatmiser's singer and songwriter Elliott Smith (1) employed spare, acoustic arrangements and anemically whispered lyrics on Roman Candle (1994) to pen tuneful vignettes of daily life that merged Nick Drake's melancholia and Simon & Garfunkel's romanticism. Smith kept delving deeper into the human psyche with Elliott Smith (1995), that focused on heroin addiction, and Either Or (1997), but then resorted to Brian Wilson-ian arrangements of violins, reeds and keyboards for Xo (1998).

In New York, Jeff Buckley (1) was condemned to re-live his father Tim's turbulent and brief life, but Grace (1994) boasted a denser sound, more reminiscent of Van Morrison's soul-jazz ballads.

Toronto's Ron Sexsmith (1) crystallized the idea in the naive/tender style of Tim Hardin and Paul Simon on Ron Sexsmith (1995), while wedding it to Jackson Browne's arduous meditations.

Dinosaur Jr's bassist Mike Johnson (2), who had also collaborated to Mark Lanegan's masterpieces, became the most credible candidate to the title of "Leonard Cohen of the 1990s" with the funereal ballads of Year Of Mondays (1996) and What Would You Do (2002).

His main competition for that title was Nebraska's Simon Joyner (4), a philosopher equipped with Leonard Cohen's deep baritone and doleful vision, but also with a much grander musical ambition. The oneiric Songs for the New Year (1997) was Cohen-ian in spirit and letter, but the trilogy recorded with Mike Krassner, beginning with Yesterday Tomorrow and In Between (1998) and continuing with the lengthy ballads of The Lousy Dance (1999) and Hotel Lives (2001), progressively increased the complexity of his compositions, capitalizing on an impressive cast of distinguished jazz, folk and rock musicians (Ken Vandermark on clarinet, Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello, Jeb Bishop on trombone, Ernst Long on flugelhorn, Will Hendricks on vibes), that augmented a rock trio (Ryan Hembrey on bass, Glenn Kotche on percussions, Michael Krassner on guitar). It was a wedding of chamber and pop settings that transported the slow, hypnotic music to a metaphysical dimension, while retaining a deeply-moving, humane dimension.

Los Angeles' Duncan Sheik (1) wrapped the chronic mood of desperation and heartbreak of Duncan Sheik (1996) into an "ambient folk-rock" style that merged lush string arrangements and the acoustic style of the troubadours.

Suicidal dirges and stately odes were the soundtrack of the 1990s. Notable albums in the style included: Matt Keating's Scaryarea (1994), from New York; Dave Schramm's Folk Und Die Folgen (1994), from New York; Karl Hendricks' Misery And Women (1994), from Pennsylvania; Damien Jurado's Waters Ave S (1997), from Seattle; Johnny Dowd's Temporary Shelter (2001), from upstate New York, T.W. Walsh's Blue Laws (2001), from Boston.

Ohio's Jason Molina, better known as Songs:Ohia (1), evolved from the cliche' of the melancholy cry of a tortured soul towards the sinister post-psychedelic depression of Ghost Tropic (2000).

Neo-pop, 1990-94

As far as melody goes, the decade was largely marked by the gigantic shadow of Boston's Stephen Merritt (14). His multi-faceted career began under the moniker Magnetic Fields as a humble amateur of pop music who vented his fear and nostalgy via formally impeccable melodies and arrangements. The formative Distant Plastic Trees (1991) and The Wayward Bus (1992), sung by Susan Anway, and his first masterpiece, Holiday (1993), which was also the first album sung by Merritt himself, coined a form of "introverted kitsch" that quoted the Sixties without sounding derivative and that employed electronic rhythm and instruments in a discrete manner. Despite being light like feathers, Merritt's ditties sounded like tributes to Brian Eno's early albums and to the classics of synth-pop. The concept album The Charm Of The Highway Strip (1994), his second masterpiece, perfected the idea. Leaving behind his synth-pop roots, Merritt wed the idyllic register of a Donovan, neoclassical orchestrations and the persona of a bashful lunatic. The algebraic precision of his musical artifacts was only apparently a continuation of Brian Wilson's and Van Dyke Parks' program: Merritt shunned their symphonic opulence and favored the small, intimate format of the chamber ensemble. Get Lost (1995) was, first and foremost, an exercise in laying out chamber instruments; but it was also his bleakest statement, and thus redeemed the indulgence with deeply felt emotions. At the same time, Merritt's mission was very much a thorough reexamination of the pop tradition, from Burt Bacharach to Phil Spector, from Tin Pan Alley to doo-wop: his ultimate sin of vanity, the colossal 69 Love Songs (1999), was a catalog of variations on cliches of pop music. Merritt had managed a synthesis of historical proportions but he carried it out with the humble attitude of an everyman who hardly knew anything about history. In the meantime, he had also released albums as the 6ths and the Future Bible Heroes. The 6ths albums, Wasps' Nests (1996) and Hyacinths and Thistles (2000), were collection of sugary ditties performed by impressive casts of guest vocalists. The importance of arrangement and production had eventually taken over the importance of lyrics and melodies, and thus wrecked the whole idea of innocent, sincere, heartbreaking music.

Several veterans of the alt-rock movement became top performers in the "neo-pop" category: the first solo album by Violent Femmes' drummer Victor DeLorenzo (1), Peter Corey Sent Me (1990); Jellyfish's Jason Falkner, with Author Unknown (1996); Guided By Voices' Tobin Sprout, with Carnival Boy (1996); former Love Child's leader Will Baum, disguised under the moniker 9-Iron, with the concept album Make-out King (1995); etc.

Scottish transplant Chris Connelly (1), who had played in Chicago's industrial combos Ministry and Pigface, reinvented himself as a pensive pop crooner on albums such as Shipwreck (1995) and The Ultimate Seaside Companion (1998), credited to the Bells.

Frank Black (1), the new alias of former Pixies' vocalist Charles "Black Francis" Thompson, now relocated to Los Angeles, indulged in his trademark "scream of consciousness" on his solo albums Frank Black (1993) and Teenager Of The Year (1994), still characterized by erratic structures and reckless melodies.

Mike Gira (1) basically continued the atmospheric work of latter-period Swans. His tortured soul engaged in a form of lugubrious and apocalyptic folk, which constituted, at the same time, a form of cathartic and purgatorial ritual. After his solo album Drainland (1995), which was still, de facto, a Swans album, assisted by Jarboe and Bill Rieflin, Gira split the late Swans sound in two: Body Lovers impersonated the ambient/atmospheric element, while Angels Of Light focused on the orchestral pop element. On one hand, Gira crafted the sinister and baroque layered instrumental music of Body Lovers' Number One Of Three (1998) and the subliminal musique concrete of Body Haters (1998). On the other, Angels Of Light's ethereal and supernatural folk music of How I Loved You (2001), a concept on sex, and Everything Is Good Here Please Come Home (2003), which explored simultaneously the personal, historical and political planes, renewed the similarities with Nico's stately, pagan, ancestral lied. Basically, the Body Lovers was the culmination of the Swans' experiments with magniloquent production (the "male" component of their sound), while Angels Of Light was the continuation of Jarboe's "female" component of the group's sound.

New Zealand's main singer-songwriters were the leaders of the classic bands of the 1980s: Clean's David Kilgour , who debuted with the catchy Here Comes The Cars (1992), the Tall Dwarfs' Chris Knox, etc. Both the leaders of the Go-Betweens recorded solo albums, but only Grant McLennan's Horsebreaker Star (1995) lived up to their reputation.

American Music Club's Mark Eitzel became a cocktail-lounge entertainer with 60 Watt Silver Lining (1996).

A Brian Wilson fixation permeated the work of Australian expatriate Richard Davies (3), who attained a magical balance of Syd Barrett, David Bowie and Donovan on his collaboration with Eric Matthews, Cardinal (1995), a classic of chamber pop, and crafted the austere There's Never Been A Crowd Like This (1996) and the surreal Telegraph (1998), whose vocal harmonies are reminiscent of Crosby Stills & Nash.

His partner in Cardinal, Eric Matthews, indulged in Van Dyke Parks' orchestrations on his own It's Heavy In Here (1995).

In Britain, David Gray was a sophisticated bard in the tradition of Van Morrison who scoured a broad emotional and musical territory, from the passionate confessions of A Century Ends (1993) to the vibrant power-ballads of Sell Sell Sell (1996), from the fragile pop vignettes of White Ladder (2000) to the bleak introspection of A New Day At Midnight (2002).

Disguised as Divine Comedy, Irish songwriter Neil Hannon indulged in the orchestral pop of Casanova (1996), anchored to old-fashioned arias and classic storytelling.

Neo-folk: the men

Los Angeles happened to be the next stop in the evolution of the genre. Beck (2) Hansen turned eccentricity into stardom and changed the way singer-songwriters sounded and were perceived by the mainstream. With the carefree eclectism of Mellow Gold (1994) Beck invented folk music for the age of hip-hop and proved that stylistic confusion can appeal to the masses. A more organic approach to the fusion of folk, blues, rap, garage-rock and pop enhanced the overall sound of Odelay (1996). The fact that his lyrics were free-form associations, and only vaguely hinting to social reality, was somehow consistent with his superficial approach to musical integration (an operation that other musicians had carried out at a deeper level). Mutations (1998), reminiscent of Radiohead's subtle orchestrations, and Midnite Vultures (1999), a sort of tribute to soul music, rapidly removed the sheen from one of the decade's most over-rated artists.

Beck may have learned his tricks from an obscure and insane folksinger, Paleface, whose Paleface (1991) was a bizarre product of the anti-folk movement.

Far more original was the artistic mess concocted by former Red Hot Chili Peppers' guitarist John Frusciante (1) on Niandra Lades And Usually Just A T-Shirt (1994), between agonizing blues and demented singalongs, a neurotic and hysterical version of Daniel Johnston.

Eels (12), the project of Los Angeles-based songwriter Mark Oliver Everett, worked out a storytelling style that was both humble and sophisticated on Beautiful Freak (1996), locating his tone and arrangements somewhere between Beck and the Flaming Lips. Electro-Shock Blues (1998), a bleak concept album and a moving requiem for friends who died, upped the ante by adopting Tom Waits' skewed orchestral arrangements and topping Neil Young's manic depression. By exploiting the disorienting sonic events generated by keyboards, samplers and turntables, and by integrating jazz and neoclassical motifs, Everett coined a solemn, disturbing, jarring form of folk music. By the time of the autobiographical concept Blinking Lights And Other Revelations (2005), Everett had refined his ability to modulate a monotonous discourse into graceful, colorful, mesmerizing calligraphy.

Virginia's Mark Linkous, who records under the moniker Sparklehorse (2), created studio miracles such as Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot (1995) and It's A Wonderful Life (2001), which coupled oddly original music with melancholy overtones, something that harked back to the Pearls Before Swine.

Soon, eccentric arrangements became as important as the words and the refrains. Ambitious arrangements reached a paradoxical peak at the end of the decade: Sunny Day Real Estate's Jeremy Enigk, with Return Of The Frog Queen (1996); Sea And Cake's guitarist Archer Prewitt, with In The Sun (1997); Washington's Sea Saw, with Magnetophone (1996); New York's Dean "Illyah Kuryahkin" Wilson, with Thirtycabminute (1999).

Ohio's Joseph Arthur (1) wed electronica and folksinging on the eclectic Big City Secrets (1997), but made his point more poignantly with the simpler and catchier songs of Come To Where I'm From (2000).

Jack Drag (1), John Dragonetti's project, penned Unisex Headwave (1997), an eclectic work that ran the gamut from blues to pop to psychedelia to hip-hop.

In Canada, Rufus Wainwright (2), the son of Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, went beyond Brian Wilson with Rufus Wainwright (1998), an erudite, melodramatic extravaganza that mixed Italian opera, Sullivan's operettas, French cabaret, Broadway show-tunes, and early Brian Eno. Wainwright progressed from vaudeville to opera with Poses (2001).

Visual Audio Sensory Theatre (1998), or VAST, the project of San Francisco-based multi-instrumentalist Jon Crosby, epitomized unrelenting melodrama and symphonic arrangements.

Australia's Ben Lee adopted a high-tech instrumentation of computers, keyboards, samplers and drum-machines on Breathing Tornados (1998).

Nebraska's Bright Eyes (1), the brainchild of Conor Oberst, signaled the maturity of this movement with the multiple refracting moods and sounds of Fevers And Mirrors (2000).

By borrowing ideas from Debussy, Stravinsky and Hindemith rather than Van Dyke Parks or Brian Wilson, San Francisco's Her Space Holiday, the brainchild of Marc Bianchi, coined a form of grand, symphonic pop on albums such as Manic Expressive (2001).

Jason Lytle's Grandaddy (1), from Modesto (California), served quirky pop a` la Sparklehorse on Under The Western Freeway (1997), which became almost futuristic on the socio/sci-fi concept album The Sophtware Slump (2000).

Stone Temple Pilot's vocalist Scott Weiland (1) became the eccentric bard of 12 Bar Blues (1998), another example of stylistic fusion and futuristic folk.

Chicago harbored two wacky satirists in the vein of David Peel. Bobby Conn (1) displayed the wicked, twisted, frequently obnoxious wit of street performers: Bobby Conn (1997) was a wild, uncensored ride in a labyrinth of genres, and the concept album The Golden Age (2001) sounded like a parody of his generation. Lonesome Organist (multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Jacobsen) evoked early Frank Zappa with Collector Of Cactus Echo Bag (1998), a post-modernist merry-go-round of quotations.

At the end of the decade, Indiana's isolated Dave Fischoff (1) virtually invented a new form of folk music, barely audible and mostly indecipherable, with Winston Park (1998).

Neo-country, 1990-96

The folk/country tradition largely lost to the post-modernists, but still managed to produce worthy heirs to Gram Parsons and Neil Young.

San Francisco's Richard Buckner (1) pursued Joe Ely's "outlaw" country with a voice reminiscent of Townes Van Zandt on Bloomed (1995) and particularly on the concept album Devotion And Doubt (1997), backed by Giant Sand and Marc Ribot.

Protagonists of the country-rock renaissance included: in Seattle Gerald Collier (1), with the agonizing I Had To Laugh Like Hell (1996), and Pedro The Lion, the project of David Bazan, with It's Hard To Find A Friend (1998); in Oregon Varnaline, the project of Space Needle's guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Anders Parker, with the hard-rocking Varnaline (1997); in New York, Jim White, with Wrong-Eyed Jesus (1997); in Ohio, Tim Easton, with Special 20 (1998); in Georgia, Kevn Kinney, the former Drivin'N Crying' singer, with MacDougal Blues (1990); etc.

The greatest of this (not so wild) bunch was Freedy Johnston (3), a New York transplant who introduced himself as Neil Young gone cow-punk on the effervescent, edgy and eclectic Trouble Tree (1990), but then was rapidly converted to a smoother and streamlined sound. The bleak stories of betrayal, failure and guilt on Can You Fly (1992) and This Perfect World (1994), featuring guitarist Marc Ribot, cellist Jane Scarpantoni and drummer Butch Vig, relied on impeccable melodies, as if Simon & Garfunkel were playing funeral music. By the time Never Home (1997) came out, Johnston had transformed into a more superficial pop auteur.

Neo-populists, 1990-93

The populists (a` la Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, etc) were mainly veterans of the punk generation.

The solo work of former Dream Syndicate's vocalist Steve Wynn (1) favored melancholy and introverted confessions at the intersection of Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Kerosene (1990) was too obviously derivative, but Melting In The Dark (1996) let loose his passion for Sixties garage-rock, which overflew on the propulsive, noisy and emphatic My Midnight (1999). Wynn's quest for a balance of youthful punk-rock and adult roots-rock, of a music capable of roaring, sweating and bleeding, culminated with Here Come The Miracles (2001), a survey of his emotional territory, a varied set of solemn, mournful, upbeat, tender, romantic, rough, demonic, harsh ballads and rave-ups.

Firehose's and Minutemen's bassist Mike Watt (1) entrusted the vignettes of Ball-Hog Or Tugboat (1994) to an extraordinary cast of vocalists.

The Replacements' Paul Westerberg remained a bard of ordinary anguish, but only Suicaine Gratifaction (1999) went close to fully realizing his vision.

Neo-blues, 1991-94

White blues singer-songwriters were obscured by the stars of lo-fi pop and neo-pop. Canada's Sue Foley, a Bonnie Raitt-soundalike, came to prominence with Young Girl Blues (1992) but matured as a songwriter with Walk In The Sun (1996). Texas' Chris Whitley used his spectacular guitar technique to vent teenage angst on Living With The Law (1991) the way punk's anti-heroes did. Los Angeles' Ben Harper (1), an eclectic African-American folksinger, debuted with Welcome To The Cruel World (1994), a monumental exercise in stylistic excursion.

Post-feminism, 1990-99

The ladies had their own styles (plural). First of all, at the turn of the decade, an eccentric figure of lo-fi psychedelic storyteller emerged out of New York's underground lofts.

New York's multi-instrumentalist Azalia Snail (12) devoted her career to enigmatic and arcane reconstructions of the hippie era. Snailbait (1990) featured a parade of folk-psychedelic vocal impersonations as well as erratic guitar playing with no rhythm section, and peaked with a 23-minute collage of singing, distorted tapes, found noises and assorted turbulence, So Much More To Go. Burnt Sienna (1992) indulged in psychedelic effects, amid distorted vocals and dissonant music, leading to the chaotic Fumarole Rising (1994), the culmination of her program of disintegration of the pop song.

The Swans' vocalist Jarboe (11) resumed that band's apocalyptic folk on Thirteen Masks (1992), a set of majestic odes, oneiric visions, psychodramas, fairy tales, religious psalms, and ethnic nightmares that ran the gamut from purely acoustic to subtly electronic. While not as magical and emotional, the vocal tour de force of Sacrificial Cake (1995) upped the ante: each song "was" a different voice, and the album as a whole sounded like a grotesque conventicle of personas.

Already early in her career, Lida Husik (23) couldn't decide whether she wanted to be a popster or a sound painter. Bozo (1991), produced by Kramer, was a collection of ethereal and dreamy lullabies for voice, guitar, organ and beats. Each song was programmed to sink slowly into the listener's subconscious, like a magic potion. Your Bag (1992), on the other hand, was devoted to experimental compositions based on collage techniques. Both albums were drenched into hallucinogens. As she emerged from the haze of drugs, Husik turned to the political stance of The Return Of Red Emma (1993), which sounded like a theater piece set to a vast catalog of possible musics. Leaving behind the hallucinated nightmares of her acid-induced early years, Husik regressed to the childish folk tunes of Joyride (1995) and Fly Stereophonic (1997), which were also her most touching works (particularly the former), while, at the same time, venturing into electronica with the astral lounge music of Green Blue Fire (1996), a collaboration with ambient specialist Beaumont Hannant, and with the trance-collages of Mad Flavor (1999), which were, first and foremost, aural experiences.

At the same time, the ladies (particularly in New York and Los Angeles) continued the noble and intellectual self-searching saga inaugurated by Joni Mitchell.

Composer, pianist and vocalist Robin Holcomb (11), a staple of New York's jazz avantgarde (Wayne Horvitz's wife and main composer for his New York Composers' Orchestra), debuted with the mostly instrumental improvisations of Larks They Crazy (1989), accompanied by the supergroup of Horvitz, Doug Wiselman, Marty Ehrlich, David Hofstra and Bob Previte. A similar ensemble wove the delicate tapestry of Robin Holcomb (1990) for her simple, sweet melodies, sung in a register which evoked Nico's glacial and melancholy lament. With these brainy nursery rhymes she achieved a unique fusion of classical, jazz and folk music. Further removed from her jazz roots, Rockabye (1992) was a collection of sophisticated songs delivered by an aristocratic chanteuse.

One of the most moving voices of the decade was a humble violinist from Indiana: Lisa Germano (122). Her albums were comparable to the harrowing ending of a thriller. Rather than songs, the carefully assembled elements of On The Way Down From Moon Palace (1991) were humble concertos that straddled the line between country, classical and new-age music. Her mournful melodies were reminiscent of Pachelbel's Canon and Albinoni's Adagio while the instrumental setting was a lesson in psychology. Happiness (1993) "universalized" her grief, but also climbed one tier down into her personal hell, past, present and future merged in her feeble and confused stream of consciousness. Geek The Girl (1994) was both a self-portrait and an allegoric concept. It was both an epic diary of insecurity and a Dantesque journey into the psyche of a girl. It was her most atmospheric work, but also her most personal. In telling the story of her story, and making it the story of all (women's) stories, she performed the miracle of a kind of simplicity bordering on madness. The majestic dejection of the episodes worked like the exhausting grief of a lengthy funeral. In the process, Germano reenacted Nico's most lugubrious nightmares as well as Leonard Cohen's saddest fables. Her songs had become pure existential shivers. Excerpts From A Love Circus (1996) saw the light at the end of the tunnel, although the scene was still unfocused. Leaving behind the claustrophobic excesses of the previous albums, Germano entered a less creepy landscape. Rather than soliloquies, these songs sounded like dialogues between her touching voice and her ghostly violin. But the romantic interlude ended with the maniacal intensity of Slide (1998), back to the inner wasteland that ever more eccentric arrangements likened to Alice's Wonderland.

Los Angeles-based vocalist and pianist Tori Amos (3) fused Kate Bush's operatic falsetto, Joni Mitchell's piano-based confessional odes and Cat Stevens' romantic piano figures on Little Earthquakes (1991). Its ballads were simple but profound, personal but universal, melodic but discordant, thus achieving a synthesis of emotional states, not only of musical styles. The violence of hyper-realism seemed to prevail over the fairy-tale magic of introversion on Under The Pink (1994), a work derailed by syncopated rhythms, dissonant lashes, gospel organs, hysterical fits, orchestral flourishes and moody vocals. Leveraging the experiments of that album, the harpsichord-obsessed Boys For Pele (1996) sounded like a work of uncontrolled musical genius: it indulged in timbric juxtaposition, but mostly for its own sake. Backed by a rock'n'roll band and enhanced by electronic arrangements, Amos eventually chose a simpler career, starting with the much more accessible (and trivial) From The Choirgirl Hotel (1998).

Juliana Hatfield (12), the Blake Babies' bassist and vocalist, continued to offer a moderate view of youth's troubles. Hey Babe (1992) was a masterpiece of whim and contrarian morals, penned by girlish voice, modest melodies, and graceful guitar rock. The self-pitying and self-loathing themes that recurred throughout the album painted a charming and anthemic biography of a teenager growing up. That existential implosion began to show a muscular side on Become What You Are (1993), whose sound ranged from folk-rock to hard-rock, and Hatfield definitely lost her (musical) virginity with Only Everything (1995), which submerged her artful whining with loud and furious riffs.

The pop-soul divas continued to rule the best-sellers' charts, notably Mariah Carey, one of the most successful artists of all times. The soul-jazz tradition was updated to the new sound technology by the likes of Alana Davis, Poe, and most notably Sophie Hawkins.

Neo-folk: the women

The 1990s saw an explosion of female singer-songwriters, partly as a consequence of the riot-grrrls movement and partly as a sign of a changing psychological landscape.

Kristin Hersh (2) carried out a solo parallel career to her band Throwing Muses with the acoustic collections Hips And Makers (1994), a tender and shy self-tribute via a stream of consciousness that reached the depths of her soul, and Strange Angels (1998), two albums of a music that was as cold as ice, as ascetic as a nun's rosary. Sky Motel (1999), on the other hand, sounded like a Throwing Muses reunion, and broke the spell.

With the mostly-acoustic and autobiographical Pieces Of You (1995), San Diego-via-Alaska's Jewel Kilcher manufactured a pseudo-hippie persona akin to Joni Mitchell and her proud soprano.

The 10,000 Maniacs' chanteuse Natalie Merchant (1) conceived the fragile, tender, sensual melodies set to sophisticated folk-jazz arrangements of Tigerlily (1995).

Poi Dog Pondering's violinist Susan Voelz enveloped the mournful ballads of Summer Crashing (1995) in a solemn haze.

Danielle Howle's powerful and disorienting vocals increased the appeal of her deep thoughts on About To Burst (1996).

Patty Griffin inherited the mantle of Lucinda Williams on Living With Ghosts (1996), for voice and guitar, until Children Running Through (2007) fulfilled the promises of her grating country-pop-gospel fusion.

Cat Power (3), the project of New York-transplant Chan Marshall, debuted with the somber and spartan Myra Lee (1996) and the desolate, suffocating What Would The Community Think (1996). The latter formulated an art that took the shy pessimism of auteurs such as Nick Drake and Laura Nyro to a new dimension of introspection. Its sketchy vignettes and self-analyses coined a subtle and almost embarrassing format, that turned the listener into a voyeur peeping through the keyhole. Marshall was, at the same time, the cameraman and the actress: she played the role of a tormented heroine while she was filming herself playing that role. Her songs were as much acting as they were singing. Marshall's cinematic genius peaked with the song cycle of Moon Pix (1998), enhanced with the ambient, free-form arrangements of Dirty Three's Jim White and Mick Turner. The emotional intensity packed by her half whisper in the gloomy lieder of You Are Free (2003) bordered on the suicidal.

Another New Yorker, Fiona Apple (1), conveyed the anguish of her generation (she was still a teenager) on the piano-driven Tidal (1996), boasting a cabaret-like blend of blues, soul and jazz, and When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts (1999), enhanced by Jon Brion's idiosyncratic arrangements that mixed the old-fashioned and the futuristic.

San Francisco-based Hannah Marcus (2) penned some of the most otherworldly atmospheres, reminiscent of Laura Nyro's ominous elegies, Nico's glacial soliloquy, Tim Buckley's folk-jazz fusion, Lisa Germano's painfully childish introspection, Jane Siberry's abstract self-reflections, as well as of Patti Smith's delirious stream of consciousness, especially on her second and fourth albums, Faith Burns (1998) and Desert Farmers (2004).

Lili Haydn, a vocalist and violinist who sang with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and performed with the Los Angeles Philarmonic Orchestra, concocted an austere blend of classical, folk, jazz, rock and pop on Lili (1997).

The melancholy whisper of Edith Frost (11) breathed real life into the hypnotic lullabies of Calling Over Time (1997), arranged by Chicago luminaries such as Eleventh Dream Day's Rick Rizzo, Gastr Del Sol's David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke. Its natural evolution was the chamber pop of Telescopic (1998): Frost bled angelic melodies in a shy and introverted voice, which were captured in a web of timbres (cello, violin, flute, accordion, trombone, organ) and perturbed by psychedelic guitar effects. She did to folk music what the first Velvet Underground album did to rock music: carve a bleakly subliminal, darkly metaphysical, cruelly hellish space beneath an apparently innocent surface.

The works of Ohio-based singer-songwriter Jessica Bailiff (2) were, de facto, collaborations with Low's guitarist Alan Sparhawk. Even In Silence (1998) set her dilated, ethereal vocals and her intimate, bedroom confessions, against the backdrop of an unfocused, loose instrumental noise. She was the first to fuse folk, ambient, psychedelia and slo-core. The litanies and lullabies of Jessica Bailiff (2002), oddly devoid of structure, had a supernatural quality.

Heather Duby (10) owed half the artistic success of Post To Wire (1999) to the oneiric orchestrations of Pell Mell's Steve Fisk, soundscapes that metabolized all sorts of styles while the singer borrowed from Nico, Enya and Bjork her emotional charge.

Crowsdell's vocalist Shannon Wright (1), an accomplished pianist, penned the austere chamber folk elegies of Flight Safety (1999), the nightmarish, emphatic, almost expressionistic music of Maps Of Tacit (2000) and, best of all, the theatrical, neoclassical meditations of Dyed In The Wool (2001).

Grrrrls, 1990-99

Several singer-songwriters bridged the gap between singer-songwriters and the "riot-grrrls" movement. Propelled by the success of their decade-old anti-folk movement, the new generation took on a wilder, angrier, more sarcastic tone.

Lois Maffeo, one of the leaders of Olympia's "riot grrrrls" movement, best summarized her age on the acoustic Butterfly Kiss (1992), featuring Bratmobile's drummer Molly Neuman and the Young Marble Giants' bassist Stuart Moxham.

Buffalo's fiercely independent folksinger Ani DiFranco (3) reached maturity with her fifth album, Out Of Range (1994). Her songs vibrated with raw energy and emotion, bit with sarcasm and wit, pondered with angst and depression. DiFranco's art was both personal and social: while she hunted her post-menstrual demons, she also delved into poignant commentary. Her staccato acoustic guitar was no less original, a highly emotional fusion of Delta-blues and Appalachian folk picking. Parables and rants acquired new life with the less spartan format of Not A Pretty Girl (1995) and especially Dilate (1996) and To the Teeth (1999), that also emphasized her plastic classy vocals, while Little Plastic Castle (1998) presented a kinder, gentler folksinger who was less at war with society and more at ease with her own life.

The music of mad Englishwoman Polly Jean Harvey (1) was born at the crossroad between punk rage and a nervous breakdown. Dominated by her vulgar, hysterical voice, reminiscent of Patti Smith and Sinead O'Connor, the country-blues bacchanals of Dry (1992) and especially Rid Of Me (1993) tore apart very personal and often scabrous dirges. Harvey's soul struggled between pleasure and pain, affection and libido, frustration and desire, and ultimately expose a psyche that was metaphorically nymphomaniac. To Bring You My Love (1995) and Is This Desire (1998) evolved her style towards labyrinthine production jobs that increased the doses of electronics and downplayed the role of Harvey's voice, and Harvey ended up sounding more like a spectator than a protagonist.

Chicago's Liz Phair (11) came to prominence with a highly intellectual post-modernist and post-feminist exercise, Exile In Guyville (1993), theoretically a diary of brutal confessions (and superficially a hyper-realistic orgy of lust) but in practice a vast fresco of the women of her generation, musically modeled after the Rolling Stones' masterpiece but also quoting everybody from Bob Dylan to Juliana Hatfield. Less cynical and more romantic, Whip-Smart (1994) and especially Whitechocolatespaceegg (1998) focused on her eclectic musical skills. Phair now engaged in a more oblique approach to her sexual and moral appetites, to reconciling sex and love, an approach which revealed her as an impressive innovator of the folk-rock idiom.

DQE (1), the project of Atlanta-based singer-songwriter and guitarist Grace Braun, erupted highly personal, visceral, unpleasant confessions via a frantic vocabulary of shrieks, yelps, roars, whispers and wails on But Me I Fell Down (1994).

The rebellious stance of these performers influenced Til' Tuesday's Aimee Mann, who resurrected a changed woman on I'm With Stupid (1995).

Two veterans climbed the charts in Los Angeles with a mainstream sound and a mood that were the outcome of these changes: Sheryl Crow, with Tuesday Night Music Club (1994), and Meredith Brooks, with Blurring The Edges (1997).

A turning point was represented by the success of a Canadian teenager and former disco diva, now transplanted in Los Angeles and acquainted with the punk ethos, Alanis Morissette (10). Her carefree vocal style and romantic exuberance, enhanced by producer Glen Ballard's edgy rock and hip-hop arrangements (which enlisted the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Dave Navarro and Flea), transformed the songs of Jagged Little Pill (1995) into generational and gender anthems.

Neko Case (1), also a member of the New Pornographers, emerged out of the alt-country legion crooning and serenading in a broad range of vocal styles to pen the mood pieces of Blacklisted (2002).

British soundscapes, 1993-99

However, the most influential female singer-songwriter of the 1990s was neither American nor British: Sugarcubes' singer Bjork (2) Gudmundsdottir came out of Iceland, of all places. Debut (1993) employed massive doses of electronic keyboards and synthetic rhythms (conducted by producer Nellee Hooper of Soul II Soul) to sculpt dance-pop tunes that combined the savage, vital spirit of rhythm'n'blues with the psychic devastation of the post-industrial age. Along the way, Bjork garnered debris of gospel, jazz, house, hip hop, Broadway show-tunes, etc. Her eccentric vocal style, which was the musical equivalent of cinematic acting, dominated Post (1995), an album that focused more openly on the groove and that the producers (Hooper, 808 State's Graham Massey, Howie B and Tricky) turned into a hodgepodge of fashionable sounds. Her traumas sounded more sincere on Homogenic (1997), which was also her most cohesive album; while her crooning on Vespertine (2001) merely admitted her fundamental travesty of kitsch, easy listening and orchestral pop of the past. In a sense, her definitive statement was Medulla (2004), which she recorded with no instruments: just her voice and studio wizardry.

Avantgarde oboe player Kate St John (1) concocted an elegant fusion of chamber music and free-jazz on Indescribable Night (1995).

Transglobal Underground's vocalist Natacha Atlas (1) speculated on that band's seductive world-fusion on Diaspora (1995), Halim (1997) and especially Gedida (1999).

Sally Doherty's Sally Doherty (1996) focused on multi-layered vocals (inspired by Cocteau Twins' dream-pop and Enya's wordless lullabies) set to a lush acoustic music reminiscent of Michael Nyman's minimalistic repetition, ancient musical forms and ethnic folk.

Beth Orton (1) bridged folk music, trip-hop and Bjork's orchestral pop on Trailer Park (1997) and especially Central Reservation (1999), spicing her pensive ballads with electronic arragements, while Comfort of Strangers (2006) chartered a psychological territory halfway between Joni Mitchell's austere meditations and Cat Power's naive confessions.

The surreal songs of Swedish singer-songwriter Nicolai Dunger (2) were influenced by the holy triad of Robert Wyatt, Tim Buckley and Van Morrison, especially on Eventide (1997), boasting neoclassical arrangements. After the trilogy of Blind Blemished Blues (2000), A Dress Book (2001) and Sweat Her Kiss (2002), Dunger perfected his fusion of soul, jazz and rock with the lavish arrangements of strings, horns, piano and percussion on Soul Rush (2001).