(FORTUNE Magazine) – As the '90s fade into memory, here's a look back at some of the decade's finest music. (Part three in a series.)

R.E.M. Automatic for the People (1992, Warner Bros.): The Georgia quartet's crown jewel, Automatic is both sublime and subliminal: "Man on the Moon" and "Nightswimming" are the songs you murmur as you sink into a dream.

HOLE Live Through This (1994, DGC): For a brief moment, Courtney Love was rock's atomic provocateur. Live Through This distills that moment in a mushroom cloud of howling melodic catharsis.

PULP Different Class (1995, Island): Not since the Kinks has British proletarian resentment sounded so foppish and witty. Not since Elvis Costello has love felt so cruel.

ARVO PART Litany (1996, ECM): The Estonian composer delivers a stirring orchestral masterwork that feels like an end-of-the-millennium epilogue to Bach's sacred Mass in B-Minor.

ERYKAH BADU Live (1997, Universal): On this fluid, organic blend of soul, jazz, hip-hop, and gospel, knockout chanteuse Badu presides and bedazzles like Cleopatra at the Stork Club.

AIR Moon Safari (1998, Source/Caroline): After enduring decades of mockery, French pop finally got some respect thanks to this Gallic electro-duo's treasure trove of torch ballads and groovy moodscapes for the Matrix generation.