Rufus Wainwright

Key song: “April Fools”

Rufus Wainwright’s long and distinguished career now spans more than 16 years and 10 albums, but this 1998 self-titled release stands out in his discography as not only the album that introduced Wainwright to the world, but also as possibly one of the most well received debuts for a Canadian artist, ever. It garnered Wainwright best new artist designation by Rolling Stone, a Juno for best alternative album, and it catapulted him onto a New York Times list for the top 10 albums of 1998, among many other accolades. All of it is well deserved. If you’re looking for an introduction to Wainwright’s catalogue, you’re going to want to start here. This album is a collection of beautiful orch-pop gems that maybe didn’t define the ’90s the way some albums on this list did, but it was a high musical point of the decade nonetheless. — A.G. on <a href="http://m.music.cbc.ca/blogs/2014/2/The-50-greatest-Canadian-albums-of-the-90s#!gallery.img:40">CBC Music</a>