The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Lauryn Hill (1998 – Hires)

100 Best Albums Lauryn Hill’s debut—and only—solo studio album was a seismic event in 1998: a stunningly raw, profound look into the spiritual landscape not just of one of the era’s biggest stars, but of the era itself. Decades later, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill still counts as a life-changer, with the preternaturally talented Hill […]

Thriller by Michael Jackson (1982 – Hires 96khz 24bit)

100 Best Albums There are few pop albums, or even works of art, that denote a wholesale shift in time and space the way Michael Jackson’s Thriller did in 1982. Noting its impact on the career trajectory of a child star turned R&B hitmaker feels reductive; talking about its record-smashing commercial success diminishes its creative […]

Abbey Road (Remastered) by The Beatles (1969 – Hires)

Abbey Road uses a “less is more” approach to production throughout, giving “Come Together” a controlled intensity while the raw sound of Paul’s voice on “Oh! Darling” is one of the album’s highlights. The sound of a whole band working together flawlessly is heard most notably in the 8-title dramatic medley that made up the […]

Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder (1976 – Hires 96khz 24bit)

100 Best Albums In 1974, Stevie Wonder was the most critically revered pop star in the world; he was also considering leaving the music industry altogether. So when Songs in the Key of Life was released two years later, demand was so high that it became, at the time, the fastest-selling album in history. Wonder […]

good kid, m.A.A.d city (Deluxe Version) by Kendrick Lamar

100 Best Albums A few days after releasing 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, the then-25-year-old Kendrick Lamar deemed his sophomore studio album “classic-worthy.” He wasn’t lying: Lamar’s sophomore album is one of the defining hip-hop records of the 21st century. On the surface, good kid, m.A.A.d city is a hood tragedy, with Lamar painting a […]

Back to Black by Amy Winehouse (2006 – Hires 96khz 24bit)

100 Best Albums Producer Mark Ronson remembers when Amy Winehouse came in with the lyrics for “Back to Black.” They were at a studio in New York in early 2006, their first day working together. Ronson had given her a portable CD player with the song’s piano track, and Winehouse disappeared into the back for […]

Nevermind by Nirvana (1991 – Hires)

100 Best Albums Even now, years after you first felt its edges, the chorus of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” still sounds too dangerous—too loud, too ugly, too upset—for any mainstream. And yet Nevermind’s opening salvo didn’t just mark an unlikely breakthrough for the Seattle trio, it upended popular culture in ways we haven’t seen since. […]

Lemonade by Beyoncé (2016 – Hires)

100 Best Albums There’s one moment critical to understanding the emotional and cultural heft of Lemonade, Beyoncé’s genre-obliterating blockbuster sixth album—and it arrives at the end of “Freedom,” a storming empowerment anthem that samples a civil-rights-era prison song and features Kendrick Lamar. An elderly woman’s voice cuts in: “I had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up,” she says. “I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.” The speech—made by her husband JAY-Z’s grandmother Hattie White on her 90th birthday in 2015—reportedly inspired the concept behind this radical project, which arrived with an accompanying film as well as words by Somali British poet Warsan Shire. Both the album and its visual companion are deeply tied to Beyoncé’s identity and narrative (her womanhood, her Blackness, her marriage) and make for her most outwardly revealing work to date. The details, of course, are what make it so relatable, what make each song sting. The project is furious, defiant, anguished, vulnerable, experimental, muscular, triumphant, humorous, and brave—a vivid personal statement, released without warning in a time of public scrutiny and private suffering. It is also astonishingly tough. Through tears, even Beyoncé has to summon her inner Beyoncé, roaring, “I’ma keep running ’cause a winner don’t quit on themselves.” This panoramic strength—lyrical, vocal, instrumental, and personal—nudged her public image from mere legend to something closer to real-life superhero. Every second of Lemonade deserves to be studied and celebrated (the self-punishment in “Sorry,” the politics in “Formation,” the creative enhancements from collaborators like James Blake and Karen O), but the song that aims the highest musically may be “Don’t Hurt Yourself”—a Zeppelin-sampling psych-rock duet with Jack White. “This is your final warning,” she says in a moment of unnerving calm. “If you try this shit again/You gon’ lose your wife.” In support, White offers a word to the wise: “Love God herself.”