Peter Gabriel has always been an album artist, something that was clear during his early days fronting the prog rock outfit Genesis—before drummer Phil Collins took the reins and eventually steered the group into pop superstardom throughout the ’80s and early ’90s. I own five Gabriel albums, and truth be told, a lot of his early solo work was way too quirky and insular for the average American palate. That distance from the mainstream was likely a badge of honor for Gabriel at the time.

But eventually, even the artsiest of blokes has to pay some bills. Gabriel began moving closer to the mainstream with 1982’s excellent single “Shock the Monkey,” which actually made a dent on the U.S. Top 100. Still, he wasn’t quite a household name yet. That changed in 1986 with the release of "So", his first album to stick with one producer throughout—U2’s sonic wizard Daniel Lanois. That collaboration proved golden, yielding the biggest album of Gabriel’s career and a string of hits like “Sledgehammer” and “Big Time,” backed by some of the most iconic, award-winning videos of the MTV era.

But while "So" delivered a handful of undeniable pop gems like "Don't Give Up" with Kate Bush, it’s the album closer, “In Your Eyes,” that makes this record truly special. With Youssou N’Dour lending his powerful vocals and layering the track with an African mystique, the song is nothing short of sublime. And it’s the main reason "So" managed to squeak its way into this Top 25 White Artists Albums list.

New Order could have folded and called it a day after Ian Curtis’s suicide in 1980. (Ian Curtis? Who dat?, you might be asking.) Well, New Order was what remained of the seminal punk/post-punk band Joy Division, whose brilliantly spastic and brooding lead singer, Curtis, along with the group’s cold, robotic sound, helped make them legends before their time. That premature fame—combined with Ian’s deteriorating mental health and collapsing marriage—pushed the young frontman to take his own life just one day before the band was scheduled to embark on their first North American tour.

The rest of the group was left reeling. They could’ve easily packed it up and gone back to whatever factory jobs were waiting for young white men in Manchester. But they didn’t.

Instead, the surviving members regrouped, rebranded themselves as New Order, and gradually pivoted away from the gothic gloom and doom of Joy Division. They embraced the rising tide of electronic dance music—synths, drum machines, and all—and by 1983, that artistic evolution paid off in a big way. "Power, Corruption & Lies" marked the band’s most cohesive and consistent studio album to date. This was no longer a band haunted by its past; this was a group confidently carving out the future.

Before that, New Order had mostly been a singles band—scoring hits that would eventually get remixed and stitched together into my all-time favorite compilation album, "Substance." But on "Power, Corruption & Lies," they finally delivered a full LP that didn’t rely on the strength of one or two standout tracks. It’s dance-pop bliss from start to finish, and while the massive single “Blue Monday” wasn’t technically included on the original LP (it was released as a standalone), you can feel its presence all over this record. My favorite? The “Blue Monday”-adjacent “5 8 6”—an icy, hypnotic banger that feels like the perfect link between the past they couldn’t escape and the future they were rushing toward.

I’m the kind of person who usually needs time to warm up to a novel musical sound. When something truly unique hits my ear, it often takes weeks, months, or even years before I can fully wrap my head around its brilliance. But Amy Winehouse wasted no time shaking me to my core. The very first moment I laid eyes—and ears—on her, I was floored.

My jaw damn near hit the floor the day I watched the video for “Rehab” for the first time. There was this uncanny disconnect between what I was looking at—a young, disinterested white girl with blood-red stilettos tossed up on a desk in what looked like a run-down asylum—and what I was hearing: a voice that was mature, confident, raw, and brimming with soul, pulling deeply from jazz traditions, especially the phrasing and pain-drenched elegance of Billie Holiday.

It was everything all at once—old and new, Black and white, aggressive and chill, messy and precise. And it washed over me like a jazzy tsunami. Her style, her presence, that voice—it all came together in a way that felt both alien and intimate. I had to know more.

So I picked up her sophomore album, "Back to Black", and it turned out to be the diary of a madwoman—mad in the sense that she was furious with the man she loved, a man who clearly wasn’t worth the powder it would take to blow him to hell. The album is rich with pain and wit, with venom and vulnerability, and all of it plays out in standout tracks like “You Know I’m No Good,” the torchy title track “Back to Black,” and the utterly breathtaking “Love Is a Losing Game.”

But no matter how great the rest of the album is—and it’s great—“Rehab” remains the crown jewel for me. Not just because of its clever writing, sharp production, or infectious groove, but because of what it did to me that first day. It stunned me into silence and made me pay attention. It’s the kind of song that reorders your senses and lingers long after the needle lifts.

Even now, all these years later, “Rehab” still blows me away. It’s not just the standout track from "Back to Black"—it’s one of the most satisfying songs I’ve heard from any album released in 2006. Hell, maybe ever.

When it comes to Australia and New Zealand, musically at least, I’ve always leaned toward the obvious: INXS, Crowded House, and a splash of Kylie Minogue when I feel like kicking up my high heels. But surprise, surprise—when it came time to put together this list of studio albums, none of those household names made the cut. (Though if I were including greatest hits, Crowded House’s Recurring Dream would be near the top.)

Instead, the honor goes to a rather unknown New Zealand–Australian artist named Jordan Rakei, who’s doing more to big up that remote corner of the world than any of the aforementioned pop darlings.

Blue-eyed soul that actually sounds like soul—not that robo-call R&B pushed on us by BTS-adjacent acts or the Bieber industrial complex—is hard to come by. I heard about Rakei through word of mouth, and thank the music gods I was listening. He doesn’t feel like some producer’s wet dream. He feels like an actual artist. The kind you’d pay to see at B.B. King’s or the Blue Note. And yes—I use the word play deliberately, because the people on stage, Rakei included, are manipulating real instruments.

Put the album on and leave the remote control right there on the table because fast-forward won't be necessary. “Midnight Mischief” and “Snitch” are so solid in their neo-soul sound you'll swear to God that real-life Black folks made them. “The Light” hits you with creamy harmonies and machine-gun lyrics. “Talk to Me” carries a whiff of Afrobeat in the rhythm. “The Rooftop” is quiet, oceanic—a foggy piano ballad that floats like puffs of weed smoke. “Cupid’s Cheese” sounds like a crisp bike ride through the Swiss Alps—moody, European, full of shifting tempos and textures. (Not sure 'bout that title, tho.)

You can feel the influence of D’Angelo, Bon Iver, J Dilla, James Blake, and even Radiohead throughout. "Cloak" is an elegant blend of R&B, jazz, soul, and experimental electronica, built from both analog and digital instruments. It's real music at a time when that was becoming rare on the radio.

I don’t know if Rakei has had any real breakthrough in the U.S., but his 2025 tour dates show him performing across Europe and even hitting Morocco and Mexico City. There’s clearly some international demand, and deservedly so. I’ve also got his "Origin" album saved on my phone and enjoy that one too.

So, if you don’t already know Jordan Rakei, I suggest you fix that at your earliest convenience.

The Cure are one of the very few outfits who managed to land more than one record on this countdown. And honestly, if I had gone to 30 or 35 albums, at least two more of their records would’ve made the cut. But it was already a hell of a job to muster up 25 albums by white artists, and I’m not looking to go through that process again any time soon.

Anyhoo—some say too many cooks spoil the broth, and that could’ve easily been the case with "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me". This was The Cure’s seventh studio album in just eight years, a sprawling collection from a British band we’d seen evolve from post-punk to Goth to pop in a remarkably short time. And somehow, they managed to pull it off while increasing the quality of their output. The decade spanning 1979 to 1989 saw The Cure get sharper, weirder, and more popular with every album.

1983’s "Japanese Whispers"—a compilation of singles—was their pop turning point, easing the transition toward and getting the mainstream ready for "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me", their breakout double album that tries to cover all bases at once. It does at stretches. But not always.

Reportedly, this was the first record where Robert Smith opened up the creative process to outside input—from bandmates to buddies to his girlfriend’s female friends. (Hence the “too many cooks” thing.) Because of that range of influence, the album sometimes overreaches, trying too hard to be all things to all listeners at all times.

Still, even when "Kiss Me" wobbles, it’s never boring. Sitting through some of the more meandering or indulgent tracks feels worth it once you strike the oil: “Catch,” “Why Can’t I Be You?,” “How Beautiful You Are…,” “Like Cockatoos,” “One More Time,” and “Icing Sugar” are gold in your bowl.

Towering above the rest, of course, is the magnificent “Just Like Heaven”—a seminal single that finally broke The Cure in the U.S. in the most delightful, perfect way back in ’87. It continues to be one of my very favorite songs by a band who can tout a very high index of enjoyable music in their decade-long heyday.

If Robert had pulled out a Ginsu knife and trimmed the fat, pared this thing down to a single disc, it could’ve been a near-masterpiece. But even as-is, "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss" Me remains one of the most ambitious, risky, and rewarding albums of the era.

Y’all don’t know Miguel Bosé—and neither did I before moving to Latin America. When Bosé began his career in the late ’70s, he took the same overly-sexualized, androgynous, borderline pedophilic path that so many young male pop stars from Latin America were pushed down. (Think of early music videos with Luis Miguel prancing around in micro-Speedos, or Menudo, whose barely-there short shorts were only a cat's whisker away from being classified kiddie porn.) And while Bosé is Spanish by heritage, he was born in Panama, making him Latino by birth, so he got similar treatment.

With a classically handsome face, booty-hugging jeans, frantic hip thrusts, and disposable teeny-bop singles, Bosé became a bedroom poster boy for junior high girls from Buenos Aires to Bogotá. But unlike many of his peers, Bosé came from wealth and sophistication—his mother was an Italian movie star and his father was a famous bullfighter. He wasn’t some broke barrio kid trying to sing his way out of poverty or into somebody’s bed. So once he got his foot in the industry door, he started carving a lane for himself that was more refined, more serious, and far more artistically credible.

By the early ’80s, Bosé had begun shedding the pin-up image. He leaned into music that was more atmospheric, more adult, more sonically adventurous. That artistic evolution reached its apex in 1993 with the release of "Bajo El Signo de Caín", a critical and creative triumph that earned him the kind of legitimacy that had completely eluded him during his early “Cute Piece of Ass” years.

The album's sound was conceived by acclaimed producer Ross McCullum, who has also worked with established artists like Tears for Fears, Enya, Robert Plant and Howard Jones and is packed with incredible songs—“Nada Particular,” the soaring “Mayo,” “Sol Forastero”—but my personal favorite is the breathtaking “Si Tú No Vuelves.” It’s one of those rare songs that feels both intimate and expansive, like a love letter whispered across a canyon. On this record, Bosé wasn’t just proving himself to the critics—he was transcending the bullshit of his past and planting his flag as a real-deal artist.

His 1995 follow-up "Laberinto" was almost as good, another artistic triumph for an artist who had taken control of his image and career and led them down a path to legendary status.

You know how white people always gotta turn everything into a competition?
“Who’s the greatest—Michael or LeBron?”
“Which is tastier—the Whopper or the Big Mac?”
“What’s better—The Police or Sting’s solo career?”

Stop fighting, wipepo. The answers are simple:
Michael.
The Whopper.
And Sting’s solo career.
Duh!

The Police were a killer singles outfit, no doubt—“Roxanne,” “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.” But let’s keep it real: when it comes to deep cuts, their albums are basically minefields that are better side-stepped. There’s not a single Police album track I’d voluntarily slap on a mixtape. That’s not hate—that’s just facts.

Sting, on the other hand, gave us two albums that are wall-to-wall quality: his excellent debut "The Dream of the Blue Turtles", and the even better follow-up "…Nothing Like the Sun". You can put these two albums on back-to-back and do no skipping forward because every track contributes something unique and special. And when he went solo, he didn’t just step out from behind the Police badge—he stepped up. Gone was the jittery, ska-influenced sound that made The Police perfect for white frat parties. In its place? Something richer. Something deeper. Something grown.

Jazz, world music, acoustic ballads, a dab of soul. And to bring that vision to life, Sting had to elbow those two white boys out the way and go get some real musicians—Black musicians. He brought in heavyweights like Branford Marsalis, Hiram Bullock, and killer background singers like Vesta Williams and Annie Lennox (back when she was singing her face off, not pushing eyeliner on Instagram).

The result? A highly polished, adult contemporary jazz-pop hybrid that holds up beautifully today. “Englishman in New York” is still that bougie expat jam. “Fragile” is heartbreak in musical form. And “They Dance Alone (Gueca Solo)” brought that political protest flair, dragging Pinochet into the light.

But my favorite cut? “Be Still My Beating Heart.” That smooth, slinky bass line in the intro? It sounds suspiciously like it was jacked from Spyro Gyra’s “Cachaca.” But I'm not even gonna front on Sting for snatching it for himself since he was attempting to craft his own version of a high quality, fusion jazz album for the masses. And that's exactly what he done done.

(But I still wonder if Spyro sued though…)

I have to be honest: when I first bought Kid A and dropped that CD into the player, I was a big bag of frowns. I was discontent, disappointed, maybe even a little betrayed. The direction of the record was a jolting and abrupt left turn from Radiohead’s 1997 masterpiece "OK Computer", an album that, while sometimes lonely and detached, still held on to melody, hooks, and—crucially—songs I could hum while strolling down the street.

But "Kid A"? This felt like a hollow shell—heavy on atmosphere, depressingly low on direction and substance. No choruses. No catharsis. Just skittering electronics, processed vocals, and songs that sounded like they were melting in real time. Why were critics creaming their panties over this mess? Why were they calling it the second coming of Jeebus Cries that the year 2000 had promised to deliver? I was unimpressed. I set the CD aside and moved on with my life.

What I didn’t anticipate was how "Kid A" would burrow into me like a sleeper agent. How, over time, it would emerge as one of the final albums I’d describe as both challenging and accessible. I began to hear it differently—not as a letdown, but as a response. A rebuttal to the unbearable weight of "OK Computer". Even more, "Kid A" stood in stark, almost defiant contrast to the crap dominating early 2000s radio. Next to the Backstreet Boys and Creed, "Kid A" felt like a signal arriving to earth from a much smarter planet.

I started to get it.

In hindsight, it’s clear why "Kid A" earned its acclaim. Radiohead had just produced what many considered the best album of a generation. They could’ve stuck with that formula, squeezed out "OK Computer, Part II: Electric Boogaloo", and called it a day. Instead, they chucked the rule book into a bonfire and did the exact opposite of what a commercially successful band is supposed to do. That kind of risk? That kind of “fuck you” to expectations? That’s artistry.

And here’s the kicker: "Kid A" might not be as consistent as "OK Computer," but as an artistic statement, it’s arguably superior. It dares more. It says more by saying less.

Favorites? “The National Anthem” sounds like a marching band possessed by a jazz demon. “Optimistic” is the most traditional offering here, but still a jagged pill. The drearily magnificent “In Limbo” floats like a song that’s lost its home. But the crown jewels, for me, are “Idioteque” and “Morning Bell”—two absolutely brilliant tracks that found a way to make paranoia sound like poetry.

"Kid A" didn’t turn those frowns upside down and win me over in one listen. It won me over by refusing to care if I liked it or not, the same way I've won over people in my life.

(Just kidding. Unlike Radiohead. I need to be loved and adored at all times.)

Every British band knows that if you want to conquer the U.S., you’ve got to tone down the sophistication and aim for something much lower than the stars. U.S. Americans--may the Good Lard bless us--don’t exactly have a high tolerance for the experimental or avant-garde. Brits may fancy themselves more refined and artistically evolved—and they’re not wrong—but what we lack in nuance, we make up for in two things the British crave: sheer numbers and piles of extra money to blow on shit we don't need. That’s why nearly every UK act, from the Beatles to Adele, has sacrificed a little artistry to break into the U.S. market. Depeche Mode were no different.

Since their 1981 debut, Depeche Mode had been enjoying huge success across the U.K., Europe, and pockets of the world that weren’t allergic to synthesizers and existential dread. But here in the States? Not so much. Outside of 1984’s “People Are People” (which somehow climbed to #13 on the pop chart), they were relegated to the moody corners of alternative radio and MTV’s late-night “120 Minutes” back when the "M" in MTV actually stood for "music".

That changed with 1987’s "Music for the Masses", their fifth album and the first to go gold in the U.S. It gave us “Strangelove,” an excellent alt-dance track that still only managed to limp to #50 on the pop charts. "Music" cracked the door open; 1990’s "Violator" blew it off the damn hinges.

“Personal Jesus” took a big swing for the fences—blasphemous, bluesy, and pop enough to get puritanical white people to the dance floor to do that stompy dance they love to do. It was a massive worldwide hit and finally got Depeche Mode some long-overdue U.S. respect. But here’s the thing: "Violator" isn’t just one great single. It’s nine killer tracks, one after the other, with zero filler.

Martin Gore even sings lead on a few songs and unless you’re a hardcore fan, you’re not telling his voice apart from Dave Gahan’s. The mood is still dark and dreary, a continuation of "Music for the Masses", but the hooks are so sharp, so immediate, that you forget these guys sound like they need to be on suicide watch.

There’s no need to skip anything here. Sure, some songs feel slower or more ambient, but trust yo' Black Gaddy—they’ll grow on you. Picking a favorite is damn near impossible because they all hit: “World in My Eyes”: hot. “Policy of Truth”: truly a jam. “Clean”: mean. And of course, “Personal Jesus”: heaven sent. But if I had to choose one track that sums it all up, that captures the sleek, brooding, and beautifully broken soul of Violator? It’s “Enjoy the Silence”: a joy.

Growing up around white folks in the ’80s had its perks. Not many, mind you—but the few that existed turned out to be pretty valuable. One of them was my repeated exposure to music I was supposed to hate as a Black dude.

Because of my unwavering desire to fit in and be popular in high school, I didn’t roll my eyes when my white buddies threw cassettes of Iron Maiden, AC/DC, and Megadeth into the player. I played along, banged my head a little, even though most of that shit sounded like garbage to me. Still, a couple of bands cut through the noise because the music was just that good—and one of those bands was Metallica.

If their "Master of Puppets" (1986) cracked the door open for hard rock to reclaim its throne from the AquaNetted hair bands that were flooding the charts, then Guns N’ Roses’ "Appetite for Destruction" grabbed those dudes by their teased tresses and guillotined them with a vengeance.

When that album dropped, every dude I knew had it on a constant loop—and for once, I didn’t have to fake it. "Appetite" was the most kick-ass hard rock I’d ever heard. And unlike a lot of that other headbanger nonsense I’d been forced to ingest, "Appetite" was hook-heavy. Songs like “It’s So Easy,” “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Mr. Brownstone,” and “Paradise City” weren’t just noise—they were jams you could actually hum while mowing the lawn.

And the album was consistent. Sure, I liked a song or two by Iron Maiden or AC/DC, but sitting through a whole album felt like scraping my knuckles across a cheese grater. "Appetite", on the other hand, satisfied from start to (almost) finish. The last two or three tracks felt like filler, but only because they came after the monster that was “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”

Was Axl Rose some phenomenal singer? Was Slash a world-class axeman? I had no idea—and didn’t really care. At that point, I didn’t have the reference points for that kind of music. It wasn’t until the grunge wave hit that I started paying closer attention to rock vocalists. All I knew in 1987 was that this record hit hard and sounded amazing.

The album still bangs. But man, did Axl Rose show his white-trash ass later with the release of “One in a Million,” a song in which he spews hate toward “immigrants,” “faggots,” and “niggers.” Slash’s mom is Black and he let that shit slide—da fuq?

After that, I was more than happy to see Guns N’ Roses fall the fuck off. But to this day, if someone puts on “Welcome to the Jungle,” I’m still gonna sing every damn word. That song is still a sweet jam o' mine.

I begrudgingly have to admit that sometimes the critics actually get it right. Not often, but every now and then. All those years of trying to shove Bob Dylan, the Sex Pistols, and Green Day down our throats only made me tune critics out every time they anointed their next messiah. So when, back in the late ’90s, they started campaigning to have Jesus H. Christ replaced by Thom Yorke on the cross, I rolled my eyes so hard they damn near got stuck.

A British friend loaned me his copy of "OK Computer" and said, “You should give this a whirl.” I gave him the stank eye. I believed Flava Flav when he warned us to not believe the hype, and there was no way I was letting myself get swept up in whatever Pitchfork and Spin were circle-jerking over that week.

But here’s the thing: "OK Computer" really was a game changer. A full-blown seismic shift. In 1997, when music was in a weird, liminal state—grunge was on its last breath, and the charts were ruled by Celine Dion, the Spice Girls, and whatever the hell Hanson was—Radiohead swooped in with a record that dropped like a thunderclap.

This was also the era when white folks spent good money to sit in open fields at Lilith Fair for some reason, signalling that the musical landscape was bleak. "OK Computer" didn’t just offer something different; it disrupted the whole damn system. It cut through the saccharine smog and let the sun burn straight through.

It’s hard to pick just one song to highlight on the album because every track is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. The production, the arrangements, the lyrics, even Yorke’s haunted wail—it all fits together like some glitchy, God-touched machine. Right now, I’ll go with “Exit Music (For a Film),” but ask me again tomorrow and I might say “Let Down” or “Karma Police” or “Climbing Up the Walls.” It’s one of those rare records where each track exists on the same elevated plane.

I tried not liking this record solely out of spite, but I had to eventually wave the white flag. Sometimes the critics really do nail it—and "OK Computer" was one of those few moments when the stars aligned for them. Now if they'd only shut the fuck up the Beach Boys and Lou Reed...

Alongside the Portuguese, Spanish, and—on a good day—the Dutch, no nation has done more to desecrate the earth and brutalize its inhabitants than the Brits. From sea to shining sea, their capitalistic conquests have laid waste to cultures, economies, and entire bloodlines. This has made them one of the richest empires in the world, but they're obviously not happy about any of that because nobody—and I mean nobody—does better Suicide Rock than these muthafuckas.

If you’re not familiar with that term, just picture some sad, pale boy whisper-singing his trauma over the sound of machines wheezing and crying in a dark, wet basement. That’s James Blake. And that’s this album.

Overgrown is a tightening-up of the ideas introduced on Blake’s 2011 debut—another keeper mostly due to “The Wilhelm Scream”, which felt like drowning inside your own body. Overgrown expands that atmosphere but does so with a sinister elegance. The beats take their time. The bass sneaks up on you. The pianos drop in and out like ghosts. The whole thing pulses like a barely-functioning heart.

It’s not music for the car. Don’t listen while driving or operating heavy machinery. In fact, this is best experienced in a dark room while you’re staring into the void of your own poor decision-making.

The album opens with tracks like “Overgrown” and “I Am Sold,” slow-burning dirges that melt into themselves. Then you get “Lindisfarne,” in two parts: Part I is all vocoded moaning, like Bon Iver joined a cyborg monastery; Part II brings in acoustic drums and layered harmonies that still don’t quite sound human. Think lullaby for sad AIs.

“Digital Lion” is co-written with Brian Eno and sounds like EDM for witches. It’s got that seance energy. You wait for the bass to hit—and when it finally does, it bangs, then retreats, then slaps you again. It’s like the music is tryna make you feel uneasy.

“Voyeur” is one of the more aggressive cuts, futuristic in the sense that the future is a barren, gentrified hellscape where your robot overlords DJ in grayscale. “To the Last” hits a weird Bronski Beat falsetto zone—it’s a soft, synthetic hymn for the end of humanity.

And what’s Blake actually saying on this album? No one knows. He’s off his meds, and that’s part of the charm. Most of the lyrics read like overheard therapy sessions set to post-dubstep beats. You get possessed, overdubbed voices. You get emotionally distant muttering. You get the creeping suspicion he’s still got beef with his siblings, if he hasn't poisoned them already.

But here’s the kicker: it all works. It shouldn’t, but it does. James Blake made an album that feels like grief, like withdrawal, like floating through a breakup in a dream where you’re also maybe dead.

He reportedly hung with Kanye before Ye started quoting Mein Kampf and beefing with every Black person he couldn’t monetize. Blake also did some work with Beyoncé, and RZA shows up on his second album, just to whisper wisdom like a kung fu ghost. So he's got some backing from the Black community, including me.

James Blake's "Overgrown" is the British empire of emotional wreckage: cold, calculating, culturally influential—and depressingly irresistible. God bless his broken little soul.

The record kicks off with a primal scream—“Ah!”—and from that very moment, "Dirt" sinks its teeth in. I already liked “Man in the Box,” but it was “Them Bones” that really made my ears perk up. That jagged, violent hook that explodes into a chorus is simply unforgettable. Jerry Cantrell’s songwriting is razor-sharp, the vocal harmonies are dialed in with eerie precision, and Layne Staley is at the top of his game. “I lie dead under red sky,” he wails—and though I didn’t know it at the time, Staley was deep in the throes of an addiction that would ultimately claim his life. Clocking in at just 2:30, “Them Bones” delivers a harrowing snapshot of that inner torment.

And the album doesn’t let up.

“Dam That River” barrels forward with the kind of swagger Guns N’ Roses once had before they became wickety-wack and the bloated laughingstock of the music business. The guitars here are gritty, and Staley delivers the lyrics with venom. Then comes “Rain When I Die,” with its jarring, off-kilter guitars that crawl under your skin. It’s one of the creepiest—and most effective—songs on the album, grounded by those haunting, stacked harmonies and a vocal performance from Staley that sounds like he’s singing for his life.

“Down in a Hole” feels almost tender, if such a word can be used here. It’s bleak but beautiful, buoyed by some of the most devastatingly gorgeous harmony vocals Staley and Cantrell ever put to tape. These dudes knew what the were doing because it's these harmonies that set Alice in Chains apart from their grunge rivals like Nirvana and Soundgarden.

Then there’s “Rooster,” one of the album’s towering singles and one of its emotional peaks. Written by Cantrell about his father’s experience in Vietnam—his nickname was “Rooster”—the song is cinematic in scope and gut-wrenching in delivery. Staley’s vocal work here is masterful--as always--as he drops into a low, soulful register on the verses, then lets loose with primal screams in the chorus that sound like generational trauma. It’s an astonishing performance and one of the biggest reasons "Dirt" ranks so high on this list.

Much has been written about “Junkhead,” and with good reason. It’s one of the most brutally honest songs about heroin ever recorded—not a PSA, not a glamorization, just raw testimony. Staley sings it from the junkie’s perspective: “It ain’t so bad,” “I do it a lot.” Some took these lines as endorsements, but all you have to do is listen to the doomsday guitars to know otherwise. This wasn’t a celebration—it was a confession. And if any doubt remained, the next song, “Dirt,” makes it crystal clear that he knew these choices would destroy him. He seemed to welcome it.

Pair Cantrell’s razor-wire songwriting with one of the greatest vocalists in rock history and you’ve already got something special. But when Staley and Cantrell harmonized—those dark, perfect harmonies—it somehow made the world feel just a little more bearable. "Dirt" is a towering achievement in a genre that burned bright and fast. And it would be criminal not to mention the album’s closer, the monumental “Would?”—an incredible song that transcends genre and still hits like a freight train. Truly magnificent.

Yes, I jumped on the Alice in Chains train late. Staley was already dead before I listened to any of their albums. I got their greatest hits CD through the BMG club back in the early 2000s and fell in love with those vocals. If "Dirt" is too extreme for your tastes but you still want to explore Alice in Chains, I highly suggest that collection, the one with the guy getting his nose punched in on the cover.

Metallica divides their fans—and few albums illustrate that divide better than "Master of Puppets". When it dropped in 1986, its impact on rock music was undeniable. Critics and fans alike went lady gaga over it, hailing it as a masterstroke of heavy metal. But even as the band was ascending to legendary status, they were unraveling behind the scenes. Bassist Cliff Burton had recently died in a tragic tour bus accident, and the remaining band members were bickering their way through grief and growing fame.

Rather than retreating, Metallica doubled down—only not in the direction some fans hoped. As they leaned into more melodic, accessible sounds with future releases, new fans flocked in droves while longtime headbangers felt betrayed. Those of us who held "Master of Puppets" dear felt like we’d been abandoned for a softer, shinier version of the band. (Thankfully, I was never a full-fledged Metallica disciple, so I recovered from the heartbreak in about eight minutes.)

But what is it about "Master of Puppets" that makes metalheads shoot a load in their dungarees? I won’t pretend to be a genre expert, but what I can say is that the songwriting on this record is just plain solid. The tracks are—dare I say it—catchy and listenable, even though those words might be blasphemous in certain metal circles, white men who feel that this type of music belongs exclusively to them. The riffs are tight, the transitions smart, and the arrangements ambitious without being bloated.

Maybe that’s why this album continues to be hailed as one of metal’s highest watermarks. The opener, “Battery,” doesn’t waste time easing you in—it grabs your throat and doesn’t let go. But the crown jewel is the nearly nine-minute title track “Master of Puppets,” a sprawling, riff-heavy epic that earns every second of its runtime. “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” flirts with being a ballad, complete with eerie quiet moments and sing-along passages that somehow feel right at home amidst the chaos. “Disposable Heroes” might be the second-best track here, a blistering anti-war anthem that critiques how the military chews up young men and spits them out. And closer “Damage, Inc.” is the most indebted to their thrash metal roots—pure fury, no filler, no let-up.

Here’s how I know "Master of Puppets" is special: I bought both the album that came before it ("Ride the Lightning") and the one that came after ("…And Justice for All"). The latter is solid, no doubt, but neither one hits with the same clarity and controlled firepower as "Master." My college roommate used to blast the “Black Album” that sold a zillion copies, and despite repeated exposure, it never left a mark on me.

Would I recommend "Master of Puppets" to someone who’s never ventured into metal? Honestly, I’m not sure. My ears were already halfway attuned to rock music, so I didn’t need shock therapy to get into this record. But if you’re open-minded and willing to meet the music halfway, "Master of Puppets" might just surprise you. It’s intense, it’s expertly crafted, and it remains one of the most revered albums in heavy music—for good reason.

The 1960s had the Beatles, and quite frankly, nobody else even came close. They didn’t just dominate the charts—they were the charts. Of the top 20 best-selling albums released in that decade, eight belong to them. Sure, other 60s acts sold millions eventually, but that happened over the course of decades, not during the actual decade itself.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that record companies finally caught on: albums weren’t just art—they were big business. And since the Beatles had gone kaput by 1970, the industry needed to spread the commercial love around. Enter a parade of (mostly white) acts: Led Zeppelin, The Bee Gees, The Eagles, Steve Miller Band, Billy Joel, Carole King, and many more who moved truckloads of vinyl.

How white was this parade? Well, of the top 79 best-selling albums of the 1970s, only one was by a Black artist: Michael Jackson’s "Off the Wall", which came in at #16. Earth, Wind & Fire’s "Greatest Hits" just barely squeaked onto the list at #80. You see the pattern.

Still, you can’t argue with pop brilliance, and "Rumours" is just that. It was the sixth best-selling album of the 1970s and currently sits at #12 overall. Lindsey Buckingham anchors the record with a stew of guitar rock, folk, rockabilly, and a little country seasoning. Christine McVie holds it all together with her sunny pop instincts and calm lyrical hand. Their compositions? Top notch. But "Rumours" would not have meant a thing if it ain't had that swing, that swing being (oooooh, oooooh) Witchy Woman Stevie Nicks.

Stevie was the band’s ethereal enchantress, a woman with a slightly scratchy, completely mesmerizing voice that made you lean in closer just to feel what she was feeling. She didn’t play instruments—unless you count the tambourine. (Most don't. Did you ever have friends who rushed home after school for tambourine lessons? Nope.). Her real instrument was the stage itself: twirling in thigh-high boots with 99-inch heels while draped in chiffon and casting some serious stank-eye at her ex, Lindsey, while singing support vocals on the very songs he'd written expressing what a bitch she was.

That tension didn’t stop her—it fueled her. Nicks delivered the band’s only #1 hit, “Dreams,” and arguably its best song, the deliciously eerie “Gold Dust Woman.” She also wrote “Silver Springs” for the album, a stunner that was unfairly relegated to B-side status due to “time constraints”—a.k.a. band politics. They didn’t want Stevie to have too many tracks on the record. But let’s be real: I’d trade “Silver Springs” for any of the other non-Nicks cuts on the album.

"Rumours" deserves its accolades. It turned Fleetwood Mac into pop rock legends and created a cultural moment so massive it’s still reverberating. The band never again reached those dizzying heights, though they continued making solid music into the ‘80s and ‘90s—even after everyone took turns trying on solo careers.

Only Stevie Nicks came close to solo stardom, but even she couldn’t twirl her way out from under the long, towering shadow of "Rumours". Her first two albums popped off, but after that, the glitter started to fade. Still, one can’t deny that Stevie—like the album itself—is iconic, mystical, complicated… and unforgettable.

For me, hard rock is a hard sell. There are four hard rock albums on this list (three metal, one grunge), and within the vast pantheon of rock music, those three are literally the only ones I’m studyin’ 'bout. For any of these records to have landed here, something magical had to happen in the mix. With Metallica, that magic lies in the production. Guns N’ Roses leaned into a melodic rock that even Granny could hum along to—so long as she didn’t listen too closely to the lyrics.

As for the magic of British rock outfit The Cult, I’ve got two words for ya'llz asses: Ian Astbury.

Ian Astbury is nowhere near hard rock’s best male singer—Chris Cornell takes that crown—but on "Electric", he delivers one helluva performance. There’s zero let-up on this record. Every track is a full-throttle, balls-to-the-wall tour de force, even the widely panned cover of “Born to Be Wild.” The real highlight here is Astbury’s no-holds-barred, drunk-biker, wild-and-woolly vocal delivery. Tracks like “Peace Dog,” “Ocean of Love,” “Big Fun,” and especially the bluesy “Memphis Hip Shake” show how an endless supply of male bravado and barrels of Kentucky whiskey can turn singing into a hell of a lot of fun.

Credit goes to Rick Rubin, who knew exactly how to channel that raw energy. Few albums from this era are as stripped down or straightforward. It’s just guitar, bass, drums, and a singer tearing through each track like he’s got a bar fight to win. Other power singers may be more technical or polished, but Astbury isn’t competing with any of those dudes. He’s singing for the dirtbag bikers who drink Jack Daniels all night and then smash the bottles over each other’s heads.

I say we thank producer Rick Rubin for this glorious mess, because I’ve heard The Cult’s albums before and after "Electric", and though "Sonic Temple" has its moments, nothing else comes close to the pure joy of this kick-ass collection of rock ditties. ("Sonic Temple" was produced by Bob Rock, the dude that smoothed out Metallica for their lame, ga-zillion-selling "Black Album.")

"Electric" kicks some serious ass and is a knockout from start to finish—and one of the reasons I’m grateful I grew up among white dirtbags. Turns out, deep down, I might be one too.

Growing up, we had no white music in our house—except for when Mom bought the 45 of the Bee Gees’ “Too Much Heaven,” a song that somehow went Top 10 on the Black Singles chart. (It’s entirely possible my mother didn’t even know they were white when she plopped down $1.49 for the record back in ’78.) So someone as lily-white as Joni Mitchell was completely off our radar. The first time I really heard of her was when her lovely duet with Peter Gabriel, “My Secret Place,” got some play on VH-1 back in 1988, and later when “Big Yellow Taxi” was sampled for Janet’s “Got ’Til It’s Gone.” I also remember Prince citing her as a major influence, which told me she had to be about something.

Her "Blue" and "Court and Spark" albums were aight and stuff, but I couldn’t quite understand why Prince and Chaka were always bigging her up. Was I missing something?

Yes. I was.

Joni absorbed the criticism of her fantastic—but grossly misunderstood—1975 album "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" and responded by leaning even harder into jazz fusion on the next three records. When I finally got "Hissing", I realized it was this transitional Joni I’d been missing. By the mid-’70s, she had begun moving away from the folk music that made her famous—and, frankly, had me nodding off.

(On the real, "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" belongs on this Top 25 White Albums list. I’m doing the best I can not to overload it with repeat artists, which has been way harder than I expected.)

"Hejira" followed "Hissing", and this time she recruited bass genius Jaco Pastorius to anchor four of the nine songs on the record. It’s no coincidence those tracks are the standouts.

The album as a whole is sparse, lonely, haunting, and deeply insular. "Hejira" feels like being on a long, solitary bus ride, staring out the window as one barren landscape after another slides by. The best song here is arguably the opener, “Coyote,” which perfectly showcases Jaco’s brilliance as he pushes the track along at a restless, forward-moving clip.

From there, the record unfolds like a series of internal monologues—restless, unresolved, and emotionally unguarded. These songs don’t chase hooks or easy resolutions; they sit in the uncertainty, letting space and silence do as much work as the melodies. This is the Joni that Prince heard. The Joni that Chaka respected. Not the folk darling, but the artist willing to abandon comfort, commercial expectations, and even her own audience in service of something deeper.

So yes, I was missing something. I was missing the grown, jazz-minded, spiritually adventurous Joni Mitchell—the one who stopped explaining herself and trusted the listener to either keep up or get left behind. And once you finally meet that Joni, there’s no looking back. And I haven't.

Say what you will about Madonna—there’s no denying the seismic impact she’s had on nearly every corner of popular music and culture. And it all starts here, with her fearless, kinetic 1983 debut. This tight eight-track set crackles with confidence and naked ambition: half of it is stone-cold classic material, while the rest more than holds its own with style and attitude. (Only one track truly fails to cut the mustard.)

Madonna is routinely cited as one of the most important pop artists of all time, but what often gets lost in the mythology is just how solid she was as a songwriter from the jump. “Lucky Star,” “Burning Up,” “Holiday,” and “Everybody” aren’t merely hit singles—they’re cultural fixtures, embedded in the collective memory like yearbook quotes for an entire generation.

The crown jewel is the immortal “Borderline,” a perfect balance of melancholy and youthful exhilaration. It’s tender without being soft, danceable without being hollow—a song that aches and moves in equal measure. And then there’s Madonna’s glacial, sex-charged delivery on “Physical Attraction,” where she sounds like she’s daring you to come closer while simultaneously letting you know she couldn’t care less if you do. Pure icon behavior.

At the helm was Reggie Lucas, a production heavyweight who—alongside James Mtume—had already worked serious magic on the R&B charts with Stephanie Mills, Phyllis Hyman, and Roberta Flack. While Jellybean Benitez would later remix “Holiday” and a few other tracks to better suit Madonna’s vision, it was Lucas who built the skeleton of this album. Still, once Madonna started fucking Jellybean, the narrative shifted. Suddenly, it was his record. The media—and Madonna herself—helped push that story, quietly nudging Lucas’s contributions into the shadows.

To be fair, Lucas didn’t do himself any favors. He underestimated Madonna’s vision, dismissed her instincts, reportedly called her a nobody, and ignored her input. She responded by firing him, finishing the album with Jellybean, and becoming the biggest pop star on the planet. To the victor go the spoils.

By all accounts, Madonna was already a master manipulator long before she became a household name. A user. A tactician. A total bumbaclot. But listen—it worked. I can’t knock her hustle.

I had to actively restrain myself from including on this short list at least one of her later, “blacker” albums that flirt with classic status: "Music", "Confessions on a Dance Floor", and—yes, believe it or not—the underrated "Bedtime Stories". The snoozy "Ray of Light" filled her red wagon with awards, and "Like a Virgin" turned her into a megastar, but as albums, both are hit-or-miss. And if we’re being honest, Madonna’s catalog is wildly uneven—delectable monster jams sitting right next to heaping servings of crap-a-roni. (How are "Vogue" and "Hanky Panky" from the same album?!) She shines brightest in curated form. Slap together a Madonna mixtape—stacked with career-defining hits and a generous helping of deep album cuts—and you're good to go. Luckily, she’s got truckloads of both.

But when it comes to full-length statements, "Madonna" remains her crowning achievement. Unfortunately, that triumph came at a cost to others: the album’s tumultuous creation permanently damaged Reggie Lucas’s reputation in the industry. After 1983, he never helmed another major album and went largely unsung until his death in 2018. And where has Jellybean been since they broke up? (Pronounce that "been" with an English accent.)

And as for Madonna, she pulled a reverse Vanessa Williams with her debut: she went and saved the best for first.

Where the hell did Portishead find Beth Gibbons? A sanitarium? Did they talk her down off a ledge and ask her to join the band on the way down? Depression has never sounded so good—or so funky—as it does on Portishead’s debut album, "Dummy".

Trip Hop was already bubbling in the U.K. thanks to folks like Tricky and Massive Attack, but Portishead took the genre’s hip-hop beats and turntable aesthetics and drenched them in something far heavier: sadness, melancholy, and a sense of emotional collapse. Beth Gibbons’ gloriously aching vocals don’t just float over the tracks—they bleed into them.

It’s no secret that I gravitate toward arrangements that conjure melancholy and poignancy—but who would’ve thought to lay those emotions atop slowed-down hip-hop beats? "Dummy" isn’t the first Trip Hop album, but by any reasonable measure, it’s the best of the bunch, and Beth Gibbons’ fractured, tortured vocals are the reason why. Yes, the beats, scratching, and sampling are brilliant—pulling from recognizable sources like the "Mission: Impossible" theme and Isaac Hayes’ “Ike’s Rap II,” then weaving them together with more obscure fusion-jazz snippets from artists like Weather Report. But some of the most effective “samples” were created by Portishead themselves: recording riffs to vinyl, literally running the records over with their cars to rough them up, and then spinning that damage back into the music.

Here’s the thing: if anyone other than Beth had been on the mic, some of these tracks might’ve crossed over as U.S. club hits. But with her agony-soaked delivery, the cloud of depression never lifts—not even when the beats are at their most seductive. That’s her magic. She has an uncanny ability to shift tone and emotional weight from track to track, subtly but decisively.

She sounds almost hopeful on the opener “Mysterons,” before sliding into quiet desperation on “Sour Times,” then sinking into full-on somber resignation on “It Could Be Sweet.” All three could easily bang out of a low-riding Impala on an L.A. freeway—if it weren’t for Beth constantly reining in the groove, grounding it in sorrow. The same holds true for the hip-hop-leaning “Wandering Star,” built around scratching from the rap standard “Magic Mountain.” Swap Beth out for Tracy Thorn and you might’ve had a dance-chart hit. Instead, Beth’s restrained, shadowy delivery keeps the track just out of reach of mainstream ears, cloaked in delicious spookiness.

Side two kicks off with the relatively aggressive “Numb”—well, at least the clock-tower bell snare and scratching are. Beth, meanwhile, continues detailing how solitude is pulling her deeper into a personal tailspin. Things turn downright devastating with “Roads,” one of the album’s most exquisite moments. The dramatic strings swell just enough to frame Beth’s despair without drowning it, resulting in something genuinely sublime.

The band flips the script on “Pedestal,” exacting revenge with an overwhelming bassline, sharp scratching, and a jazzy interlude. Beth is at her catty best here—not depressed so much as sly, sneaky, and quietly venomous. “Biscuit” is another standout, featuring a creepy, slowed-down horn line and a zombified Johnny Ray crooning “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.” The album closes with one of its least adventurous tracks musically—leaning heavily on Isaac Hayes’ “Ike’s Mood”—but once again Beth transforms herself vocally, summoning her inner undead narrator to tell us just how sick she is of Cupid and his bullshit bow and arrow.

There’s no overstating the impact "Dummy" had on alternative music. It seamlessly fused genres and emotional states that traditionally repel each other. Hip Hop is often aggressive, macho, and confrontational; Trip Hop keeps the beats but replaces the bravado with gloom. No one has ever done that better than Portishead did here. Beth Gibbons is the undeniable X factor. No matter how funky the production gets, your attention is always pulled back to her voice—fragile, wounded, and magnetic.

For all the production wizardry on display, this album ultimately lives and dies with Beth. She turns what could’ve been another brilliant-but-remote headphone classic—like DJ Shadow’s "Endtroducing", best enjoyed as background ambiance at the Buddha Bar—into a record that demands your full attention. You’re drawn into her sadness, her desolation, half-wondering if she’ll even make it through the album intact. And you might even sing along once your Prozac kicks in.

Portishead’s follow-up leaned harder into the creep factor, both sonically and vocally, moving away from head-nodding beats and toward something more austere. Critics ate it up. Some fans checked out. But "Dummy" remains their defining moment—the perfect balance of groove and gloom—and it more than earns its place here as one of the most haunting debuts of its era.

My Colombian roommate came home from work one day while I was deep into my Steely Dan playlist.

“Why you listen this music today?” he asked. “Today no Sunday.”
“I know,” I said patiently. “I listen to Yacht Rock on Sundays. This is Steely Dan, and they are not Yacht Rock.”

He stared at me for a second, rolled his eyes, and said, “Whatever you say,” before walking away, thoroughly unconvinced.

You believe this guy?! The nerve. Confusing Steely Dan with Yacht Rock. He must’ve been on crack.

But then again, Steely Dan has always been divisive—two smug, confounding jokers who seemed to enjoy being misunderstood. People who don’t get them really, really hate them. Pretentious. Aloof. Elitist. What the fuck are they even talking about half the time? The lyrics are opaque on purpose, daring the listener to put in the work, crack the code, and earn the pleasure. Some folks leaned in. Most—like my roommate—rolled their eyeballs and bounced.

And yet, despite all the shade thrown their way, Becker and Fagen stacked up gold and platinum albums throughout the ’70s, each one sharper, colder, and more meticulously crafted than the last.

The full realization of their vision arrived with "Aja" in 1977: a jazz-slick, immaculately produced album so pristine it practically sneers at you through the speakers. Drink all the Haterade you want, but there’s no denying this thing is flawless from front to back. It opens with “Black Cow,” which immediately scrambles expectations. Funk? From Steely Dan? Absolutely. That bassline could’ve come straight out of a Roy Ayers session—just tightened up, starched, and handed a sarcastic grin. It’s slick, nasty, and smug all at once.

The title track, “Aja,” isn’t even trying to be approachable. This is the pretentious flex people have been hating Steely Dan for since day one. A seven-minute jazz-rock suite with solos so clean they feel medically installed. Wayne Shorter drops in, annihilates the track with surgical precision, and disappears without explanation. Then Steve Gadd closes it out with a drum solo that is, let’s be honest, mostly showing off. Becker and Fagen famously auditioned dozens of musicians for each instrument, forcing them to fight for a coveted slot on the record. That’s why so much of Aja feels clinical, ostentatious, and borderline arrogant—exactly as they intended.

“Deacon Blues” seems to be about choosing artistic failure over conventional success, romanticizing beautiful losers, and deciding that jazz is worth more than money. Whether or not that’s true is beside the point. What matters is that this song appears to have a heart. You can hear something approaching actual feeling in Fagen’s delivery, making it a solemn, beautiful anthem for every brilliant underachiever who ever decided to zig instead of zag.

Boy do I love me some “Peg.” Adore it. Worship it. This is a career single and a masterclass in deceptive pop perfection. In the late ’70s, it was damn near impossible to achieve pop perfection without Michael McDonald’s background vocals floating in like silk sheets fresh off a Malibu clothesline. The groove snaps and sways effortlessly, and for once Fagen actually sounds happy—borderline giddy—fully aware that they nailed something special. Of course, it wasn’t effortless at all. They labored endlessly over the arrangement, auditioned at least eight guitarists for that microscopic solo, and drove everyone slightly insane. McDonald has since admitted that Becker and Fagen’s nitpicky, obsessive recording process made laying down his vocals unpleasant. But hey—real artists bleed for their art, right, Mikey?

“I Got the News” slides in slick and understated, hiding some of the album’s most complex rhythmic gymnastics beneath its smooth exterior. This is Steely Dan at their most diabolical: smiling politely while playing circles around everyone else. The lyrics drip with passive-aggressive heartbreak, like a breakup conducted over cocktails with impeccable posture. “Home at Last” follows, settling into a weary, shuffling groove loosely inspired by "The Odyssey" but emotionally grounded in late-’70s burnout. Bernard Purdie’s drums alone are worth the price of admission. It sounds like someone who’s been everywhere, done everything, and still doesn’t feel settled.

Finally, “Josie” stomps in to remind you that yes—these nerds could rock if they felt like it. It’s muscular, cocky, and struts to the finish line like a victory lap. (Just try not to confuse the slutty “Josie” with the pristine “Peg.”)

So no—this is not Yacht Rock, no matter what my Colombian friend says. Yacht Rock is for people who want vibes without commitment. It’s Sunday background music. "Aja" demands attention, rewards obsession, and is made for listeners who read liner notes, argue about session musicians, and don’t mind debating what the hell all of it means in the grand scheme of things.

And if you don’t get it?
That’s fine too.
Steely Dan ain’t gonna give a fuck either way.

When it came time to divvy up the musical genres Black folks invented, we collectively decided that bluegrass, folk, rock, and country weren’t worth fighting over. We let white people keep those while we held on to the cooler stuff: soul, R&B, the blues, pop, disco, dance, trap, and rap. If we’d sent wipepo off to invent their own music from scratch, they’d come back with bullshit like “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. His name is my name toooo!” That wack shit don’t even rhyme.

And speaking of rhyming, some people love to claim that white folks “took over” rap because of the Beastie Boys and Eminem. That’s like saying Black people run the United States because Obama was president. Outliers don’t count.

That said, white people have done some damned good work from time to time. Exhibit A: “Paul’s Boutique.”

Truth be told, this is one of the rap albums I engage with the least—not because it doesn’t reward repeat listening, but because it refuses to be treated like casual entertainment. You don’t throw this record on while lemon-Pledge-ing the furniture or watching the Mets lose…again. You either sit with it or you don’t bother at all. When it dropped, critics and fans alike blew it—not because the album failed, but because they weren’t interested in growing up with the Beastie Boys. They wanted keg stands, bong loads, and another “Brass Monkey” to scream while spitting beer on some unfortunate bystander. This album offered none of that, and people panicked.

Calling “Paul’s Boutique” an album is already underselling it. It’s more like an audio assault—an aggressively detailed, constantly shifting sprawl stuffed with characters who pop in, disappear, and never explain themselves. There’s no narrative spine, no emotional roadmap, and absolutely no concern for listener comfort. It’s hip hop that assumes you’re smart enough to keep up with the cultural innuendo, half-buried references, and sideways insults—and if you ain't, then well, that's on you.

Despite the Brooklyn storefront title, the album refuses to stay put. Geography means nothing here. It ricochets across America—deserts, highways, classrooms, trailer parks—because the Beasties were no longer boxed in by New York’s density or its expectations. Los Angeles mattered. The sprawl, the sunshine, the physical and cultural distance from rap’s ground zero gave them room to breathe. They weren’t suffocating under tradition or peer pressure anymore. Out west, they were free to think way, way outside the box.

That freedom scared the shit out of Def Jam. The label thrived on immediacy, formulas, and records that announced themselves instantly. Def Jam didn’t want ambition—they wanted returns, and another novelty smash like “Licensed to Ill” seemed good enough. But the Beasties were uninterested in—and more than a little embarrassed by—the dumb chants for dumb people they’d authored in 1986. This new record was the polar opposite: dense, expensive and proudly unconcerned with chart placement. Def Jam passed on the vision, froze checks for music and tours already completed by them, and made it clear they were longer in support of the rapidly maturing and less marketable group. The Beasties wanted out.

The move west wasn’t betrayal—it was a jailbreak. And once in California, they found the perfect accomplices in the Dust Brothers. These guys weren’t just producers; they were mad scientists. While other hip hop records looped one recognizable sample into submission, the Dust Brothers treated sampling like musical Legos. Tiny fragments stacked, snapped together, and animated into something alive—overcrowded but never sloppy. The audacity of the sampling here is still unmatched. Decades later, people are still discovering new sources, usually by accident.

The sequencing is intentionally merciless. No breathing room. No reflection. One idea slams into the next before your brain catches up. Puns, inside jokes, pop culture debris, and deep-cut references fly past at highway speed. The Beasties interrupt each other mid-bar, finish each other’s thoughts incorrectly, and refuse to explain anything. Even the printed lyrics are hostile—annoying printed in a tiny font and crammed together like the album itself doesn’t want you decoding it.

Fans who abandoned this record weren’t betrayed—they opted out. They wanted the Beastie Boys to remain a cartoon forever, preserved in beer-soaked amber and backward baseball caps. “Paul’s Boutique” demanded curiosity, patience, and the humility to accept that the band might be smarter than the audience. That was a deal-breaker for a lot of people—including a disgraced, runaway mogul named Russell Simmons. Too bad.

Time has been kind to this album, but only because hip hop eventually got lazy enough for people to recognize how insane it really was. In hindsight, the excess looks like genius. “B-Boy Bouillabaisse” alone is a career’s worth of ideas hacked into fragments, proof that restraint—not imagination—is what kept this thing from becoming an even bigger monster.

If there’s a film comparison to make, it’s not about narrative—it’s about density and confidence. This is the Tarantino of hip hop: maximalist, referential, unapologetic, and fully aware it’s operating on a different level. You don’t need to catch every reference to feel the impact. You just have to surrender.

That’s why “Paul’s Boutique” still towers over so much of what came after it. At the time, it didn’t chase approval and never bothered to explain itself, confident that sooner or later we’d catch up. Def Jam couldn’t handle the rapidly evolving Beasties, and casual fans didn’t deserve this upgraded version anyway. True to its name, “Paul’s Boutique” is snooty, high-end hip hop—music that, in its day, only let a few people past the velvet rope.

People hate Coldplay, and honestly? I get it. Remember the viral video when Chris Martin publicly clocked an “adorable” embracing couple at one of their concerts, only for it to turn out to be a married man and his side piece—blowing up a whole marriage and a high-paying job in one swoop? Annoying little turds, those bloody Brits.

But before I ever saw their faces—before the stadiums, the LED wristbands, and the emotionally manipulative group therapy masquerading as uplift—a British friend who knew how deeply I worshipped the bleak majesty of Radiohead’s "OK Computer" handed me a burned CD with "Parachutes" scrawled on it in Sharpie. He said, “You’re gonna like this,” and walked away.

He ain’t nevah lied.

He understood my weakness: sad music. And "Parachutes" is basically one long depressive episode broken into tracks. Looks like Chris Martin forgot to take his Zoloft again and sounds like he might burst into tears at any moment, and the album lives in that fragility. It’s hushed, uncertain, emotionally exposed—further proof that nobody does melancholy quite like the Brits.

This is one of the most atmospheric, insecure, and quietly beautiful debut albums of its era. It doesn’t demand your attention; it asks for it. Where most new artists swing wildly for the fences, "Parachutes" whispers and hopes you lean in. Martin comes off needy, shy, and not at all convinced he belongs in the spotlight—and that insecurity is the album’s greatest strength.

“Don’t Panic” opens things up with the line “we live in a beautiful world,” but it’s delivered with such doubt that you’re not convinced he believes it himself. “Shiver” is the closest thing here to a rocker, yet even then, that yearning falsetto suggests someone emotionally bracing for rejection. “Spies” tightens the mood, adding a layer of adolescent paranoia and quietly setting the table for the album’s first truly great moment.

“Sparks” is the emotional nucleus of "Parachutes": a stripped-down, acoustic-and-bass-driven exercise in glum intimacy. It’s gorgeous without trying, sad without wallowing, carried almost entirely by Martin’s raspy, reassuring British phrasing. This is where the album tells you exactly what it is—and what it isn’t. Everything afterward follows its lead. “Yellow,” ironically, is my least favorite track. It reaches for transcendence, but Martin is far more compelling when he’s doubting himself than when he’s aiming for the heavens.

“Trouble” and “We Never Change” play perfectly to his strengths. “Trouble” opens with a mournful piano that pairs beautifully with its spider-web metaphor of self-inflicted entrapment. “We Never Change” contains my favorite vocal moment on the entire album: Martin’s voice nearly breaks during one of the choruses. Bless the producer for leaving it in. That crack adds intimacy, sincerity, and an almost uncomfortable honesty—like you’re sitting too close to someone confessing something real. (“High Speed” deserves a nod here too, with its alienation and subtle, Radiohead-adjacent unease.)

“Everything’s Not Lost” closes the album on a restrained but hopeful note—the kind of song that should be the emotional peak of a Coldplay concert. I’m aware they’ve likely replaced it with the horrifyingly sanctimonious “Fix You,” which is exactly why I’ve never dragged my own side piece to see them live. Still, the guitar riff and those “ah-ah-yeahs” were tailor-made for lighters in the air, and for once, that’s not an insult.

"Parachutes" gave me renewed faith in British pop, which makes it baffling that Chris Martin has since dismissed it as “terrible music,” especially given the glossy, focus-grouped pop garbage that followed. I don’t know if he’s embarrassed by its vulnerability or just developed an allergy to sincerity, but I long for a return to this Coldplay: humble, introspective, emotionally naked.

Because "Parachutes" isn’t just a great debut—it’s a cautionary tale. A reminder of what happens when a band starts with a soul and slowly trades it in for mass appeal. Still, what’s here deserves to be written into the history books.

Or at the very least, reenacted on an episode of "Cheaters", depending on how you look at it.)

Ian McCulloch, the lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen, once declared that "Ocean Rain" was the greatest record ever made. Peak British arrogance, right? And yet—when I’m in the proper headspace, when I’ve cleared my spirit and dimmed the lights—I kinda agree with his conceited ass.

"Ocean Rain" is giddy in places, downright spooky in others. It’s the sound of a band consciously shedding their punk skin and deciding to make an adult record—full orchestra, baroque flourishes, drama for days. The result is haunting, theatrical, and undeniably beautiful. The title track alone routinely brings tears to my eyes, and it remains my favorite thing they ever committed to tape.

Which brings us to the obvious question: why are English bands—especially those orbiting Manchester—so bloody arrogant? Oasis, Stone Roses, Suede… the confidence is practically hostile. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: the Brits have historically been so far ahead of everyone else in rock, pop, and alternative music that the arrogance often feels… earned. (Except Oasis. They’re arrogant and they stink, so they’re excluded from this grace.)

That edge comes from their relationship with Black music. British artists didn’t just swipe from Black American music of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s—they studied it. They absorbed the rebellion, the daring, the honesty, the emotional messiness. White American artists, by contrast, tend to treat Black music like a focus-grouped buffet: shave off the danger, discard the heart, and keep whatever might chart. In the U.S., music is capitalism first and expression second; you earn the right to be personal by selling units. In the U.K., at least from the ’60s through the late ’80s, the math seemed reversed: make something artistically sound and hope it sells. Sometimes it did. Spectacularly.

Echo and the Bunnymen fall squarely into that lineage. I should probably know more about them than I do—I own their first five albums, the so-called “classic period”—but my real intimacy lies with "Crocodiles", their greatest hits, the excellent self-titled album, and, eventually, "Ocean Rain". For a long time, I thought that self-titled record was their peak. But albums have a way of haunting you when you’re not looking, and "Ocean Rain" kept creeping back into my consciousness.

This is a spooky-ass album: demonic imagery, baroque strings, cavernous echoes, strange textures, and lyrics that seem to dare you to decode them. But decoding is beside the point. "Ocean Rain" doesn’t want to be understood on that level—it wants to trap you. Once you’re inside, the prism twists and slithers and refuses to let go.

Ironically, the album opens with optimism. “Silver” bursts out with orchestral flourish as McCulloch declares the sky is blue, bragging about walking on tidal waves and swinging from chandeliers like a goth Liberace. That cheerfulness barely lasts two minutes before being drowned by the ominous strings of “Nocturnal Me,” which sets the true tone of the record.

“Nocturnal Me” is the album’s most dramatic moment—and the one that probably sealed the band’s rumored membership in the All-Satan Club. Ian sounds like he's offering up his body for some type of long-term residency:

"Whatever burns burns eternally / So take me in turns, internally / When I'm on fire / My body will be / Forever yours, Nocturnal me"

Either inviting a fire spirit to possess his soul or was singing from the perspective of the lone bottom at a bath house gang bang. You be the judge.

Whether it’s actual devil worship or just high-grade theatrical blasphemy, the song is magnificent. McCulloch’s vocal is possessed and histrionic, the strings sound like they were dragged straight out of the abyss, and it’s easily Beelzebub’s best marketing campaign since Robert Johnson went down to the crossroads.

“Crystal Days” is the weakest cut, mostly because its optimism arrives too soon after “Nocturnal Me,” blunting its effect—though even at its weakest, this album is still strong. It slides into the quirky “Yo Yo Man,” with its Spanish guitar flourishes and icy, echo-drenched vocals. McCulloch delivers the lyrics with a flat, alien calm, as if everything he’s saying makes perfect sense and the rest of us are just slow.

Side One closes with the creaky, menacing “Thorn of Crowns,” which seems to take potshots at Christianity and ritualized piety. Ian cackles about cucumbers, cabbage, and cauliflower while promising to wear his crown of thorns inside out, upside down, and backwards. He ends the track barking “down, down, down” until the music crashes back in. Is it Satanism or just a gloriously juvenile middle finger to the sacred? Doesn’t matter. It lands.

“The Killing Moon” is the album’s commercial breakthrough and remains its most accessible moment. Built in a minor key, it opens with ominous guitar and McCulloch channeling peak Jim Morrison as he stands beneath a “sky all hung with jewels,” awaiting some final reckoning. Death? Damnation? Romantic doom? Take your pick. It’s haunting, cinematic, and perfectly pitched.

The album drifts onward with the hypnotic pairing of “Seven Seas” and “My Kingdom.” “Seven Seas” is tender and melodic, starting quietly before blooming into something gently hopeful—bells chiming, imagery drifting, tortoise shells inexplicably kissed. (Fine, Ian. We’ll allow it.) “My Kingdom” might be even more beautiful, not for its chorus but for its plucked Spanish guitar and winding verses.

The title track deserves its own space. I didn’t get “Ocean Rain” at first—I even left it off an old cassette dub of the album, which now feels like a moral failing on my part. But once it clicked, it wrecked me. This is the most remarkable song in the Bunnymen catalog. It approaches slowly, like a vessel emerging through fog, using restrained orchestration to conjure waves, storms, and inevitability. By the end, McCulloch’s final wail signals that the sea has claimed everyone aboard, leaving only silence and depth. It’s devastating. It still makes me cry.

"Ocean Rain" was followed by the sleeker, more user-friendly self-titled album—the one that initially made me a true believer. But as time passed, I found myself drawn back to the melodrama, melancholy, and unapologetic excess of "Ocean Rain". Yes, McCulloch declared it the greatest album ever made. Other loudmouths—Oasis idiots, Terence Trent D’Arby—have made similar claims about their own work.

But only the Bunnymen came thisclose to being right.

The first concert I ever attended featured Whodini, LL Cool J, and headliners Run-DMC. The second concert I ever saw was U2, touring behind "The Joshua Tree". That is one hell of a pivot, culturally and sonically. Up to that point, I thought U2 was… fine. Decent. Respectable. After that night, I was stunned.

When I bought—meaning stole—the album from the local K-Mart, I fell hard. "The Joshua Tree" spoke in yearning, sadness, reflection, doubt, and spiritual hunger. For a stretch of time, this record was everything to me.

Before that fateful 1988 concert, my relationship with U2 was casual at best. I remember seeing the “Sunday Bloody Sunday” video on MTV and finding Bono charismatic, the song agreeable. (I was crushing hard on Larry Mullen, Jr., the spiky-haired, big-nosed, towhead drummer.). I loved “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and initially thought “With or Without You” was just… okay. Based on that limited exposure, there was no reason to believe that the album fueling The Joshua Tree Tour would end up having such a massive impact on my life.

So let’s talk about "The Joshua Tree".

Side One leans toward the more accessible material: “Where the Streets Have No Name” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” I never really connected with the former, but the latter grew on me over time—especially once I mentally separated it from that irritating video. What becomes immediately clear here, and throughout the album, is just how effective a vocalist Bono actually is. He brings vulnerability and steel in equal measure, and while his delivery is almost always over-the-top, it’s usually earned. He doesn’t just sing the song—he testifies.

“With or Without You” eventually won me over too. It’s classic U2: start small, build slowly, hit an emotional crescendo, then leave you wrung out and hollowed. “Bullet the Blue Sky” tears into America’s underbelly with righteous fury, while “Running to Stand Still” offers a bleak, intimate portrait of heroin addiction. Like “Ocean Rain,” this was a song I wasn’t mature enough to fully appreciate in high school. Years later, its poignancy landed hard. Bono sings most of it in a restrained lower register before unleashing the storm, then retreats again, leaving only a lonely harmonica behind. It’s devastating—and my favorite track on the entire side.

Side Two is where "The Joshua Tree" becomes transcendent.

“Red Hill Mining Town” is a masterclass in drama and quiet devastation. When Bono sings, “I’m hanging on / You’re all that’s left to hold on to,” you can hear his heart cracking as a town fades into darkness. Compared to the more atmospheric experimentation of "The Unforgettable Fire", this album adds stronger melodies, sharper chord changes, and a newfound songwriting focus. Bono’s vocal excess is finally matched by some of the band’s best compositions.

“In God’s Country” showcases The Edge at his sharpest, all serrated guitar lines and forward momentum. Then comes one of my all-time favorite U2 tracks: the country-inflected “A Trip Through Your Wires.” "The Joshua Tree" is essentially an album-length love letter and indictment of America, and here Bono temporarily drops the judgment and leans fully into the romance—hee-hawing his way through the chorus with unguarded joy. The harmonica, acoustic sway, and Mason-Dixon imagery all tap into middle-American mythos, a fascination British artists have long had with the New World. (I’ve always loved country-tinged music when it’s done outside the genre—Aretha’s “The Weight,” Lionel Richie’s “Sail On,” Stevie Nicks, Clapton’s “Lay Down Sally,” even the Pointer Sisters’ “Fire.”)

Then comes “One Tree Hill.” My favorite U2 song. One of the most sublime moments in pop music, period. Every time Bono belts “Rain! Rain down!” I get chills, and his ad-libbing at the end feels like pure emotional rupture. Written as a tribute to a deceased friend, the song balances grief with fragile hope: “I’ll see you again / When the stars fall from the sky…” It has made me cry more than once and cemented U2’s place among the greatest bands of the last half-century.

The album descends further into darkness with “Exit,” beginning with Adam Clayton’s ominous bass and Bono’s whispered warnings, building into a harrowing sermon about love, despair, and suicide. The Edge slices through the tension, but it’s Bono’s theatrical intensity that pushes the song into something unforgettable. When it ends where it began, that bassline quietly implies the worst: the protagonist didn’t make it.

“Mothers of the Disappeared” closes the album gently. It may be the weakest track on the side, but after five emotionally draining songs, it feels like mercy—an exhale, a return to baseline.

"The Joshua Tree" didn’t just make me love U2—it made me listen differently. Even the era’s B-sides (“Silver and Gold,” the deceptively simple and gorgeous “The Sweetest Thing”) felt essential. This album expanded my musical horizons in real time. Some argue that "Achtung Baby" is the superior record, but for me, "The Joshua Tree" remains U2’s definitive statement: a high-water mark that hasn’t dulled, hasn’t aged, and still hits with the same emotional force decades later.

It was around 1997, and I was in Europe for the first time with my then-boyfriend, a Dominican shawty. And a real R&B diva. We’d just taken the Eurostar from Paris to London, and as we stepped off the train and started walking, we suddenly heard a chorus of girls screaming behind us. Not playful screaming--Chris Brown-level screaming.

We turned around and saw this couple power-walking toward us: hair spiked upward, smeared lipstick, drab black clothes, surrounded by a gaggle of shrieking girls dressed exactly like them. I nearly choked on my gum.

I slapped my palms against my cheeks and screamed just like one of them white girls, “Oh my gawwwwwd! It’s Robert Smith!”
“Who?” Shawty asked, genuinely confused.
“Robert Smith… from The Cure!”
“Robert who from the what?”

While The Cure meant absolutely nothing to most people of color, they were damn near everything to vast swaths of white youth in the ’80s—and to me. And "Disintegration" is a huge part of that.

There isn’t much left to say about an album that’s routinely cited as one of the greatest of all time. I agree with that assessment. When I’m in the right headspace for "Disintegration", it wraps around me like a heavy, damp fog from the very first crash of “Plainsong” to the final, aching keyboard notes of “Untitled.” My favorite song is the sprawling dirge “Same Deep Water As You,” which I have formally requested be played at my funeral while my ashes are carried out to sea. (Or dumped in a vacant lot. I won't care either way because I'll be dead.)

The Cure might be the most consistently brilliant artist in my personal musical pantheon. Luther Vandross gave us six or so excellent albums in a row—from "Never Too Much" through "Any Love"—but his brilliance lived comfortably within the confines of corporate soul. Enjoyable, yes, but artistically static. Prince, on the other hand, delivered six or seven albums of escalating ambition and innovation, culminating in the mind-bending brilliance of "Sign “☮” the Times".

The Cure’s run—from "Boys Don’t Cry" through "Disintegration", plus a host of excellent, free-standing singles—is right on that level. Nine albums that stretch from punky minimalism to suffocating despair to psychedelic funk and back again. Punk ("Boys Don’t Cry"). Bleak and monastic ("Faith", "Disintegration"). Unhinged and funky ("The Top", "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me"). Everything in between. Over time, I’ve even softened toward "Wish" and enjoyed their 2024 comeback album "Songs of a Lost World". I was initially salty because Robert Smith had sworn "Disintegration" would be the end, and I took that personally. But enough years have passed for me to listen to two or three of their post-"Disintegration" record without feeling betrayed.

"Disintegration" is a work of art for people who actively enjoy bathing in gothic gloom. There is nothing overtly pop about it. Even the so-called hits—“Love Song” and “Fascination Street”—are soaked in melancholy. It often feels like Robert Smith is professing love moments before diving off a 20-story building or washing down a bottle of pills with flat soda.

“Pictures of You” is sprawling masterpiece and deserves the love it gets from listeners. But I’ve always gravitated more toward “Closedown,” with its massive drums and bleeding keyboards. “Lullaby” is another standout—few songs have ever made me feel so convincingly like I was being eaten alive by a spider. (And yes, the remix slaps even harder.)

But this album truly ascends in its second half.

“Prayers for Rain” makes you feel like you’re being buried alive, lungs filling with dirt as Robert moans about suffocation and despair. On earlier albums, his voice swung between tragic and clownish, but here there’s no relief valve. No whimsy. Just pain. When he sings, “You shatter me / your grip on me / a hold on me so dull it kills,” you believe every syllable.

Then comes “Same Deep Water As You.” Nine minutes of pure, glacial transcendence. It is the most ethereal, eerie, beautiful, otherworldly song I’ve ever heard. It reaches into a lonely place inside me that few things ever touch—and once it gets there, it doesn’t want to leave. Even after it ends, you sit there, stunned, not ready to rejoin the world.

The title track follows, beginning with the sound of shattering glass and slowly building toward emotional combustion. It’s overwrought, angry, resigned, and utterly exhausted. Robert’s vocals simmer with disappointment and fury, stretched over eight minutes that somehow never feel indulgent. What an incredible expression.

The bonus track “Homesick” trudges forward like you’re stuck knee-deep in mud—pure gloom, no release. But the true final word belongs to “Untitled.” If "Disintegration" had actually been The Cure’s swan song, this would’ve been one of the most perfect exits in popular music history. It begins with a lonely Casio keyboard, grows heavier and sadder, then quietly admits defeat. The rage has burned out. All that’s left is resignation. It ends exactly how it began—alone, unresolved, and quietly devastating.

It’s hard to quantify the impact this album has had on me over the years. I don’t know where my love for melancholy comes from, but it all seems to converge here. "Disintegration" gives me that hollow, dispirited feeling my relatively humdrum and drama-less life sometimes craves. Some have called it the greatest album of all time, and honestly, that’s not hyperbole.

This is a concept album that crawls out of the dirt, grabs you by the ankle, and drags you screaming into the swamp of sadness—and somehow makes the experience feel necessary, cathartic, even beautiful.

"Disintegration" is proof that depression, when done right, can be deeply, profoundly fulfilling. And though I never got the chance to shake the hand of the man who created this all-important work of art, I am still happy to say that I've never washed my eyeballs since the day I laid them on Robert Smith that day in London.