When it came to popular music in the 1950s, singles, which often were only around 2 minutes long, were king. But by the mid-1960s, listeners wanted to hear something besides just the latest radio hit. LPs, which were up to 42 minutes long (21 minutes per side) meant that not every song a musician released had to make it to radio. And as recording costs started to drop, suddenly artists could release a double album and still have a legitimate chance of making money. In 1966 Bob Dylan released Blonde on Blonde, arguably the first great double album in rock history. Its success opened the floodgates for others to put out their own double albums. Many of these were concept albums, but others were originally meant to be a single LP that turned into a double one simply because the artist(s) recorded too many strong songs to fit on a single album.
Many double albums are considered to be the best work ever released by a particular artist. Take a look at the list below and let us know if the artist succeeded in delivering a work worthy to fill two records.
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Standout Tracks: “Benny and the Jets,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting),” “Harmony,” “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding”
When it was released in 1973, some critics described Goodbye Yellow Brick Road as a concept album, an idea that John's collaborator Bernie Taupin originally rejected before reconsidering. The seventh studio album of John's career, it is widely considered the best album of his career; in 2003 it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and Rolling Stone had it as #112 on its 2023 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time. Ambitious in its sweep - the tracks include the pop ballad “Candle in the Wind," the funky “Benny and the Jets,” and the driving rock ‘n roll of “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)." It also features the 11-minute long “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding,” which combines what were originally two different songs: the sweeping opening instrumental section blending into a propulsive piano, guitar and drum rock section, before the vocal kicks in about six minutes into the track. This song, along with two others on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ("Harmony" and “All the Girls Love Alice”) were voted by readers of Rolling Stone as three of the artist's 10 best “deep tracks.”
Released on October 5, 1973, the album quickly climbed the Billboard 200 chart, eventually topping it for eight straight weeks.
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238 VOTESThe Beatles - 'The Beatles' (The White Album)
Standout Tracks: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Helter Skelter," “Blackbird,” “Dear Prudence,” “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”
The Beatles (better known as The White Album) is seen by some as four solo albums; in fact, John Lennon said that each song was led by its writer, with the other members simply acting as a backing band, and Paul McCartney recalled, “There was a lot of friction during that album. We were just about to break up, and that was tense in itself.” In fact, both Ringo Starr and producer George Martin temporarily left during the recording sessions, while recording engineer Geoff Emerick quit outright.
Somehow, the result of all this chaos and disharmony was a sprawling, musically diverse, innovative album in which experimental tracks like “Revolution 9” and “Wild Honey Pie” sit uneasily next to “Honey Pie," with its 1920s music hall vibe, and the country-tinged “Don't Pass Me By.” Of course, the album includes many standout moments: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is not only considered one of the best songs George Harrison ever wrote as a member of the Beatles, but one of the band's best songs, full stop. Although it was unfortunately adopted by Charles Manson as some sort of call to arms, “Helter Skelter” - which some might by surprised was written by McCartney, not Lennon - is a blistering hard-rock track, complete with a raucous vocal. And there's Lennon's “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” which could be described as being three songs in one and ended up being banned by the BBC for its sexual imagery.
The album has been certified as 24 times platinum, making it the group's most commercially successful album.
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331 VOTESStandout Tracks: “Comfortably Numb,” “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2”
The Wall is a rock opera about a jaded rock star named Pink who has built a psychological wall of bricks to protect him from various traumas he has experienced in his life, from his father being killed in WWII to being tormented by teachers at school to his wife's infidelity; when the “wall” is complete, Pink is completely isolated from the outside world. He begins suffering hallucinations and eventually goes on trial before the judge in his head, who orders him to tear down the “wall.”
The concept for this album was thought up by co-founder/bassist Roger Waters, who based the character of Pink on both himself and Pink Floyd's co-founder and former lead singer Syd Barrett. As he explained to Louder, “the idea for The Wall came from 10 years of touring. Particularly the last few years in ’75 and in ’77 when we were playing to very large audiences, most of whom were only there for the beer, in big stadiums. Consequently, it became rather an alienating experience doing the shows. I became very conscious of a wall between us and our audience, and so this record started out as being an expression of those feelings.”
Pink Floyd was in turmoil during the recording sessions; the band was in bad financial straits due to some bad investments, and the members were drifting apart - keyboardist Rick Wright actually got fired from the band, during the sessions while Waters and David Gilmour may have discussed also getting rid of drummer Nick Mason. Bob Ezrin, who was brought in to help produce the album, helped give the concept structure and suggested the disco influences that are heard in “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” and “Run Like Hell," but he and Gilmour also had issues with Walters, who was the clear driving force behind the project. Despite all the turmoil, The Wall was a huge success; it has sold more than 30 million copies, making it the best-selling double album in history. And “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2,” which was the first single Pink Floyd had released in over five years, topped both the U.K. and Billboard Hot 100 charts. Cash Box magazine called the single a ”catchy but foreboding selection, with its ominously steady drum work and angry lyrics. A chorus of English youngsters adds authenticity to the track.”
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Standout Tracks: “Sir Duke,” “Love's in Need of Love Today,” "As," “I Wish”
Stevie Wonder has been a recording artist since he was 11 years old. In the early 1970s, he began talking about retiring from the music business and moving to Ghana to pursue humanitarian work; he even proposed a “farewell” concert tour to take place in late 1975. Instead, he signed a new contract with Motown that gave him massive creative control and began working on what would become Songs in the Key of Life (which was originally titled Let's See Life the Way It is). The sessions for the project were spread out over more than two years, and Wonder claimed that he had recorded several hundred songs in those sessions; 17 songs ended up making the cut (21 if you include the 4-track bonus EP). The album is musically and lyrically diverse, with topics including childhood memories, lost love, faith, and social justice. Lead single “I Wish” was actually the final song completed for the album; Wonder ended up changing the original lyrics to ones about his childhood after attending a picnic at Motown. Second single “Sir Duke” is a tribute to Duke Ellington and several other musicians who he considered big influences. Both of these singles hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The album, which is widely considered to be Wonder's best, won Album of the Year at the 19th Annual Grammy Awards and topped the Billboard Top 200 for 13 straight weeks (14 weeks overall).
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525 VOTESStandout Tracks: “Visions of Johanna,” "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"," “Just Like a Woman,” “I Want You”
The last in the trilogy of albums (Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited being the others) that proclaimed Bob Dylan's move from folk artist to rock musician, Blonde on Blonde is considered one of the first double albums in rock music. But while Dylan finished recording Bringing It Back Home in just three days (January 13-15, 1965) and Highway 61 Revisited in nine days (June 15-16 and July 29-August 4, 1965), Blonde on Blonde was an arduous process. Dylan held five recording sessions in New York City over a span of four months (Oct. 5, 1965-Jan. 27, 1966), but they were unproductive; as he later told music critic and biographer Robert Shelton, “Oh, I was really down. I mean, in 10 recording sessions, man, we didn't get one song. ... It was the band [his backing band The Hawks]. But you see, I didn't know that. I didn't want to think that.”
In reality, he had recorded one song during these New York sessions, “One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" that ended up on Blonde on Blonde; still, the sessions were frustrating. At the suggestion of producer Bob Johnston, Dylan and two members of The Hawks (Robbie Robertson and Al Kooper) went to Nashville in February 1966, and after recruiting several local session musicians, had their first Nashville recording session on February 14, 1966. The session resulted in the recording of “Visions of Johanna." That opened the flood gates, and the remainder of the album was recorded over a total of seven days. The first track on Blonde on Blonde is “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” which ended up being the album's second single. Musically it sounds like a slightly demented brass band, while the hook is “everybody must get stoned,” which led some to believe that he was singing about getting high. The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, tying it (with “Like A Rolling Stone”) for the highest-charting song of his career. Rolling Stone named “Visions of Johanna,” which is 7:33 long, one of the "500 Greatest Songs of All-Time," calling it “transcendently dejected”; its enigmatic lyrics have had listeners debating the song's meaning for decades. In an era where songs tended to be less than 3 minutes long, “Visions of Johanna” was one of three tracks on this album that ran more than 7:00; the longest was “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” which ran to 11:22.
The album received mainly positive reviews when it was released and peaked at #9 on the Billboard Top 200. In 1999 it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
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Best Tracks: “Tumbling Dice,” “Shine A Light,” “Rocks Off," “Rip This Joint”
Even though many critics regard Exile on Main Street as the Rolling Stones' best work and one of the best albums of all time, Mick Jagger isn't a big fan of it; before it was even released he was quoted as saying, “This new album is f***ing mad. …it's very rock & roll, you know. I didn't want it to be like that. I'm the more experimental person in the group, you see I like to experiment. Not go over the same thing over and over. … I'm not against rock & roll, but I really want to experiment... The new album's very rock & roll and it's good. ... I mean, I'm very bored with rock & roll. … “ Then in 2003 he said, ”“Exile is not one of my favorite albums, although I think the record does have a particular feeling …when I listen to Exile it has some of the worst mixes I’ve ever heard. … At the time [producer] Jimmy Miller was not functioning properly. I had to finish the whole record myself, because otherwise there were just these drunks and junkies. Of course I’m ultimately responsible for it, but it’s really not good and there’s no concerted effort or intention."
The album was recorded mainly in the basement of a house in the south of France that Keith Richards had rented; the recording schedule was very loose and unorganized, based around the guitarist's irregular hours, while the lack of an actual studio resulted Miller having to run back and from the mobile studio to the basement in order to communicate with the musicians. Meanwhile, the humidity in the basement resulted in the guitars often going out of tune. There was a lot of hard partying going on, and a few weeks into the sessions Jagger got married and left on his honeymoon. The album was eventually finished in a studio in Los Angeles, and Jagger claimed that the lyrics for lead single “Tumbling Dice,” which were influenced by a conversation he had with a housekeeper about gambling, were written at the last minute.
The album, which includes touches of blues, hard rock, soul, country, and gospel, topped the Billboard Top 200 chart for four weeks.
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726 VOTESStandout Tracks: “Tusk,” “Sara,” “Storms," “What Makes You Think You're the One”
Tusk was a definite change of pace from its previous album, Rumours. Which was a deliberate decision on the part of the band, especially Lindsay Buckingham, who was determined to make a more experimental album. And experimental it definitely is; the arrangements are much sparser than on the band's previous efforts, and there is a definite post-punk influence on many of the tracks.
The album has received more critical appreciation in recent years (ex, - in 2013 NME listed it at #445 on its chart of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time), but when it was originally released, Tusk confounded critics and music fans alike; Mojo magazine actually called it “one of the greatest career sabotage albums of all time.” Many critics pointed out the jarring difference between the album's opening song, the lush, melodic “Over and Over,” and the abrasive, punk-influenced second track, “The Ledge." And that type of contrast continues throughout, because of the way the tracks have been sequenced.
It sold more than four million copies but was considered a commercial flop by the band's label, due to the fact that the sales paled in comparison to those of Rumours, and the album costing approximately $1.4 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive albums ever recorded.
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824 VOTESStandout Tracks: “London Calling,” “The Guns of Brixton,” "Train in Vain"," “Rudie Can't Fail”
At just 65 minutes, London Calling isn't much longer than a single album. When it was recorded, the band was fighting with their record label and was heavily in debt. From that chaos came what Rolling Stone (and others) have called one of the best albums of all time. From the ebullient horn-driven reggae/pop/soul track “Rudie Can't Fail” to the politically charged post-punk of the title track, the album shows the band expanding its sound well beyond their punk origins while still retaining the driving guitar style they had become known for on their earlier records and in their live shows. Lyrically, the songs are centered about life in London, while addressing issues such as race, unemployment, identity crisis, drugs, and the responsibilities of being an adult. “Train in Vain,” which some believe to be about Mick Jones's rocky relationship with Slits' guitarist Viv Albertine, and was a “hidden track” on the original album release, became the band's first Top 40 single in the U.S.
Clash bassist Paul Simonon told Rolling Stone:
…we had somebody called Guy Stevens [as producer]. He was really important. and he helped create a very positive atmosphere, even though he was a little crazy. But he was like a conductor. He brought out the best in everybody.
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928 VOTESStandout Tracks: “Kashmir,” “Trampled Under Foot,” “In My Time of Dying,” “Ten Years Gone”
Led Zeppelin began working on their sixth studio album in November 1973, with guitarist Jimmy Page and drummer John Bonham even recording an instrumental that later got reworked for “Kashmir.” However, the sessions came to a quick end as bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, tired of the constant touring and wanting to spend more time with his family, informed the band's manager that he was thinking of quitting. Robert Plant even reportedly asked Lita Ford if she'd be interested in taking Jones's spot. In the end, Jones reconsidered and joined the band when they reconvened for recording sessions in January and February 1974.
The sessions were informal and encouraged improvisation, with the band often coming up with different arrangements to some songs even after recording them, resulting in them being re-recorded. The band recorded eight songs at those January/February sessions, but when they realized that the running time of these tracks would fill nearly three sides of a record, they decided to turn the project into a double album by adding material that had been recorded for earlier albums but had not made the cut.
While it is grounded in the Chicago blues, Physical Graffiti features a range of musical styles: For example, “Kashmir” is an 8:37 orchestral rock track featuring Jones's Mellotron as well as brass and string parts, with the finished song springing from Page's idea of a guitar riff as a musical rond (something that goes round and round and round). “Trampled Under Foot” is a funky track driven by Jones's clavinet. The blues-rock track “In My Time of Dying” was recorded live and ends with the surprise of Bonham's bandmates' response to him coughing off mic. And “Ten Years Gone” is a power ballad.
The first release on their own Swan Songs label, Physical Graffiti topped both the U.K. and Billboard Top 200 album charts, remaining atop the latter for six weeks. The album is ranked #149 in Rolling Stone's most recent (2023) list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time list.
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1023 VOTESBest Tracks: “Bad Girls,” “Hot Stuff,” “Dim All the Lights”
By the time Bad Girls was released in 1979, Donna Summer had already been crowned the “Queen of Disco” and had had seen her previous double album, Live and More, top the Billboard 200 chart. But with Bad Girls, Summer expanded her sound beyond disco; by incorporating elements of soul, R&B, pop, rock or electronic music into various tracks, the artist came up with the most musically diverse album of her career. The first two tracks, “Hot Stuff” and “Bad Girls” fused rock and disco while also using synthesizers to give them more of an electronic dance vibe. Both of these songs ended up topping the Billboard Hot 100 chart, giving Summer the second and third #1 hits of her career. The third single off the album, “Dim All the Lights,” combined soul/pop with disco and ended up topping out at #2 on the singles chart. Summer had the sole songwriting credit on this track, which Billboard rated one of the sexiest songs of all time.
Bad Girls would top the Billboard 200 chart for six non-consecutive weeks and be nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Album (Summer would also win a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for “Hot Stuff”), but it would be the last studio album the artist would record for Casablanca Records, as the artist and label couldn't agree on the musical direction for her next studio project. In fact, she ended up suing the label, along with its CEO, Neil Bogart, and her former manager, Joyce Bogart, in early 1980, alleging the agreement between the artist and the label were “the result of undue influence, misrepresentation and fraud.”
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1120 VOTESStandout Tracks: “Love, Reign O'er Me," “The Real Me,” "I'm One"," “The Punk and the Godfather,” “Drowned"
The only album by The Who written and composed entirely by Pete Townshend, Quadrophenia is the band's third rock opera, the others being the mini-opera song “A Quick One, While He's Away” and Tommy. The protagonist in Quadrophenia is a disillusioned working-class “mod” named Jimmy who fights with his parents over his drug use, has a series of dead-end jobs, sees his girlfriend dump him for his best friend, and struggles with his sense of self-worth, which has him contemplating suicide. When he discovers that the leader of a group of “mod” friends now works as a bellboy, Jimmy feels rejected by everyone and everything. He ends up stealing a boat to sail out to a rock, where he gets stuck in a rainstorm as he contemplates his life.
This rock opera, which Townshend once described as “a sort of musical Clockwork Orange,” was conceived as his attempt to keep the band from breaking up. The album's tracks are full of swirling guitars, layered piano and synth lines, strings and huge vocals, while John Entwistle had free rein to add complex brass parts, including the huge climax to “Love, Reign O'er Me," to the mix. The sea is the main metaphor in the story, seen as something that is both destructive and redemptive (the album's opening track is “I Am the Sea," while the album ends on “Reign o'er Me"). When it was released, the album got generally positive reviews; for example, Rolling Stone's review said Quadrophenia “is The Who at their most symmetrical, their most cinematic, ultimately their most maddening.”
Jimmy represented a special kind of pop-rock fan who demanded to encapsulate and reflect the members of the band he followed. In this case the four members of The Who. …Part of what I wanted to do was re-establish with our fans the principles they themselves had set up when we’d started. I think The Who had been servants of the audience in 1964/65, not the other way around. Our job was always to give our audience something they needed, not make them think we were stars. … We’d lost perspective partly because our stage shows were so f***ing intense. We felt inviolable… I think I felt a kinship with teenaged fans, but by 1972 I was 27 years old and maybe this was a last grab at writing my follow up to Tommy; my Catcher In The Rye.
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Standout Tracks: “1979," “Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” “Zero”
The lone No. 1 album of The Smashing Pumpkins' career, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was the band's third studio album. Released at the end of 1995, it was nominated for seven Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year ("1979"). Lead singer Billy Corgan had envisioned this album as being “ [Pink Floyd's] The Wall for Generation X," and the band ended up recording 57 songs during the studio sessions for the double album (28 songs ended up making the cut).
Bass player D'arcy Wretzky and guitarist James Iha had bigger roles in the production of this album than they had on the previous one, which helped ease tensions in the studio; Iha told US magazine, “The big change is that Billy is not being the big ‘I do this - I do that.’ It's much better. The band arranged a lot of songs for this record, and the song writing process was organic. The circumstances of the last record and the way that we worked was really bad.”
The result was an ambitious album that incorporates styles including heavy metal, art rock, alt pop and grunge. The first half of the album is meant to represent “day” and the second half “night,” although Corgan denied that it was a concept album. Lyrically, Corgan said he had tried to:
Sum up all the things I felt as a youth but was never able to voice articulately... I'm waving goodbye to me in the rear view mirror, tying a knot around my youth and putting it under the bed.
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Best Tracks: “All Along the Watchtower," "Voodoo Chile"," “Crosstown Traffic”
Electric Ladyland was Jimi Hendrix's third studio album, but the first on which he was credited as the sole producer. Chas Chandler, the former bassist for The Animals, had been Hendrix's manager and producer on his first two albums, but the two split during the recording sessions for Electric Ladyland, as Chandler reportedly grew frustrated by both the numerous people that the artist would invite to the studio and Hendrix's insistence on doing take after take of the tracks. The recording sessions were interrupted by Hendrix's touring commitments, and the musician was frustrated by his struggle in getting the recordings to match the ideas he had in his head.
Hendrix loved to experiment with different sounds, and he continued to do so on this album; on “Crossroad Traffic” he constructed a homemade kazoo out of a comb and a piece of cellophane. On “All Along the Watchtower” he used a cigarette lighter as a guitar slide. The 15-minute long “Voodoo Chile” was his attempt to re-create the type of live jam session he would hear at his favorite club. Despite all the hours he had spent on the album, Hendrix was not happy with how it ended up sounding (he had to do the mix while out on tour). He told Hullabaloo magazine, "It’s very hard to concentrate on both. So, some of the mix came out muddy - not exactly muddy but with too much bass. We mixed it and produced it and all that mess, but when it came time for them to press it, quite naturally they screwed it up, because they didn’t know what we wanted. There’s 3D sound being used on there that you can’t even appreciate because they didn’t know how to cut it properly. They thought it was out of phase.”
Despite Hendrix's displeasure about the mix and critics not being sure how to react to an album that was so different from anything by done by other artists, Electric Ladyland was a commercial success, becoming Hendrix's lone #1 album.
In 2023 Eddie Kramer, one of the engineers on the album, spoke to Louder about the recording process:
Electric Ladyland was one of those albums that I look back on now and think: ‘Good grief! What the hell were we doing? It was such experimental stuff. Nobody had ever attempted to do a double album of that type at that time. Jimi wanted to have this freewheeling blues, experimental, acid-rocky, crazy sort of thing, but all the bits work together, I think.
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1419 VOTESStandout Tracks: “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker,” “U Got the Look,” “Sign O' The Times”
Sign O' the Times came together during a period of personal and professional chaos for Prince; he got slammed for his film Under the Cherry Moon, he got engaged to and then broke up with his co-writer Susannah Melvoin, he fired his backing band, and he completed, but then shelved, three albums - Dream Factory, Camille and the triple-album Crystal Ball. After his label rejected the Crystal Ball project because of its length, Prince decided to revise the album, configuring it around the song “Sign O' The Times,” which he had written after experiencing a harrowing earthquake in Los Angeles. He also added the duet he had recorded with Sheena Easton, “U Got the Look." According to Prince, “U Got the Look” was recorded as a test song to see if a friend of his who would get up and dance to Robert Palmer's “Addicted to Love” would dance to a song with a similar groove to it, or just chill since it wasn't a hit song. The funky “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker," which describes a flirtatious encounter with a waitress, gets its sound partially from the fact that the mixing board in his new studio hadn't been completely installed at the time that Prince recorded it.
Overall, the album included a mix of musical styles, including funk, psychedelic pop, rock, electronic, and soul. Although it wasn't universally acclaimed, it was voted the best album of 1987 by The Village Voice's influential “Pazz and Jop” poll and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2017.
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1520 VOTESStandout Tracks: “Hey Ya!,” “Roses,” “The Way You Move,” “Happy Valentine's Day”
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is really two solo albums by the two members of Outkast, with Speakerboxxx being the creation of Big Boi and The Love Below that of André 3000. In their earlier work they had been known for being able to fuse their contrasting personalities and styles into an innovative, cohesive partnership. With this project, the contrast between the two artists became clearer. While Speakerboxxx is grounded in Southern hip-hop and funk and features a lot of guest artists on the tracks, The Love Below sees André 3000 venture into jazz, '70s style r&b, funk, and even Sinatra-style crooning.
The biggest surprise is that André 3000, who is widely regarded as one of the best rappers around, does very little rapping on the album, Instead, he sings. Neither man has much of a presence on the other's disc; Big Boi only shows up once on The Love Below - he contributes a single verse on “Roses," while André 3000 is involved in the production on three of the tracks on Speakerboxxx.
The label released two lead singles - “Hey Ya!” from The Love Below and “The Way You Move" from Speakerboxxx; the ridiculously catchy “Hey Ya,” which lyrically is about a romantic relationship, has an acoustic guitar as the main accompanying instrument and a bassline played on a synth. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for nine weeks. When Rolling Stone updated its list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All-Time” in February 2024, “Hey Ya!” sat at #10. “The Way You Move," which is a soul and hip-hop song that features live horns and a guest spot from Sleepy Brown, also hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
As for Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, it became Outkast's lone album to hit #1 on the Billboard Top 200, staying atop the chart for seven weeks.
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1616 VOTESStandout Tracks: “The River,” “Hungry Heart," “Fade Away”
Bruce Springsteen is well-known for lyrics drawn from personal experience. One example of this is this project's stark, haunting harmonica-driven title track, which is based on his sister and brother-in-law's story. The artist later cited this track as “a breakthrough song for me. It was in the detail. One of the first of my story songs that eventually led to [his album] Nebraska." It was this song that inspired Springsteen to expand the album from a single to a double one, to add darker folk-influenced songs.
The concept for the album was to try to produce a sound that would echo how he and his band sounded when performing live. Many of the songs on The River had been written years earlier and had already been performed in concert. But other songs were specifically written for this album. Springsteen wrote the catchy, upbeat “Hungry Heart” with the intention of giving it to The Ramones to record, but was persuaded by his producer and manager Jon Landau to keep it for himself; it ended up being the lead single off the album and the first Top 10 hit of his career, peaking at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.
When this double album released it received a wide range of reviews, with some critics calling it the best of his career and others accusing Springsteen of just recycling old material. But commercially it was a huge hit, becoming his first album to top the Billboard Top 200.
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1720 VOTESStandout Tracks: “California Love,” “How Do U Want It,” “I Ain't Mad at Cha”
In late 1995, Tupac Shakur, AKA 2Pac, was in prison, having been convicted on sexual assault charges. Unable to pay bail himself, he accepted a deal to sign with Suge Knight's Death Row Records, in return for Knight paying his bail. He immediately dove into recording All Eyez on Me; in fact, “I Ain't Mad at Cha” and “Ambitionz As a Ridah,” were recorded on his first night after being released from jail.
While his previous album (Me Against the World0 was deliberately introspective and personal, All Eyez on Me was straight out gangsta rap. Shakur reportedly wanted to set a mark for taking the shortest amount of time ever to record an entire album, and worked so quickly that the producers and recording engineers working on this project nicknamed him “One Take Tupac." Many of the songs included features from other artists; for example, lead single “California Love,” which was an ode to life in “the Golden State,” features Dr. Dre and singer Roger Troutman (of funk group Zapp), while “How Do U Want It," which samples the Quincy Jones song “Body Heat," features K-ci and JoJo from the R&B group Jodeci. Released as a double A-sided single, “California Love”/"How Do U Want It" marked the only time Shakur topped the Billboard Hot 100.
The album received universal acclaim upon its release, and equaled Me Against the World's accomplishment of topping both the Billboard Top 200 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. It also earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, while both “California Love” and “How Do U Want It” were nominated for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Sadly, All Eyez On Me became the last album Shakur released in his lifetime. It came out on February 13, 1996, nearly seven months to the day prior to the rapper's murder.
Originally called Euthanasia, the album's title was changed during the recording sessions. Shakur explained the reason for the name change in an interview with MTV's Bill Bellamy:
It’s called All Eyez On Me. That’s how I feel it is. I got the police watching me, the Feds. I got the females that want to charge me with false charges and sue me and all that. I got the females that like me. I got the jealous homeboys and I got the homies that roll with me. Everybody’s looking to see what I’mma do now so All Eyez On Me.
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Standout Tracks: “Hypnotize,” “Mo Money Mo Problems,” “Notorious Thugs,” “Sky's the Limit," “Ten Crack Commandments”
Released 16 days after his murder, this posthumous double album from the Notorious B.I.G. (AKA Biggie or Biggie Smalls) is a sequel of sorts to his debut, Ready to Die, which had been released two-and-a-half years earlier. The label was hoping to reach a wider audience with this second effort, wanted it to sound more radio and club friendly. Although he continued to work with labelmates like 112 and Mase, Biggie also collaborated with artists like Lil Kim, and Jay-Z, which led to the album being more diverse sonically. Widely regarded as one of rap's best storytellers, a lot of Biggie's lyrics came directly from conversations he had while sitting around in the studio.
The subject matter might be dark, but the rapper's delivery and the bouncy production made it sound like there was a party going on in the studio. Lead single “Hypnotize,” which was released five days before Biggie's death, features a sample from Herb Alpert's 1979 hit instrumental “Rise.” Billboard ranked the song the second-best of Biggie's career; topping the Billboard Hot 100 in the weeks after his death, “Hypnotize” earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance. “Mo Money Mo Problems,” which features Mase and Puff Daddy and samples Diana Ross's joyful “I'm Coming Out,” picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance by a Duo of Group. And on the darker “Notorious Thugs,” which features a guest spot by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Biggie abandons his usual laidback style to prove he can handle the double time tempo with ease.
Life After Death, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, is widely considered one of the best albums of all-time.
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1917 VOTESStandout Tracks: “Impossible,” “Reunited,” “A Better Tomorrow,” “Visionz,” “Triumph”
Wu-Tang Forever was released four years after the hip-hop group's debut; in between these two albums several members of the group had put out successful solo projects; unfortunately, that success allegedly led to a split between the group members who had released solo albums and the ones who hadn't (although this 1997 Spin interview seems to contradict this assertion). RZA (the de facto leader of the group and its main producer) had the other members come to L.A. to record, where they all stayed in the same apartment complex. This didn't ease the tension amongst the members, but the result of their studio work during this rocky period, Wu-Tang Forever, turned out to be a messy yet fascinating effort.
While the production had been minimal on the group's debut album, on this one RZA focused on a more cinematic production, incorporating heavy synths, strings, kung-fu samples and chopping and speeding up soul samples in order to come up with a very high-pitched sound (this last technique is referred to by some as “chipmunk soul”). Many of the lyrics are in a stream-of-consciousness style and focus on the realities of life in the ‘hood. The lead single “Triumph” has verses from all nine group members (but no chorus); Inspectah Deck’s verse has been singled out for praise, as some consider it one of the best in hip-hop history. RZA might disagree with this assertion, as he has called Ghostface Killah's verse in “Impossible” “the greatest Wu-Tang verse ever written.”
The album received universal acclaim when it was released in July 1997; it debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart and went on to sell more than eight million copies.
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2018 VOTESStandout Tracks: “If I Were A Boy,” “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It),” “Sweet Dreams,” “Halo”
On this double album, the “I Am” disc consists of stripped down pop and r&b ballads. The “Sasha Fierce” disc, meanwhile, is meant to showcase Beyoncé's on-stage alter ego; the tracks are edgier and more upbeat, with the lyrics focused on material female empowerment, while musically it learns more into electronic music styles.
The only song on the album that Beyoncé did not co-write was the lead single “If I Were A Boy”; while it is a pop/r&b ballad, the instrumentation, which includes acoustic guitar and strings, shows influences from the folk and alt rock genres. “If I Were A Boy” was released as a double A-side single alongside “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It); this was done to underline the concept of the dual personalities exhibited on the album. Both singles were huge hits; ”If I Were A Boy" peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, while the uptempo dance pop "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) topped that chart for four weeks and won three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year.
The album received mixed reviews from critics but debuted atop the Billboard Top 200, making it her third straight solo album to hit #1.
