Uptown Saturday Night
1997
Named after a 1974 Sidney Poitier film. Luchini is built on a Dynasty record, and the pair's slang was obscure enough that listeners traded translations.
★ 3.3
The Albums canon
Sourced and spun.
Every record chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Night Beat
1963
Recorded across three consecutive nights in the small hours, with a sixteen-year-old Billy Preston on organ and the pop arrangements stripped away.
★ 3.9
I Want You
1976
Leon Ware wrote it as his own record and Gaye liked it so much he took it. It plays as one continuous piece.
★ 4.4
What's the 411?
1992
Blige was discovered from a karaoke tape recorded in a shopping mall, and the title comes from the phrase for asking someone's business.
★ 4.8
The Dock of the Bay
1968
Redding wrote the title song sitting on a houseboat in Sausalito, and whistled the ending because he had not finished the last verse.
★ 4.9
The Definitive Collection
Signed to Motown at eleven, he had a number one at thirteen, and later played nearly every instrument on his own records himself.
★ 4.9
The Anthology 1961-1977
Mayfield wrote the songs the civil rights marches sang, then started his own label so that he would own them.
★ 4.9
At Last!
1961
The title song was already twenty years old, a Glenn Miller tune, when Etta James took it away from everybody for good.
★ 5.1
Greatest Hits
Producer Willie Mitchell muffled the drums with a towel and kept the horns low, so nothing ever competes with the top of Green's voice.
★ 5.5
Portrait of a Legend
Cooke set up his own record label and publishing company at a time when almost no Black artist in America controlled either.
★ 5.7
Fresh
1973
The drums land just behind the beat all the way through. Miles Davis is said to have played one track over and over for his band.
★ 6.0
One Nation Under a Groove
1978
The title track runs sixteen minutes and was cut with the band playing together in the room, audience noise dubbed on afterward.
★ 6.4
Greatest Hits
Sly's band was mixed by race and by sex at a time when almost no one else's was, and the singles sound like that too.
★ 6.4
Star Time
Brown fined his musicians on the spot for missed notes and scuffed shoes, which is one reason the band plays like this.
★ 6.7
Lady Soul
1968
Her sisters sing behind her throughout, and Eric Clapton plays guitar on one track without ever being credited for it.
★ 6.9
Dusty in Memphis
1969
Springfield was so intimidated by the Memphis players that she could not sing in front of them. Her vocals were added later in New York.
★ 6.9
Stand!
1969
One track runs thirteen minutes and another uses a talk box to make the two singers argue through their instruments about race.
★ 7.4
Superfly
1972
Mayfield watched the film and wrote songs attacking the drug dealing it made look glamorous, then sang them in a falsetto over congas.
★ 7.4
Otis Blue
1965
Recorded in a single twenty-four-hour stretch, with a break so the musicians could play their regular Saturday gigs, and three Sam Cooke songs on it.
★ 7.5