The Low End Theory
1991
Ron Carter, who played bass with Miles Davis, appears on one track and made them promise there would be no swearing on it.
★ 8.8
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.
Paul's Boutique
1989
It uses well over a hundred samples, which would be unaffordable to clear today, and it sold so badly the label gave up on them.
★ 8.5
3 Feet High and Rising
1989
They sampled so freely that the Turtles sued them, and the case helped make sample clearance the expensive business it has been ever since.
★ 8.2
Midnight Marauders
1993
A synthesized voice introduces the tracks like a museum tour guide, and the cover is a grid of about seventy other rappers' faces.
★ 8.0
Check Your Head
1992
They picked their instruments back up and built a studio with a skate ramp in it, which is roughly how the record sounds.
★ 6.1
Licensed to Ill
1986
Kerry King of Slayer plays the guitar solo. Rick Rubin built the beats out of Led Zeppelin and AC/DC drums played very loud.
★ 6.0
The Score
1996
Recorded in a basement studio in New Jersey for about a hundred thousand dollars, and Killing Me Softly was a Roberta Flack hit from 1973.
★ 5.9
Kala
2007
Denied a visa to work in America, she recorded it instead in India, Trinidad, Liberia and Australia, with whoever was in the room.
★ 5.4
Resurrection
1994
The famous song describes hip hop as a woman he has known since childhood. Ice Cube took it personally and started a feud.
★ 4.9
93 'til Infinity
1993
They were teenagers when they made it, rapping fast over a Billy Cobham loop about doing very little on a warm Oakland afternoon.
★ 4.5
Arular
2005
Named after her father, a Tamil militant she barely knew, and built largely on a cheap secondhand sequencer in a London flat.
★ 4.5
Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde
1992
They started out as dancers, and it shows in how loose the record is. Their producer J-Swift built the beats out of jazz records.
★ 4.5
Deltron 3030
2000
Del plays a mech soldier in the year 3030 fighting a corporate empire with rap battles, and somehow it works.
★ 4.4
Sublime
1996
Bradley Nowell's dalmatian appears on the cover and in half the songs. He died two months before the record came out.
★ 4.3