Songs in the Key of Life
1976
It took so long that Wonder and the band took to wearing T-shirts reading We're Almost Finished. Twenty-one songs, and no filler.
★ 9.2
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.
Remain in Light
1980
Most of it is built on a single chord that never changes, with the interest coming entirely from layers of interlocking rhythm.
★ 8.8
Sign "O" the Times
1987
It was meant to be a triple album and the label refused. Some of it is sung by a sped-up alter ego called Camille.
★ 8.8
Off the Wall
1979
Jackson was twenty-one and wrote the two best songs on it himself. It won a single Grammy, which he took as an insult.
★ 8.5
Purple Rain
1984
When Doves Cry has no bass on it at all, which Prince did deliberately. Several tracks were taped live at a Minneapolis club.
★ 8.5
There's a Riot Goin' On
1971
Sly overdubbed most of it alone onto a drum machine at home. The title track is listed as running zero seconds and has no music.
★ 8.4
Innervisions
1973
Wonder played almost every instrument on it himself. Days after it came out a car crash put him in a coma for four days.
★ 8.3
Live at the Apollo
1963
King Records refused to pay for a live album with no new songs on it, so Brown funded the recording himself. It reached number two.
★ 8.1
Talking Book
1972
The Superstition riff is a clavinet, an electric keyboard with strings inside, layered several times over. Wonder had just won control of his contract.
★ 7.9
Bad
1987
Prince was supposed to sing the title track with Jackson and turned it down. Five singles from it went to number one anyway.
★ 7.7
Let's Get It On
1973
The title song began as a political lyric someone else wrote, and Gaye rewrote it into a seduction before the tape rolled.
★ 7.6
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
Zombie
Fela Kuti and Africa '70
1976
Horns and drums lock into one riff and hold it for minutes before Fela sings a word, which is how he built nearly every track.
★ 7.3
Random Access Memories
2013
They put the drum machines away and hired session players who had made the records they grew up on. Giorgio Moroder narrates his own life.
★ 6.8
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
Dirty Mind
1980
Prince made it at home as a set of demos, and Warner decided to put them out exactly as they were.
★ 6.5
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
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
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
Dear Science
2008
Guitarist and producer Dave Sitek moved the band out of Brooklyn to a house in Malibu, and the record came back funkier and less claustrophobic.
★ 5.7
Rejuvenation
1974
Zigaboo Modeliste's drumming here has been sampled more than almost anyone's, because he leaves gaps where other drummers would put a beat.
★ 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
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
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