M.D. Wright
2.11.10
***EDITOR'S NOTE: Continuation of My Favorites, Today's Top 5 List.
Simple explanation for the records on this list: I was feeling them so much both when I bought them and to this day, that I could listen to them from start to finish without hitting "SKIP" on the CD player, iPod touch, iTunes, moving the needle on the vinyl (for some of those old records that I wish my dad had passed down to me instead of giving away ha) or wear the battery down fast forwarding the cassette in the "Walkman" back in the day.
While there aren't all that many albums that bear this distinction, I will be expanding the list to 25 for this one -- not including Honorable Mentions.
1. PRINCE - "PURPLE RAIN" (1984).I have yet to get tired of listening to this album. Twenty-five years later and all. There isn't a track on the album that I don't like. The only song I ever came close to skipping was "Take Me With U" and it grew on me by the time Prince's "Around the World in a Day" and "Under The Cherry Moon" albums dropped.
This album dropped in 1986 and I think I heard almost every track whenever we went skating (which was big to those of us who grew up in the 1980s). Timeless classics if you ask me. I liked every track start to finish easily.
3. MICHAEL JACKSON - "THRILLER" (1982).No words necessary. I even know people who weren't born when this was the craze who are huge Michael Jackson fans (although I will say "Off The Wall" was a better overall album, this one made you pay attention -- there were a couple of songs that I didn't care much for on "Off The Wall", which is why it did not make this list).
4. FAITH EVANS - "FAITH" (1995).
As I wrote in a separate column, Faith's debut album was a masterpiece. It came along at the right time, as the R&B genre of the music industry was undergoing a shift, and many high school and college students could vibe and relate to her music. The whole album sounds like one huge outpouring from Faith's heart. It fits together like a Jigsaw Puzzle.
5. JANET JACKSON - "RHYTHM NATION: 1814" (1989).Her music videos for this album were the stuff of legend. The music made you want to dance even if you didn't care about dancing. Mixed in were a few love songs and slow grooves, but Janet was OFFICIAL by 1989, if she wasn't already considered as such after the success of her "Control" album throughout 1986 and 1987 with the remixes to that same album. You could get a good workout (or two, if you will *wink*) just pressing play and letting this one play from beginning to end.
6. CARL THOMAS - "EMOTIONAL" (2000).My supposed look-alike back then in the 2000/2001 era. I never saw it, but what have you -- the album is what the drop was. We kept hearing Puff mention Carl Thomas would drop an album on the heels of the success yielded by Biggie, Mase and Puff's albums -- to go along with what Total and Faith had done between 1995-1997 themselves. We had to wait until 2000 and it was worth the wait. The music was sensual, relevant (especially to this then-21 year old) and it was good to hear that R&B wasn't dead. We were really worried about the genre after the late 90s, as we are again now in 2010 -- although I think now we've gone reprobate and past the point of no return (another topic itself for a COMPLETELY different day and time)
I think that is the reason I am waxing nostalgic more than ever about the 80s and 90s. Unlike past years, we had an artist or two bring some elements of the past back successfully and bridge the gap between our halcyon days (for me, mid-80s through the late-90s) and today and have a similar sound. I don't think we'll ever have that again with the way the music industry is structured and who "runs" things. But this was a great album for 2000, and that's all that matters.
7. MARY J. BLIGE - "WHAT'S THE 411?" (1992).This was the jumpoff for Mary's career, and she hit the ground running. It seemed like every track was on the radio back then. And even the ones that weren't, they were getting heavy play at house parties and our school dances, as I was in middle school at the time. A lot of the girls had their hair cut like Mary and wanted to be like her. And since Mary is my type of lady, I ain't mad at them for it. These were great tunes -- with Sean "Puffy" Combs (I refuse to call him "Diddy" -- we called him "Puff" in the early 90s and the only time we called him "Diddy" was when Mase and Biggie referred to him as such in the late 90s) Executive Producing the records and Directing her videos. It was good times all around.
The video "Real Love" was OD nice. "Love No Limit"? CLASSIC. Need I say more?
This album was a stark contrast to her debut, "What's The 411?". Whereas the predecessor was more upbeat, dance-oriented and overall a fun album, "My Life" seemed to be dark and mellow. It was a better album in my opinion, but that is not to take away from "What's The 411?" -- because honestly Mary's work has gotten better with each passing album since day one. She's been in the game 20 years and was great off cuffs, so there's no shock that so many of her albums made this list.
9. MARY J. BLIGE - "SHARE MY WORLD" (1997).
This one dropped right as I was graduating high school. Amazing how photographic and capsulized my memory is, right? It is uncanny. But this album was SMOOTH. That is the superlative that I would affix to it more than anything. It set the mood for probably the best summer of my life to date, 1997. I don't know if it is a good or bad thing that I haven't had a summer that good since, but here's to hoping 2010 is close to it, even though I'm 100% certain the music WON'T BE. If you haven't already, cop this album and listen to it on a Saturday night when you're too tired to go out. You will love it.
10. MARY J. BLIGE - "MARY" (2000).Not what I was expecting, per sé, after "Share My World" was released in 1997, but she followed up the 1997 release with a similar album. I figured she was going to go back to the painful songs ha. But hey, by 1997, Mary was rid of the major culprit (K-Ci of Jodeci) of the pain in her life, so there was no reason to continue singing such poignant tunes -- although some people sing blues and don't really have them. Mary's "My Life" hit extra hard because she wrote the lyrics and they were deeply personal. "Mary" was similar in that fashion, just that you could tell Mary's life was starting to take a turn for the better -- and she experienced a great decade after the release of this album in 2000.
11. MONICA - "MISS THANG" (1995).If I didn't look at Monica and see her girlish figure in 1995, I would've thought she was a good 10 years older than she was. To be singing such songs with a powerful voice out of such a small frame at age 15 was remarkable. Shades of Stephanie Mills. The album was very well conceived, arranged and written. Monica's vocals aren't earth-shattering like Whitney Houston's or Mariah Carey's, but she's a very good singer nonetheless. This album spawned several singles and memorable songs from a great summer of 1995.
12. NAS - "ILLMATIC" (1994).
CLASSIC. It's more like a demo, especially given the length of the "album", but it's almost as if Nas went in, spit in the booth for 3 hours and came out with an album all in the same day. This joint was so intoxicating from the point that "It Ain't Hard To Tell" was released as a single and the video that accompanied it dropped that I was immediately a Nas fan -- and lyrically, I'll put him up against anyone, dead or alive. Listen to this one, start to finish, no skips (you can do it in less than an hour, even if you want to run a few bars back a few times because of the multis and phors) and you will be inclined to do the same.
13. THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G. - "READY TO DIE" (1994).
I dunno about anyone else, but we heard this dude for the first time in '93 and by the time his solo debut dropped, we were like -- "WHO IS THIS BIG BLACK N---A??? AND HE GOT A CRAZY EYE AND STUPID LISP??? BUT HE NICE THOUGH!!!" And that's pretty much what you have to say about Biggie. Call him ugly. Clown him because of his eye. Mock the lisp, but his stories could be envisioned on a the big screen in my your mind as he weaved them effortlessly on every track. I swear I still listen to "Ready To Die" to this day and don't skip a single track when I'm on the entire album. I mean, how can you? Each track builds off the other. Even the weakest link of the album, "Friend Of Mine" is so relevant (listen to the lyrics, you'll immediately envision situations that we've ALL either been a party to or witnessed with our friends or in high school or college life) that you can't dismiss it. This may in fact be my favorite album of ALL-TIME if you ask me on certain days.
So Biggie leaves us a couple of weeks before this album drops. I got the news leaving church on March 9, 1997, a few hours after he had been shot to death in Los Angeles. I was working the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Game at the Greensboro Coliseum as an usher. Most of us had just found out and still couldn't believe it. We sat by our radios trying to record leaks as they hit the airwaves -- everyone between Greensboro and New York were playing tributes, mixtape tracks and unreleased music by Biggie after the news spread. Later in the year, I was living in Brooklyn at the time and went to a memorial type service during parade season. It was probably the most bittersweet part of the year, but this album STILL only blew up half of what it would have if Biggie had lived to promote it and would still be here today. One can only suppose, but we could not put this album down. It was like the purest Coke one could get their hands on.
15. PRINCE - "DIAMONDS & PEARLS" (1991).Just when people thought Prince was washed up and had fallen off after ruling the 80s (from a non-pop standpoint -- since I know a legion of Michael Jackson stans [I'm a fan, so why would I knock him, but I'm no STAN] will come after me if I merely state that he ruled the 80s outright). Prince could not be labeled. He was not "pop", nor "rock", nor "R&B" or "Hip-Hop" (although he tried to dabble into it with "Diamonds & Pearls" as the landscape of the music industry began shifting once again as the 80s were coming to a close.
Prince has always evolved musically and in his style, so it wasn't a shock that he was able to go from 80s Glam to 90s jazzy with D&P. If anyone could make the transition and remain relevant for now nearly 35 years, wouldn't you bet the house that it would be Prince?
The tracks "Thunder", "Gett Off", "Cream", "Money Don't Matter 2 Night", "Diamonds & Pearls" and "Insatiable" are the must-listen songs, and the rest of them are still good songs -- to the point where you don't want to skip them. Especially if you listened to the album in 1991 when it was originally released.
For this to have been a double album, which a couple of songs that some may deem as "filler" but are captivating (at least to Prince "fams") nonetheless, it is an accomplishment for a double album to make this list. And as many Prince fams may agree, this MAY have been his best work/album. Hard to argue against it.
"U Got The Look".
"Hot Thing".
"Adore".
Just to name a few.
17. PRINCE - "LOVESEXY" (1988).
All you can say is this album was "DIFFERENT". But to me, it was in a good way. Prince has always been creative and expressive in a multitude of ways. By 1988, his popularity was waning a bit. So critics figured he was reaching for shock value with the cover (at the time it was released, you had to ASK FOR IT SPECIFICALLY, because it came packaged covering the artwork -- remember how prudish we were in the 80s ha?) and some of the odd lyrics. Coming off the skitzo last-minute shelving of his "Black Album" that was set to drop in late 1987 (there was still an extensive black market for it, and I heard a few of the tracks in '88 as Prince performed some of them during his Lovesexy tour -- "Bob George" in particular, as my little cousins now get a kick out of hearing it), people especially figured Prince had lost his mind. But listen to the lyrics, the musicianship and appreciate the album for what it is. It's short, so it will keep your attention, but this was some of Prince's best work that went largely ignored by the general public.
Everyone talked about "partying like it was 1999". Who do you think came up with that? Anyway, aside from that track, "Little Red Corvette" and "Delirious" the rest of the album is PURE GENIUS and a gem. "Let's Pretend We're Married" has that prototypical "Minneapolis Sound" that Prince is known for -- sounding fresh out of a video game or action movie from the early 80s. DMSR (Dance, Music, Sex, Romance) is another great one. The entire album is great. Don't just focus on the hit songs like most non-Prince fams do.
19. PUFF DADDY - "NO WAY OUT" (1997).Yes, I know, everyone talked about how Puff had 30 ghostwriters writing for him, he stole songs, he couldn't produce a beat if his life depended on it, etc. etc. etc. Whatever. I don't claim that Puff is a great anything other than being good at getting the pulse of the public and exploiting it for profit in music. You can't knock his hustle there.
But back to the album at hand. I LOVED IT. Maybe it was because I was fiending to hear more Biggie now that he was gone and we had begun to accept it. Maybe because it was a chance to hear more Ma$e who had the streets AND the club in a smash. Or the LOX, who debuted on Biggie and Mase's albums and had another song on Puff's album ("I Got The Power"). It had cameos from everyone on the Bad Boy roster, plus Lil Kim (who was unofficially Bad Boy), and even a few bars by Jay-Z, who himself was just beginning to blow up by 1997. Great album from start to finish.
20. JAY-Z - "IN MY LIFETIME, VOL. I" (1997).This was back when I was actually a fan of Jay. A HUGE fan. Had "Reasonable Doubt" early and I went through THREE DIFFERENT copies of this album here -- because I listened to it so often. The samples were on point. The greasy talk was catchy. The cameos were perfect. I was tight when the last track was finished playing, because I wanted to hear more. It was really after the tour for the following album that I began not liking Jay anymore, but for his first two albums, I was definitely big fan.
"Where I'm From" was definitely the most hard-hitting song on there with the sample/beat that was used and the imagery from the snippet in the video during the movie "Streets Is Watching" (which I did own, BTW).
Who didn't like them? They had the love songs ("Weak"), the party jams ("Right Here/Human Nature"), and the joints that became soundtrack classics the following year "Anything", "Downtown" and "I'm So Into You". Those were some great times. Wish I could go back an re-live them. SWV had a nice run between 1992-1997.
22. JAY-Z - "REASONABLE DOUBT" (1996).I had heard Jay on Hot 97 with Big L. a few weeks before this came out and I knew he had the ability. Once he linked up with Dame Dash to get the business part of things down, it was a wrap. Jay and Dame got distribution with Def Jam and now people outside of New York City knew who he was. This album was so addictive. "Can't Knock The Hustle", "Can I Live", "Friend Or Foe", "Cashmere Thoughts", you can't go wrong. In light of discoveries I've made in the past decade, I don't quite listen to Jay's early music quite the same anymore (and I can't even listen to anything released since 1999 by him as is), but this was the jumpoff, I'll admit.
23. AL B. SURE! - "IN EFFECT MODE" (1988).Al was a funny cat. He dated and had his son young Al B. by Kim Porter (yeah, THAT Kim Porter) and Puff ends up serving as a half-stepfather/half-trust fund account bearer for the kid.
Al had some classic jams though. This album was where most of them were, though. I liked the entire album, obviously. I liked the spin he put on "Killing Me Softly", but also the hits, "Nite & Day", "Off On Your Own (Girl)" and my personal favorite, "Oooh This Love Is So..."
He had the falsetto going, and although he was no Ron Isley, he did his thing, especially during New Jack season.
24. WU-TANG CLAN - "ENTER THE WU-TANG (36 CHAMBERS)" (1993).WHERE DO I EVEN START??? RZA's beats make me wanna fight and Wu throws so many lyrical darts at you that you cannot catch your breath from running this joint back about 50 times without listening to anything else. We did that in '93 and anyone who is just getting put onto REAL Hip-Hop should do the same. I can't even write about this album. It was THAT crazy. So many all-time tracks on ONE album. People still readily quote things that were said in some of those songs a good 17 years later.
25. MARIAH CAREY - "MARIAH CAREY" (1990).This is where it all began for young Mariah. Pre-nose job, pre-boob job, pre-botox, pre-whack job antics, pre-Nick Cannon and Tommy Mottola and pre-cougar act. Back when she was still innocent, cute and was afraid to sing outside of the studio. She had a string of hits with every album, but the first one is always the most memorable, as some people like to say.
Honorable Mention:
Tamia - "Tamia" (1998).
R. Kelly - "12 Play" (1993).
Zhané - "Pronounced Zah-Nay" (1994).
112 - "112" (1996).
CeCe Peniston - "Finally" (1991).
Changing Faces - "Changing Faces" (1994). ***SN: I used to be CRAZY about Cherise ha.
Faith Evans - "Keep The Faith" (1998).
Ghostface Killah - "Ironman" (1996).
Ghostface Killah - "Supreme Clientele" (2000).
Raekwon - "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx" (1995).
Mobb Deep - "The Infamous" (1995).
NaS - "It Was Written" (1996).
The Diplomats - "Diplomatic Immunity" (2003).
Cam'ron - "SDE" (2000).
Cam'ron - "Come Home With Me" (2002).
Janet Jackson - "janet." (1993).
Michael Jackson - "Off The Wall" (1979).
Whitney Houston - "Whitney Houston" (1985).
Whitney Houston - "Whitney" (1987).
Mariah Carey - "Emotions" (1991).
DISCUSS>>>
