BILLBOARD BETTA LET THEM KNOW...
56. Mariah Carey, Music Box (1993, 10x Platinum)
Like most ‘90s Mariah albums, there’s one narcotic pop single and one world-beating power ballad – though in the case of Music Box, “Hero” was cast in the latter role when it actually should’ve gone to “Anytime You Need a Friend.”
YASS Anytime you need a friend deserved to be the most successful song off that album
81. Britney Spears. …Baby One More Time (1999, 14x Platinum)
Britney’s chips-half-in debut effort has aged about as well as an album with a Sonny & Cher cover, special guest appearances from Mikey Bassie and Don Phillip, and a climactic slow song called “E-Mail My Heart” could be expected to. But “Crazy” still goes – if not as hard as in its Melissa Joan Hart-approved remix – and we’ll know
the aliens come in peace if they make first contact via the title track’s three-note piano hook.
Yes BOMT does serve Britney circa 2014 (didn't age well) but half of it still goes.
billboard better stan for Crazy
52. Adele, 25 (2015, 10x Platinum)
25 managed to put up Wilt Chamberlain numbers in a depressed sales era mostly by giving the people what they wanted: Big ballads based around Adele’s generational pipes and down-to-earth glamour. “Hello” is as successful a comeback single as pop has managed this decade, and Max Martin collab “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” offered hope of a more spritely direction for her grand drama, though 25 leaves it as something of a tease, instead submerging in a stately sorrow until the show-stopping climax of “All I Ask.”
I miss you and sweetest devotion will change the game if released.
13. Adele, 21 (2011, 14x Platinum)
Proving a 2001-style blockbuster was still possible in 2011, it’s a tribute to Adele’s peerless abilities as a singer-songwriter that overplay couldn’t dull the viciousness of “Rolling in the Deep,” the humiliation of “Someone Like You,” even the cheekiness of “Rumour Has It.” Even more importantly, deeper 21 cuts like “He Won’t Go,” “One and Only” and “Turning Tables” are just as devastating left-hooks, and even the water-logged Cure cover feels like a necessary tribute to the tears-on-my-pillow history of pop’s past.
A legend
9. Madonna, Like a Virgin (1984, 10x Platinum)
Madonna’s musical and conceptual ambitions would grow from here, but the pure thrills of Like a Virgin are not to be overshadowed: “Angel” and “Dress You Up” are perfectly synth-popped chewing gum, “Material Girl” does Marilyn and Motown proud, and the title track is rivaled only by “Billie Jean” as the defining jam of MTV’s formative years. A year later she’d give away a couple brilliant singles away to soundtracks, seemingly just because she could.
Dress you up still slays
7. TLC, CrazySexyCool (1995, 11x Platinum)
So cold chillin’ that Busta Rhymes, Phife Dawg and Andre 3000 all stop by just to hang, CrazySexyCool successfully rebranded the condom-wearing candy kids of “What About Your Friends” as grown-ass women, capable of making cheating seductive, raising AIDS awareness, and flipping genders back on Prince. With a ‘90s Atlanta Braves-caliber squad of producers giving up the funk, TLC created the gold standard for ‘90s R&B... maybe for post-hip-hop R&B, period.
So glad they are the best selling female girl group for R&B. So many classics
1. Prince, Purple Rain (1984, 13x Platinum)
A soundtrack that actually makes for a more coherent cinematic experience than the film it accompanies, Purple Rain is certainly in contention for the most perfect album in rock or pop history, expertly flowing from track to track while delighting, surprising and astounding at each bend. Personal and universal, familiar and challenging, romantic and narcissistic, religious and orgasmic, accessible to all and profoundly weird, Purple Rain rightly remains the cornerstone of Prince’s recorded legacy, almost too obvious in its brilliance to even be worth discussing at length.
Classic, where was MJ?
