LOS ANGELES (KeynoteUSA) — Let the debate begin: Who has the best music albums of all time?
Apple Music certainly has an idea. The music streaming giant announced its top 10 albums of all time on Wednesday, and 1998’s iconic “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” took the top spot. Hill’s debut album beat out other classic records from Beyoncé, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Kendrick Lamar, Amy Winehouse, Frank Ocean and Nirvana.
“This is my award, but it is a rich and deep narrative, involving many people, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of time and a lot of collective love,” Hill said after receiving the news.
The top 10 albums capped off Apple Music’s inaugural Top 100 Albums chart, which began with a 10-day countdown last week. There are only five artists with two albums on the full list, including The Beatles, Wonder, Prince, Radiohead and Beyoncé.
The process began several months ago when Apple Music’s editorial team of music editors and experts, including Zane Lowe (Global Creative Director and Lead Host of Apple Music 1) and Ebro Darden (Global Editorial Head of Hip-Hop and R&B), generated a shortlist of candidates from the past 65 years.
“This list is not a popularity contest,” Darden said. “We challenge everyone not to vote based on their favorites. You are invited to be part of the panel because you have musical knowledge beyond what you hear when you are on the elliptical machine.”
Apple Music’s internal team members submitted their personal album lists via the company’s voting microsite. Votes were weighted by the album’s ranking: the higher the ranking, the more votes were allocated.
Apple Music used the same voting methodology for a select group of external voters that included artists, songwriters, producers, and some media outlets.
And now here we are. With commentary from Lowe and Darden, here is the list of the top 10 albums on Apple Music:
1. Lauryn Hill, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” (1998)
DARDEN: We’re leaning a lot on what she did on this album. The songwriting, what she shared, what was going on in her life that she actually put into the music. The fact that she just became a mother. All the R&B vibes. The Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway vibes along with D’Angelo’s “Nothing Even Matters.” The social commentary on “Doo Wop (That Thing).” It’s hip-hop. It’s R&B. It has a dancehall element to it. She’s a powerful woman who’s independent and like, “Hey, I got something to say.” And, oh, by the way, the son she sings about on the album is Bob Marley’s grandson… It ticks a lot of boxes.
2. Michael Jackson, “Thriller” (1982)
Michael Jackson performs during the 1993 Super Bowl halftime show. (KeynoteUSA Photo/Rusty Kennedy, File)
LOWE: It’s the highest-grossing album of all time. I think everyone I’ve talked to about this list automatically assumes it’s going to be number one. That’s because we’ve spent decade after decade seeing it basically at number one. It came out at a time when music was the most important entertainment in the world. People were desperate for this Michael Jackson record even more than they were desperate to go see a movie. Thriller is an incredible record. Everything is perfectly calibrated. But I wasn’t upset that Lauryn went to number one and Thriller went to number two.
3. The Beatles, “Abbey Road” (1969)
The Beatles in Liverpool on July 10, 1964. (KeynoteUSA Photo, File)
DARDEN: “Abbey Road” has taken on a more modern life of its own in the social media space with TikTok. Maybe that’s why it rose so high. When you look at “Abbey Road” song by song, I think musically it represents a happy time for the Beatles. It’s more like a raw Beatles than a pop Beatles.
4. The Prince and the Revolution, “Purple Rain” (1984)
Prince performs at the Forum in Inglewood, California, on February 18, 1985. (KeynoteUSA Photo/Liu Heung Shing, File)
DARDEN: I love that it was a black artist making soulful rock and pop records. I loved the movie. It brings back phenomenal memories. It’s not my favorite Prince album. I like “Sign O’ The Times” better. Dancing, music, sexual romance. I’m a huge Prince fan, so I’m glad it got the votes. I think “Purple Rain” lives on (in an iconic way).
5. Frank Ocean, “blonde” (2016)
Frank Ocean at the 55th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/KeynoteUSA, File)
LOWE: I put it above five. I just adore this album. I feel like Frank is like Prince. He’s like Michael. He’s like Lauryn. He’s like Marvin (Gaye). He’s like Radiohead. He’s one of those great outsiders who found a way into our hearts on a mass scale. They don’t make music to appeal to a mass audience, and yet somehow the music they make reaches out to us. “Blond” didn’t hit the targeted sales targets that some of the bigger albums on this list did… But every time I listen to it, it moves me differently.
6. Stevie Wonder, “Songs in the Key of Life” (1976)
Stevie Wonder performs at the 2022 American Music Awards. (KeynoteUSA Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
LOWE: It starts with a message and ends with a moment to process everything that’s happened. At the end, it finally gives you a moment to just take everything you’ve heard and absorb it. He channeled something important.
7. Kendrick Lamar, “Good boy, mAAd city” (2012)
Kendrick Lamar performs at the 2017 Coachella Music and Arts Festival. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/KeynoteUSA, File)
DARDEN: I’m glad he got as high as he did. It was his debut album. He wrote an audio film about his neighborhood and basically being a reluctant kid who’s surrounded by all this toxicity and chaos and chaos. He’s trying to find his way through all of this. He created opportunities for himself and his friends to survive.
8. Amy Winehouse, “Back in Black” (2006)
Amy Winehouse performs in London on June 27, 2008. (KeynoteUSA Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)
LOWE: It’s about heartbreak, rejection, unrequited love, and the pain that comes from having feelings for someone who doesn’t have the same feelings. You don’t know what to do with that emotion. It’s very human. If we all live long enough, we’re going to go through some real heartbreak in our lifetime. This album took that experience and made us sing and dance and move. It’s one of the most elegant albums about heartbreak ever recorded. It’s an incredible act of magic.
9. Nirvana, “Nevermind” (1991)
Nirvana band members Krist Novoselic (left to right), Dave Grohl and Kurt Cobain in 1993. (KeynoteUSA Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)
LOWE: It was a combination of real skill, beautiful instinct, total courage and vulnerability. It demonstrated the ability to capture what (Kurt Cobain) was feeling and disguise it in a way that made people want to dance and jump and sing and scream. But if you really listen, as tens of millions of people did, it was deeper than that. And we got it. This album was the beginning of being able to sit down and have a conversation about anxiety and depression with my mother and my brother and my friends. If he could write about it, why can’t I talk about it?
10. Beyoncé, “Lemonade” (2016)
Beyoncé performs at the Wolstein Center in 2016. (KeynoteUSA Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
DARDEN: This was the first time we got a glimpse into Beyoncé’s personal life. Her sister just hit her husband in an elevator and now everyone is in her business… I like “Lemonade,” but it’s not my favorite Beyoncé album. “Renaissance” is one of my favorite Beyoncé albums. But if you lived through “Lemonade,” it was a big deal.
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