These are both great albums-but could hardly be considered mainstream pop. Check out: Riot Act, About as far as Genesis could get from their prog roots, the hit-filled Invisible Touch was the perfect mix of the creative and the commercial, in a sleek 80s style. Nevertheless, the following list features music artists having won 10 times or more at five different award . Michael Jackson's Thriller, estimated to have sold 70 million copies worldwide, is the best-selling album ever. It might even be a better album than its mega-hit follow-up, Thriller. These all-time rankings are based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 (from its launch on Aug. 4, 1958 through Oct. 10, 2015) and Billboard 200 (from Aug. 17, 1963 when we The Olivia Tremor Control Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One In 2000, he became the biggest selling artist of all time, with 380 million records sold. Check out: Good Vibrations, If one album could bring everybody together under a groove, it was Songs In The Key Of Life. And while we love Bennett as an elder statesman, he sounds spry and downright sexy here. Gold & Platinum News. They won for the first time in 1987, when they claimed Album of the Year ("The Joshua Tree"). As a member of the boy band Take That he took part in recording 12 top 10 UK pop singles, including seven No. The three hits alone ranged from tropical novelty (Coconut) to manic rocknroll (Jump Into The Fire) to one of the eras great heart-on-sleeve vocal performances in Without You. Meanwhile, tracks like Angel revealed the classic-model pop singer she aspired to (and soon would) become. And though definitions of "frontlines" continues to mutate, Dust Bowl Ballads both its wryness and its gravitas defined the bard-on-the-scene responsibilities adhered to by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, Public Enemy, the Clash and countless others. Kanye West's Auto-Tune-heavy, emotionally naked fourth album came after a brutal year during which his mother died and his engagement broke up, but the album's cavernous sound and exposed-soul lyrics confused even those who had been aware of West's recent trials. Check out: Rhiannon, Even when they first appeared as a spiky new-wave band, XTC were already writing some of the sturdiest melodies in modern pop. AP The Billboard Music Awards have been around since 1990. 5: The 'First Family' StoryWOW! Beyonc now counts 32 total GRAMMY wins. The album's splashy, cinematic videos from the John Landis-directed short film that promoted "Thriller" to the West Side Story homage accompanying "Beat It" legitimized the still-nascent form and forced MTV to incorporate black artists into its playlists. Sinad OConnor The Lion And The Cobra ", Never had rock music been so fussy or so technical, forgoing the pleasure of the moment for the rarefied pursuits of multi-song suites and breakdowns in time signatures no teenager would dare try to do the mashed potato alongside. Pepper's. Beyond breaking ground, it broke records, showing just how far pop could reach: the biggest selling album of all time, the first album to win eight Grammys in a single night and the first album to stay in the Top 10 charts for a year. With their innocent romanticism and meticulous vocal arrangements, Boyz II Men became the most commercially successful R&B vocal group of all time. By Lauren Huff November 24, 2019. You can probably name dozens of classic albums that should be on this list and youd probably be right. 1 as it best represents the evolution of Swift and her music. Fiona Apple The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do To appear on the list, the figure must have been published by a reliable source and the album must have sold at least 20 million copies. Traces of the album that launched a thousand bands can be found in Reed's contemporaries like David Bowie and Iggy Pop, as well as successive generations of snotty aesthetes from proto-punks, punks, post-punks and art-rockers from Jonathan Richman and Patti Smith, to R.E.M. After spending nearly a decade with Stax co-penning soul hits for Sam & Dave, Isaac Hayes released his own solo album in 1968, which bombed. As the first in a flood of live Dead releases, it began to map out strategies for entrepreneurial juggernauts from Pearl Jam to the Dave Matthews Band, an advertisement for deeper pleasures that might only be achieved with the additional purchase of one (or many) concert tickets. Maybe the sitar stood out the most at the time, but dig all those pianos, often electronically tweaked, most notably to impersonate a harpsichord on "In My Life." The influence of Pet Sounds' huge palette of strings, horns, accordions, mandolins, vibraphones and harmonies could be heard almost instantly, not least via Beach Boys super-fan Paul McCartney, who said that "God Only Knows" spurred the Beatles' Sgt. Check out: Elis Comin, How do you harness an unearthly voice like Aaron Nevilles? Taylor Swift currently has 10 albums, with 2022's "Midnights" being her most recent release. Not only was The Ramones one of the first, finest and clearest documents of a still-forming genre punk rock it was one of the first albums to combine market-tested pop music with stuff that most people would call "noise" (a gesture that, in the long run, had more to do with Weezer than Black Flag). document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Lady Gaga - Born This Way (Official Music Video), Madonna - Material Girl (Official Video) [HD], Michael Jackson - Dont Stop 'Til You Get Enough (Official Video), Taylor Swift - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Keith Urban, Maggie Rogers, Tim McGraw, And More Set For March Madness Music Fest, The Weeknds Live At SoFi Stadium To Be Released As Live Album, Madison Cunningham Releases All Ive Ever Known Vevo Session, Best Gifts for Billie Eilish Fans This Christmas, Native Invader: Tori Amos Uncompromising Album Took No Prisoners, Come As You Are: The Story Behind The Nirvana Song, Glen Campbell, Shaggy, And Lil Wayne: Currently Trending Songs, Weighty In The Eighties: When Prog Rock Went Pop. 18. There had been no-nonsense women country stars before, of course, but Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline (to choose just two obvious antecedents) never had a gold album. 5. By this point, Genesis knew how to pull every ounce of drama out of a darker piece like Tonight, Tonight, Tonight, and when to step back and let the emotions come through on a ballad like Throwing It All Away. 15. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band Duran Durans Rio. Elvis Costellos melodic knack and wordsmithing were at their absolute peak for this manic 20-song outburst. "This album is a cantata." A groundbreaker in a few respects, Rage Against The Machine remains the most powerful case of a rock band absorbing hip-hop. It is responsible for a lot of things that are still present in pop music and albums in general. The combination not to mention Blige's powerhouse voice, which added extra gravitas to songs like the feather-light "Real Love" resulted in cross-generational success. The album sold a world to white America that it had never really seen before, and packaged it with a soundtrack so funky there was no avoiding it. Bloomfield played on Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited the same year the album was released, but his boundless talent was marred by years of drug addiction. American entertainer Whitney Houston, nicknamed "The Voice", is one of the most awarded cultural figures of all time. No one ever quite replicated Allman and Dickey Betts' soaring guitar harmonies, but Idlewild South enabled (in part) Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Black Crowes, almost every jam band, Kid Rock and whoever is playing for beer and glory tonight at the nearest biker bar. Establishing group improvisation in rock, Live/Dead was (like James Brown's Live at the Apollo) music that could only be created on a stage. 7. Beyonc, 41, first received Grammy love as a member of Destiny's Child, winning two awards for their No. At this point he was unmatchable as a singer, writer and stylist, and the grooves dont let up. Billie Eilish. Robbie Williams is perhaps the most successful international pop superstar to never reach the pop top 40 in the United States. Prince - Sign "O" the Times March 31, 1987 Critic Score 100 7 reviews Amazon iTunes Music Spotify 2. So James personally financed the recording of this blazing half-hour set at the storied Harlem theater, and soon radio DJs were playing entire LP sides on the air. Syd Nathan, the head of King Records, thought it was a lousy idea. Debut Bjrk The 20 best pop albums of all time have touched hearts around the world, represented cultural eras and, invariably, sound fresh to this day. They focused on the pulse first and foremost, slowing the tempo down to match the title track's concept, reflecting the feel and sounds of driving down the German autobahn. Likewise, Uncle Tupelo's 1990 No Depression album; band spinoffs Wilco, Son Volt and Bottle Rockets; and countless subsequent alt-country advocates can all be traced back to Sweetheart. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. OK Computer might be Radiohead's best album, and Kid A their most musically innovative, but In Rainbows shook the music industry's very infrastructure. The certified units percentage varies according to the first year that an artist appeared in the charts. Award to the principle vocalist(s) and the album producer(s) of 51% or more playing time of the album. The Byrds The Notorious Byrd Brothers Taylor owning the most awarded country album,pop album and folk rhyme album is iconic . And while Olatunji slipped below the radar during Afropop's 1980s heyday, he opened the Grateful Dead's 1985 New Year's Eve show, introducing the Americas' most visible African-music presence to a new young audience. This list was a waste of time with a lazy approach to research and review. The hit songs are positively anthemic (and Sir Duke is easily the only 70s chart-topper to reference Duke Ellington), but the albums depth comes from lesser-known tracks like the sobering Village Ghetto Land and the great lost funk workout, All Day Sucker. Released in 1982, the album has sold roughly 70 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling album of all time. 67, No. Check out: Dear God, A visionary album in a few respects: Laura Nyros Eli & The 13th Confession was the bridge between Brill Building girl group pop and the thoughtful singer-songwriter era (three years before Carole Kings Tapestry) and it blurred spiritual and sensual matters decades before Prince got the idea. Everything you thought you knew about hip-hop changed in a flash, thanks to an album from a former West Coast electro producer. 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