The r/Popheads Essential Albums List

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* 	The /r/popheads Essentials List 	*
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WORK IN PROGRESS
UPDATED: Tuesday, 4 July, 2023
For more information: https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/comments/144awet/announcing_the_popheads_essentials_project_roman/

+ Album Write-Ups +
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If you would like to volunteer to write-up one of these albums, please contact /u/runaway3212.

* Alanis Morisette - Jagged Little Pill
No, it isn’t ironic. An album can indeed garner critical and commercial success by bringing a pop shimmer to an alternative, post-grunge sensibility. A howl of rage and joy, Jagged Little Pill somehow remains an album that you want to both singalong to on early mornings and spend late nights unpicking the meaning of on your bedroom floor

* Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Amy Winehouse’s story is one with high highs and low lows. One of the most talented musicians of our time with one of the best voices, she seemed almost destined for greatness. In spite of her tragic end, Back To Black stands as a crowning achievement for all she achieved in her (cut way too short) time in the spotlight.

* Aretha Franklin - Lady Soul
Virtuosity in human form, Aretha Franklin, reached new highs on Lady Soul. Heavily inspired by the death of Otis Redding and domestic abuse by her husband, the emotion of this entire album becomes so clear it’s almost touchable. It’s a healing experience and a show of power all at once.

* Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
In music history few albums have had higher praise than Pet Sounds, the degree of compliments it gets sometimes can make you wonder if it’s not a bit overrated. However even a first listen shows that the album is worth more than its’ reputation, it’s tantalizing and exciting, showing what happens when you give the surfer dudes a chance to be real.

* The Beatles - Revolver
Music has often found a way to find beauty in chaos and ugliness in order. This talent was never more clear than on The Beatles’s masterpiece from 1966 where all of the legendary four had one of many peaks creatively. The impact of the beatles on pop was already clear at this point but Revolver showed they had a lot more in store.

* Beyoncé - Beyoncé
Dropped in such a revolutionary manner we’re still talking about it a decade later. Beyoncé truly shows That Girl in all her glory. Beyoncé is a girl who has it all, kids, a great career, better sex. A lesser artist would turn this into a boring flex, but Beyoncé takes you along for her ride, while showcasing some of the most enticing music of her entire career.

* Björk - Post
Björk famously described her second album as being “musically promiscuous,” and it’s not hard to see where she’s coming from - throughout Post, she tries on all sorts of musical ideas and styles, each one more outlandish than the last. Industrial, acid house, trip hop, big band jazz - and that’s just the first four tracks. She ended up with a bold, diverse album that somehow one of her most successful - the music videos that didn’t get banned (sorry, “Army of Me”) got played on channels like MTV, the singles did well (especially in the UK), and the album made its way into millions of homes. Björk and her music got less and less commercial after this album, but this album was enough of a hit to inspire almost every quirky art-pop act that came after her.

* Britney Spears - Blackout
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* Carole King - Tapestry
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* Chic - C'est Chic
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* Christina Aguilera - Stripped
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* David Bowie - Hunky Dory
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* Donna Summer - Bad Girls
Sparse, jangling, cool, throbbing and luxurious all at once, Donna Summer’s Bad Girls was the inescapable sound of the late 1970s and early 1980s; the album would go on to inspire a scattershot selection of musicians, from post-punk and new wave groups to house and rave DJs. At it’s heart, the album also feels synonymous with the AIDS crisis - a period where dancing, community and joy was never more important

* Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
The heartbreak and  hedonism that paved the way for Rumours are now almost as legendary as the album itself, a shimmering and tantalising pop rock record which cannot be understated in terms of impact or artistic legacy

* Janet Jackson - Control
“This is a story about control,” Janet Jackson proclaims at the beginning of her third album (but her first album with any creative input). With this record, she sought to break out of the shadow of her brother and away from her father’s managerial demands. She did more than that - along with soon-to-be-legendary producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, she created one of the most influential pop albums of the decade, constructing a blueprint for feminist pop stars, breaking barriers for black women on platforms like MTV, and arguably setting the foundations for New Jack Swing as a genre (as heard in singles like “Nasty”). Janet (Ms. Jackson, if you’re nasty) has made a lot of excellent albums, but this tight 9 track album may be her most influential.

* Joni Mitchell - Blue
Ask a musician their favourite albums and Blue is likely on the list. Though it never fully crested the commercial wave, it was a breakthrough success for Joni and has  become a touchstone for any folk-inspired artist. Who else could so vividly pair Greek Isles with Canadian winter, the smack of sun-cracked sandals with the wisps of prairie clouds?

* Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
It’s in the trees! It’s coming! So opens the title track of Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love, a true masterpiece of art pop. That quick shout represents both the album’s electric energy and it’s deep mystery. On the cover, Bush reclines while shrouded in pearlescent purple, staring out at the audience in what seems to be both a provocation and a dismissal: this is her dream and we are lucky to merely witness it

* Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
Teenage Dream was included in this list as a "true essential" on the metric of its commercial success at the time of release, spawning five #1 hits for Katy Perry in two years. While the essentials committee is of the opinion that not all of its deep cuts hold up to modern music tastes, it's worth a listen to experience THE prime example of commercial pop music from 2010 and to understand the album that spawned such an imperial phase for Perry.

* Kesha - Animal
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* Kylie Minoque - Fever
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* Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster
On that day, something shifted: when Lady Gaga exploded onto the scene she was an inescapable burst of light that seemed limitless in its reach. The breadth of her artistic panorama stretched on endlessly and yet was matched by sheer commercial success with The Fame Monster, an album that brought with it one of the most iconic tours of any decade. Only fitting for an album that balances the flash and dazzle of fame with the darker reaches of celebrity

* Lana Del Rey - Born to Die
Born to Die was a later addition to the essentials list and this possibly reflects the iconic, yet marred, history of the album: savaged by the critics on its release, the album has grown in acclaim over the years for its fusion of Americana, melancholy, introspection and romance. Hasn’t Lana always been asking us to see her at her best by seeing her at her rawest? This album was included on this list as a "true essential".

* Lorde - Melodrama
Have you ever heard an album and felt torn apart? For a generation of teenagers, Melodrama presented that exact feeling; the purple, overwrought nights that you thought would mean everything but turned out to just be another adolescent haze. It’s the sound of communal experience, stretching the thrills and pangs of youth to their limits.

* Madonna - Ray of Light
The album nobody expected from the Queen of Pop, Ray of Light was more than just another reinvention for Madonna. As well as pushing the needle onwards, the record required Madonna to sink the tip under the skin and search for the meaning in motherhood, maturity and the metaphysical. Not her most commercially successful album, but the one that has tempered the storms of criticism to be seen as possibly her greatest artistic contribution to pop’s tempestuous palette

* Mariah Carey - Daydream
Mariah Carey had already conquered the musical world by the time came for her to write and record her fourth album, which is probably why her record label began to allow her the freedom to experiment with the hip-hop and contemporary R&B styles she’d always wanted to use. A true transitional record, Daydream splits itself between the ballads that drove her previous album’s success (such as “One Sweet Day”, the former record holder for most weeks at #1) and more upbeat and hip-hop influenced tracks (including “Fantasy”, the second song to ever debut at #1). This blend of hip-hop and pop had influence beyond what any executive could imagine - the “Fantasy” remix featuring Wu-Tang rapper ODB began the trend of rappers featuring on pop songs. Mariah Carey had already changed the way pop singers sang, but with this, she changed how pop songs were made. Contemporary critics began appreciating Mariah’s songwriting and production abilities more, and Daydream remains both one of her best-selling and best loved albums.

* Michael Jackson - Thriller
If any album speaks for itself, it’s this one. Michael Jackson set out to create an album made entirely up of hits, and that’s exactly what he did on Thriller. Clocking in at a tight nine tracks, he sent seven of them into the top 10 of the hot 100 as the album as the album lingered at the top. The darker, less disco-inspired follow-up to Off The Wall set the tone for Michael’s career going forward and changed the game for every pop artist that came after. On top of Jackson’s unprecedented success breaking barriers for black artists, the videos for songs like “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” helped make music videos get taken seriously as art and as promotional tools, on top of becoming some of the most beloved singles of all time. This is the best selling album of all time, and one that reshaped pop music as a whole. It’s inclusion was a foregone conclusion

* Prince & The Revolution - Purple Rain
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* Selena - Dreaming Of You
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* Shania Twain - Come On Over
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* Taylor Swift - 1989
ALBUM WRITEUP TBA