The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far

Untrue feels more like a physical place than an album, an inscrutable, post-midnight landscape of warped, smudged R&B ghosts and puzzling dialogue floating amid echo, hissy vinyl, rainfall, and beats forged from video-game samples. The enigmatic U.K. producer known as Burial (a.k.a. William Bevan) was drawing on his love of Nineties U.K. garage (which drew heavily on sped-up samples of U.S. R&B), and Untrue is a dubstep landmark, but you don’t need to know a thing about electronic music’s subgenres to be moved by Untrue’s dark, chilly beauty, which lends itself more to late-night headphone walks than any imaginable dance floor. —B.H.

A few diamond plaques, four Grammy wins (however unwelcome), and two-dozen billion-stream songs later, Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye’s debut mixtape remains the standout from the star’s now-extensive discography. House of Balloons is a marking point for R&B and perhaps pop in general, a moody and atmospheric project that laid the groundwork for many works to come. Tesfaye knows it: In 2012, the star told Rolling Stone, “I’m not gonna say any names, but just listen to the radio. Every song is ‘House of Balloons 2.0.’” The homage to heartbreak and drugs (and rinse and repeat) is devastating at times, brash at others, and introduces us to a character who’ll eventually go from Toronto’s Scarborough neighborhood to a Super Bowl halftime show. —Waiss Aramesh

Sky Ferreira became a model and promising young actress shortly after dropping out of high school, but it was music that was still her primary love. The brooding, dark wave of Night Time, My Time made her beloved by the indie-rock community and pop acolytes alike. The project thrives in its cinematic darkness: Songs like “Omanko” and “Heavy Metal Heart” are bold and heavy, while singles “I Blame Myself” and “You’re Not the One” carve out pop diamonds. Since her debut, Ferreira has only released a few one-off singles; her second LP, Masochism, has been in limbo for over 10 years. But with one listen to this album, you can tell why so many fans still haven’t given up on hearing more from her just yet. —B.S.

Listen to all of Young Thug’s albums in sequence and you will hear a rubber band stretched until it snaps, his flow turning into something entirely uncontained, possessed, post-structural. So Much Fun is both Young Thug’s ostensible debut album and also the end result of almost a decade of relentless experimentation across mixtapes, collaborations, guest spots, and singles. As such, it has the relaxed feel of a victory lap, maybe even a career capstone, from the bluesy, guitar-flecked “Just How It Is” to exuberant pop plays like “The London.” Throughout, he is as infinitely creative on a track-to-track basis as, say, Frank Zappa was at his peak: hooting, squawking, yawping, defining the outer boundaries of his form with playful sacrilege. —C.P. 

La Familia introduced J Balvin as a reggaeton newcomer not to be messed with. Energía broke him through to the mainstream. The Colombian star helped popularize reggaeton outside of the Latin world with his sophomore album, which saw him experiment with Pharrell on “Safari” and create a reggaeton classic with “Ginza.” Across the album, Balvin finds his refined take on modern reggaeton with songs like “Sigo Extrañándote” and “Pierde Los Modales” with Daddy Yankee, his reggaeton hero. In many ways, Energía inevitably set the scene for the success of Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” the following year, and the eventual global rise of Bad Bunny and the rise of reggaeton overall. —T.M.

Chicago rapper Noname’s long-anticipated debut mixtape, which was first announced in 2012, proved to be worth the wait. Featuring collaborations with her Chicago contemporaries like Saba and Ravyn Lenae, the 2016 project’s intimacy and expansiveness reflects the city’s vibrant artistic spirit, while wisdom-filled, coming-of-age tunes set the then-novice apart from others at the time. On tracks like the poignant “Reality Check” and the nostalgia-dipped “Diddy Bop,” Noname’s inspired, informed lyricism cuts deep, forcing listeners to reflect on the world’s current state while inviting them into her personal narrative. Telefone’s vulnerable style of storytelling introduces a refreshing approach to hip-hop, showing that quiet, insightful confidence is able to break through raucousness. —J.J.

Victoria Monét’s Jaguar II rightfully shot her to the forefront of contemporary R&B. After many years building the repertoire of other pop stars as a songwriter, she made the perfect jungle gym for her elite showmanship by leaning into the regality of 1970s soul and her modern flare for meme-ability. Retro-maverick executive producer D’Mile helped her toe the trapeze between tribute and innovation, ultimately arriving at timeless sensuality, deep musicality, and a groove you’d think was effortless if you didn’t know how long Monét grinded it out to get here. —M.C.

Having already defined Brit pop at its best in the Nineties, restlessly ambitious Blur frontman Damon Albarn had a cool second act this century with the “virtual band” Gorillaz. Presenting themselves as cartoon avatars, they delivered playful sonics with a vaguely light dystopian undercurrent on songs like “Every Planet We Reach Is Dead” and “Kids With Guns.” The dubby, distracted mix of alt-pop and hip-hop they came up with up with — first on their self-titled 2001 debut, and then on this ace follow-up — made for surprise pop success too thanks to the funky hit “Feel Good Inc.” —J.D.

One thing about getting world famous as a teenager is that you’ve got plenty of time to mature as an artist. And yet, even after all Tyler’s growth across Flower Boy and Igor, 2021’s Call Me If You Get Lost was still unforeseeable. Like De La Soul at their most wily and freewheeling, Tyler’s palette seems both infinite and intimate: mixtape Weezy, Drama ad libs, keening romance, effortless European luxury, R&B slow jams, and anything else that fits his vision. The result is both unconscionably rich and light as air, a vacation that doesn’t end to a place where the ideas float in like wind from the ocean. —C.P.

Alicia Keys’ groundbreaking 2001 debut positioned her miles ahead of her contemporaries, thanks to an expert blend of classical elegance and hip-hop swagger. The innovative 16-track effort found the NYC-bred singer, songwriter, and composer fusing R&B and neo-soul with unexpected samples, enabling her to reimagine the genre with a fresh, uncharted flair as the new millennium began. Just 20 years old at the time of its release, Keys effortlessly explores themes of heartbreak, resilience, and passion, showcasing a sensibility well beyond her years, and an artistry that was already refined. The renowned LP set the tone for R&B’s future, and it stands as a lasting testament to the power of Keys’ ingenuity. —J.J.

Elegiac yet triumphant, homespun yet larger-than-life — the debut full-length from the Montreal rock collective Arcade Fire revels in its dualities as it grapples with big ideas of aging and mortality. In a way, Funeral felt like a reaction to the too-cool-for-school posturing that reared its well-coiffed head in early-2000s indie rock, instead leaning into full-throated emotionalism on the last-gasping “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” and the proudly imperfect “Wake Up.” Released on Merge Records, home of Superchunk and the Magnetic Fields, the album played a huge role in pushing the genre toward sincerity, making new fans and winning Arcade Fire new friends like Bono and David Bowie. —M.J. 

Following the creative triumph of his depressive golden-era mixtape trilogy — Monster, Beast Mode, and 56 Nights — ever-lugubrious sing-rap pioneer Future returned to widescreen mode. DS2 would elevate Metro Boomin’s pop-savvy trap to the most popular sound in hip-hop writ large, his monstrous low end providing the throbbing nightcrawler soundtrack to the Future’s luxurious but bleak tales. The rapper pisses codeine, drinks Hennessy, chooses cough syrup over love, chooses money over friendship, keeps his Tom Fords on during sex, keeps his Gucci flip-flops on during sex, keeps his Audemars Piguet watch on during sex, and then calls his contractor to build him a second pool. He supplies the subtext on “Slave Master”: “I disguise pain when I make it rain.” —C.W.

Madonna heeded her primal instincts on Music, heading back to the dance floor, rocking her new cowgirl hat. Music was the queen’s most relentlessly disco album since her debut, nearly two decades earlier —after all the cosmic spirituality and motherhood of Ray of Light, she decided she just needed to dance and sing, get up and do her thing. So she hooked up with French wizard Mirwais for a body-rocking hour of glitch-techno bangers — no ballads, no pop fluff, just fiercely emotional club jams like “Don’t Tell Me,” “I Deserve It,” and the Britney Spears-boosting “What It Feels Like for a Girl.” Music stands tall as one of her career peaks, led by the title smash, where Madonna calls out to the DJ for salvation. —R.S.

Juke joints, joy, free jazz, fizzy vocoders, slithering alt-rap, throwback soul: Acid Rap lives up to its name, a shapeshifting confetti pop of sound. Like a certain other Chicago kid with whom Chance would collaborate over the ensuing years — OK, Kanye — Chance viewed hip-hop as an ever-expanding possibility space, tripping the light fantastic on sampledelic sound and bars that morphed into melodies and back. It’s almost easy to forget that for a minute there in the mid-2010s it seemed like he might’ve been the best rapper alive. But throw on Acid Rap again, and it hits you like a bucket of paint in the face: word-drunk assonance, cypher-grade bars that slip into wormholes of emotion, a shout-along punchline about a rhombus. —C.P.

Artists often use their albums as platforms for showing vulnerability but rarely does a project feel like someone truly ripping themselves in half and exposing everything inside. That was the effect of Magdalene, FKA Twigs remarkably intimate, stunningly baroque second album that detailed her crushing experiences with loss and anguish. She paints a picture of heartache on the gorgeous “cellophone” (“Didn’t I do it for you?” she whispers, sounding on the verge of shattering), and even chronicles a terrifying surgery to remove six fibroids from her uterus on “home with you.” (“Breathe in, breathe out, pain.”) But though her agony comes through at visceral levels, the album lands as an act of strength and resilience.–J.L.

These Texas transplants in Brooklyn seemed to pack the whole history of indie rock into the lickety-split guitar zone outs on their second album — the hyperactive blurt of Wire on “Borrowed Time,” the elliptical laid-back low-fi babble of Pavement on “N Dakota,” Sonic Youth bno-wave stomp on “Caster of Worthless Spells,” art-punk agita on “Careers in Combat.” The peak was the twin-guitar epic “Stoned and Starving,” applying the abstract New York noise expressionism of Television and the Feelies to a high-as-balls bodega crawl (“debating Swedish Fish/Roasted peanuts or licorice”) that put the hipster-margin hood of Ridgewood, Queens, on the rock & roll map forever.—J.D. 

A world-conquering statement of bossitude, Cardi B stomped bloody Louboutin prints across hip-hop’s boy’s club, remaking much of the next decade in her larger-than-life image: sexually frank, highly technical, riotously funny and outspoken in both song and social media. A former star of both Instagram and reality TV, Cardi knew her art was inseparable from real life, and her four-times-platinum debut openly spilled about her past as a stripper, her heartbreaks, her desires, and living her best life. Or as she says in “Get Up 10”: “Real bitch, only thing fake is the boobs.” —C.W.

Released just as melodic rap was beginning to take over the industry, 808s & Heartbreak is known as Kanye West’s Auto-Tune album. Its unique spark, however, comes from the thrill of hearing a too-famous musician bravely transform into something new and less self-assured. He may hardly be the first male rapper to strip himself emotionally naked, but no one had done so using such a large canvas of crushed electronic pop beats and melancholic strings, all centered on his outsized personality. T-Pain, the “I’m Sprung” singer who arguably kicked off the Auto-Tune craze and inspired Heartbreak, once complained that people dismissed him as a novelty act while praising West for making art. True, West undeniably appropriates others’ innovations while making a classic in the process. —M.R.

At the peak of her world-conquering moment, Lady Gaga made this sui generis arena-pop masterpiece — the swaggering, buzzy-synthed spawn of Blood on the Dance Floor-era Michael Jackson, Journey, Madonna, and Bruce Springsteen (complete with the final recorded performance of E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons), plus more than a hint of the kind of Eurodance fodder favored by the cast of Jersey Shore on their nights out. The title track is an eternal queer-kid anthem; “Judas” and “Bloody Mary” are the Gaga-est songs ever; “Yoü and I” is a still-surprising rock banger.  The album’s purest essence, though, is arguably contained in the fearless concoction that is “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love),” which feels like at least four different bombastic anthems stacked in an overcoat. Ride, ride, pony. —B.H.

One of the OG isolation albums of the 21st century, Bon Iver’s 2007 debut has carved out a lasting legacy of melancholic comfort. Before Justin Vernon collaborated with the likes of Kanye West and Taylor Swift, he was a man holed up in a cabin in the Wisconsin woods writing from the throes of heartbreak. He emerged from those woods with a cult-classic indie-folk record, one that brought the beloved, universally known “Skinny Love” into the world. A line from “Re: Stacks” sums up the album’s mystic allure best: “This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization/It’s the sound of the unlocking and the lift away.” —L.L.

Everyone expected Blackout to be the end of the road for Britney Spears. She was all over the tabloids in 2007 with one media scandal after another, while the single “Gimme More” got written off as a career-ending flop. Yet Blackout turned out to be not just her best and Britney-est moment, but one of the era’s most influential pop albums, with an aggressive robo-disco edge. Blackout is where America’s Sweetheart finally let out all her rage and fury, from “Freakshow” to “Get Naked (I Got a Plan).” It all explodes in “Piece of Me,” where she snarls “I’m Miss American Dream since I was 17,” raging against the celebrity machine that created her — a thrillingly dangerous sound. —R.S.

Made in the aftermath of his newfound sobriety, Jason Isbell’s fourth album attained a fresh level of clarity on multiple satisfying levels. Sure, he wrote about his wild times onstage and off in “Cover Me Up” and “Super 8.” But in the album’s John Prine-level story songs — a woman dying of cancer and the barkeep tending to her in “Elephant,” the chilling sexual-abuse tale “Yvette” — Isbell’s songwriting grew more lucid and profound. And thanks to producer Dave Cobb, who shifted the focus to Isbell’s voice and guitar more often than not, this Americana milestone was also Isbell’s most direct and penetrating album, whether he was singing about himself or others coping with the harshness of life. —D.B.

The Spanish pop visionary Rosalía makes Motomami a radically inventive showcase for her shape-shifting style, with “Yo me transformo” as her mission statement. On Motomami, she mixes up genres, beats, moods — in another era, this album might have been an avant-garde experiment for a cult audience, but Rosalía made it an international blockbuster. She flexes with flamenco, but also reggaeton, bachata, dembow, industrial, bolero, salsa, and cyberpunk art rock, with guest shots from James Blake, Tokischa, and the Weeknd.  It hits home right from the jump, with the one-two rhythm punch of “Saoko” and “Candy.” Motomami is a grand fusion of global pop styles — but with a mischievous bravado that is pure Rosalía. —R.S.

In the four years between 21 and 25, Adele acquired the kind of wisdom and nostalgia expected of someone who has endured quite a few more decades of life. She became a mother, readjusted her relationship with fame, and acquainted herself with the thief of time. “I’m so mad I’m getting old, it makes me reckless,” Adele sang on “When We Were Young” with an aching edge of agony that returns on the Fleetwood Mac-esque “River Lea.” Adele leads larger-than-life performances with a voice too big to be contained from the moment “Hello” opens the record. She pushes her emotions to the brink and sends you free-falling over the edge with her. —L.P.

A record that set the standard for the modern coming-of-age album, Vampire Weekend’s third studio disc, Modern Vampires of the City, stands as the group’s most fully realized effort. Coming off the collegiate stylings of their self-titled debut and 2010’s Contra, Modern Vampires brings the band’s varied and eclectic sonic sensibility — made cohesive by the production of band member Rostam Batmanglij — and shapes it into something profound. From the classic-rock stylings of “Diane Young” to the slow-burning “Hannah Hunt,” the album takes Vampire Weekend’s myriad talents and puts them to use in creating an enduring record about the haunting nature of the passage of time. —J.I.

The White Stripes blazed out of Detroit Punk City with their color-coded/brother-sister mythology, droll whimsy, playful irony, and minimalist garage-blues stomp. Meg White pounded like Maureen Tucker by way of Dave Grohl. Jack White brayed and winked and stole from everywhere — Led Zeppelin, Country Joe and the Fish, Jim Croce. On their third album, they delivered acoustic sweetness worthy of Big Star’s “Thirteen” on “We’re Going to Be Friends,” and primal violence worthy of the Stooges on “I Think I Smell a Rat,” and blew up into real-life rock stars with the rocket-fuel riff and Lego video of “Fell in Love With a Girl.” —J.D.

On their fourth album in as many years, One Direction crystallized their placement in the highest tier of pop’s pantheon. It’s a feat accomplished by the soft-rock ballad “Fireproof” alone, but there was a perfected harmonic synergy among the group’s five vocalists — an electric connection bolstered by thunderous, stadium-ready pop rock. “Stockholm Syndrome,” “Clouds,” and “No Control” take off at 300 miles per hour, an edge of blazing seduction in each performance. Four is built on an astonishing victory lap of impassioned ballads, from “18” and “Night Changes” to “Fool’s Gold” and “Spaces.” They’re all rooted in the kind of love and heartache that only exists in romance films and One Direction songs. —L.P.

When Nicki Minaj’s highly anticipated debut was released near the end of 2010, its shifts between flashy hashtag flows like “Roman’s Revenge” and soft synthwave romances such as “Right Thru Me” jarred and divided hip-hop heads. Nearly 15 years later, and with Minaj’s reputation as one of the most important rappers of her era secure, Pink Friday is easier to comprehend. She introduces a new paradigm where women are unafraid to fully express themselves, whether that’s belting emotional pop hooks on “Moment for Life” or lyrically ripping apart unnamed rivals on “Did It on ‘Em.” “I’m fighting for the girls that never thought they could win,” she professes on the opening track, “I’m the Best.” “All my bad bitches, I can see your halo.” —M.R.

Centuries from now, when you look up the word “rebirth” in the dictionary, there will be a Polaroid of a woman cut off at the eyes, wearing red lipstick and a seagulls sweatshirt. Taylor Swift’s fifth album, 1989, was the moment she started over. She completely abandoned country and made her first genuine pop album, enlisting her new bud (Jack Antonoff, among other producers) and her new playground (New York City) to create shiny synth magic. Tracks like “Blank Space,” “Style,” and “Shake It Off” became Swift classics, and when she revisited them 9 years later on 1989 (Taylor’s Version), they remained timeless. —A.M.

PJ Harvey name-checks New York City a lot on her fifth album, but if you listen closely, the record’s real setting is a dramatic, war-torn, post-apocalyptic world where whores hustle and hustlers whore, and the only sensible emotions are anxiety and love. “This world all gone to war, all I need is you tonight,” she sings cautiously and succinctly on “One Line.” Each song presents its own tempest: a violent burst of passion on “This Is Love,” searching for lost innocence (“Good Fortune”), feeling trapped in love (the Thom Yorke duet “The Mess We’re In”), the promise of hope (“We Float”). Harvey’s seismic ardor sometimes feels overwhelming, but it’s the mystery and the moment that matters. —K.G.

While the Strokes were defining New York’s garage-rock revival, Interpol were defining urban ennui. Paul Banks’ croon, monotone and moody, floats over Daniel Kessler’s echo-laden arpeggios and Carlos Dengler’s icy bass lines. Bright Lights captured the weird tension of post-9/11 Manhattan, moving from restraint to release, cool detachment (“Obstacle 1”) to intense necessity (“PDA”). Kessler’s high-end melodies weaving through Dengler’s propulsive low-end runs created a sonic portrait of isolation that evoked their heroes Joy Division and the Cure without copping to them. —S.G.

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when many artists were postponing their releases, Phoebe Bridgers forged ahead and dropped her second album. We’re glad she did: for many, Punisher became a soundtrack to those turbulent, isolated times, a tractor beam that helped us escape. And if John Mayer described her 2017 debut, Stranger in the Alps, as the “arrival of a giant,” Punisher solidified her stance as one of the strongest songwriters of her generation. Come for the late-night trips to the drugstore and nautical-themed birthday parties. Stay for that brutal, guttural scream on “I Know the End.” —A.M.

Nobody was ready for American Idiot when the rock opera about life in George W. Bush’s America dropped in the fall of 2004. Prior to the release, Green Day were seen by many as Nineties pop-punk burnouts a decade past their Dookie peak. But American Idiot — which takes aim at the military-industrial complex, corporate greed, suburban malaise, and even reality TV — connected with a new generation of teenagers and turned Green Day into a stadium-rock band rivaled only by the likes of U2. It sold 23 million records worldwide, was turned into a Broadway play, earned Green Day a Best Rock Album Grammy, and proved that reports of rock’s death in the age of Napster were grossly exaggerated. —A. Greene

Styles’ soft-rock debut and its theatrical follow-up, Fine Line, were just stepping stones toward his breakthrough Harry’s House. It’s a record that indulges in an adoration for music that revels in its weird idiosyncrasies. “Daydreaming” references the funk and R&B of the Brothers Johnson, while “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” carries the eccentricity of Japanese city pop. Styles paints a portrait of domesticity with a similar embrace on cuts like “Matilda” and “Keep Driving,” or even the more curious “Cinema.” They’re songs that feel tangibly lived in and intimate. He goes big, too. “As It Was” and “Satellite” are explosive pop numbers with endless replay value. As it turned out, blocking the outside noise made sizable room for Styles’ glorious mess of things. —L.P. 

Keep your Platinum plaques, Kendrick Lamar’s fourth album was certified Pulitzer. Comparatively uncomplicated compared to Compton opera good kid, m.A.A.d city or the pan-genre existential history lesson To Pimp a Butterfly, Damn. is nonetheless Lamar’s best-selling album, a tornado of his most technical rapping, his most trap-centric beats and his most personal musings on life as a rap superstar, Fox News talking point, tirelessly driven artist, family man, insecure human and terrified voice of a generation. It’s all in his DNA and Lamar — self-describing as an “anti-social extrovert” —is not afraid to gaze into the microscope.–C.W.

It’s easy to get lost in the swirl of Björk’s Vespertine. Each song is its own lenticular explosion of found sounds, cinematic strings, and breathy confessions of love, which Björk meticulously constructed with the thinnest instruments she could find (decks of cards, harps, music boxes) alongside producers like Matmos and the Notwist’s Console. There’s urgency in the blossoming strings of “Hidden Place,” which could double as a James Bond theme, gloopy sounds on “Heirloom,” and uncoiling snaky strings on “Unison.” The closest thing to a pop-song moment is when she sings, “I love him, I love him, I love him,” on “Pagan Poetry.” Mostly Vespertine is an alternate universe you absorb more than listen to, the avant-garde at its most appealing. —K.G.

In her 2015 memoir, Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein wrote that with The Woods, the band “started big and we carved smallness and detail out of a broader canvas.” The Woods is full of big, loud, muscular songs; their new-found rockstar swagger mixed with their brilliant raw and rage-filled lyrics make for a sonically and thematically darker experience. Take the incredible one-two-three punch of “Jumpers,” “Modern Girl,” and “Entertain.” Or the “Let’s Call It Love” into “Night Light” 15-minute extravaganza. It would be 10 years before the band came back together for No Cities to Love. And sure, The Woods would have been a perfectly good capstone, but lucky for us, there was more great music to come. —L.T.

The Parisian robot invaders became full-on pop stars and trailblazers with Discovery. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo channeled Eighties and Seventies nostalgia for everything from 10cc to Van Halen through their signature filter house sound, shellacking on enough talk-box whimsy to bury Peter Frampton alive. The vocoder nostalgia of “One More Time” and “Digital Love” became an early template for two decades of Auto-Tune hits, while “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and “Crescendolls” were dance-floor slapstick of the finest. Funny, funky, and often strangely poignant, Discovery could have just been a winky good time, but now it stands tall as one of the finest dance-music long-players ever made. —J.D.

Lana Del Rey’s major-label debut is a cinematic feat of glamorous world-building that feels as relevant in today’s popscape as it did when it was first released. From the baroque crooning on “Video Games” to the storytelling prowess of “National Anthem” to the anthemic “Summertime Sadness” (which memorably soundtracked Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby and has notched nearly 2 billion Spotify streams), Born to Die stacked up soon-to-be-iconic songs and laid out a blueprint for stars to follow in Del Rey’s wake. Billie Eilish joined Del Rey during her Coachella headlining set, calling her “the voice of a generation,” and it isn’t hard to see why. Born to Die is a Nineties kid’s greatest-hits record, ultimate mood board fodder, and a masterclass in staying power. —W.A.

On Thank U, Next, Ariana Grande refused to perform her pain for the sake of pop spectacle. She knew the world would be watching to see how she would package the trauma she experienced following the death of her close friend Mac Miller and the disintegration of her highly publicized engagement. The therapeutic hit “Thank U, Next” and the trap-influenced pop dream “7 Rings” marked the inception of a defining pop phenomenon. Grande distilled her grief into the heart-wrenching ballads “Ghostin” and “Needy,” then positioned both next to Herculean pop efforts “NASA” and “In My Head.” Just as impressively, she subverted expectations in moments like the ‘NSync flip on “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored.” All this defined her as one of pop’s most compelling stars. —L.P.

Bruce Springsteen spent much of the Nineties struggling to find his songwriting voice due to shifting musical tastes and the absence of his longtime backing group the E Street Band. But when the Twin Towers fell shortly after the conclusion of an E Street Band reunion tour, Springsteen suddenly started writing stark, powerful songs about the tragedy like “Empty Sky,” “Into the Fire,” and “The Rising.” Working with Pearl Jam producer Brendan O’Brien, he crafted them into an album that channeled the collective grief of the nation, and proved he had much more to offer rock fans than memories of his own glory days. It was the start of an entirely new chapter of his career. —A. Greene

“I wanted it to be difficult,” M.I.A. said of her second album. “I get really pissed off, and want to do anything but make easy music.” Kala wasn’t easy, but it was both far-ranging and pissed off, a magnum opus that speaks truth to power while sounding like it was made all over the world, which was sort of true. The Anglo-Sri-Lankan rapper recorded in Australia, Trinidad, Jamaica, India, and Angola, working with collaborators from Timbaland to Afrikan Boy to the South Indian drummers who played the urmi on the awesomely percolating “Bird Flu.” There was even a smash hit: “Paper Planes,” which prodded capitalism (and anti-immigrant hysteria) amid cash-register chimes, gunshots, and a Clash sample. Who the hell else could have pulled that off, let alone thought of it? Nobody. —C.H. 

The magnum opus not just of J Dilla’s prodigious catalog but all instrumental hip-hop. While its creation story is up for debate — including how much the gifted producer recorded in his hospital room prior to his death at age 32 of lupus — the results are indisputable: a near-perfect, endlessly listenable compendium of beats influenced mainly by the producer’s love of Motown and 1970s soul and funk. Dilla died three days after the album’s release, giving it a warped, tragic mystique to the producer’s already-mythical reputation. With nearly all the 31 tracks under two minutes, Dilla showcases both his musical peripateticism and joyous restlessness for an album that fans still find new meanings in nearly two decades later. —J.N.

With its expansive sonic palette and myriad influences, AM stands unmatched as Arctic Monkeys’ capital-R Rock Record. It’s not just the maximum riffage on “Do I Wanna Know” or the Sabbath-worshiping “Arabella,” it’s the tributaries that lead to everyone from Lou Reed (“Mad Sounds”) and Aaliyah (“R U Mine?”), to Dr. Dre (“Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High”) and Elton John (“No. 1 Party Anthem”). All of this upholds Alex Turner’s picaresque narrative of heartache and yearning, at times fantastical, often rendered with the vivid realism that’s long defined some of his best songwriting. AM proves once more that there’s nothing more rock & roll than insatiable desire, abject loneliness, and loud guitars. —J. Blistein

In 2006, production team the Neptunes laced the Thornton brothers with a weird, groovy, outright confounding collection of beats like “Keys Open Doors” and “Ride Around Shining.” The duo took advantage of the one-of-one production, with Pusha ruthless enough to rhyme “Fuckin’ with college bitches with innocent looks like Mya/Corrupt they mind, turn ’em to liars,” Malice flashy enough to ask, “Mink on the floor, make you hot, don’t it?“ while they’re both vulnerable enough to admit that the drug game came with “Nightmares.” It’s one of the most holistic depictions of the fast life, over a sound bed just as addictive as the project’s major theme. —A. Gee 

Radiohead invented a new kind of surprise album drop for In Rainbows, announcing it just a few days in advance. No label, no single — just a pay-whatever-you-want download. But the music was the real revelation: Radiohead at their warmest and most expansive, thriving on their collective energy. They reworked songs they’d been fleshing out live for a couple of years, with jagged guitar trips like “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” or the tambourine jam “Reckoner.” Yet the love songs have an R&B lilt, as Thom Yorke pours his heart into ballads like “All I Need.” In Rainbows is the most they’ve ever sounded like five lifelong mates throwing crazy ideas at each other, in a mind-melding communal groove. For many fans, it’s the band’s peak. —R.S.

Heralded (and marketed) as Jay-Z’s “retirement album” — notwithstanding the five subsequent albums, one live album and, well, you get the idea — The Black Album finds Hova victory-lapping his way through a gritty and celebratory biopic of his life. “God forgive me for my brash delivery/But I remember vividly what these streets did to me,” he rhymes on “What More Can I Say?” Assembling the Avengers of super-producers (Kanye West, Neptunes, Timbaland, Just Blaze, and Rick Rubin, among others) alongside a sweet cameo from his mom on “December 4th,” Jay’s blend of nostalgia and ruggedness helped further solidify his place in the pantheon. When most rappers fade out by album three, Jay’s eighth LP remains one of his best. —Jason Newman

Hayley Williams’ signature roar (and tangerine-colored hair) pierced through dude-filled mall emo like a firework. As the record label Fueled by Ramen created mainstream giants out of Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco, Paramore came in to take the crown with Riot! Packed with confident, booming pop-punk staples like “That’s What You Get” and “Misery Business,” the razor-sharp LP convinced the world that a girl-fronted emo pop-rock band was in it for the long haul — and bound to become one of the biggest bands of the past two decades. No one predicted their future better than Paramore themselves as they used their second album to belt out, “We were born for this!” —M.G.

The last true blockbuster of the CD era is a sprawling R&B album packed with wall-shaking bangers, heart-ripping ballads, and top-tier collaborators like Lil Jon, Stevie Wonder, and the Neptunes. It’s a commanding showcase of the Atlanta-repping singer’s versatility — and his bravery. “It takes guts to talk about the stuff I talk about on this album,” Usher told Rolling Stone in 2003. “I’ve had trials and tribulations. I have all that shit to pull from.” While the dance-floor-defining Crunk & B megasmash “Yeah!” might be a bit too amped-up to be heart-to-heart fodder, tracks like the world-torching slow jam “Burn” and the bittersweet Alicia Keys duet, “My Boo,” find the cracks in Usher’s pop-heavyweight facade and dive in. —M.J.

On this masterpiece of emotionally charged electro-pop, the Swedish singer crafted a futuristic sound with real human flaws. On “Dancing on My Own,” four-on-the-floor drums pound beneath arcade synths before that chorus hits like a defibrillator to the chest — “I’m in the corner, watching you kiss her” — suddenly we’re all alone together on the dance floor, praying “Call Your Girlfriend” comes on next. Every aspect of this album wants to shatter the stereotype that dance pop can’t go deep. On “Indestructible,” Robyn builds a fortress of strings and synths just to tell us about the cracks in its foundation. Even the frantic banger “Don’t Fucking Tell Me What to Do” burns like an anxiety attack by way of rave. —S.G.