When Pop Music Reached Its Final Form

Let’s address the elephant in the room: discussing Michael Jackson’s music in the modern era feels like trying to appreciate a da Vinci while the museum’s on fire. But we’re here to talk about “Thriller” – the 1982 album that didn’t just move the goalposts for pop music, it strapped rockets to them and launched them into orbit.

Here’s the thing about “Thriller”: it’s so ubiquitous, so woven into our cultural fabric, that it’s almost impossible to hear it with fresh ears. It’s like trying to objectively evaluate oxygen. But let’s try anyway, shall we?

The album opens with “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'” – a track that builds like a pressure cooker of funk until it explodes into that “mama-se, mama-sa, ma-ma-coo-sa” chant that would later spawn a thousand samples. It’s Jackson and Quincy Jones showing their homework (the chant borrowed from Manu Dibango) while simultaneously graduating with honors.

Then there’s “Billie Jean” – good lord, “Billie Jean.” That bass line should be in a museum, preferably with armed guards protecting it. It’s the kind of groove that makes atheists believe in intelligent design. The paranoid lyrics, the rhythmic breathing, the way the strings creep in like suspicion – it’s a perfect pop record. Not good, not great: perfect.

“Beat It” somehow made rock and R&B kiss and like it. Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo drops into the song like an alien spacecraft landing in the middle of a block party, and somehow it works. It’s the kind of cross-genre pollination that shouldn’t work on paper but ends up creating a new primary color.

The title track is basically its own Halloween franchise at this point, but strip away the zombie makeup and Vincent Price monologue, and you’ve still got a masterpiece of tension and release. The way it builds, layer by layer, is like watching a master chef construct the world’s most dangerous cake.

“Human Nature” is so smooth it makes silk feel like sandpaper. It’s the kind of ballad that makes you forget ballads became uncool. Those synthesizers float like clouds on a summer day, while Jackson’s vocals remind us why he could make even the most cynical critic believe in magic.

Production-wise, this album is basically Quincy Jones showing off. The mix is cleaner than an operating room, but it still manages to feel warm and alive. Every instrument has its place, every effect has its purpose, every finger snap is exactly where it needs to be. It’s like the audio equivalent of a perfectly solved Rubik’s cube.

Let’s talk numbers, because they’re ridiculous: seven singles out of nine tracks. Seven. That’s not an album, that’s a greatest hits compilation in disguise. The fact that “The Lady in My Life” wasn’t a single tells you everything you need to know about this album’s depth.

Rating: 10/10 – Some albums are timeless. This one owns time.

Essential Tracks: All of them. Yes, even “The Lady in My Life.”

Side Note: If this album were a meal, it would be a Michelin-starred chef making the best burger you’ve ever had, then garnishing it with gold leaf and serving it on the moon.

Production MVP: Quincy Jones, proving that sometimes the real genius is knowing how to frame genius.

Historical Context: In 1982, MTV was still figuring out whether they wanted to play black artists. After “Thriller,” they didn’t have a choice. This album didn’t just break racial barriers – it moonwalked through them.

Look, separating art from artist is a personal choice, and everyone’s got to draw their own lines. But “Thriller” as an album is like the Great Pyramid of Giza – regardless of how you feel about who built it or how it came to be, you can’t deny its perfect engineering, its cultural impact, or its enduring influence on everything that came after.

In the end, “Thriller” isn’t just an album that sold a lot of copies (though oh boy, did it ever). It’s proof that pop music can be both commercially successful and artistically brilliant. It’s that rare moment when the most popular thing is also the best thing. Whether that’s enough to overcome its creator’s legacy is up to you, but the album itself? It’s literally as good as pop music gets.

Where Soul Music Found Its Queen and Never Looked Back

Some albums capture lightning in a bottle. This one captured a whole damn thunderstorm. Aretha Franklin’s 1967 Atlantic Records debut isn’t just an album – it’s the moment soul music found its constitution, its declaration of independence, and its crown jewel all at once. And honey, that crown fit perfectly.

From the moment the organ growls and Aretha’s voice claims its territory on “Respect,” you know you’re not just listening to music – you’re witnessing a coronation. Sure, Otis Redding wrote it, but Aretha OWNS it. She takes his plea for domestic recognition and transforms it into a revolution in two minutes and twenty-eight seconds. That spell-it-out bridge (“R-E-S-P-E-C-T”) isn’t just spelling – it’s soul music’s equivalent of carving your name into history with a diamond.

The title track, “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You),” is the kind of torch song that could burn down a rain forest. Recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama (before the sessions famously imploded), it’s a master class in tension and release. The way Aretha wraps her voice around “I don’t know why I let you do these things to me” feels like overhearing someone’s most private thoughts, set to a groove that won’t quit.

“Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” might be the most sophisticated relationship counseling ever set to wax. The gospel-tinged piano (played by Aretha herself – let’s not forget she was a killer musician) lays down the law while her voice preaches a sermon about reciprocity that ought to be taught in schools.

Even when she’s covering other artists, Aretha doesn’t so much interpret songs as she does annex them into her kingdom. Ray Charles’ “Drown in My Own Tears” becomes a masterpiece of controlled emotion – like watching someone turn heartbreak into high art. And her version of Sam Cooke’s “Good Times” feels less like a cover and more like a conversation between old friends about what joy really means.

The backing band, including the legendary Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and King Curtis on saxophone, provides the perfect musical foundation – present enough to carry the weight but smart enough to know who the real star is. It’s like watching the world’s greatest supporting actors all deciding to make someone else look good.

What’s remarkable about this album isn’t just its individual parts – it’s how it all comes together to create something bigger than itself. This isn’t just Aretha’s Atlantic debut; it’s the moment soul music grew up. The production is crisp but never slick, raw but never sloppy. It’s like they found the exact sweet spot between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Rating: 10/10 – As essential as oxygen

Essential Tracks: “Respect,” “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You),” “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” “Soul Serenade”

Side Note: If this album were weather, it would be that perfect storm that ends a drought and makes flowers grow through concrete.

Historical Impact: This isn’t just a great album – it’s a document of an artist claiming her power. The fact that it was released in 1967, as America was grappling with civil rights, women’s liberation, and cultural upheaval, makes it all the more remarkable. Aretha didn’t just make a soul album; she made a statement about what it meant to be alive, aware, and unafraid in America.

When we talk about perfect albums, we’re usually engaging in hyperbole. This time, we’re just stating facts. “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You” isn’t just Aretha Franklin’s arrival – it’s soul music’s finest hour and eleven minutes. They should teach this album in schools, right between American History and Advanced Mathematics, because it’s both historical and precisely calculated to hit you right where you live.

When Messy Production Meets Muddled Genius

Look, I get it. “Exile on Main Street” is supposed to be the holy grail of rock and roll excess turned into artistic triumph. It’s the album where the Rolling Stones, holed up in a French mansion like debauched aristocrats avoiding the revolution, somehow stumbled into greatness. But after multiple listens, I’m left wondering if we’ve all been a bit too generous with our rose-tinted headphones.

Let’s start with what works, because there’s undeniably some magic here. “Tumbling Dice” is a perfect fusion of gospel, blues, and rock that feels like sin and salvation holding hands on their way to church. The way Jagger’s vocals weave through the guitar lines is like watching a master pickpocket work a crowded street – you know you’re being robbed, but you can’t help admiring the technique.

“Sweet Virginia” captures something so authentically American that it’s almost absurd coming from a bunch of British guys hiding from the tax man in France. It’s like they distilled every country-western bar in Texas into five minutes of acoustic glory. And “Happy,” with Keith Richards’ weathered vocals, is probably the most honest thing on the album – a simple rock song that knows exactly what it is.

But then there’s the problem of production, or should I say, the lack thereof. The album often sounds like it was recorded underwater while the mixing board was having an existential crisis. Some call it atmosphere; I call it audio mud. Sure, “Let It Loose” is a great song… if you can hear it through what sounds like several layers of vintage denim.

The bloat is real. At 18 tracks, “Exile” feels like someone couldn’t make the tough decisions in the editing room. For every “Rocks Off” that kicks like moonshine, there’s a “Turd on the Run” that, well, lives up to its name. “Casino Boogie” feels less like a finished song and more like a jam session that accidentally got pressed onto vinyl.

What’s frustrating is how the album’s flaws and virtues are often the same thing. The loose, sloppy production that makes “All Down the Line” feel alive and dangerous makes “I Just Want to See His Face” sound like it was recorded in a haunted shower stall. The raw, unfinished quality that gives “Ventilator Blues” its edge makes other tracks feel half-baked.

The album’s influences are worn so openly they’re practically indecent – blues, gospel, country, soul – but they’re filtered through such a uniquely dissipated lens that they become something new, if not necessarily improved. It’s like watching someone make gumbo while drunk: the ingredients are right, but the proportions are questionable.

Here’s the thing: the album’s mythology has become inseparable from its music. The tax exile, the heroin, the basement studio, Keith Richards’ pharmaceutical adventures – it’s all become part of how we hear these songs. Strip away the legend, and you’re left with an album that’s brilliant about 60% of the time, interesting 20% of the time, and a muddy mess the rest.

Rating: 6.5/10 – Like a party that peaks too early but refuses to end

Highlights: “Tumbling Dice,” “Sweet Virginia,” “Happy,” “Rocks Off”
Lowlights: “Turd on the Run,” “I Just Want to See His Face,” “Casino Boogie”

Side Note: If this album were a person, it would be that friend who shows up to your house party already wasted, breaks some furniture, tells three brilliant jokes, passes out on your couch, and somehow makes you feel like you had a philosophical breakthrough in the process.

Worth Noting: My opinion here puts me at odds with many rock critics who consider this album the Stones’ masterpiece. Maybe they’re right. Maybe the chaos is the point. Or maybe we’ve all agreed to pretend that confusion is complexity and mistakes are innovation. Either way, “Exile” remains a fascinating mess of an album that you should probably hear at least once, if only to join the debate.

A Sonic Revolution in 98 BPM

If a bomb went off in a recording studio while a political science lecture, a James Brown concert, and a Black Panther rally were simultaneously taking place, the resulting explosion might sound something like Public Enemy’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.” Released in 1988, this album didn’t just raise the bar for hip-hop – it took the bar, bent it into a weapon, and used it to assault everything the mainstream music industry held dear.

Producer Hank Shocklee and the Bomb Squad created a wall of sound that makes Phil Spector look like a minimalist. The production is a chaotic masterpiece, a carefully orchestrated car crash of samples, squeals, and sirens that somehow coalesces into head-nodding beats. It’s like they threw a block party in the middle of a revolution and decided to record both.

Chuck D’s voice booms through the chaos like a prophet’s bullhorn, delivering rhymes with the force of a heavyweight’s right hook. His flow on “Bring the Noise” hits you at 98 BPM (beats per minute, though it might as well stand for “bombs per minute”). Meanwhile, Flavor Flav isn’t just comic relief – he’s the yang to Chuck’s yin, the court jester speaking truth to power while wearing a giant clock that seems to say, “Time’s up for the status quo.”

Take “Don’t Believe the Hype” – a track that simultaneously criticizes media manipulation while being catchier than the flu in a kindergarten classroom. Or “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” which turns a prison break narrative into a meditation on conscientious objection and systemic racism, all while sampling Isaac Hayes so effectively it should count as musical alchemy.

The album’s political commentary hits harder than a caffeine addiction. “She Watch Channel Zero?!” dissects media control with the precision of a surgeon wielding a sledgehammer. But it’s not just anger for anger’s sake – there’s a methodology to the madness, a carefully constructed critique wrapped in layers of funk and fury.

What’s remarkable is how fresh it still sounds today. While some political albums of the era now feel like dated time capsules, “Nation of Millions” feels more like a time machine that accidentally landed in the future. The issues it tackles – systemic racism, media manipulation, government surveillance – read like today’s headlines, just with better wordplay and more interesting beats.

The album’s influence is so vast it’s practically geological. Without it, we might not have the political consciousness in modern hip-hop, the dense production techniques of contemporary music, or the courage to make art that’s both provocative and populist. It’s like they created a blueprint for musical revolution and then set the blueprint on fire to light the way forward.

Is it perfect? Well, if you’re looking for easy listening, you might want to keep looking. This album grabs you by the collar and demands attention like a caffeine-addled professor who knows they’re running out of time to change the world. But that’s exactly what makes it perfect – it’s not trying to be comfortable. It’s trying to be necessary.

Rating: 9.5/10 – A sonic Molotov cocktail that somehow gets more flammable with age.

Essential Tracks: “Bring the Noise,” “Don’t Believe the Hype,” “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” “Rebel Without a Pause”

Side Note: If this album were a sandwich, it would be everything in the kitchen thrown between two slices of bread, somehow resulting in the most delicious meal you’ve ever had while simultaneously teaching you about food inequality.

London Calling: When Punk Found Its Library Card

Look, let’s get something straight – most punk bands in 1979 were still trying to figure out how many safety pins they could stick through their ears before tetanus became a real concern. Meanwhile, The Clash dropped “London Calling,” an album so ambitious it makes most rock operas look like nursery rhymes.

Here’s a band that started out as punk rock firebrands, and somehow ended up creating a double album that casually strolls through reggae, ska, rockabilly, hard rock, and whatever genre you want to call “Train in Vain.” It’s like watching your anarchist cousin suddenly reveal they’ve been taking ballroom dancing classes on the side – shocking, but somehow it works.

The title track kicks things off with that iconic bass line that sounds like doomsday doing the cha-cha. Strummer’s voice comes in like a newspaper headline being shouted through a megaphone during a riot – urgent, raw, and impossible to ignore. The apocalyptic imagery might be bleak, but somehow they make the end of the world sound like something you could dance to.

What’s truly remarkable about “London Calling” is how The Clash managed to expand their musical palette without losing their bite. The reggae influences on tracks like “Guns of Brixton” don’t feel like tourism – they feel essential, organic, like the band absorbed the soul of Caribbean music and filtered it through their distinctly British rage.

The production, courtesy of Guy Stevens (who apparently conducted the sessions like a mad orchestra director on a three-day espresso binge), is nothing short of miraculous. Every instrument sounds like it’s been dragged through the streets of London and emerged stronger for it. The drums crack like gunshots, the guitars slash and burn, and the bass… oh, that bass work by Paul Simonon (immortalized on the album cover smashing his instrument) holds the whole beautiful mess together.

And can we talk about the songwriting? The Clash tackle everything from unemployment to drug addiction to corporate corruption, all while making it sound like the most urgent party music ever recorded. It’s like reading the morning news while doing the Two-Tone ska step – sobering content, but your feet won’t stop moving.

Rating: 4.9 out of 5 Smashed Bass Guitars 🎸

Highs:

• Genre-bending ambition that somehow all holds together
• Raw, urgent energy that never feels forced
• Production that captures lightning in a bottle
• Political commentary that doesn’t sacrifice danceability

Lows:

• Some genre experiments work better than others
• A few tracks that feel like B-sides
• The nagging feeling that the band would never quite reach these heights again

Final Thought: “London Calling” is the sound of punk rock graduating from throwing bottles to organizing a revolution – and somehow managing to make both seem equally vital. It’s a masterclass in how to expand your horizons without losing your edge, proof that growing up doesn’t have to mean selling out. The Clash didn’t just make a great album – they made a blueprint for how rebellion can age gracefully.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: When Ego Achieves Its Final Form

Look, let’s address the elephant-sized ego in the room right off the bat – Kanye West might be the most insufferable human being to ever grace a VMAs stage (and that’s saying something). But sometimes, just sometimes, an artist’s messiah complex actually delivers something approaching divine. “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” is what happens when someone’s god complex accidentally produces something godlike.

The album opens with “Dark Fantasy,” and immediately you realize this isn’t just another hip-hop record – it’s more like hip-hop’s answer to a Broadway musical directed by Stanley Kubrick while high on baroque architecture. When that choir kicks in asking “Can we get much higher?” the answer is clearly no, because we’re already in the stratosphere, and Kanye’s just warming up.

Then “Gorgeous” drops, and Kid Cudi’s hook sounds like it was recorded in some alternate universe where melancholy is actually a physical substance you can smoke. Kanye’s verses here are sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel, proving that when he’s not busy tweeting about being the next Walt Disney, he can actually rap his absolute ass off.

“POWER” might be the most accurate sonic representation of megalomania ever recorded. It’s like someone turned a god complex into sound waves. That King Crimson sample isn’t just a flex – it’s Kanye basically saying “Yeah, I can make progressive rock work in hip-hop, what are YOU doing with your life?”

And then there’s “All of the Lights” – a song so maximalist it makes Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound look like a garden fence. Rihanna’s chorus sounds like it was recorded in the midst of a supernova, while that horn section could wake the dead and make them dance. It’s utterly ridiculous, completely over-the-top, and somehow absolutely perfect.

“Monster” is where things get really interesting. Nicki Minaj’s verse isn’t just great – it’s the kind of performance that makes you want to throw your phone into the ocean and never attempt to rap again. Even Jay-Z showing up and comparing himself to a sasquatch somehow works, because at this point, why not?

“So Appalled” is basically a luxury rap fever dream, while “Devil in a New Dress” might be the most beautiful thing Rick Ross has ever been adjacent to. That guitar solo comes in like it got lost on its way to a Pink Floyd album and decided to stay because the accommodations were nice.

“Runaway” is the centerpiece, and good lord, what a piece it is. It’s nine minutes of the most beautiful self-awareness about being an absolutely terrible person ever recorded. That distorted outro sounds like what regret would sound like if it learned to sing – assuming regret took AutoTune lessons first.

But here’s the thing – for all its undeniable brilliance, this album is also completely bonkers. It’s like watching someone build the Sistine Chapel while occasionally stopping to eat the paint. The production is maximal to the point of absurdity, the lyrics swing between profound and profoundly narcissistic, and the whole thing feels like it’s constantly on the verge of collapsing under the weight of its own ambition.

Rating: 4.8 out of 5 Solid Gold Ego Trips 👑

Peaks:

• Production so lush it makes the Gardens of Babylon look like a window box
• Verses that range from hilarious to heartbreaking, sometimes in the same line
• Features list that reads like a hip-hop infinity gauntlet
• Actually earning its own grandiosity

Valleys:

• Occasionally disappears up its own artistry
• Some interludes that feel like Kanye just couldn’t bear to cut anything
• The lingering knowledge that this album probably made Kanye even more Kanye

Final Thought: “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” is like watching someone successfully juggle chainsaws while reciting Shakespeare and doing quantum physics – it shouldn’t work, it’s definitely dangerous, and you kind of want to tell them to stop, but you also can’t look away. It’s an undeniable masterpiece created by an occasionally unbearable mastermind. In the end, it’s proof that sometimes the line between genius and madness isn’t just thin – it’s nonexistent. And sometimes, just sometimes, that’s exactly what we need.

P.S. – The fact that this album came with a short film that looks like what would happen if Matthew Barney directed a hip-hop video is just chef’s kiss perfect. Because of course it did.