Considered a Prog Rock album, Bush flipped the genre on its head. Traditionally a male-dominated genre, Bush sang about love and passion from a women’s perspective. Of the 5 tracks on Side A, 4 made appearances in the charts; ‘Cloudbusting’ and ‘Hounds Of Love’ were top 20 & ‘The Big Sky’ top 40 but the major hit was a song that would become one of her signatures, the #3-charting ‘Running Up That Hill.’

Following the release of his ground-breaking album, ‘Channel Orange’ (#148), Frank Ocean owed label, Def Jam, one more album. 3 years in the making, Ocean didn’t want to give his next record, ‘Blond’ to the label. Instead came the visual release, ‘Endless,’ which fulfilled his obligations to Def Jam. Mere hours later, in the early hours of the next morning, Ocean dropped ‘Blond’ (taking a leaf out of friend, Beyoncé’s book - #81). ‘Blond’ was recorded across three cities in three famous studios; Electric Lady (New York), Abbey Road Studios (London) and Henson (LA, the location of Charlie Chaplin’s old studios).

I’ve been waiting for Beyoncé to show up. With this album, Beyoncé changed the rules. She redefined herself as an artist and simultaneously redefined the way albums could be released. She gave birth to first child, Blue Ivy at the start of 2012 and would return to work just 3 months later, making a point that mothers need not indefinitely pause their careers to raise children. ‘Beyoncé’ was recorded in strict secrecy, which is a miracle in itself in the age of social media. And seemingly out of nowhere, without warning, the record was released on 13 December 2013 in the early hours.

Another new entry for the Queen Of Neo Soul, Ms Erykah Badu; this time her debut. In the lead up to this record, Badu dropped out of her Theatre degree at university to focus on music full-time. To support herself, she would take on multiple minimum wage jobs. The album was inspired by Brandy’s debut, as well as Badu’s African roots. Drums play a major part of this record, and like her follow up, ‘Mama’s Gun, (#158), Questlove was behind the kit.

Missy Elliot had been kicking around a little before the release of this, her debut album. While in high school, her and three mates formed a group called Sista, which was signed to Jodeci member, DeVante Swing’s label, Swing Mob. Following the non-release of their debut recorded in New York, their contract was terminated and Elliot returned home to Portsmouth, Virginia. There she reconnected with childhood friend, Timothy Mosley, aka Timbaland, where the two would subsequently write and produce half the tracks on Aaliyah’s second record, ‘One In A Million’ (#314).

Credit where credit’s due, Drake is one of the biggest artists of our time. His streaming numbers are phenomenal. Personally, he does nothing for me and so listening to an album over an hour long was akin to chewing glass. Throughout the record, I kept wondering to myself if it was him singing/rapping or a guest. Other than the heavy vocal effects on most tracks, I don’t find him to have a distinctive vocal.

‘Red,’ Taylor Swift’s fourth release, was the album that cemented her as a fully-fledged crossover Pop artist. On ‘Speak Now,’ the preceding release, Swift had worked exclusively with Nathan Chapman on songwriting and production. With this one, she sought to learn from songwriters and producers that she admired, expanding the songwriting team.