I’ve never really thought of Kelis as an album artist. She’s had some killer singles in her career. ‘Kaleidoscope,’ her debut album (21 years old later this week, by the way), was entirely produced by The Neptunes and bears all the hallmarks of Pharrell Williams.

These songs are bigger than the artists and that’s all thanks to the wonderful, powerful voice of Tina Turner. She was an unstoppable force in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and proved to still be unstoppable into much of the ‘80s.

This entry is going to be incredibly polarising. Nothing invokes passion in people like Taylor Swift, regardless of which side of the fence you sit. I’ll preface this by saying that pop music is massively important to the ecosystem and economy of music. Simply put, thanks to artists like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran etc., labels, publishers, touring companies and the like are able to release music/tour artists with less commercial appeal. I’m not saying that without them the others wouldn’t exist, but they help.

On what would become the most successful album of her career, Diana Ross reinvented herself as a mononymous disco superstar. The true mark of success. With Chic’s Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards at the helm, the album was essentially a CHIC record, with Diana Ross on vocals. But Diana Ross is such a presence, that she wasn’t just the singer on this. She owned it. For all intents and purposes, this IS a Diana Ross record.

I did not expect this to be as good as it was. After a 14-year hiatus, D’Angelo gave us the follow up to his breakthrough record, ‘Voodoo’ (basically his life unravelled and it took him a long time to get it together). D’Angelo himself covers most of the instruments, but it does feature appearances from Questlove and Pino Pallandino (as mentioned on the John Mayer review, he is one of the most prolific and recorded bassists of all time).

To say this album is a masterpiece would be underselling it. I don’t feel this album comes up in conversation when people discuss landmark rock albums of last century, or even the 70s.

Another very fresh entry at only 20 months old. And even though it’s very fresh, I genuinely think that this album deserves to be here. The day I heard this album for the first time, I just knew the impact it would have and would continue to have. I listened to it 3 times that day. As it so happens, this album was #2 on my personal Best Albums of 2019 list.

I’m so surprised I’d never ever heard of this band. Post-punk all-female band, The Raincoats, along with bands like The Slits, were pioneers in punk and post punk music. Showing females, old & young (and men too, of course), that punk music is not reserved for men exclusively. While not commercially successful, The Raincoats not only paved the way for little girls to form punk bands, but also one Kurt Cobain, an artist who was so affected and inspired by their music.

This album was meant to be the follow up to the groundbreaking, earth-shattering record, ‘Pet Sounds.’ It started with ‘Good Vibrations,’ a song that was recorded in 4 different studios, consumed over 90 hours of tape and included multiple keys, textures, moods and instrumentations. The song brought Wilson, an already fragile man, to the brink.

This was the perfect follow up from Blondie. They shared a producer in Richard Gottehrer. The took the New Wave sound popularised by Blondie and made it their own. Fronted by future pop superstar in her own right, Belinda Carlisle, The Go-Go’s would go on to become one of the most successful all-female bands of all time.