#50 Jay-Z, 'The Blueprint' (2001)

It amazes me how many albums on this list were released on September 11 2001. But despite the number of albums released on that fateful day, only one of them went to #1, and that was this one. #1 is where it stayed for 3 weeks and despite what was going on around its release, it still managed to sell 427k in its first week. Flexing his lyrical prowess, Jay-Z wrote the words that would accompany the tight production is just 2 days. The tracks on the record were crafted using samples of vintage Soul songs and saw a renaissance in sample-based songs in Hip Hop.