30 essential albums from the last 30 years

30 Years, 30 Albums

The challenge: Pick one influential record for each year from 1990 to 2019. Two thousand arguments and a few bruised egos later, we arrived at our final list. Enjoy.

Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet (1990)

One of many pop culture artifacts casting withering side eye on 2020's state of affairs. This seminal release — a lyrical and aural maelstrom — was a 911 call to America. No one picked up. PE knows why. —Sarah Rodman

Nirvana – Nevermind (1991)

With little more than four chords and a torn cardigan, Kurt Cobain unleashed the teen spirit of a generation starved for more meaning than hair metal and Michael Jackson's Bad could give them. —Leah Greenblatt

Dr. Dre – The Chronic (1992)

Dr. Dre's solo debut is the G-funk Gutenberg Bible — an album that transformed hip-hop, popularized a brewing subgenre, and introduced the world to Snoop Dogg. Few records have felt as lush, sharp, or hilarious since. —Alex Suskind

Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville (1993)

A rare bird: perfectly of-its-moment and timeless. By turns brazen and vulnerable, lo-fi but speaking volumes, alt-rock built on a classic foundation, Guyville gave voice to a POV many rock fans had been waiting to hear. —SR

Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral (1994)

A menacing whisper. A wounded howl. A palette that spans black to pitch-black. The perfect soundtrack for scribbling weepily in your diary and then leaping off the bed to bang your head. Angry? Sad? Outraged? Trent Reznor has your back. If NIN's Pretty Hate Machine set the table for the industrial revolution, this follow-up five years later cemented his reputation as the foremost synthesizer of clangorous rattle, driving guitars, and pure pop sensibilities. It spawned the banger "Closer" and the hushed "Hurt" — which helped Johnny Cash expand his reach as a lion in winter. Icing on a delicious cake of rage. —SR

Alanis Morissette – Jagged Little Pill (1995)

From the hell-hath-nofury catharsis of first single "You Oughta Know" to the surreptitious incense-burning of secret a cappella closer "Your House," this was a revelatory red Pill for an entire generation. —SR

Beck – Odelay (1996)

The surreal 1994 slacker anthem "Loser" was his calling card, but Odelay showed Beck had a lot more in his pocket: a joyful cacophony of rumbling funk, found sounds, and guitar freak-outs. —LG

Radiohead – OK Computer (1997)

Following a grudging dalliance with the Top 40 set, Radiohead made a stunning left turn with their game-changing third LP — a mix of anthemic hooks and droning electronics that flipped rock on its head. —AS

Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)

"I treat this like my thesis," raps Hill. Indeed she did. Her solo debut's unique power — of finding strength in loss, of wading through heartache, of tackling motherhood — has yet to wane. —AS

Backstreet Boys – Millennium (1999)

Even if the fivesome aren't your fire or one desire, this recordbreaking collection of harmonious confections was the commercial zenith of the Max Martin pop invasion. Listeners will still want it that way in a thousand years. —SR

D'Angelo – Voodoo 2000

For a moment, it was the most famous six-pack on the planet. If the skin-ematic glory of D'Angelo's nude, teasing torso in the now-iconic music video for "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" was the main headline on him in 2000, though, it was also a Trojan horse: Voodoo is a deep-cut R&B dream, 13 gorgeously supple tracks geared toward headphones and bedrooms, not the pop charts. There's something almost intergalactic in the funk backbone of songs like "Devil's Pie" and "Spanish Joint," but it's all grounded in his inimitable voice — an instrument so silky and sweet, it put even those improbable abs to shame. —LG

The White Stripes – White Blood Cells (2001)

Raw, elemental, and pretty much perfect, Cells seemed to rise fully formed from a garage in Detroit — from the glorious guitar stomp of "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" to the happy, galloping clatter of "Fell in Love With a Girl." —LG

Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

The work of a band breaking free from gravity with the confidence that strains of roots, prog, pop, and noise can peacefully coexist. You could listen a thousand times and still discover something new. —SR

Jay-Z – The Black Album (2003)

Hov did not, in fact, fade to black as he said he would on this swan-song fake-out. But the end still looms large here — an MC returning to the autobiographical well while sounding more sage-like, reflective, and restful than ever. —AS

Green Day – American Idiot (2004)

The evolution of the Bay Area trio from bracingly bratty pop punks whining about boredom to mature men (and still pop punks) lamenting the idiocracy in 10 years flat without losing any heat from their fastball is a true American success story. —SR

Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine (2005)

Recorded, rerecorded, reconfigured. The road was rocky, but the results were glorious, a pastiche of style and emotion meticulously handcrafted that felt as delicate as the gears of a Swiss watch and as reliable. —SR

Amy Winehouse – Back to Black (2006)

A gorgeous, aching, defiant mix of contemporary and vintage R&B from an artist at the top of her game, Winehouse's album is all fire and nerve — and a brushback to critics who dismissed her as little more than a revivalist. —AS

Rihanna – Good Girl Gone Bad (2007)

She'd already had a handful of hits, but watching Rihanna go from ingenue to superstar on Good Girl felt like something else: a full cosmic event, from the instant hi-hat classic "Umbrella" (ella, ella) to the auto-erotic banger "Shut Up and Drive." By the end of its run, the album would clock five smash singles, including the Michael Jackson-sampling "Please Don't Stop the Music," pensive love-is-the-drug ballad "Rehab," and creamy Ne-Yo duet "Hate That I Love You" — though its walloping chart success still only hinted at the full artistic potential of a singer just beginning to find her true voice. —LG

Beyoncé – I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008)

Was she freed by the alter ego, or just growing into her artistry? Either way, Sasha showcased a singer reaching a thrilling new level of pop-R&B supremacy, from "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" to "Halo." —LG

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

Merriweather is Animal Collective at the peak of their kaleidoscopic powers — an experimental pop record floating in textured synthscapes, experimental noise, and earworm hooks. —AS

Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)

Can we get much higher? Hopefully. Until then, Kanye's magnum opus — a rich and bombastic culmination of his career as a rapper, producer, and music-legend wrangler — will more than suffice. —AS

Adele – 21 (2011)

If her debut album, 19, was an introduction to The Voice, 21 was the full realization of The Talent. Adele alchemized pop, gospel, and folk into an irresistible musical mix and dug into her own heartbreak to create pure radio gold. –SR

Frank Ocean – Channel Orange (2012)

Frank had yet to go full musical mystic when he dropped this gorgeous, mango-sweet studio debut about life in L.A. and first-love butterflies. But he was just starting to defy convention, bending and shaping R&B in unique new ways. —AS

Daft Punk – Random Access Memories (2013)

In which two Frenchmen join robot-funk forces with the likes of Nile Rodgers, Pharrell, and Julian Casablancas, and go from cult heroes to Grammy kings on the deathless roller-disco wings of "Get Lucky." —LG

Taylor Swift – 1989 (2014)

The one where Taylor Swift shook off her starmaking country(ish) roots and emerged as a world-conquering pop icon. From "Blank Space" to "Bad Blood" to (yes) "Shake It Off," 1989 is chart-topping stadium bliss. —AS

Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)

Butterfly is a bracing and urgent look at Black life in America from one of the best MCs of his era. Its crown jewel, the protest anthem "Alright," is the type of song that will be passed down to future generations. —AS

Beyoncé – Lemonade (2016)

Who could have guessed that Jay-Z's infidelity would also be God's gift to pop music? Galvanized by marital betrayal, Bey unleashed the manifesto of a woman in crisis — and also in total command of her singular talent. —LG

Lorde – Melodrama 2017

In 2013, a precocious 16-year-old with a preternatural ability for hook-writing and cultural commentary dropped a snappy debut album. Four years later, she upped the ante. Lorde's sophomore effort was electric, filled with negative space and twitchy drums, lone piano riffs and plaintive synths. Her stories — of broken promises ("Homemade Dynamite"), illuminated dance floors ("Green Light"), life in the spotlight and finding comfort at home ("Liability") — were bursting with the self-awareness of someone twice her age; tales so good you could hang them in the back of the Louvre. (Who cares? Still the Louvre.)

Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour (2018)

Like the movie moment that the title references, there is ineffable magic in this eminently repeatable collection of songs that float in a gauzy ether over the adjoining neighborhoods of pop and country. —SR

Billie Eilish – When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019)

Pop's great new hope? Find it in the bedroom studio of an L.A. teenager cranking out woolly, intoxicating electro bops about Xanny bars and undersung Office characters. —LG

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