music is at the heart of everything we do at Apple but more than anything else we're fans and just like you we have strong feelings about the music we love most and it's why we decided to curate the 100 best albums so join us as we unveil the 10 best albums to the world for the first time [Music] [Applause] [Music]
ever we're joined by two incredible artists respected and revered the world over she's released three amazing albums latest of which don't forget me came out earlier this year a grmy nominated artist about to embark on a soldout Arena tour Maggie Rogers yeah yeah yeah and he's a a legendary record producer writer
performer martial artist New York's own n Rogers give it up once on yes yes thank you yes thanks for joining us guys yeah we're really happy that you're here we're going to get into the serious business of revealing the top and I'll let you introduce the record but just to set it up I mean this album shut up at a very
important time number 10 Beyonce lemonade the year was 2016 I'm sure you kind of all remember where you were when this out because we were all tuned in because it was the first of its kind I think where we got a complete album visually at the same time that we got the audio we also had the backdrop of
what was going on in Beyonce's personal life right which we had never been priv to any of that that was kind of a guarded space she was in some ways forced to address it and she leaned in and it was massive groundbreaking I mean the first time I feel the artist of that magnitude with that much attention on
them decided to take the narrative and really try to control it and and share what they wanted to share and not be at the mercy of five billion eyeballs and opinions and press and media and social media you know to control of the narrative yeah this album was so Monumental and I say this with a huge amount of respect because I know what it
takes to achieve what she did here it went beyond record making to me and I thought to myself now what do you do yeah I thought that you really couldn't achieve more as a recording artist and as a cultural icon and to make black music part of the American Zeitgeist in a way that was like wow like are you kidding me I was
in college when this record came out and I remember hitting play on my laptop in my apartment like my fifth floor walk up in the East Village and it was the first time I skipped class cuz I was halfway through and I was like I'm not leaving like I like I have to be here today like it just was the most I I just had never
seen anything anything it was a where were you moment I mean I remember I watched it with my wife we waited for it to come on we were like let's see where this goes and to exactly the same halfway through we were just I looked at her she looked at me and we like literally lying on the couch like we
watching a movie like eating popcorn we're not turning this off it was unbelievable Beyonce has a way of bringing not just all popular music together but all the aspects of black music Which is popular music as We Know It in America today right she talks about being country you can't take the country out me there are some real
elements in this album which allude to what was to come I mean Daddy Issues to me as a boy Carter record just waiting for a home she was showing us all the elements she was trying to embark on and ready and getting ready to unveil what I hear more than anything is her power and and the way that that's coupled also
with her vulnerability I mean there's such a exposition of female power on this record I like I think about partition and how just like like Vivid Vivid and like and like she's so in control but then there's songs like the opening pray you catch me like her vocal so delicate or like hurt yourself when her and Jack are just trading and Jack's
just getting out of her way I'm just it's like she she's the greatest male rock star right we are at number nine in an album that man have I got stories about when this album came out I think I probably dubbed more copies of this album on cassette as a young teenager and gave them to my friends than any
other album I owe Nana and their management probably about $350 New Zealand Dollars it is Nana never mind in my neighborhood I'm hearing this on the radio the hip-hop stations were playing Teen Spirit on the radio that's awes the black stations were playing this record I skateboarded I was the kids you know the mixed kid and and you
know the guys around the way would be like oh you skateboard you cor yo they were playing this in the hood right dudes that you know I listen to ACDC I listen I grew up listening to Zepp and I listened to all these records growing up those weren't records that got played around the way that's right this was a it was a new time L people
talked about the sound of the record how big it sounds and there's no question that Andy Wallace and and you know Butch Vig and ultimately the band um you know worked on making something sound as big and professional as possible um but the songs I mean that that for me I was born the same month KT Cobain died so I don't
like have a moment of remembering when this record came out but I remember the doorway into this record because distortion is is such a therapeutic and important tool in creating music because it does something to your body sonically but I didn't think that this kind of music was something that I was allowed
to have be a part of my world growing up because it was so intense and because it was of this this rock music that like I didn't think was for me but this record The Melodies were the door in and it made me know that like even though I was like growing up in rural Maryland and playing banjo that that this was something that
I could access and when I think about the impact that the song had on the world the main thing I remembered the very first time I heard it was the Dynamics yeah the Dynamics were incredible yeah the quiets and the louds and the intensity of totally that it was soft you were paying attention on a level like you probably normally
wouldn't yeah I think that the vulnerability of this record coupled with the intensity of the way it sounded and the cultural moment that it bled into yeah like it's it's it touched something I'm not going to lie I'm getting a bit emotional just talking about it because um you know it in 1991 when this album came out it made
everyone who heard it and and was connected to it feel like we had a band like a real band that was ours and all the things we liked that seemed disconnected and seemed out of place and not being taken seriously it's like oh you're taking us seriously now they wanted to be great they wanted to
write great songs they wanted to give us all of the feels right all of the it felt really real I still remember my band and the people around me talking about this living it and playing the Dave was playing a disco beat on that tells the story he tells the story he told that story was copying my band copying Chic he said I'm copying
Tony Thompson here I know I know the knock on effect of Bor is that hey if you say it in a very real authentic way and your timing's right and where our ears are open and our hearts are open you might you might get us at number eight the incredible incomparable Amy win house and back to black one of only five women to walk away with five
Grammys in one night wow that's crazy and this album they say took I think 10 days to record I can kick it off with a quick observation this is just heartbreak for 35 minutes unrequited painful heartbreak made it times for The Dance Floor times to sing along to times to sway to but don't let the joy of the
music get it twisted the songwriting is coming from a very painful place yes I have I have three things to say I've organized this in my head um the drum sounds on this record unreal exactly the snare sound on this record is insane um Love is a losing game is so messed up it's so her her vocal performance the
like there's this thing that Amy does at the end of a phrase where she will just let her vocal hang yeah and on that on that song in particular it it just is the craziest thing I've ever heard um this record is 35 minutes long yeah mhm that that is something that I I will never 11 songs 35 minutes yeah it's
perfect it's about as perfect as you can ask AR and it as aen that I'm too close that it's too vicarious that I'm being exposed too much to your pain she dressed it up so fabulously it's inviting which is the combo yeah you you feel the The Angst and the pain this is really when I first became aware of her you feel the pain and you feel the The
Joy the joy is out standing and the pain is pretty incredible but the sense of humor is there it took the world like ofor it took the world three weeks of Don sing the rehab to figure out it's a really do song really I'm always and I I I still listen to this album a lot yeah I was from the beginning struck by
how I felt like her voice was like delivered to us from another time right like her vote vocal styling and what she was doing is timeless in a way right but to do that when so so many times when I hear an artist try and reference something in the past I'm always like I would kind of just rather
have the original thing but like this is cool but to do it in a way that actually took all that tradition and then added something to it and moved it forward and did it in this way that was so sparkly even in all of its just heaviness where were you the first time you heard number seven I mean this is definitely a
question that most people have a pretty vivid answer for because as albums go this is a movie this is one of the most beautifully curated created structured and track listed albums of the modern era it's another album that came out in the 2000s which is a beautiful thing it is Kendrick Lamar Good Kid Mad
City I just remember coming off section 80 which was the first project Kendrick Lamar was was highly anticipated the release you know hearing that Dr Dre was going to sequence the album the producers that were on the album The backdrop of where Kendrick Lamar comes from Compton just had delivered so much uh hipop that there was a lot of
pressure on this kid the the the ability to deliver stories bars energy performance on recorded material which I feel like I can see this record when it comes on you know it really hits you in different in a different way yeah and in the tradition of the great hip-hop albums too you know he delivered on a black Consciousness
that you don't always get in hip-hop right and that's why I'm really proud of uh of the fact that it ranks where it does on this list right because that's something that if you've watched this hip-hop thing or or or been in anywhere near it in its purest form it was about communicating what is going on in our
neighborhoods there's a vulnerability to this writing I feel with Kendrick where and he's still doing it with every album he has a good long look at himself before He makes music I feel there's a lot of self-examination that goes on as much as there is examining what's going on outside of his own space does that
make sense the thing that that I remember most was hearing this for the first time and I actually just happened to be in Los Angeles and I happen to be near where My grandmother used to live which is on the Watts Compton border and I was driving down elag gundo and somebody said hey check this out this is
new Kendrick record okay let me hear it I was like are you kidding I experienced something for the first time in a unique situation A Unique record because the stories being told on that album are happening literally outside around you so right around you it's very no it's very timely like I mean even the
musicality of the album cuz you have in hip-hop tradition there's the skits right it's there's the things that go in between the songs that kind of paint the backdrop the album artwork cover it clearly says a movie by Kendrick Lamar like it's clear that he's leaning into being uh visual with it um but it the the whole musicality of it uh and how
hard hitting it is at the same time uh is just miraculous and and it just a feat it's it was it's a major undertaking too I remember being on a rooftop and doing a little bit of underage drinking and somebody put on Backseat Freestyle and I was like what is this like just because I think that that's the thing about this record
there's the skits and there's the storytelling and there's his unbelievable Wordsmith but there's also crazy hooks crazy hook there's hooks for days on this and multiple personalities even on that one song You Know bit you know it's just like what is that voice drama is just yeah he brings it it's
it's so playful yeah at the same time as having so much storytelling and vulnerability that a really good point it's it's as as heavy a story as it is and as important it is that you listen to every word on that record it's playful it's entertaining I I do have a question cuz I love this record obviously it was so important to me as
moving to New York but to pimp butterfly for me is the record for him so I I or is my personal that that's what I would put forward so I'm curious about why good kid Mad City to pimp a butterfly actually caused a little bit of division in the hip-hop discussion and I think it's because to pimp a butterfly is
dense and takes more work yeah this uh uh good kid Mad City is laid bare for you it's very you know for those that don't want to have to dig in there's things that catch you right away now there's it's layered so you can get more if you would like to go deeper and kind of analyze to pimple butterfly I think had a lot of layers and and I like to
pimple butterfly also um it's similar to his Mr moral and big steppers had just dropped right which I love but a lot of people just weren't ready for how deep he went on his own therapetic it's almost like Kendrick had to complete and release good kid Mad City as a sort of perfect hip hop manuscript in order for
him to go and do all these other things that he wants to go and do creatively and spiritually and figure out what kind of artist he wants to be album by album by album because it is kind of the only one of its kind in many respects if you think about it like every other every one of his albums has been very
different do you think it has to also do with Community I mean this is such a record of Compton for Compton and by the time this record became as popular as it did Kendrick belonged to everybody right in this way that like the Secret's kind of out that's a good point coming in at number six Stevie Wonder songs in the
key of life I mean well this is two records basically it is this is a mega piece of art this is this is something that when I think in terms of of Stevie Wonder This Record achieves something compositionally that is even a milestone for steevie I mean this is Stevie's Thriller if you will is it true
that he was actually walking away from music before he made this album he was planning on leaving he he'd had a real run with innovisions and talking book and and a few other albums and that he had decided he was going to go and pursue something very different more meaningful in a different way and that it was only after he came back and
decided to resign with Motown that really legendary deal at the time and this was the first thing I think he did from that deal I think he was done before why do I feel like artists always make their best records after they quit you know think of the anticipation surrounding Stevie coming back with a record and deciding to make a double
album right well over an hour and a half long you know taking two years or whatever for it to come out and for it to achieve what it achieved and to go beyond even everyone's expectations songs in the key of life just I mean for me no matter what instrument he's playing he sort of speaks with the same voice
it's it's a he it's a real unique gift his singing his harmonica playing his keyboard playing all sounds like Stevie Wonder it is the weirdest thing I've ever experienced the horn Arrangement on sduk is the one on this record where I always I'm like how do you write that I'm just but it's got that same joy that
he's playing the harmonica with I mean it's so intricate and so present and I think also when I look at the track list for this record is Isn't She Lovely is now one of those songs that is just it's part of the Canon it's one of those songs like Amazing Grace that that no one wrote and belongs to everybody
except Stevie Wonder wrote On songs The Key of Life and it just the the the other thing I want to talk about with this record is um this album cover yeah is so Fantastical and Bonkers and like playful this font this like a cursive font with him like in the middle think about how much they just wanted to Market and promote this to success they
just wanted this album covered to have Stevie Wonder new album on it and it's really hard to decipher so it's I'm like it's iconic you know he still continues to have such an enormous presence and influence on artists today young and and and established and you know you talk to Tyler the Creator about Stevie Wonder
you listen to Tyler's music and the core progressions and the way that he moves in that way I was born in 1975 this came out in 1976 and I don't I don't don't remember being aware of music there's like two albums that you're like those are the first two album artworks that you see in your life y one of his songs in the keia
life was just always sitting right there and the other one was Michael Jackson Off the Wall those are my first memories of oh that's an album is that a burning Sun is that a what am I looking at right but then when you get into the actual composition and of Music the composition of lyrics so many different ways that
I've been brought back to this album from Coolio's gangster paradise to like you said Isn't She Lovely and as and I mean there's so many songs on here that are just have a talk with God uh L Need of Love Today I I play those for my 9-year-old now right the way he took love and politics and what was going on
at that time in his life and what was important to him and put this into this beautiful uh Masterpiece I mean that's why it's ranked so high on the list I think everyone gets that from this album songs in the key of life just exists as this unbelievable piece of art I can't imagine a world that doesn't have songs
in the key of life in it this is a special one for me it's a modern album it's an album that came out after the streaming era began it felt very much like its distribution was in line with modern distribution it landed in a unique way but what's truly special about the album sitting at number five
is that the more that I and I believe anyone who loves it listens to it the more it continues to reveal itself in ways that I could never have imagined it's Frank Ocean and blonde this album this is this is music put on canvas I I look at the canvas through different light at different times of the day depending on how I feel and I see
Strokes of color I never saw before even knew existed there's so many layers in thoughts and emotions and hooks and ideas that all somehow make sense different every single time and I don't know how else to describe it but it it is it is just the most beautiful piece of art this album for it's great I I
remember um walking through the doors of U electric lady I was walking in he was walking out and I wanted to say yo you know that new album you but I was actually fanboying I didn't even know what to say W cuz I was so impressed it's it's an amazing an amazing piece of art it's um you know my love for for what Frank Ocean does
obviously you know the way he writes is so hipop yeah right it's so a part of it but also just like when we were talking about Stevie chord changes Melodies you know Vivid lyrics uh uh word play like he he he Taps into all of it it feels so easy when we get a project from him when you said someone made that I feel like
that about this album I don't know why he made the decisions he made to do what he did Arrangement melodically I'm like who puts that there and I love it so much well when I think about this record I think about intention I mean his intention is razor blade sharp on this record of the things that he chose to leave on the canvas if we're talking
about Stevie Wonder there's so much maximalism in songs in the key of life this is such a exercise and restraint and the choices he made the spelling of the word blonde the the world-renowned photographer to cover without his face like whenever I think about this record I I picture the pro tool session because
I want to know were there only three tracks or were there 20 and they were all muted I think they would I think they were I want to know I think they were 200 and I just don't think we actually hear them all in one human sitting I like is there a version with drums right but if you also think about this album it it it goes through you go
through the same experience in terms of who's on this album Beyonce James Blake Tyler the Creator the list of collaborators is incredible and yet I never once listened to this album and go that's the James bit that's tightly woven even Beyonce her harmonies and her beautiful very thoughtful wonderful vocals at the end
of pink and white I even know she was on this I've heard this record so many times really and now you do you hear it but it's never distracting away from what blonde is blonde is its own identity that's the crazy thing about this record well and it's another one of those one of ones uh you and I talk
about this because people come along and they think that they're in the right space to try to do this in their own way shape or form and it's like are you talking about that are you talking about the danger of influence yeah it's like ah I can do that it's like no you it is funny we are in this moment now no no
you can't do that I heard somebody describe a record the I was like what's it sound like and they were like post Frank and I was like got it that's 100% right that's exact I know ex I know everything I need to know I mean this record feels like smoke Rising like it is so delicate and so unpredictable and so precise I love it just it came out in
2016 and contrary to how we you know felt in the past about these lists and how a certain amount of time must pass before something can be considered Timeless I think we know in our heart if we really love music the day something comes out that it's Timeless and I think this is one of those albums um that sits
in the top five of The 100 best albums of all time rightfully so just four more left yeah I wasn't supposed to go see this movie and I'm not sure I was supposed to be listening to this album but I did a lot Prince Purple Rain is at number four the greatest arst of our lifetime yeah I think I can pretty much
say that you can say it talk about an album that catches an artist at a specific moment yeah I mean this is such a a moment in the Arc of of his career but also that created so much iconography the the suit and the motorcycle and the it's so conceptually ambitious perfect yeah it's perfect he's
you know you when you think about artists who've had such a major impact on your life my relationship with Prince was a very peculiar one because we were so regular which is hard to say because he's so irregular he's so abnormal and but the music the the film I mean just everything around this record was just so amazing
and it just put me in such a a place of respect and happiness and just like man you're not only you keeping the tradition alive but you're taking us to another level um I was just so proud to be in the world the same time he was in the world I think everybody is inspired andu influenced by things that you love
and you hope that it's going to give you that extra kick that extra bit of fuel to make something greater it's a beautiful part of the experience I think that there is something about Prince and about this record that like when you encounter it he's showing you how to love yourself I mean he there's so much self-love in the way that he held
himself to this standard and he sort of said I'm going to be the best and like I'm gonna show you and the way that he topped himself over and over and over again it's so inspiring to Encounter of just that you can hold yourself every day to that standard like beauly put Yeah man so this album when you go through it
track for track you get the you get the soul you get the pop the rock and roll you get the rock and roll but not only that gu you get the guitars but then you get the squalling Church vocals you don't even know how to record like that unless you've had that experience before like there's things he does on this that if
you didn't live it see it touch it in in in a in a black spiritual way you don't you don't do that and then and then the audacity that it's a film and it wins an Oscar right and in some ways it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a biopic right like it's it's it's so many things man and you know for me uh Prince is my favorite
artist of all time yep same like without a doubt from like literally you could point to everything that he does he's he actually plays the instruments he actually writes the song he's actually singing on stage he's actually doing his own art Direction he did his own fashion design like that that was all him Soup
To Nuts that's why it's number it's number four man and the greatest performance of all time he's performing the song Purple Rain during the Super Bowl and it starts raining I mean I mean come on come on I know right right come on all right number three I know you're thinking I think I figured out what the top three are you've definitely figured
out two and number three is the Beatles Abby Road to me it is The Beatles at their absolute Apex creative level getting along beautifully having a great time making which as we know now wasn't always the well as we know now you know it yeah it's something to I think it's a nice thing to remember when you hear
this record that they had fun and had a great time and it flowed really well because it brings the songs to life in a different way do you know what I mean there was a lot shown in get back and it was like okay interesting Dynamics are shifting but this was a joyous record there's something about the Beatles
that's always really magical to me I learned to play guitar believe it or not the first song I ever actually completed was a beetle song on the guitar I knew at that moment that I was going to be a guitar player prior to that I played the clarinet and kicked ass in the martial arts ring yeah much cool than kung fu
clarinet Kung Fu clarinet that's funny I had to switch to guitar yeah but um but yeah the the happiness that you talk about this record uh that it evokes um the fact that they were really getting along as a tribe and it was bit of sweet I mean if you've read any of the Articles written or or heard any of the things the band
you know Paul or or or R go talk about um they kind of knew that it was reaching its natural conclusion when they were making this record obviously I learned that later yeah right reading articles watching documentaries then when I go back and I see the album cover it's like okay this was a moment that
they were in step if you will I mean it's a piece of iconography that you can't ever undo and it's also something that everybody wish they could 500 people that walk across that thing every single day any anyone could be that guy and yet like when I look at the track list for this record it's crazy the the
beginning of come together to be able to start a record with Dynamic and texture and there's something so mysterious about the way this record opens but then you get the the audacity to write Octopus's Garden is insane I just want to say that and have it be just perfect and also how about George showing up at number two with one of the greatest
Beetles songs of all time at a time when I think he was still trying to figure out how I get in between this John PA yeah how do I get a song on the record right and which just so of like what was to come but also Here Comes the Sun yeah that's in the cannon that's next to Amazing Grace that belongs to everybody to be able to make one of
those songs it's just that's everything it's something about the way the Beatles um wrote performed released and Shar this music that it outlives almost any other I don't want to create hierarchy of Art and artists but it almost outlives any other careers but Maggie just quickly like as a songwriter what
do you hear when you hear Beatles songs when you first introduced to them and you listen to these albums and you're striving to find something to say and you hear how they say it I mean to me there is something so so special about making music where you have a song that is describing some of the greatest human
pain or sorrow next to a song that you would happily play for your three-year-old next to a one of the greatest love songs next to it's Timeless but not just in the way that it will last forever but in the way that there is something for every moment of humanity and every human feeling on this record it's for people of every age but
I think that's why it got voted so high yeah because of what you were just articulating right because you know while there's so many great Beatles albums right this album takes you on a a a journey that is as you said it's personal it's you know intimate it's also for everyone it's workout music cleaning the house music hanging out
with my family music like there's and you could just put this on at any pick a thing I think out of anybody I think when we look back on this you know this crazy existence and if you think about it in terms of the life we're living right now this era of existence the The Beatles start to finish and there has
been a finish now we have the last song I think that is the song Book of Life the amount of songs that have stayed with people as they've lived their lives to your point plated anniversaries weddings funerals fall in love to broken up to there are lots of song books that that speak to many times in life I think
they have the song Book of Life right ladies and gentlemen we are at the top two and I have to assume that most of you knew that this was going to be somewhere in the top but you probably thought it was going to be number one one right however it's number two Michael Jackson Thriller 35 million albums in the first
year Maggie in the first year 35 million in the first year and it was the largest selling album of the year two years running so not only did it sell everything in its opening year it outsold everything in its second year it changed the way people approached making music releasing music Distributing marketing music and no one ever caught
up to it it set the bar so high unable pick a thing pick a thing pick a thing no we got to start with you and your take on this this is like for you I mean this is Peak explosion of of pop music sales MTV is about to kick in the whole thing is going crazy yeah this um you know what's really weird for me
this whole experience with you guys um like I know this is so weird why do you think we asked that's why we as you to be here bro I was here I I was literally here so I I met Michael in 1973 Michael and I were seatmates on the bus if you ever read anything or talk to Quincy or talk to anybody from that
Collective they'll say boy when Nile Rogers walks in the room watch what happens to Michael lit up like a Christmas tree cuz I'd sit there reading him comic books when Michael dropped this record to me the world changed it was a seismic Shi shift in everything I mean U having uh a black artist to a music video on the level of
Thriller was just it changed the world I mean I mean you've seen how many uh people have you know imitated the Thriller thing oh no we memorized it from in the living room yeah people in prisons just entire greatest music video event of all time the whole world waited for that Premiere it was midnight in New
Zealand on New Year's Eve I was in a tiny little like holiday home in New Year's Eve yeah in like the Bay of islands waiting for this video like it changed everything new year's that's so interesting yeah well so I have to ask uh n this album Thriller as much as people categorize it as Pop okay and there's pop elements there's Jazz
elements Funk elements disco elements uh there's so many elements within this this for Michael Jackson right was a deliberate I'm going to take over the world MH right he coll obviously Quincy Jones and the other musical collaborators in the project templ yeah so for what was happening in in in with
musicians and recorded music at that time when you guys heard this body of work did everyone immediately know what it was like mean how big it was going to be it's hard to answer that question because she put it perfectly you you say somebody made this right like it had never happened before it it was so big how big was it it was
so big that it was the biggest of the big right it was it was immeasurable like you couldn't you know when when when he passed away I remember listening to one of the bgs say that the reason why their relationship with Michael was so great was because of one time they were sitting in that position um where
you had the biggest record in the world and that's like an incredible thing to have the biggest record in the world but Michael's biggest record in the world was so big that it almost made the BG's biggest record in the world seem like just another big record 522 weeks in the billboard 200 that's 10 years it's 10 years yeah also like every
Halloween it's back right of course yeah it's as a new record I I want to say though you know we talking about the top five records you don't get purple rain and Thriller are so in conversation with each other right and and so much of the beauty of of this like very particular special time in music is the way that
these two artists elevated each other by just being competitive right and like how important it is to have fire to have someone that can meet you and then Here Comes Madonna and it's on it's just on and she's more badass than either of them I know we walked in earlier and I was like oh I made like a virgin here
and I was like oh cool I came here on a school field trip well this is this is a real moment right here because um there's definitely a lot of people who have been watching this and we really appreciate you taking the time um in particular Maggie and Nile taking the time to help sharing this experience with us as we countd
down this 10 um and I know a lot of you watching this will be thinking if Thrill is not number one what what is there you have it we are at the number one album Lauren Hill the miseducation of Lauren Hill I love it is at the top of the 100 best albums of all time right here on Apple music Lauren being a
friend the people who work on this album being friends and family like this is so near and dear to my heart from every aspect of a kid who grew up loving R&B music but also loving hip-hop and also loving dance hall and loving black music in general and storytelling and all of the amazing black women that have contributed stories and recorded
them just for generations to have something to lock into and to and to hold on to this album delivers on so many levels and I think that's why I got voted number one it did I mean it's amazing to think that this album um doesn't just resonate with the people who are around when it came out who hold it dear because it's it
hasn't dated not even just a fraction in fact it feels more fresh and more relevant the more you listen to it having listened to it the whole time but there's a lot of young people and Young Artists hearing it 10 15 years after it came out and it's becoming part of their artistic DNA it's inspiring it and
influencing them I think my mom used to play this record in the kitchen growing up and it was it was like one of those moments where like I knew that my mom was in a really good mood if I walked in and heard like doop that thing in the kitchen and it like her voice is so singular and the atmosphere and character that she carries on this
record is so open and so expansive and so direct I just it this record means so much to me but when I saw that it was on the top of this list it just it made me smile too because to have an artist like Lauren Hill be the number one just that that means a lot she's she's amazing This Record is amazing um you put it really
great friends and family are all involved in the making of This Record I know so many of the people even the generation before that contributed to this record which is also amazing to me um I have to admit that I didn't expect it to be number one over Thriller and over P Purple Rain um neither did we I
don't think I don't think we went into this knowing that either like we Zan and I both looked at each other when we learned and we're kind of like but yeah well look the list is all up for debate and I think but when you get to particular areas of like 4 3 2 1 it really is just microscopic differences of opinion and
what where things sit and I think for the longest time an album like Thriller has been number one on every list and I think what was really interesting was that it did feel like there was a shift in the way people are being inspired and influenced by music to see Lauren Hill just over because remember this album is
like 25 years old and I think it's just interesting to see how it continues to find its place in people's life this album exemplifies and captures popular music of the last 25 holistically holistically it's R&B that's right it's hip-hop it's independent woman strong woman it's topical um sampling too hard to take
there are probably more well I'd say there were more people making music in the in the beautiful aftermath of the miseducation of Lauren Hill than there are in the optimat of Thriller now right that's what I was going to say is that I just I think Thriller it's about what a record trying to achieve because I think that Thriller
was so much about Personal Achievement like you have these great collaborators but Michael was like I'm going to go there yeah and Lauren brought everybody with her yeah she brought her community she brought her friends she brought her family you're in the kitchen you're in the living room you hear people you hear
the voices talking like you know it's stacked in all the right ways and well and and as we talked about with Beyonce with lemonade this album also has new relationship new baby as well as breakup not just breakup of band mates on Lost Ones where she's you know talking to W cleff and all that but we come to
find out that there was some other relationship things going on there as you know as this story unfolds so there's even those very it's very personal this is probably the only album that you could go through that list and it embodies elements of all of these records in some respects it's got hints of lots of the albums that are showing
up there um in terms of thematically the pain of Amy win housee right the idea of painting the pictures of Kendrick or Frank Ocean right the Dynamics of Nana I mean there's elements in a lot of these albums that she just got they just nailed it I mean it's it I I put it on still and I'm just I'm just stunned by
the quality of of the overall really when this album came out I was uh was I think you were 39 97 so I was was I was 12 when this came out um but I I I wasn't all the way outside like I was still a kid when Purple Rain and th I was just kind of but I was fully outside and and feeling what this meant right right it also you know was at at the
coming off the Fuji the score which we know how huge that was right like this had all of the elements and then she goes to the Grammys and sweeps yeah right cleans it up right takes it it's Timeless and it's number one on our very very first ever 100 best albums of all time I just got to say with the with the
fullest heart on behalf of everybody who's watched this or been a part of this experience or the many people who have put a lot of time and eff into making this list it's been a real process thanks to everybody particular thanks to Nile and to Maggie for joining us today thank you very much for uh indulging us and and experiencing this
with us and definitely this list doesn't stay static but there it is the 100 best albums of all time up on Apple music are list listen to all of them that's been the whole point of this talk about about it amongst yourselves and with your friends and there's a lot to go and see and listen to [Applause] [Music]