For a stretch there, musicians couldn’t stop name-dropping him. Blues singers blamed him. Rock bands partied with him. Country artists outran him. The 60s and 70s especially treated him like a recurring guest star.
Vanilla Ice rose to global fame with “Ice Ice Baby” in 1990, but sampling disputes, authenticity questions, and media backlash quickly derailed his career in one of pop culture’s fastest reversals.
Baby Boomers technically span from 1946 to 1964. Which means the oldest were already paying bills when the youngest were still discovering FM radio with the bedroom door closed. So when younger Boomers start reminiscing about “their bands,” older Boomers sometimes respond with a polite smile that says, ‘I have absolutely no memory of this.’
While there are definitely some great albums on those critics lists, there are some other great ones (even greater ones) that keep getting left off. So, let’s fix that with this 50 Greatest Albums list (in no particular order). And feel free to go ahead and agree or disagree loudly.
In an era when artists are loudly reclaiming their work, Anita Baker did it her way—softly, strategically, and without turning it into a spectacle. Long before reclaiming masters became a trending headline, Baker was fighting a battle behind the scenes for ownership of the music that defined late 80s and early 90s R&B.
When Celine Dion finally admitted, “I can’t do this anymore,” it was a breaking point. And the story behind that moment is heavier—and longer—than most people realized.
Ending a TV show is a high-wire act. Do too much and it feels forced. Do too little and fans riot in the streets—metaphorically, of course. But every once in a while, a series sticks the landing so cleanly that even critics have to slow-clap. According to critics, these are the most technically perfect TV series finales of the century. The kind that tied up arcs, honored themes, and closed the curtain with precision instead of panic. No messy loose ends. No emotional cheap shots. Just beautifully engineered goodbyes.
At the start of the 2010s, there was quiet chatter that hip hop had peaked. The blog era was fading, radio felt repetitive, and the old guard was either experimenting or coasting. Then the new class showed up—loud, weird, melodic, political, viral, regional, global—and suddenly the genre wasn’t just alive, it was sprinting.
There’s something sacred about a roadhouse jukebox, the way it sets a mood, tells a story, or even settles an argument. These are the songs that lived in those glowing machines, the ones you’d hear over the clink of bottles, the scrape of bar stools, and the low hum of highway traffic outside. They weren’t just hits; they were atmosphere.
Great bands don’t always stay in one lane. Sometimes evolution is less about surviving trends and more about reshaping them while keeping the core of what made something special in the first place. These artists stepped beyond comfort zones, experimented with new sounds or approaches, and came out with work that still felt authentically them.
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