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Apple Music 100 Best Albums

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Voodoo

D'Angelo

57

The heart of the ’90s neo-soul movement and a gumbo of Black innovation.

When D’Angelo released his masterpiece Voodoo at the turn of the century (and five years after his debut, Brown Sugar), it was immediately clear he’d avoided the dreaded sophomore slump to evolve into a musician as concerned with honouring the past as he was with following his artistic impulses. At the time, the neo-soul movement was an alternative to the flashier edge of ’90s hip-hop and R&B, and Voodoo was its apex: a gumbo of Black innovation—blues, jazz, soul, funk, gospel even—peppered by a full spectrum of humanity, from despair to ecstasy.

The grooves contained within the album are deep enough to swallow you, even and especially when they head past the six-minute mark. Take the most recognisable single, “Untitled (How Does It Feel)”, and how its deliberate pace is akin to seduction, or the cover of Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love”: Each one feels communal, as the instruments do as much heavy lifting as D’Angelo’s electrifying falsetto. If Brown Sugar was a controlled burn, then Voodoo is a wildfire of experimentation, balancing loose improvisation with the precision of a well-rehearsed genius.

“There’s an ease in the production, in the arrangements, in the playing. It feels like nothing is pushed or forced. There’s just a grace in it all that I love.”

Sara Bareilles

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Disintegration

The Cure

56

A dreamy deep dive that signalled the goth icons’ new stadium-sized ambitions.

Four years after The Head on the Door’s bona fide melodies marked a definitive break with the claustrophobic intensity of the goth icons’ early-’80s run, The Cure’s eighth album sharpened those pop instincts and enlarged their vision to stadium-sized proportions.

“By the time you get to Disintegration, it’s weirder and darker, and I was all about it.”

Kaskade

Disintegration is a deep dive into a singular mood: wistful and deeply melancholy, informing (and informed by) waves of British shoegaze and dream pop. Alt-rock staples “Pictures of You”, “Lovesong” and “Fascination Street” are as immediate and indelible as anything in their catalogue, but the band tempers its emotions so that even the major-key tonality of a track like “Plainsong” is marked not by brightness, but a deeper, richer hue.

There’s an echo of their prior, character-defining bleakness here, but this time, the descent into despair is strangely welcoming, as if Robert Smith had discovered that on the coldest nights, wrapping up in one’s own loneliness is the only way to stay warm. And in the process, he brought goth—and its fans—into the mainstream.

Disintegration by The Cure