Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) by Wu-Tang Clan

Tapestry

Carole King

A behind-the-scenes legend steps out on her own and launches the ’70s singer-songwriter era.

Carole King’s second solo album, 1971’s Tapestry, virtually defined the singer-songwriter era of the 1970s. Its warm, intimate tone; the simple, piano-based arrangements; and the cozy living-room feel of the album captured a moment in time and rightfully turned the limelight onto a songwriter who’d crafted so many classics for others over the preceding decade.

King had shaped American pop music by speaking for women as a group, articulating previously masked vulnerability on The Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and daring, earthy sensuality on Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman.” But on Tapestry, her second album as a soloist, King reclaims those songs, using them to tell her own story. She also introduced new compositions destined to become standards in their own right (“I Feel the Earth Move,” “It’s Too Late,” “So Far Away,” and “You’ve Got a Friend,” which would become a hit for James Taylor, who played on the album’s sessions).

So it’s no surprise Tapestry played like an instant greatest-hits album even upon its release; after six years parked in Billboard’s albums chart (including a record-setting 15 weeks on top of it) and five decades of ubiquity, it can hardly be thought of as anything else.

“I can never say enough about this album. You can sit and listen to Carole King play piano like a rock star and sing like an angel. But the key to all of it is her songwriting.”

Shania Twain

Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Wu-Tang Clan

Smooth beats, hard rhymes: the Wu’s scene-shaking masterpiece.

In 1993, the Wu-Tang Clan was a grim, grimy, grindhouse alternative to G-funk’s baroque gangsta cinema: If Dr. Dre’s lush, lowrider-ready grooves were Terminator 2, then the scratchy, bloody, distorted productions of RZA on their debut album were Reservoir Dogs. Emerging from New York City’s most underrepresented borough—the literal island of Staten—here was a sound that, by nature or nurture, existed in its own bubble: corroded soul breaks, snatches from arcane kung fu flicks, distended keyboard lines, tape noises, snaps, and stutters.

Wu-Tang emerged as a nine-member crew in the post-MTV age of small cliques, a mix of styles and voices: the violent beat poetry of Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and Inspectah Deck; the drunken sing-to-scream ping-pong of Ol’ Dirty Bastard; the $5 words and scientific flows of GZA and Masta Killa; the boisterous coaching of RZA; the gritty rasp of U-God; and the slick talk of Method Man, who was already getting a star turn on his eponymous track.

Though melancholy reminiscences like “Can It Be All So Simple,” “C.R.E.A.M.,” and “Tearz” made a trilogy of evocative narratives, the Wu provided few easy inroads to their mythology and poetry. They brought a singular ruckus, and everyone from the similarly crew-oriented Odd Future to the wordy Logic, the mafioso-fueled Pusha T, and the wild-styled Young Thug all owe different types of gratitude.

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Tapestry

Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)