Doggystyle by Snoop Dogg

Golden Hour

Kacey Musgraves

Ethereal country that stretched and reimagined the genre’s possibilities.

No one saw it coming: not even Kacey Musgraves—just look at the “surprise face” meme that went viral after she won the Grammy for Album of the Year for Golden Hour. It was a passion project dedicated to fresh love, made with a new production team (Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian) and a little bit of LSD, and partly recorded above Sheryl Crow’s horse barn. But it was a passion project that exploded Kacey Musgraves from critically adored artist into global superstar.

Golden Hour is a masterpiece of ethereal country pop—psychedelic at times, disco-forward at others, and all held together by Musgraves’ wit and poignant vocal delivery. “Slow Burn,” in its minor-key opening strums, sends her earliest acoustic inclinations through a kaleidoscope of new sounds, while “Space Cowboy” is a perfect, wandering country ballad. And the album’s closer, “Rainbow,” is a timeless offering of comfort to queer youth that affirms Musgraves’ commitment to the community. In her hands, country music would stretch the imagination, and everyone was invited to come along for the ride.

Doggystyle

Snoop Dogg

One of hip-hop’s most enduring characters brings the hangover.

Coming fast on the heels of Dr. Dre’s seminal solo debut, Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle plays like the night of partying and ensuing hangover that must inevitably follow The Chronic’s long lazy afternoon of Crenshaw cruising. Though tracks like the unforgettable “Gin and Juice” and “Doggy Dogg World” provide moments of gleeful levity to rival the sun-saturated joy of “Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang,” Doggystyle often sounds stressed and weary where The Chronic was celebratory.

“It was about trying to make something so deep and so different.”

Snoop Dogg

This is all best illustrated by “Murder Was the Case,” which features uncharacteristically baroque production from Dr. Dre and a ferocious rap from Snoop that finds the normally laidback MC—who was facing murder charges by the time the album dropped, before eventually being acquitted—mimicking Scarface’s cold-blooded delivery. Doggystyle’s occasionally gloom-laden atmosphere helps to distinguish it from the glut of West Coast party rap that began to appear on the charts in the wake of Death Row’s commercial ascendance in the ’90s. It also solidified the arrival of one of hip-hop’s most enduring personalities.

Apple Music 100 Best Albums

Golden Hour

Doggystyle