In this day and age it’s an odd thing for me to be reading a list of popular albums only to find myself seriously out of my depth. But that’s what happened when I chanced upon a feature about the most streamed albums on Spotify. That’s because I like to think of myself as a bit of a music master, the type of clever clogs who spends his time writing about the cultural significance of music, knows everything there is to know about everyone from Big Mama Thornton to Lil Nas X, and uses that knowledge to wow his friends at the monthly quiz night down the local pub. And yet when I chose to familiarise myself with the top forty albums on the Spotify list, it dawned on me that not only had I previously listened to just four of them, I had never even heard of Bad Bunny, XXXTentacion or Juice Wrld, let alone their music.
I guess one explanation for my ignorance is that Spotify’s user base is still relatively new, with all but one of the top forty released after their 2011 launch in the States. Obviously, that tends to preclude those albums with the best physical sales on vinyl, cassette or CD, the majority of which are from the seventies and eighties. Then again, it’s equally obvious that Spotify, or rather it’s 675 million plus users, have no respect for that old stuff. And with an average age of eighteen to 34, why should they?
Certainly the figures back up that mindset, chartmasters.org’s list of the most streamed albums on Spotify featuring such multi-platinum selling monsters as Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours at number 81, Michael Jackson’s Thriller at 119 and Bad at 349, The Eagles Hotel California at 489 and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon at 491, while The Beach Boy’s critically revered Pet Sounds is sandwiched between those other arbiters of good taste Rick Astley and Sixpence None The Richer at 1447!
What these figures fail to acknowledge is that as an active facilitator, Spotify is hardly an innocent bystander, and by championing its preferred song type through algorithms, paid for features and playlists, its most streamed albums chart can’t really be called neutral. In other words, when it gets down to it, while the most streamed albums on Spotify are as close to a mirror of current taste as you’re ever likely to get, the metrics involved are pre-determined and seriously biased.
Not that I let any of that deter me in my quest, the prospect of exploring, rating and reviewing a bunch of albums and artists I know very little about something to look forward to. As before with Now That’s Not What I Call Music 1: The UK’s Best Selling Studio Albums Of All Time, I made it my mission to listen to one album per day, two or three times, for forty days. Somewhat predictably, the one thing I learnt fairly early on was that being popular rarely equates to being good. And yet while listening to new albums can be a bit of a chore, I found most of them to be rewarding, often insightful and nearly always enjoyable.
Anyway here they are, the Most Streamed Albums On Spotify Ever. I hope you enjoy them too!
May 2025
1. BAD BUNNY / Un Verano Sin Ti (May 2022)
Rating: 6 / Favourite Track: ‘El Apagón’
My mastery of Spanish is limited to say the least so Puerto Rican rapper, singer and producer Benito Ocasio’s songs were never going to speak to me as he intended. But I still found the crazy amount of work and creativity that must have gone into the 23 songs on Un Verano Sin Ti mind blowing. And at 18,974,507,893 streams and counting, it would seem that quite a few folk agree with me. A musical patchwork of Caribbean culture taking in outlawed and censored black music genres like bachata, mambo and reggaeton, the album is best summed up by the ever changing ‘El Apagón’ which jumps from sampled, chanted voices and clattering percussion to full on house track to a late night vibe of softened electronica and female vocals in a little over three minutes. Incredible!
2. THE WEEKND / Starboy (November 2016)
Rating: 4 / Favourite Track: ‘I Feel It Coming’ Feat. Daft Punk
Starboy is the classic example of a straight up, 21st century, pop R&B album and a fairly dreary one at that. Not that The Weeknd doesn’t have his moments, the collaborations with Daft Punk, Lana Del Rey and Kendrick Lamar being the obvious highlights. Unfortunately, the directionless nature of the second half manages to suck the life and energy out of the whole thing, although it does redeem itself at the end with the fabulous ‘I Feel It Coming’, the second Daft Punk contribution.
3. ED SHEERAN / ÷ (March 2017)
Rating: 2 / Least Offensive Track: ‘Dive’
As a piece of work ÷ is a poor excuse for an album and just as depressing as you might expect, ‘Dive’ one of the few just about tolerable songs on it until Eric Clapton’s rock guitar solo kicks in. Would Mr Ed let anyone appear on his albums if they attract a few more listeners and make him a few more quid? You bet he would!
4. OLIVIA RODRIGO / Sour (May 2021)
Rating: 6 / Favourite Track: ‘Favourite Crime’
While it would have been easy for me to approach eighteen year old, ex Disney starlet Olivia Rodrigo’s debut with my usual amount of cynicism, no-one was more surprised than me when I found Sour to be rather good. Clearly plugged in to the many insecurities of her generation, the most intriguing aspect of the album is her obvious enthusiasm for nineties alternative rock. Inspired by her mother’s record collection, that influence is most noticeable on opener ‘Brutal’ and the searing ‘Jealousy, Jealousy’. But where Olivia Rodrigo really succeeds is how she manages to open up what is in effect an album of teenage angst packed with tales of anxiety, low self-esteem and romantic rejection to even my old, cold heart.
5. THE WEEKND / After Hours (March 2020)
Rating: 5 / Favourite Track: ‘Blinding Lights’
It’s sad but true that no Weeknd album strays far from him bragging or complaining about his life of money, drugs and no strings sex. Worse still is the blatant misogyny that peppers the majority of his songs. These faults were as evident as ever on After Hours which, like so many albums here, employed Swedish pop guru Max Martin to sprinkle his sonic stardust on a bunch of OK if mediocre, state of the art, pop R&B tunes. Apart that is from the fabulous, eighties, nostalgia fest of ‘Blinding Lights’, the high point not just of After Hours, but of The Weeknd’s entire career and worthy of a couple of extra points on its own.
6. POST MALONE / Hollywood’s Bleeding (September 2019)
Rating: 4 / Favourite Track: ‘Myself’
A white, long haired, New Yorker with trademark face tat’s whose terrible lyrics and bullshit comments about firearms, drugs, racism precede him, not only does Post Malone look like a twat, it would appear he acts like one too. As for his music, Hollywood’s Bleeding sounds more or less like I was expecting: autotuned to death and very 21st century while covering every possible pop meme; from earnest acoustic balladry to mumbled SoundCloud rap and recycled R&B with guest appearances galore. Every one of the seventeen songs sound curiously hollow with literally nothing to say, yet the man is a mega star. But then Hollywood’s Bleeding wasn’t made for the likes of me was it?
7. DUA LIPA / Future Nostalgia (March 2020)
Rating: 5 / Favourite Track: ‘Love Again’
8. DUA LIPA / Dua Lipa (June 2017)
Rating: 3 / Favourite Track: ‘Genesis’
As the daughter of Kosovo Albanian refugees rebuilding their lives in London, Dua Lipa’s back story is inspirational, her music less so. Continuing on a path well-trodden by Jessie J, Ellie Goulding, Jess Glynne and countless others, her second album Future Nostalgia only trumps those of her competitors by virtue of its immaculate production and the use of the eighties as a reference point. Where that really benefits is in giving the listener a strange sense of déjà vu, conning you into believing you’ve heard most of the songs before.
Even so, whether Future Nostalgia is revivalist pop or disco fantasia, it’s infinitely more enjoyable than Dua Lipa’s self-titled debut. With a producer and writer list a mile long, it may ooze confidence but is largely just generic and dull with too many similar sounding songs that ultimately blend into one. And I can’t shake off the thought that there’s an element of chasing trends about it too, album closer ‘Homesick’ with the permanently smiley and smug Chris Martin making the whole thing feel rather calculated.
9. POST MALONE / Beerbongs & Bentleys (April 2018)
Rating: 4 / Favourite Track: ‘Candy Paint’
More autotuned nonsense and meaningless lyrics from Post Malone, although it would be wrong of me not to point out the maddeningly catchy tune craft and clever production tricks at work on ‘Rich and Sad’, ‘Takin’ Shots’ and ‘Candy Paint’ in particular. It’s just a shame that when listened to in one sitting, Beerbongs & Bentleys hour long duration made me feel like I was trapped inside some kind of sonic hell hole with no means of escape!
10. TAYLOR SWIFT / Lover (August 2019)
Rating: 4 / Favourite Track: ‘False God’
Taylor Swift’s rise to superstardom has been going on around me for almost two decades now. Yet apart from her more popular singles and the occasional deep cut coming out of my daughter’s bedroom, I’ve remained blissfully unaware of her albums, particularly Lovers, which remarkably I’d never even heard of before. One of the least loved albums amongst her global fan base, it was easy to spot why.
Expecting some kind of spiritual experience, what I heard was an album which, without knowing the details of Taylor Swift’s life or studying the lyrics with a magnifying glass, was rendered just as meaningless as Post Malone’s bullshit. Not that the sugar coated pop of ‘Cruel Summer’, ‘The Archer’ and ‘False God’ weren’t enjoyable, but any album with the dreadful ‘London Boy’ on it deserves every word of criticism it gets and more.
11. SZA / SOS Deluxe: Lana (December 2024)
Rating: 6 / Favourite Track: ‘Kitchen’
SOS Deluxe: Lana is a deluxe reissue of SZA’s original SOS released in 2022. Promoted as an album of outtakes and straddling the middle ground between ambling, indie R&B and hook laden, hardcore pop, songs like the dreamy, Isley Brother’s ‘Voyage To Atlantis’ sampling ‘Kitchen’, the ‘Girl from Ipanema’ inspired lightweight pop of ‘BMF’ and the catchy yet multifaceted ‘Drive’ grab most of the attention. But there are others like Crybaby’, ‘Saturn’ and ‘Scorsese Baby Daddy’ that make SOS Deluxe: Lana a more than worthy addition to SZA’s small yet perfectly formed body of work.
12. BILLIE EILISH / When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go (March 2019)
Rating: 7 / Favourite Track: ‘Ilomilo’
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go is the classic example of the old adage that new music is generally good and new songs tend to find those folk who need them the most, in this case more than 7,000,000 sales worth of them. And it’s a fact that Billy Eilish and her brother Finneas are gifted stylists whose huge talent for hyperreal pop would have got them to the top in any era. Furthermore, even through the lens of my individual taste it’s easy for me to find something to relate to within songs like ‘Bad Guy’, ‘Xanny’, ‘When The Party’s Over’, ‘Bury A Friend’ and ‘Ilomilo’. Obviously I wish I could hear what’s really going on, but I can’t because I’m no longer sixteen years old. Yet that hardly matters because when music is as profound and beautiful as the melodies and language here, appreciating the huge talent involved in their creation is easy.
13. XXXTENTACION / ? (March 2018)
Rating: 6 / Favourite Track: ‘Hope’
XXXTentacion was shot dead at twenty years old three months after the release of ? , an untimely end that would link him forever after to the demise of Lil Peep in 2017 and Juice Wrld in 2019. Three of the most important exponents of SoundCloud rap who cultivated huge fan bases on the platform for years before signing to a major record company, they were the ones who really made it, until suddenly they didn’t. Easy to criticise for their face tat’s, their dyed hair, their love of the rock star lifestyle, their troubled youth and their obsession with death, often their own, I was about to do the same until I watched the 2019 Peep documentary Everybody’s Everything.
Completely captivating, quite unexpectedly I fell for the guy bigtime. Unmistakably hip-hop yet more moody, nihilistic and unpolished, I could see why his music was considered the coolest around and why it attracted the young and disgruntled who had little interest in the mainstream. While neither the voice of a generation or anywhere near as good as Lil Peep, if I had been in my mid-teens in 2018, with his punk attitude and fuck you vibe, I’d have been listening to XXXTentacion too. Now he’s departed, quite how long his status as a subcultural icon endures is anyone’s guess. But with both ? and 17 featuring in this list, I’d say quite a while.
14. ED SHEERAN / x (June 2014)
Rating: 1 / Least Offensive Track: ‘One’
Unfortunately, more Ed Sheeran means more excruciatingly crap songs. A year or so ago I gave x a mark of 3. Having endured it again for the sake of this feature, I’m reducing that to 1. It really is that depressing.
15. ARCTIC MONKEYS / AM (September 2013)
Rating: 7 / Favourite Track: ‘No. 1 Party Anthem’
Despite being an early advocate for the Arctic Monkey’s I gave up on them after Humbug, a disappointing album if ever there was one. So AM passed me by and I’m glad it did because in 2013 I wasn’t ready for an album effortlessly blending elements of sixties Motown (‘Snap Out Of It’), seventies hard rock and glam (‘R U Mine’ and ‘No. 1 Party Anthem’), nineties G Funk (‘Why Do You Only Call Me When You’re High?) and John Cooper Clarke (‘I Wanna Be Yours’). Fascinating if only for its refusal to be pigeonholed, in 2025 I like AM a lot.
16. JUSTIN BIEBER / Purpose (November 2015)
Rating: 3 / Favourite Track: ‘No Pressure’
Purpose was a notable touchstone of 21st century pop because it marked an era when a grab bag approach to genre shuffling became a permanent presence on pop radio and the de rigueur pathway to a hit. Constructed with precision by a committee of an astonishing 33 producers, 42 writers and an army of consultants and specialists, as likeable as some of it was, there was nothing to suggest that every one of its songs hadn’t been extensively researched and audience tested resulting in a glut of inoffensive tunes reductively moulded together. OK, so they sounded fantastic, but everything about Purpose, even Bieber’s tattooed Christian symbolism on the artwork, made me feel like I was being cheated.
17. DRAKE / Scorpion (June 2018)
Rating: 6 / Favourite Track: ‘Peak’
Settling down to listen to Scorpion, I was aware that Drake himself had once declared it his grand artistic statement. Running for 25 songs over an hour and a half, and covering every possible genre from trap to slow R&B jams, it is noticeably flabby in parts while some songs are so good they almost match Drake’s own claim. Especially fantastic are the Michael Jackson sampling ‘Don’t Matter To Me’, the electronic minimalism of ‘Summer Games’, the vintage soul of ‘Sandra’s Rose’ and the weirdly weird melancholy of ‘Peak’. And yet even the magnificence of those songs can’t stop me thinking how some judicious editing would have transformed Scorpion into a more significant album.
18. BILLIE EILISH / Don’t Smile At Me (August 2017)
Rating: 5 / Favourite Track: ‘idontwannabeyouanymore’
There’s an argument to be had that Spotify’s AI generated playlists cleanse and recontextualise the meaning of songs once full of power and emotion. Not only that, Spotify continually but subtly boosts music that never had any of those qualities in the first place. Traced back to 2017 and the muted, mid-tempo, melancholy sound of Billie Eilish’s extended EP Don’t Smile At Me, when I finally got to hear it I was surprised to find more of a Lorde and Lana Del Rey influence than any lacklustre Spotify muzak. Melodic, alternative pop fare, artistically the likes of ‘idontwannabeyouanymore’, ‘Party Favor’ and ‘Bellyache’ sound exactly like the competent, sulky stepping stones to future greatness they were meant to be.
19. BAD BUNNY / YHLQMDLG (February 2020)
Rating: 4 / Favourite Track: ‘Si Veo a Tu Mamá’
One of two Bad Bunny albums released in 2020, YHLQMDLG or Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana means quite literally ‘I do whatever I want’, something Benito Ocasio has continued to do by refusing to sing in English as so many of his Spanish speaking contemporaries have done. And yet, just like Un Verano Sin Ti, my enjoyment of YHLQMDLG and its homage to early reggaeton was seriously hampered by the language barrier, which explains why my favourite song is the woozy yet very familiar ‘Si Veo a Tu Mamá’ built from the 1964 bossa nova classic ‘Girl from Ipanema’.
20. DRAKE / Views (May 2016)
Rating: 5 / Favourite Track: ‘Feel No Ways’
Known as a serial moaner, Drake’s fourth album is filled to overflowing with songs complaining loudly about the kind of fun that comes with success. Going out to celebrity do’s, a succession of gorgeous girlfriends, boozy hedonism, taking drugs on paradise isle’s, Drake can’t help but whine about things most of us would happily trade our mothers to experience. The albums one saving grace is how the music itself counteracts such woeful lyrics; the Mary J Blige samples on ‘Weston Road Flows’, the shiny eighties pop sound on ‘Feel No Ways’, the John Barry style strings on opener ‘Keep The Family Close’ and rising above them all, ‘Hotline Bling’s inspired warping of Timmy Thomas’s ghostly ‘Why Can’t We Live Together’.
21. TAYLOR SWIFT / Midnights (October 2022)
Rating: 5 / Favourite Track: ‘Maroon’
Unavoidably uncool, with a dorkiness that no amount of stylists have been able to eradicate, Taylor Swift’s skill lie’s in her extraordinary ability to take hyper specific experiences and render them universal. So bearing that in mind, her tenth album was more or less what I was expecting with plenty of intimate storytelling about her career, her partner, her rivals, and her own shortcomings. But where Midnights really surprised me was how sophisticated it was sonically, the ambient electronica on ‘Maroon’, the twinkling synth and violin on ‘Snow On The Beach’ and the warping of her voice to a point of androgyny on ‘Labyrinth’ providing a most unexpected treat.
22. THE WEEKND / Beauty Behind The Madness (August 2015)
Rating: 5 / Favourite Track: ‘Losers’ Feat. Labrinth
The album that catapulted The Weeknd from niche R&B favourite to bigtime superstar, the only difference I could hear between Beauty Behind The Madness and his older albums was the highly polished production. Clearly benefitting from the large scale financial backing required to guarantee success, disregarding Abel Tesfaye’s habitual obsession with the opposite sex and the tendency of his songs to sound like autotuned muzak, the defiant strut of ‘Losers’, ‘The Hills’ and ‘Tell Your Friends’ are all really well constructed, high grade pop.
23. JUICE WRLD / Goodbye & Good Riddance (December 2018)
Rating: 3 / Favourite Track: ‘Used To’
When Juice Wrld OD’d at 21 years of age in December 2019 his death was regarded as the tragic end of SoundCloud rap. Whether that was true or not, it’s a fact that his year old major label debut benefitted immeasurably from his passing. Otherwise I fail to understand how Goodbye & Good Riddance remains as popular as it is. Repetitive, lacklustre, generic and boring with GCSE poetry lyrics revolving around how love hurts and drugs help, I really wanted to like it but sadly it’s a dud.
24. HARRY STYLES / FINE LINE (December 2019)
Rating: 6 / Favourite Track: ‘Sunflower, Vol. 6’
There is literally nothing not to like about Harry Styles. What’s more, rather than go the dreaded modern pop star route of sad sack, moany pop R&B with guest appearances by Kendrick Lamar, from the start he seemed more intent on reliving a seventies, rock star, fantasy life, albeit one that was more Michael McDonald than Jimmy Page. And I must say he carries it off with great aplomb, terrific songs like ‘Watermelon Sugar’, ‘Cherry’, ‘Treat People With Kindness’ and the more experimental ‘Sunflower, Vol. 6’ drawing from the past yet sufficiently contemporary to forge a unique identity for their creator within the rigid confines of 21st century pop.
25. TRAVIS SCOTT / ASTROWORLD (August 2018)
Rating: 6 / Favourite Track: ‘Stop Trying To Be God’ Feat. James Blake, Kid Cudi, Philip Bailey & Stevie Wonder
Anointed by none other than Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott’s third album Astroworld couldn’t really fail. But with a ludicrous number of producers and writers in tow (‘Sicko World’ alone listing thirty), and guest appearances featuring everyone from Frank Ocean to Tame Impala, it so easily could have if it were not for Scott’s remarkable sonic aesthetic holding it together. ‘Stop Trying To Be God’ is a prime example of that aesthetic in action, one where the seemingly disparate talents of James Blake, Earth, Wind & Fire singer Philip Baily and rapper Kid Cudi come together with Stevie Wonder’s legendary harmonica playing on a song that actually mean’s something.
26. BRUNO MARS / Doo-Wops & Hooligans (May 2010)
Rating: 0 Least Offensive Track: ‘The Other Side’ Feat. CeeLo Green & B.o.B
Even more trite and offensive than Mr Ed, Doo-Wops & Hooligans is cynical, new millennium pop for the plebeian masses. Seemingly pulling musical and lyrical clichés out of a hat for his own amusement, the really sad thing about Bruno Mars is that so many folk fall for his antics.
27. TAYLOR SWIFT / FOLKLORE (July 2020)
Rating: 7 / Favourite Track: ‘The Last Great American Dynasty’
There’s no getting away from it, almost every Taylor Swift song sounds like a Taylor Swift song and sometimes it’s hard to distinguish one from the other. Thankfully that was definitely not the case on Folklore, her eighth album that arrived literally overnight with minimal fanfare during the Covid-19 pandemic. A collection of wistful, indie folk draped in suitably indie folk, black and white artwork, it’s searching, intelligent songs delving deep into the Swift psyche captured the prevailing zeitgeist superbly. The indisputable highlight was ‘The Last Great American Dynasty’ written about the life of fortune squandering American heiress and artist Rebekah Harkness. An instant classic, it was the three minutes and 50 seconds of that one song that finally convinced me Taylor Swift was a serious artist to be reckoned with.
28. LEWIS CAPALDI / Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent (May 2019)
Rating: 4 / Favourite Track: ‘Someone You Loved’
I like Lewis Capaldi, seriously I do. Not that the brilliantly titled Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent is earth shattering. In fact, listening to it in one, 42 and a half minute sitting, I found it to be a bit too much like hard work, the repetitiveness only broken by the slightly skew-whiff ‘Maybe’ and the pure pop gold of ‘Someone You Loved’.
29. XXXTENTACION / 17 (August 2017)
Rating: 2 / Least Offensive Track: ‘Jocelyn Flores’
After listening to ? I decided to do some more research on XXXTentacion only to discover that in life he had been an all-round nasty bastard who at the time of his death was facing serious charges of robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and most shockingly of all, aggravated battery of his pregnant ex-girlfriend. Now, whether knowing all that before I listened to ? would have affected my judgement, I’d say it probably would. As for 17, it really makes no difference because the albums eleven songs of mumbled bedroom R&B and half-arsed acoustic strumming are more akin to unfinished scraps of ideas than songs and are really not worth the bother.
30. POST MALONE / STONEY (December 2016)
Rating: 4 / Favourite Track: ‘White Iverson’
No matter what I may think of him or his music, Post Malone is a global megastar. Emerging from SoundCloud rap in 2015, unlike Lil Peep, Juice Wrld and XXXTentacion he was far too sensible to die, preferring instead to bounce from trap to hip hop to pop to rock to country in less than a decade. As one of gen Z’s key spokesmen for the good life, Posty loves to speak the language of dreams, passions and fun. Sadly, his albums just leave me wondering how he ever became successful in the first place and Stoney, arguably his least corrupted breakthrough album, is no different. A rollercoaster of clunky lows and the occasional high, I’ve tried to make sense of it but still can’t hear the appeal.
31. SAM SMITH / IN THE LONELY HOUR (May 2014)
Rating: 3 / Favourite Track: ‘Money On My Mind’
Sam Smith excels at the big ballad and if you like that sort of thing he’s damn good at it. The problem is I don’t like that sort of thing. Opening with the itchy drum and bass number one ‘Money On My Mind’, I soon realised that as far as In The Lonely Hour and upbeat songs go that was it, the remaining nine melting together into a sickly sweet, gooey mass of teary retro desire.
32. KENDRICK LAMAR / DAMN (April 2017)
Rating: 7 / Favourite Track: ‘God’
In 2017, two years after the brilliance of To Pimp A Butterfly, Damn was another ambitious, wholly successful Kendrick Lamar album. The work of an artist at the top of his game, there’s scintillating verbal skills on ‘DNA’, troubled lyrical shifts on ‘Pride’, a masterclass in bouncing braggadocio on ‘Humble’, a declaration of divine-like confidence on ‘God’, jaw dropping personal storytelling on ‘Duckworth’ and a lot more besides. After hearing such brilliance, the only thing I could do was stand back, marvel at one of the best rapper’s in the history of hip hop, then play it again!
33. TAYLOR SWIFT / REPUTATION (November 2017)
Rating: 4 / Favourite Track: ‘Dress’
Another day with another Taylor Swift album to listen to, Reputation was conceived during a tricky period in her life when accusations of white privilege, victimhood and freedom of speech loomed large. Featuring fifteen songs of full blown pop R&B polished to the nth degree for maximum playability, they were noticeably less diaristic than her tried and tested songwriting method of old, their success more reliant on her powerhouse delivery and ubiquitous producer Max Martin’s bag of tricks. But I can’t help thinking that in committing to this more conventional formula, Taylor Swift downplayed the skill at the core of her art, apart from final song ‘New Year’s Day’, a sparse, piano led epilogue for an album that didn’t feel totally her own.
34. LANA DEL REY / BORN TO DIE (January 2012)
Rating: 8 / Favourite Track: ‘Blue Jeans’
The best album on this list, despite going through an absolute shit storm of outrageously sexist, critical damnation, Born To Die would become that rare thing, a true cultural phenomenon. Featuring some of Lana Del Rey’s finest work, the title track, ‘Blue Jeans’, ‘Video Games’, ‘National Anthem’, ‘Dark Paradise’, ‘Carmen’ and ‘Summertime Sadness’ confirmed her songwriting prowess while luxuriating in a cool blend of orchestral strings, trip hop, R&B and the baroque.
Better than that, using the albums complicated messages, romanticised themes and a steadfast refusal to adapt to the times, Lana Del Rey created a universe that was wholly her own based on the glamourous Hollywood aesthetic of the fifties rather than the grim reality of the early twenty tens. Lulling me into a dreamlike state of lustful girls, tattooed bad boys and dying young, preferably on a motorcycle or in a car crash, Born To Die may have sounded depressing, but never before had sadness felt so invigorating!
35. JUSTIN BIEBER / JUSTICE (March 2021)
Rating: 1 / Least Offensive Track: ‘Ghost’
A God bothering load of tosh about the redemptive power of love, Justice is as tedious and shallow an album as I’ve heard from a mega star. But the albums biggest crime, apart from the worst verse ever from Chance the Rapper, is the use for no apparent reason of a Martin Luther King speech equating a lack of courage in the face of injustice with a form of living death. Privileged white boy Justin follows it with an eighties dance pop tune called ‘Die For You’ on which he vows to lay down his life for his Mrs. Need I say more?
36. IMAGINE DRAGONS / EVOLVE (June 2017)
Rating: 0 Least Offensive Track: ‘Dancing In The Dark’
Imagine Dragons are one of those anonymous American acts who appear from nowhere, often off the back of a huge global hit, and then dominate the best seller and most streamed lists for evermore without anyone having the faintest idea how. 21st century, corporate, rock pop at its worst, I struggled to get through more than a couple of Evolve’s twelve, flavourless songs before requiring something more nourishing to revitalise my polluted ears. Surely, we deserve better.
37. TAYLOR SWIFT / 1989 (January 2014)
Rating: 7 / Favourite Track: ‘Clean’
Introduced to 1989 by Ryan Adams 2015 version, this was the one Taylor Swift album I was actually looking forward to hearing in its entirety. Already familiar with brilliant singles like ‘Shake It Off’, ‘Blank Space’ and ‘Style’, the lesser known songs didn’t disappoint either, moving stylistically from the synth pop of opener ‘Welcome To New York’ to the drum and bass influenced breakbeats of ‘I Know Places’ and the drifting indietronica of ‘Clean’ with ease. Crafted by a who’s who of trendy producers and writers, 1989’s precision-tooled mega pop is a masterclass in nagging melodies and massive, perfectly formed choruses (think eighties staple Jane Wiedlin’s ‘Rush Hour’) which at their best underline exactly why Taylor Swift is afforded the kind of respect others here are denied.
38. HARRY STYLES / HARRY’S HOUSE (May 2022)
Rating: 6 / Favourite Track: ‘Daylight’
Harry Styles third album continued along the same creative path established on Fine Line, apart from a few refinements to faithfully recreate the sound of some of my favourite Guilty Pleasures from the mid-seventies. The instantly recognisable talk box on Peter Frampton’s ‘Show Me The Way’, the super smooth groove of Steely Dan’s ‘Haitian Divorce’ and the yacht rock swing of Andrew Gold’s ‘Never Let Her Slip Away’ can all be spotted on Harry’s House with plenty of fretless bass, booming drums and analogue synth stabs chucked in for good measure. Immaculately applied to such well-crafted pop songs as ‘Daylight’, ‘Cinema’, ‘As It Was’ and ‘Music For A Sushi Restaurant’, I defy anyone not to enjoy the albums authentic and abundant charm.
39. DOJA CAT / PLANET HER (June 2021)
Rating: 3 / Favourite Track: ‘Payday’ Feat. Young Thug
40. ARIANA GRANDE / THANK U, NEXT (February 2019)
Rating: 3 / Favourite Track: ‘In My Head’
The reason why Harry Styles albums work so well and Planet Her and Thank U, Next don’t is largely due to gen Z only being interested in post 20th century pop tropes, despite having the entire history of music culture literally in the palm of their hands. That doesn’t mean that artist’s like Doja Cat and Arianna Grande aren’t good at what they do, but it does mean that their albums tend to get bogged down in an anonymous soup of Rihanna aping, mid-tempo, pop R&B and trap trends. It’s not all bad, these albums never are, but apart from Doja’s impressively complex collaboration with Young Thug on ‘Payday’ and Arianna’s emotional ‘In My Head’ where you finally get to hear her authentic self, Planet Her and Thank U, Next are mostly forgettable.
