Art by Evan Solano
Son Raw might blow up but he won’t go pop.
I couldn’t escape this thought as I read Pitchfork’s recent 100 Best Rap Albums list. For context I’ve lived through almost all of that site’s approaches to covering hip-hop, from their earnest college dorm room love for the Soulquarians, to their then contrarian pivot towards coke rap and trap, to the mid ’10s big tent mix of autotune innovators and commercial titans to the current focus on extremely online meme rap and wallflower abstraction. With that considered, I didn’t hate this top 100 list: it was corralled by Paul Thompson, as authoritative a voice as any today, with plenty of passionate writers and a diverse slate of records that will hopefully introduce the site’s poindexter readership to stuff outside the RYM canon that dominated the results of the accompanying, predictably conservative, reader’s poll. Yes, there is plenty of rage bait, but that’s not what I cared about as this particular grouping of albums lived in my head rent free.
Instead, I kept wondering what a list with a similar combination of canonical classics and iconoclastic curveballs would look like for rock, the genre that this kind of “general music” website treats with reverential seriousness and a sense of deeply responsible stewardship. So, on a slow night after a few beers, I began to map one out. Initially, I admittedly did this out of spite–you can’t rank Duwap Kaine ahead of Snoop and not expect me to hold you in at least a bit of contempt–but midway through, I began to take interest in this exercise for its own sake.
As my counter-list developed, I realized I was stumbling into a fascinating alternative to rock’s critical canon, as I was conceptually obligated to match the Spork’s mix of nakedly commercial and willfully niche rap entries, a rare combination for guitar music, post-1999, when it was definitively conquered by a demographic of dorks determined to respect the shibboleths of crunchy, independent, liberal n’ leftist approved, punk-indebted art music.
The result was a list you’d never get via traditional means, one only possible through reverse engineering the results from one genre and applying the results to a different one with a completely different history, timeline, audience and set of priorities. This raised even more questions: why are hip-hop and rock treated so differently in music criticism today? Do critics have more freedom when assessing hip-hop today, and is that why it’s the more artistically vital genre? Is my list actually worse than any other 100 rock albums picked through more traditional means?
But first, a few ground rules: vibes over everything. The goal wasn’t to find a 1:1 match for every album on the Pitchfork list, individually. Instead, I prioritized how each selection fit into the canon as a whole and how that functioned to paint an overall picture of its genre. That means that some ’90s rap classics get ’70s classic rock stand-ins, while others are replaced by ’90s alt-rock, etc. I’m not going for absolute consistency.
Second, this isn’t meant to slam anyone who contributed to Fork’s list: I’ve been through enough of these things to know how the sausage is made and this thought experiment isn’t an attack; though I do recommend Call Out Culture’s glorious breakdown/takedown if that’s what you’re looking for.
Finally, rather than writing out 100 individual blurbs myself, which would surely drive me to madness and you, dear reader, to boredom, I decided to tackle the list in batches of 10, both for relative brevity and to treat this sort of canon-building exercise holistically, examining how the albums relate to each other. Above all, this little exercise is meant to provoke thought and discussion, so if Rock really matters to you and your jimmies are rustled, please take it to your social media platform of choice, rather than me directly, because remember: I’ve seen what makes you cheer.
And so, I present to you, The 100 Best Rap Albums of All Time As Rock Albums.
The Fork list’s bottom 10 picks happen to be among its most contentious, and I’m pretty sure a decent chunk of the readership closed their tabs in disgust at the Snoop/Duwap Kaine one-two punch they set it off with. Those rankings, rating a little-known project from someone most people won’t have heard of above a titanic, industry defining juggernaut, is exactly the type of choice I wanted to recreate for guitar music, but I admittedly struggled to decide whether to pair Snoop with The Beatles or Michael Jackson. I ultimately chose the former because there’s just as much obscure Beatlesque pop out there as there is post G-Funk street rap, and including a Lemon Twigs album ahead of Pepper felt like a good way to match the rage bait energy we’re starting out with.
Moving on to Foxy Brown’s Broken Silence left me wondering who really went to bat for this album (strong Spragga Benz collab single aside). It’s not a record I’ve ever heard mentioned since the first Bush administration. Slotting in P!nk’s Missundaztood in response feels about right, if only because P!nk’s continuing cultural relevance in comparison to Foxy is a damning indictment of how much worse legacy rappers are treated than their pop rock peers. Keith Leblanc is another oddball choice; I actually love his work with the UK label On-U sound, but he absolutely feels like he’s wandered into the wrong list by accident, here. Muddy Waters is, of course, a far more prominent influence on rock than Leblanc ever was on rap music. Still, his late period psychedelic riffage lands in the same aesthetic position as Leblanc’s chunky riff on RUN DMC type beats: a cool curio that almost definitely shouldn’t take up a spot on a list that purports to rank the best of its genre.
Lupe Fiasco’s Fahrenheit 1/15 Part II then introduced me to one of this exercise’s toughest challenges: what’s the rock canon’s answer to mixtapes? Live albums feel like their own thing and demos are almost always too obscure to feel right. I ended up punting the question and swapping in Phil Collins, because Phil and Lupe are both funky nerds with cross-cultural appeal that nevertheless feel a bit slight when considering the absolute best music out there.
Much as I enjoy a good Sexxy Red single, including her 2023 mixtape in an album list again felt like obvious rage bait for backpackers, so it was an easy decision to match her with cumgirl8. Now’s probably a good time to let any rockists in the house know that Pavement does not get a single entry on my list. If that upsets you, please interrogate your feelings as to why this kind of thing would be acceptable in hip-hop.
Tyler, The Creator’s Bastard is a lo-fi, epochal debut cri-de-coeur that changed the course of music, and it would have been an obvious choice to counter it with The Sex Pistols or New York Dolls, but I held off on those big guns. Instead, I thought it best to match it with Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker, given that both musicians are now known for vast, orchestral soundscapes, and so representing them with their earlier, less developed work feels like a minor slight. Steely Dan meanwhile, were a far more commercial force than Gang Starr, but both are now beloved mostly by dads who got into jazz as part of a midlife crisis. I count myself among them. Flockavelli, like Bastard, is an album that’s all ID and raw testosterone and pairing it with Number Of The Beast will not be my last Trap to Hair Metal comparison. For what it’s worth, both early Flocka and peak Maiden rule and I’d be happy ranking both higher.
Finally, Cannibal OX and Wilco both have turn-of-the-millennium underground classics beloved for their artiness and role as formative millennial music nerd experiences, while also feeling like ’90s holdovers. At this point, you’re most likely to discover either via this kind of critical ranking rather than encountering them in the wild.
Our second slice of albums isn’t quite as controversial as the first, though no less revelatory. Boosie’s pained confessionals on wax didn’t quite match up with any rock records – Springsteen was far too northern to fit, so I decided to stick to New Orleans with The Meters, one of the best bands of all time but one ignored by the rock critical canon similar to how backpackers would never bother with something as southern-coded as Boosie. As for Lil B’s pairing with The Mondays, he’s always been as much of a meme as a musician, so I figured his equivalent had to be a band that infamously got away with barely playing their instruments when they started out – particularly given the amount of MDMA involved in both acts’ creative processes.
The Jacka’s Jack Artist, along with the rest of the Mob Figaz catalogue, remains hugely underrated and it’s a bold and rewarding choice to include it in a top 100 list. It’s also one of many picks that props street rap over its arty counterpart, so I figured I’d keep things in state with the California-core of The Doobie Brothers, a well-recorded band that scratches none of the post-punk generation’s intellectual itches. Nicki Minaj’s entry at No. 87 once again asks me to address the place of mixtapes on this list, and I will once again avoid the issue, matching her with Blondie given both acts feature iconic female vocalists who interrogated the public’s perception of femininity. You can be certain that representation was a concern when crafting a list like this and I’m not one to ignore that in my recreation: I want this kind of political consideration to matter just as much here, in order to deliver a set of albums that accurately recreates the narrative for rock music.
Whereas Keith Leblanc was a rock drummer who stumbled into a hip-hop list, Mantronix is a hip-hop act whose greatest influence was on electro and the subsequent wave of drum-machine powered dance music. That’s significant given dance music’s importance, but it also feels wildly off-topic in a list covering the best rap. Here, we’ll introduce James Brown, one of the most important musicians of all time, using the same instrumental palette as rock music, but whose impact on the genre post ’70s isn’t all that obvious or prominent.
Meanwhile, the Mac and Suga Free albums are both very much rap made for the genre’s core audience rather than critics, despite their welcome reappraisal here. Comparing No Limit’s rap assembly line to the genre constraints and highly marketed imagery of the Headbanger’s Ball era is pretty self-explanatory and I’m not above taking the easy way out. Meanwhile, Suga Free’s one of a kind pimp talk feels akin to Jim Morison’s stoner hippie mysticism, in that it’s easy to reduce both to Californian pastiches, even if actually recreating either vocalist’s magic is damn near impossible.
Veeze doesn’t absolutely suck in the same way Maneskin does, there’s no getting around that, but it’s also pretty clear that neither belong on a serious list ranking the best of their genres. Again, this is what we call a taste of your own medicine, rockists.
We then round up the bottom 20 with Main Attrakionz’ cloud rap, somewhat diminished today but highly influential on the 2010s music writer demo for their unique twist on an established sound. This is a perfect opportunity to include The Specials’ 2nd wave ska, equally beloved by ’80s UK rock critics as cloud rap was among my generation. Meanwhile, Too $hort has been rapping forever, a feat matched in rock only by the Isleys, with both happening to be incredibly funky.
Rock and rap operas: they almost never turn out as good in practice as they sound on paper, but we music critics feel compelled to pay them at least a bit of lip service, if only because they’re so hard to pull off. Prince Among Thieves and Tommy are patient zeroes for their respective genres and both deserve at least polite applause.
Dipset were funny assholes who dressed provocatively and made amazing music despite never trying too hard, or perhaps because of it. It’s also impossible to talk about them without bringing up cocaine, all of which syncs up with Motley Crew.
Comparing Redman’s sophomore acid trip to Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain felt too matchy-matchy, so instead I paired them with Gang Of Four, who themselves were deeply enamored with Brother George, with both taking his innovations to strange new places.
For The Pharcyde’s debut, I needed to find a band that was just as musically adventurous as they were silly, but thankfully the alt-90s provided a surplus of candidates. I chose Ween because it’s pretty easy to imagine them getting along with Fatlip and making a weird country song together.
Shabazz Palaces was more of a challenge: rock critics tend to treat their artsy innovators better than hip-hop’s, in the moment, and I struggled with finding a dope-if-underrated act that resurrected itself under a different name decades later – Jefferson Starship felt like too much of a troll move. I concluded that this was the right place to include Big Star, the highly influential power poppers who flopped in the ’70s only to become retroactive icons. As for J.J Fad, they belong on a singles list rather than an album list, which isn’t really the case for The Bangles, but the vibes felt right. If anyone has a Supersonic/Manic Mondays mash up, please send it my way.
Pitchfork’s list includes both a Geto Boys album and a Scarface solo, but I didn’t want to play my Sabbath/Ozzy cards too early by insisting that their equivalents also feature the same lead vocalist – though I did toy around with a Joy Division/New Order ranking here. Ultimately, I went with Van Halen’s sophomore as the album to swap with We Can’t Be Stopped, as I’m pretty sure Face himself fucks with Halen and it highlights metal and rap’s parallel approach to sparking parental outrage in the ’80s. In contrast to those legends, Armand Hammer is probably the recent rap act most deserving of a spot on a best of list, which made for an easy equivalency with the similarly hyped Turnstile. We then fill out the bottom thirty with Mac Mall and The Jungle Brothers – both funky, both unlikely to appear on more traditional lists. I kept it Cali for Mac Mall, swapping in War while matching the danceable New Yorkers with Talking Heads.
Pitchfork’s mid-2000s pivot from backpack rap to trap was a pivotal moment for me as a young music writer, not because I disliked southern hip-hop or thought the east coast was delivering a ton of great music at the time (it wasn’t), but because the sudden hipster appreciation for coke rap felt flippant and surface level. Moreover, the site was either ignoring or bashing similarly brash metal and emo music from the same time period, in favor of rock’s intellectual side, which always struck me as agenda-driven. Twenty years later, I now get my vengeance by swapping in Jeezy for Papa Roach–the timelines don’t match up exactly here, but this comparison gets to why hip-hop fans have never really been able to fully trust the site’s coverage. This is also where I point out that My Bloody Valentine didn’t make the cut on my list, but then again, neither did Ice Cube’s Death Certificate on Fork’s.
I love Devin The Dude and Just Tryin’ ta Live is a fantastic album but it’s not the sort of self-serious record that tends to make waves with rockists. So, let’s match him with fellow southerners ZZ Top, also musically talented but not afraid of a good laugh. Kool G Rap influenced generations upon generations of street rap, though 4, 5, 6, is an unorthodox selection for him given his early classics with DJ Polo, so the obvious match here was an Iggy Pop solo album, given The Stooges frontman’s similar impact of every punk band in his wake, and the fact that I’d rather hear The Stooges’ Fun House.
Now, let’s get controversial: Bad Bunny only made this list because American imperialism continues to hold Puerto Rico as a vassal state without full representation. Still, he is an important and popular musician whose reggaeton exists in a distinctly post-rap space, and so I get to call Genésis, Peso Pluma’s guitar strumming Corridos collection, one of the 100 best Rock albums ever made, in response.
Whodini serves a crucial purpose on the rap list: representation for the entire old school, the generations of rappers that debuted before Run DMC changed the genre’s trajectory from post-disco to hardcore. Beloved by those who were around to experience it in person, this era’s foundational material is increasingly forgotten by subsequent generations as it fades from living memory, finding a perfect analogue in Little Richards’ early material.
Next, whereas I compared the Geto Boys to Van Halen, Facemob’s Diary feels more akin to Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine, both dark looks into the night of the human soul, courtesy of Gen X icons. Roc Marciano’s Marcberg, meanwhile, posed a challenge: if rock had an answer to the 2010 classic that resurrected east coast hip-hop, spawning the entire Griselda generation, it would be in much healthier shape. But also, that album would have had to have only a slow, progressive impact on its genre’s sound. Thankfully, my rolodex includes POW veteran Douglas Martin Douglas, who confirmed that Parquet Courts’ shot in the arm to indie remains an appropriate analogue.
Rounding out this selection, 8Ball & MJG, Dr Dre, and Drakeo The Ruler have all made fantastic street level Gangsta Rap, despite differences in geography, era and popularity. Pairing Suave House’s finest with a non-southern act felt like blasphemy, so the Allman Brothers get the nod here, given both acts were unfussy workhorses delivering excellent genre-pieces. As for putting Drakeo ahead of Dre, all I can say is that it makes about as much sense to me as ranking The Red Hot Chili Peppers ahead of Funkadelic. I only wish Drakeo would have lived long enough to see Pepper-like commercial success, because Cold Devil is one of the few recent albums truly deserving of a spot on this list.
It’s generally considered impossible to talk about Eminem without discussing race, but focusing on that here would open a huge can of worms regarding how white musicians appropriated rock wholesale, and how the critical establishment has no real way of dealing with that beyond shrugging their shoulders and trying to make up for it when promoting more diverse acts during our current era. So instead, let’s focus on how Eminem’s multisyllabic logorrhea and Jimi’s shredding guitar solos were both tremendously innovative and eventually very, very tiring. Plus, both have tons of white fans: I told you avoiding race was impossible.
DJ Screw’s 3 N’ The Morning’s embraced sludgy tempos to create a new form of psychedelia. There’s an obvious parallel there in terms of doom/sludge/heavy music, but I didn’t want to plug in an actual ’70s originator here, because really, rock only really hits that same level of torpor years down the line, when acts like Boris get in on the fun.
Aesop Rock’s Labor Days though? That’s just obviously a match for TV On The Radio – the two acts probably share a fair amount of fans, given both Labor Days and Dear Science document NY millennial outsider life, to varying degrees. Meanwhile, Public Enemy makes the list twice, confirming their status as the crit favorites that just won’t fade on account of their politics and noise-forward approach to beatmaking, and this time I make the effort to match them with the same band in both cases. Specifically, Fear Of A Black Planet’s kaleidoscopic sample collages are akin with The Clash as they began to tire of punk’s limitations on Combat Rock.
Speaking of buckling against constraints, I was originally going to compare Gucci Mane to the proggiest of prog artists given the ardor with which other people responded to his comparing colorful things to other colorful things in the late-2000s. But then I remembered that my goal here was to troll no more or less than the original rap list, so I went with Dookie by Greenday, another band whose popularity always befuddled me and whose chops never quite matched the fan fervor.
Moving on to B.G, he’s one of three (!!!) Hot Boys who made this list and I originally figured I’d compare all three to Nu Metal, before ultimately deciding that doesn’t work for Wayne’s post-Mannie material. I did stick to the Deftones for my B.G comparison though, because both White Pony and Chopper City In The Ghetto are great, and I’d love to see a random B.G revival on TikTok. As for Pop Smoke, he passed away far too soon to belong here, even if he’d already made an impact via importing UK drill back to the US. It felt wrong to compare him to classic rockers from the 27 club, so Jay Reatard, also gone too soon, will have to do.
As we wrap up this list’s first half, both the earliest Three 6 Mafia tapes and Robert Johnson’s surviving output are tremendously influential southern gothic masterpieces whose recordings sound like absolute dog shit by modern standards. Lil Kim and Courtney love both threw stones at the patriarchy back in the ’90s while living in the shadow of the paramours and caught hell for it – though I’m still waiting on the critical revision of Kim’s work. Finally, both The Kinks and Boogie Down Productions are tremendously influential and stand up as current listening… As long as you’re not underaged, at which point both probably sound like absolute dinosaurs to your ears.
If you’re reading this, it’s too late – we’re halfway there. As was the case with Roc Marciano, I feel that rock would be in a much better place if it had produced its own Chief Keef, a teenage sensation with intrinsic charisma and no adults to tell him what he could and couldn’t do, musically. Swapping Keef for Enter Shikari is a poor substitute (and bit of a troll move) but at least both were beloved by teenagers while horrifying adults in the 2010s.
The Dilla-Bowie comparison might also raise a few eyebrows if you consider their careers as a whole, but in this case, I wanted to zero in on just how great each artist’s final album was, and how similar they were in terms of how they reckon with their creators’ impending deaths. Meanwhile, my Azaelia Banks swap is even simpler: I just needed a confoundingly popular female artist that would frustrate rock purists, hence Avril Lavigne. Patti Smith is not on my list but Queen Latifah didn’t make Pitchfork’s, since we’re still keeping score.
Comparing Drake to The Smiths? That just warms my heart. Both Drake and Morrissey are whiny, unlikeable cunts who rizzed their way into becoming generational icons while stumbling face first into making highly influential music off the back of far more talented collaborators before then becoming utter parodies of themselves in middle age. They’re probably the most accurate 1:1 on this list. 50 Cent, meanwhile, is a much better rapper than Fred Durst and I do concede that the pre-GRODT G-Unit tapes contained his best music, but both Limp Bizkit and G-Unit embody late-90s and early-2000s MTV’s focus on violent hyper-masculinity, so the shoe still fits.
I had serious issues with finding a match for Danny Brown. That one confounded me to no end because he’s an omnivorous, risk-taking, critical darling with stone cold classics and a unique voice ala Elvis Costello, but he’s also one of my favorite rappers and I personally cannot stand a single word uttered by Elvis Costello. Thankfully, after a bit of reflection, I realized his Midwest-born, tight pants-wearing, hard-living musical predecessor, Rick James, was RIGHT THERE, and Street Songs is an absolute banger that I’ll happily include in any best-of list.
Kendrick Lamar is to millennials as Bob Dylan is to boomers, in that the normies of each generation will spend their remaining time on Earth annoying everyone younger than them by insisting that their guy is the GOAT, with lyric sheets and Pulitzer noms to prove it. I suppose I could have gone with Dylan’s early political work for TPAB, but that album is just as much about baring Kendrick’s soul as it is about the wider culture war. Speaking of conflict, I will not apologize for comparing Playboi Carti to Sleep Token, both tremendously overrated musical dead ends that are only here until the next generation re-evaluates them, concluding that they’re awful.
Dialing back my confrontational attitude, Missy Elliot made some tremendous club bangers that will outlast us all, as did The Eurythmics. This also serves as an opportunity to mention that if the rap list gets to skip most of the ’80s and ’90s female rappers that most top 100s give spots to–think MC Lyte and Queen Latifah–I can ignore Bikini Kill and Sleater Kinney just because their music doesn’t interest me. Finally, Run DMC: there were three of them, but they’re not The Beatles. Instead, like The Rolling Stones, they’ll forever be stand-ins for their genre’s early commercial explosion.
Da Drought 3, shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? No, because a summer’s day doesn’t capture the manic possibility and reinvention of Lil Wayne’s mid-2000s ascent to GOAT status, and to be frank, there’s no exact analogue in rock music either. While he’s lacking in commercial dominance compared to Wayne, Tom Waits fits the bill creatively: a figure at the margins of popular music who suddenly became an endless wellspring of musical creativity, midway through his career.
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony were weirdo Midwesterners so I toyed around with the idea of giving their spot to Devo, but ultimately went with Psychobilly lifers The Cramps, a band that were big in their moment and highly influential on all spooky musicians in their wake.
There’s no getting around the Beastie Boys’ roles as the rap game Elvis Presleys, no matter how progressive their politics, post-Licensed to Ill. Paul’s Boutique is pretty amazing though, so let’s pair them with the king’s strongest post-50s album. Meanwhile, Wu-Tang gets the honor of having the most spots on Pitchfork’s list and my original plan was to give all their spots to the Beatles, the classic rock band that most matches the Wu’s influence, but frankly, that doesn’t quite work because the Beatles solo catalogue doesn’t come close to prime Wu, and the group albums don’t each have the bespoke individualism of that first RZA era. Realistically, the ’90s band that most matches the Wu’s cult vibe is Radiohead, so GZA’s brainy, chess and Cold Chillin-influenced sophomore joint lands pretty close to the Head’s masterpiece OK Computer. As for E-40, he’s an innovator with a boundless supply of music whose off-kilter cadence and disregard for seriousness irks traditionalists, thus giving me the perfect excuse to give Frank Zappa a slot.
DMX’s defining legacy, in my eyes, is the line in the sand he drew with his debut album, ending the bloated jiggy era in favor of something just as commercially viable, but much leaner and meaner. He is undoubtedly rap’s answer to The Sex Pistols in that regard, except he didn’t need a Malcolm McLaren to dress him up. This is also the point I kick myself for playing my Steely Dan card too early, because that would have definitely fit DJ Quick’s Rhythm-A-Lism, but I’m committed to forward motion, given how long this piece already is, so let’s go with Van Morrison’s Moondance, another musically adventurous reinvention that features a surprising amount of flutes and unconventional instrumentation.
I love EPMD’s extremely funky Strictly Business but I’m also fascinated by how it made its way onto this list rather than a more obvious pick by Big Daddy Kane or Biz Markie. There’s no prime Juice Crew representation here given their G Rap pick dropped in 95. In any case, all of the ’80s rap picks on this list feel slightly perfunctory: there’s an obligation to include them but no real commitment to showcasing the breadth of the genre in that golden age, because room was needed for Sexxy Red. Let’s do the same for ’50s rock with this Chuck Berry comp, and call it a day.
Capone N Noreaga, pre-podcast NORE, are (correctly) beloved by East Coast fans, given their debut perfected the dark, grimy, rain-soaked Queensbridge aesthetic that made so many of us also fall in love with hip-hop. They’re also basically ignored by the wider musical world, much as The Stone Roses essentially never existed outside of England. Finally, I’m still not over losing KA and there will never be another like him: as a Montrealer and a Jew, comparing him to Leonard Cohen, our poet laureate, is the highest possible honor I can provide.
As we approach the top spots, the outliers once again become egregious and the obligatory classics begin to feel unavoidable. UGK is one of those groups over which Southern rap fans went to war with East Coast purists during the 2000s. As far as I know, no one’s done that for Lynyrd Skynyrd, but there’s also no rock group nearly as southern, and in this context, that feels most important. Triple 6 affiliate Project Pat’s Mista Don’t Play is similarly sub-Mason Dixion and even more iconoclastic–I’m sure his ranking sent multiple backpackers to the ER with chest pains, so let’s put Korn ahead of Radiohead for the same effect, shall we?
While those two picks can feel like Southern boosterism, Jay-Z’s sole spot on the list feels like a corrective to just how massive he was at his peak: the current vibe around him is that kids just don’t get why this ugly billionaire with a terrible haircut and a far more famous wife mattered to people 20 years ago. I neither entirely agree nor disagree with that assessment, but if they want to treat the guy like Coldplay, I’ll roll with that, pairing his triumphant imperial phase with music by a guy he double dated with, back when people still cared.
I think we’re far, far too deep into Kanye’s crash out era for anyone to be willing to reassess the “old Kanye,” but Yeezus has all of the manic energy of his current incarnation, minus most of the racism and bad behavior. Still, the guy’s an asshole now, so let’s pair him with guitar virtuoso and noted twat, Eric Clapton, in a bit of karmic payback, overcoming my fear that they might actually read this and decide it’s a good idea to collaborate. Also, I considered Ted Nugent for this spot, but I can’t bring myself to celebrate that sack of shit. Fuck that guy.
As for Mos Def, I’m pretty sure that if this list had been written in 2002, he’d have ranked first, but his earth toned color palette and college undergrad inclusive politics became deeply uncool shortly after people stopped caring about the Iraq War. Nevertheless, I grew up in an era where you’d see his poster next to Bob Marley’s, so there you go. Earl Sweatshirt is a weird choice here. I’m pretty sure he got the nod over MIKE solely because people outside of music nerd circles might know him, but SRS isn’t actually very good, musically speaking: it’s the sound of Earl vanishing up his own backside, mumbling all the way home, and it’s here because of its impact and importance rather than its own merits–I do like his new material though. King Krule operates in a similar space on The Ooz, pushing slackerism and texture over legibility and songwriting. As a bonus, they both embody the early shift from millennial to Gen Z tastemaking in popular discourse.
Matching N.W.A. was easy: Guns N Roses are also from LA, also scared the shit out of the moral majority, and also were bastions of bad behavior. The biggest difference between the two groups is that GNR represented the commercial peak of that strand of Hard Rock rebellion, whereas NWA were the genesis of gangsta rap’s decades-long reign. Slick Rick’s debut is amazing and no one tells stories quite like The Ruler, but his career was derailed by jail bids and conflicts with immigration (fuck ICE and all of their predecessors) so we’re ultimately left wondering about what could have been. I’m also fairly sure his music sounds incredibly dated to today’s kids, so let’s fudge the emphasis on storytelling and go with Buddy Holly, one of rock’s earliest and greatest “what ifs.”
Finally, Goodie Mob are slightly underrated ’90s workhorses with a is-he-or-isn’t-he canceled front man, much like The Smashing Pumpkins, although for my money Cee Lo isn’t nearly as annoying as Billy Corgan and he’d probably book better wrestling cards. More importantly, Common didn’t make this list so I can probably get away with subbing a Chicago artist in this spot.
As for Biggie, he is rap’s Kurt Cobain and Kurt Cobain is rock’s Biggie: from the charisma to the deathwish to the generational talent to the grim ending. We’re mourning a lot of dead musicians on this list, but losing these two? That inflicted generational trauma on music fans of all stripes.
We’re almost there – and this particular 10 album stretch features the fewest oddball picks, with virtually every album widely accepted as an all-time great, meaning I probably don’t have to go into quite as much detail to explain my equivalencies.
De La Soul were New York innovators pushing the boundaries of their genre in the late ’80s and early ’90s, much as Sonic Youth were, though sadly Kim Gordon never wrote an ode to them as she did with LL Cool J, after a disastrous interview. Their Native Tongues peers, A Tribe Called Quest, shockingly get only one spot on this list, but it’s Low End Theory, an album which rewrote hip-hop’s standard tempo, relationship with bass, and appeal to a wider audience, much as Pink Floyd’s magnum opus did for the arty side of rock ‘n roll.
Wu-Tang gets two spots here, and I’m sticking to my guns by swapping out both for Radiohead, even if Pablo Honey is nowhere near as interesting as 36 Chambers and The Bends is not quite as perfect a record as Cuban Linx. If anything, this exercise serves as a good reminder that like Wu-Tang, Radiohead’s later material doesn’t really matter. Rakim is your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper and The Velvet Underground inspired every modern rock band, making them an easy choice. Though I’d note that in both cases, the selected albums are more “important” than “perfect.”
MF DOOM is another rap weirdo gone too soon with no perfect equivalent in any other genre, but much like Elliot Smith, his passing has served as a catalyst for his cult fandom to grow exponentially. It’s an imperfect comparison, but I’m probably only reticent because I was never really an Elliott Smith fan and I’d like someone more off-kilter and sonically inventive to stand in for DOOM, rather than a mopey guitar guy. Future’s DS2 is probably the one choice here that will upset purists, but it’s frankly fantastic and obviously genre defining. This meant I had to find a huge, impactful rock album that today’s purists probably abhor. Enter, AC/DC’s titanic Back In Black, a far less dour but equally turned up collection of populist anthems.
We’ve already agreed that The Clash are standing in for Public Enemy, if only because that’s probably how Chuck D was envisioning PE’s impact himself, as it happened. London Calling’s run time is a little bloated compared to Nation Of Millions, but both are expansive takes on genres that critics previously viewed as minimalistic and limited. Similarly, we’ve already paired Dylan with Kendrick, so for Good KID M.A.A.D City, the end of Kenny’s underground era, I went with Bob’s turn towards the electric with Bringin’ It All Back Home. Finally, we continue to compare Biggie with Kurt, with their final albums just missing the top 10; though, I’d like to insist that Nevermind and Ready To Die are the leaner, meaner and better albums, as compared to each artist’s sophomore efforts.
And so we’ve reached the top 10 rap and rock records of all time, the very best of the best and a selection that surely won’t invite strife and discontent.
We’ve already compared DOOM to Elliot Smith in terms of impact, but it’s worth mentioning that Madvillainy is the sole Madlib contribution to this list, much as this is Jon Brion’s only credit on mine. Otherwise, I’m still not perfectly happy with this match, but one was recorded in a basement and the other in a bomb shelter, so there’s enough symmetry here for it to stick. Comparing Outkast to Prince is a bit easier, though I’m sure some people will gripe about Prince being considered a rock artist in the first place. To them I say this: he’s a guitar god and you probably don’t want to be kvetching about genre tags, right before we get into Rich Gang’s ranking.
Clipse were the original Pitchfork rappers, plucked from Rap City and club shows and elevated to hipster darlings in the mid-2000s, a wave Pusha subsequently surfed so impeccably as to become a key G.O.O.D Music collaborator, eventually reuniting with his brother to play The motherfucking Vatican this year. I don’t think The Strokes are nearly as interesting musically nor have they accomplished anything so impressive commercially: they’re good-not-great New York cool kids whose success is owed to being able to manipulate a bunch of irony-drenched critics who did mountains of cocai-… Ok, you know what? Maybe they are a good match for The Clipse.
The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill is another record I’m not in love with, but I also understand it’s a deeply important foundational document for a generation of women who came up in the ’90s, back when representation wasn’t a popular concern and wins were rare. I’d much rather have Missy up in this spot, but what can you do? As such, I’ll refrain from matching it with Bjork’s Homogenic, a record I love, in favor of Torii Amos’ Little Earthquakes, which I respect but rarely take the time to actually listen to.
Then there’s the Rich Gang of it all. I’m so vain, I’m convinced they gave that blurb to Jeff just so I wouldn’t bitch about this on Twitter. Confession: The Rich Gang moment absolutely missed me exactly as it happened. I remember being gobsmacked that every other critic I knew loved this thing, not out of any hatred for Young Thug, but because I found it overly long and nowhere near as interesting as the Slime Season tapes. To find a perfect match for this one, I’d need a critically acclaimed, fairly popular album that purists nevertheless hate–a tough task that will probably result in a pick that just isn’t much fun, and at this point, I’m all about fun. So let’s completely ignore the critically acclaimed part and emphasize the “pissing purists off” aspect of this pick by warmly embracing the modern arena rock standard bearers that are Imagine Dragons. Much like Nas, you can hate me now.
Speaking of Nas, ’Fork were never going to give the top spot to Illmatic because we’re all collectively done with glazing Illmatic. Nas himself is sick of this record and would like us to move on. Nevertheless, you also can’t just exclude the thing from the top 10 without sparking a minor riot, so it got the lowest reasonable slot at No. 5. Likewise, Led Zeppelin’s all time classic, IV (or Sozo, whatever) has been overplayed for decades now, word to Wayne’s World, but we can’t just ignore it either.
Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele is our final Wu-for-Radiohead swap, and I’ll be honest: Supreme Clientele vs Kid A is the pick that makes the whole comparison click. Both are revolutionary records from the turn of the millennium that capture the spirits of their genres, while revealing their boundless untapped possibilities for subsequent generations to explore. Ghost’s raps are like ziti so feel free to discuss amongst yourselves to determine which pasta best describes Radiohead’s stab at merging IDM with art rock.
Juvenile’s 400 Degreez is another pick that deeply upset east coast purists, but this time, said purists are completely wrong. If anything, the only controversial part of this is ranking it ahead of The Chronic, as most standard rap lists would flip those two. Nevertheless, this is a great opportunity to insert some drama into our rock list by choosing a beloved record from a subgenre that usually doesn’t get this kind of critical shine. Linkin Park’s Numb is the rare Nu Metal staple that survived its era with its reputation intact, and it has the commercial heft and influence to stand in for the best album a Cash Money artist ever released. Placing it just ahead of Kid A also feels like it’s in the spirit of things.
I was certain 2Pac was going to get the top spot on Pitchfork’s list: he’s undoubtedly history’s most iconic rapper, and an artist whose influence transcends generations. Giving the nod to All Eyez On Me is a choice – I’d have personally gone with Me Against The World – so I needed an iconic, genre defining rock band at the peak of their influence, with an album that sold gangbusters but that nevertheless feels a tad more commercial than their absolute best music. And boy, did Metallica provide with The Black Album, a hard rock masterpiece that’s world conquering, while also inciting, “yes but…” comments from a litany of superfans who prefer their earlier, thrash-centric material.
Finally, FINALLY, we come to the No. 1 spot with Mobb Deep’s The Infamous. If you want to know how great it is, I wrote an entire feature for its 30th anniversary, but suffice to say it casts a long shadow on all street-centric rap released in its wake, from the darkest of UK/NY Drill to the grimiest post-Roc Marciano and post-Griselda music. It’s a populist choice, one with iconic songs beloved by fans of all stripes, an album incredibly innovative without sacrificing one iota of appeal to genre purists, unlike a lot of the above. That’s why I went with Black Sabbath’s Paranoid: a heavy metal classic that looms large over every guitar record since, with an iconic front man who can never be replaced and an absolutely unique sound that is often imitated and twisted into new shapes, but never duplicated or matched.
So what have we learned through this exercise? Personally, I learned that if a list irks me enough, I can be goaded into writing 8000-plus words for not much money, of my own initiative, so I’m probably the real sucker in all of this. But I also learned that this kind of alternative canon making is a lot of fun. Try as I might – and I did try – there was no way my selection would turn out absolutely objective: though I did my best to match each album with a genuine equivalent, when you zoom out, this list is full of music I like, but also quite a lot of stuff I can’t stand, replacing rap albums I don’t believe belong on a best-of. Nevertheless, I hope that by publishing a list with no Queen, My Bloody Valentine, Eagles, Beach Boys, Springsteen, White Stripes, etc., I’d convey just how weird it is to have a rap list without LL Cool J, Cypress Hill, Bootcamp Click, Hieroglyphics, Big Daddy Kane, 2 Live Crew, and A$AP Rocky (justice for Live. Love. A$AP). What’s good for the goose, truly is good for the gander.
Like I said, I did my best to keep this list anger (if not snark) free, not only out of respect for the work everyone put into the original, but because I think that as music critics, we need to be able to explore the nuts and bolts behind why different genres are treated in different ways, and I believe this sort of counterintuitive experiment is actually a useful way to do so. Does Southern rock need to be as represented here as Southern hip-hop is in the rap list? No, I don’t actually think so: recognizing the seismic impact of New Orleans, Houston, Memphis, and Atlanta over the past few decades of rap music is just acknowledging reality. But I also think that rock critics treat their genre of choice with kid’s gloves, tipping the scales in favor of artsy fartsy, comparatively low selling, in-group approved records that collectively cast a wildly diverse genre in the most favorable of lights for a deeply NPR-coded audience and readership. Given that, I think it’s important to at least present an alternative approach, especially if placing Linkin Park ahead of The Strokes ruffles some feathers.
As a final thought, I am left wondering though, what would an actual best rap albums list look like, if we tried this exercise in reverse, taking rock picks and swapping those out with hip-hop? Thankfully, I’ve got better things to do to spend another two weeks exploring that, as I’m pretty sure there’d be far more Death Grips than I’d ever be comfortable including.
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