There is no shortage of great pop music in the world, but great pop albums, ones that have no skips from end to end, are a rarer breed. Achieving such a feat is something that’s reserved for the genre’s greats, including artists like Adele, Madonna, and Michael Jackson. Read on to see three albums that fit that impressive bill.
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Adele’s ’21’
Adele’s sophomore album is chock full of unforgettable songs. The no-skip album, which was released in 2011, includes tracks like “Rolling In The Deep”, “Rumour Has It”, and “Someone Like You”.
Those songs were all inspired by one relationship Adele had, but listeners were able to relate to the tracks as if they’d written them themselves.
“I think people can relate to them because I’m so honest in them,” Adele told Interview Magazine. “It’s warts and all in my songs, and I think that’s why people can relate to them. I don’t write songs about a specific, elusive thing. I write about love and everyone f**king knows what it is like to have your heart broken.”
The LP topped charts worldwide, including the US Billboard 200. Unsurprisingly, the album was a critical smash, earning the singer seven GRAMMYs and countless other accolades.
Madonna’s ‘Like A Prayer’
In 1989, Madonna released her fourth album, Like A Prayer. The title track is just one of many incredible songs on the pop LP, which also includes “Express Yourself” and “Cherish”.
The release was Madonna’s most personal yet, touching on topics including her divorce from Sean Penn and her mother’s death.
“I didn’t try to candy-coat anything or make it more palatable for mass consumption, I guess. I wrote what I felt,” Madonna told SongTalk, per AV Club. “In the past I wrote a lot of songs that [revealed my inner self], but I felt they were too honest or too frightening or too scary and I decided not to record them. It just seemed like the time was right at this point. Because this was what was coming out of me.”
Like A Prayer was certified quadruple Platinum and topped the charts in 20 countries, including the U.S. Despite its success, the album was completely snubbed by the GRAMMYs, a fact that seems almost incomprehensible in retrospect.
Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’
Michael Jackson’s sixth studio album, Thriller, is widely regarded as one of the best ever. Released in 1982, Thriller includes its hit title track, as well as pop songs such as “Billie Jean”, “Beat It”, and “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)”.
The LP was so full of hits, in fact, that it set a record for the most Top 10 songs from one album. That’s no surprise, as having an album with no filler tracks was Jackson’s goal going into Thriller.
“People used to do an album where you’d get one good song, and the rest were like B-sides. They’d call them ‘album songs.’ I would say to myself, ‘Why can’t every one be like a hit song? Why can’t every song be so great that people would want to buy it if you could release it as a single?’” Jackson told Ebony in 2007. “So I always tried to strive for that. That was my purpose for the next album. That was the whole idea. I wanted to just put any one out that we wanted. I worked hard for it.”
Overall, Thriller topped the Billboard 200 and Billboard‘s Top LPs & Tape chart, as well as other rankings across the world. It is the best-selling album of all time worldwide, and has been certified Platinum 34 times.
On the awards front, Thriller won eight GRAMMYs. In the years since, it has been inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame and the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry.
Photo Jean-Marc Giboux/Liaison
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