Apple Music announces top 10 albums on 100 Best Albums list

Apple Music has taken all the music available on the streaming platform and pared it down into its 100 Best Albums.

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The streaming service says it has 100 million songs and 30,000 playlists since the inception of iTunes, reaching that milestone in 2022, 21 years after its launch. According to Apple, the music library started with 1,000 songs and as of Oct. 3, 2022, had 100 million songs, which “will continue to grow and exponentially multiply.”

The company pared down all the music in its library to compile the top 100 best albums.

“Apple Music’s 100 Best Albums is a modern 21st-century ranking of the greatest records ever made, crafted by Apple Music’s team of experts alongside a select group of artists, songwriters, producers, and industry professionals. The list is an editorial statement, fully independent of any streaming numbers on Apple Music — a love letter to the records that have shaped the world music lovers live and listen in,” the company said.

No. 100 was “Body Talk” by Robin. Other artists and their albums that were not able to crack the top 10, but still made the list included The Eagles’ ”Hotel California” at No. 99, Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” at No. 78, Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” at 69, Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced” at No. 63 and The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Ready to Die.”

Taking the top spot was “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” by Lauryn Hill, her debut and only solo studio album released in 1998. Apple Music called it, “a stunningly raw, profound look into the spiritual landscape not just of one of the era’s biggest stars, but of the era itself.”

Maggie Rogers in a conversation about the rankings, said, “Lauryn brought everybody with her on this record. She brought her community. She brought her friends and her family. You’re in the kitchen; you’re in the living room with her. You hear people; you hear the voices talking… It’s so open and so expansive and so direct… To have an artist like Lauryn Hill be the number one, that means a lot.”

While Ebro Darden called the album, “very personal. This album delivers on so many levels. It exemplifies and captures popular music of the last 25 years, holistically. It’s R&B, it’s hip-hop, it’s independent women, strong women, it’s topical, it’s sampling… I think that’s why it got voted number one.”

Hill said of the honor, “This is my award, but it’s a rich, deep narrative, and involves so many people, and so much sacrifice, and so much time, and so much collective love.”

Here’s Top 10 list, which was released on Wednesday:

1. “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” by Lauryn Hill
2. “Thriller” by Michael Jackson
3. “Abbey Road” by The Beatles
4. “Purple Rain” by Prince & The Revolution
5. “Blonde” by Frank Ocean
6. “Songs in the Key of Life” by Stevie Wonder
7. “good kid, m.A.A.d city (Deluxe Version)” by Kendrick Lamar
8. “Back to Black” by Amy Winehouse
9. “Nevermind” by Nirvana
10. “Lemonade” by Beyoncé

You can see the complete list here.

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Through the years Lauryn Hill rehearses for 'MTV Unplugged' at the MTV Studios in New York City, 7/21/01. Photo by Scott Gries/ImageDirect. (Scott Gries/Getty Images)

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