Rapper Lauryn Hill was pregnant with her first child when she started writing the songs that made it to her 1998 solo album — The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. By then she already had two albums with with the Fugees. Her solo album touched upon issues as diverge as relationships and faith, earning her five Grammys. The album’s relevance has been highlighted once again as Apple Music has chosen it to be the top album on its 100 Best list.
The album has finished ahead of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, The Beatles’ Abbey Road, and Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, among others.
Speaking about the album, Apple Music’s Zane Lowe said: “This album doesn’t just resonate with the people who were around when it came out and who hold it dear. It has not dated, not even a fraction. In fact, it feels more fresh and more relevant the more you listen to it… There are a lot of young artists hearing it, and it’s becoming part of their artistic DNA. It’s inspiring and influencing them… It’s timeless.”
The album, some of the tracks of which have been recorded at Bob Marley’s studio, had a young John Stephens, or the person we know as John Legend, playing the piano on Everything is Everything, after impressing Hill with a Stevie Wonder cover and an original song of his.
Hill said in 2013 that the title of the album will make listeners discuss life lessons, “those things that you don’t get in any text book, things that we go through that force us to mature. Hopefully we learn. Some people get stuck. They say that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, and these are some really powerful lessons that changed the course and direction of my life”.
Producer Maggie Rogers 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.”
Coming in second place on the Apple list is Michael Jackson’s Thriller, followed by The Beatles’ Abbey Road. The band’s 11th and penultimate album sounded like nothing more or less than four extremely gifted humans playing one indelible song after another in the same room together.
On receiving the news, Lauryn Hill told Apple Music: “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.”
Apple Music experts and quite a few artistes, including Maren Morris, Pharrell Williams, J Balvin, Charli XCX, Mark Hoppus, Honey Dijon and Nia Archives, put together the list. Songwriters, producers and industry professionals also helped the process.
