Twenty Favorite Grammy Nominated Albums of the Year
(The actual winners couldn’t even fill out a top-ten list for me, but I found more than twenty jewels among the full catalog of nominees. These are ranked in order of preference, with the albums that ended up winning their year marked with an asterisk.)
Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder (1977) *
Purple Rain by Prince & the Revolution (1985)
Innervisions by Stevie Wonder (1974) *
Help! by The Beatles (1966)
Sign o’ the Times by Prince (1988)
Nillson Schmillson by Nilsson (1973)
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music by Ray Charles (1963)
Abbey Road by The Beatles (1970)
Faith by George Michael (1989) *
Killing Me Softly With His Song by Roberta Flack (1974)
Fulfillingness’ First Finale by Stevie Wonder (1975) *
An Innocent Man by Billy Joel (1984)
September of My Years by Frank Sinatra (1966) *
Revolver by The Beatles (1967)
Thriller by Michael Jackson (1984) *
Out of Time by R.E.M. (1992)
The Raw & the Cooked by Fine Young Cannibals (1990)
Synchronicity by The Police (1984)
St. Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley (2007)
She’s So Unusual by Cyndi Lauper (1985)
— September 21, 2022