Henry Mancini, The Music of Peter Gunn (1959, RCA), won at the 1959 Grammy Awards

The first Grammy Awards ceremony took place in May 1959. The inaugural Album of the Year recipient went to Henry Mancini for The Music of Peter Gunn, the instrumental soundtrack to the TV detective series Peter Gunn, which aired from 1958-1961.

The opening track is the theme song, which has a smooth blend of jazz, blues, and rock ‘n’ roll, and has been referenced across pop culture for over half a century. This is the first of several soundtracks to win Album of the Year throughout the years. A couple of more memorable soundtracks that won are Saturday Night Fever (1977) and The Bodyguard (1992).

Carole King, Tapestry (1971, Ode/A&M), won at the 1972 Grammy Awards

Tapestry was found in the bargain bin at Reckless Records several years ago. I was waiting for a friend so we could do our weekly walk around the neighborhood (this was in between lockdowns) and was surprised to see this store open.

The back of the vinyl sleeve has the lyrics to each song. Tapestry spent 15 consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200, a record that still stands. As of now according to RIAA, this album has sold over 14 million copies in the U.S. and 30 million worldwide. This is also the only Album of the Year winner to have a cat on the album cover.

Fleetwood Mac, Rumours (1977, Warner) won at the 1978 Grammy Awards

By the time Fleetwood Mac began writing and recording their 11th studio album, an awful lot happened within the group. Christine and John McVie divorced. Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham’s on-and-off relationship nearly torpedoed the band. Cocaine was so prevalent in the studio that it’s a surprise the suppliers didn’t get a producer credit and win a Grammy too.

You can hear their internal/external conflicts beautifully in each song, especially in “Go Your Own Way” and “The Chain” (“Damn your love/damn your lies”). Rumors was a commercial and critical hit, selling over 8 million copies in the U.S. by the time they won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards in February 1978, beating out Steely Dan, Eagles, James Taylor, and John Williams’ soundtrack for Star Wars. The Tony-Award winning play Stereophonic was born out of this era of barely controlled creative chaos.

U2, The Joshua Tree (1987, Island), won at the 1988 Grammy Awards

Everyone knows this album. The Joshua Tree is the album that turned this quartet from Dublin into pure rock superstars, especially Bono. Inspired by their time in the US thanks to numerous tours in the 1980s, the album got its name from the desert trees that Mormon settlers encountered while traveling to the Old West over a century prior.

“With or Without You” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” are the most memorable songs of this album (if not their entire discography) but each song here is a remarkable look into the America these Irish lads wanted to believe could be a reality.

“U2 never gave up on the idea that the American Dream is a dream we can and must all share,” writes Bradley Morgan, author of U2’s The Joshua Dream: Planting Roots in Mythic America. (Morgan is also a CHIRP volunteer and organizer behind the CHIRP Music Film Festival.) Like many people since its release, the band “discovered that you could still admire much about a place that you also admonish.”

Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill (1995, Maverick), won at the 1996 Grammy Awards.

A lot of people get their heart broken and become jaded at a young age. Many create art inspired by this life-altering change. Some of that art gets shared with the world. Few of those pieces of intimate artworks are widely embraced by their peers, especially kids who are struggling with those emotions.

Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill arrived at the right time when women were pushing back at what a female performer could achieve and be on their own terms, such as Liz Phair, Courtney Love, Gwen Stefani, and later on Lauryn Hill, Shakira, and Alicia Keys. These women were going to be messy, complicated, and not hold back with their music.

At the time, Alanis became the youngest person to win Album of the Year (Billie Eilish has since become the youngest, winning at age 18 for her studio debut.) The album became the basis for a successful stage musical that premiered on Broadway in 2019 and toured the US in 2022.

Ray Charles, Genius Loves Company (2004, Concord), won at the 2005 Grammy Awards.

Ray Charles passed away in the summer of 2004, just two before his final studio album, Genius Loves Company, was released. A duets album featuring fellow Album of the Year winners Norah Jones, Natalie Cole, and Bonnie Raitt, along numerous other singer-songwriters, it was undoubtedly nostalgia and the release of the biopic Ray that swayed voters to choose this album over Green Day's American Idiot, Usher's Confessions, Kanye West's The College Dropout and Alicia Keys's The Diary of Alicia Keys.

Genius Loves Company, which became only the second Ray Charles album to go to #1 on the Billboard Albums chart, swept the awards winning 8 Grammys at the 2005 ceremony.

Arcade Fire, The Suburbs (2010, Merge), won at the 2011 Grammy Awards.

This was a surprise win. Even Barbra Streisand, the trophy’s presenter, was in shock when she read the band’s name. Everyone was expecting to hear Eminen, who was the frontrunner for Recovery, his return to form after a few rough years of subpar work and his struggles with addiction.

Win Butler delivered a short sweet (he seemed to be the most shocked at the Staples Center) then ran to the performing stage with the rest of the group to perform a stellar closing show. The Suburbs can be considered both of its time (a website allowed you to create your music video for “We Used To Wait” using maps of your hometown) and a piece of nostalgia (the DIY music video and looking back at youth wasted in suburbia). This is my favorite Arcade Fire album and in humble opinion, their best work yet.