Control
Artist: Janet Jackson
Community Score: 8.36

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis tailored their contemporary dance-pop to the emerging personality of Janet Jackson, who attempted to take control of her life on this record. In the course of that attempt, she came across as an aggressive, independent woman, notably on "What Have You Done for Me Lately." But the album was primarily a production... Read More

Design of a Decade: 1986-1996
Artist: Janet Jackson
She Works Hard for the Money
Artist: Donna Summer
Community Score: 8.83

Donna Summer's brassy, matter-of-fact mezzo does not play the sexy sanctified diva, and her musicians' crisp, loud beats don't evoke rapture or delirium. Instead, she and her rhythm men live up to the title of "She Works Hard for the Money." Here's praise for a waitress' 12-hour workday that sums up Summer's own post-dance queen job status, as... Read More

The Wanderer
Artist: Donna Summer
Community Score: 8.63

This first post-Casablanca set has a hard-rock edge that shines best on the title cut, "Cold Love," and "Night Life." ~ Bil Carpenter, All Music Guide Read More

Walk Away: The Best of Donna Summer (1977-1980)
Artist: Donna Summer

A collection of later Donna Summer material, including such song as "Winter Melody," "I Feel Love," and "Bad Girls." Although disco was beginning to peak, Summer was riding high, dominating the R&B and pop charts. In some ways, these songs were more varied than her pre-'77 cuts, because only "Love to Love You Baby," from her Oasis material, was... Read More

Greatest Hits
Artist: Ray Parker, Jr.

Though it isn't sequenced in chronological order -- in fact, it's sequenced a little bewilderingly -- Greatest Hits is nevertheless an excellent summation of Ray Parker, Jr.'s biggest hits; containing not just solo smashes like "Ghostbusters" and "The Other Woman," but also songs he sang during his time with Raydio. So, even if it could be... Read More

Robbery
Artist: Teena Marie
Community Score: 10.00

A protracted absence from the studio (a one-year release gap in the '80s was equal to a five-year gap in the early 2000s) caused by a notorious legal dispute with Motown did little to stall Teena Marie's momentum. Robbery, Marie's fifth album and first for Epic, didn't perform nearly as well on the pop chart as 1981's It Must Be Magic, but the... Read More

Naked to the World
Artist: Teena Marie
Community Score: 10.00

Teena Marie's popularity had decreased by 1988, when she found herself competing with considerably less talented Prince clones, Madonna wannabes, and Paula Abdul sound-alikes. But she managed to have both a hit album and an artistic triumph in Naked to the World, which found her taking a more high-tech, contemporary-sounding (by 1988 standards)... Read More

Madonna
Artist: Madonna
Community Score: 7.65

Although she never left it behind, it's been easy to overlook that Madonna began her career as a disco diva in an era that didn't have disco divas. It was an era where disco was anathema to the mainstream pop, and she had a huge role in popularizing dance music as a popular music again, crashing through the door Michael Jackson opened with... Read More

Thriller
Artist: Michael Jackson
Community Score: 8.31
Rhythm Nation 1814
Artist: Janet Jackson
Community Score: 8.03

After shocking the R&B world with 1986's Control -- a gutsy, risk-taking triumph that was a radical departure from her first two albums -- Michael and Jermaine Jackson's younger sister reached an even higher artistic plateau with the conceptual Rhythm Nation 1814. Once again, she enlists the help of Time graduates Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (one... Read More

The Best of Michael Jackson & The Jackson Five
Artist: Michael Jackson
Community Score: 7.77