Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

Sporting plenty of live chops (check the Felastyle horns of "Spottie Ottie Dopalicious") and soulful harmonies, Aquemini's fresh, original feel defies rap's coastal clichés.

In Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Tweedy, bassist John Stirratt, keyboard-guitar player Leroy Bach and drummer Glenn Kotche actually bring you the enchanting sound of things falling apart — and gingerly, doggedly coming together again. This is an honest, vivid chaos, and it tells a good story.

But Vitalogy isn't Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, nor does it seem like a tossed-off interlude like Zooropa. It's more a portrait of an artist in crisis, a man who hasn't yet decided what direction to take next.

The problem is, Voodoo sounds so loose and unfinished, it floats right off into the clouds.

Biggie was somebody while he was still alive, and the ambitious Life After Death – a worthy and more mature, if less uniformly spectacular, successor to his 1994 debut, Ready to Die – demonstrates why.