Sam & Dave · 1967 Spin it Again - A 1967 record from Sam & Dave that rewards close listening.

Prince · 1985 Spin it Again - He made Purple Rain a year earlier and could have done anything; instead he locked himself in the studio and made something genuinely strange.

Toto · 1982 Spin it Again - A 1982 record from Toto that rewards close listening.

Michael Jackson · 1979 Spin it Again - Quincy Jones produced a 20-year-old out of the Jackson 5 and into adulthood with nine minutes of the most sophisticated disco-funk ever put on a pop radio station.

Stevie Wonder · 1972 Spin it Again - A 1972 record from Stevie Wonder that rewards close listening.

Stevie Wonder · 1980 Spin it Again - A 1980 record from Stevie Wonder that rewards close listening.

Mahmoud Ahmed · 1975 Spin it Again - Mahmoud Ahmed proved in 1975 that the greatest jazz was being made three thousand miles east of where anyone was looking.

Mulatu Astatke · 1974 Spin it Again - Mulatu Astatke didn't borrow from Western jazz so much as recognize the vibraphone was waiting to play an entirely different language.

Phyllis Hyman · 1983 Spin it Again - A 1983 record from Phyllis Hyman that rewards close listening.

Anita Baker · 1988 Spin it Again - A 1988 record from Anita Baker that rewards close listening.

Stevie Wonder · Spin it Again - A timeless record from Stevie Wonder that rewards close listening.

Mariah Carey · 1995 Spin it Again - She'd already won five Grammys off one album; this time she decided to actually become the voice everyone claimed she was.

Bob Marley and the Wailers · 1979 Spin it Again - The album where Marley stopped being poetic and started being a document, recorded as cancer was teaching him that time was the only thing he couldn't get back.

Cymande · 1972 Spin it Again - This is what hip-hop went to dig for: four men fusing calypso, funk, and Afrobeat into grooves so alive and unguarded that Atlantic Records didn't know what they had.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band · 1972 Spin it Again - A 1972 record from The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band that rewards close listening.

Fairport Convention · 1969 Spin it Again - A 1969 record from Fairport Convention that rewards close listening.

Marvin Gaye · 1973 Spin it Again - This is the record Marvin made after Motown finally let him speak, and he used it to change what intimacy could sound like on vinyl.

Evelyn 'Champagne' King · 1984 Spin it Again - Kashif produced this in 1984 and somehow made it sound like it was made in 1985 and will still sound right in 2035.

Labelle · 1974 Spin it Again - Allen Toussaint produced a masterclass in letting three voices own a groove and a room at once.

The Mamas & the Papas · 1966 Spin it Again - Lou Adler made them sound like they'd rehearsed in a cathedral and learned from Broadway, and somehow it became the year's biggest record.