The wonderful Lauryn Hill just celebrated her 50th birthday, and last year she got what could be the best birthday present someone who's a musician like herself could ask for: her album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill came in at No. 1 on the Apple Music Top 100 Albums of all time.
Alongside such amazing albums as Nirvana’s Nevermind, Prince & The Revolution’s Purple Rain, and Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key of Life, it is an accomplishment to beat all accomplishments. She even beat out The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, two of the most notable and best-selling records in music history. How was she able to do it? What were the criteria for placement on the list?
The voters of the 100 best were challenged not to vote for their favorites but for “albums that represented a cultural moment for the artist or genre,” “albums that were complete thoughts, not just a collection of hit songs,” and “albums that inspired a generation to want to create more music.”
Lauryn Hill's album came out just as hip-hop (and women in music) were beginning to rule the airwaves
Likely, Nirvana’s album Nevermind would never have received its hallowed place in rock ’n’ roll music without the advent of MTV, where music videos were pumped into people’s living rooms throughout the 90s, and Lauryn Hill’s songs benefited from the same treatment.
Her hit song, “Doo Wop (That Thing),” which was played repeatedly, was particularly striking as it depicted parallel scenes from 1967 and 1998 through a split-screen effect.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which was her debut album after critical acclaim with the Fugees, garnered her five Grammy wins. AI and pop makers these days study her hits to figure out how to make the perfect hit song.
Still, perhaps the thing that reached most deeply into listeners' hearts, winning her a top spot on the Apple Music list (something computerized AI can't boast), is the depth of pain, history, love, and faithfulness at the root of her album.
There are songs about her failed love affair with Wyclef Jean, her enduring love for her husband Rohan Marley (Bob Marley’s son), her formative times growing up in the “ghetto,” and her comments about the fickleness of fame and the foundation of faith.
Whether it’s songs like “To Zion,” which recounts her deep and spiritual love for her first born son with Rohan, or the bonus track, "Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You,” a remake of a popular song by Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons, they are songs that still get regular play on the radio, even thirty some years later.
As far as “albums that were complete thoughts, not just a collection of hit songs” goes, the cohesion of the album is impeccable. Set in the backdrop of a middle school classroom, there are many moving “skits” throughout the album where the teacher and student get to the bottom of what it means to "love" somebody.
The teacher and students play their parts convincingly. Lauryn Hill said about the title track that it was not about her getting bad grades (she was a stellar student in school), but it was about the education of the heart over the mind, and learning to believe in yourself.
Her confidence and humility hit all-time highs on this album, and she (nor hardly any artists since) has been able to perform, produce, and play with such earnestness and deep feeling.
A lot of that has to do as much with genre as with anything else. It was a cultural touchstone, at a time when hip-hop was starting to rule the airwaves and women were becoming more outspoken in the music world, and the criterion that it “inspired a generation to want to create more music” couldn’t have been more on the nose than this varied and victorious album.
A few years later, Lauryn Hill was on MTV’s Unplugged with newer songs, and inspired a generation of female guitar players and songwriters, so that in the music scene now we don’t blink an eye when we see a woman fronting a band or presenting as a solo artist.
While Prince’s Purple Rain, the Beatles' Abbey Road, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, might all have better songs on their albums, Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was the culmination of what was happening at a pivotal point in history, with Black voices, women’s representation, and hip-hop’s ultimate take over of the air waves.