October 25th
album anniversaries

Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer had left by the time Natty Dread was made, and the I-Threes, Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt, took over the harmonies. Bob Marley co-produced the album with Chris Blackwell, keeping Aston and Carlton Barrett as the rhythm section.

“No Woman, No Cry” looks back on growing up with friends in Trenchtown, while “Lively Up Yourself” and “Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)” revisit songs released earlier as singles. Lee Jaffe’s harmonica runs through “Rebel Music (3 O’Clock Road Block)” and “Talkin’ Blues”. In Britain the album reached number 43 and sold more than 100,000 copies.

Tom Biller produced The Fool, Warpaint’s debut album, at two Los Angeles studios, Curves Studio and The Boat, during 2010. Andrew Weatherall and Adam Samuels shared the mixing with him, Weatherall taking “Undertow” and “Baby”.

“Undertow” went out as the first single in September 2010, with “Shadows” following in January. The nine songs run to nearly 47 minutes, and several stretch past five, from the opener “Set Your Arms Down” to the six-and-a-half-minute “Majesty”.

Every song on Speak Now was written by Taylor Swift alone, while she toured in 2009 and 2010, and she produced the album with Nathan Chapman. Sessions moved between Nashville studios including Blackbird and Starstruck, Capitol Studios in Hollywood and Stonehurst in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

The album entered the Billboard 200 at number one with 1,047,000 copies sold in its first week. “Mine” opens the fourteen tracks and led a run of singles that took in “Back to December”, “Mean”, “The Story of Us” and “Sparks Fly”.

The project began as Yandhi, and the album changed its name and missed several announced dates before Kanye West confirmed the October 2019 release. It finally arrived on a Friday morning after a further delay of about six hours, with eleven tracks lasting just over 27 minutes.

Sessions had moved between Chicago, Uganda, Miami, Wyoming, Calabasas and Japan, and the producers included Timbaland, Pi’erre Bourne and Federico Vindver. “Follow God”, “Closed on Sunday” and “Use This Gospel” are among the songs. It became West’s ninth consecutive studio album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200.

Kathrine Shepard adds her voice to “L’île des morts”, the nine-minute fourth track of Spiritual Instinct. Alcest’s sixth studio album followed their move to Nuclear Blast in April 2019 and was recorded at Drudenhaus Studio in Nantes, with Benoît Roux recording, producing and mixing.

Neige wrote all six songs, sings them in French and plays guitar and keyboards, with Winterhalter on drums and Indria Saray on bass. “Protection” arrived as the lead single in August, and “Sapphire” followed in September, a month before the album.

Dave Grohl’s Studio 606 in Los Angeles, whose mixing desk had also been used for Nevermind and Rumours, was one of the rooms for Cartoon Darkness, alongside Sunset Sound. Nick Launay, known for work with Midnight Oil and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, produced, recorded and mixed it.

“U Should Not Be Doing That” came out as the first single in May 2024, followed by “Chewing Gum”, “Big Dreams” and “Jerkin’”. Amy Taylor’s lyrics take in social media, the climate crisis and body positivity, while “Big Dreams” and “Bailing on Me” ease off the pace.