Best Albums of 2003
Ranked by our critic's grades, best first.
The Black AlbumA retirement record built as a victory lap, and it is far better than a victory lap has any right to be.Read the review
Speakerboxxx/The Love BelowTwo solo albums in a box, one of them a funk record and one of them a jazz musical, and both largely work.
Get Rich or Die Tryin'Menace and melody in the same breath, produced within an inch of its life and still enormous fun.
Metaphorical MusicJazz records cut into loops with a jeweller's patience, and an entire internet genre grew out of it.
Chicken-n-BeerLudacris's first number one album: two huge singles, and a great deal of filler built on jokes that wear thin.
St. AngerA band falling apart in public and refusing to fix any of it, snare drum very much included.
Love & LifeThe reunion everybody wanted, delivered nine years too late and with nothing left to say.
Solo StarA sixteen year old handed somebody else's blueprint, and none of it fits her.