100 Greatest Albums of All Time

75. Star Time, James Brown, Polydor, 1991

So great is James Brown’s impact that even the four-CD Star Time isn’t quite comprehensive ”“ between 1956 and 1988, Brown placed an astounding 100 singles on the R&B Top 40 charts. But every phase of his career is well represented here: the pleading, straight-up soul of “Please, Please, Please”; his instantaneous reinvention of R&B with “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” where the rhythm takes over and melody is subsumed within the groove; his spokesmanship for the civil rights movement in “Say It Loud ”“ I’m Black and I’m Proud (Pt. 1)”; his founding document of Seventies funk, “Get Up (I Feel Like Sex Being a) Sex Machine”; and his blueprint for hip-hop in “Funky Drummer.” At 71 tracks, it never gets close to running out of soul power.