The Top 50 Albums of 2007

29 Mary J. Blige
Growing Pains (Geffen)
Having turned R&B pledger and pleader for 2005's The Breakthrough, the once and future Queen of Ghetto Soul re-repositions herself for a fickle marketplace by re-refurbishing street-tested moves. Kicking off with a defining track in which she and Busta Rhymes urge dark-skinned homegirls not to fret about the size of their chests and derrieres, she's a big sister to believe in. Sure, it's calculated. But praise the Lord that she arrived at this answer, rest assured that it's always been her natural mode, and be hereby informed that the songwriting is her finest in years.

30 Youssou N'Dour
Rokku Mi Rokka (Nonesuch)
The Senegalese mbalax master's third album for Nonesuch sticks to the method that has served him well since he parted from crossover-conscious Sony a decade ago. A mite polite, a mite curatorial, the label merely insists that he conceive each album acutely and provide full translations and transliterations in return. On Rokku Mi Rokka, N'Dour bows to the Malian music just north, long a hotter commodity in the world-music market. Given his voice, his melodies and his deft balance of Western guitar-bass-traps-horns-synth and African percussion-marimba-xalam, this supremely dedicated artist is just about guaranteed to satisfy completely and excite enough.