Fugees – The Score (Orange Vinyl)

The Score is the second and final studio album by the hip hop trio Fugees. The Score was released worldwide on February 13, 1996, on Columbia Records. The album features a wide range of samples and instrumentation, with many aspects of alternative hip hop that would come to dominate the hip-hop music scene in the mid-late 1990s. Primarily, The Score’s production was handled by the Fugees themselves, Jerry Duplessis and Warren Riker, with additional production from Salaam Remi, John Forté, Diamond D, and Shawn King. The album’s guest verses are from Outsidaz members Rah Digga, Young Zee, and Pacewon, as well as Omega, John Forté, and Diamond D. Most versions of the album feature four bonus tracks, including three remixes of “Fu-Gee-La”, and a short acoustic Wyclef Jean solo track entitled “Mista Mista”.

Upon its release, The Score was a commercial success, peaking at the number one spot on the Billboard 200, and becoming the third best selling album of 1996. It also topped the Top R&B/Hip-hop Albums chart for eight weeks, becoming the longest running number one for a hip hop group, and topped the 1996 year-end chart. The singles “Killing Me Softly”, “Fu-Gee-La”, and “Ready or Not” also achieved notable chart success, and helped the group achieve worldwide recognition.

The album received mostly favorable reviews. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, becoming the second rap album to receive a nomination and the first for a hip hop group, while winning the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, along with Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for “Killing Me Softly” at the 39th Grammy Awards. In retrospect, The Score has garnered a considerable amount of acclaim over the years, with many music critics and publications noting it as one of the greatest albums of the 1990s, as well as one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time. In 1998, The Score was included in The Source’s 100 best rap albums list, and in 2020, the album was ranked number 134 on Rolling Stone magazine’s revised list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

As of February 2021, The Score has been certified seven times platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It is the best-selling album by an American hip hop act in France, where the album has been certified Diamond. With an estimated 22 million copies sold worldwide, the album has become one of the best-selling albums of all time, at the time of its release it briefly became the best-selling hip hop album of all time, and remains the best-selling album by a hip hop group. As of June 2021, the album is the fifth-most streamed 1990s hip hop album on Spotify.