This album sold nearly as many copies on its first day as this year's previous first-week sales champ, Mariah Carey's E=MC², managed in seven -- and it's worth every penny. The long-delayed album is a major event, with Auto-Tune-wielding leftfield pop, intricately hilarious lyrics and top-notch production or guest appearances by everyone from Kanye West and Jay-Z to R&B men Robin Thicke and Babyface. First No. 1 single "Lollipop" and T-Pain-guesting latest single "Got Money" are like pop Frankensteins, stitching together bits of recent chart hits into songs that could only work for the idiosyncratic Weezy. Much better, though, are the lush, West-produced "Comfortable," which turns the tables on Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," and "Dr. Carter," a cinematic Swizz Beatz production that imagines Wayne as medic to floundering rappers.

-- Marc Hogan