Rapture is the second album by the American vocalist Anita Baker. It was released in 1986, and became her breakout album, selling over 8 million copies worldwide (of which 5 million in the US[1]) and earning her two Grammy Awards. The album's first track, "Sweet Love", was a top 10 Billboard hit in addition to winning a Grammy Award. The music video for the track "Same Ole Love" was filmed and recorded at Baker's Keyboard Lounge.[2] While releasing the album, Baker and Michael J. Powell became friends and were members of the short-lived group Chapter 8 and Powell agreed to work with Baker on her next album.
In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, Rob Hoerburger regarded Rapture as a relatively "modest" album compared to more histrionic female singers, while praising the symbiotic relationship Baker shared with her band. Occasionally, he believed, the groove-based music lacked variety, and the singer drifted into "some superfluous scatting and pseudo-jazz harmony", but Hoerburger ultimately deemed her "an acquired but enduring taste".[9] At the end of 1986, Rapture was ranked number 2 among the "Albums of the Year" by NME.[10] It was voted the 23rd best album of the year in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics, published by The Village Voice.[11]Robert Christgau, the newspaper's lead music critic, was less impressed and viewed the record as merely a soulful, sexier version of soft rock and easy listening: "it's all husky, burnished mood, the fulfillment of the quiet-storm format black radio ... a reification of the human voice as vehicle of an expression purer than expression ever ought to be".[5]
In 1989, Rapture was ranked #36 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest albums from the 1980s.[12] In retrospect, AllMusic's Alex Henderson said, "Rapture's tremendous success made it clear that there was still a sizeable market for adult-oriented, more traditional R&B singing."[3] According to The Mojo Collection (2007), "when provocative new trends in black music were exploding from the street by the month, Baker kept her head and made a traditional (i.e., with its roots in the '70s) soul record with brooding, slow-burn minor tunes of romantic celebration and earthy longing."[6] According to CBC Music journalist Amanda Parris, "Baker defined quiet storm in the '80's and her album Rapture is one of the subgenre's milestones."[13]