It seemed like kind of an odd decade for albums in that a lot of the ones on that list didn’t spin off any hit singles. Of the ones on my personal list I think only Coldplay’s produced any Top 10 hits in the U.S.
On the flip side of the coin, many people, myself included, took to just buying songs off iTunes instead of listening to albums in their entirety. Of the albums on that list I think I’ve heard only about a dozen all the way through.
Anyway here is my personal Top 5.
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
The Evens - The Evens
Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
Agreed, but which do you consider the “first disc”? They weren’t numbered, just identified as A Sea of Honey and A Sky of Honey. Sea is the one with the individual songs starting with King of the Mountain where Sky is the song suite.
I’m a huge Kate fan and love Aerial, but I’ll admit I tend to listen to Sky a lot more often than Sea.
Scott Miller & the Commonwealth: Upside/Downside (Sugar Hill, 2003)
Drive-By Truckers: Decoration Day (New West, 2003)
Allison Moorer: The Duel (Sugar Hill, 2004)
Neko Case: *Blacklisted *(Bloodshot, 2002)
Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago (Jajaguwar, 2008)
Old Crow Medicine Show: Old Crow Medicine Show (Nettwerk, 2004)
Robbie Fulks: Georgia Hard (Yep Roc, 2005)
Chatham County Line: Route 23 (Yep Roc, 2005)
Honorable mention: Iron & Wine: Our Endless Numbered Days (Sub Pop, 2004); Chris Thile: *How to Grow a Woman from the Ground * (Sugar Hill, 2006); Bobby Bare Jr’s Young Criminals’ Starvation League: From the End of Your Leash (Bloodshot, 2004); Brandi Carlile: Give Up the Ghost (Columbia, 2009); Levon Helm: Dirt Farmer (Vanguard, 2007); The New Pornographers: Electric Version (Matador, 2003).
I know, no Wilco, which is odd, because I really like them.
Sorry, I meant Sea but there’s nothing wrong with Sky either. I was just thinking of Sea as being the disc that would be most appropriate for a generic “best albums of the decade” list for people who aren’t necessarily Kate Bush fans.
You and I have similar tastes, as I really like this list, but I prefer Couples in Trouble (Boondoggle, 2001) for Robbie Fulks and The Hardest Part (MCA, 2000) for Allison Moorer. And Decoration Day is #1 for me.
White Stripes - Icky Thump
Arctic Monkeys - Favorite Worst Nightmare
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
TV On the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Muse - Black Holes and Revelations
Mastadon - Blood Mountain
Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
Kanye West - College Dropout
Franz Ferdinand - You Can Have it So Much Better
David Banner - Certified
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Libertines - Libertines
Killers - Hot Fuss
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Green Day - American Idiot
Pretty Girls Make Graves - New Romance
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Bubba Sparxx - Deliverance
Sean Paul - Dutty Rock
Streets - Original Pirate Material
Radio 4 - Gotham
Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
Doves - Last Broadcast
Gorillaz - s/t
Modest Mouse - Moon and Antarctica
Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
Idlewild - 100 Broken Windows
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - BRMC
At the Drive In - Relationship of Command
Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea ( So sue me. I know this band takes several listenings to get used to, but this kind of thing is the reason I listen to music. These two albums are not much alike BTW.)
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Yo La Tengo - I’m Not Afraid of You and I Can Beat Your Ass
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
White Stripes - White Blood Cells
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Raveonettes - Lust, Lust, Lust
MIA - Kayla
Ultimately, I think Green Day’s American Idiot will be the most remembered record of the decade. It really summed the era.
As with all lists, it’s a collection of things I’ve never heard of and things I dislike, this time sprinkled with a couple of albums I do like but would count amongst my favorite 50 albums of the decade only because I am not sure I have purchased 50 albums from this decade.
Here is my additions to all the 2000’s albums I own that I like that I think deserve to be in the top 50, through some combination of sheer awesomeness, influence, and my own perception of “what should be on a critic’s list”. Note that many of these did not reach Critic’s lists despite being both popular and very critic-accessable.
Dashboard Confessional - The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most. This album buried Nu-metal and all its over-aggressive cousins. If it weren’t for this album there would be a lot of System of a Down and Tool clones on everyone else’s lists. But while Nu-metal lingered on due to its aging, rich, demographic, the buzz around this album was such that for the rest of the decade the momentum was with the less-than-completely-postal-all-the-time varieties of alternative music. Park - Building a Better ____ . The classic 2000’s argument is “what is Emo?” Park fits all of these definitions: hardcore, melodic, angsty, whiney. Plus it’s completely awesome. Postal Service: Give Up. While spotty, the sheer brilliance of the good songs and their immense penetration into pop and musical culture solidify its place in the most influential albums of the decade.
And a two-fer: Modest Mouse: We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank and Panic at the Disco, Pretty. Odd. These albums were completely ignored by the critics despite their seemingly pandering stance of musical maturity, as if to ask what more the self-affectedly deep list makers could want. Even though they both reek of this willful expansion of musical horizons, I like them both, as they still incorporate infectious grooves and lyrics along with their Baroque Rock sensibilities.
Okay, I will add another twofer: Coheed and Cambria: In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth 3, and My Chemical Romance: The Black Parade. Much like the previous two examples seemed a pandering move toward musical maturity, these could be looked at as a conscious swerve toward Progressive in order to garner critics praise. But the energy that they pour into the music lets you know that this is really what they wanted to do all along, rather than their previous, more emocore oriented offerings, and like the previous two albums, they managed to succeed in both musical genres.
This is the list I emailed to my brother and a few friends earlier today:
Modest Mouse: The Moon and Antarctica (2000)
Animal Collective: Feels (2005)
The Streets: A Grand Don’t Come for Free (2004)
Brian Jonestown Massacre: …And This is Our Music (2003)
Comets on Fire: Avatar (2006)
Godspeed You Black Emperor!: Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven (2000)
Panda Bear: Person Pitch (2007)
Animal Collective: Here Comes the Indian (2003)
Liars: Drum’s Not Dead (2006)
TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain (2006)
My number 1s for each year-
2000- Modest Mouse: TM&A
2001- Spiritualized: Let It Come Down
2002- GYBE: Yanqui UXO
2003- BJM: And this is Our Music
2004- The Streets: AGDCFF
2005- Animal Collective: Feels
2006- Comets on Fire: Avatar
2007- Panda Bear: Person Pitch
2008- Spiritualized: Songs in A&E
2000- Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavillion
I’ll chime in to cosign many of the choices, here. Animal Collective, The White Stripes, Wilco, Spoon, The Shins and MIA are all among my favorites.
I’ll add LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver and their self-titled debut (the lyrics to Losing My Edge are marvelous).
Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned itself Inside Out
The Strokes: Is This It (I LOVE this album. Don’t judge me
My Morning Jacket: Z
Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
And my favorite band of the decade: The Hold Steady - if you like The Replacements and Springsteen, check out Separation Sunday and Boys & Girls in America. Both brilliant.
Iron & Wine- Our Endless Numbered Days The Decemberists- The Crane Wife Kanye West- The College Dropout M.I.A.- Kala Sufjan Stevens- Illinoise Neko Case- Fox Confessor Brings the Flood Amy Winehouse- Back to Black Lily Allen- Alright, Still The Shins- Oh, Inverted World Interpol- Turn On the Bright Lights Brian Wilson- Smile (I don’t know if this one entirely counts) Exploding Hearts- Guitar Romantic Sloan- Never Hear the End Of It Tom Waits- Real Gone Leonard Cohen- Ten New Songs The New Pornographers- Twin Cinema The Breeders- Title TK
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