Tool Lateralus
The White Stripes - De Stijl (their others are great; DS is that much better)
Jet - Get Born (hey if you’re gonna rip off other bands, do it with great taste - and Jet does; their second album Shine On is even better song-to-song, but doesn’t rock quite as hard)
Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers - absolutely NOT just in a summer fun sort of way. Brilliant songs, brilliantly poppy and thoughtful that sound great. What’s the line: “In an alternate universe, FoW are mega-selling popstars…”
The Hives - Veni Vidi Vicious - great punky stuff
Green Day - American Idiot. Surprised this isn’t getting more mentions - must be a bit played out - but the fact that it got played out is a sign of its crossover appeal - great stuff…
I am sure I have others, but this is what comes immediately to mind…
I’ll put in another vote for Green Day’s American Idiot.
There are few rock albums that I would describe as works of genius. This is one.
I’m going to pop back in and mention Aha Shake Heartbreak by Kings of Leon. In terms of bringing something new to the table, stylistically, this album fits the bill. KOL is one of the bands that I like for developing a uniquely gritty, lo-fi Midwestern sound (My Morning Jacket is another.)
Another vote for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
I will also toss in Richard Thompson’s Mock Tudor.
For my money, the best new “rock” band of the 2000s is the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They’ve released 2 full length studio albums since 2000 both of which will rock your socks off and melt your eyeballs. 'nuff said.
I’m pretty impressed by the Black Keys, but I haven’t heard enough of their stuff to make a recommendation.
That’s Not What I Heard , The Gossip–ferocious indie blues
Soviet Kitsch , Regina Spektor
Electrified , Dressy Bessy–image Turtles-style '60s pop with fuzzed out guitars and witty lyrics
Hit and Run , Mechanical Dolls and Play To Kill , Jet City Fix–two terrific Northwest bands that combine reflective lyrics with the rawness and aggresion of '70 Aerosmith
Elephant , White Stripes
Rabbit Fur Coat , Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
Trust me rock is still alive. We’re just in a period like the '80s, where there was lots of great music–the mainstream just isn’t noticing
These are my favorite albums from this decade:
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Green Day - American Idiot
Buckcherry - 15
The White Stripes - De Stijl
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
The White Stripes - Elephant
The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldier
The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
And these don’t fit exactly in to the ‘rock’ category, but they’re still great albums:
The Decemberists - Picaresque
Beck - Sea Change and Guero
Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose
Warren Zevon - The Wind
Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers
The Jayhawks - Rainy Day Music
Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
Neko Case - Blacklisted and Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Neko Case - Blacklisted; Fox Confessor Brings the Flood;
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot;
The New Pornographers -* Mass Romantic*;
Arcade Fire, * Funeral*;
Storm Inc. -Calm Years;
Radiohead - Kid A;
Regina Spektor’s Soviet Kitsch and Begin to Hope
Sarah Slean-- Orphan Music
RHCP - Stadium Arcadium
Led Zeppelin - How The West Was Won (hey it’s copyright 2003)
The Allman Brothers - One Way Out (Live at the Beacon Theater)
David Gilmour - On An Island
Steve Winwood - About Time
<end obligatory nod to my advanced age>
Los Lonely Boys - Live at the Fillmore
Riverside - Out Of Myself
Riverside - Second Life Syndrome
Transatlantic - Bridge Across Forever
The Flower Kings - Unfold The Future
Gov’t Mule - The Deep End, Vol. 1
Gov’t Mule - The Deep End, Vol. 2
**The Tangent ** - the music that died alone
The Derek Trucks Band - Songlines
moe. - Wormwood
These are in addition to, not instead of many already listed. (Esp. Porcupine Tree, I’m listening to Fear of a Blank Planet, right now)
You can listen to some songs free on her MySpace page; it’s a pretty representative cross-sampling of the album. I saw her in concert a few weeks ago, and have no problem at all calling her a front-and-center rocker. Her sound is kind of “Lulu meets Madness,” but her lyrics are pure Rock N Roll attitude. If I didn’t know who her father was (the “bartender/heroin dealer” actor from Trainspotting), I would have guessed Ray Davies. Yeah, the whole album is all that.
I think that the Microphones’ The Glow pt. 2 and Mount Eerie are the two greatest musical works of the 2000’s by far, and frankly, anyone that disagrees has not listened to them.
Huh? I’ll grant you that they’re good albums, but I don’t think they’re so clearly the best of the 2000s that we should just shut this thread down. Personally, I thought M83’s Dead Cities… was better, even Sigur Ros’s Agaetis Byrjun. Perhaps even some of Xiu Xiu’s craziness (I’ve never listened to album that made me feel like I was going slowly insane, as has happened with their release The Promise).
My favorite rock album, though, might be somewhere near Sleater-Kinney’s The Woods, or perhaps (surprisingly), Green Day’s American Idiot. The Dresden Dolls disc is great fun, and I love the New Pornographers work (all three albums) as well.
Pulky - then you quite frankly haven’t truly listened to those albums. They’re unequalled.
Xiu Xiu’s a promise is definitely on my top-10 list of this decade, though.
If I was forced to do something like a top-10, it would have to include
Xiu Xiu - A Promise
the Microphones - the glow pt. 2 and mount eerie
Lambchop - nixon
Cannibal Ox - the cold vein
Destroyer - Streethawk: a seduction
Green Day - American Idiot
Vincent Gallo - When
Scott Walker - the drift
yo la tengo - and then nothing turned itself inside out
Good call on The Glow Pt. 2; I have not listened to Mt. Eerie, but I should.
God help me, I just can’t get into Xiu Xiu. I listened Scott Walker’s album; I might like it if I were in the right mood, but I’m not sure I’ve ever been in that mood.
The Glow pt. 2 and Mount Eerie are two halves of a whole work, both thematically and literally; the end of The glow flows right into the beginning of Mount Eerie. Listening to them back-to-back is a transcendent experience.
As for Scott Walker’s “The Drift,” I don’t even know if I should call it an album most of the time. It absolutely transcends the medium of “recorded album” - it’s like a living painting or something.
I also think that Xiu Xiu are one of the most misunderstood bands around right now. Everything about the band is intentional exaggerated grotesquerie, from the subject matter to the album art to the lyrics and singer Jamie Stewart’s way of singing. It’s meant to be disturbing and alienating and over-the-top and even funny. Think Bertolt Brecht and you’re on the right path.
I would say they’re different. I prefer the M83 and Sigur Ros offerings to the Microphones. You can disagree all you want, but I don’t think there can be any objective accounting for which is the better band, and I’m not really interested in playing the my-band-is-better-than-your-band game. I’m simply saying that it’s a bit presumptuous for anyone to declare that The Microphones albums are, without debate, the best album of the 00s. There no such thing as no debate in music. My favorite album of the the 60s is Pet Sounds, and, for me, it’s unequalled, but it would display a lot of hubris for me to say that if anyone disagrees, they truly haven’t listened to the record. There’s good arguments to be made for plenty of albums in any decade.
I don’t think our tastes are particularly dissimilar then. I just prefer the other albums to the Microphones, but I absolutely agree with you that they’re great albums. I could also understand people not getting into Xiu Xiu because, quite frankly, Xiu Xiu are pretty fucking out there. There’s more fringe beyond Xiu Xiu, sure, but Xiu Xiu kind of represents the edge of the listenable fringe to me, and that’s probably well beyond what most people would call listenable.