Best Albums of the Decade

Top 25 Albums of the Decade

First of all, what do we call this past decade? This is not a Best of the 2000’s list… that would include every album of this millennium (2000-2999)… which, let me just say, if this blog is still kickin’ in the year 3000 I can’t wait to write my Best Albums of the Millennium list whilst floating on a cloud and typing on my harp-shaped heavenly MacBook. Anywho, I think this past decade should really be called the 00’s, but that sounds really stupid… though, I think it is correct.

Furthermore, my sincere apologies to the year 2006 for being excluded from this list. Though, in fact, 2006 is the one that should be apologizing to me because I mean, seriously 2006 my friend, you really brought nothing to the table... I know, I know, I know, TV On The Radio Return to Cookie Mountain, Grizzly Bear Yellow House even Band of Horses Everything All the Time… yes, all good albums. But, seriously 2006, who are you kidding? That’s just not enough. So, 2006, to a year that allowed the Seattle Seahawks to play in the Super Bowl as well as handing Ang Lee a Best Director Academy Award for Brokeback Mountain… when people refer back this decade you will be the year of which we do not speak.

Having said that. I give you the best albums of the 00’s…

25. Panda Bear – Person Pitch (2007)

Only seven tracks long, but this album holds all the weight of a full length LP. On the surface there are the obvious comparisons to the Beach Boys, but there is much more going on here… like eating a layered cake that is composed of a few different flavors yet when eaten all in one bite it works best as a whole. A beautiful album.

24. Beck – Sea Change (2002)
For people who think that the producer of an album is not that significant and more of an afterthought… you’re wrong. Not to give too much credit to Nigel Godrich (which is also a mistake that could easily be made on the other side of the discussion), but nonetheless this album would not have been the sonic experience it was without Godrich’s touch. My favorite Beck album.

23. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007)

This is a true, straight-ahead rock album (in all of the best senses of the term). There is a sound that so many bands try to achieve, whether you call it “raw” or “stripped down” or whatever… and so many bands go for that sound and it just sounds empty. When bands try to fake that rock-and-roll swagger and effortlessness it comes across as mediocre and the lack of effort shows all too well. I think one of the keys to the success of Spoon (especially on this album) is Britt Daniel’s voice. It’s not one of those voices where he’s trying to sound like he’s not trying… it’s his voice and I think it sounds better than ever on this album… without his vocal delivery I think a lot of these songs would still be good but they honestly wouldn’t have been as great as these songs turned out. He just naturally is that rock-and-roll essence that so many bands try to fake or manufacture or search for (without ever finding it). This is a very solid rock (and pop, hence “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”) album.

22. Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)
Woops… I included Coldplay on my list. Party foul! Nonetheless, this really is a solid album from top-to-bottom. “Politik” is a strong album opener. “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face” is everything that’s good about Coldplay. The synthesizer on “Daylight” is perfect, there is a certain depth to the way the synth and the guitar work together that makes them very stirring… they kind of pull your chest into the movement and melody of the song. And, from a band that always knows how to close an album well “Amsterdam” is a solid closer. (Oh, and by the way… sorry Coldplay, but U2 still had a better album than you this decade... keep chasin’! Keep dreamin’!)

21. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (2008)
Ahh… so good. So tasty. So sweet. Thank you, Fleet Foxes. Let’s be friends.

20. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (2009)

Hooky, poppy melodies: Check. Warm, soaring harmonies: Check. Music video where band members’ heads reveal a portal to the Light Bright Universe: Check. Album that I love: Check.

19. Bruce Springsteen – Magic (2007)

Springsteen has, of course, always been a storyteller, but there is something about his approach to lyrics on this album that rose to a new level (at least for me). His tone is different than all of his past work… using a much more nostalgic tone. There are songs here that draw you into a certain scene, a certain time and setting and place and you really are feeling what he is feeling (and, even more, seeing and smelling and tasting what he is experiencing). Springsteen has always been willing to bear himself and stand naked and exposed in front of his audience, though often to make a point or some statement. But this time he seems to do it more out of vulnerability for vulnerability’s sake. As for the music, this is the E Street Band at the top of their game. “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” (my favorite track of ‘07) puts you perfectly into this scene of an older teenager or even young guy in his 20’s hanging out during the summer, yet Springsteen is not playing the part of “The Man” (or, “The Boss”) he is seeing all the girls pass him by as he is forced to sit on the sidelines and watch. “Living in the Future” is classic Springsteen without sounding like an imitation of himself (like so many older artists so often do). And, the closer “Terry’s Song” is a perfect rock eulogy (if that’s a term). A truly great rock album.

18. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion (2009)

An amazing combination of infectious melodies, electronic rhythms, gorgeous vocals, happy feelings, drawn butter and gravy boats. Seconds, please.

17. Red Hot Chili Peppers – By the Way (2002)

Didn’t expect to see this one on here. Well, I like it a lot. Since John Frusciante returned to the band this was the best of the three albums they made in their California Trilogy. And, now that he has left the band again, they may not ever make another good album… but, we’ll see.

16. Johnny Cash – American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002)

Not many artists get to have a true “Swan Song”. Of course, not many artists are Johnny Cash. “Hurt” was the perfect closing single to an amazing six-decade-long career. It was not Johnny singing a Nine Inch Nails cover, that song is now a Johnny Cash song which Nine Inch Nails can feel free to cover, if they so prefer (or, if they so dare). And, the pain (yet hope also found) in “Hurt” was the perfect song for Johnny to end on. And, as much as Chris Martin wanted Johnny to sing “Til Kingdom Come” (another attempt to play the part of U2 that came up just short for Coldplay in missing out on having Johnny sing lead vocals on an album-closing track), “Hurt” was the correct finale from the Man in Black. This a great album. This is Johnny. This is music.

15. U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000)
First of all, I hate the phrase “return to form”. This album is not a “return to form” that is just a phrase used by people who work for music magazines hoping they can hear the same album they heard that made them love music in 1987 and they don’t know how to move on and move forward. If U2 had never made Achtung Baby, Zooropa and Pop then there never would have been All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Not that those albums were aiming towards All That You Can’t Leave Behind (Achtung Baby is the finest work of their career and possibly the best album of the 90’s)… the point is that bands who do not progress cannot help but regress and whenever a band does not progress it grows stagnant, irrelevant and uncreative. Certainly U2 returned to a form of being more direct guitar-driven with arena-ready lead vocals, but this album was new. It was new for U2 and it took them to fresh sounds and in a new direction. And, it was (and is) an excellent album.

14. Brian Wilson – Smile (2004)
The phrase “musical genius” gets thrown around too often. And, I don’t mean that people are saying it all the time, but it’s the kind of phrase that should only be said on extremely rare occasions. People to whom I will permit this term being used to describe are: Stevie Wonder, Prince, any non-Ringo Beatle (this includes Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe) and Brian Wilson. If you like harmonies. If you like songs. If you like music. If you like life. Then grab a copy of Smile. Roll down the windows. Turn up the volume. Listen... Smile.

13. The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)

It’s easy to only remember this album for the hits that it spawned. Most familiar being “Do You Realize?” which is a great song, but since it has been played so much it can tend to make you only think of that song when you reflect on this album. This album deserves a revisit, not just for the hits but for the hidden gems that are the glue holding this album together. Tracks like “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 2” demand to be re-appreciated. Go back in time and re-battle the Pink Robots alongside Yoshimi, she won’t let the robots defeat you and she’ll sing you a lovely tune while holding your hand on the journey. Yoshimi loves you… do you love her?

12. Radiohead – Kid A (2000)
Somehow, ranking this album at Number Twelve is almost an insult in comparison with where it is winding up on most end-of-the-decade lists. But, I love it… it may not be the “Number One Album of the Decade” in my opinion but it is still an amazing album. It is also insane (in retrospect) that this was the follow-up to OK Computer and The Bends… those albums were the sounds this band was capable of making and then they went to Kid A out of nowhere. Who are these guys? I think they’re gonna be big some day. Heard it here first (from me in January 2010)… Radiohead is a good band and will become quite famous. Called it!

11. Sufjan Stevens – Come on Feel the Illinois (2005)

Another album that critics made-out with so there is not a lot new to say. But, this really is a fantastic album. And, in a decade that has been as musically eclectic as this past one has been there is no album that anyone else made that sounds even remotely similar to what Sufjan was doing on this album. People didn’t even attempt to imitate this sound and that says a lot about this work. It’s like in the 80’s when the entire music industry got together and said, “You hear that stuff that Michael Jackson is doing? Don’t even try to imitate it. None of us can do that.” And they all just agreed that no one else could achieve that sound and thus no one even tried. Not that I am comparing Sufjan Stevens to Michael Jackson (Sufjan has much darker skin), but the simple fact is that he composed an entire sound that truly sounds nothing at all like anything else that other people are doing and because of that fact this album will genuinely hold up for many, many years to come.

10. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (2007)
This album makes me wanna put on a costume, paint my face and go trick-or-treating in the middle of April… not in the “Who is that sketch adult male running through the neighborhood dressed like a clown and scaring small children?” sort of way, but more in the, “Wow, let’s all play ‘Dress Up’ and have fun!” And, “Who says you ever have to grow up?” kind of way. I love the melodies. I love the playfulness (a playfulness that is balanced by soul-searching and moments of depression and self-evaluation). I love all the sounds taking place. I love the whole album.

9. Whiskeytown – Pneumonia (2001)
This is the best album with which Ryan Adams has ever been involved. “The Ballad of Carol Lynn” is a perfect album opener. And “Paper Moon” immediately sends you to a Walt Disney World where everyone around you is a cartoon and yet you’re real. There is a bluebird on your shoulder and you’re walking hand-in-hand with Mowgli (your man-cub friend) and Geppetto (your sketchy old-man friend who likes to turn small boys into real people so he can play with them)… nonetheless, it is a gorgeous song that literally does send me to a different place every time I hear it. Adams has sung alongside other female voices over the years but none of them blends with his voice the way Caitlin Cary’s does… they sound perfect on this album.

8. R.E.M. – Reveal (2001)

Since the departure of Billy Berry, R.E.M. has been in somewhat of an identity crisis (to put it kindly). The past two albums have been basically forgettable. But, one album in the post-Berry era has been great and not at all because it tried to imitate the band’s 1980’s excellence, but exactly because it departed sharply from their previous work. Reveal is a gorgeous album that stands separate from the rest of the body of work from the band that did as much to create the whole “Indie Music Scene” as any band can lay claim to. A band that laid it’s foundations on the dark and damp sounds of Murmur, Reckoning and Fables of the Reconstruction comes out in Reveal basking in the sunshine. The opening synth of “The Lifting” truly does lift (for lack of a better word) the album to a whole new level. Stipe’s voice on “I’ve Been High” has never sounded so moving. “Beat a Drum”, “Summer Turns to High”, “Chorus and the Ring”… all the songs on here are great and have a true warmth and gentleness to them. I don’t know if these guys will ever be able to “find themselves” again, but the experiment that became Reveal gives me some hope that they might make great music again.

7. Super Furry Animals – Rings Around the World (2002)

This album makes me happy. Like licking the cake batter off the cake mixer in the kitchen when your mom wasn’t looking. And, somehow, it can shift abruptly from pop melodies to harsh (almost disturbing sounds) and yet the shift does not feel abrupt. The track “Rings Around the World” has hints of Beach Boys, but not in the way that everyone is currently chasing after Pet Sounds, but more the early Beach Boys “I Get Around” type of fun. “Receptacle for the Respectable” is absolutely awesome and, shockingly, features Paul McCartney playing carrots and celery (that’s not a joke). I had no clue that Paul knew how to play vegetables… I knew that he nurtured a vegetable for six years (Ringo) but I just didn’t know that he knew how to play vegetables. The instrumental moments on the album are also completely awesome. I revisited this album this week and it not only still holds up but it truly sounds as strong (and as musically relevant) as it did the day it was released.

6. Radiohead – Hail to the Thief (2003)

I know... shocking that I like Hail to the Thief better than Kid A. I also like ribeye steaks better than filet mignons, Michael Keaton’s portrayal of Batman better than Christian Bale’s and flats better than stilettos. Having established that, everything I love about Radiohead is here… the rhythms, the melodies, Ed’s harmonies, Johnny’s absurdities, Thom’s lazy eyed-ness… it’s all here and I love every ounce of it.

5. My Morning Jacket – Z (2005)

I’ve always been a sucker for wordless choruses (“Belong” by R.E.M., “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson, “Hey Jude” by the Beatles… not considering “Na” to be a word) but then My Morning Jacket had to go and open an album with a song actually called “Wordless Chorus”. Well, that’s one fine “How do ya do?”! This is a great album. It’s large enough to fill up every corner of any size space or setting. Jim James seems capable of doing absolutely anything he so desires with his voice and the entire band also seems capable of going anywhere his voice leads. Great stuff.

4. Elliott Smith – From a Basement on a Hill (2004)

I often hear Elliot Smith fans talk about how they love his earlier work and how they feel that (starting with Either/Or) each album got slightly worse than the previous… not that each album was a letdown, but more that Either/Or and XO were the pinnacle of his work. Nothing against those fans, but I have had the exact opposite experience with Smith. I honestly think that each one of his albums gets progressively better and he ended on his finest work. From a Basement on a Hill is an overwhelmingly amazing album. Big words I know, but I really think it’s that good. Each time I revisit this album I feel like I peel back another layer only to find more beauty and richness to be appreciated. Oh, and “King’s Crossing” is uhhhhMAzing every singe time I hear it… I dare you to write a line any cooler than, “I got a heavy-metal mouth that hurls obscenity. And I get my check from the trash treasury. Because I took my own insides out.” WOW!!!

3. Arcade Fire – Funeral (2004)

Let’s rock! More than any album this past decade that punched me in the face, then kicked me while I was lying on the floor, then stole my lunch money to go and buy arcade tokens (the true meaning behind the name “Arcade Fire”)… this album really did blow me away when it was released. I can still enjoy it to this day, and it also points to something that’s just awesome about music… you can go back and listen to an album and it takes you back to a certain season in your life and you can remember when all of these new sounds were so fresh. This album was a fresh wave of “Deal with me and be rocked by me and then thank me for it.” And I do, I still do… Thank you, Funereal.

2. The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema (2005)
Pop perfection. The glossy, clean goodness of Carl Newman alongside the gritty, playful rockiness of Dan Bejar next to the stunning, memorizing sounds of Neko Case all thrown into the blender with perfectly written, guitar-driven, melody-infectious music is a recipe for pop perfection. The New Pornographers have always cooked with this same recipe, but this time the dish came out flawless.

1. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

Music is both corporate and personal. There is an aspect to music where it can be judged and experienced by a group of people because there is genuine and definable artistic merit to that work of music. Though there is also a personal aspect to experiencing music. This takes on lots of different specific forms, but (simply put) different people experience certain albums at certain seasons of their life that (no matter how much later in life they revisit that album) it always sends them back to a certain time and place and season in life. For me, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of the most personally rewarding experiences I have ever had with an album. Being just out of college, and at an age in life where buying lots of CD's and driving to see concerts out of town was a regular part of life, while at the same time falling more and more in love with Wilco. Then, the band gets dropped from their record label and they somehow use that huge disappointment to swell their fan base like nothing previously had done for them. Downloading YHF for free (on Wilco's website) while they had no record label, I immediately loved the whole album. I memorized it word-for-word from top-to-bottom. One of my favorite concert experiences of my life, which was seeing Wilco at The Roxy in Atlanta before YHF was released, standing on the front row center-stage, singing along with every song off the yet-to-be-released album. Jeff Tweedy shaking our hands before the encore (he shook my hand, Clay Headden’s hand and Ryan Doyle’s while skipping over only Collin Brown… poor Collin… always the martyr) and at that moment Ryan Doyle said, “Reprise sucks!” to Jeff Tweedy. (Reprise, the bands' former record label who had just dropped the band from the label, which is pronounced “Reh-preez”, though Ryan pronounced it “Re-prize”.) Tweedy looked to me and said, “What’s he saying?” and I said “Reprise... the record label!” To which Tweedy responded, “Oh good, I thought he was saying ‘You guys suck!’”. Anywho, in recent interviews I still hear Tweedy refer to that season as when he knew something special was happening with the band... going on tour while having no record label and looking at the audience each night and noticing people singing along word-for-word to an album that hadn’t yet been released. This is an album that I personally experienced. I personally was into the moment when (and before) it came out and sucked up every morsel of it. I do think it is a beautiful album. The layers and textures of the sounds are amazing. The concept of miscommunication that takes place in radio signals being compared to the miscommunication that takes place in relationships is a genius foundation upon which to build a concept album. The songs (ALL of them) are excellent. While I don’t call this my “all-time favorite album in music history”, I do call it the one album that I have personally enjoyed experiencing more than any other album in my life. And, I clearly call it the best album of the 00’s.

P.S. Ringo jokes aside… I’m actually a huge fan of Ringo and a defender of the fact that he was a necessity to the Beatles. Ringo, if you are reading this blog (which, I assume you are) and in reference to my disparaging remarks you are at present saying out loud, “Well, that’s just a bunch of bollocks now isn’t it?” You’re right… bullocks. I get by with a little help from you, friend.