Needless to say, the 2000s presented us with a multitude of amazing records thanks to easier than ever recording and distribution methods. It was a hard task to pair our huge list of nominee’s down to only 25, but we’re pleased with the results. Are you? Let us know in the comments!
25. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
Veckatimest is both throwback and forward-thinking. Grizzly Bear dabbles in influences ranging from turn-of-the-century folk and Americana to avant-garde and pop, but on their third record (and second as a full band), they made a record that feels firmly fixed in the here-and-now. Grizzly Bear’s songwriting shows a patience that can, at times, border on sadistic; each note is so deliberate and thought out that it can take several listens to truly appreciate the breadth of what they accomplished. (J)
24. The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free
First and foremost, Mike Skinner is a storyteller. And nowhere on his four lps released this decade was his storytelling clearer than on his ambitious, sweeping A Grand Don’t Come For Free. Skinner took his witty, knowing looks at fuck-ups and petty criminals and expanded it to an album length character study. The titular grand is a MacGuffin, providing a driving urgency that sustains the record’s forward motion, but the intricately realized story is just the cherry on top of Skinner’s delirious word play and deliberate delivery. (J)
23. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
Jack and Meg White burst on to the scene with this near perfect record of raw garage rock that took them from obscurity to mega stardom really quickly. Jack White would eventually become a prolific songwriter with multiple projects, but on White Blood Cells, he’s at his best. The album fails to fit into any one genre, as White’s virtuoso guitar skills jump around from heavy rock (“Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground”), country rock (“Hotel Yorba”), stripped down acoustic ballads (“We Are Going to be Friends”), and punk (“Fell In Love With a Girl”). The band’s sound would expand and grow more complicated over time, but there’s just something about White Blood Cells primal drumming and raw guitar lines that make it so enjoyable to listen to. (M)
22. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – The Tyranny of Distance
Ted Leo’s first full length, The Tyranny of Distance, didn’t capture the aggressiveness that would grow in his music as the decade went on, but it’s perhaps his most fully realized and consistent record to date. From the building, beautiful opener “Biomusicology” through the spare closer, “You Could Die (Or This Might End),” Leo fills the record with a diverse collection of songs that make the record’s nearly 49 minutes fly by. The track “Timorous Me” is one the best songs Leo has written, a reflective narrative of old, forgotten friends and lovers that could have been the positively explodes in the end. Leo is a bombastic performer and songwriter, and Tyranny of Distance is one of the better records you’ll ever hear. (M)
21. Modest Mouse – The Moon and Antarctica
Issac Brock had been working towards becoming more pop oriented by the time Modest Mouse released their major label debut, The Moon and Antarctica, in 2000, and the record stands as the midpoint between the band’s earlier, innovative work and their later, more accessible sound. The record starts with one of the bands best songs, “3rd Planet” and follows through the rest of it’s run with 14 other terrific songs. Some of the band’s most popular songs among fans, including the groovy “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes” and the poppy “Paper Thin Walls” stand out and showcase Brock as one of the most unique songwriters of the 2000s. (M)
20. LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
James Murphy has only released two LPs, but his second, Sound of Silver is a masterpiece of dance rock. We’ve already gushed over our #1 song of the decade, “All My Friends,” but the album is filled with several other really phenomenal tracks. The deliriously fun “North American Scum” picks up right where LCD track “Daft Punk is Playing in My House” left off with Murphy’s trademark blend of humor and upbeat rocking. “Someone Great” is the other big standout on the record, as it’s trace tones fill the background of a song about moving on on your own. The best thing about the record is that it plays like a party, not for one, with it’s ups and downs, fun dancy songs and songs with deep emotional resonance.(M)
19. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion
Animal Collective have been a lot of things this decade – esoteric Brooklyn experimenters, freak-folk weirdos, overhyped, underrated – which can obscure just how great Merriweather Post Pavilion is. The band blends innovative sampling with 1980s electronics, and Afro-pop rhythms to make an optimistic and joyful, yet clear-eyed record that represents yet another bold new identity for a band that wasn’t lacking them.(J)
18. The Decemberists – Picaresque
The Decemberists’ recent success would probably never have come if it hadn’t been for their final album on Kill Rock Stars, Picaresque. Colin Meloy’s lyrics stay true to the album’s name, each song its own contained narrative. The album is different than anything else that came out at the same time, sounding like an indie rock sea shanty for a majority of it. The standout track is easily the deliriously fun “Sixteen Military Wives” (it’s video is also superb), which might be the band’s best song ever. Though Meloy’s lyrics are the high point of the record, the rest of the band couldn’t be in sync anymore, creating instant an instant classic that will delight for years to come. (M)
17. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Spoon has been so good for so long that they’re in danger of hitting the Yo La Tengo zone, where they’re greatness becomes so consistent that its boring. But, fortunately, Spoon’s eclectic sonic range and constantly shifting persona kept it fresh all the way through their most recent release and our favorite, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Ga x5 touches on Billy Joel, Motown, and country, diversifying Spoon’s typical swaggering punk to make a record that sounds both new and timeless. (J)
16. The Strokes – Is This It?
In a way, the story of The Strokes is the story of 2000s music. A band comes along with some new songs, the echo chamber flips out over them and the hype cycle winds up eating the record alive in the process. And yet hidden inside all the saviors-of-rock, backlash-to-the-backlash bullshit is a tightly wound blur of a record that has the same manic, sophisticated energy of the best party you’ve ever been on fast forward. Nothing else they’ve done since has lived up to the lightning bolt that Is This It? was, but nothing has needed to. (J)
15. Jay-Z – The Blueprint
“Where’s the love?” asks Jay-Z on “Heart of the City,” my personal favorite Hova track. Having the audacity to call your record The Blueprint is just par for the course for Jay-Z, but actually being able to pull it off, especially at an age at which he’d be a declining, tradebait MLB player, is something else entirely. Jay-Z’s record is a towering monument to Jay-Z, one that he pulls off with panache and flair, and one that would set the tone for the rest of this decade’s best hip-hop. (J)
14. The National – Boxer
The National had a great record in 2005 with Alligator, but Boxer somehow manages to exceed it. The album perfects the duality of Alligator; there are moments where the band is sending its sound to the rafters and others that are fragile and intimate. Matthew Berninger’s baritone singing acts as a fifth instrument and keeps the songs grounded while the rest of the band weaves in and out of each other. The album doesn’t really have a highlight, as all of it is truly magnificent. From the winter bopper “Aparment Story” to the bubbling “Start a War,” Boxer shows a young band at its best with only good things in its future. (M)
13. Okkervil River – The Stage Names
In The Stage Names, Will Sheff compares touring musicians to characters in bad movies, porn stars, and prostitutes, but this is just one way that Okkervil River’s breakthrough 2007 album picks apart the glamour and mythology of rock and roll. But despite intellectually challenging songs like the allusive “Plus Ones” to the fourth wall breaking “Title Track,” Okkervil River still emphasizes emotion writ large, from the devastating “A Girl in Port” to the angry “Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe.” (J)
12. Radiohead – In Rainbows
It’s impossible to talk about In Rainbows without discussing its groundbreaking release, which has in many ways overshadowed the fantastic music contained on it. Radiohead made a conscious effort not to over do it on their seventh LP, and they succeeded in again showing why they are one of the best bands in the world. At 10 tracks, In Rainbows doesn’t overstay its welcome while still managing to satisfy as Radiohead’s most intimate record to date. Powerful rockers like “Bodysnatchers” and “15 Step” act as the perfect compliment to more restrained songs like “Reckoner” and the stunning final track “Videotape,” making In Rainbows a perfectly balanced record by a band that has reigned for 10 years as the creative kings of the music world. (M)
11. Sufjan Stevens – Come On and Feel the Illinoise
Come On and Feel the Illinoise works because of Sufjan Stevens’ complete and total embrace of hokey Americana. With the ubiquitous banjo, horns and strings that nod at Copland and Tin Pan Alley, and lyrics about figures from Abraham Lincoln to Carl Sandburg to Robert Waldow to Superman, Stevens made a record that is a sprawling, ambitious ode to a state and a country with a complex, fascinating past. But Stevens moves beyond that framework making an album so personal and yet so sweeping that it instantly did away with any need to make 48 more. (J)
10. The Long Winters – Putting the Days to Bed
While his Pacific Northwest peers were getting bigger around him, John Rodderick put together one of the most underrated albums of the 2000s in Putting the Days to Bed. Rodderick writes near perfect pop songs that are neither too heavy handed or too aloof. He’s a master wordsmith, and the words are just as fun to listen to as the music itself (“If I hold you now will I be holding a snowball/when the season changes and I’m craving the sun?”). Songs like “Ultimatum” and “Teaspoon” shine so brightly at their highest moments that you can’t help but tap your feet. Even the slower songs are filled with an unmatched gusto. It’s a surprise that The Long Winters didn’t get the same exposure as similar bands, but someday, this album will get its due as one of the best of the 2000s. (M)
9. Kanye West – The College Dropout
Sometimes its hard to separate the person from the artist, especially in a time when technology has tore down a lot of the walls that the person could hide behind. So, yes, Kanye is spoiled, childish, self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, and suffering for a major messiah complex, but its those qualities that make him such a vital, compelling artist. Kanye has made four records in the past six years, at least three of which are masterpieces, but its his first one, wherein our hero arrives with a still-unsatiated hunger to match his scope and ambition, that still resonates today. (J)
8. Daft Punk – Discovery
It’s not a stretch to say that Discovery the quintessential dance album of the decade, or even of all time. Not bad for a couple of French guys who dress up like robots. It includes two of the most essential party songs of all time in “One More Time” and “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” Neither song has grown tiresome and never fail to please a crowd. But the record has so much more to it. To really discount any of the songs on Discovery would be a crime, as each is completely irresistible. To sit here and list highlights would be to describe each song on the record in great detail. Discovery is a brilliant record that every electronic musician afterward owes some kind of debt to. (M)
7. My Morning Jacket – Z
Whatever keyboard setting is making those sounds at the start of “Wordless Chorus,” its definitely not alt-country. Jim James’ voice has never sounded quite so assured and the rest of the band is firing on all cylinders, making a record that veers between rowdy and ambient with confidence and precision. On Z, My Morning Jacket showed that they don’t care about making music that can be labeled or boxed and the result is a spacey, epic record that treads the line between Neil Young and Radiohead, with stops for pop, rockabilly, and reggae. (J)
6. Broken Social Scene – You Forgot it in People
You Forgot it in People starts like an Air album, with docile, atmospheric tones. But when you get to the second track, “KC Accidental,” the band completely let’s go and rips through until it’s midsection, before again exploding, much like the album as a whole. The musicians that make up Broken Social Scene are all part of various other, diverse projects, all of whom shine through at one point or another on the band’s break out album in an amazingly coherent collage of sound. Really, how many other albums do you know have a uptempo, spastic rocker (“Almost Crimes”) AND a low key bossa nova influenced jam (“Looks Just Like the Sun”) without missing a beat? You Forgot it in People is an album representative of the diverse tastes of music fans in the 2000s that manages to cater to whatever sound you want to hear on any given day. (M)
5. The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee
Tallahassee isn’t a concept album; it’s a novel. After a lifetime of lo-fi character sketches, John Darnielle set out to track a single story over the course of a record, that of a bitter married couple (recurring characters from some of his past songs) who purchases a crumbling house in Florida as a last-ditch attempt to save their marriage. Darnielle’s bitter sense of humor and his bottomless empathy combine for a moving, powerful, at time frightening portrait of failed love and desperation, none of which takes away from the musical accomplishment a record that sees Darnielle recording with a full band for the first time while writing some of his most gorgeous and assured music. (J)
[Ed. Note: Check out Michael’s long winded adoration of the record on his personal blog here.]
4. The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America
There’s a sadness to even the most triumphant Hold Steady songs, like that sucking emptiness you feel in the morning after a night of hard drinking. “Stuck Between Stations” is about throwing yourself off a bridge, “Hot Soft Light” is about crime, and I don’t have to explain to you why “You Can Make Him Like You” is one of the most heartbreakingly tragic songs of the last 10 years. Sure there’s a ton of Bruce Springsteen, but The Hold Steady’s third album also runs through The Replacements, The Misfits, The Band, and Jack Kerouac, who shows up to provide the album’s title and the band’s mission statement: “Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together.” (J)
3. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
The circumstances for its release aside, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is an absolutely brilliant album and a triumph of early 21st-century music. Coming after the sugary sweet pop of Summerteeth, YHF was an abrupt change in direction for a band that was still living in the shadow of Jeff Tweedy’s first band, Uncle Tupelo. The album is like the sound of a city at 2 A.M. It buzzes at points, but is absolutely low at others. Jeff Tweedy is an incredible songwriter, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is his masterpiece. The impact the late Jay Bennett had on the record can’t be understated either. Really if you put it all together, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the crowning achievement of a band that has pushed itself in every direction over the course of its existence. It’s a record that will perplex and endear itself to listeners for many years to come. (M)
2. The Arcade Fire – Funeral
There aren’t many bands who make decade defining records their first time out. The Arcade Fire attained that with Funeral, a stunning collection of songs that hold back no amount of energy or emotion. The record starts with a bubble, in mid sentence, and in the middle of a blizzard before building to gigantic, crashing climax. The album is music catharsis, not just for the band, but for the listener. It’s participatory for those who aren’t too cool to sing along, with yells and “ohs” that ebb and flow, filling even the most passive listener with a sense of excitement. Funeral may dwell on bleak subjects, but its sound is pure joy. (M)
1. Radiohead – Kid A
So yeah, it’s Kid A, but honestly, not only was it the best record of the last ten years, but there’s no more appropriate way to end our tour of the 2000s than with Radiohead’s paranoid, terrifying, visionary look at the dystopia in your backyard. There’s literally nothing new that I can say about it, but even if it hadn’t been picked apart and turned over for the last ten years, Kid A speaks for itself. If things had gone a little differently maybe Thom Yorke would come off as just another crank claiming The End Is Nigh, but instead, on songs like “The National Anthem” and “Idioteque,” he looks downright prescient. Kid A is an album that fractured the music community, alienating half of it from Radiohead forever while turning the other half into True Believers. It may still be just a record, but its hard not hear Kid A as so much more than that. (J)
We could have been shocking and picked something different than everyone’s consensus #1 of the 2000s album, but really, how could we not? In 2000, there was nothing that sounded like Kid A. Radiohead actually changed music with Kid A. The album is daring, filled with tones, drum machines, disco riffs and monster bass lines. Popular music had ever seen anything like it. Alienation was always expressed in music, but it never had an actual sound until Kid A. From the looping vocals and keyboards of “Everything In It’s Right Place” all the way through the spare, haunting “Motion Picture Soundtrack,” Radiohead deconstructed what we expect music to sound like and changed it forever. Like Sgt. Pepper, it’s a stunning feat of originality that showcases a band without a playbook or a care for expectations. Kid A is the sound of the turn of the century. (M)
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