The noughties – a decade in music – part two
Whilst some people hate lists, I hate people who hate lists. Here follows my entirely subjective and biased thoughts on the best fifty albums of the past decade. Oh, and for any pedants that say it isn’t the end of the decade as there wasn’t a year zero, grow up:
50. Band Of Horses – Everything All The Time – ignited a renewed interest in Americana when My Morning Jacket had previously set the ball rolling. The sound of that 66 road trip you want to take and the American Dream at large. (2007)
49. Cursive – The Ugly Organ – the best thing to come out of Conor Oberst’s Saddle Creek stable save himself. Their alt-rock sounded different because it was, both explosive and pensive, and all delivered in that identifiable Omaha drawl. (2003)
48. Sufjan Stevens – Seven Swans – often overlooked in favour of Illinoise, Seven Swans is a gentle and touching paean to the singer-songwriter and his craft. (2004)
47. TV On The Radio – Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes – where the journey started. Four afros and Dave Sitek tackle barbershop, with stunning results, laying down a template that was never to be bettered. “Staring At The Sun” weighing in as one of tracks of the decade. (2004)
46. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago – icy and beyond heartfelt, Justin Vernon accidentally created a masterpiece when he went wandering in the woods with little more than an acoustic, a pickup, a broken heart and a beard. (2008)
45. The Shins – Wincing The Night Away – successfully carved an indie-rock niche of their own throughout the 00s, culminating in this wide-eyed collection of indie loveliness. (2007)
44. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – No More Shall We Part – fresh from the disappointing Nocturama, Cave returned to The Boatman’s Call for inspiration, distilled its spirit and hit gold. Tear-jerking and managed the impossible bringing in religion without lecture. (2001)
43. Bloc Party – Silent Alarm – easy to take the Michael out of, but difficult to dislike, Bloc Party’s debut defined 2005’s indie dancefloors and capped a resurgence in angular new-wave post-punk. (2005)
42. The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots – when the decade was still coming round to the idea of being good, Wayne Coyne was off in the next, or in one a few years back, reinstating the concept album through summery psych-pop. Untouchable at the time. (2002)
41. Doves – The Last Broadcast – would have made the cut even if all the other tracks were laughable, such is the strength of “Pounding”. Luckily, they weren’t. Must be disappointed not to have done “an Elbow”. (2002)
40. The Libertines – Up The Bracket – for a time, the hype lived up to the material. Doherty and Barât sailed their very own good ship Albion first to jangly success, and then to flat-robbing destruction. (2002)
39. Crystal Stilts – Alight Of Night – depression never sounded so well-rounded. Taking C86 and the much admired Jesus & Mary Chain catalogue as their impeccable influences, Alight of Night successfully found a middle ground. (2008)
38. Kings Of Leon – Youth And Young Manhood – young and full of spunk, KOL were sons of a preacher man and wanted to rock ‘n’ roll. These tales of partying, girls, drink and drugs sounded all the better for their Southern gent shtick. (2003)
37. The Gaslight Anthem – The ’59 Sound – proof that New Jersey’s finest spawned more than a denim fetish, The Gaslight Anthem have the Boss stamped all over their commercial punk, and it did them the world of good. (2008)
36. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post-Pavilion – when experimentalism hit the nail on the head. Harmonies, layering FX, danceable grooves and irrepressible charm – Animal Collective have them all to burn. (2009)
35. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid – coming in from the cold, Elbow stole thousands of Times readers’ hearts with this lush and swelling epic. The Seldom Seen Kid is the sound of deserved success. (2008)
34. The Walkmen – Bows + Arrows – housing one of the tracks of the decade in the decadent form of “The Rat”, The Walkmen sprung from the cadaver of Jonathan Fire Eater and into indie rock/punk cultdom with this second LP. (2004)
33. Explosions In The Sky – The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place – cinematic post-rock which struck with abandon, fragile and powerful. Mogwai must still be kicking themselves. (2003)
32. Muse – Origin Of Symmetry – when pomp rock was fun Muse dominated. This collection delighted indie kids and rockers alike, propelling Muse onto bigger, but rarely better things. (2001)
31. Primal Scream – XTRMNTR – anarchic and destructive, XTRMNTR predicted text-speak and threatened to “kill all hippies”. Along with Screamadelica, this was career defining noise. (2000)
30. Bell X1 – Flock – preposterous falsetto over Talking Heads rhythms, Ireland’s Bell X1’s third album came from nowhere, later allowing Clap Your Hands Say Yeah to muscle in on a similar market. (2006)
29. HEALTH – Get Color – taking the best parts of My Bloody Valentine’s dreamy drone and Decepticon-like levels of electrical distortion, Get Color equally thrilled and terrified dancefloors under a banner of “horror-disco”. (2009)
28. My Morning Jacket – Z – operatic vocal over lavishly theatrical alt-country does a peculiar and extremely worthy beast make. Z also spearheaded a very successful resurgence in modern Americana. (2005)
27. The Antlers – Hospice – emotive and haunting, Pete Silberman’s falsetto drifts around Hospice like an embracing angel, and with The Antlers’ simple melodies combine to create an effortless beauty. (2009)
26. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers – British eccentricity at its creative peak. Lightly washed indie-rock with an intelligent, funky heart, Two Dancers is cohesive to the point of suggesting only one. (2009)
25. The Knife – Deep Cuts – dark and bouncy, silly and serious this brother / sister duo and their treated vocal and sequencers were, and remain unlike much else. Kudos to one of Scandinavia’s best of the decade. (2003)
24. Spiritualized – Songs In A&E – when Jason Pierce nearly died from pneumonia in 2005 he penned the joyously uplifting and mild psych of Songs In A&E upon his recovery, and it was his best since the classic Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space album. (2008)
23. Black Mountain – In The Future – heavy riffing psych-rock suddenly got appealing when Stephen McBean dropped this bombshell in 2008. Loud and smile-inducing it trailblazed the genre out of sleepy indulgence. (2008)
22. The Decemberists – The Crane Wife – the kings of literate indie, The Decemberists continued where Neutral Milk Hotel left off, producing a rather special album inspired equally by Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Japanese folklore. (2006)
21. The Rapture – Echoes – spawning a genre is no mean feat and The Rapture defined punk-funk with Echoes, an album containing the iconic scream of “House Of Jealous Lovers”. (2001)
My Top Twenty
20. Beirut – Gulag Orkestar – Zach Condon was the first of few to bring world folk into the alternative scene’s fold. He’d later do it with French accordion and Balkan fiddle, but Gulag Orkestar was a high-water mark in Mexican brass, a stunning sound well copied since. (2006)
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19. The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster – Horse Of The Dog – pity the man who doesn’t have time for a little gothabilly. Guy McKnight’s band of misfits made loud, lewd advances on your mother and made it more than palatable in the process. (2002)
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18. Radiohead – Kid A – while there have been pretenders, they have been only that. Radiohead upped everyone’s ante with Kid A and redefined experimental alternative-rock in the process. (2000)
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17. At The Drive-In – Relationship Of Command – emotive hardcore (not emo) that knew when to hold back and when to go for the kill. Its devastating shifts in tempo only hint at The Mars Volta half of them would become. (2000)
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16. Richard Hawley – Coles Corner – finding fame first in the long forgotten Longpigs, then in Pulp, Hawley would then go solo producing smooth aural honey such as this, letting his crooning do the talking. (2005)
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15. Interpol – Antics – party noir was never a more fitting description. Antics is the missing link between Joy Division and New Order, and Carlos Dengler accidentally made the bass sexy. (2004)
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14. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Abattoir Blues/ The Lyre Of Orpheus – this sprawling take on mythology rhymes “Orpheus” with “orifice”, and if that isn’t enough, it threw in mesmerising gospel backing-singing for good measure. (2004)
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13. Japandroids – Post-Nothing – a call to arms for modern slackers, Post-Nothing is exciting and essential, capturing youth’s latent desires amid frenetic garage-rock rhythms. (2009)
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12. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To Tell – art-punk / new new-wave got a figurehead and heroine, indie dancefloors got the shrieking “Date With The Night”. Romantics got the eye-welling “Maps”. Sniff. (2003)
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11. The Sleepy Jackson – Lovers – Luke Steele may be as mad as a box of Frenchman, repeatedly firing all his band and donning an aviary’s worth of feathers to front his Empire Of The Sun project, but here he managed sun-kissed George Harrison harmonies to perfection. (2003)
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10. The Cooper Temple Clause – See This Through And Leave – straight-up rock, post-rock, prog-rock, melancholic ballads, electro noodling, and danceable grooves. They’re all here and rounded off by a snarl not heard this side of Definitely Maybe. (2002)
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9. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven – they didn’t make ‘em like this, ‘til they made ‘em like this. Post-rock would never be the same thanks to these Quebecois . An orchestral rollercoaster, meandering but lean. (2000)
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8. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells – after a debut indebted to Led Zeppelin and the Blues, White Blood Cells ripped up the rule book with its demonic yelping, shuffling indie and totally-nailed punk, country and pop influences. Taxi for one to the “Hotel Yorba” please. (2001)
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7. The Strokes – Is This It? – tight tunes and tighter trousers, The Strokes ruled supreme during the early 00s saving the world from Craig David, and inspiring thousands of others to follow suit. (2001)
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6. Sigur Rós – Agætis Byrjun – it created its own language, created its own brand of post-rock and it came from the frozen wastes of Iceland. Agætis Byrjun was also heart-stoppingly beautiful. (2000)
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5. Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump – a total one off, the swoonsome Grandaddy incorporated intelligent sampling into Americana, threw in a trademark drone and a legend was born. (2000)
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4. Interpol – Turn On The Bright Lights – claustrophobic and orchestral post-punk set against the smothering togetherness of 9/11. It sweeps like an icy gale, yet shivers like a lost child. (2002)
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3. Antony & The Johnsons – The Crying Light – where once he squawked, now he coos, Mr. Hegarty blossomed into an artist beyond comfortable with himself and his sound, and arrived into a realm of poetry with this release. (2009)
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2. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning – where the wordsmith got it right. Conor Oberst is enviably consistent, and here stabilised a flabby swathe of American singer-songwriting with credible cool. A talisman for the alt- generation. (2005)
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1. Arcade Fire – Funeral
Funeral came from nowhere. When being passed a copy by a friend who works for the Wichita label, he just tapped his nose and smiled. Shortly after, it would become a sleeper sensation. Initial fumblings with the album pleasantly disturbed my smoky reverie: those large key changes, those transcending waltzes, those beguiling French-language additions. It started to take hold. Friends would ask with genuine intrigue, rather than usual disapproval, “What is that?”
Funeral worked itself onto late-night radios, slowly creeping onto discerning dancefloors. Whispers became shouts. Soon, it was on everyone but the most idiotic of scenester’s lips. And best of all, Arcade Fire came from Canada. Not only did they start a sound, but they started a scene. Montreal would be huge for the following 18 months, spawning the usual batch of good, bad and indifferent as it went.
If Funeral had come from New York, Seattle, London or Manchester even, it would have been born into a state of oppressive pedigree, one pawed over by generations of those in the know. That it came from Montreal allowed for development away from the microscope, time to hone and perfect. Arcade Fire grew away from the hot stare of expectation, but more crucially they grew away from the cool kids. For you see, if a scene is too cool for its own good, recognisable life cannot grow. And not only did Funeral grow, its far-reaching impact continues to be felt today. (2004)