Wednesday, March 10th 2010, 9:56am

::    Etc. Archive   Browse the Archive: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Search the Archive: View all Features ::    Etc   30's Top 68 Albums of the Decade Why 68? 'Cause 67 is too few and 69 would give too many frat rubes an excuse to feel like they had a sense of humor. We'll be unveiling the list day by day, disc by disc until we run out of decade. So drop back now and again, or just show up on the 31st. It probably won't matter either way. Present Ghosts of Freddy Ruppert: A Sighting of Former Ghosts Jesus Christ and Zola Jesus, do we write about anything other than being emo anymore? Sure we do. We write about how hasty deception in the name of poor humor might belittle the efforts of whoever went out and actually wrote something for our sorry site. And that's what makes us invincible. Er, irrational. Hey! Check out what Mark wrote! The Get Up Kids – A 10 Song Retrospective If you've ever wondered what makes a person get entrenched in the tawdry and vicious world of the Get Up Kids, or if you've ever just wanted a blueprint for how you might join the teeming masses, boy howdy, does Tyler Greenleaf have a tale to tell. 3 Inches of Blood, on the Floor You've played it safe for far too long, young jeezy, so now it's become the task of our longest-running contributor, James Dufendach, to call you out on your Sufjan-loving, hipster-haircut , Sunggie-mocking ways. ::    Features   30's Top 68 Albums of the Decade 68 Wolf Parade Apologies to the Queen Mary [Sub Pop] 2005 Wolf Parade on MySpace In 2005 Dan Shvartsman speculated of Wolf Parade's appeal, "Doesn't everybody like Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Montreal, [etc., etc.]? If they're going to be unoriginal, what a way, right?" What a way, indeed, you crazy diamond. Poised neatly at the decade's halfway point, Wolf Parade may as well have become a preeminent accessory in the identity of this epoch's average hipster. Apologies to the Queen Mary didn't exactly introduce anything new, it didn't really redefine anything, or blaze any trails, spawning countless imitators along the way. It didn't ask anyone to marry it, or swim the English Channel, or feed the deer, or even play mean pranks on your xanthophobic neighbor. It was, however, so universally appreciated - from the smallest extent to all-out fanaticism - that we can't help but consider it among the most memorable/recognizable albums of the past ten years. And even if we could help it, we'd at least pretend that we couldn't. In related news, said Shvartsman should be receiving his promotional copy of the disc sometime in 2016. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 67 Regina Spektor Soviet Kitsch [Sire] 2004 Regina Spektor on MySpace Ok, Regina Spektor's work, whether on her career highlight or any of her other albums, is full of kitsch. The quirks, the Russian via the BRAWNX accent, the girlishly conversational tone of her lyrics, that whisper track and the "Marianne's a bitch" chorus line, the piano playing that splits the gap between elegant classicism and rough primitivism; all of it can be a bit much when you put it together. Fine. But on Soviet Kitsch, focus on the songs instead of the singer for a second. The panoramic sadness of "Ode to Divorce", the strikingly calm, lackadaisical suicide consideration on "Carbon Monoxide", the stunning old world finish to "The Flowers." The Hallmark drama that hits home on "Chemo Limo" or the frank release of "Somedays." All of a sudden, it doesn't matter who's singing these songs. And at the same time, nobody could sing them but Spektor. And then listen for that jump in "Poor Little Rich Boy," where she starts spitting out syllables like a malfunctioning machine, then all of a sudden taunts, "You're so young, you're so goddamn young," knowingly or not echoing Patti Smith's cover of "My Generation," so the accusation reflects on herself and on all the listeners, and all of a sudden, realize that she knows. She knows she's playing the fool, the silly girl. And when the songs are this good, when the stories are this right, she can. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 66 Do Make Say Think & Yet & Yet [Constellation] 2002 Do Make Say Think on MySpace Altogether inviting and distant, & Yet & Yet is an album of intrinsic contradiction. It's skillful and deliberate without being pretentious or rigid. It evolves through repetition and compels through patience. It hides indecipherable warmth beneath its isolated drift which ultimately proves ubiquitous; it's subtle, but inescapably affecting. It's monumental without being overtly ambitious and thus may be the most natural post-rock ever created, essentially becoming a niche unto itself...you know, without sounding like some goon in the university's jazz club just discovered Tortoise. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 65 The Strokes Is This It? RCA 2001 The Strokes on MySpace Everybody knows about the Strokes -- rich, prep-school slackers capitalizing on the boredom of privileged youth to spin off an album of messy, disaffected garage-pop gems. By the end of the decade, of course, the Strokes had squandered much of the good will generated by Is This It? but that's okay, because this album is enough. Is This It? captures a time and a sound better than most albums. At the same time, it helped launch the '00's first-half obsession with vintage garage rock, while helping to turn a young generation of music fans slightly away from the mainstream. Listening to it now, Is This It? doesn't evoke much in the way of emotion, but on the power of its polished grit, and bored-to-death image, it is one of the few albums from this decade that most rock fans can agree on as a touchstone. One last thing: I prefer the original UK version of this album. The album was initially set to drop right around 9/11 and was held back so that the derogatory "NYC Cops" ("New York City Cops/They ain't too bright.") could be exchanged for a lesser song. Sorry, but the UK cover is a little more rock and roll (though quite sexist) and "NYC Cops" is the better song. (j.b.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 64 Sleater-Kinney The Woods [Sub Pop] 2005 sleater-kinney.com Too Fridmanny? More like just Fridmanny enough. It might be strange that through a discography as rich as theirs, Sleater-Kinney's seventh album would be their most memorable of the decade. Or was it? This entire list hasn't been unveiled yet, tweak. So, maybe settle the fuck down. They could have three other albums on this list, including one that you've never heard of...because it doesn't exist; they could make us look like total fanboys over here. Well, guess what, every tenth album on this list is a Sleater-Kinney disc...and we really don't give a fuck what you think of that. 'Cause if a band is that good, well, they're just that fucking good, alright. And they shouldn't be penalized for it, and we shouldn't have to apologize for recognizing it. In fact, we should probably get paid for recognizing it, so we can quit these goddamn day jobs at Starbucks. 'Cause lord knows they're killing us. Ah, crap. What a disservice we've just done The Woods. Such a shame, considering all that it's done for us. Like being really freaking good. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 63 The Thermals More Parts Per Million [Sub Pop] 2003 The Thermals on MySpace Hard to believe that just six short years ago the Thermals invented lo-fi - and to think, before More Parts Per Million everything sounded like an extension of Casino Royale. Oh, how misguided we were. Well, now everything sounds like shit and the secret ingredient, they say, is love. But they're probably wrong. Because the secret ingredient is more likely annoyance, frustration, or aphorisms..possibly a tidy combination of these terms, but it depends on who's asking. Anyway, it turns out that as misguided as we were is as misguided as we will be, as these days everyone's a critic and most people are bloggers, just reading other bloggers blogs. You're only as cool as the music you pretend to listen to and the music you pretend to listen to is only as cool as its disposability. So, here's your future; if you've given More Parts Per Million its due, you must have seen this coming. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 62 Non-Prophets Hope [Lex] 2003 strangefamousrecords.com One man's thesis on his personal history in hip-hop, is another man's ultimate preemptive battle record, is another man's cultural critique, is the definitive Sage Francis album. Hope is a record of countless references, easily remaining shy of overly reverential and seeping nearly undetected into consciousness through fluent, often baffling wordplay. The result is an effort simultaneously clever enough to cause outward laughter, savvy enough to create awe-stricken pause and academic enough to make unwitting sociologists from casual beat mongers. In this respect Hope should remain peerless indefinitely. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 61 M.I.A. Kala [Interscope] 2007 M.I.A. on MySpace Kala, a mostly boring album which no one much cared for, lands on this list primarily due to its key role in shifting the balance of power in the world shrimp market between 2006 and 2007, specifically in the French market where Brazil had been recognized as the country's top supplier. However with the creation and ultimate release of Kala, Brazil saw its exports to France decrease by nearly 20 percent, while Ecuador essentially stole the 20 percent lost by Brazil and then some, making its overall increase 40 percent and bringing it neck-and-neck with Brazil for French shrimp supremacy. No small feat in the shrimp field. Still, neither country made any money through their efforts, due in large part to the fact that shrimp aren't worth anything...and sometimes you can buy them from a truck that you might find parked on the side of a moderately traveled state highway. But those are probably black market shrimp, and as far as you know they're somehow funding terrorism. There's a good chance that China produces a lot of shrimp, too, but we can't be certain since we don't have the internet. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 60 Iron & Wine The Creek Drank the Cradle [Sub Pop] 2002 Iron & Wine on MySpace It's difficult to pin down what makes Sam Beam's debut so memorable; the guy + acoustic guitar singing confessional songs has been done to death, and the proliferation of technology like the Mac that he used to record this batch of songs has led to a flood of similar singer/songwriters. It could be that despite stuffing the song with rich detail, the music pretends like the last 30 years of music never happened; raw slide guitar, banjo and a lonely handclap are all that accompany Beam's whispery voice and acoustic guitar. Perhaps it's Beam's flawless pairing of lyrics and melodies that perfectly support each other, like slowly trotting pulse of "Lion's Mane" and the lazy refrain of "Promising Light" that changes ever so slightly until the heartbreaking reveal at the end. Whatever the reason, The Creek Drank the Cradle demands your attention, become a rare early-century album that must be listened to from beginning to end, from the gentle melody-driven tunes to the rootsy hoedowns like the primal "The Rooster Moans". (m.a.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 59 Kid Dakota The West is the Future [Chairkickers] 2004 Kid Dakota on MySpace The West is the Future. It's bright and metallic. A lie. An old canard. Everybody knows the West is dying. Everybody knows the game is over. The West is a fever. It's hot and hypnotic. Closer. Consider drums that redefine galloping, a guitar so overcharged it sounds like an ice fisher who's been out in the cold a little bit too long and has had a few too many beers, who's unclear whether those are really fish swimming below the ice or just his sperm, all blown up and wandering and aimless like. The West is a promise. The West is a new land. Take Dostoevsky's West as a dangerously progressive option, mash it with Hitchcock's West as a sterile spooky land, set it in the framework of Moses's West as an unattainable escape from harsh desert, and you have half the bleakness of Kid Dakota's West. The West is an old lie. The West is a bad man. We're pretty sure, five years on, that being no fan of the Vikings is a safer place to be than counting on old men in the extreme cold. We could be wrong. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 58 Sufjan Stevens Illinois [Asthmatic Kitty] 2005 Sufjan Stevens on MySpace Sufjan Stevens's career arc in the '00s typified an interesting new trajectory for our decade. Come out of nowhere to win attention on an album, raise that attention to overwhelming hype on the next album, relentlessly follow that hype with ubiquity, and then disappear. For Stevens, the pieces were Michigan, Illinois, Avalanche, and then who knows - though of course in the Internet Age it's really hard to disappear completely, and all Jeff Mangum myth followers must be grateful his career arc did not start 5 or 10 years later, for reasons of impossibility. The post-Avalanche stage is proof that no matter how many random essays, youtube shows, or labels an artist keeps their fingers in, as far as it matters in music, albums are what a legacy will hang on, and we're in the fifth year of waiting from our hipster laureate cum heartlands indie heartthrob. We'll see if Feist or Spoon take that long, and the Arcade Fire took just a little less. Anyway, beyond wondering about how savvy it was to drop off (answer: very, considering how sick everyone was of him three years ago), Sufjan did leave us with a really good album. It may not ascend to the heights it once inspired in us, but jeez, there's still a lot going on here, even once the ostentation and frippery is stripped away. After all, "Chicago" and "Casimir Pulaski Day" are as plain as it gets. Ultimately, Sufjan Stevens made himself into one of the most significant artists of the decade, and he did it on Illinois. Any subsequent flameouts may have been caused by that album, but still don't tarnish its success. And in the '00s, Stevens's ups and downs leave him in a common group. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 57 At the Drive-In Relationship of Command [Virgin] 2000 After several label jumps At The Drive-In found themselves on Grand Royal for their third and final full-length; Relationship of Command. Grand Royal easily had the widest distribution of any of the band's former labels. So in a bittersweet twist of fate the record where many of us found At The Drive-In was also the record where we lost them. Relationship of Command was from both production and artistic standpoints At The Drive-In's most impressive album. Their unique blend of prog, punk and post-hardcore was a breath of fresh air in music. From the album's first track to it's last, Relationship of Command was a masterful album that in equal measures went from being a throbbing rock record to a spacey progressive dreamscape. The album's single "One Armed Scissor" received some regular airplay, and for a change it seemed a worthy band was getting some mainstream attention. But this was to be the last At The Drive-In record, as just at what seemed to be the height of the band's career they disbanded. This is an album that NEEDS to be in your collection. Passionate, original and at times strange Relationship of Command never seems to get old, no matter how many times it is played.(j.d.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 56 Mogwai Rock Action [Matador] 2001 Mogwai on MySpace After strapping a pair of balls on nerdy, noodly instrumental rock with Young Team, and flailing with the unjustly derided Come On Die Young, Mogwai continued their awkward development with an album that didn't even break 40 minutes, where half the eight tracks barely qualify as songs, and they added more vocals and arguably got even more experimental. Yet it works and then some, distilling their sound with tighter songwriting and bold melodies, expanding their instrumentation and giving just as much room to memorable textures. Some would say they went too far in that direction with subsequent releases, sacrificing experimentation with songs that verged on verse/chorus/verse, but Rock Action works just as well with the mellow pop of "Dial:Revenge" as with the epic "2 Rights Make 1 Wrong". (m.a.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 55 Phosphorescent Aw Come Aw Wry [Misra] 2005 Phosphorescent on MySpace Another 450 words spent trying to convince a nonexistent audience of the greatness of Aw Come Aw Wry when said audience has repeatedly refused to acknowledge said greatness is, in one convoluted theoretically proposed sentence, the essence of what makes Aw Come Aw Wry great. It is a march under the white flag, a smile on the way to the gallows, an easy joke as a lover packs up their things and leaves for good. It is a statement for bold languor, a stand for steadfast concession, a vow for knowing failure. In many ways, Aw Come Aw Wry is a statement that shares a tenor with this very list on which it appears, an exercise in futility that doesn't much care either way. Matthew Houck's formula, and it's fair to use the word since the structure of the album is very formulaic, involves languid tempos ("I'm a Full Grown Man" excepted), spiraling lap steels and a bleary horn section, and Houck's full-throated warble, dancing over repetitive and endless vocal lines. The horns and Houck's Athens, GA location got him tagged as a Neutral Milk Hotel successor, and he does share the unrepressed expressionistic tendencies of Jeff Mangum, but the label fits him no better than comparisons to Conor Oberst due to that curl in both of their voices. Houck strikes similar emotional territory to Will Oldham, but his tone is more cartoonish and tenser at the same time. Houck's is the sound of waking up and not knowing when it is, where you are, what you're doing, or most especially why you should care. But all this theorizing and explanation fails to get to the point, to the reason that Aw Come Aw Wry will remain a landmark in the years to come, a little heralded document of sorrow and hope, of yearning and finding, and of things that never change. All these three-claused sentences won't suffice, so perhaps we can say it one more time, simpler, and with feeling: There are plenty of good times in life, and plenty of times when things are ok. There are also more than enough times when everything seems to be going against you, when you just can't pull things together, when the game is weary and exhausting. And in those times, when you don't want to put a smile on and deal with it, when you don't want to regain perspective or look at the bright side, when you instead want to sulk and soak in that sulking, well, when you're a full-grown man and you will lay, lay, lay, in the grass, in the grass, all day, this is the record you must listen to. There are no other options. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 54 Ok Go Oh No [Capitol] 2005 OK Go on MySpace After releasing some notable and, if nothing else, quite interesting material with their debut self-titled album, Ok Go seemed like a band to watch. And that suspicion came true in a way greater than anyone had suspected with the release of their follow up record, Oh No. Becoming an instant internet sensation with the low (no) budget videos for both "A Million Ways" and "Here it Goes Again" the band displayed their creativity and showmanship as well as their musical prowess. Far from being a shtick, Oh No showed us just how pop can be fun, bouncy and enjoyable without being inane or insulting its listeners' collective intelligence. The album's deeper cuts such as "Invincible" and "A Good Idea at the Time" are as strong if not stronger than its singles, marking Oh No more than just a pop flash in the pan. (j.d.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 53 Converge Jane Doe [Equal Vision] 2001 Converge on MySpace 2001's Jane Doe marked a tremendous change in Converge's musical style, moving them from an interesting technical hardcore band to a juggernaut in the genre. It is little wonder that even without a huge media blitz or millions of promotional dollars, Converge garnered an astounding amount of popularity after Jane Doe's release. The opening track, "Concubine", is a total musical kick in the teeth. Fusing grindcore and Converge's brand of technical into one minute and twenty seconds of fury. Jane Doe also features a bit of a slowing in "Hell to Pay", not in intensity, only in tempo. Jane Doe is without question one of the finest records to be released in the genre. It's mixture of astounding timing and compositions, intelligent lyrics and solid production value make it an album that has influenced the work of countless bands. Not only this, Jane Doe has brought many listeners into the fold of a type of music that they didn't even know existed before its release.(j.d.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 52 The Hold Steady The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me [Frenchkiss] 2004 The Hold Steady on MySpace Just about any Craig Finn-helmed work from this decade could have made our list - his body of work has been uniformly high quality from the last Lifter Puller disc, Fiestas + Fiascoes through the Hold Steady (well, nobody was clamoring to see Stay Positive, but you can't win 'em all). So why are we going with Almost Killed Me, besides the fact that we're assholes who try to buck the trend whenever we can? Well, that's basically it. But if we did try to come up with legitimate reasons, we might talk about how Finn is at his lyrically sharpest here, focused not on short stories or novels of later albums, but on one-liners about the scene and the most improbable verbal twists a man can think of. There might be mention of the Hold Steady as a plain old bar band, and not a vainglorious cloning of the E Street Band. A quoting of any of the songs on here would also take care of business. But really, that's all bullshit. Almost Killed Me is on here because we're assholes. Sorry, folks. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 51 AFI Sing the Sorrow [Dreamworks] 2003 AFI on MySpace AFI was known as a seminal punk band. Playing a speedy, belligerent completely unapologetic style, this is what the band was known and loved for by the majority of it's fans. So when Sing the Sorrow was released a lot of people were surprised, shocked and in some very vocal cases, angry. This record was a distant departure from what most who listen to AFI had come to expect, sharing almost as much in common with '80s new wave as it did west coast punk. While many purists were outraged by the change, it seemed the listening public at large couldn't get enough of this record. Featuring charted hits such as "The Leaving Song, Pt. II" and "Girl's Not Grey", AFI started to see real radio play and record sales. Yet Sing the Sorrow went beyond a popular fancy, the true emotional content and complex compositions made it acceptable for other acts to expand their horizons musically. Sing the Sorrow marked a true paradigm shift in the very fabric of punk rock. (j.d.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 50 Joanna Newsom Ys Drag City 2006 It pains me that Joanna Newsom's Ys is appearing so early in 30music's countdown of our favorite albums of the decade. To be honest, part of me wonders if the reason I feel so attached to this album - it was number one on my own list - doesn't have something to do with how many people harbor a strong dislike for Ms. Newsom's music. When I listen to Ys, I get lost in the rich arrangements and epic songwriting. When my wife and most of my friends listen, they hear a crazy elf caterwauling lyrics full of archaic diction. I wish they could listen to Newsom's labyrinthine narratives and shiver every time a song veers into a moment of startling emotional clarity. I wish they could enjoy the Van Dyke Parks' nuanced arrangements and thrill at the motion built into every note. I wish they could put this album on, close their eyes get utterly lost in this dense and stunning world that Newsom has created, full of sadness and wonders, the specter of loss and the promise of renewal. Of course, none of them can get past Newsom's otherworldly voice. And while I wish my wife and friends could love Ys like I do, I know they never will. This has allowed Ys to become an intensely personal listening experience for me, ranking among the likes of Astral Weeks, Automatic for the People, and Horses as albums that demand I stop what I'm doing and listen. (j.b.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 49 The Mountain Goats The Sunset Tree [4AD] 2005 The Mountain Goats on MySpace In the overall arc of his career as the Mountain Goats, John Darnielle's The Sunset Tree stands out as a bit of an anomaly. Darnielle's extensive catalog is mostly packed with songs that work as brief fictions--sometimes literal and linear, sometimes obtuse and inscrutable. Whether the songs rely on narrative (most of All Hail West Texas) or fragmented scenes and character sketches ("The Monkey Song") what makes Darnielle's songs hang together is that they are stories, and the better ones are told with a precision and clarity from which many fiction writers could learn. What sets The Sunset Tree apart, then, is that the album is allegedly steeped in Darnielle's own life. That doesn't mean we need to understand Darnielle to understand the album, or that we even need to know that the album contains autobiographical elements--regardless, this is a passionate, engaging album. Perhaps the reason that we do consider Darnielle's merger of life into art to this extent is that the songs on The Sunset Tree manage to top almost everything else in the Mountain Goats catalog, and so maybe there is something to be said for autobiography: the details feel a little sharper, the angry songs a little angrier, the desperate ones a little more immediate. The Sunset Tree also finds Darnielle furthering his then-fresh exploration of full band, full studio production, somehow bringing us closer to the songs--the lo-fi sheen is long gone by now, allowing audiences to zero in on the melodies, lyrics and textures themselves, not the way that they were recorded. I'll go on record to say that The Sunset Tree is the Mountain Goats' definitive album--it encompasses all of Darnielle's strengths as a songwriter and performer, and the album's weaknesses aren't even worth mentioning. In a decade where the singer-songwriter genre slowly fell by the critical way-side, we were lucky to have the Mountain Goats fighting the good fight and making one of the genres purest, biggest statements of the decade. (j.b.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 48 Burial Untrue [Hyperdub] 2007 Burial on MySpace In the brief time since quasi-anonymous London producer Burial released his ode to lonely after-hours London streetlife, the shuffling beat of dubstep has splintered into wobbly, funky, purple, and any other number of offshoots currently banging in underground parties. Despite these developments, and his label head's insistence that synthesizers are the future, Untrue remains a classic that defies the genre tag and becomes a rare successful album in a world dominated by singles. It's not that the power of Untrue lay in its originality; his admitted influence of A Guy Called Gerald's Black Secret Technology is evident in the monochrome, shallow-focus production and slyly implied beats with a minimum of samples. What made his sophomore full-length a massive favorite so quickly is how he distilled the essence of the urban night without obvious noir samples; a light drizzle, dim streetlights and tall silent buildings are so clear you can almost see your breath in the cool air, but the atmosphere was painstakingly stitched together with stripped-down drum samples, punctuated with left-field oddities like the sound of a lighter being flicked and sound effects from GoldenEye. Untrue could have easily been a retread of his self-titled debut, but by highlighting his genius with heavily processing R&B vocals and minimizing the aimless textural interludes, he manages to raise the bar higher than anyone would have thought. (m.a.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 47 Cat Power You Are Free [Matador] 2003 Cat Power on MySpace Let's face it, Cat Power is like indie music's answer to Virginia Madsen, which isn't all that germane when you're forced to think about it, but sometimes indie music is a headfuck. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 46 Art Brut Bang Bang Rock & Roll [Fierce Panda] 2005 Art Brut on MySpace Greg Gustafson succinctly summed this one up as best it could be: "What the fuck are you doing if you're not in Art Brut?" As true today as it was when it was written. (b.h., g.g.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 45 Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand [Domino] 2004 Franz Ferdinand on MySpace This is it, kids: The Best of the Decade. An opportunity to pretend you never missed the classics when they were the future. A second opportunity to write the reviews that...you just didn't write when it was initially fitting. This is why we do these things. And while we always knew that Franz Ferdinand would be big-time, it may surprise you to know that we've never properly reviewed their self-titled debut; that we've never taken the time to fully articulate our many thoughts on the album that introduced this band to the world; that at no point have we invested more than 75 words in detailing just what makes Franz Ferdinand so freaking exceptional. ... Man, some facts sure are interesting. Others are just facts. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 44 Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga [Merge] 2007 Spoon on MySpace At some point, Spoon became a synonym for cool. It happened somewhere in the '00s, because Series of Sneaks was great but gawky, and the Agony of Lafitte EP was a little too pointed to be cool. Somewhere in the run-up to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, the precision and classic taste Spoon had became everything that the indie public wanted, and with those horns added to "Underdog", they could fit a wider public's needs as well. And it was cool, somehow. It can be argued, and has been in plenty of other places, that other albums should be here before this one. But if we concede that at some point Spoon became cool, and then assert (and no one has really disputed this) that Spoon has maintained ever since then, and also state that said coolness came before Ga Ga, then it becomes logically sound to state that this is as good as it gets for Spoon, and hence as fitting an entry on our list as any other. It's like, in the stars or something. Cool. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 43 P.O.S. Never Better [Rhymesayers] 2009 P.O.S. on MySpace This album, as displayed here by a badly cropped extracted image of the album cover is one of the best records of the decade obviously (you are reading 30music's top 68 albums of the decade are you not?). The fact no one knows who P.O.S. is (if that is actually the band name and not the album name), what the album is called (if it's not P.O.S.), where they're from, what kind of music they make, and what the hell P.O.S. stands for yet it still lands somewhere on our decade list must mean it's pretty fucking significant. You should definitely check this out for yourself (and for us). P.S. I'm not sure if I even got the P.O.S. part right. (m.w.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 42 Yo La Tengo And then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out [Matador] 2000 Yo La Tengo on MySpace Yo La Tengo's lovely And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, was the first 'grown up' indie rock record I ever owned. At the time, there weren't a lot of underground records about being grown up and existing in a world beyond puppy-dog eyes, broken hearts, avant-garde art, and/or political outrage. But then, that's because not many underground bands lasted for very long. In fact, today, at the forefront of indie rock's eldest states-people, we have Yo La Tengo, and Sonic Youth. There are others, but none have been around quite as long, built quite the reputation, and put out quite the body of work as these two bands. So what does that mean, then, that And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out is a 'grown up' album? It means that, on this particular record, Yo La Tengo were preoccupied with the quiet desperation of suburban life (this is reinforced by the gorgeous cover art), and the give and take of adult relationships. The album includes songs about feeling uncomfortable at parties, lovely reminiscences of new love, reflections on distant, could-have-been sex lives, and many complaints of sleeplessness. The end result is a quiet, hushed album about coming to terms with adulthood--the album's characters can never sleep because they are struggling to adapt to the traditional lives they're trying to lead. The album's understated, quiet tone may make the album difficult for many to fully engage with, but it's this very tone that perfectly underscores the quiet reflection of the album's many protagonists--a quiet reflection that, I'd like to believe, is shattered by some kind of spiritual release in the epic, understated, album-closing noise jam "Night Falls on Hoboken."In this song, perhaps, as the album cover suggests, maybe all of the album's inhabitants are carried off by flying saucers, finally free of the desperation that defines them. (j.b.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 41 Electrelane The Power Out [Too Pure] 2004 Electrelane on MySpace The funny thing about perception may as well be the subjective foundation behind what is commonly held as objective fact. Grass is green. Lemons are sour. Interpol is boring. But what degree of sour? Just how boring? How did the robots know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? And what the hell is Tasty Wheat? You know? Somewhere through a string of observation, recognition and interpretation we establish our own values for the things we perceive and ultimately compromise in our collective understanding of any given attribute. In most cases there's no great reason to question our perceptions, but it doesn't hurt to know that personal truth may never entirely represent reality. So it makes a little sense when your uncle gives his annual rant during Easter dinner - the one about what it was like when he was dead, before he was "resurrected" [revived]. "The colors were so vivid," he always says. "Hovering above my body, it was like seeing with new eyes; it was indescribable, like nothing I could have imagined." Yeah, okay. But why wouldn't reality shock us if we were able to bypass the erratic chain of physical limitations and subconscious guesswork impeding our biological senses? If we were able to see what actually is would we initially know how to cope? Which brings us to Electrelane and the little-known theory that their second album is quite possibly the closest thing to being dead - to redefining a sense - one might experience while still alive. And according to prevailing trend, most everyone dies, so you may as well get your previews where you can - that is, if you're into paradox 'n shit. The Power Out is precisely unhinged, breathtakingly raw, production-perfect, cunningly varied and consummately focussed; this is an album altogether easy to take in while nearly defying sensation. Often times sounding detached and irrelative though always working with tacit concordance, every note, every tone floats in homeostatic flux as though some neglected divisionist principle were the key to ultra-real all along. Maybe this album won't make Lesson 1 of the universal How To Be a Hipster guide, but any curious indie prick with a fair interest in ancestry will undoubtably cross its path. And thirty years from now indie kids (or whatever they'll term themselves) will still be lost trying to imagine what time and place could possibly produce such barefaced brilliance; trying to find the context under which this album becomes explainable, becomes logical, or fits into the historical model of music's progression to that point. But in every effort they will surely fall short. On a sort of fundamental level, The Power Out is probably the most amazing album you could ever hear. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 40 Why? Alopecia [Anticon] 2008 Why? on MySpace An idiosyncratic performer synthesizes all his personality tics and stylistic grabs into a polished pop record that still maintains his unique tastes and personal skills, making for a breakthrough album that catapulted him onto everyone's radar. But enough about Chad Matheny and Central Hug / Friendarmy / Fractaldunes [And the Dreams That Resulted]. Alopecia had a quantity that propelled it past anything Yoni Wolf has been a part of before. (Note: this is not true. Roll with us) Somehow, the 14 tracks that made up this album marked new territory while still building logically off Why?'s previous output. There were hit singles, cohesive connective tracks, and solid rhymes and flows through melodies and beats throughout. There were also vocal guest apperances by Nedelle, and Andrew Broder especially. That was probably it. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 39 Death Cab for Cutie Transatlanticism [Barsuk] 2003 Death Cab for Cutie on MySpace If you can think of Death Cab for Cutie's chronology as a grilled cheese sandwich where the bread is the crappy, unnecessary part, you're not only susceptible to perhaps the most ill-advised diet of all time, but you've just wasted at least twenty seconds of your life. Because we're talking about Transatlanticism here and a better analogy would be that of a bridge. A really great bridge. Like maybe the Golden Gate, or the Mackinac. Why? Because it is, in some repressed fashion, iconic, and at least a few people probably died while making it. Anyway, We Have the Facts through The Photo Album must be to Northern Michigan what Plans through whatever the fuck that last album was called is to the UP.* And in the middle, giving you a teaser view of both coastlines is Transatlanticism. It's open all year-round and is cleaner than taking the ferry. *Something About Airplanes is like Detroit, so fuck it. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 38 Okkervil River Black Sheep Boy [Jagjaguwar] 2005 Okkervil River on MySpace By the time Black Sheep Boy blessed Okkervil's fans with its release, it was already clear that the band had serious potential. The unobtrusive country rock style of Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See accompanied themes that suggested frontman Will Sheff had no ineptitude for writing songs about the darker side of life. With the drop of Black Sheep Boy, as the material became still more saturated with desperation and despair, Okkervil hit a new level of quality in their music. The original 11 tracks of the release were graced by another eight in the Black Sheep Boy: Appendix that created one long, powerful sweep through the concept of the Black Sheep Boy itself. The raw, unforgettable uniqueness of songs like "For Real" and "Black" on the album set it apart, along with the fact that the whole collection had two songs that could be considered to have an even remotely positive disposition; one if you don't count the title track, a Tim Hardin cover. The Appendix was even darker than the original, using pieces of melody, clips of voice, and a wide variety of distorting effects to make several of the tracks sound like nothing less than a ravenous nightmare of warped reality. And to top it off, the lyrics continue to capitalize Sheff's knack for storytelling and his English degree. Now, it was certainly not unexpected that Sheff would manage to write lyrics that were frighteningly good throughout the entire length of the album, and, well, just plain frightening through about a third of it. But the big surprise was how different the new release sounded from its predecessors. After all, no one had any idea, as was later seen on The Stage Names, that Okkervil has such an inclination to make two-installment albums that are so distinguishable. But the fans do know that now. General opinion? They should keep doing it. (k.c.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 37 Alkaline Trio Maybe I'll Catch Fire [Asian Man] 2000 Alkaline Trio on MySpace Jeff Sandman knew what he was doing. Oh, sure, the floppy hair, the zany sense of humor, and the inward stare at some unfixed point in the distance all suggested that he was merely singing "Radio" out of uncontrollable desire, an urge for the music inside him that could not be resisted, a song he couldn't get out of his head. But he was proselytizing, and he knew it. I remember us walking away from the dining hall and the main part of campus and towards my dorm. It was somewhere around October 2000, and we were juniors in high school. We were at a New England boarding school, the type of place where the admissions office has wet dreams about days like these, where they could be taking pictures of groups of students smiling and talking amidst bucolic fall scenes of colored leaves and fading grass inside the old stone walls of the old school grounds to adorn their packets for prospective students. Sandman was a day student, from the same town as the school (mine was just outside of the day student range). He was part of a core group of friends in our grade dubbed the "DSB", or Day Student Boys. Not a very inventive term. But among the things that the group shared besides being male and mobile was one they could share with us boarders (though not really with girls, which was part of the point): a knowing, sardonic, yet still heartfelt appreciation for emo. Emo was a dirty word then too, but less ubiquitous. Plenty of incidents in high school involved non-emo friends mocking the music, declaring "What is this shit?", or in one moment driving on the LIE to a party after graduation, attempting a hostile takeover from the backseat of a Volvo station wagon to take off False Cathedrals. In other words, we almost died for emo. Anyway, I can't recall or tell how other people got into emo music (as distinct from being emo, which can take place separately, or as in our case, go alongside listening to emo, the two processes fueling one another in a positive feedback loop of varying proportions), but my story is pretty distinct, and it starts with that undetermined fall day. It starts with Sandman and I walking back towards my dorm, for reasons now forgotten. And most of all, it starts with him singing, quite aware of the effect he would have, the words, "Shaking like a dog shitting razor blades." The line was the perfect one for the purpose; the imagery exact, gratuitous, and strange, the melody undulating, and on the actual record, Matt Skiba's voice grating, all ingredients to hook an unknowing listener. After the first time, I asked him what the hell he was singing; by the fourth or fifth, I was downloading it on Napster. "Radio", the best song Alk3 has come up with amongst a bevy of great tunes and a decent amount of stinkers, is filled with that sort of potent imagery, almost designed to grab a high school male's attention. So too is the simple melody, backed by a simple guitar line to open the song. And then the big, angry chorus, followed by a third verse same as the first but in the new emotive register, and then the resigned, still seething fade, all of it made "Radio" the perfect gateway to a broader emo experience, which for me as for many of us at 30music, led to a broader music experience in general. It took me until the next summer, during a road trip with my best friend and his family to visit colleges, where I listened to Maybe I'll Catch Fire and Clarity non-stop, to buy in, and even then the process was gradual, a slow tread through Senior Year over Pedro the Lion (via AudioGalaxy), more JEW, and finally, as the nail in the coffin of emo-dom (in both senses), Saves the Day. But in my end, is my beginning. And from where we stand now, that means Jeff Sandman singing that opening line, preaching the good word of Alkaline Trio. Every band needs their prophets. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 36 Ted Leo The Tyranny of Distance [Lookout] 2001 Ted Leo on MySpace If you're going to put Ted Leo on a decade list, you really have only two choices. The 1990s or the 2000s. And once you've picked the '00s because you realize no one gives a fuck about the '90s anymore, there are really only two discs which make sense for the list. Sure, Shake the Sheets, containing arguably Leo's most striking moment is really good, and Living with the Living is definitely an album. But if you're talkin' the best around, the nothing's gonna ever keep ya down, the goddamned Karate Kid of great albums, it becomes a close race between Hearts of Oak and The Tyranny of Distance. And it doesn't make any sense to pit Ted Leo against Ted Leo, because Ted Leo knows all of Ted Leo's tricks...the fight would simply go on forever with no clear winner emerging. Either that or the whole thing would play out like the infamous Deep Blue vs. Deep Blue incident where the perpetual stalemate overloads its competitor(s) and soon enough no one can ever return to Chernobyl...at least that's what public education tells us. Either way, the last thing we need is Ted Leo exploding. So the safer debate becomes Split Enz vs. either Elvis Costello or the Corsicans. And...let's just go with Costello. Here are the potential facts: Split Enz are Kiwis. Elvis Costello is English. Elvis Costello once hosted The Late Show with David Letterman without David Letterman. Split Enz theoretically hosted a wine and cheese party to raise awareness for starving rabbits. Elvis Costello had a thing for guerrilla publicity. Split Enz had laser-etched vinyl. Elvis Costello invented Napoleon Dynamite. Split Enz invented Crowded House Split Enz had so many emotions they didn't know what to do...you might even say they were...conflicted. Elvis Costello nearly called an album Emotional Fascism. Split Enz includes a guy named Cornelius, who is also the mascot for Corn Flakes...we think. Elvis Costello includes a guy named Declan...and we're sorry, but no self-respecting flake is going near anything named Declan. Split Enz is Mary Tyler Moore. Elvis Costello looks a lot like Buddy Holly. Whatever. It's late. Split Enz wins this round...for now. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 35 Low Drums and Guns [Sub Pop] 2007 Low on MySpace Low expands. Low recedes. Low proceeds glacially. Low is a unit. Low is a band. Low is a marketing force. Low is an isolated post-Soviet country. Low is a prophet. Low is the Beatles and the Stones. Low is a warning to any and all almighties. Low is a drug-taking dragonfly. Low is both the ultimate and the anti-Fridmann band. Low is Low. On Drums and Guns, more than ever. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 34 Pedro the Lion Achilles Heel [Jade Tree] 2004 Pedro the Lion on MySpace David Bazan has worn quite a few hats in the past ten years, especially considering the limits of his music. He's been token Christian indie artist who non-Christians can dig; slow-core emo boy extraordinaire; well-meaning but not always effective concept album writer; simple melodicist par excellence; Flaming Lips-inspired, keyboard-toting political commentator (see: Headphones); breaker of hearts everywhere when his "band" broke up; and most recently, a non-repentant disbeliever. Amidst this, his music has generally gotten faster and more obviously tuneful, but the voice and the general downward tug on the emotions has remained. There's not much to tell the difference between "Bad Diary Days" from his debut and ""Hard to Be" from his self-titled debut. And then in between all these hats and marginal changes, there's an album where Bazan sits down and tells stories. Not one long story but a set of them upon familiar themes of romantic failure, religious questioning, musicians' lifestyles, anti-capitalistic thoughts, and in a slight addition, familial responsibility challenges. With T.W. Walsh, he fills these stories with melodies that could be out of Disney movies, arranged in a full-bodied but hardly overbearing or lush sound, with the feel of a band behind them, even if it was mostly just the two of them. Never exactly subtle, Bazan manages through basic means to give us silly allegories, morning after tales, and the plights of murderers, gamblers, a critically wounded man beside the train tracks, and an unsure new father. He also offers the album closer that will serve as the standard for all other album closers in his career, and among the better ones of the decade, with "The Poison." Achilles' Heel turned out to be Pedro the Lion's last record as an entity, before Bazan moved on to Headphones and then his own name. It could be the moment where the name used up all its meaning. And if that's its fatal flaw, it's only too fitting. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 33 Brian Wilson Smile [Nonesuch] 2004 brianwilson.com I didn't put Brian Wilson's Smile on my own decade list for two reasons. First, the album never felt of the decade. Maybe that's not fair since the album was released between 2000 and 2009, but Smile has always felt like a timeless relic to me. A glimpse into an alternate reality that could have been and probably is in some parallel dimension. Smile feels less like an album and more like the kind of thing that shows up in time travel stories, the only difference is, it's not really from the past, it was remade with new musicians and a fresh perspective. This leads me to my second reason: the Purple Chick version of Smile, using songs and outtakes from original Beach Boys sessions, absolutely slays the official Wilson version.So why did I volunteer to write the blurb? Because all-in-all, Smile is a major album from one of pop music's geniuses. Even when we strip away the story and context, we're left with a major album from a pop star on the backside of his career. The songs range from the elegant sweep of "Surf's Up, to ambitious and bizarre fragments like "Vege-tables" and "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow". Perhaps the most notable thing about Smile's eventual release, though, is that, performances and production aside, the album actually lived up to the decades of mythology surrounding it. Wilson's official release may not be the definitive version of Smile - and let's face it, I'd be lying if I said any version was definitive, knowing full well that the original intent and plans for the album invariably changed through the years but it's still a spectacular record. And we still get to play what if's when considering the album's potential impact on pop music had it been released in its own time. (j.b.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 32 TV on the Radio Return to Cookie Mountain [Interscope] 2006 TV on the Radio on Myspace Possible A's: It's one of those progressions, a leap from the promising uncertainty to the mildly disappointing realization, followed by a fuller and more successful satisfaction of talents, and finally a mildly disappointing and overdone follow-up to the breakthrough that is a little boring. It's hype and anticipation and leaks and a confused public (which hardly consists of "the public") that got disappointed when the best song on the album was reshuffled so that the 3rd best could go first, that wanked themselves to death when a past-his-prime rock legend/leech jumped on for a song, and that convinced the online representatives of said public that this was the best thing out there in a weak year (but aren't they all weak?). It's a storm faced cloud, hanging in dystrophy. It's a cold, base clown laughing at enemies. And somehow, it's all those things without sounding like an overbearing piece of sonic shit. It's TV On the Radio's best record to date, and maybe it'll be their best ever. And it's certainly their stupidest title, even if we like it. Q: What is Return to Cookie Mountain? (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 31 Jets to Brazil Perfecting Loneliness [Jade Tree] 2002 Perfecting Loneliness has all the power of a manifesto, from front to back. It's marked by the battle call of "The Frequency", an aggressive, sprawling, multi-faceted song ringed with barbed wire lines, Blake Schwarzenbach one-liners of perfectly honed proportions. "If the measure of your work, is the measure of your worth, then you better make it work," he calls, and more than an hour of making it work follows. So it goes for the whole album. Only one track out of twelve falls short of four minutes, and then just barely, but the energy and quality never lag. Schwarzenbach throws out his best, revived after the relative disappointment of Four Cornered Night and its much mocked sentimentality. "They took my words and wrote them off as passing, it pissed me off enough to keep me writing, go make your living, boy, I'll go home fighting," he sings over the easy, tight groove of "Wishlist". But what marks the album is not only Schwarzenbach's willingness to fight, but the band's utter fearlessness in the wake of Four... to try soft and sentimental ("Psalm", the absurd but quality album closer "Rocket Boy") as well as angry and agitated ("William Tell Override" and especially "Disgrace"), not always hitting the mark but winning full points for effort. The band also hits all their notes in just the right way. The vocal harmonies are precise on the classic pop of "You're the One I Want", the languor on "Further North" and "Lucky Charm" matches the needs of the lyric to the smallest detail, and even the orchestral flourishes on "Rocket Boy" are right, if only in adding to the pleasant absurdity. Hindsight is 20/20, and looking back it seems obvious this had to be the group's last stop, as well as Schwarzenbach's last musical moment for at least 6 years. Everything they had was left on the album. Perfecting Loneliness is Jets to Brazil, for better or for worse. Considering its position on our list, you can guess how we feel. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 30 Clouddead cLOUDDEAD [Mush 2001 Clouddead on MySpace What could safely be referenced as hip-hop's greatest art project is emphatically the decade's most fantastic anomaly. Though roughly an offshoot of Greenthink, Clouddead came from nowhere at the decade's start through a series of 10-inch records what would eventually become cLOUDDEAD. If clarity comes with time all that we can tell you is that nine years is not enough. We caught up with Why?, conveniently one third of the now-defuct group, hoping he could shed some light on the subject. (b.h.) Read the Why? interview here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 29 The Books The Lemon of Pink [Tomlab] 2003 The Books on MySpace If Dr. Manhattan were real and making music*, this is the kind of output you would get. And if you were given the task of describing what makes The Lemon of Pink far and away one the decade's more impressive works this is the kind of lead you might come up with. Because if you ruin your credibility right away, it doesn't matter what else you say. The Books have bigger beats than Santigold and rap harder than El-P! See? You don't care. 'Cause you've already disassociated at the thought of what kind of horrible music some hyper-logical freak who is not bound by the traditional laws of physics and doesn't have the decency to cover up on camera is going to be producing [Take that, Björk!]. It would probably suck! And anyone who tells you that the Books are making that kind of mess is not worth hearing out. So, The Lemon of Pink is effortless in its complexity and natural in its charm, fitting just as fluently next to Fennesz as it does to Damien Jurado. (In a more tangible illustration Prefuse has remixed the Books' tracks with an ease matching José González recent accompaniment.) In such respect this may be the most comfortable album you could hear. It is equally at home in its own time as it is - and will be - in any other, making it perhaps the epitome of timeless; an especially strange concept, considering its post-millenial, computer-aided backbone. In producing The Lemon of Pink the Books effectively projected their artistic actualization while somehow maintaing the excitement of a future's uncertain yet limitless potential, essentially affirming their significance early and forecasting their relevance for years to come. *Yeah, no one cares about the Vagrant band, so don't even try it. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 28 The White Stripes White Blood Cells [Sympathy for the Record Industry] 2001 The White Stripes on MySpace Holy shit, did the White Stripes have to overcome a lot to make this list...well, namely they had to overcome Jack White, but goddamn, can that rube be a handful. To give you an idea just what we're talking about, at one point, as supplement to our Top 68, we were going to unveil a Top 5 Artists Who Were Interesting at One Point but are Now Mostly Annoying. And let us tell you, Jack White was a shoo-in for number 1. But we didn't make that list, because lists are hard and we're lazy...or we just have other things going on, get off our collective back already. Either way, Jack White is pretty much getting away with being an absolute fuck head. That must be the moral of the story, if there's going to be one. Don't believe us? Well, if you can skirt the fact that he's a walking gimmick, that he calls attention to himself at seemingly any chance he's afforded and then pretends he doesn't want the attention, then fine, keep having your little crush and keep paying Jack White to feed you shit. He looks like a healthy guy, so he'll probably live as long as you, as must be the most efficient brand of parasite-host relationships. Even still, you have the Raconteurs to rationalize, offering about the most banal, pointless brand of non-pachouli rock one can think of. Non-pachouli being a qualifier because Kings of Leon take pointless to a whole other level, but this isn't about them. They were never a good idea. And we've yet to even address the Dead Weather, very easily the worst "super group" assembled this decade. Sure, the band might have been worthwhile in a sort of subversive let's-haphazardly-throw-a-bunch-of-exaggerated-rock-cliches-in-a-pot-and-see-how-many-people-vomit-when-we-serve-it-up kind of way...but they're clearly taking this seriously! OH MY FUCKING GOD!!! Are you kidding?! If it's possible to be infuriatingly prosaic and super fucking pretentious all at once, Jack White has discovered the formula in what is basically the ultimate in unjustified wankery. Only furthering the assertion that if you didn't want to punch Jack White by the end of the decade, you're probably his grandmother. So, yeah, the fact that White Blood Cells made this list in spite of everything that's been done to make us want to forget it, must mean it's a pretty outstanding album. Like it or not. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 27 The Shins Oh, Inverted World [Sub Pop] 2001 The Shins on MySpace Pop culture may no longer apply to you, but it sure as fuck had implications for the Shins, as what could have possibly been the decade's quintessential "indie" album was incidentally expropriated by an unrelated actor. And now it's his. It was in this sense that we immediately dashed all thoughts that James Mercer would make a great interview in capping off the decade, realizing that the more important, more relevant take would obviously come form Zach Braff...and then we realized that we didn't have his number. This is where most good publications would see what they could do about that. But instead of making an effort to get Zach Braff's phone number we decided to just have Greg Gustafson pretend to be Zach Braff...'cause if you've ever met Zach Braff - which we haven't - he's basically Greg Gustafson, except more Braffy. So, here's an interview with someone who has nothing to do with Zach Braff, himself a person having little to do Oh, Inverted World. Basically, we're hoping two wrongs make a right, here. Read the Zach Braff interview here. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 26 Outkast Stankonia [LaFace] 2000 Outkast on MySpace Stankonia? Aaaaaaahh, crap! I thought I was voting for Dankwansere. I don't even like hippies. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 25 Modest Mouse The Moon and Antarctica [Epic] 2000 Modest Mouse on MySpace Isaac Brock and co.'s major-label bow may have been the last time indie fans balked at such a move; nowadays it doesn't seem to raise an eyebrow, but their growing fanbase had grown to love their alternately serrated and poppy sound. Would a bigger budget mean they've mellowed out? Will we start hearing their songs in beer commercials? Answer: Kind of, and yes, but it all turns out for the best. Isaac Brock still used the minutia of everyday life to explore the Big Ideas, and they were still masters of skewed yet memorable melodies, but they seamlessly integrated their stranger leanings with an approach that proved itself to be very approachable. Now it's clear they were in a transitional phase; before they started filling albums with tightly-composed rock songs, they still have time for both atmospheric, repetitive epics like "The Stars are Projectors" and cathartic blasts like "What People Are Made Of". (m.a.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 24 Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion [Domino] 2009 Animal Collective on MySpace God, we are whores for Animal Collective. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 23 Sigur Ros () [FatCat] 2002 Sigur Ros on MySpace somewhere in tokyo: "leave the station travel to mira tower via four connections tokyo night view the world, as you thought you once knew it, ceases to exist breathe in rhythm to the millions of buildings below explain the vast significance of a city-scape that does not add up sit and watch as you point out buildings, explaining the baseball diamond is lit up just for us, jokingly we are so small mind racing, trying to focus entirely on the magic below" in this scene from a land faraway is when ( ) should have been playing but maybe it would have been a little too much to handle in any case, ( ) digs deep it breaks the language barrier -- what language barrier? exactly it can make you feel sad, glad, confused, even happy -- all in one sitting it can bring back memories that you didn't even realize you experienced surely someone has had the "third track" on this record echoing off the chapel walls as the most beautiful of brides sauntered down the aisle here comes the piano, the lights, walk! tears, probably it's okay, mom it's okay, dad we are really in love can't you feel it in this song? it explains everything without words wow, though, ( ) is a record that defined sigur ros it furthered village voice's proclamation that "this band WILL be bigger than radiohead!!!!" and perhaps they were perhaps they still are who is counting, though if music is a popularity contest, sigur ros have taken their final bow thus, ( ) contains nothing but mystery familiar mystery an easily solved mystery never stop pressing play on this one (k.u.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 22 Low Trust [Kranky 2002 Low on MySpace Trust, in virtually every aspect, is the album that Low had been building up to since they first refused to simply get with the program. Building energy in near-stasis which periodically escapes in slight surges, themselves removed just enough from the otherwise painstaking restraint allows even the smallest results to become thunderous, and Low have never been shy about exploiting this. Adding greater depth to equation, the austere patience of tracks like "John Prine", "Candy Girl" and "Shots and Ladders" play so poignantly off of such blunt purity as "In the Drugs" and "Point of Disgust" that both designs resonate with equal intensity. Even Steve Albini's precise articulation, while delivering clear classics in the Low canon, couldn't capture the potency of Low's bleak urgency with the same effect as the cathedral this album was recorded in. Trust is so dense you could nearly swim in it, so sparse the empty space takes on ominous tone, so nuanced that even the impression of space becomes distorted, unreliable, almost concerning and in a way exhilarating. Basically, hearing Low at their best - and this is Low at their best - is what it must be like to pilot a plane, having not slept for nearly 50 hours; you're cognitively alone, isolated, nervous, enjoying a point of view that should be considered unusual no matter how commonplace it may be. You have only your thoughts to keep you company, but in your present state, even they're deceiving you. Your reactions are shot, but the reconciliation is of the utmost amusement. By the time you've wrangled your mind enough to grasp the situation you've already missed your destination. You may not have the fuel to get back...and it doesn't matter because Stephen King's Langoliers have come from nowhere like crude fucking Pacmen devouring everything and leaving an endless void of utter nothingness. But somehow they didn't get you, 'cause planes are too fast for that shit. You're destined to cruise at an indeterminate speed until you eventually do run out of fuel...and then what? You'll probably just drop. Forever and ever. You'll run out of food and bullets and anything else you could possibly survive on. And with all of this hanging over your head, the inevitable acquiescence to unconsciousness remains your largest concern; exhaustion has caught up with you. So you will rest, and rest assured that all will not be well with the world once you're compelled to deal with it again. Still, for whatever reason, you have hope. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 21 Joanna Newsom The Milk-Eyed Mender [Drag City] Technology sure is incredible, huh? Just consider all of the amazing things that it's given us in our lifetime. Wii Bowling, those automatic scoring machines at real bowling ... and that's pretty much it. Oh, and also Joanna Newsom, who is better than both of those things...combined! Well, no, that's a slight exaggeration. She's probably almost equally as good as both of those things combined. Like 95 percent as good. You know, roughly. Whatever the percentage, she is easily a most impressive object of ingenuity; so life-like, so innocently perceptive, so close to the real thing, yet so distinct and so noticeably out of place. It's sort of bizarre witnessing the way she tries to piece together the equivocal workings of mankind, though the more you hear her, the more you grow accustomed it, becoming almost comfortable with it. Yeah, sure, she's probably the first palpable sign of an impending Terminator-style apocalypse, or whatever the fuck happens in I, Robot, or Jurassic Park. But if it's gonna go down - and at this point, you know it's got to - why not marvel at the proceeds before it's over? Joanna Newsom is our greatest accomplishment as curious beings, thus far. If she has emotions, you have to wonder how she feels about that. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 20 The Weakerthans Left and Leaving [G7 Welcoming Committee] 2000 The Weakerthans on MySpace The question of the century: Who's left and who's leaving? The first part of this question can be looked at from a minimum of two angles: Camera One: Who's LEFT!!!??? Camera Two: WHO'S Left!!!??? Camera One focuses on the people who have already purchased their one-way ticket out of town. Camera Two focuses on the people who are still getting 2-for1's on Tuesday nights at THE ANCHOR & CROWN. The second part of this question is a little easier and requires only one angle. We'll give it to Camera One: Who's LEAVING!!!??? Simple. The focus here is on the people who are teetering on leaving, have probably looked at some opportunities abroad or on cruise ships, but just can't seem to complete the transaction. Some of them will leave, but most won't. Do you see a common theme here? Great. If you listen to this record, you'll also hear this common theme. Common Left. Common Leaving. (k.u.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Saturday Looks Good To Me All Your Summer Songs [Polyvinyl] 2003 Saturday Looks Good To Me on MySpace Over the course of the '00s, a lot of bands have been been running around, playing retro pop that looks back to '60s pop geniuses, particularly Phil Spector and Brian Wilson. My guess is when the all of those bands are done, Saturday Looks Good to Me is going to be one of the few who are remembered. Why? Because they aren't playing sixties pop off as kitsch or fashion, there is serious love, respect and reverence in every single song. All Your Summer Songs isn't the highest ranking Saturday Looks Good to Me album on my list, but it is a very special album. Across the album's twelve tracks, Fred Thomas and a huge cast of supporting players (including Ted Leo, Elizabeth Mitchell and Daniel Littleton of Ida, Jodi V.B. of Secret Stars fame, and many of Thomas's Ann Arbor regulars) shimmy and shake through one blissful pop jam after another. Let's also not forget the raw talent evidenced in Thomas's song writing here. I think my favorite lyric of his is still "Somewhere the ghosts of factory workers dance/With the ghosts of kids who never had a chance." Even having listened to these songs so many times that I feel as if I know them inside out, I never get bored of this album--it is still one of the highlights of every summer. (j.b.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 18 Frightened Rabbit The Midnight Organ Fight [FatCat 2008 Frightened Rabbit on MySpace Awkward is endearing, and this Scottish band followed up their debut with a brutally honest assessment of a failed relationship that balanced its cringe-inducing moments with some of the catchiest tunes of the young century. The two guitars and drums setup was quickly expanded to include bass, keyboards and slide guitar, adding decoration in all the right places in songs that would have been good with just a voice and guitar, but lifted to giddy heights with a restrained use of accompaniment. Leader Scott Hutchison is as much a student of XTC as the Brooklyn scene, making slightly skewed pop that makes his tales of envy and heartbreak all that easier to go down. It's difficult to pin down just what makes this album work, since the style is a (very well done) retread of the last 30 years of melodic indie rock. It could be the lyrics, but without Scott Hutchison's smooth, occasionally cracking Scottish burr they wouldn't hit quite as hard. None of the melodic instruments stray too far from the root note, but drummer Grant Hutchison comes up with a unique syncopated beat for every song, which become hooks themselves. I think it's just that we're hearing a band explode with creativity and holding on as they get swept away. (m.a.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 17 Fog Ether Teeth [Ninja Tune] 2003 Fog on MySpace Unique may be the most worthless adjective available to the practice of critique, its use typically saying more about the circumstance behind its utterance than the subject to which it pertains. However, at the base of any explanation offered of Ether Teeth - any description attempting to preview the brilliance of an album as deeply poignant as it is esoterically methodical - one term hides inauspiciously beneath all hyperbole: Unique. And maybe admitting it is the only good way to concisely reach the fact that there is nothing exactly like Ether Teeth, that there will surely never be anything exactly like Ether Teeth. Which is precisely the crux where everything the album has working in its favor - everything that should vault a creation to status of transcendent classic - works just as strongly to keep it suspended in obscurity. Probably a great place to be if the coin falls in your favor. And if it doesn't...well, let's just say Andrew Broder is a lot nicer about the situation than we would be. Here's proof. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 16 Animal Collective Strawberry Jam [Domino 2007 Animal Collective on MySpace There's nothing more we can say of Strawberry Jam than what was said when we first heard it: "Dear everybody, put down your instruments and pens, if just for a second. You cannot compete with Animal Collective, as they again prove." Honestly, it's incredible that Animal Collective, themselves, didn't stop after Strawberry Jam. What more did they need to say? What more could they possibly prove? Basically Animal Collective assured that they were the band of the decade with this album. So, now we'll just waste your time with this. Five questions for 30music.com editor Kyle Undem: 1. What's the best Animal Collective album? Sung Tongs. 2. Why is that? 'Cause it reminds me of South Dakota. 3. What would be another good question to ask here? To ask Who? Me or Sung Tongs? 4. You or Sung Tongs? I don't understand the question. 5. Why isn't Strawberry Jam the best Animal Collective album? 'Cause the album cover sucks. (b.h., d.s., k.u.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 15 Ted Leo Hearts of Oak [Lookout] 2003 Ted Leo on MySpace Ted Leo probably never asked for this. For all we can tell, all Ted Leo ever asked for is a good friend, a guitar that plays quietly, and a world with a little bit of decency, a place where there's nothing funny about peace love and understanding. He would have been perfectly content to while away his days in Indiana or New Jersey or wherever he's from, strumming and smiling to everybody who comes to see him when he's in his rocking chair at home, or else greeting all customers with a grin and a "Hey, how are you? Good to see you!" when they came into his diner. From what we can tell, there's no reason Ted Leo would have ever asked for more. But that ain't the world we live in, to coin a phrase (note: not an actual phrase, and no coins involved). It's a rough, rough world out there, and somebody's got to pick it up for the little guy, lay his heart out on the line in each and every song and at each and every performance, yelp in falsetto, live out his ideals, combine Joe Strummer's bravado with Ian Mackaye's integrity and Mick Jones's ear for a good melody, and remind us to look out for the rude boys. Ted Leo may well have nothing to do with all this. However, he's ended up being a pretty good musician, and Hearts of Oak is his best album. So there. p.s.: Are we sure Living with the Living is really an album? Couldn't it be the modern day hamster wheel, or else an hour-long argument for the renewed relevance of the cinquain? (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 14 Xiu Xiu Fabulous Muscles [5 Rue Christine] 2004 Xiu Xiu on MySpace Isn't this what it's all about (indie music that is) - a slab of noise, a yelping voice, and a few pop hooks thrown in? Oh wait, it totally isn't, and this album was only popular because you're a jock, who is too stupid to know otherwise. Jaimie Stewart tricked everyone into thinking he made some sort of indie noise-pop masterpiece with Fabulous Muscles, but the joke is on the masses (that is if any kids still listen to this album, which they should). Fabulous Muscles is a Lars Von Trier horror film: either you'll leave this thing unaware of your own dumbass existence (unchanged), or profoundly uncomfortable with your dumbass existence (changed?). (m.w.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13 Liars Drum's Not Dead [Mute] 2006 Liars on MySpace After their debut lumped them into the punk-funk movement, Liars drew a line in the sand: you have not even begun to understand us. Their work expanded into an all-encompassing project more reminiscent of an artist collective than a band; they followed up with an album about witch trials and began to hone their sound down to ghostly drones and tribal drums. The concept for their third album was just as stripped-down, but there's a whole world to explore in the conflict between unfettered creativity (Drum) and the stress and distraction that hinders art (Mt. Heart Attack). This world is shaped by a hypnotic groove, sparse guitars and haunting chants, drawing you closer into a concept that's universal yet frustratingly intangible. For all their stylistic turns, they saved the most surprising for last: closer "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack", a mellow, melodic love song that manages just to stay just this side of sentimental. (m.a.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 12 Broken Social Scene You Forgot It In People [Arts & Crafts 2002 Broken Social Scene on MySpace Broken Social Scene are one of the more fascinating entities of this decade we're wrapping up. Their arc, from noodling instrumental duo to unsung and then overridingly hyped scene synthesis, and then somehow a wobbling, human, group of rockstars who make no pretensions that they're anything but normal guys and gals. That feeling lends to critical writing being naturally laudatory and praising or else exceedingly comfortable with the band, as if BSS are our friends, and we can give 'em shit or exalt them in the same breath, no biggie. Their loose center has led, since their incredible rise post You Forgot it in People, to an overdone but still great follow-up, a ton of fantastic and not so fantastic but still entertaining shows, various interband tensions that sort of and sort of didn't come to the surface, a series of "BSS presents" albums and concepts that is half-baked but still compelling enough, the launching of Feist's career from charming and underrated to holy shit and dreamy and finally to annoying and we don't want anymore, and an over four-year wait for their fourth album. And that's before we get to Kevin Drew, the epitome of a 21st century, post-post-modern rock frontman, like Jason Lee's character from Almost Famous but two steps removed - he has an irony about himself, and then he doesn't give a shit about that irony - come to life. It's no surprise that some of our highlights as a website have come from covering BSS: there's so much there to pick through. All that started with You Forgot... and 56 minutes of music. We've argued before, it all started with the opening guitar phrase of "KC Accidental", but it wouldn't have gone anywhere without the unbeatable tracks to follow. Many have made hay out of calling this album the ultimate indie rock mashup, and that may be fair enough, but in between let's remember that it all works: "Almost Crimes" is the perfect rocker, "Looks Just Like the Sun" and "Stars and Sons" do contemplative well, "Pacific Theme" tops "Wouldn't it be Nice to Go Away for Awhile", "17-year old" is gimmicky and creepy but works, and "Cause = Time" inverts "Almost Crimes" for another highlight. Even before they check out, they manage two classic ballads (and phrases for the modern day) with "Lover's Spit" and "I'm Still Your Fag." Their style may jump and shift all over the place, but the quality and the fit are tweaked to the max. Looking on it from seven years' distance (though anybody who's really more than five or six years away from their first listen is either lying or from Toronto), You Forgot... begs the question of whether it was lightning in a bottle or just batshit crazy luck. It's not that the talent isn't there: it's that there's too much talent, too well discovered, and ever getting it back into one studio for long enough (or long enough stretches to make it work) for another great album. Without a clear mission statement, a clear ethos, or even a clear plan, BSS managed to put together an album that possessed everything one could want from music in this decade. It's one of the more fascinating things you can imagine. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 11 Arcade Fire Funeral [Merge] 2004 Arcade Fire on MySpace Funeral is a little like an entire album full of "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea". From the moment you hear it, you innately detect its importance, affected to the core by your understanding that there's something very special going on. And you probably think you can impress a few girls by putting it on a mixtape, or learning to play it for open mic nite, or just quoting it somewhere on Facebook. It's immediately captivating, becoming the best idea you've ever heard, the unattainable expression of all that is indescribable with existence, and the casual quintessence of the Perfect Song. Then the infatuation wanes, the halo falls, and you're burdened by a mild disappointed in the simplicity of it all. Conflicted, unable to forget its initial impact and the feeling you got when you had it all figured out, you continue touting its importance, holding onto its greatest value and waiting for something to pull you back to that blurry state where the limits of creation were finite, the most daunting heights somehow approachable. The big problem in all of this is that when it's over there are no Two Headed Boys to be found. Still, it's number 11. Huh. Weird. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 10 The Microphones The Glow Pt. 2 [K] 2001 Mount Eerie on MySpace The Glow, Pt. 2, is the hardest album on this list to defend. It's not indefensible, but its allure is somewhere close to indescribable. Young kid sings about being in nature and quasi-emo themes while recording on a 4-track, using the most 1st person titular pronouns on an album since the first Saturday Looks Good To Me record that was supposed to be a concept album around the idea, and giving "space" to his songs? You should be picking up on the pretension, because it's been laid on pretty thick. As always, always, always, the broader contextual issues (i.e. the story about the album and its making) are mildly interesting but mostly irrelevant to The Glow...'s enduring relevance. The inner contextual issues of space, noise, variation, and Phil Elvrum's digging into the "organic" sounds of the real-world and the 4-track are more relevant in that they create an ethos, an atmosphere against which the music can thrive or flounder. And then ultimately, the songs and performances are what define the record, like always. It's for the songs that we still care about The Glow..., because Elvrum runs through his own personal struggles with living and the rest of it, without being maudlin or deceptive, while still spending time crafting well-paced and varying songs and surrounding them in the right sonic landscapes. Whether it's the sneaky thump of "The Moon" and its horns or the solo guitar effort on "I Felt Your Shape", whether he's realizing his own failings as a companion on the latter song or wondering about whether going on is worth it during the tempo break of the title track, Elverum is throwing up thoughtful, top-quality material. When somebody finds an album hard to defend, it means one of two things: a) the person doesn't really like the album and has latched onto it out of scene expediency; b) the album or the person has a particular taste that is not easily translatable to those who don't share that taste. There may be plenty of people in group A for The Glow..., but group B is a perfectly viable and potent group. And when finding myself in that situation, for this record or any other, I find the best defense is to put it on and let it defend itself. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9 Animal Collective Sung Tongs [FatCat] 2004 Animal Collective on MySpace If someone were to trace back the Animal Collective's career to the point where it was at its "purest", Sung Tongs would not be the appropriate point. Either the idea would be invalid ("What? Impure? They play from the joy of their little childlike savant hearts to this day, mf'er!" (Because, you know, we hear they're getting bigger in frats these days, AC)), or else AC's purity would be traced back to their anonymous days and Danse Manatee or some shit. But the reasons to tag Sung Tongs with a pure label are understandable. The acoustic guitars and the winnowing of the band's roster to the two big names are one half of the equation. The fact that it was the first Animal Collective that most of us heard of is the other. And through its sheer excellence and innovation, Sung Tongs has remained the gold standard by which all other Animal Collective albums are compared to, even if they have surpassed themselves on seemingly every record. More than that, the argument could be made certainly for this writer (so obnoxiously sticking to the 3rd person) but also likely for many nascent indie types across the world and the decade that Sung Tongs marked something of a breakthrough, a turning point, a looking glass through which one might find a new world with a ton of different possibilities. In an increasingly diffuse and open music world, where the kids are willing to try almost everything, Animal Collective has continued to stand as the line between indie music that is still pretty easy and the truly weird stuff. And on Sung Tongs, as since then, they've also managed to exist as the best of both sides. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8 Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven [Kranky] 2000 Oh man, I haven't had internet. I have two minutes to write something, here we go... editor's notes welcome (sorry, I butchered it): Godspeed You! Black Emperor - lift your... etc. I can't joke about this album. Actually, I can, and sometimes do. But Mark can't, and I'm his girlfriend, and I'm supposed to write this as if Mark is writing it (I guess?), so I can't joke about this album. The real Mark said he had too much to say, and not enough time to cover it. But basically, this isn't the greatest album of the decade - this is the greatest album of the past 50 years. No way, Mark isn't into music older than that. This is the greatest album ever recorded. I (Mark) listen to this album fairly constantly. Fairly, constantly, as in, it's fair to say that I listen to it fairly constantly. This album is number nine on this list. Or whatever. Number eight. What I (Mark) mean to get at here is that this list, and the number of this album on this list, doesn't matter, because this album is superior to this list. And I would know, as I listen to it fairly constantly since Mark is always playing it. I mean, I am always playing it. Greatest album of the decade (but number eight or seven on this list). (m.w.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7 Bright Eyes Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground [Saddle Creek] 2002 Conor Oberst on MySpace One of the enduring musically related questions of the decade that this list now conveniently allows is, "What the fuck happened to Conor Oberst?" It was just 5 years ago that the whole indie world awaited with panting anticipation the dropping of two Bright Eyes records. Oberst had come off touring in support of John Kerry, a mainstream acknowledgement that the emo troubadour's time as a mature, seasoned, leading force in music had come. The excitement boosted the records to top 10 and 15 on the Billboard charts, respectively, as debuts, a still fresh and exciting achievement for an artist basically on his own label, roughly representing a group of music that was still just poking through to everyone. And the artists that had gained attention included The Shins, Death Cab, and to a lesser degree the Arcade Fire; only the latter earned their recognition without a pop culture vehicle to bring them to greater populations. By the same token, Oberst had created his own momentum, and it was enough to put him on a relatively new plane for him and his peers. And now he's tooling out random ass side projects, putting out bloated and unimportant discs in his own name, and playing himself into irrelevance. Again, what the fuck? The simple explanation is that Oberst just lost it, burned through his bread and butter days on Lifted... and everything else, so that the two 2005 records were just holding on, and everything since has been overripe and not tasty (even if I liked Cassadaga). But that's a steep descent to make, and whether or not he deserves the defense, might come up with a broader one. When we look back on this decade, the most outstanding musical issue we will recall is the explosion of the iPod and the increased listening that came with it. Boundaries fell, listening breadth increased, and politeness and human interaction took another blow. But beyond that, it was a good thing for music. Related to that was the increase in file transferring and in ease of recording. People could trade and pass around tunes quickly, and musicians could record those songs in their own bedrooms or in studios with ever greater ease. Supply and demand both increased, and everyone could become an expert, and most people were DJs. The most common meme about this decade in music criticism though, is the death of the album (followed shortly thereafter by the death of music criticism). Without getting into the details, I'd point out that the common causes asserted for any such death (file sharing, iPod's shuffle function, our attention spans, etc) miss the point. Instead, if there is a death of the album, it can be attributed to the overabundance of material. Many are eager to compare the end of our decade to the beginning of the 60s, and the frequency of songs and releases coming from websites now and singles and filler LPs then is similar. What the record industry and artists eager to take advantage of the notion did was to groom the marketing strategy and production cycle around meaningful long players that self-legitimized the album. Costs made sense, production made sense, and everything fit, more or less. Now? The costs aren't there, the industries are failing, there's a rush to reform listening and spending habits based on the increased volume and opportunity to insert music in our lives, and it's hard to tell what's truly meaningful. If somebody releases a great song on his website, or you tube, does that mean as much if it's dumped on an EP, or featured in an album? Lord knows, kid, but someone else is going to have to help you. None of this is a bad thing, necessarily. We love great albums; I love great albums; hopefully you do too. But great music is the point, and if somebody can evoke the same emotions and artistic connections through different forms, go nuts. (It does make it hard to explain one's favorite Leonard Cohen song without the album context to place it in, but that's beside the point). This renewed freedom has been a bad thing, though, for Conor Oberst's career. Perhaps he's feeling better about his life, freer about himself, and less concerned with "greatness" or the competition inherent in performing. Maybe he doesn't put as much of himself into his music, and maybe it's not as torturous a process for him. If that's the case, we're happy for him. But the fact remains that when he was at his most pretentious, his most labored, and his most tragic, Conor Oberst was at his best. That was on Lifted.... And now, having filled us with three random discs in the last two years since Cassadaga, it's not clear if he'll be able to convince us to listen closely enough for the moment when he might make his revival. Then again, he's not yet 30. And Lifted... is pretty incredible. That's why it's on our list. That's why we're still wondering what happened to him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6 Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot [Nonesuch] 2002 Wilco on MySpace There's nothing more Wilco than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.  The album is packed with eleven truly unique songs, houses some of Jeff Tweedy's finest poetic and painfully cryptic lyrics, and is topped off majestically by an album cover that features a simplified view of the Marina City building complex located on State Street in Chicago, Wilco's home.  You simply cannot get any more Wilco.  Not even by naming an album Wilco (though they certainly tried). Album opener "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" stunned audiences with a concept never before considered by a musician: start the album with one of the most serious songs it has and make the music sound like it's played backwards.  Turns out it was a perfect choice for a starter anyway; the lyrical mixture between morose and hopeful was simply too tragic to ignore. There were some real high notes on the album too.  "I'm the Man Who Loves You" reminisces of the A.M. days, and thematically, "Pot Kettle Black" went almost audaciously into unfamiliar territory for popular music, speaking of "come backs," righting wrongs, and doing better in the future. Essentially, the album is fantastic, and no less because of its strongest singles.  Honestly, Wilco could have just slapped "Jesus, Etc." and "Heavy Metal Drummer" on a cassette tape and it probably still would have sold as many copies. Be thankful they didn't. (k.c.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5 The National Boxer []Beggars Banquet 2007 The National on MySpace Well, if there's any album out there capable of yanking 5th place on the decade list out from under Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, it has to be Boxer.  The National's latest release (beside The Virginia EP) shows just how polished, cohesive and heavy an album can get without losing that authentic glean that proclaims, "Yes, this is the National." There are strong doubts as to whether the quintet ever so much as toyed with the idea of throwing some positive songs into the mix, but they certainly revolutionized the concept of the thematically dismal song.  Over the course of 50 minutes, they pulled the mood slowly down from "somber" toward "despairing," brushing it  past "melancholy" and nestling it soundly between "despondent" and "hopeless."  All this was done with such tangible change that you can actually hear life becoming a less happy place as you play the album. Wilco can also get sad, but none of their albums, including YHF, could ever mimic the sobering trance that Boxer instills so naturally.  Really, give it another listen if you have to.  It's like Matt Berninger himself is administering an auditory depressant in its most powerful, darkly beautiful form. But here is not the place to debate whether a "dark" album has better chances toward making the #5 slot on any given decade list than, for example, Wilco's more emotionally balanced YHF.  And it's certainly not the place to claim that more artistic pessimism makes a better album. It apparently did this time, though, if only by a bit.  Will the decade list hanging on the coattails of 2019 see similar results?  Patience is some sort of virtue, they say. But consider this: if "Jesus, Etc." had been recorded with that melancholy drain that haunts "Racing Like a Pro",  no one to this day would have smiled since the album dropped in 2002. (k.c.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4 Animal Collective Feels [FatCat] 2005 Animal Collective on MySpace God, we are whores for Animal Collective. Did they release anything else this decade?! Are we missing anything?! 'Cause we still have three spaces on this list. It's not too late for us to give this band their proper due! Sheesh. Well, for the fuck of it, let's just assume that this - Feels - is the definitive Animal Collective album. You have to wonder what justifies such prestige, what puts it ahead of all else in the band's inexplicably impressive catalog. Its cover art, like the proud result of any budding goth's first tedious Sunday school session, is easily the best in the Collective's catalog of otherwise lackluster offerings. But that shouldn't be enough, should it? So, maybe it's the album's opener, "Did You See the Words", arguably Animal Collective's single greatest moment, practically taunting any potential listener to ignore its charm right off the bat, in effect propelling everything that follows. Ah, but one song does not an album make. (Unless you're Merzbow, which most people aren't, so, you know...whatever.) Maybe this is the album where Animal Collective's pop tendencies became obvious enough to be considered pop tendencies, in turn making the disruption of said tendencies all the more noticeable, all the more striking. Maybe its the way Feels recalled Animal Collective's past while vaulting them to a future no one could have predicted. Maybe this is the album that made a broad appreciation for their later works more viable. Then again, maybe we're just making shit up as we go along, and maybe we really don't care anymore. Whatever the case, for as much whining as we do, it really wasn't a terrible decade. And if you're asking us, Animal Collective are a huge reason why. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3 Panda Bear Person Pitch [Paw Tracks] 2007 Panda Bear on MySpace The assignment is to write about a given album, and to reflect the significance of that disc. Brian even allowed us I statements, breaking the first rule of 30music style, as well as the only one. The qualification was that it should, to some extent, represent our collective effort. Well, as this decade winds to an end, as 30music winds with it, no disc can sum up our collective effort and interest better than Person Pitch. No disc received more votes from our panel. No high level disc drew less criticism from our ranks. Even indifference could not touch Panda Bear's opus; either we loved it immensely or we thought it was pretty damn good. And for a solo effort, Person Pitch feels as collective as can be. The brash sounds, the bright textures, the joy that seeped from the music and the optimism and simplicity that caked the lyrics, they make Person Pitch the most welcoming record of the decade. Once you break through that first dissonance of "C'omfy Nautica", until Lennox begins singing, there is no possible point to resisting. If that song's sample assault doesn't break you down, then the seamless songwriting behind "Take Pills" should, and if not, then there's the 12-minute plea to repetition, giddiness, acceptance, doing your own thing, and glee that is "Bros." By the time the album closes on the prayer, "Ponytail", it becomes just possible to pick one's jaw off the ground. That the album's brilliance was unexpected and stunning at this point doesn't matter. That it probably blazed the trail for Strawberry Jam and Merriwether... isn't really pertinent to its own appeal. That it was the vehicle for AC's broad indie world appeal before "My Girls" became their vehicle for broad everywhere appeal is closer to its significance. Put simply, Person Pitch opened its arms and let us all join in its warm embrace. From that standpoint, there's no way to not represent our collective effort and views. It's the disc we can't say no to. (d.s.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2 Of Montreal Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? [Polyvinyl] 2007 Of Montreal on MySpace One of my favorite jokes of the past ten years isn't so much a joke, but a statement with no purpose. And to be completely forthright, I find it funniest when I'm the one making it. Maybe it's funny, too, when you put your personal touch on it, but I can't say I've experienced the situation - and I've come across this "joke" numerous times. I've told it to friends, I've told it writers, I've told it to PR, I've told it to artists. I've told this joke in a house, I've told this joke on a mouse. I've told this joke in the dark, I've told this joke to culture, hark! I've told this joke while hearing "The Hollows", this joke is fun, it goes as follows: We (as is in 30music.com) created this list (as in whatever freaking list we may have made (the Top 68 in this case)) by the same method that Major League Baseball decides its MVP. It's kinda funny because our lists aren't settled in exactly the same way as MLB's MVP; I have no idea how many players are on those ballots, and I have no idea how many points are awarded to each place on the ballot. It's funnier, however, because outside of Albert Pujols, NO ONE CARES how MLB selects its MVPs. But most importantly, it's funny because this is probably my last opportunity to waste anyone's time with this joke and I feel that I've just used it to maximum effect. You're welcome, me. But in the name of recovery, the root of this joke could also be used to disclose why, now and then, an artist might be represented on our list eight different times...or how an album that received no first place votes could be an overall #1. I don't recall if Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? received any first place votes, or even any second place votes, but I do know that Kevin Barnes released a holy fuck ton of material this decade, all of which could be considered ahead of the curve in any number of senses. Yet, for whatever reason Of Montreal appears only once on our Top 68, peaking, really, as high as you should expect any artist of the decade to peak. And it's this overwhelming consensus - in light of the competition - that should illustrate exactly what influence Hissing Fauna... already commands, with a supremacy both clear and abstruse. It's kitschy basement porn in a collapsing global economy, the knowing indecency of '80s dance night in an age of Fox News, or Low as could only be heard in the most serious of John Waters' fever dreams. Hissing Fauna... embraces everything that could have gone wrong with the decade, bearing no devotion to its devices and taking no irony from any indirect homage. It's a genuine article, effortlessly outdoing all who tried too hard - of which there were many - and unwittingly defining the '00s better than any album could ever wish to. Individually we may show greater favor to other albums, but clearly none are more deserving of this spot - honestly, it's hardly a contest. Kevin Barnes had an absurd decade and Hissing Fauna... is about as crazy-good as it gets. (b.h.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 Radiohead Kid A [Capitol] 2000 Radiohead on MySpace Surprise--another best-albums-of-the-decade list with Kid A coming in at number one. With Kid A, Radiohead's undisputed peak, Radiohead did any number of things that impressed any number of people. For one, they managed to sell a boatload of albums that sounded--to ten year ago ears--like a computer having intercourse with a one-man band. While similar music had been popular in underground circles for years, Radiohead brought glitchy electronics to mainstream rock, paving the way for other influential acts like Owl City. Of course, Radiohead's other widely agreed upon feat was in releasing an album that many rock fans bought, then greatly disliked for five years or so until they could no longer ignore the critical consensus building around the album. It's funny to consider, after all this time, that Kid A never would have even existed if not for R.E.M.'s Monster. In much the same way as Sgt. Pepper was The Beatles answer to Pet Sounds, Kid A was Radiohead's belated answer to the R.E.M. album. While Kid A never quite captured the raw, glam rock feel of its predecessor, Radiohead somehow managed to top Monster's preoccupation with identity and paranoia. (j.b.) -30- List compiled by: Matthew Austin (m.a.) James Brubaker (j.b.) Kevin Coss (k.c.) James Dufendach (j.d.) Greg Gustafson (g.g.) Brian Holm (b.h.) Dan Shvartsman (d.s.) Kyle Undem (k.u.) Mark Wohlgemuth (m.w.) written on 2009/11/17 by -30-

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