Andrew's Top 20 Albums of the Decade

20. Pinetop Seven - The Night's Bloom

If you aren't familiar with these guys I urge you to waste no time in investigating this album. Hell, any of their albums are a safe starting point (this one just happens to be my personal favorite). It's one of the most hauntingly gorgeous albums I've ever heard. If you feel the need to catagorize your music I guess you would classify it as Americana. Lush, cinematic, and not clinging to any one particular genre. These guys sound like what Wilco could have evolved into if they hadn't gone the dad rock route. This is art in its finest aural form.

19. The Books - Lost and Safe

This album makes me want to take up scrapbooking! What better way to spend a friday night then sprawling out on your living room floor with a shit ton of funky scissors and elmer's glue, while you pastiche the best memories from your lastest excursion the the county fair? Sounds awesome right? Let me explain myself. I imagine The Books locked away behind closed doors, spending countless house scouring through snippets of audio samples. I also imagine The Books are very picky in selecting their samples(sorta like a fat kid deciding on which toppings they want on their pizza. You know, the type of decision you don't take fucking lightly). I'm not sure how they do it, but when they piecemeal all the samples into one tapestry of sound, it comes together as one of the most coherent albums I've ever encountered. Listen closely and you're sure to hear something new with each and every listen.

18. Grizzly Bear - Horn of Plenty

I'm well aware the Yellow House was an album that bloggers the world over jizzed their collective pants over(it should be noted that I too love YH). Something about this album keeps me coming back. There is a mythical quaility to this album that I just adore. I imagine this as the soundtrack to a late night foray into the woods of some enchanted kingdom where fear and beauty potentially lurk around every corner.

17. Elliott - False Cathedrals

Man, it sure is hard to believe it's been 9 years since this beauty has been released. I always consider it a shame this band never broke through to the mainstream. To me a they are the American Radiohead. A lofty claim for a small emo band from Louisville, KY you might think? No question about it, but to me it couldn't be truer.

16. Eluvium - Talk Amongst the Trees

The cover says it all for this one. I never tire of this albums ambiance bouncing around my cranium. The hazy guitar loops almost beg you to lose yourself in them. I'm a huge fan of everything this guy does, but for whatever reason I have the most time invested into this album.

15. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Yeah, yeah we've all heard the story over and over. Every time I hear the story I feel like I should like the album a litte less. Kind of like how every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten. Despite all the hype, this work has all the calling points of an album of the decade. I suspect Justin Vernon will keep making good music but I somehow doubt he'll be able to live up to the ingenuity contained in these grooves.

14. Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

I was able to find this gem of a triple LP while browsing in a local record store this year and that has made all the difference. I've always sort of admired BOC from afar, like the hot chick in your freshman economics class. You fawn over her but you would never be so bold as to engage her. Well, I took the plunge and engaged this masterpiece and it in turn engaged me like no other. This album is like Kid A on acid with more of an IDM bent. I am really looking forward to spending some more time with this album during the winter months. To me this album can be summed up in one word: glacial.

13. Animal Collective - Feels

This album is impossible to classify and I love every second of it. I hear bits of tribal, pyschedelia, prog, folk, rock and just about every other genre that you can pull out of a hat. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but somehow they make it work. This album is insanely cohesive. As varied as it sounds, it still sounds as if it was all cut from the same piece of cloth. Transition is the name of the game on this album. It nicely bridges the gap between Sung Tongs and Strawberry Jam. Currently, I happen to think this is their best work. It will be interesting to see how kind time is to Merriweather Post Pavillion. Hey Ron, they actually play instruments on this one too!

12. The Arcade Fire - Funeral

This album pretty much speaks for itself. I remember the first few times I listened to it. The experience was the equivalent of discovering an exotic island that had never been set foot on by a human. I was hearing something I'd never heard before. Something utterly breathtaking and gorgeous. It was almost like I didn't want to tell anyone about it, I wanted to keep this little island as my own special secret.

11. Mum - Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Was Ok

Wow. I don't even quite know what to say about this album other than the fact i've never heard anything remotely like this. The charms of this album have left me speechless for many years. This album makes me feel good....damn good actually(almost like I am floating through fields of the greenest grass as the sun warms my body) It has an inquisitive child-like quality that never grows old to my ears.

10. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Top notch songwriting chops + Top notch vocals = an album for the ages

(I love her use of imagery on this album, it almost has a gothic feel to it.

9. Iron & Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle

This is the album that changed my listening habits forever. I remember my first lonely saturday night spent with this album. I wasn't sure what to make of the hushed tones and apparent intimacy. But I kept coming back to be lulled by it's gentle embrace. Fads and tastes come and go but I'm sure this album will remain with me for life.

8. My Morning Jacket - At Dawn

Of course I love Z and It Still Moves etc. However, this is the MMJ album that really does it for me. It sounds like a 74 minute and 21 second walk down a lonesome country dirt road. I'm in for the long haul. There is only one way to listen to this album and that is all the way through.

7. Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antartica

It's hard for me to believe that some suit at Epic records thought this was a good idea to release. Not because it's not awesome, just because it just doesnt seem like major label fodder. Turned out that suit was right, I hope someone gave him a raise, because after Good News.... these guys sold a fuck ton of records. This one isn't nearly as accessible as the aforementioned but if you give it some dedicated time it will reward you with benefits aplenty. This one is very much an album in the truest sense of the word.

6. Max Richter - The Blue Notebooks

It blows my feeble mind that this guy isn't more well known than he is. Hear me out people, this album is a M.A.S.T.E.R.P.I.E.C.E! He dubs himself "post classical" whatever that means or matters. But if you must have a genre for his tunes, there you have it. The album is based on Kafka's Blue Octavo Notebooks. This an absolutely moving and gorgeous gem of piano album. It brings to mind ivy clad castle turrets under a damp cloudy sky. Ah, what I am saying? Did I i just say masterpiece? Well, not in the sense that you thought I said masterpiece....Just listen to the damn thing!

5. Sigur Ros -()

This album proves that pretentious doesn't necessarily equal bad or annoying. This is a stunner of an record folks. It glistens, shimmers, and builds into one hell of a climax. If you like epic or grandiose, this is your new favorite album!

4. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Personally, this as been as big of a "grower" album as there has ever been for me. At the time I first heard this, I just didn't really care a whole lot for it. But the internet was awash buzz, so I dutifully returned to it many times over and eventually fell in love. This sounds like a short wave radio broadcast that you happened to stumble upon one very late night and were never able to remove from your subconcious. This album stays with you.

3. Wilco - A Ghost is Born

Essentially YHF and AGISB are a tie, it's just impossible for me to pick one over the other. I have a very hard time putting this album into words. Perhaps that's why I have such a strong relationship with it. I do sense a lot of pain and anguish on this record. Oh and did I mention it shreds?!

2. Ryan Adams- Hearbreaker

Where do I even begin? What would I do without his music? As you can tell, I classify myself as a blatant fan boy and I happen to think the man can do no wrong. I also love the fact that this album is named in honor of Mariah Carey.....true story. This is the perfect blend of country, rock and folk in no particular order. Emmy Lou Harris and David Rawlings bring out the best in DRA. In fact, so much so that I wish they'd all do another album together. This album is like the strange love child of Gram Parsons and Husker Du. You can definitely tell the dude has listened to a lot of punk music in his life. Even though the sound isn't technically there, the influence is undeniable.

1. Radiohead - Kid A

This album needs no introduction and my shitty descriptions would do this album a genuine disservice.

Albums of the Decade: 2000-2009

Holy shit, the decade is over already.  Seems just yesterday I was wearing a Hypercolor t-shirt that had a lewd pun about my golf clubs.  Oh, wait, that wasn't this past decade?  Whatever.

With every 10 year span comes a 10 year 'Best Of' list.  We can probably thank MTV for this, though VH1 really took their baton and ran with it.  Or maybe we can thank that John Cusak movie...no, not the one with the boombox, the one where he made mix tapes as an excuse for sleeping around on his girlfriend.  Thanks for that, John.

So, with that, I bring you my own personal Top-100 Albums of the Naughts.  I really ranked 217 albums, but I'm going to trim things down here, so I can squeeze a capsule in about each one.  This page serves as the central hub, where you can click through to any part of the series, which will be broken down into '10's.  It's a process, guys.  A process.

This is just one humble douchebag's viewpoint.  Maybe we can get Andrew and Ryan to share their own, in their own unique way.  I know Andrew digs that underground glockenspiel scene more than I do, and Ryan, well, his list will probably be 95% Dub and 5% Screamo. 

Stay tuned for updates, and stick around for the best album of the decade.  It's sure to floor you (did the Spice Girls have an album out this decade?).

Links to the Lists

Ron's Albums of the Decade - #100-91
Ron's Albums of the Decade - #90-81 
Ron's Albums of the Decade - #80-71 
Ron's Albums of the Decade - #70-61 
Ron's Albums of the Decade - #60-51 
Ron's Albums of the Decade - #50-41
Ron's Albums of the Decade - #40-31 
Ron's Albums of the Decade - #30-21 
Ron's Albums of the Decade - #20-11 
Ron's Albums of the Decade - #10-1 

Andrew's Top-20 Albums of the Decade

Albums of the Decade: 2000-2009 - #10-1

#10

At Dawn
My Morning Jacket
2001

Stan from American Dad was wrong.  Jim James isn't singing these songs to him, he is singing them to me.  If goosebumps could kill, I'd be dead every time At Dawn's first lyric, At dawn we ride, again hit my ears.  Just a soulcrushing entrance to an album.  About a minute of droning buildup, into such a delicate start to a pretty serious song.  It's a calling to follow your dreams (in his case, to fucking rock your face off with his music).  This marks the last album before they picked up Animal from the Muppet Band.  For that, it's slightly less epic than what was to come, but MMJ measure epicness on a totally different scale. 

This album is as epic as a rainy day album could ever be.  Listen to the opening guitar lines of Hopefully.  Perfection.  The grain silo vocal treatment might not be better than it is here, on this track.  Again, goosebumps on the chorus, here.  They really pick things up with Honest Man, an epic 7 minute honky tonk ramble.  In pure MMJ style, it's the slow drag that makes it so great, then it explodes through the guitar solo, and you're wondering what happened to that slow tempo.  They just fill space.  Then, the back to back Phone Went West and Strangulation, on the tail end of the album, both bring some heavy riffage back into the fold.  Strangulation is perhaps the most interesting song on the album, with it's chugging slow metal riff that melts away into a quiet strum, and then you're hit with some derivative of Big Star when it all comes back together, complete with tinkling piano, and slide guitar.  Then the build back into that slow metal riff.  Damn, that's what music is supposed to sound like.

#9

Hazards of Love
The Decemberists
2009

Where to start...a pretentiously written, Shakespearean tragedy about a girl who falls in love with a shapeshifting fawn in the forest.  She gets knocked up, he begs the forest witch to release him to be with his girl...and the forest witch agrees...only to then gets jealous, and send her most evil man to kidnap the girl, rape her, and defile her, while the forlorn shapeshifter tries to cross a raging river.  Enter a dead children's choir to foil the plan, but in the end the two lovers still drown in the river, in a dying embrace.  Ah, the hazards of love, amiright?  Maybe it's the nerdy, sci-fi fantasy kid that still lives deep inside me.  Maybe it's a secret love for prog metal, but only if it's mega ironic.  Maybe it's just that I'm (again) a concept album whore.  But I love it. 

Story aside, this thing sounds great.  It's hard to tear the songs out of the narrative, since everything basically blends in together.  I've heard criticisms that the metal riffs are too cheesy, coming from these guys, and everything is just too ironic.  I question this, though.  The first half of the album, as the two fall in love, and all that, is basically a fragile love story.  The songs are almost twee, especially when the woman, Margaret, is singing.  It's when the riffage kicks in that you catch the foreshadowing of doom.  The final three or four songs basically just rework the musical themes heard before them, but with a more frantic pace.  It's not irony when the riffs kick in for The Abduction of Margaret/The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing.  The album is serious as a heart attack, now.  The vile Rake, and his children murdering ways, represents about as evil of a character as you'll see.  His conscious gets him in the end, in the form of his dead children coming back to haunt him, is perfect usage of a classic tragedy archetype.  The characters are all fleshed out, just from their soliloquy-like lines.  It's really an amazing piece of drama.

The critics thought it was overwrought, cliche, and out of sync with the Decemberists previous style.  I argue that they've been driving towards this album with every release, and that this is the culmination of their talent as a band.  That culmination just happens to evoke Iron Maiden on occasion.  Best album of 2009.

#8

The Creek Drank the Cradle
Iron & Wine
2002

A life changing album, when I first heard it back late 2002/early 2003.  Basically paved the way for who knows how many similar sounding artists over the last 7 years, and redefined Sub Pop as a label.  All that just from a bunch of 4 track bedroom recordings?  Indeed.  You've got amazing imagery in the lyrics, as I've said before, Beam is at the top of the songwriting craft.  It was the instrumentation that caught me, though.  Soaring choruses, layered vocals, revolving chords, with great banjo licks (I might have been wrong about Sufjan Stevens owning the best use of the banjo...Promising Light tops him).  You can hear every chord change, fingers sliding on the frets.  This isn't music that was made for mass consumption.  This was intimate stuff, that you'd be afraid to share with your buddies, fearful that they'd tell you it wasn't any good.  I'm glad Sam Beam let his stuff out to his friends, otherwise we'd never have gotten to hear this magical album.

We can also pretty much thank Sam Beam for bringing the hipster beard into style.

#7

Ghosts of the Great Highway
Sun Kil Moon
2003

Of all the Neil Young aping that happened this decade, Mark Kozalek did it the best.  It's in the vocals, and it's in the swirling guitar riffs.  It's unapologetic, but it does not need to be, because it transcends the comparisons, and creates it's own soul out of those building blocks created by Crazy Horse and Co back in the 70's.  The pair of songs about boxers, Salvador Sanchez and Pancho Villa (essentially the same song, with drastically different arrangements) are barely eclipsed by the greatness of Duk Koo Kim, a 14 minute long masterpiece, and one of the best songs of any decade, much less this past one.  There are no weak links here.  The nostalgic Glenn Tipton and Carry Me Ohio are near classics, and the instrumental Si Paloma is a wonder to hear on headphones, so that you can pick out all the intricacies of the arrangement.  I joined the bandwagon too late, and have had to go dig into most of Kozalek's material in a backwards way.  Still, I think this album represents his finest work, and is an album that should weather the years, and remain a favorite of mine.

#6

For Emma, Forever Ago
Bon Iver
2008

Just a dude, heartbroken, sick (recovering from mono?), and secluded from society for four months in a cabin in the woods.  The setting for a classic album?  I'd say so.  It's short, but it's unbelievably complete, as a mini-concept album detailing heartbreak and loneliness.  I'm a big fan of the drum, but it's sparse usage on this album (just an occasional kick drum, it sounds like) is just the perfect accompaniment.  It makes Skinny Love one of the best songs ever, as it amplifies that soulful lyric in the chorus just enough to make it epic.  The soaring chorus on For Emma, paired with the horns, and the slide guitar, are amazing, especially as they slide into the cold closer, Re: Stacks.  The album doesn't have a happy ending to it, at all.  Heartbreak never goes away.  It's another introspective, personal experience of an album that probably means a little something different to everyone who passes it through their record player, CD player, MP3 player, or however you choose else you might choose to amplify the magic.

#5

Heartbreaker
Ryan Adams
2000

Why is the pressure always on Ryan Adams to deliver a classic album every time he walks into the studio?  Why doesn't he get any grading curve, at all, from the critics, who look for every reason to dislike what he does, out of the box?  It's because he aimed so high and delivered, right off the bat.  'Heartbreaker' is stupendous.  The rocking To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High), kicks things off with a rocking start...it's tempo belies the heavy tone of the rest of the album, which revolves mostly around lost love, bad relationships, and getting fucked up, themes obviously covered before, but freshened up by Adams. 

The classic songs here abound.  Come Pick Me Up, Why Do They Leave, and Oh My Sweet Carolina (ft Emmylou Harris on backing vocals) all resonate as much today as they did 10 years ago.  This one just doesn't get old.  Bartering Lines, with it's tribal beat and Gillian Welch backup vocal is a sneaky treasure.  And Damn, Sam (I Love a Woman That Rains) deserves mention anytime this album is brought up in conversation.  There is no weak link here.  He wasn't trying to hard to sound like his heroes here, like he would end up doing on Gold.  The drugs were just right, and he was churning through women quick enough to spawn song after song of heartache and loneliness.  The perfect storm for a classic album.  He'll probably never touch greatness like this again.

#4

Funeral
Arcade Fire
2004

This album is like a bomb blast going off in your speakers.  I'm not sure what their sound is.  It's got New Wave elements...sort of Glam, at times, but ramped up on so much cocaine, it'd be hard to keep up.  Leave it to the Canadians to spew out something totally original.  I almost exclusively listen to this one in the car, these days.  It's a driving album, perfect for long trips.  Which is odd, because it's an album about living in post-apocalyptic tunnels (and falling in love).  Wake Up, which was nearly rendered overblown by being attached to Where the Wild Things Are's first trailers, might be the anthem of the decade.  And no, I don't just like these guys because they put on concerts for Obama during the last election.  This is the #1 band on my list to see live before I die.

#3

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Wilco
2002

This is our generation's 'Pet Sounds'.  They inadvertently reinvented rock n roll here.  And yes, I'm fully aware that if Warner Bros had just put the damn thing out, without jerking them around, it might not have reached the overall critical acclaim that it picked up after becoming an unreleased cult album (I'd still love it, I think...I was a Wilco whore, and had gobbled up the leaked tracks way before it saw a real pressing by Nonesuch).  So how do you separate that from the album's legacy?  I don't think you even need to. 

Four deserted island songs here...I am Trying to Break Your Heart, Jesus Etc, Ashes of American Flags, and I'm the Man Who Loves You are indispensable songs when you look at this thing historically.  Curiously (or not), three of those four have Bennett as co-writing credit.  I'm convinced that Wilco's slide in the last few years is at least in part due to the fact that Bennett was jettisoned during this album's recording.  He made 'Being There' and 'Summerteeth', more than he's ever been given credit for, and he was instrumental in the core recording of this album. 

I think in hindsight, Jim O'Rourke coming in, and turning Tweedy all Kraut Rock is going to turn out to be their downfall as a 'band', even as much as introducing them to Glenn Kotche, who redid all the drums (and let's face it, it's the drums that make a lot of these cutting edge songs on this record), improved things.  Again, all this bullshit means nothing, once you pop it in and listen to the songs.  They still speak for themselves.  It's a classic, and will be remembered as a watershed moment in rock history when all our kids are playing OOTP37, and doing their own 'Final 4' album tournament, years from now.

#2

()
Sigur Ros
2002

No album name, no names for the tracks, no liner notes...the damn thing isn't even spoken in a real language.  What it is, though, is the biggest catharsis album I've ever heard.  Essentially split in half, with the first half being far more upbeat than the sinister/explosive second half.  The main 'lyric' throughout the entire album is You xylo. You xylo no fi lo. You so, which is stretched, altered, and rearranged many times, but essentially remains in it's phonetic form.  Through pitch and tempo changes, though, that one invented lyric becomes like some kind of shamanistic mantra.  If you ever get the chance to just envelope yourself in this one (set aside about 70 minutes...it's long), just put headphones on and listen all the way through, it's guaranteed to alter whatever your mood is.  Maybe you'll be sadder.  Maybe you'll be more ready to tackle the world.  Maybe you'll be ready to listen to it again! 

The meat and potatoes are in the final two tracks, where everything comes together into gigantic crescendos, false peaks, builds, and catastrophic drum rolls.  This is an album that does not have a maximum volume setting; just crank it up just short of ear bleed, and hope that the neighbors like it, too.

#1

It Still Moves
My Morning Jacket
2003

I pretty much decided on this as the #1 album a couple of weeks ago, one afternoon while goofing off around the house.  I've always kept it in extremely high regard, but it struck me that day as even better than just a great album.  I think it's the best damned album of the decade.  Mahgeetah, Run Thru, the Skynard homage One Big Holiday, and the epic I Will Sing You Songs...each one of these could run the table for song of the decade.  My personal choice would be Run Thru, with it's 'start in the middle of the song' feel that jars you awake after I Will Sing You Songs lulls you into a peaceful feeling.  The last triumphant time through the main riff of that song, tempo dropped just enough to be noticeable, but with heavier guitars, is the highlight of the album.  There is no weak song on this album.  It is perfect in every way.

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Albums of the Decade: 2000-2009 - #20-11

#20

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Flaming Lips
2002

While it's not as good as their 1999 beauty 'The Soft Bulletin', this one carries special meaning, since they were touring this material when I met my wife at one of their shows.  Do You Realize??, in all it's massively cliche'd glory, would not work with any, and I mean any, other band.  Only the Lips can pull this one off.  This one is full of electronic goodness, like the reverse beats of Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell or the playful Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt 1, with it's karate chop chorus, and blasting drumbeat.  I don't know how they pull this thing off...it's part concept album, part birthday party, and part noise rock.  Go figure.

#19

Kid A
Radiohead
2000

This is what the apocalypse will sound like.  Find me a colder album, and by the time you bring it back from the record store, you'll be frozen to death.  It's almost mechanically cold, with it's techno beats, and tangential lyrics.  But it's a sprawling masterpiece of sound.  Everything in Its Right Place and How to Disappear Completely are simply life altering.  It functions almost exclusively as a complete album experience...I don't think I've ever sat down and thought of listening to just one or two tracks.  You put it on, and you wait until the end before doing anything else.  Pitchfork has this guy as the #1 album of the decade.  They make a good case, and I'll even go so far as to copy some words here, that I think sum this one up very well:

when I slide Kid A into the CD player (how's that for a retro image?), something else happens. Once that drawer closes and the first chords of "Everything in Its Right Place" start-- those haunting, clicking keyboard textures and Thom Yorke's warped voice-- all these other ideas feel secondary. Instead, I get lost in the dissonant horn blasts of "The National Anthem" and hypnotized between the play of the drones and the hissy beats in "Idioteque"; I feel the deep pang of yearning and sadness with the title track, and I rest during the gorgeous Brian Eno-like interlude of "Treefingers". I'm listening to a brilliant album by an especially creative rock band functioning at its peak. Such records have strong melodies, exciting chord changes, unexpected arrangements, and tricky rhythms that you want to hear over and over again.

I can't argue much with that assessment.  For me, it's got such a cold outer shell, it takes a lot of gusto for me to even play this one.  Once it's on, though, I'm blown away yet again.  It's a monumental piece of work.

#18

Sophtware Slump
Grandaddy
2000

You know, Kid A and this one have a lot in common.  Concept-y albums about the end of the world...We must have really have been scared of Y2k, I guess.  Grandaddy's previous material was not nearly as epic, and I think they struggled to get it back, though they were always solid (Sumday is another great album).  This one channels Pavement, at times, but the electronic elements were pretty groundbreaking for the era.  He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot, clocking in at over 8 minutes long, is fantastic.  They rework common themes throughout the album, in classic rock opera style, making this one seem more like you're hearing a story than listening to a rock n roll album.  This was a critics darling when it came out, drawing comparisons to Flaming Lips and Radiohead (the two most influential bands in the world, back then).  I think those comparisons were valid, but this one transcends that, especially as we get further away from what those bands represented at the time.

#17

White Ladder
David Gray
2000

I think David Gray is one of the Top-5 songwriters in the last 30 years.  I'd put him up there against anyone.  This album was his first taste of fame, but what he did in the late 90's led directly to this one.  Throwing in that tinge of electronica put him all over MTV and the radio (Babylon and White Ladder were both moderate hits, and still play on Adult Contemp stations).  He writes one hell of a love song, from sad to whimsical, but I think the best track on this album is We're Not Right, a song about struggling with a dangerous drinking habit.  There's nothing lewd, like Lead You Upstairs, but the PG version of David Gray is worth listening to over and over.  Nightblindness, Sail Away, Please Forgive Me...these are just amazing songs.

#16

Shallow Grave
The Tallest Man on Earth
2008

Hat tip to my buddy Ryan for cluing me in on this one, and then for leaving the vinyl over for the last couple of months (the grooves are wearing out, I bet).  Stripped down, lo-fi folk music...wonderful guitar lines, though.  Great fingerpicking.  It's cool how something so simple as this collection of songs can be so powerful of a musical statement.  I have no idea who the guy is, other than he's some short fucker from Sweden who likes to sing songs outside while the sun sets over the water.  They are short songs, too...little 3 minute long vignettes, perfectly crafted.  Your mileage might vary on listening to this one, but I can't think of any reason not to call this a classic in the making.

#15

Devotion
Beach House
2008

Kind of a mix between Grace Slick, Portishead, and Grizzly Bear.  I'm 100% behind Beach House these days...this album vaulted up the list after really growing on me over the past year or so.  I picked it up initially off the strength of Gila, which was the single on the Satellite radio.  The rest of it took some time to delve into.  This is a headphones album...layers and layers of stuff in this sound.  That would defy a first impression in a non-intimate setting, as on the surface this one can sound a bit...stripped down.  The lo-fi edge is just a front, though.  I'm on record for saying that 2010 is the year of Beach House.  I'm super stoked for their next album, and hope that it can be close to as good as this one.

#14

Time (The Revelator)
Gillian Welch
2001

Best 'country' album of the decade, hands down.  Welch is a hell of a songwriter, crafting in a timeless style that is so accessible, but never boring.  The title track is an epic masterpiece, and I spin it every time I have an extra dollar on me at my local brewpub (I have no idea why this album is in that jukebox...).  Welch and David Rawlings pair so well together on these songs, it's a shame they aren't more prolific.  Some great fucking Americana right here.

#13

Change
Dismemberment Plan
2001

How good were D-Plan?  Holy shit.  Time Bomb?  Classic fucking song.  One of the all-time catharsis anthems.  If you need to get your road rage anger out, this is the one to hammer your steering wheel to.  These guys really gelled on 'Emergency & I' and 'Change', which sandwiched the end of the last decade.  Sentimental Man and Face of the Earth are nearly as good.  This album is one to move to, and is best played at volumes that the woman of your life will abhor.  When they broke up, a tiny piece of me died.  Now Travis Morrison is working as an IT for a newspaper, somewhere?  The world is not right, sometimes.  I still kick myself that I  never got to see them live (despite owning a ticket to a show in Raleigh at the Cat's Cradle on their farewell tour).

#12

Veckatimest
Grizzly Bear
2009

Second best album of 2009...I recall declaring 2009 'The Year of Grizzly Bear' back in January, in anticipation of this album.  'Yellow House' was sooo good, and they had reportedly spent way more time than any sane band would need turning the knobs on this one...but out of the box, I had a hard time engaging this album.  It's very...complicated.  There's shit everywhere.  It's probably the most 'prog' mainstream album in years.  There are key changes, dynamic shifts in sound, and weirdly syncopated rhythms everywhere.  The opener, Southern Point changes meter several times, as it shifts from the chorus, to the build, and back.  Then it just ends.  Two Weeks was the 'single', and is by far the most accessible song on the album. While You Wait for the Others became a surprise hit, but not the album version...former Doobie Brother Mike MacDonald stepped in and recorded vocals for the song, and they threw his version on the backside of a 7".  He sums up Grizz pretty well (h/t to pitchfork for the quote):

"what the indie rock movement is doing right now is very inspiring" angle. He hears a musical bond between the Grizz's intricately filigreed chamber pop and his own past work: "When I was with the Doobies, the style of music was that we all went over the falls with chord progressions, trying to make things as complex and interconnected as possible. The punk movement swung towards being as primitive as possible, but now it's back to where these guys are good musicians. I never thought that would come back around, but it has."

Actually, I don't really give a fuck what Mike MacDonald thinks about Grizzly Bear, but the mere fact that he's even talking about them is extremely odd.  I'm in a bizzaro world where my favorite band (MMJ) is trying to sound like a cross between Bread and Loggins/Messina, and the most groundbreaking band since Radiohead in the late 90's is getting props from the fucking Doobie Brothers.  It's like a weird flashforward episode of Yacht Rock.  Go figure.

The thing about Grizz is that I do not see a looming backlash.  Remember how Radiohead never really had one (post-Pablo Honey doesn't count)?  When they threw The Bends->Ok Computer->Kid A at us (holy shit, what a three album run), the critics stayed pretty much on board.  You lost some of the poseurs, who were just following them because they were the hot buzz, but at no point did anyone start to claim they had jumped the shark.  I think that's where Grizz lives right now.  They pretty much have carte blanche to do whatever the fuck they want.  Record the next album on the moon, with zombies singing backup vocals?  I wouldn't be surprised, and I guarantee Pitchfork will be there to slap a 9.3 on it (in a snarky way).  I kind of hope they go minimal, strip everything out, and just pipe samples from Sonic the Hedgehog 3, in reverse, through a church organ.  That would blow Mike MacDonald's mind.

#11

Illinoise
Sufjan Stevens
2005

I have a soft spot for Sufjan Stevens, in all his butterfly winged glory.  The fact that he can even be remotely popular while flogging his art-rock is a wonder.  This is his opus, an ode to the State of Illinois, and all her rich histories and stories.  What a weird idea, but it totally works.  Listening to an entire Sufjan Steven album is like having the Encyclopedia read to you, poetically.  Again, weird, but it totally works.  Every note seems to be exactly where it should be.  The horns in Jacksonville are really amazing, and the harmonized Chicago is wonderful.  The best song on the album, though, is probably Casimir Pulaski Day, which isn't even about Illinois directly, but rather a series of autobiographical memories of something that happened on the obscure 'holiday'.  Best use of banjo this decade.  I'm, yet again, victim to being a concept album whore.  I could listen to this one all day long.

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Albums of the Decade: 2000-2009 - #30-21

#30

A Ghost Is Born
Wilco
2004

I think this will go down as Wilco's last great album.  What has come since then has spiraled a little bit into the 'good but not great' category, and future material is heading straight for whatever platform they spin Michael Bolton on these days.  This album followed up 'YHF', which was no small task.  Somehow, it doesn't disappoint.  Some of Tweedy's best songwriting is here...Theologians might be his finest hour.  There is some guitar god worship on this one, with Spiders (Kidsmoke) shredding for over 10 minutes, and the opener on the disc, At Least That's What You Said both evoking some Crazy Horse riffage.  I'd say this one also has the best last song that hardly anyone makes it to...The Late Greats, which to me sounds more like something late era Uncle Tupelo, or maybe 'Being There' era Wilco would do, closes the album.  Getting to it, though, requires you to sit through 15 minutes of droning noise.  I hope you've got the skip button handy for that one.  This material got even better live, after they picked up Nels Cline, and started touring basically non-stop.  I saw them 3 times supporting this album, I think.  Great stuff.

#29

Source Tags & Codes
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
2002

This album might define the term 'angular guitars'.  It just surges, explodes, and demolishes, but somehow keeps a melodic heart.  This is my #1 car album, of all time.  Listening to this album on a long trip will ensure you will get there ahead of schedule.  You can't not go fast while listening to this one.  I'll admit to not knowing a single song name (or really understanding hardly any lyrics)...I still have the old Kazaa burn of these tracks, and that's how I've listened to this one for the last 7 years.  Their other material is good, but nothing, for me, can match the intensity of this album.  Had Indie Rock followed these guys, rather than bands like Deathcab and The Shins, things would look a lot different.  Hell, my hair might be pink.

#28

Yellow House
Grizzly Bear
2006

This one is like a dream.  They get the whole 'reworking Brian Wilson' bullshit, thanks to their great production work, and non-traditional arrangements, but to me, they are Gabriel era Genesis smashed together with Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd.  It's not just derivative, though...they are breaking new ground, and have become perhaps the most influential sound around (fuck Animal Collective).  Their style is almost orchestral, with complex arrangements framed around plodding drums.  That defines a song like Lullabye, and carries through strongly throughout.  These songs need space.  For instance, Colorado builds and builds, and would make my list of deserted island songs from the decade.  Just a great track.  This one is a complete album experience, and I think foreshadows real greatness yet to come (including one more album on this list!).

#27

Cease to Begin
Band of Horses
2007

I think Band of Horses really evolved from their debut to this album.  The comparisons to MMJ's early material are necessary, but this has an altogether different feel from that stuff.  This album has the best song ever named after a 7 foot tall retired German NBA player (Detlef Schrempf).  I can not figure out what it has to do with Schrempf, as the lyrical content is about as non-basketball as you can get, but it's an amazing song.  Islands on the Coast jangles enough to move you in your seat, and Is There a Ghost has some tempo to it, at times...but this is kind of a soft, introspective album.  Not sad, per se, but definitely something of a cerebral experience.  It still sounds great loud, though.  Where do these guys go next?

#26, #25, #24

Cold Roses
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals
2005


Jacksonville City Nights
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals
2005


29
Ryan Adams
2005

For the sake of a narrative, and because these albums are often discussed together, I've grouped this trio of Ryan Adams releases together.  The ordering is that of release date, rather than which one I like the most...because that has a tendency to change daily.  What we have is the most prolific material dump I think an artist can manage, and still be considered great output.  All three were released in 2005, but each album has it's own story, it's own soul, and it's own sound. 

Cold Roses dropped first, and was the first album cut with The Cardinals, Adams first cohesive backing band since he left Whiskeytown.  It's a sprawling, epic, 2 CD affair.  It touches a lot of genres, but most people who talk about this one refer to the hat tip to the Grateful Dead.  The gesture earned Adams some appearances with Phil Lesh on the road, including a killer Red Rocks appearance in 2005.  The high points on this album are insane.  Magnolia Mountain and Easy Plateau are my faves, but the title track owns a legendary guitar riff, and tracks like Beautiful Sorta and Sweet Illusions rival everything he's done post-Heartbreaker.  It's dense material, though...18 songs, sprawled over two discs.  I've argued that Adams didn't have a self-editing problem in 2005, overall, but that Cold Roses could have been 6 songs shorter, and would have been just as good, if not better.  I stand by that, but damned if I could whittle six songs off the tracklist. 

Jacksonville City Nights came second, in the Fall.  Again, the Cardinals receive album cover credit, and this is probably their most cohesive effort (and what the Cardinals would probably have sounded like, solo, if Neil Cassal didn't sing like a whiny bitch).  This is a bar room country album, through and through.  A Kiss Before I Go is straight up 70's honky tonk.  Dear John, a quiet piano duet with Norah Jones, is a real highlight.  They even dug out the old Whiskeytown song My Heart is Broken for a reprise here, and it fits like a glove.  On most days, this is my favorite of the trio of 2005 releases.  Peaceful Valley pushes it over the top for me, and stands as one of my all time favorite tracks.  To see how he's pushed that song live is an amazing experience.  Really, a good portion of this material was played heavily on their recent tour, which is supposed to be the last ever with the Cardinals as Adams' band. 

The third album hit almost as the year ended, and was pretty heavily panned by critics.  Nearly every review focused more on how it just wasn't possible for someone to drop three albums in one year, rather than on the actual music.  The idea was an ode to his 20's, with each song representative of an individual year of his life.  Adams teamed up with Ethan Johns, who produced the final Whiskeytown album and Heartbreaker, and worked on a lot of the pre-Cardinals stuff.  It's an emotional album, full of narrative-type songwriting and storytelling.  Of the three, this one was the hardest to get into, but has yielded great rewards over the years.  Carolina Rain, The Sadness, and Starlite Diner are all excellent, excellent singer-songwriter type songs.  It's more subdued than the other two albums, but I think in terms of the attempts by Adams to put out an album of such personal material, this is his most successful venture (Love is Hell being a previous example).

#23

Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend
2008

As pretentious as this album is (the damn thing comes with a sweater vest and a trust fund), it's stunningly fun to listen to.  Maybe it's the African rhythms, or maybe these guys were just 'right place/right time', and the music listening populace just needed something to ride around with the top down to.  Tight, concise pop songs about being a rich douchebag in college.  I'm not sure if liking Vampire Weekend will get you laid, at least not now that they aren't the hippest thing in the world anymore, but nearly two years after hearing this shit for the first time, I'm still not even remotely tired of it.

#22

Mouthfuls
Fruit Bats
2003

Undoubtedly one of the most underrated albums every produced.  I'm serious.  That clean, folk guitar sound, which Sub Pop specialized in back in first half of the decade, is showcased here.  Rainbow Sign rivals anything Sam Beam has done, and The Little Acorn is better than anything The Shins have created.  Why wasn't this more popular?  I have no idea.  The Fruit Bats sound has evolved into a more robust arrangement, especially with this last album.  But nothing can quite match what they did here.  I still kick myself for not jumping in the car and heading to Tennessee to see these guys open for Iron & Wine.  One of my all-time concert blunders.  This is another old, faded CD-R from the Kazaa days...

#21

Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes
2008

They aren't as grandiose, or whimsical, but the band I most associate with Fleet Foxes are the Moody Blues (especially early era Moody Blues).  It's dramatic, at times straight up prog, but incredibly accessible.  Sub Pop is still the place to go for this sound, as they've been for the entire decade.  Music in this vein is timeless, and I am positive that Fleet Foxes are a band that will not fade away into the ether over the years.  It's unpretentious but really artsy and poetic.  I guess that can be attributed to the fact that they all have rocking beards, and a closet full of flannel shirts.  Ragged Wood is such a dominant piece of prog, it moves this entire sub-genre of indie rock in a whole new direction.  The changeover in the middle of that track is just amazing.  Tell me anything you want/any old lie will do/Call me back to/back to you is one hell of a lyric. Listening to this album makes me wish Spring was here, already.  It's a mood altering collection of music.

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