Best of the Oughts: Albums 1-10

We're finally here. The end of the decade is nearly upon us as is my list for the best albums of said decade. The further I moved down this list, the easier it became for me to justify inclusion of these albums in their rankings. Sure, the rankings will change and probably have since I first began this list, but I'm pretty confident with where things stand now.

Most of these records came out just before or since we moved here. The reason for that is the same reason I turned to this blog. This has not been an easy transitional period for me, for us. I could go into so many personal and professional struggles that have led me to blogging and burying my nose deeper into music, but this is a music post not one on misery. The fact that I still see it after five years as a transition should tell you enough.

Music is my savior. I can't play it. I barely can write about it. I've never really had much to do with it outside of consumption. However, I can hear music. I can feel music. Whether that means that I have the right or proficiency to push my opinions on you is up for debate. All I know is that music has talked me down from more than one ledge. It inspires me daily, hourly when possible.

You may not agree with my top-100 of the decade, but know that I deliberated long and hard over each album's place among the decade's best.

10. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
I love debuts that seem to come from nowhere to taking over the music world. This is exactly how I always wished My Morning Jacket sounded. Instead, these longbeards from Seattle found the formula. The harmonies and dreamy songwriting is so soothing. This is the kind of record you find yourself closing your eyes, nodding, and smiling uncontrollably.

9. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
Released and then re-released, Justin Vernon made the most of a bad year and some alone time in a cabin surrounded by snow. I'm not sure I'd be as productive in such situations, unless I had wifi. This is the only break-up album that ranks higher than Beck's on my list. It's so soulful without being phony white boy soulful. The layers and textures this man got from recording in a cabin in the woods is quite impressive. This is one of the great surprises of the oughts for sure.

8. The Walkmen - You and Me
I went on and on about this album last year and a lot of that enthusiasm can be chocked up to fanboy obsession, but then you listen to this album. This is where the Walkmen deliver on their promise. Hazy, drunken ballads meet sonic rockers to make this nearly perfect cacophony of sound and hurt and boredom. I love the Walkmen and I love this album.

7. Iron and Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle
When I saw Iron and Wine supporting this record, they were opening for Ugly Casanova. I paid no attention. My sister bought me this album for my birthday. She was right to pay attention. I was wrong. On no other Iron and Wine album is Sam Beam's hushed vocals so hushed. The album is almost nothing but guitar, those vocals, sometimes some slide guitar or banjo, and tape hiss. It's so good on a day in which you're snowed in, sipping on tea, and watching the birds fight over a few, scattered scraps.

6. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
This is what indie rock sounds like when it's as huge and vital as anything the failing major labels can concoct. In fact, nothing major labels came up with this decade comes close to this record. Broken Social Scene were able to pull together the collages of guitar and drums they previously used to pass as proper albums into what became a blockbuster of an album.

5. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Usually, an over-hyped record does nothing but let me down. This one did not disappoint. Such an avant-garde bands typically release a shit-storm disguised as a breakthrough album, but this one found perfect balance. As with several albums from this year, it might be the freshness of new music, but I somehow think this album will have staying power. I also think I'm hearing music through new ears since Lucia was born fifteen months ago. Merriweather just sounds so big and bizarre to me, but it captures that newness and wonder Lu brings to nearly every encounter. She likes it too.

4. The Thermals - The Body, the Blood, the Machine
I discovered this one late, but it's never left my rotation completely. Where Japandroids have fulfilled my need to rawk, this record takes the next step by also making me think, making connections between Nazi Germany, the Bible, and our current political/social/economic mess. I feel this album so much more than even the few ranked above it. On one of my lowest points since moving here, I remember driving back from STL in the car alone. I popped this one in and screamed it the entire way. A great album can make you do that.

3. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
When opinionated hacks like myself define the idea of "album of the year," we should just hand someone this record. It's layered and textured, yet simple. It beat the big boys and was surrounded by drama. It burns American flags in a time that would be unthinkable. That and you can tap your foot to it. Rarely does a album cross so many genres so effortlessly. Everyone loves this album; the punks, indie geeks, alt bros, emo kids, record collectors, frat boys, feminists, etc. all love this record. It will forever be Wilco's greatest triumph.

2. Arcade Fire - Funeral
Sometimes listening to so much music and going to so many shows can wear on you. You get to the point where you start judging an album by listening to the first 20 seconds of every track. If you liked it, maybe it will play in the background. You go to rock shows and leave 20 minutes in. Then, your sister passes you a burnt copy of Funeral at Christmas. It never leaves your stereo. You hang on every word, beat, and note. You feel alive again when it plays. You smile uncontrollably. You feel like something is happening here. Music sounds new and fresh again. Funeral did that for me.

1.Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Concept albums either go terribly awry or become incredibly memorable. Illinois fits the latter category. Where Michigan was quaint and depressed, Illinois was as large as Chicago itself and open to the possibility such a city brings to midwestern kids with dreams but no hope. This album mapped those possibilities Sufjan Stevens and his fifty states project held. Of course, after one records an album as good as Illinois, how can one continue a project in the same vein? Stevens would have likely never achieved the same level of brilliance found in what I consider to be the best album of the decade. It sadly may explain why the fifty states project ended at two but it did give us a record for the ages.

Best of the Oughts: Albums 71-80

This list reminds me of a lot of my last couple of years in Ohio. Other than a couple of the selections, this was most of my listening during that period. It's weird how certain years have lumped together on this decade list. Makes me think I didn't do a very good job of mixing things up.

Oh well.


80. Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica
A lot of people have identified this as Modest Mouse's best work. While I don't agree with that assessment, I do feel this is as solid an a major label debut as there has been this decade by a former indie band who should have always stayed indie.

79. Thao Nguyen and Get Down Stay Down - We Brave Bee Stings and All
The first eight or so tracks on this record can carry you a long way. Thao makes you want to hold her hand and go to punk rock shows and protest the war and be her boyfriend. Then you wake up and realize you're in your mid-thirties with a kid. It was a nice dream while it lasted. Luckily, you still have the record.

78. The Strokes - Is This It
I forgot about this one until I started looking through some other best of decade lists. The hype on this band was unreal. I remember hearing a story of Sonic Youth being asked overseas what they thought of The Strokes, being a fellow NYC band and all. They had never heard of them. Strangely enough, The Strokes backed up that out-of-nowhere hype with this solid effort. It's too bad they were the decade's first Vampire Weekend, making it impossible for them to ever have any kind of indie cred or critical love.

77. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It in People
This is the Canook co-op to end all Canook co-op. Sometimes too many cooks in the kitchen makes a bad stew. And sometimes all those cooks get it right.

76. ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Source Codes and Tags
When bands were simplifying their sound and their monikers, this band with the really long name was adding layer upon layer to create some of the most vibrant music of the oughts.

75. Belle and Sebastian - Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant
Some of the most gut-wrenching moments ever can be found within "I Fought in a War" or "Don't Leave the Light on Baby."

74. The Moldy Peaches - The Moldy Peaches
My sister once teased me that a mixed tape must have been made that summer I bought the Moldy Peaches as every other song was by the duo. They made fun of hipsters (themselves) way before people did that through blogs.

73. Bright Eyes - Lifted, or the Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
This sort of felt like Conor Oberst's first attempt at a big, theatrical album. He pulled it off and has toned it down ever since. This was when you knew Oberst had arrived.

72. Spoon - Kill the Moonlight
Some point to this as Spoon's finest moment. I think they were just getting started at this point.

71. Songs: Ohia - Magnolia Electric Co.
Honestly, I never gave this band a chance because of the name. I only purchased this album this year, but I have to admit I was wrong. It's beautifully sad and poetic and full of all the twang I love. That and it's from Ohio.

Best of the Oughts: Albums 81-90

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a rut music-wise. I keep listening to the same bands I did while in college or at least ten years ago. (Um, I finished my undergrad more than ten years ago. Ugh.) Or I listen to off-shoots of the same bands. It's a vicious cycle. Thankfully, my list has a few interesting bits scattered throughout.

Also interesting in this ten are all the records from this year. There are four of them in fact. They just haven't been with me long enough to deserve higher rankings, but I suspect one or two of them will climb my all-time list with more listens and a few live shows to put the material in context. For now, this is where they rank for the decade.


90. Handsome Furs - Face Control
This song makes me think of 1992. No, it's not a grunge album. It's like the music coming out of the former Soviet Union...except with better equipment and a sexier duo.


89. The National - Boxer
This was the album Interpol were supposed to make the year before last. Oh well, The National beat them to it.


88. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
I hate putting so many great bands from previous decades near the end of this list, but Yo La Tengo's best work was in the 90's. However, I think this record will climb as I listen to it more. There are really some great, great songs in this collection, proving that Yo La Tengo's still got it.


87. Fugazi - The Argument
Minor Threat and Fugazi were hardcore bands who could actually play. Fugazi's musicianship really comes through on this record. I didn't buy any of their follow-up material to see if this trend continued, but I suspect it did and will eventually have to pick up a few more Fugazi records in the near future.


86. Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light
Antony has a voice that is otherworldly. Seriously. It lies somewhere between male and female just as Antony does himself. That and there may not be a better sequenced album in this half of the list. One song leads into the next perfectly as dramatic movements and woe are intertwined in perfect moments. This record is just plain beautiful.


85. Bright Eyes - Fevers and Mirrors
This album completely caught me off guard as I woke up in the backseat of my car on a road trip to Coney Island. I was like, "Who the fuck is this guy?" It's so dramatic and heart-wrenching that it's almost over the top. Had Conor Oberst disappeared forever after releasing this album, it would be infamous. Now it's merely proof of Oberst's finest caricature.


84. Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
The first proper album demonstrates Death Cab at its best. These are the songs that made me listen to more of their material, but I always returned to this record as the seminal example.


83. Silver Jews - Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
Already there are two Silver Jews records on this list. Again, the Joos did their best work 10-15 years ago like several of my favorite bands here. Either way, this was both a triumphant return to form and a grandiose farewell.


82. Atlas Sound - Logos
I'm always behind on this Bradford Cox stuff, but I caught this one and another record to be named later. He really reminds me of anything touched by Dave Fridman or Kevin Shields, but he has reinvented their sound to suit this decade.


81. Sleater-Kinney - All Hands on the Bad One I saw Sleater-Kinney support this album in Amsterdam. I listened to a dubbed cassette tape of All Hands every day of my Euro trip until someone stole my Walkman while I slept on a train through northern Italy. It was good to listen to their material again. I'm not sure what this says about the merits of the album except that I can connect to a life-altering experience.

Best of the Oughts: Albums 91-100

This is the first installment of my Best of the Oughts series. Today's post is the first ten of my best albums of the decade list. I love all the records on this list. Just because these ten are at the bottom does not mean I dislike them.

Numbers 91-100 actually have a decent representation of women. Despite my feminist leanings, I am not very good at filling my collection with female performers. However, the ones I do include are typically among my favorites. I'll spend loads of money on mediocre-to-crappy male musicians for some reason. I guess those are the limitations of gender roles on one's record collection.

There are also some marginal releases from really great bands at this end of the list. I sometimes prefer an OK album from a great band because even their worst material is better than the best unknown bands. That or I am a sucker for rock tradition.


100. St. Vincent - Marry Me
I bought this months after it was released on a trip to Seattle. I have to say that I was blown away from the first listen, so intense and complex. The layers, textures, and incredible performances on this album made me wonder whether Annie Clark is the female Sufjan Stevens or the other way around.


99. Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer
The last two tracks get me every time with this one. It's no Apologies to the Queen Mary, but it's not as bad as some thought. This is the album Wolf Parade meant to make before Isaac Brock got a hold of them. (Also, this is easily the worst album cover of the decade.)


98. Silver Jews - Bright Flight
David Berman is maybe the most gifted wordsmith on this list. His best work was in the last decade, but this was a good send-off to his musical career.


97. Sleater-Kinney - One Beat
This was Sleater-Kinney's protest album. What were they protesting? What have you got? 9/11 just happened and George W Bush was running the country into the ground. This provided some good material.


96. Devendra Banhart - Cripple Crow
I have forgiven Devendra Banhart for his hippie ways. How can you not when someone records an album like this that transcends jam bands, indie rock, and punk?


95. The Black Keys - The Big Come Up
Dirty and fat are the licks on this record. You should only listen to this on vinyl. Oh, and they're from Ohio.


94. Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover
There's a ton of Vancouver all over my top-100. This is another from from the Wolf Parade co-op. Difficult but so worth the effort.


93. Radiohead - Amnesiac
It's amazing what Radiohead has done this decade. Here's the first of several Radiohead efforts on the list. I never saw the direction they've taken in this century since OK Computer. Truly inspired.


92. The White Stripes - Elephant
By the time Elephant came out, the Stripes were huge. The sound on this record matches their hugeness better than any other point in their oeuvre.


91. Belle and Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
I don't know exactly where I'd rank this among the Belle and Sebastian records, but it does hold some special memories for R and I. I haven't been impressed much from the material coming out of B&S alums since. This may have been the beginning of the end.