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 21-30

The tens just keep getting better and better. We're nearing the realm where you cannot argue. Be forewarned.

We're back to a lot of older stuff, but I believe that will level off soon. I bet you can't wait to see what comes next.


30. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Stephen Malkmus
No Pavement this decade. So, SM's first solo album will have to do. It was really just leftover Pavement stuff that he needed professional musicians to play. I'm sorry, but it's true.

29. Radiohead - Kid A
OK Computer seemed so tame and normal when this came out. Both beauty and guts are on full display on this album. It's still hard for me to fathom that this was only Radiohead's fourth album. Wow.


28. PJ Harvey - Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Hey, looky what I found: another post-9/11 album. I feel a themed list coming on. Like the Cat Power album, this one was written and recorded prior to the attacks on September 11th, but the feelings and sentiments are profoundly dead-on. This makes two albums in a row in which Thom York appears.


27. Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
Soundscapes and corn fields in summer are all you need to know.


26. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
This was Oberst's best folk album and it was accompanied by his Faint-inspired Digital Ash.


25. Caribou - Andorra
Drums. Drums. Drums. This album is so textured and perfect. #25 enters sacred territory on my list.


24. The Shins - Oh, Inverted World
Cluttered and whispered, this album should have been a hit, but no one heard it. That is, until Natalie Portman handed her headphones over to that guy from Scrubs.


23. Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
There must be a name for the syndrome in which bands record their best album first, leaving the remaining material unwanted. This album is so good, it would have ruined a lot of careers. Interpol was never the same.


22. Port O'Brien - All We Could Do Was Sing
This one is raw and full of life and emotion. I've said it before, but if you're not hooked after the first track, forget it.


21. Sufjan Stevens - Michigan
My family used to spend summers camping and traipsing around Michigan. This album doesn't just remind me of those days, it makes me long for them to return, awkward adolescence and all.

Best of the Oughts: Albums 51-60

I could do this all month and I almost did.


60. Iron and Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
Even when fully polished, Sam Beam can make anything sound like a cool breeze on a mid-summer afternoon as you sip lemonade on the back porch. Even a fart.


59. Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans
I didn't care for all the religious imagery until my recovering Catholic partner explained it to me. Then this record took on a whole new meaning. Haunting, beautiful, lo-fi: this is what Sufjan Stevens was before he he got all orchestral.


58. Modest Mouse - Good News for People Who Love Bad News
This record broke Modest Mouse. I know it's not a favorite for most because a certain song was overplayed one summer, but it's a really good record, an appropriate break-out release from an indie workhorse.


57. Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse
This was the album that reminded you all that Sonic Youth could still rock. Forget building their own instruments. Forget their advancing ages. Forget all you thought you knew about rock and roll. Sonic Youth just reinvented it.


56. Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender
You either love or hate this album (along with the next choice). Joanna Newsom does some crazy Kate Bush shit over a harp. Can you get any more punk rock than that?


55. The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
Weird in a seventies and show tune kinda way, this brother and sister duo will blow your mind...or completely frustrate you with every release since.


54. Elliott Smith - From a Basement on the Hill
Who knew that some of Smith's best material was never released before his suicide/murder? I expected throw-aways when I bought this one, only to be thoroughly surprised and reminded how great a songwriter this man was.


53. She and Him - Volume One
I know that some of the luster has been lost on this one since M Ward has moved on and Zooey has starred in cotton commercials. Forget all of that. This record is timeless.


52. Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
I love that Sleater-Kinney were known for how much they rocked harder than your favorite boy punks. Then, they release an even harder hitting record just before calling it quits.


51. Feist - The Reminder
This was, at one time, my favorite album of one particular year, but it faded for me over the following months. Upon, a revisit, I rediscovered the magic and beauty in Feist's effort. This album is cool from beginning to end.

We're halfway there. I bet you're wondering what's next? Well, all I can say as that any of the remaining sets of ten could be someone's top-10. Stay tuned...

Hipster Christian: You're Not the Only One

This post is long overdue and the topic probably has been written ad nauseum somewhere else, but I feel a need to address it anyway. The topic is the rise of Christian counterculture, specifically that of the "Hipster Christian", in the early 21st century. Similar to the Jesus movement of the late 60's/early 70's, Hipster Christians tend to be of two sorts: those who identify as "Christian" within the hipsterocracy and those hipsters sitting in the pews.Three things have made me aware of the Hipster Christian phenomena. The first, I believe, was my sister's friend suddenly finding Christ at the end of high school and later going on to being an art major at OSU (and eventual hipster). The second was the rise of Sufjan Stevens and his ilk to indie rock greatness. Finally, the prevalence of the various sects of Hipster Christianity in COMO added to my already anxious state from moving to Misery.

I remember my sister's high school graduation. Her best friend through childhood was giving the valedictorian speech. She went through this list of characteristics of a good friend. Long story short, she concluded with the secret: her best friend was Jesus. Before this event, my sister and her friend were the odd-ball hipster-types of our small-town, rural high school. Then, her friend had some life-altering experience and traded my sister in for the messiah. From there, my sister and her friend seemed to drift apart.

Eventually, maybe five years later, the two friends rejoined to become roommates. Her friend was still into being a Jesus freak, only she was fully entrenched in the OSU art scene. Her senior exhibit was held in a very artsy part of town the night of a gallery hop (aka the night where yuppies venture to the city for some culture). I was shocked that such a young artist had been able to secure a space in such a competitive part of the art scene. Then, I saw the venue: the rundown storefront-turned-Christian youth "coffee house". I don't mean to degrade her art. It just had "Hipster Christian" written all over it, long before I coined the term.This was about the same time I became interested in Sufjan Stevens. His instrumentation and lyrical prowess is unparalleled, but I didn't totally get what he was saying in his music. My partner, a former Catholic school student, could pick out all the religious imagery of which I was ignorant. The guy really gets into the whole Jesus thing and conflicts with his faith. It added a layer to music that just wasn't there for me. It didn't ruin the music for me, a pure-bred atheist. Actually, it had the opposite effect. The themes and ideas Stevens addresses in his music only have made the music deeper, more complex.

Of course, Stevens is not the only Hipster Christian to which I listen. I have a few Pedro the Lion records lying about. Then there's slowcore originators Low. There's the whole Danielson Famile that gave Sufjan his start. I'm sure there are others I don't even realize, but these are the groups who seem to be out of the Christian closet, so to speak.

In case you didn't know, all things Christian happen in Misery. If you haven't seen Jesus Camp, then you wouldn't understand. There's a lot of Christ's blood running through the mighty Missouri River, fo sheezy. And I'm not talking little, modest, country churches. No, I'm talking mega-churches. Even somewhat secular (albeit raised Baptist) rhet/comp faculty members are blogging about it.

The two factions of Jesus freaks are clearly represented in COMO. There are the cool parishioners of churches like The Rock or...Trees...er...Shiny Things...you get the point. They wear Burkenstocks and play rock music at services. (OK. This does not make them hipsters, but it does make them cool kids who aspire to be hip, hence they have hipster tendencies.) They even feature some of their hottest, hippest members on their TV ads in order to attract those who want cool friends.

Then, there are the more free-spirited hippies and hipsters who also happen to love Jesus. The reason I lump the hippies with the hipsters is because there is a fine line in these here parts. Now, instead looking for the coolest, most obscure religion or even going without religion altogether, these Hipster Christians really set the trend of worship by toting Bibles and praying before they eat their vegan feasts. Now that they have morality, they can enter the next phase of hipsterdom and become hipster parents.

I don't mean to be offensive, I just don't understand the Hipster Christian ethic. The social justice angle that exists in those secretly Marxist Catholics or the liberal-minded Protestants makes sense, but the embracing of hetero-centric and conservative viewpoints seem to contradict what it means to be a hipster. Conversely, is it really Christian to focus on one's image as much as one's god? I don't know.

I mean, can a Hipster Christian be pro-choice? Can a Hipster Christian care about fashion? Can a Hipster Christian like secular music? I've met some that are on both sides of these issues, which doesn't make things any clearer for me.

Anyway, there's a dissertation in there somewhere that I will never have time to write. I don't know that Hipster Christians are good or bad. I just know that it's a phenomenon of the last decade that needs to be explored.

Until then, watch this.