The Top Ten Albums of the 2000s

No one can decide what to call last decade--it doesn't have an easy nickname the way the sixties or the nineties did. So I'm just going to call it the 2000s, by which I mean 2000 through 2009, and count down the top ten albums (one per artist) of a very strong decade in music.

10. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
I've heard the criticisms of this album: yes, it's a bit pretentious and Harvard-y (assuming that's a word), but it works really well despite all that. It's always hard to look past a band's image or perception to just hear the music and judge it on its own merits, but if you can get past that with Vampire Weekend, you'll be rewarded with songs like "Oxford Comma" and "Walcott." And if you have no problem with Vampire Weekend's image, you probably already love this album.

9. Muse: Origin of Symmetry
On 1999's Sunburn, Muse was a shameless Radiohead clone, but the potential was there for them to become something more than that. That potential was reached on Origin of Symmetry. In later years, Muse's bombast and theatrics would become so overblown that the band has nearly become unlistenable; but in 2001, this sound was fresh, and it was great. The songs on Origin of Symmetry manage to sound epic without also feeling pretentious (cough, The Resistance), and highlights like "Citizen Erased" are multipart guitar-led odysseys that can still make those of us who had the misfortune of slogging through The 2nd Law remember why we cared enough about this band to do so.

8. Queens of the Stone Age: Songs for the Deaf
This is a matter of personal preference only, but I think this is the best album that Dave Grohl ever worked on. I'm certainly not arguing that this is more important or relevant than Nevermind; there's no argument to be made there. I'm just saying, for me, this is the best project he was ever involved with. Queens of the Stone Age is that rare band that maintains mainstreamn popularity solely based on quality, something that is all too rare, and even more rare for a metal band. The reason you'll still hear "No One Knows" on a modern rock station is because it's damn good, nothing else. The different voices and styles heard throughout this album provide a nice change of pace and prevent Songs for the Deaf from getting stale. Not that there was any danger of that; aside from the silly radio gimmick, this album is tremendous. It's metal for those who like it and those who don't; an impressive feat for an extremely polarizing genre.

7. Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Adding horns to a band's sound isn't always a good thing, but for Spoon, it directly spawned their two best songs: "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" and "The Underdog," both from this album. Few bands can match the run of good albums Spoon had in the decade between 2001 and 2010, and this one, from 2007, was the high point. And while it's not all because of the horns, they have more to do with it than you might think.

6. The National: Boxer

Boxer is a slow burn of an album, one that you don't realize is so good until you've heard it the second time, and by the third time, you're wondering how you never noticed this vocal melody, or that drum part, or that piano intro. The two adjectives most often used to describe The National are "consistent" and "sad," which belies how exceptional they are at being consistently sad. Consistency is boring until you remember how remarkable it is; that's what makes Boxer so deceptively great.

5. The Strokes: Is This It

They hype for this album was overwhelming; good thing it delivered the way it did. They were supposed to "change rock music," what they did instead was make one of the decade's defining albums, which should be good enough for everybody. Not every band has to start a musical revolution; the reason a band like Nirvana is so important is because of how rarely something like that is. Is This It isn't Nevermind, but it doesn't need to be; it's still fantastic.

4. The Decemberists: The Crane Wife
The Crane Wife contains two twelve-minute songs. I'm sure I turned a good number of people off the album with that one sentence, but it's actually those two twelve-minute songs that are the main reason this album is so good. Both are actually in multiple parts, and they showcase both Colin Meloy's ability to write lyrics that actually tell a compelling story (which is a rarity), and The Decemberists' ability to stretch the same concept over a long period of time and create something that changes, but works together. And isn't that really what an album is all about? So if you can get over the long track times, you'll find something fantastic here.

3. The White Stripes: Elephant

I debated for a very long time whether to include this album or White Blood Cells, which is pretty much every bit as good. I eventually decided on this one (obviously) for a few reasons: it's a better length than White Blood Cells, which is a bit long; but mostly that, aside from "In the Cold, Cold Night," which doesn't need to exist, I can't find a single flaw with this album. There's a reason fans of old-school blues rock flocked to this album after hearing "Ball and Biscuit," but Elephant goes beyond bringing back blues rock; it solidifies the White Stripes' sound as something brand new, something unmatched by anyone else (including present-day Jack White himself). Forget about the obnoxious college kids chanting the "Seven Nation Army" riff at football games, and instead remember why they started chanting it in the first place: because it's damn catchy. 

2. Arcade Fire: Funeral

Childlike innocence is a wonderful thing, but it's also one of the hardest moods or feelings to recapture as an adult. That's what's so incredible about Funeral; it manages to bottle the spirit of childhood innocence and turn it into music. There's a reason Arcade Fire became such a buzzed-about indie band in 2004; the likes of this album had rarely been heard. Now they're one of the biggest bands in the world (or at least they think they are), but they have yet to top this, and they probably never will. But that's to big expected; something like this could likely only be achieved once, and really, they're lucky that they managed to do so at all.

1. Radiohead: In Rainbows

There's a moment on "All I Need," the fifth track on In Rainbows, around the 2:45 mark. "All I Need" is a slow burn of a song at the beginning, carried by a great bassline and Thom Yorke's soaring, reverbed-out vocals. But at 2:45, the piano starts building up, and suddenly the cymbals crash in, and it's a little like a dark room has suddenly filled with light (but for the ears) and the song which was once so minimalist finishes with a huge sound.

There are a lot of things I could say to explain why In Rainbows is, in my opinion, the best album of the decade, but that's the one that stands out to me. Kid A was the big statement, the reaction to OK Computer that somehow managed to be completely different and yet very nearly as good. But In Rainbows is beauty in music personified. It doesn't define the decade the way Kid A does; but for me, this is the best music released in those ten years, all captured by that one moment. 

The Top 10 Albums of the 1990s

This list contains, in my own opinion, the ten best albums of the 1990s. All opinion of course, and I tried my very best to limit it to one album per artist (with one exception here). Now, the list:

10. Pearl Jam, Vs.
This is one instance where I decided to forego the "one album per artist" rule. (Hey, I made the rule up, so I get to decide when to ignore it). The '90s were, for me at least, a very top-heavy decade, with a few top artists making incredible albums, but a big gap between them and the rest of the pack. It doesn't help that the late '90s were largely a wasteland for good music, with cookie-cutter pop songs, "nu metal," pop-punk, and half-baked Nirvana and Pearl Jam ripoffs dominating airwaves and ears. But with multiple great albums by the likes of Nirvana, Radiohead, and several others, someone had to be on here twice, and my choice was Pearl Jam. On Vs., Pearl Jam advanced their sound past that of Ten, which is a great album in its own right, but is a little heavy on the melodrama ("I don't question our existence, I just question our modern neeeeeeeeeeeeeeds" from "Garden"). Later Pearl Jam albums demonstrated the band's sense of fun, which ended up being one of their best attributes. It all started here--the Pearl Jam who made Ten would never have included a song like "Blood," and few bands could write a song like "Daughter" at all.

9. Weezer, Weezer (Blue Album)
Before the variety of multicolored Weezer albums hit store shelves and ruined their reputation, Weezer began their career with an album that excels at re-creating certain elements of classic rock. But while most bands at the time looked to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath for inspiration, Weezer was emulating the aspects of classic rock that had been largely ignored in the years following, drawing inspiration from bands like The Cars and Cheap Trick. The result is a unique and well-written album that holds up 20 years after its release, and remind us why we ever cared about that band that punished our ears with "Beverly Hills."

8. Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Some music is great, but it's not for everyone. You may be able to appreciate a beautiful Mozart sonata, but that doesn't mean you'll ever listen to it on your own, or even think of it when you're looking for music to play. That's me with this album. I think the songwriting's excellent, and this album inspired many bands that I love, such as the Decemberists, but for whatever reason, I could never get into Neutral Milk Hotel. (I suspect it has a lot to do with Jeff Mangum's voice only a mother could love). Despite all this, the songwriting si so strong that I could not deny Aeroplane a spot on this list. And hey, it never hurts when your band is approved by April from Parks and Recreation.

7. System of a Down, System of a Down
A lot of metal is weird, but this is weirder than most. Be prepared for 40 minutes of odd shrieking and stop-and-start metal. And if you're OK with that, this is one of the better metal bands out there, mixing hardcore punk with Eastern influences, making each of its albums a unique experience. This album is unique in their catalog--it's not the best, but it's the rawest and has a menacing tone that stands out and haunts the listener.

6. R.E.M., Out of Time
I know Automatic for the People is the critical favorite. But for me, the best R.E.M. album has to be Out of Time, which boasts not only their best song, the incomparable "Losing My Religion," but flows just as well as an album as Automatic does.

5. Daft Punk, Homework
One of the most innovative albums of the decade as well as one of its best, Homework brought dance music into the 21st century a full three years early. Highlighted by "Da Funk" and "Around the World," in 1997 people had rarely if ever heard anything like this. The good news: it was only going to get better for Daft Punk from here.

4. Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine
Many of the bands of the early '90s are blamed unfairly for those that came along later in the decade, seeking to emulate them but instead bastardizing the genre and retroactively hurting the original band's reputation. This is true of pretty much every band in this top five, but none is it more true than for Rage Against the Machine. Fusing rap and metal was a unique idea in 1992 when this album came on the scene, and as the later efforts of bands like Linkin Park and Papa Roach showed, RATM caught lightning in a bottle here. It definitely helps that they have something to say, but it's mostly due to the fact that RATM's musicianship was so strong, particularly from bassist Tim Commerford and guitarist Tom Morello, that it cannot be denied.

3. Nirvana, Nevermind
1991 was a special year. The '80s and all the musical  excesses that came with them-from Depeche Mode to Def Leppard--were over, and people were looking for something else to fill the void. Enter Nevermind. Nevermind was one of the first alternative albums to enter the mainstream, something that still remains a rare achievement; just think of the likelihood today that a loud, sloppily-playing punk band like this would become a cultural phenomenon. It just doesn't happen. That's what's so unique about this album.

2. Radiohead, OK Computer
OK Computer was the perfect album for the end of the '90s and the dawn of the new millennium. It communicated all the uncertainty that comes with the increasing influence of technology in our lives, and looking back, it comes across as a haunting purveyor of things to come. It also features some of the finest songwriting I've ever heard, from straightforward piano pop like "Karma Police" to unique songs like "Climbing up the Walls," their magnum opus, the sprawling, six-minute, multi-part "Paranoid Android." In short, OK Computer is all you need to forget that Radiohead ever released "Creep," which is probably just what they wanted out of it.

1. Pearl Jam, Vitalogy
It's not the most relevant or important album of the '90s, or the best-selling, or the most favorably reviewed. But for me, this is the best the '90s had to offer. Many people don't realize it now, but before Kurt Cobain's death, Pearl Jam was a much bigger deal than even Nirvana. They were a phenomenon, the likes of which we really haven't seen since. And this was weighing on the band members, particularly Eddie Vedder. On Vitalogy, Vedder took a larger role in the songwriting than he ever had before, practically dominating the creative process, and he used this outlet to express his frustrations and anxieties about having attained the celebrity that he never really wanted. This album is the best of all forms of Pearl Jam: from the character studies ("Better Man," "Nothingman") to the classic rock-style anthems ("Last Exit") to the weird ("Whipping"). And yes, it could do without the nine-minute sound collage that is "Stupidmop," but if you pretend that song doesn't exist (as I always do), Vitalogy is a nearly perfect listening experience for fans of this style of music, and it sums up the decade as well as any other album.