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digging for gold in a pile of trashArchive for Best Albums
Our Top 50 Albums of the Decade
Well, Pitchfork.com has kicked off their top 200 albums of the decade, so I wanted to get my list together before they did to make sure that my list wasn’t tainted by their list. My brother and I put together the following list of our top 50 albums of the decade. It was harder than we thought when it got down to the last 20 albums because we started realizing all the great albums that wouldn’t make it. We might end up having a long list of honorable mentions when we officially publish it on our SoMucHCritics website. This is still a rough draft and the official list on SoMucHCritics will include videos and samples of their work. You may notice that this is mostly independent artists, but we can’t help it. This is where we find the most creativity and innovation. This is the music world where artists are able to try new ideas and speak their mind. This is where the new sounds originate. There would be no Coldplay without Radiohead and there would be no Kanye West (not that most of us care anymore) without Common. And actually independent music may not have the kind of attention it does nowadays were it not for the sudden popularity of The Strokes back in 2000…well that might be pushing it, but you never know.
1 Kid A by Radiohead
2 You Forgot it in People by Broken Social Scene
3 And then Nothing Turned itself Insideout by Yo La Tengo
4 Agaetis Byrjun by Sigur Ros
5 Funeral by Arcade Fire
6 Murray Street by Sonic Youth
7 The Glow Pt. 2 by The Microphones
8 Silent Alarm by Bloc Party
9 Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips
10 Come On Feel The Illinoise! by Sufjan Stevens
11 Things We Lost in the Fire by Low
12 Yesterday Was Dramatic – Today is OK by Mum
13 Merriweather Post Pavillion by Animal Collective
14 Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts by M83
15 Since I Left You by Avalanches
16 Kill The Moonlight by Spoon
17 Silent Shout by Knife
18 Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco
19 Talkie Walkie by Air
20 They Threw Us All In A Trench And Built A Monument On Top by Liars
21 All of the Above by J-Live
22 Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven by God Speed You! Black Emperor
23 Fleet Foxes by Fleet Foxes
24 Internal Wrangler by Clinic
25 Source Tags & Codes by They Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
26 Vlaudeville Villain by Viktor Vaughn (MF Doom)
27 Return to Cookie Mountain by TV on the Radio
28 Twin Cinema by New Pornographers
29 LCD Soundsystem by LCD Soundsystem
30 Turn On The Bright Lights by Interpol
31 Yellow House by Grizzly Bear
32 Picaresque by The Decemeberists
33 Microcastle by Deerhunter
34 Now Here is Nowhere by Secret Machines
35 White Blood Cells by The White Stripes
36 Mirrored by Battles
37 Demon Days by Gorillaz
38 Beach House by Beach House
39 Bows + Arrows by The Walkmen
40 Madvillainy by Madvillain
41 Is this It? by The Strokes
42 Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea by PJ Harvey
43 Serena-Maneesh by Serena Maneesh
44 The Moon And Antarctica by Modest Mouse
45 Supreme Clientele by Ghostface Killah
46 Hercules and Love Affair by Hercules and Love Affair
47 Inches by Les Savy Fav
48 Stankonia by Outkast
49 Uproot by DJ/Rupture
50 Blinking Lights And Other Revelations by Eels
Best music of the decade…so many choices…
Well, as you can see on the “Music” page, I am looking back at a decade gone by, trying to sort through all the music that I’ve listened to. When you’re an art/indie music geek like me, it’s not necessarily the most enjoyable music that I choose, but I look at the fine details in the creativity and originality of the instrumental arrangement, quality of lyrics and the overall emotional involvement of the performer. It’s about the art, not the slick, easy listening of the radio hits. It’s about the album as a whole, not the entertainment value of select singles. The art of the album is getting more difficult to hang onto in the age of mp3′s, but there is hope when you look at the independent music scene where musicians understand the importance of art in music and the album is a perfect way to present their pieces. It’s like an art gallery for their songs. So here is a glimpse into the pool of contenders (somewhat of an order, but not set in stone) for my best albums of the decade, which will be posted at SoMucH Critics, sometime in late December.
Let me know what you think were the best albums of the decade, because maybe I’m forgetting an important album!
| Artist | Album |
| Radiohead | Kid A |
| Broken Social Scene | You Forgot It In People |
| Sigur Ros | Agaetis Byrjun |
| Low | Things We Lost In The Fire |
| Sonic Youth | Murray Street |
| Animal Collective | Merriweather Post Pavilion |
| Bloc Party | Silent Alarm |
| Flaming Lips, The | Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor | Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven |
| Yo La Tengo | And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out |
| The New Pornographers | Twin Cinia |
| Spoon | Kill The Moonlight |
| Sufjan Stevens | Come On Feel The Illinoise! |
| Wilco | Yankee Hotel Foxtrot |
| Battles | Mirrored |
| And You Will Know Us by the The Trail of Dead | Source Tags & Codes |
| Liars | They Threw Us All In A Trench And Built A Monument On Top |
| Fleet Foxes | Fleet Foxes |
| Air | Talkie Walkie |
| The Avalanches | Since I Left You |
| Knife, The | Silent Shout |
| M83 | Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts |
| PJ Harvey | Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea |
| DJ /rupture | Uproot |
| TV On The Radio | Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes |
| Serena Maneesh | Serena-Maneesh |
| Interpol | Turn On The Bright Lights |
| Eels | Blinking Lights And Other Revelations |
| Modest Mouse | The Moon And Antarctica |
| The Decemberists | Picaresque |
| Madvillain | Madvillainy |
| Cat Power | You Are Free |
| LCD Soundsystem | LCD Soundsystem |
| Clinic | Internal Wrangler |
| Sufjan Stevens | Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State |
| The Wrens | The Meadowlands |
| The White Stripes | White Blood Cells |
| Bon Iver | For Emma, Forever Ago |
| Woven Hand | Consider the Birds |
| Hercules and Love Affair | Hercules and Love Affair |
| Gorillaz | Demon Days |
| Deerhunter | Microcastle |
| Grizzly Bear | Veckatimest |
| Panda Bear | Person Pitch |
| Beach House | Beach House |
| Ryan Adams | Heartbreaker |
| The Shins | Chutes Too Narrow |
| Sleater-Kinney | All Hands On The Bad One |
| Spoon | Gimme Fiction |
| Super Furry Animals | Mwng |
| Yeah Yeah Yeahs | It’s Blitz |
| Danger Mouse | The Grey Album |
| Girl Talk | Night Ripper |
| The Hold Steady | Separation Sunday |
| My Morning Jacket | Z |
| Animal Collective | Sung Tongs |
| Liars | Drum’s Not Dead |
| Field Music | Tones Of Town |
| The Unicorns | Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? |
| Devendra Banhart | Rejoicing In The Hands |
| Pedro The Lion | Control |
| Joanna Newsom | Ys |
