My 30 Favorite Albums of the 2000s
Submitted by AJDaGreat on Mon, 01/04/2010 - 16:19
Tags:
- 1. The White Stripes - Elephant
- 2. The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
- 3. The Arcade Fire - Funeral
- 4. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
- 5. The Strokes - Is This It?
- 6. The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree
- 7. Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards
- 8. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
- 9. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
- 10. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
- 11. Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
- 12. The Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
- 13. The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
- 14. The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
- 15. My Morning Jacket - Z
- 16. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus
- 17. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
- 18. Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears - Flight of the Knife
- 19. The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
- 20. Kanye West - College Dropout
- 21. The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
- 22. Destroyer - Destroyer’s Rubies
- 23. Todd Snider - The Excitement Plan
- 24. Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica
- 25. The Fiery Furnaces - Gallowsbird’s Bark
- 26. Joseph Arthur - Come to Where I’m From
- 27. The Fratellis - Costello Music
- 28. The Decemberists - Picaresque
- 29. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
- 30. Elliott Smith - Figure 8
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- But that's not all, folks... A number of artists and albums came very close to making this list. As a means of honoring the runners up, here are my favorite songs this decade by artists whose albums just missed (these songs usually - but don't always - come from the albums that missed out).
- Animal Collective - Summertime Clothes
- Bloc Party - Like Eating Glass
- Elvis Costello - Bedlam
- The Futureheads - Skip to the End
- Green Day - 21 Guns
- The Hold Steady - Southtown Girls
- Jay-Z - Never Change
- Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak
- Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose
- Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Baltimore
- Mates of State - Ha Ha
- Outkast - Hey Ya!
- Primal Scream - Swastika Eyes (Jagz Kooner Mix)
- Sloan - Set in Motion
- Sonic Youth - Rats
- TV on the Radio - I Was a Lover
- Vampire Weekend - Walcott
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- And now here are some more great songs from this decade by other artists who were never really being considered for this list. I discovered many of these through Listology Secret Santa, and I also included some of these on my Secret Santa mixes.
- Architecture in Helsinki - It’5!
- Atmosphere - Get Fly
- Barenaked Ladies - Falling for the First Time
- The Black Kids - I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You
- Blood Meridian - Oh, Oh, Oh
- Bruce Springsteen - Jesse James
- Built to Spill - Goin’ Against Your Mind
- Counting Crows - Hard Candy
- Franz Ferdinand - Dark of the Matinee
- Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.
- The Mavericks - Because of You
- Erin McKeown - Paper Moon
- Menomena - Air Aid
- The National - Squalor Victoria
- Portishead - Machine Gun
- Procession - Living Alone
- Damien Rice - The Blower’s Daughter
- Sparks - The Rhythm Thief
- R.E.M. - Living Well Is the Best Revenge
- Regina Spektor - Fidelity
- Richard Thompson - Let It Blow
- Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes
- They Might Be Giants - Museum of Idiots
- Weird Al Yankovic - Genius in France
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Phenomena
- Finally, special mention is deserved for...
- The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 1 & 2 / The Crane Wife 3
- The album is too inconsistent to make the list, and I couldn't include it in one of the past two lists because the Decemberists are indeed represented on the album list, but if I were to make a list of my favorite songs of the decade, I would probably cheat and include this fractured song cycle, and its ranking would be very high.
Excellent! I don't see anything to argue with here, and I see a few songs and albums I need to leap upon! Thanks!
Bryan Scary, eh? Investigation pending...
I had no idea you were a Bedlam fan. Tres cool.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Thank you very much! Yeah, Flight of the Knife is an obscure one, and I was skeptical at first when my friends told me about it, but it's just so mind-blowingly entertaining that I had to put it on there. Imagine Queen meets Of Montreal and they do their own version of Ziggy Stardust. It's awesome, campy fun, and even if the choice diminishes my critical credibility, I had to be honest. And hey, the All Music Guide likes it...
I'm wondering if I've overrated Bitte Orca here just because I've been listening to it a ton lately. We'll see in a few months if I change my mind, but I do love that album.
And yeah, I really enjoy the Delivery Man album. "Bedlam" is awesome, but I could've gone with the title track too or probably some others.
i agree with a lot of this list, as well as many of your suggestions/likes but 21 guns by green day is probably my LEAST favorite song of 2009. i have been saddened lol
Really? Even worse than "If You Seek Amy"?
I love that catchy stomper, personally, but I could've probably gone with a few other options by Green Day, including the oddly captivating croon "Song of the Century" from the same album. I liked the American Idiot songs more before they got so overplayed.
But thanks for the comment! I'm glad you found much to agree with!