Top 20 albums of the decade so far?

[GibsonGirl]

I mentioned Bloc Partay.

So did I.

 

[LMP]

In ABC order:

Arcade Fire - "Funeral"
Arcade Fire - "Neon Bible"
Beck - "Sea Change"
Coldplay - "A Rush of Blood to the Head"
David Bowie - "Heathen"
Death Cab for Cutie - "Transatlanticism"
DeVotchKa - "How It Ends"
Explosions in the Sky - "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone"
Franz Ferdinand - "Franz Ferdinand"
Gorillaz - "Demon Days"
Kanye West - "Graduation"
LCD Soundsystem - "Sound of Silver"
Modest Mouse - "The Moon and Antarctica"
Muse - "Absolution"
Radiohead - "In Rainbows"
Radiohead - "Kid A"
The Flaming Lips - "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots"
The Postal Service - "Give Up"
The White Stripes - "Elephant"
Wilco - "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"

"All That You Can't Leave Behind" and about 9 others hover around those spots, too. I'd have to say Yoshimi, Kid A, Funeral, Elephant, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot are toward the front.

 

[lazarus]

A--Always
B--Be
C--Closing

Or you hit the bricks, pal.

Third prize is You're Fired.

 

[LMP]

A--Always
B--Be
C--Closing

Or you hit the bricks, pal.

Third prize is You're Fired.

Ohhhh, what a BIG MAN YOU ARE.

 

[lazarus]

And that's the way we keep score, bubby.

 

[No spoken words]

That watch costs more than you car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. Nice guy? I don't give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here - close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can't take this, how can you take the abuse you get on a sit? You don't like it, leave.

 

[LMP]

You just cost me six thousand dollars. Six... thousand... dollars. And one Cadillac.

 

[beegee]

Nobody else rates Is This It in the top 20 of the decade???

No one listed Extraordinary Machine, either.

I think just the fact that we even GOT an album out of Fiona this decade is reason enough to put it on a list

 

[angelordevil]

No particular order...just the order I remembered them in. I have to say, however, that there's something amazingly special about Kid A and Elephant. Supreme genius, mixed in with regular genius...

Radiohead - Kid A
The White Stripes - Elephant
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
Elbow - Cast of Thousands
Muse - Black Holes & Revelations
Pearl Jam - Riot Act
REM – Accelerate
Pearl Jam – Pearl Jam
Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica
Modest Mouse - Good News For People Who Love Bad News
Radiohead - Amnesiac
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Bruce Springsteen - Magic
Bruce Springsteen - The Rising
Echo & The Bunnymen - Siberia
Moby - 18

 

[Zoots]

Pearl Jam - Riot Act

Wow, really? I thought about half the album was excellent and the other half was kinda meh.

 

[LemonMelon]

It crossed my mind to put down Pearl Jam's self-titled, but then I remembered that not everything on there was as awesome as Life Wasted.

BTW, I completely forgot about Gorillaz' Demon Days record, so my top 20 is now:

1. Beck - Sea Change
2. Radiohead - Kid A
3. Arcade Fire - Funeral
4. Gorillaz - Demon Days
5. White Stripes - Elephant
6. Spoon - Girls Can Tell
7. The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
8. U2 - How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
9. The Shins - Oh, Inverted World
10. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
11. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
12. Madvillain - Madvillainy
13. My Morning Jacket - Z
14. Kanye West - Late Registration
15. Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
16. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning Strike
17. Lupe Fiasco - The Cool
18. Coldplay - Parachutes
19. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
20. Modest Mouse - The Moon And Antarctica

 

[LMP]

It crossed my mind to put down Pearl Jam's self-titled, but then I remembered that not everything on there was as awesome as Life Wasted.

BTW, I completely forgot about Gorillaz' Demon Days record, so my top 20 is now:

1. Beck - Sea Change
2. Radiohead - Kid A
3. Arcade Fire - Funeral
4. Gorillaz - Demon Days
5. White Stripes - Elephant
6. Spoon - Girls Can Tell
7. The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
8. U2 - How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
9. The Shins - Oh, Inverted World
10. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
11. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
12. Madvillain - Madvillainy
13. My Morning Jacket - Z
14. Kanye West - Late Registration
15. Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
16. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning Strike
17. Lupe Fiasco - The Cool
18. Coldplay - Parachutes
19. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
20. Modest Mouse - The Moon And Antarctica

I might go back and re-order mine, too. Fleet Foxes made it in there so quickly? Nice. Mystics over Yoshimi is crazy-talk though, my good man.

Am I the only one that prefers Graduation to Kanye's other stuff?

 

[LemonMelon]

I might go back and re-order mine, too. Fleet Foxes made it in there so quickly? Nice. Mystics over Yoshimi is crazy-talk though, my good man.

Am I the only one that prefers Graduation to Kanye's other stuff?

I love it, but the reason the Fleet Foxes record is that low is because it's so new. I'd put it above Parachutes and a few others at the moment, but first impressions can be deceiving. [insert Lance's mom joke]

I thought you were one of the few Mystics lovers in the world. Graduation is solid, but nothing can touch Late Registration. Man, just the first 7 tracks alone put it up there.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Am I the only one that prefers Graduation to Kanye's other stuff?

That's interesting because I actually was going to post about this but you guys started the coversation anyway...

I think that College Dropout is EASILY Kanye's best and most enjoyable and replayable album. It made my list over LR and Graduation...both of which I find to be not nearly as fun or fresh. And, in terms of actual rapping...I think Kanye delivered his best rhymes on College Dropout.

It might be a bit of nostalgia creeping in there with me too because College Dropout was played at least once, in its entirety, at every party that my friends and I had the summer after it came out. I guess I just have a soft spot for that album.

 

[LemonMelon]

College Dropout is growing on me. It's SO inconsistent, but the best tracks are off the charts. We Don't Care, All Falls Down, Spaceship, Slow Jamz, etc.

 

[lazarus]

I suppose that the Kid A / Zooropa debate does not need to be continued, but Kid A seems to me at least to be much more adventurous than Zooropa. As I much as I enjoy the latter, the likes of "Stay" and "The First Time," among others, are rather safe. There is nothing on Zooropa approaching the eccentricity of an "Idioteque" or "Morning Bell."

I have to disagree. I think Numb and Daddy's Gonna Pay are both pretty out there. While they're both verse-chorus-verse, so are the Radiohead songs, and they sound about as far away from U2 as they've ever gotten.

What you're also failing to acknowledge is that Zooropa was 7 years EARLIER. It sounded even fucking weirder back then.

 

[lazarus]

For the record, I also like Mystics (the most underrated album in years) better than Yoshimi (not as many good songs), but I think The Soft Bulletin is better than both of them.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

College Dropout is growing on me. It's SO inconsistent, but the best tracks are off the charts. We Don't Care, All Falls Down, Spaceship, Slow Jamz, etc.

I enjoy pretty much everysong on College Dropout...but again that might be because of the attachment I have to it.

Through the Wire, Never Let Me Down ft. Jay-Z, Family Business, Last Call, Jesus Walks, etc.

I really love all those songs, too.

But the ones you mentioned, yeah, We Don't Care and All Falls Down are probably my two favorite on the album.

 

[LemonMelon]

For the record, I also like Mystics (the most underrated album in years) better than Yoshimi (not as many good songs), but I think The Soft Bulletin is better than both of them.

Mystics is indeed one of the more underrated albums in ages, and I love Soft Bulletin (Yoshimi is very good, though not quite up to par with either), but, for me, it's all about the Ronald Jones era. Transmissions From The Satellite Heart and Clouds Taste Metallic are both classics.

 

[Zoomerang96]

I've ordered my list by year. I'd write a little blurb for each album, but that would require effort.

Radiohead - Kid A
Modest Mouse - The Moon And Antarctica
Radiohead - Amnesiac
Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
Sigur Rós - ( )
The White Stripes - Elephant
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
Junetile - All Things (Un)Clear
Muse - Absolution
The Arcade Fire - Funeral
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Porcupine Tree - Deadwing
Sigur Rós - Takk
Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
The Good, The Bad & The Queen - The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Porcupine Tree - Fear Of A Blank Planet
Radiohead - In Rainbows

yes, though i'd perhaps include lcd soundsystem, wilco's a ghost is born, at the expense of muse and the decemberists. was never able to get into the latter group...

 

[AtomicBono]

In alphabetical order, one album per band:

Alien Ant Farm - ANThology
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Bright Eyes - Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
Dredg - El Cielo
Explosions in the Sky - All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
The Fall of Troy - Doppelganger
Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory
Lostprophets - The Fake Sound of Progress
Minus the Bear - Planet of Ice
Muse - Absolution
The Number 12 Looks Like You - Nuclear. Sad. Nuclear
Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Sigur Ros - Takk...
The Stills - Logic Will Break Your Heart
Tool - Lateralus
U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Honorable Mentions:
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Source Tags & Codes
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Cadence Weapon - Breaking Kayfabe
Chevelle - This Type Of Thinking Could Do Us In
Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
Incubus - Morning View
Joseph Arthur - Our Shadows Will Remain
The Killers - Hot Fuss
Lupe Fiasco - The Cool
M.I.A. - Kala
M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
The Mars Volta - De-Loused In The Comatorium
Maserati - Inventions for the New Season
Mos Def - The New Danger
Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way
The Strokes - Is This It
System of a Down - Toxicity
We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
We Vs. Death - We too are concerned / We are too concerned

There's plenty more of course (and probably about half those bands would have at least one more album on the list)...the majority of music I listen to is from this decade.

 

[LMP]

I love it, but the reason the Fleet Foxes record is that low is because it's so new. I'd put it above Parachutes and a few others at the moment, but first impressions can be deceiving. [insert Lance's mom joke]

I thought you were one of the few Mystics lovers in the world. Graduation is solid, but nothing can touch Late Registration. Man, just the first 7 tracks alone put it up there.

Don't get me wrong, I love Mystics, its arguably their best song-by-song album ever, but after listening to them a lot in the past months, Yoshimi is by and large their greatest work. The whole is far greater than the sum of its parts and parts of it are wrenchingly beautiful ("In the Morning of Magicians," "Do You Realize??," "One More Robot," "All We Have Is Now") and then there's "Fight Test," which is all kinds of awesome. Laz, if you like The Soft Bulletin, what do you think of Zaireeka? Both are damn fine albums, to me.

I've gotta re-listen to Kanye's previous albums, but I hate those damn skits. At least the ones with Bernie Mac.

 

[GibsonGirl]

yes, though i'd perhaps include lcd soundsystem, wilco's a ghost is born, at the expense of muse and the decemberists. was never able to get into the latter group...

I almost included A Ghost Is Born when I was compiling the list. I left it off in the end because I prefer individual songs on the album much more than the album as a whole...if that makes any sense.

 

[LMP]

I almost included A Ghost Is Born when I was compiling the list. I left it off in the end because I prefer individual songs on the album much more than the album as a whole...if that makes any sense.

The How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb Syndrome. Yes, I've heard of it.

 

[LemonMelon]

I'm one of the few who thinks A Ghost Is Born is Wilco's worst album outside of A.M. I'm usually into that brand of experimentation, but I don't feel that the album has the tunes to support the atmosphere. Outside of At Least That's What You Said, Muzzle Of Bees, and Wishful Thinking anyway.

 

[angelordevil]

Wow, really? I thought about half the album was excellent and the other half was kinda meh.

See, I love the "meh." It's about the contrast of personal and political for me...from Love Boat Captain to Bu$hleaguer, I think the album marks an important marker in their career. Along with that, it creates a sense of place when you listen from start to finish. I'd always end up walking somewhere close to the harbour here when listening. Even the 'throwaway' songs like Arc and You Are reminded me of the sea, or even the world in the bigger context following 9/11...the ocean of madness we all wade through to find a piece of ourselves. It's also a little more eclectic than the last album, a little weirder. The last one did amazingly well, but I sometimes think that "back to form" in media circles is code for playing it safe...or safer.

I'm one of the few who thinks A Ghost Is Born is Wilco's worst album outside of A.M.

Confession: I'm noticing numerous mentions of Wilco and Sigur Ros here, but I've never listened to a complete album of either.

 

[LemonMelon]

Confession: I'm noticing numerous mentions of Wilco and Sigur Ros here, but I've never listened to a complete album of either.

I'm not the person to ask when it comes to Sigur Ros, but Wilco have some great albums and are mindblowing live.

 

[angelordevil]

I'm not the person to ask when it comes to Sigur Ros, but Wilco have some great albums and are mindblowing live.

My father raves about them, but I just haven't carved out the time to listen...I have heard some solo Jeff Tweedy things, which definitely impressed me.

 

[LMP]

I really love Takk..., it barely missed my Top 20. Sigur Ros is a great band to relax to, like if you wanted to lie down in the grass on a summer day, you know?

 

[angelordevil]

I really love Takk..., it barely missed my Top 20. Sigur Ros is a great band to relax to, like if you wanted to lie down in the grass on a summer day, you know?

I'll have to listen to an album straight through. I've heard enough singles and youtube-y things to appreciate them...and sense their influence on others. Chris Martin mentions them in every second breath.