As for listing so many, I think listing only twenty albums dilutes the importance of this decade ever which is easily the greatest in the history of popular music. I'm so sick of forty year-olds, especially on this forum, complaining about modern music when you'd be fortunate to have ten killer albums in a given year before 2000. Making the list a "sensible" 20 just means crap like American Idiot and The Rising will show up. They're not bad albums but they can't even be said in the same breath as those deserving of Top 200 status from this decade. The ease of release thanks to the internet along with the ability for indie-acts to gain an instant fanbase of 100,000 people is the best thing to happen since The Beatles.
[/I]
Easily the greatest decade in the history of popular music.
Greater than the 60s, when the Beatles and the Stones and Dylan and early Led Zep and early Doors and the Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel and Jimi Hendrix, etc etc, were competing?
Greaeter than the 70s, when Led Zep was in their prime, when Floyd was in their prime, when the Who was in their prime, when Aerosmith was putting out much of it's best albeit early material, when David Bowie was in his prime, when Queen was in its prime, when Billy Joel was in his prime, when Elton John was in his prime, when female singer-songwriters like Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon were paving the way for women like Tori Amos and Fiona Apple decades later, when Abba was putting out some of the most beautifully-crafted pure pop music that's ever been put out, etc etc?
Greater than the 80s when U2 was putting out their early work, when REM was making their name, when Sting&The Police were around, when Metallica put out some of the greatest metal records of all time, when Michael Jackson and Madonna changed the pop world forever, when the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy and Dre and Run DMC revolutionized hip-hop, when GNR burst on the scene, when Depeche Mode was making its name, when the Cure was in their prime, etc?
Greater than the 90s when Radiohead was putting out the Bends and OKC, when U2 was putting out the boldest work of their career, when Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains among others spearheaded the grunge movement, when alternative acts like Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, Weezer, RATM, etc were competing, when Tupac and Wutang and the Fugees and Jay-Z were making hip-hop mainstream, when Tori Amos and Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple were competing, when REM was in their prime, when RHCP was putting out BSSM and Californication, etc etc?
Not better than any one of the above, but better than all of them?
Really?
Your statement is hyperbolic if any statement ever was. I'm not saying there isn't good music this decade. That's ridiculous, of course there is - Radiohead, Coldplay, Arcade Fire, Sigur Ros, Eminem, Audioslave, Killers, Franz Ferdinand, older acts like Pearl Jam, RHCP, REM, U2, Tori Amos, Green Day, Springsteen still going at it - there's plenty of good music this decade, when it's just silly, imo, to say that it's the greatest decade in the history of popular music.
And I'm not 40. I'm 23.