25 Essential Albums 2000-2009

1. Neon Bible by The Arcade Fire

Someday when our children ask us how it felt to live in the post 9-11 America of George W. Bush, one of our responses might be to give them a copy of Neon Bible by The Arcade Fire. In a decade marred by wars and threats of wars, by loss of civil liberties, and by the encroachment of corporatized Religion into our government and daily lives, Neon Bible was a voice for the angst that many of us felt. At the core of the record is an immense spiritual longing, a desire to do right in the world even when our actions—and certainly the actions of our culture—produce dire failings.

There has always been a tension in this country between the pious religious masses—who want nothing more than to install their own particular creed as the foundation of an American Theocracy—and the rebellious and free American soul. In an age where all of our institutions have been corporatized, this tension is more pronounced than it has ever been—particularly when a sitting President and political party manipulate this tension for war, economic control, and political gain.

But for all of this background information, Neon Bible is also just a brilliant rock record. The ten members of the touring band flood each track with an array of sounds from drum, bass, and guitar, to orchestras, choirs, grand church organs, esoteric percussion, and even clogging. The album is at times as jubilant as it is bleak, and the record’s peak moments come when these two waring emotions cross (such as the revival-spirited Antichrist Television Blues).

For nearly every reason that I listen to and critique music (songwriting, lyrics, composition, sonic variety, cultural relevance) Neon Bible is the best record I have heard in a very long time. My love for the record was not immediate (I scored it behind Bloc Party in my “Best of 2007” list), but the album will withstand the test of time. Even with the nightmare of the Bush era behind us, Neon Bible connects me to a universal anxiety about the world—an unnamable dread that hung over our nation for much of the last decade. But, in the end, we have only the chance to move forward as the chorus sings on the penultimate track “ I don’t know where we’re going! Let’s go!”.

2. Give Up by The Postal Service

The 2003 record Give Up by the Postal Services manages a rare feat; it is simultaneously one of the best indie and pop records of the decade. Such a rare feat in popular music makes sense when given the collision of talent that made the record possible: Death Cab for Cutie vocalist Ben Gibbard just before his band broke the MTV mainstream, Jimmy Tamborello of the band Dntel who can produce great noise-pop but lacks the sophistication of the pop hook and melody, and backing vocals by child star turned vocalist Jenny Lewis of the band Rilo Kiley. Gibbard and Tamborello are creative yin and yang—Gibbard gives Tamorello the much needed hooks that will make his sounds memorable and Tamorello gives Gibbard the experimental sonic pallet he needs to stretch the emotional allure of his songs. At its core, Give Up is simply a breakup record—a record of romantic fantasies, recollections, and acknowledged mistakes. The band has lazily worked on a second record but at the end of the decade both artists seem to be backing away, and maybe this is for the best, for, as a pop anomaly, Give Up is a record is as much about its time as it is its content: that brief moment just before the pop and indie worlds collided.

3. Dear Science by TV on the Radio

I am always hesitant to say that any recording is sonically perfect, but it is difficult to find a flaw on TV on the Radio’s 2008 opus Dear Science. For nearly an hour the record builds like a summer storm in long, steady waves that push through myriad musical movements. Unlike the band’s previous records, though, Dear Science resists the impulse to be lost in this droning beauty for each track is driven by a propulsive rhythm section. Lyrically, the record is open-ended enough that songs open themselves to new and differing interpretations upon each listen—like the best modern poetry. This uncanny combination of lyrical opaqueness and a broad sonic pallet of funk rock that combines the modern (electro, dance, digital manipulation) with the classic (funk horns, strings, choirs) makes Dear Science a deeply perplexing and enjoyable record.

4. Medulla by Bjork

There are records that change the sonic landscape forever and then there is Bjork, who with each release lays bare what she has done before and fearlessly goes after whatever impulse guides her in the moment. With Medulla that instinct was the human voice. This is a record of astounding complexity with almost no instrumentation to speak of. Instead, Bjork focuses on the human voice in all of its astounding complexity: beat boxing, throat singing, vocoding, electronic manipulation, and big haunted chorus make up this record. The influence of Medulla is hard to map, but elements of what she did here can be found in traces from groups such as Sparks, Bloc Party, and a hundred indie bands in between. This album changed how musicians think of vocals, and in a career that is speckled with landmark albums Medulla may, indeed, be her greatest artistic achievement.

5. The Last Resort by Trentemoller

Anders Trentemoller is hands down the most sophisticated electronic musician of the decade. After a string of high energy dance remixes (The Knife, Robyn, Royksopp to name a few) brought him fame, he released his debut album The Last Resort to little fanfare in 2006. For those who were expecting a hard-hitting dance record the album may have been a letdown. Instead, he delivered a low-end ambient record of subtle and extreme beauty. Trentemoller describes this record as “a record for lovers” and I will only say that as a soundtrack for conjugal visits I can think of none better. The record is a beautiful late-night record and one of the decade’s most underrated gems.

6. Sound of Silver by LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy is an odd man: a white boy with soul equally versed in 70’s funk, early 80’s punk, and the rave rock trend of the aughts. What sets LCD Soundsystem apart from the pack is superior songwriting and a knack for combining all of these disparate elements under one funky banner that’s difficult not to dance to. Shake your bootey, but don’t be surprised when you find yourself unexpectedly moved by touching moments such as “All My Friends.”

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7. Come on feel the Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens

I wanted to hate Illinoise—the album that made hipsters swoon, Pitchfork saw it as the second coming, and the whole concept—at best—came off as hopelessly pretentious. But when I came to the record on its own terms I found an album of profound poetic lyricism, lush and sophisticated instrumentation, and subtle and profound emotional depth. Illinoise creates a world of its own, a love letter to the Illinois of old, and a record that is difficult not to be consumed by.

8. A Weekend in the City by Bloc Party

Bloc Party’s sophomore album “A Weekend in the City” is an eloquent meditation on how it feels to be a young man in a culture that seems destined to plummet into ruin. This is a life of decadence and ruin, war and racism, and debilitating isolationism. At the core of the record, though, is a live heart yearning for more than quick material fixes and anonymous physical encounters. The hyperbole of Kele Okereke’s lyrics are muted by the drama of the band, who play better on this record than they have on any of the band’s releases. It was a strong sophomore record, one that was largely overlooked by the mainstream presses, but an album, nonetheless, that is dear to many of us.

9. New Amerykah (4th World War) by Erykah Badu

The men of hip-hop may have won the bravado war this decade, but any critic would be hard-pressed to find an album by any of those blusterous men to match the originality, daring, and relevance of Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah: Part One (4th World War). With this album Badu recreated herself as the high priestess of soul, and in doing so delivered a sermon on the mount to black Amerykah. This album is a catalogue of the state of black America in the year that a black man ran for (and won) the presidency. With grace and elegance and some (much needed) self-deprecation Erykah is goading her people to take accountability for their actions while saying “enough” to the oppression that has plagued them.

10. Kala by M.I.A.

M.I.A. and her producer Diplo have taken world music and stripped it of all the Enya/Yanni/Riverdance cliches to form the most vibrant and original genre blending form of music to arise this decade. In these tunes you will find elements of hip-hop, rap, afro-beat, disco, tribal drumming, throat singing, and oblique references to New Order and the Pixies. The songs are highly energetic, danceable, and driving them all is M.I.A.‘s politically-charged class smashing lyrics.

11. Takk by Sigur Ros

Sigur Ros have a patented formula behind all of their work: dramatic walls of sound, painful yowling—in a language you can’t understand—full of woe and jubilation, melodies that wrap you in them completely, and songs that fill you with longing, dread, and euphoria. The band’s fourth record, Takk…, is arguably the strongest in their cannon, and the only moment when all of their disparate tendencies has come together in one unified recording.

12. Haunted by Poe

Your father is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker with a stormy career, who, upon his death, leaves a box of audio cassettes—lectures, letters to his children, ramblings—that you find in an attic. What do you do with this material? If you’re Poe, you go into a studio for 5 years to make one of the most complex, enjoyable, and cathartic concept records of all time.

13. Impeach my Bush by Peaches

Peaches was a novelty at first—the self-proclaimed Queen of Electrotrash who wanted to fuck your pain away. Despite some killer singles, her first two albums were not good. That changed with 2006’s Impeach My Bush, a trashy punk-rock/electro album where virtually every song could be a single (if American airwaves were not ran by Puritains that is). It’s a fantastic records and one of this decades most subversive releases.

14. Seventh Tree by Goldfrapp

Seventh Tree cannot be listened to, only experienced. It’s a breezy summer day, 70’s softlighting, AM Radio for the Eurotrash crowd. It’s also stunning and lovely.

15. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank by Modest Mouse

We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank takes a harrowing look at our cultural and reports back with a moody, often dark, testament to the world around us. At it’s best, this lyrical introspection marries beautifully with a band who has never sounded better than they do on this album.

16. Third by Portishead

Portishead took an eleven year hiatus between their second record, 1997’s Portishead, and their third record, 2008’s Third. This was not the best career move and the industry they left in 1997 bore little in resemblance to the one they returned to in 2008. Still, Third is an inspired, haunting record that lays waste to the band’s catalog—building a dense, hypnotic, and moody record from the dismantled foundation of the 90’s trip-hop movement they helped pioneer.

17. Silent Shout by The Knife

Karen Dreijer Andersson is perhaps the most original song writer of a generation (her fantastic solo record Fever Ray was released in 2009. That album would also have made this list, except that I committed to the restraint of only listing one album per artist). When her songs are joined by the moody beats and low-end bass of her brother Olof Dreijer, the result is a nightmare wonderworld where dreams stand up and dance.

18. Before the Dawn Heals Us by M83

Before the Dawn Heals Us is a concept record about… a car crash? an nightmare? a David Cronenberg film? It doesn’t matter. If you play this album at night it will cast a spell you cannot turn away from.

19. Fasciinatiion by The Faint

“i been around a mirror enough to know it’s hard to change
bq. we’re like magicians when we dream
bq. but we wake up and nothing’s different”

20. Bad Blood!!! by Gerling

Franz Ferdinand received much of the credit for pioneering a “rave-rock” sound that brought Rock and Dance music into a tentative alignment. Franz Ferdinand, however, have never made a record to compare to the brilliant Bad Blood!!! by the little known Aussie band Gerling.

21. Confessions on the Dance Floor by Madonna

Madonna is a vampire who sucks youth from an orgyistic string of victims. In this case the victim (producer Stuart Price) is stronger than she, which leads Confessions on the Dance Floor to stand as a trend-setting, trance-inducing dance record—despite Madge’s overblown and self-important hyperbole.

22. Robyn by Robyn

Robyn is what happens when a 5-foot, sweet lookin’, Swedish girl throws down the brassiest, funkiest, hip-hop/electro fusion record of the decade. As sweet as she seems one thing is clear—don’t fuck with Robyn else she might kick your ass with a wink and a smile.

23. Fantasies by Metric

The cover of Metric’s 2009 album Fantasies is a photograph of a light bulb. The bright idea, it seems, was to cut all of the flourishes and record a straight up, no-holds-barred rock record. As such, it’s the strongest record yet from one of this decade’s best new bands.

24. Actor by St. Vincent

In the original Grimm’s fairy tales Snow White’s evil stepmother is forced to wear hot iron shoes until she’s dead.

25. Impossible Dream by Patty Griffin

Patty Griffin will break your heart, this much her fans know. At no place in her cannon has Patty sounded more confident, assured, and relevant than 2004’s Impossible Dream. A record for getting by.