To "rock fans", what is meant to be the canonical, everyone can agree on, album of the decade?

thing is, i sort of agree with carducci and think he is bonkers but mostly OTM.

me too, but i'm not sure that "i consider" is the most significant issue here. do a lot of other ppl think of them as rock artists? in 10 or 20 years time will they seem to represent "rock in the new millennium"?

― contenderizer

lol what no

maybe not. i suppose there's every reason to think the current rough definition of "rock" will persist with core intact for 20+ years. and even if the mainstream conception shifts over time, there'll still be a bunch of stoners in ripped jeans spinning OM (or the yardbirds) in a basement somewhere, laughing at the idea that "shit like pink" could be considered rock by any standard.

just floating the thought

i realize i am simplifying this to the absolute max here but basically shouldn't "rock" be guitar driven? i think the point you raised was interesting if you took it indirectly but i dont think we'll ever be calling "womanizer" a rock song

my feeling is if you call any contemporary western genre "rock" you're really just falling into the same world as all those Rolling Stone "greatest rock albums of all time" lists with 8 token rap/dance/etc. albums. i don't think "rock" necessarily should signify bands or guitars or live drums or whatever, and the gray area there is more gray than ever, but still it ain't hard to make the distinction.

shouldn't "rock" be guitar driven? i think the point you raised was interesting if you took it indirectly but i dont think we'll ever be calling "womanizer" a rock song

― k3vin k.

^ it is, currently (more or less), but things are getting awful shakey in that regard. what is a "guitar"? an instrument, sure, but isn't it also a sound? and isn't music increasingly becoming the art of combining sounds, and less the art of playing physical instruments?

i mean, there are "guitars" (or guitar-like sounds) in avril's music, and peaches' too. and they both tap into the iconography, attitude and cultural identity of "rock music" and the "rock and roller". isn't rock, like metal, an identity as much as it is a specific sound? if you cop the stance and sneer and history and style of rock -- and if, deep down, the flame burns bright in your heart -- then aren't you, really, "real rock"?

i mean, weren't suicide a rock band?

some dude more OTM. i know what rock is and ain't. but on the other hand, that only applies to me. in my book, peaches is rock, avril ain't. but i KNOW that lots of die-hard "rock fans" would disagree with me on that. and any serious line-drawing discussion about this stuff is ridic wasted effort.

some dude more OTM. i know what rock is and ain't. but on the other hand, that only applies to me. in my book, peaches is rock, avril ain't. but i KNOW that lots of die-hard "rock fans" would disagree with me on that. and any serious line-drawing discussion about this stuff is ridic wasted effort.

it formed babby

yeah i agree w/ you both; the line, if there even is one any more, is reapidly becoming more and more blurred, and it's really more of an impossible-to-qulaify tambre thing at this point. aka "i know rock music when i hear it"

JJ-

a song i forgot about - "kittypants" -- of excellent italian greyhound just popped up on shuffle and it's pretty awesome

Given what "rock fan" is getting whittled down here, album of the decade is Guitar Hero.

actually that's prolly the real answer

I made a playlist of stuff by Spoon, QOTSA, White Stripes, YYYs, Interpol and The Strokes to play on random. Since I only have albums since 2004 on my work computer, and I hadn't really played the later Interpol and Strokes stuff much, it's kind of fun to hear those cuts now. It's a tricky craft in the 00s, making simple rock albums that don't sound stale. I was disappointed by a lot of those at the time, but I guess I've been in the mood for 'em. The new Rakes kind of scratches that itch too.

Nice to see a lot of mentions for Black One - a record that ripped my head inside out and took me to places I wouldn't have thought of going to otherwise. But no way an "everyone can agree on" LP, anymore than key efforts from the Velvets, Stooges etc. would have been 5-10 years after their release.

Fuck the whole idea of a canon anyhow.

canon happens while u sleep

Oh yeah, it happens. Doesn't make a bit of difference to what I like, though.

what is critically acclaimed and what tops magazine polls is a very very very tiny proportion of what you'd have to take into account when working out what THE CANONICAL CHOICE IS of people who self-identify as rock fans

I disagree. Canons aren't formed in vacuums. People's conception of albums as not just good and cool but indeed "classic" and "canonical" is in large measure mediated by things like magazine lists, radio polls, etc. I'm not talking about hipster music-nerd publications or even high-profile sites like Pitchfork, but if "rock fans" (sort of a caricature on this thread, but I'll go along with it) are even bothering to think about things like canons, then they're surely going to be influenced by what a mainstream, rock-oriented pub like Rolling Stone has to say.

Rock albums from the '00s that appeared in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time list from November 2003:

316. No Doubt, Rock Steady (arguably a pop album but from a band that was at one time considered rock)
367. The Strokes, Is This It
390. White Stripes, Elephant
428. Radiohead, Kid A
432. Peter Wolf, Sleepless (obviously the wild card here)
440. Beck, Sea Change
467. Bob Dylan, Love and Theft
473. Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head

Also, fwiw, non-compilation rock albums from the '00s that appeared on Time magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of all-time, 2006:

PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Radiohead, Kid A

huh. has anyone heard that peter wolf album??

I think Jann Wenner just has a crush on him or something.

yeah, i accidentally left beck off that list of decade-defining rock reckords (along with the probably more relevant LCDSS). tho beck is more a 90s-defining kinda guy, sea change is a good call, esp as it anticipates the gentling of indie over the next 7 years. pj harvey seems even more "of 90s" than beck, but stories from the city... deserves a nod.

The RS list did come out right before the mainstreaming of indie rock, though: I'd be curious to see whether something like Funeral would make the list were they to do it again in 2009.

Can I just say that it's really gay for people to come on this thread talking about how stupid this thread is? You only get to do this once every ten years for crying out loud. And aren't most of you friggin music critics? For the love of God people...

Now that I got that off my chest, let me add to my comprehensive list of best rock albums of the decade, or at least the ones that will place in the top 20 of lists read by "rock fans."

The Strokes: Is This It
Bob Dylan: Love and Theft
Radiohead: Kid A
Emimen: Marshall Mathers LP
Green Day: American Idiot
Outkast: Either Stankonia or Speakerboxxx
White Stripes: Elephant (should be White Blood Cells)
MIA: Kala
Kanye West: Late Registration
Sufjan Stevens: Illinois
The Shins: Chutes Too Narrow
TV On The Radio: Dear Science
Coldplay: A Rush Of Blood...
Arcade Fire: Funeral
U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind
Robert Plant Alison Krauss: Raising Sand
My Morning Jacket: Z
Fountains of Wayne: Welcome Interstate Managers
Ryan Adams: Gold
Bright Eyes: Lifted...
Queens Of The Stone Age: Songs For The Deaf

Super Sleeper Picks:
Joe Strummer: Global A Go Go
Broken Social Scene: You Forgot It In People
Neko Case: Fox Confessor
Primal Scream: XTRMN8TR
New Pornographers: Electric Version (should be Mass Romantic)
Libertines: Up The Bracket

Kornrulez6969's short list of the best 2000s albums you haven't heard but should...

The Glands: The Glands
The Mendoza Line: Lost In Revelry

Emimen: Marshall Mathers LP
MIA: Kala
Kanye West: Late Registration

i honestly don't mean to appear dense, but who would consider these 'rock' albums? isn't this conflating pop and rock? i'm sure this has been discussed already but i can't be fucked to read everything here

A friend just mentioned The Glands album in one of those 15 albums that changed your life lists on Facebook today. Now Kornrulz6969. It's $4.99 at Reckless, just a block out of my way before I get to the train. It's a sign.

i'm okay with what korn is doing, but share k3vin's scepticism. i'd conceived of this as "what ROCK albums will make the rock canon?" that's a narrow way to frame it, but it does force us to draw weird (and potentially interesting) lines in the sand

korn's version is way more simple: "what albums will make the rock canon?" but maybe it's too broad, too simple? looked at on those terms, the list oughtta be FULL of hip-hop and stuff like daft punk & c. at which point it becomes just another generic "best of the decade" list

i like the narrow, rockist focus on "rock albums only!", in part because it gives us a chance to reconsider what that might mean -- (hopefully) without getting all gross about it

ITS GOING TO BE FUCKING KID A WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT SUNNO)))

cuz single ablum = estupido, and this is more challenging

glad to see Love & Theft get a nod; Modern Times is deserving as well.
the rockist elite will no doubt laugh at my Conor Oberst (s/t) obsession - he's a bloody visionary.
and Drive-by Truckers'-brighter than creations dark
and the wrens- meadowlands are VERY special, imo
Kid A is alright background music, but that's about all the time i have for it - it kinda bores me to sit and listen to; while the wrens on the other hand make me wanna curl up with the lyrics with headphones on

are you talking about waht you like, oar are you talking about TEH CANON?

guess i'm saying that in a perfect world dbt's would be agreed upon- i sure think that record is worthy

I'm not convinced about Kid A. First, I really have trouble thinking of it as a rock album (any more than the Eminem album is a rock album). And I just don't agree that Kid A has the kind of broad, unifying appeal that Whiney claims it to. I guess I'm basing that largely just on personal experience (even with 'rock listeners' who like the older Radiohead stuff). Maybe if there was more than one big single off it, I'd be more convinced. American Idiot seems reasonable and I see the case for Elephant, even Coldplay.

i stand by kid a (as one of the few, though not as THE ONE) largely on the strength of the radiohead art-myth. they've got every other band in the world beat at the "getting people to say our music is important" game. big part of canomization

The REAL album of the decade, rock or otherwise, is Quebec by Ween.

Wait, so nobody's mentioned Yankee Hotel Foxtrot yet? (Really though, I'd say the most sensible nomination on the thread is probably American Idiot. And I don't like that one, either.)

Return to Cookie Mountain?
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot?

Oh wait.. to "rock fans.."

In that case, no.. with extra "no" emphasis on the 2nd half of the decade.

― billstevejim, Monday, 16 February 2009 22:58 (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Return to Sucky Mountain?

Yankee Hotel Sucktrot?

― ilxor, Monday, 16 February 2009 23:55 (3 days ago) Bookmark

I really like YHF, fwiw.

Actually prefer Kid A to American Idiot as music, believe it or not. But one inevitable problem with Kid A -- not gonna read the whole thread to see if anybody's mentioned this; somebody probably did -- is that it will always be a followup album. And yeah, I like it more than OK Computer, too.) (American Idiot is only a followup album to Dookie if London Calling was a followup album to The Clash.)

Problem with White Stripes -- who I like more than Radiohead or Green Day, but who cares -- is that they have way too many '00s albums that people care about, so they'd split their votes.

plus kid a does so many other decade-defining things: mainstreams a distinctly "indie" sensibility (fragile, sentimental, childlike/ish, self-loathing, comfort-seeking), ignores boundaries between rock & pop & elecrowhatever, gets psychedelic as all hell, relentlessly futurist.

can't see many of the other records serving so well as a metaphor for and statement about the times. white stripes = too reactionary (in the proud tradition of garage rock). coldplay too watered down. american idiot's probably in the running, but i don't hear anything quite as game-changing in it.

The Glands album ....It's a sign.

Holy mackerel, you are in for a treat. Seriously, you have no idea. Get it and let me know what you think. It's completely retarded that nobody knows who they were. SO good.

Outdoor Miner seems to have my exact taste in music. Conor Oberst made the best record of 2008. And The Wrens Meadowlands is in my top 5 of the 2000s. But they'e too obscure to figure in any meaningful way on big end-of-decade lists. You should hear The Glands too.

I still don't consider the one on top a "rock" album, but otherwise:
http://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?page=1&chart_type=top&type=album&year=2000s&genre_include=1&genres=rock&include_child_genres=t&include=both&origin_countries=&limit=none&countries=

A bit too much metal there (typical RYM). This is the same chart without child genres:
http://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?page=1&chart_type=top&type=album&year=2000s&genre_include=1&genres=rock&include=both&origin_countries=&limit=none&countries=

And well.. Still not good. They should have had an opportunity to only include albums that have been rated by at least 1000 people.

I'm halfway through The Glands. It's like a dreamier Game Theory with some Kinks, nice so far.

I'm not convinced about Kid A. First, I really have trouble thinking of it as a rock album (any more than the Eminem album is a rock album). And I just don't agree that Kid A has the kind of broad, unifying appeal that Whiney claims it to. I guess I'm basing that largely just on personal experience (even with 'rock listeners' who like the older Radiohead stuff). Maybe if there was more than one big single off it, I'd be more convinced. American Idiot seems reasonable and I see the case for Elephant, even Coldplay.

― Sundar, Wednesday, February 18, 2009 8:19 PM (2 hours ago)

come on.

leave me alone.. this question was stupid to begin with. the 00's contained far too many rock subgenres for "rock fans" to agree on anything. (probably xpost since this is a fairly obvious statement)

that said.. although it's not strictly a rock record, every last "rock fan" i know enjoys kid a.

TBH, I was thinking of The Eminem Show when I posted that.

This kind of blows my mind:

every last "rock fan" i know enjoys kid a.

Not even every mainstream rock critic enjoyed it!

attempt to come up with THEE answer to dom's question isn't worth the trouble. kid a is a good suggestion, that's all - something that probly oughtta be on the list somewhere. taking it much farther than that seems silly. i'm guessing that it'll be seen as one of the definitive new century records a few decades down the road, but that's just my shot in the dark

sundar OTM, though. i've known some rock pplz to sneer at radiohead/ kid a

Not even every mainstream rock critic enjoyed it!

I didn't say it was universally beloved..