Best of Decade (2000s) Album Lists

I'm going to break my own rule and post my Best of 00s individual list: Top 200 Albums of the 00s. Also: Top 60 Artists | 00s Breakdown: Top 13 Genre Lists | Top 100 Movies | Top 60 Shows | Top 13 Books - Fiction; Music & Rock 'n' Roll Fiction; Graphic Novels & Comics

There are 11 days left in the decade. This is not like you to jump the gun.

i don't know how anyone ever really comes up with a "best of decade" list

even within this decade my tastes have swerved around so wildly that things that meant a huge amount to me 5 years ago mean nothing now. and the things i love now, how will i know if i'll feel the same way, looking back in another 10 years?

how do people actually make these decisions?

well if you're gonna post yours...i finished mine that Beatrix referred to at the top of the thread:http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2009/12/narrowcasts-top-100-albums-of-decade_04.html

xpost -- i made mine by going back and re-doing my best-of lists for each year of the decade, and then just kinda keeping and eliminating stuff from there based on gut instinct. it's not an exact science, but if you're committed to making a list then at the end you've got one.

Yeah, I did pretty much the same thing. I tried to only keep stuff that I still feel passionate about, but I also threw in a few albums I've since softened on, just out of recognition for how much they meant to me at the time. Like, if I ever considered an album my #1 of its year, then it deserved to be on the list, regardless of how much I play it now.

Obviously, any method or criterion is debatable, though.

do you have these "best of each year" lists just sitting around, or do you compile them from scratch

i've been freelancing for a few years and was making OCD end-of-year lists for a few years before that (sometimes just for singles, not albums), so i had lists for most years and did new ones more recently for years i didn't make a list at the time.

jaymc is your list posted anywhere yet?

I had to finish earlier because I had to use time off now, as I gotta cover for someone else who will be gone from work between Xmas and NY's.

<q>i don't know how anyone ever really comes up with a "best of decade" list

even within this decade my tastes have swerved around so wildly that things that meant a huge amount to me 5 years ago mean nothing now. and the things i love now, how will i know if i'll feel the same way, looking back in another 10 years?

how do people actually make these decisions?</q>

I certainly changed my mind on some albums as the decade progressed, but not that radically. I was in my 30s, and my tastes haven't changed that much. Nevertheless, making such lists does take time, and is not for the weak. If you're afraid to confront your true feelings about your favorite albums, perhaps some mushrooms or peyote will help. Or perhaps it's best you not attempt it.

jaymc is your list posted anywhere yet?

Not ... yet.

do you have these "best of each year" lists just sitting around, or do you compile them from scratch

I posted my lists from 2002 to 2007 online, so I was able to easily refer to them. 2000-01 involved some reconstructing (though I remembered what my favorite album of each year was), and I threw together lists for 2008-09 on the fly.

I'll be honest: I spent the majority of September listening to about 120 albums from this decade so I could narrow them down to a top 50.

best thing abt these lists is when they throw up some band u haven't thought about in years (e.g. cex, enon on SD's list)

doing 5 top 100s of tunes as youtube playlists now:

1. Instrumentals
2. Remixes
3. Non-Singles

between now and the 31st
4. Top 40 Singles
5. Non-Hit Singles (ie didn't make top 40)

I'm doing a thing at BSCReview.com in installments. My list is predictably weird.

I've been watching it. I like your lists, even if I don't usually like a lot of stuff that appears on them. But you definitely come up with some of the most independent-looking and most international lists (the latter especially for a non- "world music" best of list). You should check out Bannakumbi's Un Nuevo Dia, I think you would like it. (Yes, I am really hyping it hard. I think it's great.)

Acclaimed Music's Top 100 Artists of the Decade:

1 The White Stripes
2 Radiohead
3 OutKast
4 LCD Soundsystem
5 Arcade Fire
6 Kanye West
7 The Strokes
8 Franz Ferdinand
9 Eminem
10 TV on the Radio
11 Jay-Z
12 M.I.A.
13 Coldplay
14 Missy Elliott
15 Wilco
16 The Streets
17 Queens of the Stone Age
18 The Libertines
19 Sufjan Stevens
20 Arctic Monkeys
21 Nick Cave
22 Gorillaz
23 Justin Timberlake
24 Gnarls Barkley
25 Modest Mouse
26 Interpol
27 Hot Chip
28 Dizzee Rascal
29 Johnny Cash
30 Bob Dylan
31 Spoon
32 PJ Harvey
33 Amy Winehouse
34 Yeah Yeah Yeahs
35 The Flaming Lips
36 Madonna
37 Ryan Adams
38 Cat Power
39 Antony and The Johnsons
40 The Avalanches
41 The Shins
42 Justice
43 Sigur Rós
44 Daft Punk
45 Animal Collective
46 The Rapture
47 The National
48 Björk
49 Tom Waits
50 Joanna Newsom
51 Ghostface Killah
52 50 Cent
53 U2
54 Portishead
55 Bright Eyes
56 Fleet Foxes
57 Beyoncé
58 The Killers
59 The Hold Steady
60 Battles
61 The Knife
62 System of a Down
63 Morrissey
64 Bloc Party
65 Blur
66 My Morning Jacket
67 Primal Scream
68 Feist
69 The Raconteurs
70 Burial
71 The New Pornographers
72 The Roots
73 Rufus Wainwright
74 Scissor Sisters
75 Yo La Tengo
76 Sleater-Kinney
77 Devendra Banhart
78 At the Drive-In
79 Broken Social Scene
80 Panda Bear
81 The Postal Service
82 Bon Iver
83 Bruce Springsteen
84 Vampire Weekend
85 Brian Wilson
86 Basement Jaxx
87 Junior Boys
88 Kylie Minogue
89 Elliott Smith
90 Peter Bjorn and John
91 The Hives
92 Common
93 Sonic Youth
94 Britney Spears
95 Clipse
96 Beck
97 Kings of Leon
98 N.E.R.D.
99 M83
100 Amerie

Lists that don't have Underworld's Everything Everything and Daft Punk's Alive 2007 hate fun.

That list, the artists list, is the only way I can look back at the decade, because it became so difficult to establish yourself and burn-in as a recording artist after about 2004/5. I would love to see one that whittled away bands who were already established pre-Internet/media changeup. I think you'd have about 20 left.

xpost, to further that thought, these 22 also made the top 100 of the 90's:

Bob Dylan #43
Radiohead #2
U2 #17
Johnny Cash #99
Madonna #28
Beck #5
Sonic Youth #41
Blur #7
PJ Harvey #10
Tom Waits #72
Bjork #8
Eminem #61
Nick Cave #21
Primal Scream #15
Wilco #64
Portishead #18
The Flaming Lips #48
Daft Punk #53
Elliot Smith #52
Sigur Ros #79
Yo La Tengo #67
Basement Jaxx #84

these 4 also made the top 100 of the 80s:

3 U2
9 Madonna
13 Sonic Youth
18 Tom Waits

Xgau:

http://robertchristgau.com/xg/list/rs00.php

interesting x'gau list - i wonder why he picked that GoB's, which is great, but not as great as Oceans Apart. and Wussy two times (!!!)

Horrible list. Double Dylan. Moldy Peaches? DJ Shadow? I'm not into a lot of the more radio-friendly stuff either, but I'm more willing to write that off as my own limitations. (I don't like Kanye West or M.I.A. that much, but I can at least understand the enthusiasm more than for some of the other stuff.)

Kanye and Dylan two times in the top ten. And two Gogols and Youssous. And his least compelling singles list ever. And say children, what does it all mean?

that dj shadow album is awesome fwiw

ha is xgau the only critic to not go back on oberst? god he sucks

Serves Christgau right for not properly vetting his list here on ILM before he blithely sent it off to Rolling Stone.

that dj shadow album is awesome fwiw

it made my list.

my eyes literally went O_O when i stopped to check what roman numeral was next to Tha Carter. the guy has his own taste, can't take that away from him, but fuck I didn't think anyone was crazy enough to put that album was up their on their end of decade list.

his choice of Wayne albums isn't nearly as o_O as his choice of Wayne tracks

Everybody who makes lists fucking sucks and all music sucks too.

I don't know if this counts as major media, but it's

http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/play/6-most-underrated-japanese-albums-00s-702098#ixzz0afFFD6QS

True, it does happen to list my favorite album of the decade, but the youtube clips for four of the five other albums mentioned here also sound good to me. (I think they've all been mentioned on ILM before, too, but they were new to me.)

And here's another list of Thai albums, but all but one of the songs I clicked didn't sound so hot:

http://www.cnngo.com/bangkok/play/10-bands-made-thai-music-cool-noughties-562161

x-post

Both Xgau & Jody Rosen list that Brad Paisley song "Then" (Xgau for decade, Rosen for '09) which was pretty much the worst song on the album.

I used to like to criticize Christgau back when he was still the "Poobah." But people, come on, the man lost his main gig and is 68 years old, give him a break! How many people do you know over 65 who listens to new music they can't find at Walmart, or even listens to anything from the past 30 years? Do any of you twentysomething fucks really think your tastes will be even remotely relevant in 2040??

I wish I were twentysomething.

Chill. I was just observing that two prominent critics who like Brad Paisley (this is more about Rosen, who spent much of a Slate podcast drooling over him) picked what I see as his lamest single for their lists.

I was responding to those talking specifically about our ex-Dean. And yes, I know there's some geezers on here pushing 50.

Or perhaps it's best you not attempt it.

very ducasse, this, also very silly.

Do any of you twentysomething fucks really think your tastes will be are even remotely relevant in 2040 now??

I like the Brad Paisley album, too, btw. (Enough to give it P&J 5 points, 10th place.) Don't like "Then" much, though.

Actually, that's not fair -- there are a few twentysomethings whose writing about music is as interesting as Xgau's these days. I don't want to be ageist, just because I'm pushing 50 myself. Just don't see how his list is any more clueless than most other ones on this thread.

it's christmas, so merry christmas

<3 u all

the only album on xgau's list that i would listen to now is the go-betweens one. cuz i love that one about the surfing magazines. i don't care how old he is its a pretty boring list. to me. obviously. i'm sure there are plenty of people who still jam out to stankonia or love and theft at the gym whilst doing their cardio workouts or during a power walk thru the park.

The Dean has turned me on to more good music than any other person on planet Earth. Anybody who tools on him is a douche, objectively.

Scott, you might like that Brad Paisley album if you heard it! I know you have liked songs by him before. I've never loved his stuff before, but that's a really good album. Those Gogol Bordello ones are good too -- Not Top-20-of-Decade good, for me anyway (neither is Paisley), but still good. So are a few other ones he named. And like I said, it's not like anybody else's best-of-decade lists are inspiring me much, either. Plus my tastes haven't aligned with Xgau's for the past quarter-century. (I never even liked the Go-Betweens! And he totally picks the wrong Drive By Truckers album! I don't know if I've ever head Wussy; what do they sound like???) But if everybody else gets to make boring lists, he should be able to, too. Anyway, Merry Xmas to you and yours!!

Wussy is the guy from the Ass Pony's new band. He and his girlfriend share vocals. They're pretty heavy alternative rock, much less rootsy than the Ass Ponys. Some of their best songs are Shunt, Rigor Mortis and Airborn, all easy to hear online.

merry austin xmas to you too! and yours!

i can't remember xgau ever turning me on to anything, to be honest. he hates soooooo much stuff that i dig. and i've never been that big on the stuff he loves. AND i realize that LOTS of people like a lot of those records a bunch. that's fine. still pretty boring though. i like oddball lists. what can i say, i'm an oddball. i'm not hating on the guy. he's still one of the only people writing about music that i can read with (some) interest who differs so totally from me and my tastes. (mostly cuz i think he's a good writer.)

he is sorta one of those opposite critics for me. if he hates it, i'm interested. if he loves it, i'm not all that interested.

but also, admit it scott, he is an oddball too!! (just a different kind of oddball.)

he's kind of a crank. does crank equal oddball? as far as what he likes, he's in line with a lot of other trad/boring critics, isn't he? putting two wussy albums on your list is like putting two hold steady or two paul westerberg albums on your list. the only people who ever listened to ass ponys were rock critics and the long-suffering women who loved(tolerated) them.

it's BECAUSE he listens to so much music that i wish his lists/likes were a little more left field. not saying he doesn't champion stuff that nobody knows about... i dunno, after all this time and after a zillion records listened to and the moldy peaches album is one of the greatest recordings of the decade? okay, he's an oddball. he's perverse anyway.