Top 10 Albums of the 2000s for Urban White Males With Incredible Taste

By Jonathan Ripp

Monday, 27 July 2009 17:15

Jonathan: Since the turn of the millennium, the music industry has only rivaled the publishing industry and NL All-Star teams in terms of overall success. Every artist is putting out incredible, classic material that is raking them in billions of dollars while never having to sell out to corporate sponsorship in any way. Really, this decade took the 1960s behind the woodshed and blew it's brains out because the music this decade was THAT smart (or violently dumb, take your pick).

To commemorate this decade in music, "Mind Grapes" is getting the band back together to figure out the top 10 albums of the decade. Why did we pick these albums? We figured out what Pitchfork really liked and then threw in one rap album. Sorta. Mostly it's just we are both phenomenal humans and are really good at putting down other people's taste.

Dan: That's a crapload of youtube links, Jonathan. Don't let Wilco off the hook, though.

#10 - Liars "Drums Not Dead" 2006 (Dan's Pick)

Dan: I've been listening to this record for three years now and I love it just as much every time. It's dark, it's brooding, it's challenging, it's intimidating, its downright scary at times. It's also an absolute masterpiece. A complete departure from Liars' previous dance-punk sounds, "Drum's Not Dead" is a concept album that tells the band's story of their own struggles with originality, creative ruts, and safe choices. After scrapping an entire release's worth of recorded material, Liars emerged from the studio with "Drum's Not Dead" and three film versions of the record, directed by the band. The highlights bookend the rest of the album: the opening "Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack" sets the tone for the record with pounding drums and Angus Andrew's howling vocals, and closer "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack" ends the album on a triumphant note. Don't worry, concept-album-phobes, not every track is titled that way, so don't have a Mt. Heart Attack (JOKES!).

Am I allowed to do that?

Jonathan: We can do whatever you like. This is one of those records everyone talks about (and by talks I mean people on the Internet typing and me reading) that I try to love but can't. I like it, I'm partial to all the Mt. Heart Attack songs and if I lived in a canyon or a mountaintop, this would be a great atmospheric record to enjoy.

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#9 - Wolf Parade "Apologies to the Queen Mary" 2005 (Dan's Pick)

Dan: It sometimes gets lost in all the side projects, collaborations, former projects, members leaving crappy VH1-ish bands to join, being Canadian, etc, but Wolf Parade's debut is a damn good album. The record is united by a tug-of-war dynamic between dual frontmen Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug, with Boeckner's ripping guitar tunes packing a counterpunch to Krug's more warbly, drawn-out songwriting. Because of this tension provided by the dueling singers, the album remains strong throughout. The high-water mark comes at Track 7, with Boeckner's roaring "Shine A Light," which Krug somehow tops immediately with the fantastic "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts" and "I'll Believe In Anything."

Jonathan: Whoa, that sounded like a really legit review. Well done! The thing in retrospect that bugs me about this record is how come none of their side projects come remotely close to how great this record is? Half of this album if fantastic, the other half is great while anything else they touch has one or two good songs and that's about it. They aren't Jamaican, they don't need seven jobs, so just hunker down Canadians and put out one great record every two years.

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#8 - Modest Mouse "The Moon & Antarctica" 2000 (Dan's Pick)

Dan: So we're only two albums in and I'm running out of adjectives. Awesome. (Crap, I probably needed that one.) If you're familiar with this album, you'll know why it deserves inclusion on this list, and if you're not, then wtf is wrong with you? Go buy this record. This album has all the Modest Mouse trademarks (jangly guitars, Isaac Brock's unique songwriting talents) and it sees them tighten their songwriting after 1997's sprawling "Lonesome Crowded West." Also I'm pretty sure "Gravity Rides Everything" was in a Mercury commercial, but there's no proof on youtube or wikipedia, and those are pretty much always right.

Jonathan: Is this the one that has "Float On" on it? I liked that song! I'm not terribly familiar with Modest Mouse, I listened to this album a few times and I can see why people like it but I don't see 9.8 greatness.

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#7 - RJD2 "Dead Ringer" 2002 (Jonathan's Pick)

Jonathan: Instrumental hip-hop is dull. If there isn't a guy rapping about money, drugs, and/or asses over it, I don't want nothing to do with it. Howeva, this is the exception. What RJD2 has done here is create songs that aren't repetitive, but evolve and adapt throughout the course of their three to five minute existence. What starts off eerie and scary ("The Horror") turns out to be a cheesy slasher flick by the end. What begins as a soundtrack to a guy whistling to himself walking down the street ("Here's What's Left") turns into a soulful song about loneliness. It's easy to call a lot of the tracks "cinematic" but that's because he so expertly pushes your thoughts to imagine various scenes with the sounds he's created.

Dan: I have never listened to this album. I'm not saying that as a knock, because I'd probably like it (I love "Endtroducing..."!).

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#6 - The Walkmen "Bows & Arrows" 2004 (Dan and Jonathan's Pick)

Jonathan: While most of the other albums on this list are consistent throughout, here's one that isn't but the highs are so incredibly high, it overcomes the flaws. "The Rat" and "Little Savages" are two of the best rock songs of this decade. The rest of the album has a lot of solid to great songs but in comparison to these two, it's like listening to 10 Black Eyed Peas songs and then two Lady Gaga songs (chad crew understands). It also has the greatest mopey "I've just been dumped" lyric in history of mopey "I've just been dumped" lyrics, "When I used to go out I'd know everyone I saw / Now I go out alone, if I go out at all." Another thing I like about this album is it just feels like a rock n roll record, I hate the labels put on everything, that this record sounds indie or it's midwest swing emo-hop but this just sounds like a rock band making a rock album.

Dan: We're doing top 10 midwest swing emo-hop records of the decade next, right? "The Rat" is incredible rock song, one of my favorites ever, and it's an absolute travesty that there isn't a quality version of it on youtube because nobody clicks Dailymotion links, let's be honest. While the rest of the album is more atmospheric and slower-paced, that doesn't mean it isn't good; it's just easiest to remember two of the best singles of the decade. Another great track is "Thinking of a Dream I Had," it would be a mistake if we slept (har!) on that. Also I'm gonna pick two bones with you on the thing about the lyrics of "The Rat:"

1.) "You've got a nerve to be asking a favor, you've got a nerve to be calling my number" is a better line from the same song.

2.) I don't even think of them as mopey "I've just been dumped" lyrics, I think they're more f***-this-s*** "I've just been dumped" lyrics. Closer to Dylan's "Don't Twice, It's Alright" than like, Dashboard Confessional or something.

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#5 - Interpol "Turn on the Bright Lights" 2002 (Dan and Jonathan's Pick)

Jonathan: I didn't listen to much rock music in the 90s, I probably missed out on a lot but I just LOVE black music too much. It's da bomb. But this and "Is This It?" were the records that got me into rock music. While Paul Banks is a clear derivative of Ian Curtis, there's a twinge of Kurt Cobain in there (I'm a Nirvana fan, sue me) that initially grabbed me. What made me a big fan was the music seems intimate yet expansive at the same time, like they're playing at a small club but the songs fill up the whole space. Continuing analogies that kind of make sense, there's a melancholy to the whole record but it still remains upbeat, you still find yourself smiling and tapping your foot even during heart warming lyrics like, "But it's different now that I'm poor and aging / I'll never see this place again / You'll go stabbing, yourself in, the neck."

Dan: Don't beat yourself up, both of those analogies make 100% percent perfectly vague sorta sense. This record is fantastic start-to-finish, and "NYC" is absolutely in the running for best song of the decade. Speaking of loving Ian Curtis, is it bad that I'm kind of obsessed with him and also David Foster Wallace? Like three weeks from now you're gonna wake up and see my name as the guy who threw himself in front of a train at Metro Center, pissing off all of dcist.com (and CharlieHorse).

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#4 - Jay-Z "The Black Album" 2003 (Jonathan's Pick)

Jonathan: I can't tell if I outgrew rap music or it started to suck (probably emphasis on the latter cause I'm not mature). What I like about Jay-Z is his flexibility, he can do songs with authenticity most rappers cannot, he can rap about being rich (he is), getting girls (he got Beyonce), selling drugs (allegedly!), family issues (he has a Mommy), and so forth because unlike 99% of rappers, he's actually lived that life. What makes this album more ambitious than his others is the Kanye West (before he was Kanyeezy), Just Blaze, The Neptunes, plus a few unknowns make this album sound like it was from another era, not in a throwback sense, but that it wasn't trying to sound like anything out at the time, which is what most rap albums fail to do nowadays.

Dan: I'm just not really into rap. You have to mix this with Beatles songs to get me to listen to it. That's not racist, right? I love music by black people -- Howlin Wolf, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Muddy Waters, TV on the Radio, etc, I just don't really like the music that black people these days listen to. Holy ****, why am I still typing?

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#3 - Radiohead "Kid A" 2000 (Dan's Pick but Jonathan Strongly Cosigns)

Dan: Radiohead reviews always makes people write things like "post-postmodern vantage point" and "hermetic electronics and art-pop frost" and "the harrowing sounds...emanate with inhuman genesis." So yeah, all those things. Plus it's really, really awesome. The album's true triumph might be that the incredible material -- all the tracks are beloved, but "Optimistic," "Everything In Its Right Place" and "The National Anthem" are personal favorites -- which seems so unreal manages to not only stand up to being played live but also become somehow improved; the bootlegs from this era and the released "I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings" preserve densely layered studio tracks becoming explosive performances.

Jonathan: I too love record reviews for Radiohead because it seems to force writers to throw together obtuse adjectives with a random noun to create some phrase that makes no sense. I think "Kid A" is a gilded laminous fatuous centaur. I only know what two of those words mean and I think I spelled the three of the words wrong. I was still relatively young (52 years old, my knees still worked back then) when this album came out and it was the first album that showed me what music could be; every other album I had bought until that point I could see where it came from on the evolutionary scale of music but this one didn't sound like anything out at the time or anything in the past.

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#2 - Girl Talk "Night Ripper" 2006 (Jonathan's Pick)

Jonathan: It's frustrating that the most original "hip-hop" record of the decade is actually created by some white guy from Pittsburgh. Brief history lesson, hip-hop began when Kool Herc would "loop" certain sections of songs to repeat itself and placing the original song in a new context by having someone "rap" over it. Essentially, this is the 2000's version of that but instead of black kids in The Bronx dancing, it's hipsters in ill fitting clothes sweating cause they did too much blow. Neat. The album is immense, it flows easily from one song to the next and you can't play it in front of someone without them going, "what is this?" either in a happy way or I-just-found-out-they-don't-like-rap-kinda-of-way. I may have overdone the dashes there.

Dan: Hipsters love this record because of that one part with Neutral Milk Hotel in it. Trust me, I know -- that's why I like it too.

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1. Arcade Fire "Funeral" 2004 (Dan and Jonathan's Pick)

Dan: Ultimately, this record holds up as the best and most important of the decade. It encapsulates everything important from this decade's rock n roll music: internet hype, internet backlash, Canadians, really tall hipsters, earnestly emotional lyrics. Everyone knows the back-story of this album by now; kid from Texas meets art-school Canadian chick, they fall in love, all their family members die, they release a timeless album. It's a fairly universal narrative. Win Butler's full-body emoting can be legitimately met with a sarcastic eye-roll when the songwriting is not as a strong (see "Neon Bible," the follow-up to "Funeral"); but here the tracks are just too damn good. Pretty much all ten of the songs have been at one point or another my favorite off the record (except "Kettles," blah); "Tunnels #3 (Power Out)" and the foot-stomping "Wake Up" are the most memorable cuts. It's unlikely that Arcade Fire ever tops this release, but it should be fun watching them try, even as this stands up as the defining album of the era.

Jonathan: I was really tempted to erase Dan: and put Jonathan: for the above paragraph because you stated perfectly why this is the album of the decade. We've become aware of marketing and the machines that try to push "THENEXTBIGTHING!" on us and they never cease to underwhelm, except for this album. Somehow Arcade Fire takes a usual rock subject, death, and blends it exquisitely with another popular subject, the transition in adulthood (not "I just turned 21 let's do shots!" adulthood but "Oh my God, this is what real life is like?" adulthood) to create the most mature (:noporn) album of the decade.

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Honorable Mention

Broken Social Scene "You Forgot It In People"
Cage "Hell's Winter"
Common "Be"
The Futureheads "The Futureheads"
Lil Wayne "Dedication 2"
The National "Boxer"
The Strokes "Is This It?"
Tapes N Tapes "The Loon"
TV on the Radio "Young Liars" (EP)
White Stripes "De Stijl"
Tom Waits "Real Gone"
Kanye West "Late Registration"
Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"

Terrible Mention

Every Record You Really Really Liked