Top Ten Albums of the Decade

December 19 2009, 8:59pm

Given that I haven’t posted here in about a month (hard at work on top secret projects elsewhere), and given that I’ve not much IQ in storage today (a general disposition that occurs at the end of every semester—no more brain stuffing, thanks!), I’ve decided to engage in the writing equivalent of eating candy—making a list of things I like and explaining why I like them. So maybe, let’s not call this the “top ten” albums of the decade—that sort of jive is for audiophiles more informed than me. This will no doubt be a more idiosyncratic list than you’ll find on music sites like Pitchfork because I’m not trying to be comprehensive, nor objective. Consider this more a personal reminisce on music that I found and liked a lot in the last ten years.

The truth be told is that iTunes has turned me into a singles purchaser. I have a lot of collections of one to four songs from bands whom I appreciate (iTunes says I have 734 artists in my collection—a bit of an overestimation, but it’s in the neighborhood), but who didn’t convince me that I wanted to hear everything that they were writing. So, if I own a whole album of material, it’s generally because I can’t get enough of what the band is doing, or because the album itself is representative of a work of art in its own right. That does not happen often—that a band/musician can create a group of songs that have such coherence that I prefer the album to any one song. I generally consider it a sign of real artistic genius.

I did consult some other peoples’ lists to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, but for the most part I clicked on “Top 200 Most Played” in iTunes. There probably is no greater measure of love (in my mind) than that I listen to something a lot. So without further ado: My Top Ten Awesome Finds of Albums for 2000-2009 (see that wasn’t nearly as catchy a title). Also, these are all listed in chronological order rather than some subjective “best” order, and the links all lead to iTunes.

Behind the Sun (2000) Chicane

It’s amusing that this album is first in the collection. It simultaneously deserves a place at number 1 for its effect on my psyche, but also because—as you’ll see—many other albums on this list have a pretty specific historical context. This album really does not. I remember hearing Chicane for the first time at a French coffee shop in DUMBO1, Brooklyn when I lived there. I was enchanted enough by the one song to ask about it, but other than that, this album has remained timeless in my mind. It does less to remind me of anything than it simply transports me to an otherworldly place. I often find myself getting it out when it’s time to depart from this corporeal existence for a while and dream about possibilities. It works equally well as background music for creative endeavors as well as sound to meditate on and lose yourself to. And the entire album accomplishes this! That is no mean feat. In short, ethereal, heavenly, hopeful; listen to this ablum from beginning to end and you will feel warm and fuzzy.

Oh Inverted World (2001), The Shins

From the very opening track this album presented itself as something new and weird. For me, listening to this album was akin to hearing Doolittle for the first time in that it was an awakening to possibilities; a reminder that rock ‘n’ roll can re-invent itself in wildly surprising ways. It’s arrival was weirdly appropriate, too. I first ran into it in the summer of 2001 which was a really good time in my life, but obviously soon to be overshadowed by horrific events. Even though the dotcom bust had occurred, optimism for our own endeavors and a reinvigoration of creative efforts still remained. This album helped with that. It’s insistence that it was something new—present even in the lyric “And i got on with making myself/The trick is just making yourself”—helped fuel the sense that more could be made of what we had. There was even a self-admitted geekiness to this album that I could just too easily relate to at the time.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002), Wilco

From happy and weird to melancholy and sad is the segue here. Considering the timing in retrospect, it makes a lot of sense. Even the cover of the album has two towers on it. There was no dodging regret or fear in 2002 (in New York City) and this album, despite its overarching melancholy, helped a lot. It’s not terribly surprising that I’ve not listened to this album a lot since then, as much as I love it. The sound of the songs is literally the sound of a coming apart, strings plucking, breaking, high-pitched asynchronous clangs. Jeff Tweedy’s voice is somber and often breaks in such a way that makes you think he’s been crying a lot. It’s funny though, sitting here now and listening to this album again with so much time past, it sounds more like a anthem to do something about the chaos than just mourn. In fact, I’m making the decision now to make sure that songs like “Kamera” and “War on War” come back into regular rotation. There’s a defiance in them I’d not heard until now. The album is melancholy still, but at least with an underlying determination to do something about it. Consider the hope in the lyrics “I myself have found a real rival in myself/I am hoping for a re-arrival of myself” (from “Pot Kettle Black”); definitely themes of rejuvenation here. And if anything, finding something new here in this album today is a testament to its timelessness. Great art, when re-visited, often has a new relevance to life.

A Strangely Isolated Place (2003), Ulrich Schnauss

Impressive. In the process of writing this little “puddle of nostalgia” I’ve been playing the albums I’ve been writing about, and frankly, just check out for the last 30 minutes. Much like Chicane’s album (mentioned above) this album contains that power to transport the listener to… well, just somewhere else. And as I’ve already stated, it doesn’t even when you don’t mean for it to! So, I suppose, unlike the Chicane album, which can serve as background music, if you want it to, A Strangely Isolated Place will not be ignored. Rather, it will lull you into a safe place and hold you there until it’s finished with you. An exquisite work that tops most “space music” albums by retaining some semblance of storyline (albeit abstract) in the keys it uses, the instrumentation, and the melodies. This album is just this side of abient music a la The Orb’s Orbus Terrarum which not only transports you somewhere but then proceeds to take your reality apart until a return path becomes difficult. A Strangely Isolated Place is not nearly so risky, but rather like standing underneath a waterfall for a while before getting back to business.

The Avalanche (2005) Sufjan Stevens

Honestly, Sufjan Stevens is so prolific that 99% of musicians should just be embarrassed. He just doesn’t stop making music and, oddly, where most prolific artists mine gems amongst the refuse, Sufjan finds gems in the most ridiculous of subjects. I mean, a song about supercomputers? John Wayne Gacy!? Who pulls that off? But the results are personal, touching, rushing and exceptional. And wait, there’s more! I’m not talking about the album that shows up in all the other lists you’ll see on the net! They’re going to tell you about Illinoise (and by the way, often leaving off the ‘e’—it’s a pun people). The Avalanche is the outtakes from Illinoise. It’s all the stuff (and there’s a lot) that he decided not to put on the album. Can I use italics more with this guy or what. He’s the exception to about every rule I can think of. I even had the good fortune to see the movie he produced just a few months back, and while he has not mastered the subtleties of volume with regard to composing for a symphony (hint: a symphony can get really loud!) he did compose something gorgeous; and it was something gorgeous about a road in Brooklyn. I mean, come on. That’s just too much talent for any one guy to have. He needs to sell some of that to those of us who spend Saturday afternoons writing about his albums. At any rate, I implore you to listen to “The Henney Buggy Band” and after you are completed jazzed by that jam, remind yourself: that was an outtake. Ridiculous. Perhaps, this position on the list should be labeled “The year I discovered Sufjan Stevens,” because it has less to do with any one particular album than the fact that I will be likely listening to him for the rest of my life.2

The Information (2006), Beck

There were two albums in particular that, for me, really addressed the arriving changes of the Information Revolution. We are at the end of the first decade of the 21st century and a lot of us are still looking at our iPhones and rather than asking about what features are next; in a state of futureshock we’re saying that “Is this really possible? Is anybody seeing this?” Most people aren’t, believe me. Conspicuous consumption has idiotized the majority of us. But both Beck and Radiohead saw it. Beck went surface with The Information and Radiohead went deep with In Rainbows. Both albums are excellent and I’ll address In Rainbows after a Feist intermission. To start with, regarding Beck, after years (6?) of not even bothering with CDs, I went out and found this one in the strange lands of something-like-Tower-records. Memory does not serve. Still, why buy an actual-made-of-atoms-disc? The answer should be obvious: stickers! In this weird archaic way, Beck made music (for a brief, mostly unnoticed moment) interactive again. All the baby-bombing and/or retro-hipsters complaining about their coveted cardboard envelopes totally missed the point here. Stickers! Design your own cover! Fun! What a bizarre metaphor in which to have the conversation about the digitization of everything (which Beck is wildly aware of, employing 8-bit remixes of his work) than making sure that your album cover is effectively an activity book? I felt like Beck was saying, “Yeah, baby, everyone is downloading; I just made you buy stickers.” And if he had said that, I would have said he was right, and I happily bought stickers, and also, take a note music industry: music comes in many forms, not all musical. Duh.

Other than that, I just don’t have the energy to go into how the lyrics of this whole album apply to the insanity of our current economy of attention. Trust me, Beck is hoping that we don’t have to continue down this destructive path; a path that includes recycling of the fame of D-list actors and actresses; where importance equals repetition of one’s name in the vast meaninglessness of the desert of the media. Phrases like “epileptic battery” and “If I could forget myself/Find another lie to tell/If I had a soul to sell/I’d buy some time/To talk to my brain cell.” The digital all-on, all-the-time world is upon us, and let’s hope that reality starts advertising.

The Reminder (2007), Feist

The whole album starts with the words “I’m sorry.” and how appropriate (perhaps only for me that this album is called The Reminder.) Yes, let’s return to the personal. And wasn’t that what caught fire in 2007 with the video “1234?” We’d been—I’d been—pretty immersed in doomsaying. The “1234″ video was such a revelation in color and fun and dance that Apple (the coolest company among companies3) took it on in their ads. I remember getting nauseous reading an issue of Wired that year. It was becoming more than ennui and relevance, it was becoming full-blown futureshock.4 The Zeitgeist owes a debt of thanks to Feist. Between her simple compositions, uplifted perspective, angelic voice and disregard for the world’s obsession with a non-existent “big-picture”, she simply has joy for what she does, and did something novel: she wrote songs about happiness. Think about your musical collection. How many songs are about love gone wrong, love demanded, love yearned for, jealousy, sadness, frustration, anger? Now, how many songs in your collection are about happiness and contentment? I’m not saying that the album represents this for Feist, or that this is what Feist is up to, but she did it. And that’s enough to pay attention to—especially considering the timing. Aside from all that, when I see Feist herself wailing on a guitar and singing about how she feels it all, I am one inclined to believe. In a nation (and a world?) of sexy women that throw themselves around onstage in ever more garish forms while singing about positively boring concepts like… uh boyfriends, so-called romance? At least Feist has something honest to say. She sings about family, awareness, children, long-term relationships, a desire for the most meaningful thing she can find. That Lady Gaga’s latest BS about wanting sex in front of a camera ends up in the decade’s best charts is an insult to artists everywhere who are trying to speak to “The truth lies/and lies divide,” which Feist has already stated. They are trapped in the moment the way that a teenager has no knowledge of getting older, while Feist sings about an honest maturity that is not only real but available.

In Rainbows (2007), Radiohead

Now we come to the most existential album of the decade, and before I begin this particular review, I will encourage you to remember the fact that light; perhaps one of the most basic forms of physical sensation in our universe paid attention to, can be broken and shown through a prism to be made of many frequencies of light. When you engage the internet, you should know that your words and meanings are being transformed into light along the internet’s backbone, an optical fiber (which means light, dummies) and only then can individual’s This is where the concept of “In Rainbows” comes from. You are caught in it, whether you like it or not. Cell Phone? Texting? Email? If your communication travels along some line to someone you know, it is made into light—raced around the world then—the sincerity of that light versus speaking to someone, to their face, has made all the difference to our generation. Speaking in person matters far more than using this system of lights we have made. It s easy to criticize and damn those whom you can see from some distance away.

In Rainbows asks an existential question. You are transmitted through light; often; cameras. Does your meaning as a human being matter more when you are transmitted more? How do you “outvote” those aside you? Are you outrageous and so paid attention to? But who trusts you? When you are transmitted often you are indeed watched; but also for example; a cautionary tale; What in the digital world can hold you accountable? Why should it?

The recording of it is the best fact that we have. You must be proud or embarrassed

This is not enough to define an ethic..

The whole of the universe will dispose itself to the fact that all molecules and atoms will succumb to the end of the universe.

This is known as entropy. Fame Has nothing to do with it.

Viva La Vida (2008), Coldplay

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (2008), David Byrne + Brian Eno

Fantasies (2009), Metric

The Crow (2009) Steven Martin

Honorable Mentions

Vampire Weekend (2008) Vampire Weekend

This album was new and fun. Unfortuantely, it didn’t hold any real personal revelations as a work of art like aforementioned albums, other than to remind one to occasionally cut loose and don’t care what other people think.

For non-natives, DUMBO stands for Down Underneath the Manhattan Brooklyn Overpass—very nice part of Brooklyn, if you ask me. Nicer still, I’ve heard, since I left. ↩

I say likely because geniuses go crazy and this guy is a genius. I mean, this is an artist that has said he intends to write an album for every state of the US. If that’s not crazy… ↩

I know companies, corporations aren’t cool, dummy. It’s a sliding scale. Coolest amongst the not-so-cool, okay? ↩

Could it be more ironic than that the man who coined this term, “futureshock,” did so preciently enough to keep his word out of wikipedia!? I mean, all the references from artists and musicians are there but the actual definition page is missing. Strange (for now). ↩