Throughout the eleven tracks, the band spins tales of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, with Julian Casablancas slightly dry, but powerful vocals and jangly, driving guitar work from Albert Hammond, Jr. and Nick Valensi. The Strokes managed to help us forget all the nu-metal, boy bands and bland corporate rock that had been dominating the airwaves ushering in a new age of music that had every A&R guy scouring the LES of Manhattan and Brooklyn for the next “The” band – making this one of the most important albums of the decade.
Scott Bernstein: Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
As much as I’d like to give the nod to Crowded House’s Time On Earth, I can’t deny Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot from taking the best album of the ’00s crown. The fact that Wilco – a band that switches up set lists every night – still plays a number of YHF songs on a nightly basis is a testament to the power and beauty of that album.
Perhaps all the squabbling between Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett helped create a masterpiece in the same way that Fleetwood Mac’s issues led to Rumors’ epicness. All I know is that I hope the Reprise record exec who thought the album wasn’t commercial enough is working at McDonald’s now. Hippies and hipsters have loathed each other’s music for decades but they’ve come together to throw heaps of praise on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the best album of the decade.
Shane Handler: Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Although Wilco has taken slack for its recent binge of pleasantness and growing up, their first coming out party almost didn’t happen. But thanks to Nonesuch Records – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was born. Hailed first as a novel pop sonic experiment, most everybody already knows the story about the album after the release (save me the typing effort and watch Sam Jones’ I’m Trying To Break Your Heart) if you haven’t already.
Yes, the recording was cinema drama in itself, but that turmoil created a record of pure genius, one that has lamely been described as the American OK Computer; or perhaps In Rainbows later became the British Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. From the Motown grooves of Jesus, Etc.; the sunny pop of Heavy Metal Drummer; the swirling noises of Reservations; the sonic rumblings of Radio Cure; to the rock steady tempo of Pot Kettle Black and War on War – YHF flows from beginning to end and never grows old.
Ryan Dembinsky: RHCP – Stadium Arcadium
When it comes time to pick something like the best album of some particular periodicity, I usually prefer the objective approach. This means brushing aside any biases toward artsy thematics, lyrical swerve, or of course hype, in favor of a simpler metric, the one I listened to the most over said period.
After mulling it over I’m declaring mine a tie between the Red Hot Chili Peppers Stadium Arcadium and the National’s Boxer. Stadium Arcadium is a genre-fused double disc of no less than twenty amazing songs that just gets better over time and it is cool as hell to see a band can put out arguably their best stuff well over twenty years after forming.
The second, Boxer, is an introspective beauty that doesn’t contain a bad song and is so easy to latch onto as the sort of soundtrack for a period in your life. For me, this album will always remind me of the period surrounding the time I got married, so it always brings to mind great memories.
Jennifer Kirk: The Postal Service – Give Up
My favorite album of the decade is Give Up by The Postal Service. From the opening segment of The District Sleeps Alone through the end of Natural Anthem the album flows like no other album has before, in my mind at least. I recommend listening to this album with really good headphones, while working out, or while driving in your car – especially at night. It’s the one single album I have that I’ve never, ever gotten sick of listening to. It’s helped me through good times and the bad times since it’s release in 2003.
I recall hearing The District Sleeps Alone Tonight for the first time on college radio and I believe it had a direct impact on me eventually joining the same station as a DJ the following year. The story of how the album was recorded (Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard sending music, lyrics and melodies back and forth through the U.S. Postal Service and eventually the cease and desist order from the USPS to change the band’s name) – really intrigued me. he lyrics are nothing to frown up either. Sleeping In recognizes the problem we have with global warming and our choices to ignore it and make excuses as to how we can take advantage of the problem we created:
Again last night I had that strange dream
Where everything was exactly how it seemed
Where concerns about the world getting warmer
The people thought they were just being rewarded
For treating others as they’d like to be treated
For obeying stop signs and curing diseases
For mailing letters with the address of the sender
Now we can swim any day in November
It’s our way (as humans) of making a problem a solution in the worst way. Nothing Better is the perfect call and response of a bad break up that I’m sure many people can relate to. For example:
Tell me am I right to think that there could be nothing better,
Than making you my bride and slowly growing old together
Her response:
Don’t you feed me lines about some idealistic future
Your heart won’t heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures
As you can see those lyrics tear at the heart strings, quite literally. Each one of these songs are crafted to spark the imagination, the heart, the mind, the soul — and that my friends, is why this is the best album of the double 0’s.
Chad Berndtson: My Morning Jacket – It Still Moves
First of all, whoa there, partner. A decade down? Already? Didn’t we just do that friggin’ Y2K thing and start getting a handle on a new decade’s worth of rock ‘n’ roll? How fast it rolls by. I tend to look at musical decades in terms of bodies of work as much as I do individual albums. Who were the essentials? Who created the decade’s essential documents and offered both a career narrative and musical arc against which other bands or artists should be stacked?
Where to start, where to start. Well, to these ears, The Black Keys have never released a bad album — they have at least three I’d consider essential — and Radiohead’s legacy has to be reckoned with, with Kid A and Hail to the Thief the stand-outs. TV On the Radio is the most adventurous rock band in the game right now, deserving of every droplet of praise. And the White Stripes, while uneven, have highs too fiery and exciting too ignore – something you could also say about Beck, the Flaming Lips, Gogol Bordello and (we’ll need one more album to judge ’em properly) Arctic Monkeys. Hell, look at what Bob Dylan’s accomplished, or Springsteen, or U2 – all overrated this decade, but when they’re on, extraordinary. Closer to the indie/jamband idiom, my old buddies The Slip keep getting interesting, and interestingly weird; 2006’s Eisenhower continues to move me.
Who’s made a splash this decade who’ll be dominant in the next? White Denim and Lucero are two I’ll be keeping an eye on. And I’ll forgo diving too deep into the more esoteric pools of hip-hop or jazz, despite all the crossover and despite the fact that there’s a strong argument for calling Jay-Z’s The Blueprint the decade’s finest album, or dredging the river and finding OutKast (Stankonia and Speakerboxx/The Love Below weren’t that long ago) coming up all aces.
But this is an exercise in exclusivity, and I’ll single out three artists in particular. First, the Drive-By Truckers are a band I’ll see and listen to over just about any other, and 2008’s Brighter Than Creation’s Dark might be their peak, Jason Isbell-abetted or not. Second, the Secret Machines’ 2005 album Now Here Is Nowhere still shakes me to my core, with that mix of Pink Floyd psychedelia, industrial-strength Zeppelin stomp and blistering rock abandon. It’s a masterpiece, and what came after it – before and after the lineup changes – is limp by comparison.
But I will give it up, ultimately, to My Morning Jacket, who despite the nearly-as-good triumph of 2005’s Z and 2008’s impressively adventurous Evil Urges, hooked me forever with 2003’s It Still Moves. Still such a wondrous listen and still the single album from 2000-2009 I bring with me to that Greil Marcus-approved desert island.
Do you agree or disagree with all of our choices over the last two weeks? What’s your favorite album from the last ten years? Leave your thoughts in the comment section.
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Malkmus…anyone?