Best of the Aughts: Albums

MUSIC LIST

by Slant Staff on February 1, 2010 Jump to Comments (13) or Add Your Own

40. Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III. After a spectacular run of mixtape and guest-spot home runs over the course of 2007 and 2008, Lil Wayne would have been forgiven for releasing a cash-in collection of radio-ready hits. Instead, Tha Carter III managed to be both bankable ("Lollipop," "Mrs. Officer," "Got Money") and terrifically weird. The conceptual rigor of "Dr. Carter" and potent social protest on "Tie May Hands" proved that Wayne's lyrical powers extended beyond punchlines. And word-spewing shoot-'em-ups like "A Milli" and "Nothin on Me" confirm Wayne's place in the pantheon of rap's greatest wordsmiths. WM

39. Madvillain, Madvillainy. Rumors of the ganja-flavored hip-hop super-duo Madvillain had the Internet buzzing for a year before the group, featuring red-eyed rapper MF Doom and jazzy producer Madlib, released its debut. When the thing came out, it was appropriately hailed as weed vision of bizzaro profundity and loopy madness: "Psycho, his flow is drowned in Lowry seasoning/With micropower he's sound and right reasoning." The fact that these dudes have been too disorganized and/or lazy to put together a follow-up only solidifies the album's position as the undisputed pinnacle of aughts underground rap. WM

38. Madonna, Confessions on a Dance Floor. Confessions on a Dance Floor could've just as easily been called Ghost of Madonnas Past: at once a thumping tribute to the restorative power of dance music (this was the workout album of the decade if there was one) and a treatise on the singer's own fame ("I spent my whole life wanting to be talked about"), in which all her musical tics headily come to fore (singing in foreign languages? Check. Faux-tribalistic hymn? Check.). References to the past are everywhere, from the ABBA sample of "Hung Up" to her silly love letter to the city where she got her start, "I Love New York," but Madonna has always been a thoroughly postmodern pop artist, and as such, songs like "Hung Up," Sorry," and "Forbidden Love" aren't so much throwbacks as updates of the disco sound to which she's indebted. PS

37. Broken Social Scene, You Forgot It in People. Listening to this record, the fact that Broken Social Scene operated as a fairly loose collective rather than as a band in the conventional sense isn't exactly a surprise. The decade's warmest-hearted indie-rock record ranges from strength to strength like a pot-luck where everyone slaved over their contributions and included all their most special spices. Full of big, fuzzy rockers ("Almost Crimes," "Cause = Time") and queered, tender sympathies ("Anthems for a Seventeen Year," "Lovers' Spit"), everything's anchored by the wry basslines of Brendan Canning, the founder of the feast. It's many great tastes that taste great together. DH

36. No Doubt, Rock Steady. The Stephen Sprouse-inspired graffiti cover art suggests punk, but Rock Steady is soaked in the sunny sounds of pop (the album was, fittingly, recorded in Jamaica). From the moment you hear Gwen Stefani panting on "Hella Good," it's clear the band has ditched the indie-rock pretense that made Stefani the pinup dream of every liberal-arts undergrad in America. "Hey Baby" incorporates dancehall, while "Making Out" is driven by a propulsive '80s synth beat. Stefani reportedly wrote lyrics on the spot, and the result is a freeform and playful, drunk-on-Red-Stripe-and-pool-water party album. PS

35. Santogold, Santogold. Even if Santogold's self-titled debut was all too evidently the calculated effort of a music industry vet (and a team of A-list producers like Diplo and Switch), and those M.I.A. comparisons were dangerously close to being spot-on, it was still hard not to get down to this mixture of hip-hop, pop, and indie rock. Santi White coos and purrs like a hipster chanteuse, and her army of smoky synths, angular guitars, and pulsating drum beats catapult her nine-to-five songcraft to the realm of timelessness. WM

34. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell. It's too bad "Maps" was so good. The single's popularity made the transition to It's Blitz!'s mannered East Village post-punk mimickry almost inevitable. Gone is the spontaneity of the band's noisy, rough-around-the-edges debut album. The guitars screech, and the energy is concentrated in shorter songs like "Tick" and "Pin," in which Karen O barks nonsense into the microphone like an avant-garde Japanese punker. That kind of vitality is exactly what's missing from most of today's garage bands. PS

33. Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights. Much of the appeal of Interpol's calculatedly gloomy debut is encapsulated in its second track, "Obstacle 1." First, and really foremost, the rhythm section: lithe and insectile, hiding sledgehammers behind their backs, Sam Fogarino and Carlos D dance around each other, tossing off little catchy fills and drops like it's cake. Then, of course, the guitars, skyscraping and dressed all in gray, and Paul Banks, with his Ian Curtis impression and cheaply mocked, brilliantly vivid lyrics. For every "Her stories are boring and stuff, she's always calling my bluff," there's a gem like "She puts the weights into my little heart." If there was a record better suited for well-staged suicides during the aughts, it wasn't as good. DH

32. The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Some people claim that Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is a concept album. You probably have to ingest a fistful of acid to follow the storyline, so it's easier to appreciate this album by Oklahomas's trippiest natives as an unrivaled psychedelic-pop masterpiece. Even if it has appeared on more television commercials than Billy Mays, the idealist paean "Do You Realize" is still a stunning bit of big-hearted rock balladry. See also the Cat Stevens-aping "Fight Test" and the disco-on-quaaludes "Are You a Hypnotist" for instances of irresistibility. WM

31. Madonna, Music. Though Madonna would collaborate with William Orbit on three tracks on her follow-up to Ray of Light, the album otherwise represented a seismic shift from its predecessor's warm-and-gooey spirituality (a Book of Revelation to many fans, anathema to others). Mirwais's defiantly experimental, Eurotrashy, wholly artificial production—awash in Auto-Tune and Nintendo beats—was bound to disappoint some, but no one does ersatz like Madonna, and fittingly, this is also one of her most soul-bearing works, from the feminist "What It Feels Like for a Girl," to the Toni Morrison-alluding "Paradise (Not for Me), to "Nobody's Perfect," a slow burn that's never less than affecting. PS

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Comments

JRHG1 on February 4, 2010, 01:56 PM

Nice to see Music also on the list. It received decent acclaim on year-end lists for 2000, but has not fared as well on decade-end features. Good on Slant for remembering it. Music took things a step forward from the sound of Ray of Light, but American Life was kinda samey to Music, which is why (in part) it suffered (the material, in general, also wasn't as strong). Confessions on a Dance Floor was a nice return to form, but then she didn't quite deliver as Madonna should with Hard Candy. Going by the trend of the last four albums (in terms of quality), the next one should be a doozy. :) (hopefully)

adamant_cocoon on February 5, 2010, 08:41 AM

It was wise of you guys to place Vespertine 3rd on the list (I largely prefer it to Kid A, in that Bjork chronicles saintly amour and quiet ecstasy so beauteously); you almost got me there. I still think valleys abound in your decade-in-retrospect, which are nonetheless redeemed by 30 truly fantastic albums. Haphazard choices fare worse (No Doubt? Higher than...well, most of the list and dozens of better prospects?!!) and I'd wish Kala trumped Arular even on your watch.

FattTony on February 5, 2010, 09:50 PM

Well, this is admittedly a decent list (I should stress that I only own 18 of these albums at present, and 5 others I listened to but did not feel the need to either buy or keep, though I may now buy Kala from my local second-hand dealer, and give a second listen to others I had ignored or dismissed); I'm grateful to the compilers/reviewers for alerting me to various artists whose talents I was unaware of or unfamiliar with—though I tend to agree with 'adamant' that Rock Steady has been slightly overrated, and I'm prepared to state under oath that I believe Since I Left You to be INSANELY overrated, and that In Ghost Colours would have been INFINITELY more deserving of a place on this list—but good job overall, gang; you do a fine service for us music fans who don't have time for everything but don't want to let the best slip through our radar!

P.S. Sorry Mr. Keefe, but regardless of opinion, you should at least get your facts straight; namely, that The Disconnection did NOT get Christgau's 'dud' rating; if you actually examine his Consumer Guide with a bit of care, you'll see that he listed it as an Honourable Mention, and that he wrote an informative three-star-out-of-five review for Rolling Stone; rather than 'dismissing' the album with a single throwaway line, he was summarising his feelings about the music in the manner in which he does with every other Honourable Mention...by all means disagree with him, and you make good points about his wordplay and choice of comparisons (I love and admire him but he can be an annoying son-of-a-gun!) but how about trying to avoid making outright mistakes in your writing? (because it's otherwise pretty good!)

Jonathan Keefe on February 6, 2010, 12:24 AM

Making a list of this sort is an exercise in collective memory. In this case, I was so certain that I remembered that "dud" rating from Xgau's Village Voice "Consumer Guide" column that it didn't even occur to me to review his archives. Though the blurb in question has been amended, now this comment thread and Google cache will preserve our memories of that error. Super.

Carrie on February 6, 2010, 08:14 AM

I really liked this list!! But i thought that it was missing two albums. The first is Neko Case's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, what happened guys? After that mind blowing review, 4.5 stars and such a masterpiece, the best of her career, and that means something, since Blacklisted and Middle Cyclone are terrific too. The other one is Joanna Newsom's Ys. It was called a masterpiece, it received 5 stars and yet it was not in the list, while The Milk-Eyed Mender (a terrific album by the way and one of my favorites of all time), that wasn't even reviewed by Slant made it. I'm pretty sure that was enough space to both (you guys placed to M.I.A. & Madonna albums inside the top 40) and even if it wasn't i would totally pick Ys over Mender any day. Without Ys, Mender wouldn't make this list, maybe Pitchfork's and others's since they actually gave it some attention back in 2004. Glad to see Aimee Mann and so many other records that we can only find over here in Slant's list. And Bjork inside the top 3 was awesome, and Polly Jean Harvey inside the top 20, even better. After that 3 stars review that you guys gave to Stories, a top 20 placement is awesome. I though White Chalk would make the list too, it was rated a 5. Beach House's Devotion was rated a 4.5 and didn't make it either! Speaking of Beach House you guys need to review their new album Teen Dream! But anyway solid list, i love it, i love the new website, i love Slant!

alexbwolf on February 7, 2010, 05:09 AM

Cool to see Music and Rock Steady on the list. I was surprised Rolling Stone had forgotten them in the decade 100 since both were in their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Carrie on February 7, 2010, 03:45 PM

Slant, i'm so glad you guys released the top 101-250, the albums i was complaining about not being included and others i love too were there! I'm even happier now! Slant keep doing more lists more often. The favorites from the 90's, the 80's, the 70's, the 60's (don't forget about Laura Nyro on that one!). You guys are also REALLY GOOD, i mean REALLY REALLY REALLY good when it comes to singer/songwriters, especially female, a list containing the 100 essential records or the best female albums ever would be the most awesome thing ever! I love you Slant staff! I need to come down now, sorry!

Ang on February 10, 2010, 12:34 PM

Thank you for this list. I really appreciate Slant's diverse choices. I visit this site on a regular basis and commend them for being inclusive of different genres and musicians. I made my own top 10 album list of the Aughts (it wasn't easy) and seven of the ten are on this list! I would have liked to see Neko too, and Fever Ray's debut album (2009) floored me.

Gila on February 14, 2010, 03:42 AM

As per usual when these kinds of retrospective lists come out, I try to seek out a lot of the albums listed. Thanks to Slant for introducing me to Goldfrapp's debut which is shockingly good- I had no idea they made an album that sounds like this. A left-field pick, but a good one.

I just wish there could have been some room made for at least one of Neko Case's albums (a second Goldfrapp album, more than 1 Liars album, and Neon Bible, I could live without) or Joanna Newsom's Ys in the Top 100.

Some Guy on February 17, 2010, 01:46 PM

I'm just curious: why didn't the Pet Shop Boys' Fundamental make it into the top 100? It's a fantastic album that, if not outright placement in the upper section of this list, deserves at least to be ranked higher than the stillborn Release.

T-Money on February 18, 2010, 04:18 AM

Pretty awesome list! Damn, I have to say that several of my favorite albums made the cut, and I'm glad to have been introduced to some new ones.

Some albums I thought would be deserving of this list would have been...

Bloc Party—Silent Alarm

Despite the generally downward trajectory that Bloc Party have taken in recent years, this album remains a gem in British indie/post-punk. An absolutely stunning album.

Zero 7—Simple Things

While Thievery Corporation may be the most recognizable name in the low-fi electronic genre, this album is one of the most mellow and smoothest sets produced.

Kings of Convenience—Riot on an Empty Street

Now I may be alone on this one, but the track "Cayman Islands" is the closest we have gotten to Simon and Garfunkel in quite a while. This is beautiful album, perfect for that rainy day when you want to curl up with your hot chocolate in hand.

Mastodon—Leviathan

When you need to rage and get every motherfucker in the room's attention, this is the AK47 of your musical arsenal. The concept album, inspired by Moby Dick, is epic. The final track, "Hearts Alive," is nothing short of glorious.

fjraz on March 1, 2010, 01:53 PM

T-Money: I absolutely agree with Zero 7 and Kings of Convenience...truly standout albums.

Now, if I could recommend a little something, these two albums by (in my opinion) the finest Asian music exports would have made the list:

Anggun—Luminescence (2005)

This did not get a release outside of Europe, but it's a fantastic pop record nonetheless. Simply classy and demure...pop at its finest, much like her very underrated (hell everything about her always seems underrated) 1997/1998 international debut, "Snow on the Sahara". But "Luminescence" packs in more confidence, attitude and soul...had it been released in North America it would have been a massive hit record.

Key tracks: "In Your Mind", "Undress Me", "Breathe in Water", "Saviour" and the acoustic version of "Captivity".

2. Utada—Exodus (2004)

Released in the US in late 2004, it didn't do much outside of the club scene. Timbaland co-wrote 2 and produced 3 tracks here: the sweeping, ethereal-sounding (and standout) "Exodus '04" as well as "Wonder 'Bout" and "Let Me Give You My Love" (remember, this was pre-"Loose" and "FutureSex/LoveSounds"). Yes it comes off downright silly at times (especially on the album's lead single, "Easy Breezy"), but heck, there's some other gems to be found here. She released an English follow-up last year with "This is The One": a lot mainstream-sounding, but still great. Nevertheless, this *is* actually the one.

Key tracks: "Devil Inside", "Exodus '04", "Hotel Lobby", "Animato", "Kremlin Dusk"

Branching out a little further...

Sugababes—One Touch (2000)

The edgiest album ever to come out by any girlband, and by the most successful girlband of the 21st century not many in North America know about. Never mind about the line-up changes, how none of the original founding members are not even in the band right now or even their more mainstream-sounding follow-ups, this is a standout debut that never got quite the recognition it deserved. Moreover, this is actually the band's only album to feature all three original members.

Key tracks: "Overload", "New Year", "Soul Sound", "Lush Life", "Run for Cover"

Siobhan Donaghy—Revolution in Me (2003)

Exactly. The first member of the Sugababes to leave and perhaps the best one. Now we all know who was the mastermind of One Touch's left-field pop, offbeat moments. A very impressive solo debut that went very underrated (#117 in the UK). Well, she's anything but "overrated".

Key tracks: "Overrated", "Nothing But Song", "Revolution in Me", "Twist of Fate", "Iodine"

juniusmaltby on March 26, 2010, 12:48 AM

Jack White is a great guitar player, no doubt. But Tom Morello can play circles around him.

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