No White Stripes, no Radiohead, no Flaming Lips, no The Streets or Burial or many other great bands. All those bands, and many others, made records with some great songs on (damn, Flaming Lips made the best song of the decade). These are all albums that I still play, still love, and still listen to all the way through. Now, I haven’t gone crazy in the descriptions because I know I’ll get to all of these artists as part of my Pitchfork 500 stint, so it’s 100 words or less. Long-time readers will know this is very, very hard for me to do!
Oh, and there’s hardly anything from 2009. I need time and distance for this, you know.
Smog – Dongs Of Sevotion (2000)
Your one-stop shop for mordant observations on the misery of humanity, shot through with enough wit (“Dress Sexy At My Funeral”) to keep you coming back, again and again and again. I listened to this for much of 2000, and adore it still.
MP3: Dress Sexy At My Funeral by Smog
Godspeed You Black Emperor! – Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000)
That slow, dreadful build up, that paroxym of noise. They’d never reached peaks like this before, and they, and Post-Rock, never did again.
MP3: Antennas To Heaven… by Godspeed You Black Emperor!
Buy “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven” (CD/MP3)
The Kingsbury Manx – The Kingsbury Manx (2000)
The sound of autumn, distilled into some wonderful songs. Soundtrack to many happy moments, staring wistfully at the rain through the window of a warm room. If doing that makes you happy, this record will make you happy.
MP3: Pageant Square by Kingsbury Manx
Lambchop – Nixon/Is A Woman (2000/2002)
Two albums? Yes. One is a lush, rich record, with big statement songs. The next album is stripped down, often with just and acoustic and minimal accompaniment. Both are wonderful and there’s nothing to choose between them.
Great Lyric: “This learning not to demonstrate your asinine and callous traits\It’ll take some practice”. I love that line.
MP3: Grumpus by Lambchop
Bonnie Prince Billy – Ease Down the Road/Master and Everyone (2001/2003)
Two albums? Yes. One is a lush, rich record, with big statement songs. The next album is stripped down, often with just and acoustic and minimal accompaniment. Both are wonderful and there’s nothing to choose between them.
MP3: Wolf Among Wolves by Bonnie “Prince” Billy
Buy “Master and Everyone” (CD)
Jim O’Rourke – Insignificance (2001)
A few months ago I realised I’d not copied this onto my new iPhone (which is constantly full). When I got home the first thing I did was put on “All Downhill From Here”. For a bitter, twisted, hateful song about how much Jim hates people, and the world, it sure is an uplifting song. The best produced album of the decade.
MP3: All Downhill From Here by Jim O’Rourke
Albums Of The Decade (Part Two)
Albums Of The Decade (Part Three)
Albums Of The Decade (Part Four)
Albums Of The Decade (Part Five)
Albums Of The Decade (Part Six)
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