We asked some of country music's most beloved artists about their favorite albums from the past decade (or, if they preferred, the past year), and we were surprised by some of the out-of-the-box answers. We also asked about those pesky New Year's resolutions. Here's what they said.
Civil rights and political protest movements across the world have inspired some of history's greatest popular music: the labor-minded folk music through which Woody Guthrie rose to fame, the countercultural rock response to the Vietnam War and, of course, the rich and moving repertoire of the 1960s Civil Rights era. In the first decade of the new millennium, the gay rights movement (itself dominated in large part by the fight for marriage equality) picked up where these earlier campaigns left off, with battles waged in courtrooms, the legislature, in the court of public opinion and even in the streets in the form of massive protests.
Like earlier civil rights eras, the LGBT equality movement has been omnipresent in the media, passionately fought and even more passionately debated. And yet, unlike these earlier movements, it has not been closely associated with a particular musical soundtrack, which is actually pretty strange considering what an out and proud presence (well, relative to other decades, anyway) the LGBT community had in '00s popular culture. The 1990s saw a lot of very big Headliner Gays come out, which in turn prompted the culture industry to attempt to capitalize on the whole post-Elton, post-Ellen, post-Melissa, post-George Michael, post-Will and Grace openness to LGBT culture. And yet, that growing interest and acceptance somehow didn't quite translate into the kind of "gay sound" the industry aimed for -- or a cogent musical voice for the LGBT rights movement. We set out to figure out why.
Over in the indie-gay trenches, a few bands attempted to politicize their sound -- or perhaps more accurately, to create a socially conscious soundtrack for the movement. Le Tigre debuted in 2004 on a major label with This Island, which included tracks like "Viz" that addressed the need to shine light on LGBT issues. Gossip's 2006 tune "Standing in the Way of Control" contained some subtle references to the marriage equality movement, and Tegan and Sara made things a bit more explicit with "I Was Married" from 2007's The Con (though the Canadian sisters have it a little easier than their American fans). And yet, somehow these tunes, with their (maybe too?) subtle messages never had the same kind of volume that, say, a political protest or even a Pride float of be-thonged boys had. Sure, many classic civil rights songs aren't explicitly political, so in some ways these songs are very much in keeping with pop-fare-turned-protest-music like "Respect" or "I've Been Loving You Too Long" or "Blowin' in the Wind." But last I checked, no one was exactly holding hands and marching on Washington while singing "Standing in the Way of Control." It just doesn't have that kind of presence.
If you're a purist, then many of the jams you're about to encounter are going to confound, maybe even offend, you. And that's because I have a very liberal (some would say skewed) definition what constitutes roots music. Fellow Rhapsody scribe Chuck Eddy once used the phrase "art country" to describe my aesthetic sensibilities. And he's right. I love rootsy stuff, but I also love psychedelic weirdness and underground-bred eccentricities. The aughts were a pretty darn good decade for the intersection of these various proclivities. With the alt-country movement fragmenting and thus relinquishing its grip on the basic concept of a non-mainstream folk-based genre (however nebulous), the playing field opened up for a new breed of earthy oddball. A lot of these youngbloods — more influenced by the progressive folk of John Fahey and classic British folk-rock than, say, anybody from the Uncle Tupelo camp — belonged to the "freak-folk" and "new weird America" trends. Yet there were just as many who had no hip affiliation, who weren't freakers at all. Groups like the Moondoggies, D. Charles Speer & the Helix and Flying Canyon emerged and simply used ancient threads to weave something new and really quite edgy.
RHAPSODY'S TREND INDEX 
What I Learned While in Thailand Writing about Music for Three Years by Mike McGuirk
Country Music Has a Tea Party: A Decade of Backlash and Resentment
by Chuck Eddy
What's in a Name? The Decade in Rock Monikers 
Best '00s Albums That Fell Through the Cracks
Identity Politics, Pink-Face and Provocation: 
Memory Tapes by Rhapsody Editorial Staff
Heavy metal has dominated other decades, both commercially and stylistically, with the 1980s being its big decade thanks to the rise of hair metal and the birth of thrash. The '90s saw a major flowering of ideas with black metal, death metal and grindcore all emerging/maturing. The first decade of the new millennium, however, has seen an unprecedented growth in commercial and critical (!) success and in a machine-gun spray of variations, from highly experimental combinations of extreme metal (deathgrind), to a reaffirming of the ancient arts (modern power/fantasy metal). There is even a sort of hipsterization happening (post-metal). To some, this is a golden age of metal, seeing their beloved genre get the recognition it has traditionally been denied. For others, it appears as the unmistakable watering down of what they once held dear. Then there are people who really, really like Eyehategod. Anyway, here is our list of the best metal albums from the past decade. Have fun getting angry at it because Dillinger Escape Plan's Calculating Infinity isn't on here (it came out in 1999).
25. Hammers of Misfortune
Shock and Awe: Life Inside the Bubble
My first job writing about music was for a listings website in L.A. that paid as if the dot-com boom never busted -- $30 a preview, an obscene amount of money, even by today's standards. Even better: you could write virtually as many of these things as you wanted per week. No act was too weird or rinky-dink or out of the way. So each week I checked the club listings and snatched a generous handful of shows to write up -- an endless procession of punk-funk-metal-ska-coffeeshop-turntablist-jungle-IDM-hop-pop-country. As you can imagine, it all started to blend together pretty quick. I remember working one evening on what was probably my dozenenth write-up that day. Some singer-songwriter dude, had his debut album up on CD Baby, was playing a small club in Santa Monica -- a fill-in-the-blanks type write-up; there were thousands of these guys on the scene in those days (actually, there still are). As I listened, though, I couldn't escape how strangely catchy these particular acoustic tunes were, how curiously soothing and warm and…tropical. Who was this guy? His CD cover depicted him huddled beneath a slicker in the rain with this charming, bemused look on his face, as if he were just longboarding his way through life without a care in the world. Of course, it was Jack Johnson, and he would go on to be one of the most popular artist of the decade, selling millions of records and becoming Rhapsody's heavyweight champ with well over 30 million streams. Back then, I had no way of knowing how heavily he would factor into my life for years to come, but it was the first week of September, 2001, and the future was a little fuzzy for all of us. -- Garrett Kamps 
When Katrina hit, I was living in Miami, working as a music editor for an alternative weekly there. Katrina actually sideswiped the Magic City (as MIA likes to call itself) before moving on to New Orleans. The damage was minimal, but the hurricane happened to hit on the week when the VMAs were supposed to take place in that city. The idea of MTV having to cancel its flagship program really freaked a lot of people out. I remember a lot of hand-wringing and anguish when they had to shut down their poolside cabana party and a certain hedonistic rush when Katrina quickly passed on and the clubs opened for business again on Thursday. I don’t remember much between that day and Sunday, August 28th, 2005, the day of the actual VMAs as well as the day Katrina made landfall in Louisiana (blame the aforementioned hedonistic rush), but I do remember a semi-panicked call from my father on Sunday morning, informing me that my grandmother, who lived in central Louisiana, was thinking about packing it all up and fleeing the state. I was concerned, of course, but I also had a job to do: working the VMAs' red carpet. So, as my relatives mulled their retreat, I spent the day shouting out inane questions to passing music celebrities (emphasis on celebrities) and jammed next to a reporter from Teen Beat who repeated the same two questions to passing celebrities all afternoon: “What do you look for in a girl?” “Has a girl ever broken your heart?” It’s not a good memory, but it’s one that has stuck with me. — S.C.
The first 10 times I played Neil Young’s 2006 anti-Iraq war album, Living with War, were all highlights. I didn’t care how dunderheaded some of it seemed, or how poorly I sensed it would age — it was a perfect expression of frustration and outrage with where our country was and how it was being run at the time. It was also impossible to listen to without wondering why there weren’t more musicians shouting the same things in their own ways. — Tim Quirk
I remember going to Yoshi’s jazz club right after September 11, 2001. The brilliant, soft-spoken Elvin Jones walked out alone and addressed the audience: “I can’t yet process what has happened. The only thing I can do against evil is try to put some beauty out into the world.” Jones sat down at his drum kit as his band came out, and they created music that elevated the spirit and felt like it was elevating my body — it was more spiritual than any church service. Jones, who played with John Coltrane during his six most creative and productive years, was born in 1927 and passed away in 2004. The other jazz legends I saw at Yoshi’s in the 2000s who are no longer with us include Oscar Peterson, Jimmy Smith, Stanley Turrentine and Jimmy McGriff. They all put beauty into the world. —Nick Dedina
Laugh, Love, F**k and Drink Liquor
In college my roommate and I would blast Daft Punk's Discovery as a sort of ritual before heading out on the town. It's such a minute memory in such a momentous time, but it stands out among the litany of stupid exams and half-baked house parties that defined my college ear. Years later, I caught the French electro pioneers on their Alive 2007 tour, aka the Pyramid Tour. I don't remember the setlist, the crowd, the weather, how I even got home — I just remember the adrenaline flow, the dopamine release, the permanent giddy smile on my face (and I was sober, people). I also have a vague image of a collective mass of popping joints, bouncing feet and sweat-soaked flesh brought to complete submission before two astronauts bopping their heads behind a gigantic Lite-Brite pyramid shooting out neon lasers. I can say with certainty if you weren't dancing, you weren't there. Ask anyone who was afflicted with Pyramid fever: this tour goes down as the best this decade, perhaps the best ever. And, now, my new soundtrack before a night out on the town: Alive 2007. — Stephanie Benson
I’ve been a fan of Keith Urban since 2002, and it’s been great to watch him grow into one of the country’s premier artists over these past few years. One of my personal highlights of the past decade was being at Urban's first headlining tour. He managed to fill the HP Pavilion in San Jose with hysterical, screaming women ranging in age from pre-teen to cougars (and above), but what struck me most about the show was Urban's extraordinary guitar playing and obvious delight in being onstage. It was easy to see that while he got his country roots from his father's record collection, he learned a few things from Aussie rockers AC/DC. Seriously, Keith Urban shreds! Since that first show, Urban has won multiple Grammys and was named the 2005 Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association. I have seen him headline concerts three more times, and each time he gets more comfortable onstage and off. Part of his regular routine is jumping into the audience and giving some lucky concert-goer his guitar. In 2009, I became the proud owner of one of those guitars. — Linda Ryan
This would have been in January 2003. It was raining in San Francisco and the crowd that had filled the basement venue Café du Nord was giddy and dripping. The headliner was Devendra Banhart. His debut had just been released and word on the street was, the 20-year-old was some kind of mystical gypsy wunderkind. The assembled soggy masses had taken seats on the floor, settling in for what was going to be a long undercard: three openers no one had heard of, the first of which was taking the stage, looking like she'd just stepped off the set of The Dukes of Hazzard (tight boot-cut jeans, a white blouse, rosy cheeks). The girl started off by clapping her hands and singing a cappella. Then she sat down behind a harp twice her size and began to play and sing, and for the next 35 minutes no one moved a muscle. Her voice cracked and quavered and was unlike anything we'd ever heard — mangy and gorgeous, like an alley cat's rendered by Disney. She was the harp Satriani, plucking out dazzling fugues. And the words she sang -- "I do as I please, now I'm on my knees/ Your skin is something that I stir into my tea." This was the arrival of Joanna Newsom; I was told at the time it was her second show ever. Since then she's played to thousands of people all around the world, and released two of the decade's best albums, The Milk-Eyed Mender and Ys. Through it all I've maintained the same reaction to this artist and her work as I had that night: slack-jawed and breathless, deeply thankful she decided to share her talent with us. — Garrett Kamps
I never went to the club Meow Mix in lower Manhattan very often, it being a lesbian bar and all, but on April 18, 2001, I showed up because my newfound friends in the local Go Gos-reminiscent pop-rock band Lava Baby were playing, as part of a Ladyfest East fund-raiser. The tough woman at the door gave me a suspicious look, but I made it in, got a beer and settled myself into the crowd. Which was fine for a few songs, until the band saw me, and refused to start into their cover of Joan Jett’s cover of Gary Glitter’s “Do You Want to Touch Me (Oh Yeah!)” until I’d climbed up on the stage. So I pretended I didn’t hear them, but they wouldn’t budge, so I finally went up, and shouted a couple “oh yeah!”s and flapped my arms in the air a little. And saw somebody cute taking notes for a website review in the audience. And talked to her when I got offstage. And then somehow wound up talking our way into a Billy Idol show at the Bottom Line to impress her a week later. And much later wound up getting married to her, then having a baby, then moving to Texas. Which must make the Lava Baby show the most significant one I saw all decade. — C.E.
Every decade there are cries that jazz is on the verge of extinction. Yet every decade jazz keeps on keepin' on. That said, jazz was slapped around during the 2000s with the loss of both quality record-store chains (like Tower) and radio stations. Rhapsody is trying to pick up some of the slack and offer a practically unlimited number of jazz albums, old and new. 
From Beyonce to R. Kelly, R&B was dominant on the charts this decade. One could argue that it was pop music for this generation. It more or less co-opted hip-hop and swallowed soul. And while the artists at the tops of the charts dominated the public eye, there were also some interesting things happening in the margins. This list attempts to capture all the various trends and sounds that snaked through R&B this decade.
What else could explain the recent emergence of both Memory Cassette and Memory Tapes, not to mention Tapes 'n Tapes, the Music Tapes, Library Tapes, Eats Tapes, War Tapes, Tapes, and plain ol' Tape?
Some animals seemed more totemic than others. Hence Deerhoof and Deerhunter and Deer Tick. Hence Panthers, the Junior Panthers, Japanther and Pantha du Prince. Hence Wolfmother, Wolf Parade, Wolf Eyes, Sea Wolf, Wolf Colonel, Wolf & Cub; hence Wolves in the Throne Room, Raised By Wolves, Technicolor Wolves, Wolves & Thieves and All Night Drug Prowling Wolves, which sounds like a scary proposition, if not perhaps quite as scary (or as tasteless) as AIDS Wolf.
All of these bands come from the indie realm, which only makes the similarities that much more resonant, as though they were all vibing off the same cultural buzz. (There have long been plenty of crystals in music, of course, from Crystal Waters to the Crystal Method. But they don't signify the same way that this stop-motion blossoming of likeminded inspiration does.)
It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since the whole Y2K hysteria. Looking back, it seems laughable that people actually took their money out of banks and hid it under their mattresses because of the computer meltdowns that were supposed to happen when the clock struck midnight on December 31, 1999.
The original Archduke Franz Ferdinand wasn't around, of course, to say anything to the Scottish band named after him, and neither Tolstoy nor the members of Russia's Decembrist revolt could really step to the Decemberists. A couple of bands went whole-hog and assumed the mantle of entire movements, a bit like Bauhaus three decades before them—thus Art Brut and Nouvelle Vague. (Someone really, really needs to create a band dedicated to ska covers of Arnold Schoenberg's work, and call it the 12-Tones. As a side project, they could record skanking electro-acoustic covers as Karlheinz Skahausen.) Camera Obscura, meanwhile, used their name to evoke a similar sense of faded Modernist glory, while the punning Bloc Party (like the Cold War Kids) hinted at a similar desire for the fallen icons of the 20th Century. Or maybe the nation's imperiled public education system simply instilled in indie an insatiable yearning for history lessons in general—hence Everybody Was in the French Revolution, the Battle of Land and Sea, los Campesinos! and, more provocatively, Pocahunted.
Which brings us back to animals. Specifically, Animal Collective. Only four people strong, they nevertheless stayed true to the second word of their name, between side projects (Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Terrestrial Tones, Jane) collaborations with the likes of Vashti Bunyan and remixes from distant stylistic outliers like Dam-Funk. Animal Collective know the power of names, and they know the power of place: one of their early recordings is titled Campfire Songs, and was recorded, more or less as promised, on a cabin porch in the woods. In a wonderful column about the proliferation of back-to-nature imagery in indie rock, Pitchfork's Mark Richardson recently wrote that the album "is wonderfully transportive: you close your eyes, and you are right there on the porch with them. And it doesn't feel like a demo for something else. The songs that make up the album feel designed for one space only: on a screened-in porch in the woods in the rain."
It was a confusing decade, sure: I Am the World Trade Center found themselves semantically on the wrong side of history, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. YACHT (and legions of yacht rockers) aped a preppy '80s aesthetic even as the economy was collapsing around us. Perhaps the less said about Das Racist, the better. But in terms of capturing the restless, homesick, open-armed spirit of the '00s—a new New Sincerity, maybe, that struggled to squeeze itself into the 174-character cracks of an increasingly mediatic culture—no band embodied it better in a single name, than Animal Collective.
10. Wilco
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, 2002 
The esoteric but alluring collage of sounds on Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot earned the album the No. 6 spot on our Best of 2002 poll. The songs traverse styles, from the bleak “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” to the perky “Heavy Metal Drummer,” all the while retaining Wilco’s signature pawnshop-guitar-run-through-a-dozen-effects-pedals sound. — E.S.
9. Coldplay
A Rush of Blood to the Head, 2002
On their sophomore release, Coldplay aced the difficult task of hanging onto their original fan base while proving wrong those who initially wrote the band off as Radiohead-lite. A Rush of Blood to the Head is a solid collection of confidently played life’s-gone-wrong songs buoyed by Chris Martin’s soaring falsettos and airy, roomy orchestration — both of which brighten up the band’s somewhat gloomy, shoegazer tendencies considerably. Coldplay hit fabulous heights on this effort with songs such as “Clocks,” the mesmerizing “In My Place” and the post-punk drama they tapped with “A Whisper.” — L.R.
8. TV on the Radio
Return to Cookie Mountain, 2006
You know TV on the Radio are on a good track when they get David Bowie to offer up his skills (see “Province”), sample Massive Attack and Lou Reed, and have none of those assets overshadow the rest of their work. Every track on 2006’s Return to Cookie Mountain is in contention for top honors. It’s a gloomy affair, heavy and harrowing in its post-9/11 elegiac stance. Kyp Malone’s falsetto and Tunde Adebimpe’s deep howl reflect on the turbulent climate, their vocals battling and enduring the hypnotic squall of battered beats, swirling guitars, horns, woodwinds and synths. — S.B.
7. Kanye West
College Drop Out, 2004
On his 2004 debut, West delivered one of the most thematically complex pop albums of the decade, alternately accepting and rejecting rap’s conspicuous consumerism and reconciling his middle-class, Judeo-Christian upbringing with hip-hop’s more nihilistic archetypes. Back then, West was able to manage all the pushes and pulls of these conflicting themes because he seemed to have such a strong moral compass. When he seemed to lose himself later in the decade, it was a minor tragedy, but this album — with its honey-dipped pop songs that were funny and confessional — was a revelation and changed hip-hop forever. — S.C.
6. Green Day
American Idiot, 2004
Led by the killer title track, American Idiot finds Green Day sounding as vital as ever. Told through the character “Jesus of Suburbia,” the concept album, released just prior to the 2004 presidential election, is nourished by the trio’s vitriol against America’s political climate and overall malaise. Rock-opera riffs complement instantly gratifying pop hooks that extend well beyond the band’s punk roots. Even when they slow it down, they still pack a punch. The album won a Grammy for Best Rock Album and reignited the band’s flagging career, all while spreading its message far and wide. — S.B.
5. LCD Soundsystem
Sound of Silver, 2007
LCD’s James Murphy may win the award for the '00s' biggest hipster, but this album proves, most improbably, that he’s a hipster with a heart of gold. Irony and disaffection course through these mostly dance songs’ frayed, bulbous and lumpy productions — yet there’s undeniable warmth here, and the beats are constructed with mucho TLC. It’s all anchored by “All My Friends,” a natural high as fluent in Steve Reich’s cerebral looping technique as it is the language of a sweaty Brooklyn dancefloor. — G.K.
A child of mashup culture melding rhythm from several continents into a seamless montage — not to mention a child of third-world revolution first introduced on a mix CD explicitly connecting piracy with terrorism — M.I.A. could not have been imagined in any previous decade. Her debut throws everything into the curry pot: dancehall, grime, electro, favela booty beats, Dr. Buzzard samples, the Sanford and Son theme; the Congo, the Amazon, Sri Lanka; guns, bombs, class struggle, razor blades, purple haze. Somehow, she makes it all bounce like a jump-rope rhyme in a guerilla war zone. — C.E.
3. Arcade Fire
Funeral, 2004
“Wake Up” sounds like it was written for a revolution. Arcade Fire didn’t start one — their songs aped the best bits of Springsteen, U2 and the Talking Heads — they merely sounded like it, and in so doing got a whole huge group of folks believing in collectives, Canadians and the power of jams to inspire joy and conviction. This album evokes familial connections, love affairs and the bonds of friendship; if it were a Rorschach drawing you’d say it looked like passion itself. What the band was so exuberant about was simply being a band. They made everything sound like fun; their songs had purpose but could be about whatever you wanted. It was, and remains, infectious. — G.K.
This was a hell of a way to begin the decade. Dark, sexy, weird and wild, Outkast’s fourth album exploded on the pop charts, featuring what still may be pop’s most difficult single of the decade, “B.O.B.,” as well “Ms. Jackson,” which seemed to be an indictment of hip-hop’s misogyny. The music here travels the back roads of funk, from the dark stomp of “Gasoline Dreams” to the murky psych of “Snappin’ & Trappin’” and the smooth roll of “So Fresh, So Clean.” This album contained multitudes, and nearly a decade later, its complexities are only now beginning to unravel. — S.C.
After the whirlwind of acclaim for OK Computer, Radiohead tried to escape the hype by hitching a ride through the cosmos — or at least that’s what Kid A would have us believe. As Thom Yorke’s wails sound belted from the insular surface of the moon, opaque textures of twinkling music boxes (“Kid A”), bustling horns (“National Anthem”), fanciful harp (“Motion Picture Soundtrack”), crystallized hums (“Treefingers”), dissonant reception (“Everything in Its Right Place”) and plenty of unidentified flying clatter orbit this otherworldly masterpiece. Radiohead used an array of eccentric and electronic sounds not to take out the emotion in their music but to enhance it, to convey even the most rock-bottom of feelings with a jarring realness (just listen to “How to Disappear Completely”). Released in late 2000, in the beginning of a digital revolution, the album sounds like an ominous sign, pointing us toward a decade that would come to see society’s own growing dependence on technology to express, feel and connect. Social implications aside, Kid A became a prototype for the electronic experimentation and cross-pollination of genres that would influence and define much of the decade’s best music. — S.B.
Albums
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90-81
80-71
70-61
60-51
50-41
40-31
30-21
20-11
10-01
20. Jay-Z
The Blueprint, 2001
The Blueprint marked Jigga’s return to boom-bap formalism, but rarely has a retreat sounded so enticing. Chipmunk soul beats provided by newcomers Kanye West and Just Blaze made yesterday’s swagger seem like tomorrow’s sound, while the dearth of guest spots and club bangers allowed Jay to focus on Jay. There are at least three classics here, and the album is listenable from front to back. This was a high water mark for the B-K vet. — S.C.
19. Spoon
Gimme Fiction, 2005
Spoon waltz into the room to the tune of something off Ziggy Stardust, while also dipping into The White Album’s tough side. Over the course of the record, the band juggles rock ’n’ roll disco (“I Turn My Camera On”) and jangling perfect pop (“Sister Jack”). A muscular, undeniably great album. — J.P.
18. Justin Timberlake
FutureSex/LoveSounds, 2006
J.T. is no Al Green (or even D’Angelo), but his vocal performance on Futuresex is panting and seductive. More than just the usual collection of hyper-sexualized pop songs, this is a gorgeous, unified album, and producer Timbaland deserves much of the credit. His rhythms-on-’roids backdrops are crunchy and addictive, but they’re also nuanced enough so that each track has a hidden treasure — a rattling tabla here, a twisting violin quote there and sudden outbursts of glitch synths throughout. If this indeed is the future of pop, then it’s cause for celebration. — S.C.
17. Bon Iver
For Emma, Forever Ago, 2008
On his debut, Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, is lonely and it shows. Recorded one winter in a secluded Wisconsin cabin, For Emma, Forever Ago is overwhelming in its bleakness. Vernon’s haunting falsetto delivers confessional lyrics in yelps and whispers over little more than an acoustic guitar. It’s slow and deliberate — songs fade out, only to storm back after seconds of silence — but Vernon’s intensity keeps the album from dragging. Throughout every song there’s an unwavering atmosphere of melancholy that creates a cohesiveness rarely seen in today’s indie-rock landscape. — Ben Rosen
16. Norah Jones
Come Away with Me, 2002
A striking and seductive mix of pop, jazz, country, folk and blues. Jones’ voice and piano playing are superb, but so are the rich and layered guitars courtesy of Bill Frisell and others. Finally, the diverse fans of the Cowboy Junkies, Shelby Lynne, Rickie Lee Jones and Cassandra Wilson have an artist they can all embrace. — N.D.
15. Lil Wayne
Dedication II, 2006
As far as modern hip-hop mix tapes go, this is among the best. Not only do you get Lil Wayne exploring his violent and rhythmic free association on such songs as “Get ’Em,” you also get Lil Weezy delving into his feelings toward Hurricane Katrina, which had struck a few months before this was released. “Georgia ... Bush” is damn near the quintessential hip-hop statement on the subject, and Weezy’s angry and anguished emotions are on full display throughout. Though it was not an official release, many critics hailed this as one of the strongest hip-hop records of 2006 as well as a highlight of Lil Wayne’s storied mid-decade run. — S.C.
14. White Stripes
Elephant, 2003
Lit up by the punked-out blues riff of “Black Math” and the high-pitched, Queen-like squall of “There’s No Home for You Here,” the group’s fourth LP is probably its dirtiest but has the smartest lyrics of them all. “Ball and Biscuit” goes back to the altar of Jeff Beck worship; the fact that “Seven Nation Army” gets radio airplay is a modern miracle. — J.P.
13. Madvillian
Madvilliany, 2004
The collaboration between underground hip-hop’s most adventurous producer (Madlib) and its most treasured lyricist (MF DOOM), Madvillainy is full of dark alleys and trapdoors. DOOM’s lines are extended vocabulary workouts and take repeated listens to fully unpack, yet there are times when the emcee peers through the Dada-ist carnival of words and speaks directly and honestly. Madlib’s production, meanwhile, is pure pastiche, a smorgasbord of world music, classic soul and outsider music. Snippets of childhood recordings rub against Sun Ra and Sonny Rollins. It’s a dark, funny and strange album. — S.C.
Paris’ coolest pair of cybernetics perfects its robot rock on Discovery, morphing Homework’s buzzy filter disco into an even suppler strain of electro-funk. Never shy of lite-FM cliches, they turn guilty pleasures into unabashed house anthems with “One More Time” and “Digital Love,” and give the vocoder a passionate workout on the infectious “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” Throughout, the synths go to 11 and the vocals beam down from cloud nine. Establishing one of the decade’s most durable sounds, Discovery paved the way for everyone from Justice to Kanye. — P.S.
11. The Strokes
Is This It, 2001
The much-hyped New York group’s debut was undeniably infectious. Combining the tonal inflections of young Lou Reed with the poppiest elements of late-’70s East Coast art-punk, the Strokes made a frenetic, jittery pop record that clicked with fans and otherwise uptight critics.
Albums
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90-81
80-71
70-61
60-51
50-41
40-31
30-21
20-11
10-01
30. Broken Social Scene
You Forgot It In People
If you wanted to coin a genre out of the music made by loose collectives of wildly creative Canadian indie rockers working in the early ’00s, You Forgot It in People would be the record that started it all. Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, Feist—not one of those bands could say they weren’t influenced by this. Tattered, huge and unafraid, the sound is insatiably curious, venturing toward skewed tropicalia in one moment, bent Husker Du rock the next. From horns to synths to kitchen sinks, no instrument is left unturned. When Kevin Drew sings about “lover’s spit,” well, you don’t forget it. —Garrett Kamps
29. Gnarls Barkley
St. Elsewhere
As the feature presentation flickers into life, the auditorium lights dim and you’re instantly submerged in Gnarls Barkley’s world of insanity, shadowy genius, depression and hard-earned revelation. St. Elsewhere is the first collaboration between trailblazing singer Cee-Lo and experimental producer-to-the-stars Danger Mouse. Songs such as “Crazy” and “Boogie Monster” are steeped in hip-hop, soul and psychedelia, yet the album manages to maintain a distinctly pop flavor and is as addictive as it is inventive. Cee-Lo soars throughout, and Danger Mouse continues to produce idiosyncratic and cinematic hip-hop. Uncanny and unrelenting, St. Elsewhere is a must see. —Jamie Dolling
28. The National
Boxer
The austere Boxer mixes rolling piano and Matt Berninger’s brooding baritone for a sound that glistens with astute orchestral details. Along with piano appearances by Sufjan Stevens and backup vocals by Marla Hansen, a dense grouping of strings, horns, organs and upbeat drums give the National’s melancholic tendencies a gale of vivaciousness. The album’s overall milieu is established right from the opening track, “Fake Empire,” a booming boxing match between gloomy rock and orchestral-pop jauntiness. —Stephanie Benson
27. MOS DEF
The ECSTATIC
Mos Def has largely abandoned traditional song structure. Verse-chorus-bridge-coda? Forget about it. The raps here are rambling, stream-of-consciousness rants that appropriate the griot braggadocio of spiritual enlightenment before pivoting to the apocalyptic fury of political fear and loathing. Songs barely reach the two-minute mark, while the sound ranges from twisting Bollywood pomp to weepy Mediterranean psych. And, just when you think it’s over, Dilla shows up on an unexpected Black Star reunion. The album is a rabbit hole, and its stab at hip-hop transcendentalism is as messy as it is beautiful. —Sam Chennault
26. Gillian Welch
Time (The Revelator)
With this 2001 release Gillian Welch keeps her vocals set to “heartbreak” and her sound quietly acoustic while expanding her songwriting out with the kind of bruised folk-rock that brings to mind Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen at their most sensitive and unguarded. The concluding track, “I Dream A Highway,” is a hushed epic in an autumnal mode but its “Everything Is Free” that stands out as one of the definitive songs of the 2000’s. At the cusp of the internet music revolution, Welch looks at her future prospects just as computer geeks started making billions by turning musician’s wares (songs) into free commodities used to sell expensive gadgets. The suits knew that artists are always going to create “even if it doesn’t pay.” —Nick Dedina
25. Eminem
The Marshall Mathers LP
Though the template of laying irreverent societal critique over bouncy Dr. Dre beats is left essentially intact, Marshall Mathers is darker and meaner. It mixes homophobia and misogyny with murder fantasies. The epic narrative “Stan” was Eminem’s attempt to reconcile his responsibility as an influential public figure with his role as an entertainer and artist. But the distance between art and reality wasn’t as clear as the song would lead us to believe, and the violent fantasy “Kim” reportedly led his wife, the song’s subject, to attempt suicide. This is volatile, obscene and great art.
One look at the art work and you can tell immediately that Blood Mountain is a concept album about the life-and-death struggle faced when one is lost in the wilderness, climbing a mountain at night and under the influence of some kind of transpersonal shamanistic sacred cacti. Right? Also, the album (their second concept attempt; 2004’s acclaimed Leviathan, was about “Moby Dick”) represents the elemental nature of the earth. Yeah, these guys are weirdos. You might want to avoid “Circle of Cysquatch” and “Bladecatcher” until the cactus has left your system. Or not. —Mike McGuirk
23. The Postal Service
Give Up
What started as a one-off collaboration between electro-whiz James Tambrello and The Most Sensitive Human Ever, Ben Gibbard, led to an album (assembled by mailing sound snippets back and forth, hence the name), some exceptional remixes, and pretty much a whole aesthetic: unabashedly artificial-sounding earnest pop that you could dance and cry to in equal measure. It was emo for the IDM set, electronica for the indie rockers, and manna for anyone who’s ever had a broken heart. —Garrett Kamps
22. Queens of the Stone Age
Songs for the Deaf
Armed with Dave Grohl’s superhuman drumming and the amplifier-destroying chops of Dean Ween, the Queens return with a third album that pushes the stoner rock envelope the same way that Nirvana’s Nevermind ripped grunge wide open. —Eric Shea
21. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
Raising Sand
Plant had been turning blues into Celtic folk and vice versa since Zeppelin, so teaming with bluegrass queen Krauss was an inspired move—especially with T-Bone Burnett applying a wee-hours spaciousness to the sound that mirrors the space in the mature tenterhook relationships the duo croons and wails about. Lyrics come from Gene Clark, Tom Waits, Mel Tillis, the Everly Brothers, Townes Van Zandt; energy—rockabilly, gospel, metal, mid-Asian drone, gypsy tarantella —arises naturally from the pastoral atmosphere. And just when you suspect you’re being lulled, the two partners trade places. —Chuck Eddy
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40. Ghostface Killah
Supreme Clientele, 2000
Ghostface has never been the best lyricist in hip-hop, but he is consistently the most exciting and the most unpredictable. And, by most accounts, Supreme Clientele is his masterpiece. Throughout, there’s desperation in his voice, a 3 A.M. laced-blunt paranoia that pulls the listener into the Shaolin master’s warped world. And once there, you’re confronted with a ghetto-surrealist, stream-of-consciousness collage that suggests equal parts Romare Bearden, Jack Kerouac, and Slick Rick. It’s supremely subjective and scarily intimate. — S.C.
39. Beyonce
Dangerously in Love, 2003
The first three tracks of Beyonce’s solo debut instantly, intimately clarify the title. “Crazy in Love,” “Naughty Girl” and “Baby Boy” are all delirious, sensual joy, the kind of half-crazed bliss of new love. It’s not unlike the thrill we as listeners get from falling for Beyonce-as-pop-star on this album, or at least its first three tracks. And then the album detours and we meet a very different Beyonce: the R&B chanteuse. These purred pillow jams don’t do much for her vocal prowess, but it shows an interesting side of B-the-pop-diva that she hasn’t exposed much as her solo career has progressed. — R.D.
38. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Fever to Tell, 2003
There’s an untouchable coolness that radiates from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ 2003 debut. It’s sexy and in-your-face, but underneath that Brooklyn bravado is a keen ear for melody and a keen heart for grit, glam and garage-punk. Of course we can’t go any further without mentioning Karen O. Every shriek, squeal and moan she emits seems choreographed for maximum rock-chick sex appeal, but there’s always an underlying softness that lures you in even more. The more subdued latter half, including hit “Maps,” reveals that more tender side, but don’t miss the feisty fun of “Rich,” “Tick” and “Black Tongue.” — S.B.
37. Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift, 2008
When Taylor Swift released her self-titled debut in 2006, no one suspected the teenager would own country music within a year. Although the subject matter on Taylor Swift rarely strays from the kinds of things that high-school girls obsess over (that would be boys), the end result is a collection of vibrant, passionate and (somewhat) innocent reflections of a girl whose heart swells for country music almost as much as it does for the homecoming king. And the fact that Swift wrote/co-wrote these songs without any help from Nashville's finest still stands as an impressive coup. Given that she has a knack for writing big, radio-friendly choruses, we weren't surprised that her cute, starry-eyed songs dominated the charts, but we sure were shocked at how this release helped change the sound of country music for the rest of the decade. -- L.R.
36. El-P
Fantastic Damage, 2002
Dark, cavernous and confrontational, Fantastic Damage is more concerned with being respected than it is liked, which made it the perfect soundtrack for a post-9/11 U.S. Throughout, El-P’s jaded rhymes are oblique and delivered in halting rhythms, while the album’s lo-fi, electro-infused production is simply jarring. A landmark indie release. — S.C.
35. The Knife
Silent Shout, 2006
Behold the Knife’s Silent Shout! This thing is tweaked, like post-apocalyptic techno a la Cirque Du Soleil, with synths so icy they’ll freeze your warts off; thick, compressed thwumps that stomp willy-nilly ’round the room like a spoiled child; and weird female vocals that sound like Bjork if she were hired to work the haunted house in 2057. This Swedish guy/girl duo is like the audio X-Men, all freaky and mutated but wicked-powerful. Make sure to check out the last tune, “Still Light.” — G.K.
34. Johnny Cash
American IV: The Man Comes Around, 2002
Producer Rick Rubin continued to mine gold by stripping away anything that didn’t allow Johnny Cash to just be Johnny Cash. A rich mix of Cash originals and covers of appropriately doomy rock tunes and warmer country classics, this even includes two sentimental standards (“Danny Boy” and “We’ll Meet Again”) that go back to his hardscrabble youth, when he was miles away from being the Man in Black. The opening reading of Cash’s own “The Man Comes Around’ is astounding, but it's his aching, beyond-regretful cover of “Hurt” that still gets strong, silent men to weep like children (the accompanying video — featuring a young, vibrant antihero juxtaposed against the frail, fading old man — stands up as a work of art). It's far from perfect, and yet it is an almost-complete portrait of a truly original American singer-songwriter. — N.D.
33. Mary J. Blige
No More Drama, 2001
The title may be No More Drama, but Mary J. brings heavy strings and commanding beats and bass to the table — not to mention her own powerful presence. It’s good stuff: she uses the Young and the Restless theme on the title track, and an Al Green sample to buoy her fem-jam “PMS.” Not many people can carry a song on that subject off, but then, they aren’t Mary J. — S.B.
32. Jamey Johnson
That Lonesome Song, 2008
The quality of Jamey Johnson's storytelling is second only to that of his deep, buttery baritone — and both are used beautifully on his sophomore effort, That Lonesome Song. Gone are the redneck anthems that dotted his debut. In their place are songs of loss, growing pains and morning-after regrets, and Johnson coos through them all. “High Cost of Living” is a “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” for the new millennium, while “Place out on the Ocean” is a crisp, mid-tempo number about having it all but having no one to share it with. “Women” shows that, through it all, Johnson has kept his sense of humor. — L.R.
31. Erykah Badu
New Amerykah, 2008
Lead single “Honey” and the delicate “Telephone” hint at the loose neo-soul of Badu’s early work, but much of the album exists in a smoky haze of French horns, synth squiggles and vaguely political chants. Think Sly & the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On filtered through the lens of left-field hip-hop, played at a Hindu death procession and recycled for a malfunctioning video game about an Afro-futurist apocalypse. It’s a beautiful and strange album that announces a new dawn for psychedelic soul. — S.C.
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50. Amy Winehouse
Back to Black, 2006
Wildly talented but also just plain wild, Amy Winehouse has got pipes that are more R&B-drenched than Joss Stone’s, and her lyrics are more autobiographical than Lily Allen’s. Winehouse also leads the kind of tabloid-rich lifestyle that would make even Britney Spears blush. But Back to Black proves that her material is stronger than the hype. “Tears Dry on Their Own” proudly recalls Motown classics, while cuts like “Wake Up Alone,” “Some Unholy War” and “Love Is a Losing Game” show what the English Winehouse can do when she stops cribbing a posed toughness from American hip-hop songs. — N.D.
Dilla has always been one of the most stylistically adventurous producers in hip-hop, flipping between the warm, jazzy boom-bap of his earlier years and the colder, more forceful electro of his middle period. But Donuts — in its fractured, A.D.D. glory — presented the producer at his most naked. Culled from a series of beat CDs that had been circulating for some time, most of the songs on Donuts are little more than sketches. No song touches the two-minute mark, and a few barely even progress beyond simple loops. Though fragments, they collectively offer an intensely personal meditation on the soul music that dominated Dilla’s childhood in Detroit. — S.C.
48. Dizzee Rascal
Boy in da Corner, 2003
One of the decade’s unlikeliest success stories, grime pioneer Dizzee Rascal came up spitting on pirate stations in London’s projects before winning the Mercury for his debut album, Boy in Da Corner, and proving that U.K. hip-hop was no oxymoron. Bashed out on Playstations, his chillingly sparse, bass-heavy beats sound like George Clinton knifing Kraftwerk in an elevator, and his raps are just as ominous. Drawing from daily life, his knotty barbed-wire yarns combine braggadocio with doubt; his cracked adolescent squawk is one of hip-hop’s most believable — and likable — voices. — P.S.
47. Bob Dylan
Love and Theft, 2001
Like 1997’s comeback, Time Out of Mind, the sequel, Love and Theft, capitalizes on smoky production by Daniel Lanois, rambunctious performances and Dylan’s tattered delivery. But with its rollicking spirit, Love and Theft deals more in revelry than remorse. Kicking open the saloon doors with the hard-strutting “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” the record is dually playful and powerful, butt-kicking and heartrending. When on “Summer Days” Dylan is “standing on a table proposing a toast to the king,” it's hard not to raise a glass right back to the enduring icon’s continued rambles down Highway 61. — N.C.
46. Joanna Newsom
Ys., 2006
On her debut, The Milk-Eyed Mender, Joanna Newsom unleashed a formula no one had ever heard: dazzling harp-work + antique-sounding vocals + the largest vocabulary in music. It was a tough act to follow, and she did so by enlisting Steve Albini and VanDyke Parks to help record these five 10-plus-minute songs that together had the effect of watching Bambi again for the first time. On acid. Upside down. With a knife in your gut. There are 20-plus instruments here, anthropomorphized bears and monkeys, a song about the entire universe, and in the center of it all a young girl with more talent than anyone has a right to. — G.K.
45. Dixie Chicks
Home, 2002
Challenging their place in Nashville after securing superstar status and before instigating political backlash, the Chicks return to the bluegrass hoedowns and lullabies they began with. But they do it on an album about not being able to return to the place you started — whether you’re a musician leaving home for a Nashville that’s forgotten its past, or Stevie Nicks’ broken couple in “Landslide,” or a doomed soldier overseas while his gal waits back in the States. Natalie Maines, one of the decade’s great voices, moves between heartbroken tragedy and shotgun-wedding comedy with supernatural ease. — Chuck Eddy
44. Grizzly Bear
Veckatimest, 2009
Veckatimest will linger in your head; it will beautify the landscape around you before haunting your dreams and urging you to listen again. Grizzly Bear’s 2009 breakthrough album has a battle of good and evil at its core: the multipart harmonies have choir-boy grace, while swells of piano, woodwinds, strings and tribal beats burst with devilish glee. Sunny waltzes reveal elusive confessions, as dark dirges mask innocent pleas. “Two Weeks,” “Ready, Able” and “While You Wait for the Others” are essential, but you won’t be truly spooked and stirred without listening to the rest. — S.B.
Gorillaz may be a cartoon band, but their debut album is no gag. Dan the Automator, Damon Albarn and members of Cibo Matto and Tom Tom Club bring their combined influences to bear on an album that’s stubborn, zany, cryptic and poptastic in equal measure. Hip-hop breaks tangle up with gnarled guitars and Albarn’s faraway drawl, with hits like “Clint Eastwood” and “Re-Hash” posing as Beck with a Mo’ Wax deal; odder cuts like “Sound Check (Gravity),” “Double Bass” and “Slow Country” wriggle down dub rabbit holes in pursuit of oddball, psychedlic trip-hop. — P.S.
42. Rihanna
Good Girl Gone Bad, 2008
For her third disc, Lil Miss Sunshine stakes a claim as the queen of R&B by turning to the ’80s. On “Shut Up and Drive,” she samples New Order’s “Blue Monday,” while lead single “Umbrella” — with Rihanna’s understated, nasal vocals wrapping around dramatic strings — would fit nicely in a John Hughes flick. The spunky “Breakin’ Dishes” is more fun than bitter, and “Rehab” overcomes its rather mawkish sentiments to be an effective breakup ballad. There’s hardly a throwaway track, and Rihanna continues to evolve. — S.C.
41. Death Cab for Cutie
Transatlantism, 2003
Death Cab have done some great work on their major-label albums, but it was their swan song for indie Barsuk where the band best balanced indie rock heart-on-sleeve earnestness with unmistakably precise songcraft. “Transatlanticism” is one long epic crescendo, a song about oceans that doubles as a wave you never want to break. “Lightness” is gorgeous in its concision, and “A Lack of Color” may be one of the saddest songs ever, no joke. The only way to improve this album would be to sell it with a box of Kleenex. — G.K.
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60. System of a Down
Toxicity, 2001
Toxicity was unfairly tossed in with the crop of nu-metal bands dominating the airwaves around the time of its release. It deserves better than that. An exuberantly creative slab of twisted, virulent jammers, the album introduced much of the world to one of its most interesting bands, including and especially its singer, six-foot Armenian Dr. Suess sketch Serj Tankian. Ridiculous song structures, frenzied jamming and incendiary lyrics are just a few of this record’s highlights. “Chop Suey!” may be the weirdest song you’ll ever find yourself singing in the shower. — G.K.
Mirrored indeed. Refracted, reflected, distorted, contorted — the sounds on this mostly instrumental album are like shards of light caroming off reflective surfaces. And physics is a good touch point here: at once coldly scientific and naturally beautiful, these jams fuse the electronic and the acoustic, the sequenced and the hand-played, the unrecognizably affected (the vocals) and the vigorously Spartan (those drums). “Atlas,” a careening rush of a tune, is the centerpiece, but don’t skip the oozy bass that closes “Tonto.” Actually don’t skip anything — the whole album is genius. — G.K.
58. The Shins
Oh, Inverted World, 2001
Though Oh, Inverted World came out in 2001, the Shins have actor/director Zach Braff to thank for pushing their brisk indie pop into the mainstream in 2004. In Braff’s film Garden State, “Caring Is Creepy” and “New Slang” were both featured, and Natalie Portman’s character wistfully declares that the Shins “will change your life.” It was a worthy boost for the band, which frames folky ’60s psych-pop with a subtle, somber edge — it’s sunny with a chance of rain. James Mercer sounds like a soothing lover whispering sweet nothings, but listen closer and you’ll hear a witty, poetic soul. — S.B.
57. George Strait
Troubadour, 2008
Some 25 years into his career, George Strait remains one of country music’s most commercially successful artists, and Troubadour proves why. Songs such as the touching “I Saw God Today,” the twanging working-man tribute “Brothers of the Highway” and the charming honky-tonker “Make Her Fall in Love with Me Song” present Strait as both a down-to-earth cowboy and a country gentleman. Men are drawn to the former, while the ladies gravitate to the latter — and all roads lead straight to that cozy, resonant voice. One more fine release to add to his pile. — L.R.
56. Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes, 2008
Astute students of tradition, Fleet Foxes take inspiration from folk, pop, Celtic, gospel and sacred harp singing to create harmonic bursts of heartfelt precision. Sounding like Mother Nature’s sons, they sing of valleys, mountains and hummingbirds while running through forests of lush guitars, tom-toms, bass, organs, mandolins and dulcimers. “Ragged Wood” and “Your Protector” have them chasing after the perfect trifecta of huge melodies, crescendos and harmonies, while the poignant “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” and “Meadowlarks” slow things down to reveal these Foxes’ charming fragility. —S.B.
55. Feist
The Reminder, 2007
Sounding like a cross between Mazzy Star and Juliana Hatfield, the third gorgeous release from Canada’s Leslie Feist is a must for lovers of perfectly balanced, gently poppy torch songs. Newcomers should start with “Limit to Your Love,” a beautifully performed tune showcasing her diaphanous vocals and deft songwriting. Savvy music supervisors will place this alongside scenes of yearning in romantic dramas for years to come. — Nicholas Baker
53. Danger Mouse
The Grey Album, 2001
It was an idea so simple: combine Jay-Z’s a cappellas from The Black Album with resampled tracks from the Beatles’ The White Album, and presto, something way more than the sum of its parts. The record reflected Danger Mouse’s own roots in both rap and rock, but more importantly, it intensified ongoing battles between artists and industry. The uncleared samples led to a cease-and-desist, but the album continued to circulate online. That the record’s sonics outshine its novelty factor demonstrates the depths of the gray area that Danger Mouse mapped. — P.S.
53. Nortec Collective
The Tijuana Sessions Vol. 1, 2001
House music wins out over the Tijuana influences on much of this release, but it gets most interesting when the struggle’s really evident. “Polaris” literally tumbles around under the weight of a brass-band sample, while “Elemento N” and “Norteno de Janeiro” somehow sound shady, stealthy and lounge-y all at once. “Tepache Jam” might be the hippest track here. — S.B.
52. The Flaming Lips
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, 2002
It took 10 albums before the Flaming Lips broke into Billboard’s Top 100, and that came with 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Highlighted by hit single “Do You Realize??”, the record is both playful and pensive, the lush orchestral beauty of 1999’s The Soft Bulletin bleeding into sobering meditations on love and mortality. Amongst talk of pink robots and astrological imagery are simple requests to self-reflect, and the Lips provide a soundtrack to do just that with narcotic electro-scapes and Wayne Coyne’s languid purrs giving you the freedom to float into space. — S.B.
51. MGMT
Oracular Spectacular, 2007
MGMT may use laptops and samplers, but their debut album is really a love letter to the ’60s, couriered via the ’80s. Psychedelia, bluesy R&B and breezy surf rock swirl together with taut New Wave guitars and post-punk atmospherics, creating a sunny sound harboring chilly shadows. Breakout hit “Electric Feel” is lush, slow-mo disco with a softcore vibe, all come-hither falsetto and a bassline to die for, and “Kids” imagines Giorgio Moroder as an emo heartthrob. But elsewhere, the Byrds, the Rolling Stones and the Mamas and the Papas clearly dominate MGMT’s board of directors. — P.S.
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70. The Hold Steady
Boys and Girls in America, 2006
The Hold Steady’s first two records of bare-knuckled bangers were lauded as dissertations on underdog bar rock, coupling Craig Finn’s scrappy narratives about getting high and chasing tail with riffs on the scale of vintage Thin Lizzy. On their third, Finn reins in the rambling for more concise tales of spiritual survival in strip-mall culture. When things get sentimental, as on the piano-driven “First Night,” the songwriting is still commanding, but these guys are best with unrestrained rockers like “Stuck Between Stations” or “Hot Soft Light” — with hearts on their sleeves and amps on 11. — N.C.
69. Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 2009
Mozart? Not quite. More kitschy reference than homage, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix has an air of sleek sophistication steeped in summery French electro-pop that’s still as edgy as any hipster band out of Brooklyn. Mid-album, the band nods to fellow Frenchmen Air and M83 on “Fences” and the “Love Like a Sunset” couplet, which flickers with the feel of an electrical storm. But it’s tracks “Lisztomania,” “1901” and “Girlfriend” that sizzle like Pop Rocks on the tongue, with snappy guitar and synths that purr alongside Thomas Mars’ cool coos. — Stephanie Benson
68. M. Ward
Transfigurations of Vincent, 2003
In the '00s, Matt Ward graduated from indie rock’s rank and file to become his own old-timey, roots-inflected singer-songwriter institution — the hipster Neil Young (sort of). Among his many great albums, Transfigurations is the best, a tribute to his deceased friend that’s mournful and joyous and devastated and ecstatic all at once. Ward’s John Fahey-inspired acoustic work abounds, as do loads of lovely lyrics too florid to only partially quote (just listen to the dang songs). Plus, there’s the impossibly languid Bowie song “Let’s Dance,” arguably the decade’s best cover. — Garrett Kamps
67. Interpol
Turn on Bright Lights, 2002
Hailed by critics and fans alike as one of the best indie records of 2002, Interpol’s debut unapologetically apes the jagged post-punk pioneered by bands such as Joy Division and the Chameleons. But with its tight structures and strong melodies, their excellent dirge-rock is more an extension of the past than an exhumation. — Mike McGuirk
New York’s Lady Gaga clearly hasn’t given away the store in her day job writing hits for the Pussycat Dolls. Reworking ’00s chart pop’s key tropes — think of Timberlake’s Eurodance synths or the ubiquitous warble of Auto-Tuned vocals — with a pinch of Lower East Side attitude, she turns out a catchy, seductive set with personality to spare. When stepping out from behind the effects, Lady Gaga — who wrote, produced and performed most of the record — unveils surprisingly powerful pipes. And echoes of Depeche Mode and David Bowie speak of pop knowledge deeper than her 22 years would suggest. — P.S.
65. The Killers
Hot Fuss, 2004
The dry Mojave Desert must have had the Killers pining for dreary London rain. The Anglophiles helped usher in a legion of post-punk revivalists with their debut; not surprisingly, the U.K. created quite a, well, hot fuss over them, and the States were quick to follow. Frontman Brandon Flowers emits a sort of austere Bono persona, but instead of saving the world, he enjoys vague puns and waxing poetic about sexual ambiguity and lustful longing. The band piles on the arena-ready drama, with flickers of glittery ’80s synths and an undeniable pop sensibility guiding a host of hit singles. — S.B.
64. Mariah Carey
Emancipation of Mimi, 2005
The diva is back, and from the opening seconds, it’s clear that Carey’s been listening to the radio. But more importantly, she has applied modern R&B touches to what she does best, rather than the other way around. The first song is killer, and then the ballads begin. Fans will not be disappointed. — M.M.
63. Beck
Sea Change, 2002
Beck leaves the Hollywood freaks behind and heads to the country on this excellent disc. It’s a refreshing change from his post-modern party-guy persona. The focus on singing and songwriting recalls Mutations, while the melancholy lyrics are backed by full arrangements for strings, piano and acoustic guitar. — J.P.
62. Muse
Black Holes and Revelations, 2006
Muse return with this sweeping sci-fi epic, infused with stories of space travel (“Starlight”) and a burst of flamenco guitar (“Hoodoo”). This fourth disc marks a bold step into the future of their operatic Brit rock, with the histrionic pitch of Matthew Bellamy’s voice rising as if in response to global warming temperatures. Despite its overall dark, apocalyptic tones, this neo-prog space shuttle is worth taking a risk. — Michele K-Tel
Untitled upon its release and outfitted with eight untitled songs, Sigur Ros’ third LP was highfalutin out of the gate. But then, this mercurial post-rock is pretty hard to put into words. More grandiose than its predecessor (as if that were even possible), the disc is two acts, the first hopeful and melodic, the second cacophonous and sprawling; the centerpiece is track four (aka “The Nothing Song”), whose careening, delayed guitars and determined throb urge along Jon Thor Birgisson’s pained wail. Another intergalactic civil war fought by teddy bears. — G.K.
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80. The Avalanches
Since I Left You, 2001
This 2001 release from Australia is a result of years of collecting vinyl, practicing the ones and twos and being influenced by hip-hop, downtempo and house. Coming from a collective of DJs and instrumentalists, the album is saturated with soul diva samples taking a more musical approach to the scratch DJ genre with ambient layering of cinematic sequences. — P.S.
79. My Morning Jacket
Z, 2005
M.M.J.’s fourth LP finds them working with wizard producer John Leckie (the Stone Roses, George Harrison, Radiohead, Pink Floyd). They transcend Americana and aim toward the stratosphere. Songs shimmer and glide as Jim James’ falsetto stretches heavenward. Let this album work its warm magic on you. Listen repeatedly. — Eric Shea
78. Kenny Chesney
When the Sun Goes Down, 2004
Kicking off his eighth album with the heartfelt “There Goes My Life,” a ballad about fatherhood, country hunk Kenny Chesney blends upbeat party ditties with songs about bubble baths, recovered racists and suburban loving. The title track recalls any of Jimmy Buffett’s beachy classics and features a cameo by Uncle Kracker. — L.R.
77. Juana Molina
Un Dia, 2008
On her fifth album, the Argentine future-folkie sticks to the script of her previous releases, but that’s just fine. With her usual tools — acoustic guitars, subdued percussion, subtle electronics and her wispy voice — Molina keeps finding new passageways to a strange, subconscious realm that’s bathed in light. For the delicacy of her approach, Molina’s music has real muscle: beyond folk and bossa nova, you can hear references to musique concrete, ambient electronics, spaghetti westerns, Indian ragas and even Public Enemy. It’s a feather duvet sewn to the specs of a fine-art museum. — P.S.
76. Clipse
Hell Hath No Fury, 2006
Clipse are back with a jittery collage of wealth porn and crack synonyms. Emcees Pusha T and Malice set out to rescue rap from those “dunce cappin’ and cazooin’.” You know, the “penny Annie n*gg*z” and “Jo-Jo dancers” who line up round the block as our boys shuffle “snow” and “Diet Coke.” Throughout Hell Hath No Fury, the mundane is made obscene, and words are twisted to meet the group’s glistening white worldview. As they repeatedly remind us, “Keys open doors.” Think about that while you “getcha nostrils clear.” — S.C.
75. Tinariwen
The Radio Tisdas Sessions, 2001
Tinariwen stunned the international scene with this album, which was recorded in just two weeks in Bamako, Mali. Taking traditional Toureg music and plugging it in, the band seemed to change the rules, taking listeners into a metaphorical Sahara with their rolling guitars that wash over you — seriously — like water. One of the best albums to come out of Mali, period. — S.B.
Voodoo was released in January of 2000 and, at the time, seemed like the initial salvo of a new era for R&B. Gospel, hip-hop, soul, funk and jazz intermingled, flirted and, ultimately, consummated the courtship in a slinky, sexy album that was D’Angelo’s masterwork. You didn’t know whether you wanted to raise your hands and praise Jesus or reach into your back pocket for a condom. And while the possibilities of this album were never realized — R&B continued its descent into the shimmering, soulless pot of pop; D disappeared into an abyss of self-doubt and addiction — this album stands as a testament to the power of soul. — S.C.
73. Miranda Lambert
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, 2007
Miranda Lambert sang about burning down the house of her cheating ex in the title track of Kerosene. On her sophomore album, the high-maintenance Jezebel comes back shooting with the roadhouse rocker “Gunpowder & Lead.” The aptly titled Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a near-perfect album that overflows with beer-soaked, libidinous country rock, even on the traditional twang of “Dry Town,” a self-descriptive song. More mellow numbers, such as the weepy honky-tonk ditty “Love Letters” and the moving “Desperation,” prove that the little hell-raiser with the big voice is hardly a one-trick pony. — E.S.
72. Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavilion, 2009
“In the Flowers” begins life as a lazy bank of fog. It then explodes into an atomic radiance that's equal parts noise, electronica and rumbling bass. From this, believe it or not, drips a child’s melody, as well as these innocent, virtuous voices. They’re chirping words like “love,” “smile” and “dancing.” This tune — perfect pop, truly — embodies beauty and terror. And it’s Animal Collective’s ability to believe in both extremes that makes Merriweather Post Pavilion such a profound chunk of indie rock. — J.F.
Bass and a deep bottom are urtexts of the mysterious London dubstep producer’s second album. And if you wanna know just how low these sounds go, look no further than the artist’s name. On Untrue, the abyss of choppy rhythms and the funeral-string stabs are hidden behind a film of vinyl-like clicks 'n' pops that help define this music as a soundtrack to urban claustrophobia. There may be a future-soul beauty and two-step traction to tracks like “Archangel” and the aptly titled “Ghost Hardware,” but the lord they serve is a decidedly grimy and downtrodden one. — Piotr Orlov
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90. Jack Johnson
Brushfire Fairy Tales, 2001
Not only was Brushfire Fairytales Jack Johnson’s debut, it was also the first of five platinum albums for the surfer-turned-adult-alternative dude. At the time of its release, the record felt like a pleasant and engaging fusion of John Mayer, Dave Matthews and Ben Harper. But looking back, Brushfire Fairytales feels downright prophetic. Johnson has gone on to spawn an ever-growing army of finely tanned crooners, specializing in the kind of funky fresh folk-pop that he single-handedly pioneered. — Justin Farrar
89. Cat Power
The Greatest, 2006
The mercurial Chan Marshall returned to her Southern roots and recorded this blissful album in Memphis. The Greatest glows with a new ease, and the music itself — which features many of the greatest soul musicians in history — is sunny and open. There’s a sense of joy coming through here that you’ll want to share with friends. — N.D.
88. Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend, 2008
From the advance hype, you’d think Vampire Weekend were the first to consummate Anglo indie rock’s infatuation with Afro-pop. But don’t let the vague Africana of “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” or self-aware skank of “A-Punk” distract; the studious appropriations are more akin to Paul Simon’s: merely terrific pop songs wearing funny hats. Even then, the lion’s share of these tunes — including “Campus” and “Oxford Comma” — cite less exotic influences, like Spoon and the Strokes. But from whom they borrow hardly matters — they do it wisely, resulting in an instantly familiar, hugely promising debut. — N.C.
87. Missy Elliott
Under Construction, 2007
Under Construction is a testament to Missy Elliott’s skill as a pop star. Yes, you read that right. Not to downplay her considerable abilities as an emcee — the woman’s got flow, and it’s very much on display. But she also knows how to channel that flow into some conduits of serious pop genius. Literally almost every track here is steeped in Elliott’s particular brand of pop brilliance: fierce, exciting, hopping with creative beats and, most of all, fun. Even less musically thrilling cuts like “P***ycat” are saved by Elliott’s incorrigible wit. Forget construction. This is a finished product. — Rachel Devitt
86. The Roots
Phrenology, 2002
Phrenology was the Roots’ most ambitious work to date. The mercurial and epic “Water” is a tone-poem of sorts dealing with the drug addiction of departed member Malik B., while “Something in the Way of Things (In Town)” features controversial poet Amiri Baraka. Though experimental, the CD also has pop nuggets such as “Break You Off” and “The Seed 2.0.” — S.C.
Four Tet's third album continues in the vein of its predecessor, Pause, looping guitars and bell tones over fluid breaks and the incidental rhythms of found sounds. The largely acoustic palette gives the music a certain tenderness, but the rough-hewn drums are tougher and the sonic ideas more cryptic. Funk and folk bleed together against a suggestive, clattering backdrop, and free-jazz drum fills go up against intricate chiming patterns, like a particularly muscular version of musique mechanique, or a player piano set on fire and pushed down a hill. John Cage would approve. -- P.S.
84. T.I.
Trap Muzik, 2003
In 2003, just a couple of short years after September 11, this Atlanta emcee introduced himself to the world on the song “Rubber Band Man” as being “wild as the Taliban.” It was audacious, but T.I. was so talented — his inherent charisma is matched by a preternatural talent — that America merely smirked and bobbed its head to the track’s elastic electro funk. This was the first important dispatch of a singular, powerful new voice, and throughout Trap Muzik, T.I. threaded the esoteric (grimy slice-of-life hood vignettes like “24's”) with the universal (pop-y fair such as “Let Me Tell You Something” or the aforementioned “Rubber Band Man”). — S.C.
83. Keith Urban
Golden Road, 2002
Keith Urban’s 2002 sophomore album showcases a singer who is incredibly comfortable in his skin; where some artists buckle under the pressure of their sophomore effort, Urban seems to revel in it. What else explains the breezy “Who Wouldn’t Want to Be Me” and “Somebody Like You”? Both are unabashedly upbeat songs spurred on by infectious banjo plucking and the kind of soaring choruses found in only the best pop hits. Golden Road overflows with quality songs — eight of which Urban wrote or co-wrote — including the “under the covers” song “Raining on Sunday”; the playful “You Look Good in My Shirt”; and “You’ll Think of Me,” one of the best breakup songs ever written. — L.R.
82. Basement Jaxx
Rooty, 2001
Where Basement Jaxx’s previous album, Remedy, charted underground house on a course for the planet Pop, Rooty triumphantly touched down on a world even stranger than we’d imagined. Familiar disco licks paved the ground underfoot, but the atmosphere was something new, aswirl with delirious hooks and R&B choruses, and bounding boom-thwack beats flaunted gravity with every bounce. “Romeo,” “Breakaway,” “Just 1 Kiss” and “Where’s Your Head At” attained classic club status, but avant-funk like “SFM” and the Spanish-inflected breakbeat ballad “Broken Dreams” round out an album that’s back-to-front bananas. — P.S.
81. R. Kelly
Chocolate Factory, 2003
With a big debt to some brothers named Isley, R.Kelly drops another album rich with laid-back, convertible-friendly slow jams. The title track is a highlight, but there are gems throughout that further reveal Kelly’s songwriting excellence. Rhapsody’s version includes the previously bootlegged Loveland EP as a bonus. — Jon Pruett
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At some point during the last decade, America's self-imposed musical exile from the rest of the globe came to an end. Gypsy music seduced the punks, Bollywood ravished hip-hop, and tango invaded electronica, setting up shop in chill rooms everywhere. In a bit of a reversal, bluegrass conquered new territory -- in China. Meanwhile, Africa teemed with dance music -- kwaito, kuduro, several species of Afro-hop … even kwassa kwassa made it to Cape Cod, thanks to a little band called Vampire Weekend. Brazil swallowed Miami bass whole and spat out baile funk, the freshest reimagining of hip-hop we’ve heard in years. And in perhaps the crowning glory, Tinariwen opened the decade with an album -- swiftly recorded, quietly released -- which set off a fury for the desert blues that has left even Ali Farka Toure's fame in the dust.
Country music went on a wild ride the past decade, a ride that took us to the honky-tonk, the Appalachian Mountains, where the blacktop ends, and to Small Town, U.S.A. The watered-down flavor of contemporary country music has been an issue for some time now, and for better or worse, a handful of young country artists have taken the genre more into the mainstream than ever.
In retrospect, it was a good 10 years for country music, where if nothing else, the viability of the format and the star power of its singers have never been stronger. We've tried our best to assemble the highlights, whether artistic or commercial. If we've overlooked your favorite, let us know in the comments box.
After a decade spent floundering in a sea of flannel-shirted grunge rockers and precocious alt-poppers, Pop regained its footing -- and reclaimed its proper reign over the charts -- in the 2000s. The decade began where the '90s left off: boy bands, girl groups, and especially, the solo efforts of those post-bubblegum divas, who shook off their kiddie club pasts to regale us with sexy, sleek beats and more hooks than you could shake a fishing pole at. On one hand, then, Pop was back to its roots: dance music that nearly everyone could jam to on their car radio. If you know what we mean. In other ways, however, the genre branched out like never before: country artists infiltrated the charts, the dance grooves got eclectic and worldly, everyone got a hankering for a little choice retro-soul in their sound, and hip-hop was absolutely everywhere (thanks in large part to one Mr. Tim Mosley sowing his hop-scotching beats throughout the charts like a musical Johnny Appleseed). As the decade moved on, Pop even let the rockers back in, although they've fortunately been mostly the glammy, guylinered, mall-pop varieties. Relive the glory days of the new millennium with our fabulous countdown of the top of the decade's pop!
Probably the most important thing that happened to electronic music in the '00s was its acceptance as a more or less everyday part of popular music, period. Sure, subgenres like house and techno persevered, and onetime blips blossomed into full-blown global subcultures -- witness U.K. garage's resurrection as dubstep, a transformer of a genre currently plowing a juggernaut across just about everything in its path. But electronic music's once-marginal techniques found themselves diffused into every capillary of the pop bloodstream, from Kanye's Auto-Tune conceptualism to Lady Gaga's trance makeover. The point is no longer what is or isn't "electronic," but what musicians do with the tools at hand -- and how they interpret the legacy of all the disco auteurs and avant-garde freaks that made our contemporary soundscape possible. So this list isn't necessarily a definitive list of the "best" electronic albums of the '00s. Consider it, instead, a sampling of some of the decade's more provocative (or at least prescient) statements, from the underground to the charts.
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