(part four // 20-11)
20. The Arcade Fire – Funeral (Merge, 2004)
If this album continues to grow on me the way it has the past four months, then there’s no telling how high it will be on my end of the decade list. It wasn’t my favorite album of 2004, but I think that’s only because I had three months to live with it as opposed to the nine I had to fall in love with Modest Mouse. All of that aside, this is truly one of those albums that comes out of nowhere and becomes pretty much a classic. Any album that is able to make me laugh, cry, smile, think, and feel like jumping up and down throughout its running time is something that I will love for years and years to come.
19. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker (Bloodshot, 2000)
So, yeah, I’m a sucker for Ryan Adams – despite how much of a prick the guy can come across as in interviews, he’s still an amazing songwriter. I’d been a fan since I picked up Stranger’s Almanac by his band Whiskeytown, but it wasn’t until I heard the solo debut that I knew just how much I liked him. I’m pretty sure a lot of my personal connection with this album had to do with my heart being steamrolled by a certain girl, and “Come Pick Me Up” just rang pretty true, I still think it’s the best song about loving that girl you shouldn’t ever. Toss in a beautiful duet with Emmylou Harris on “Oh, My Sweet Carolina” and the amazing “To Be Young (is to be sad, is to be high”, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a debut album.
18. Beck – Sea Change (Geffen, 2002)
Speaking of breaking up, this is one of the greatest break-up albums by one of the most unlikely artists. Yeah, thanks to One Foot in the Grave we already knew Beck could do the acoustic thing, but I for one had no idea that he could make such an emotionally engaging album. It’s definitely a downer of an album, but sometimes that’s all any of us needs to get by. While Beck’s lyrics are busy breaking your heart all over again, the subtle production work from Nigel Godrich (Radiohead) keeps this from falling into the background.
17. White Stripes – Elephant (V2, 2003)
When an album kicks off with a bassline (guitar faked or not) like this, you just know it’s going to be really good. But by the time “Seven Nation Army” is over you are kicking your expectations up even higher. And I’ll be damned if this fourth album by the Whites doesn’t deliver and then some. You’ve got pretty much every aspect of a rock album you could ever desire on this one – from the sprawling blues epic of “Ball and Biscuit” to the two-minute raver “Hypnotize” to the sweetly twee group singalong “Well It’s True That We Love One Another”. Not to mention the surprisingly good vocal performance by Meg on “In the Cold, Cold Night”. The Stripes’ stock was already heading for the stratosphere with the last album, but Elephant proves they’ve got something that 90% of the big hype bands lack – real staying power.
16. Modest Mouse – Good News For People Who Love Bad News (Epic, 2004)
I wrote a little bit earlier this month about the fascinating experience I had with this album, the experience that propelled it to become my favorite album of 2004. But beyond even that, this is just a really, really well done all around rock album. Catchy hooks, excellent production, meaningful lyrics, and a few side trips into unfamiliar territory all combined to make this the most solid release of last year. I’m continually surprised at how every listen forces me to choose a new favorite song, even the ones that I initially disliked. Isaac Brock and the boys deserved every bit of mainstream love they got with this one.
15. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (Kranky, 2000)
Post-rock? Sound collage? Experimental? I really don’t care what adjectives or descriptors you want to throw at this band, because nothing is going to prepare a new listener for what they are about to hear. By the year 2000, the soft-to-loud slow build thing had been done a thousand times before, but never with this much intensity and emotion. One of the few double-disc albums of the last ten years that doesn’t have about 10-15 minutes worth that could have been excised. Every second and sound is a vital piece of this composition, working together and at odds with each other to create an exciting aural experience.
14. Outkast – Speakerboxx/The Love Below (LaFace, 2003)
One disc was one of the most solid hip-hop albums of 2003, while the other was one of the most intriguing rap-funk-r & b-techno-blues-jazz albums of all time. We all knew that Big Boi and Andre 3000 were more than capable of bringing a new twist to rap, but not to this insane level. Big Boi’s half featured top-notch guest spots from the likes of Jay-Z, Lil Jon, Killer Mike, and Ludacris for a damn-near five mic classic. That disc alone would have been enough to propel the set onto this list, but Andre’s half simply pushes it straight to the top half. Whether he’s funking around with a techno cover of “My Favorite Things” or dropping the greatest pop song of the last five years in “Hey Yeah” (straight up), Andre brought enough style, balls, and talent to make this a lasting classic.
13. The Strokes – Is This It? (RCA, 2001)
So let’s get it all out of the way first. Yes, The Strokes are a hip band full of even hipper rich boys who probably spend more time on their wardrobes and model/actress girlfriends than they do in the practice room. Yes, they were overhyped to the point of disgusting people months before the debut album even dropped. Yes, they were saviors of rock destined to destroy teen-pop and nu-metal, or at least NME and Rolling Stone would have you believe. But you wanna know something? They can get away with all of that when they manage to drop a perfect half-hour of rock and roll like they did with Is This It.
12. Jay-Z – The Blueprint (Rocafella, 2001)
After several years of slowly creeping up the charts and into American’s hearts, Jay-Z didn’t need to drop an album like this. He easily could have rested on his laurels and dropped a hot single now and then while his legions of fans ate up everything he released. Instead the Jigga man came up with the best album of his career, in my opinion even topping the classic debut Reasonable Doubt (mostly due to the lacking production values of the latter). Straight out of the box Jay teamed up with a little know producer by the name of Kanye West to drop the street anthem of the summer of 2001 in “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”. When the album itself came out, anthems like “Girls, Girls, Girls” and “Hola Hovito” thumped out of speakers everywhere while “Song Cry” and “Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love)” furthered the other, more sensitive side of Jigga’s persona. Top all this off with the killer Nas-baiting, Doors-sampling “Takeover” and a killer guest spot from Eminem on “Renegade” and you’ve got a classic hip-hop album.
11. The Streets – Original Pirate Material (Vice/Atlantic, 2003)
“Let me get this straight… this guy raps, right? And he’s a white kid from England? And the majority of his beats were slapped together from stuff around his house, like a Playstation? Right, I’ve just got to hear this trainwreck of an album.” At least that’s what I was saying before the first time I was able to hear “Let’s Push Things Forward” and I was set back on the right track. Mike Skinner wasn’t about to challenge the thrones of Jay-Z or Nas with his flow skills on this one, but he more than made up for his lack of lyrical skills with astounding knacks for both production and story-telling. It’s been a long time coming, waiting for the international reach of hip-hop to produce its first foreign superstar. But with results this outstanding, it was well worth the wait.
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