Yesterday, Paste released its list of the 50 Best Albums Of The 2000s, and the list was topped by none other than Sufjan Stevens’ Illinoise, which honestly seems like it was released way longer ago, so established has he become in the indie-rock firmament. Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the Arcade Fire’s Funeral, Radiohead’s Kid A, and Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning rounded out the top five. Full rundown after the jump, but first, a few reactions.
THE GOOD: Hey, look, Stankonia! At No. 8! Three places beneath… Bright Eyes. Sigh.
THE BAD: Instead of noting the male-white–breadiness of the list—because that is, after all, the way of Paste, and you can’t expect them to change their stripes just for the sake of a mid-autumn pageview-generation ploy—I’m going to zero in on one totally questionable choice. Namely, the selection of M.I.A. albums on the list. Arular (No. 10) and not Kala? Really? I mean, Arular is fine, but Kala is kinda next-level. Is it because of the (admittedly unfortunate) Timbaland track?
THE WHAAAA? Dear Paste fact-checkers: Not for nothing, but Radiohead’s In Rainbows was not entirely “self-released,” as you claim. I know that would screw up the “it changed everything with its revolutionary pricing methods” that serves as the angle for your gushing write-up of the record. Pity that you muffed the opportunity to write about something so (yawn) groundbreaking by regurgitating a tired, half-true spiel.
50. Björk, Vespertine (Elektra, 2001)
49. Libertines, Up The Bracket (Rough Trade, 2002)
48. Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose (Interscope, 2004)
47. Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (Domino, 2006)
46. Music From The Motion Picture Once (Columbia, 2007)
45. Radiohead, In Rainbows (Self-released, 2007)
44. The Jayhawks, Rainy Day Music (Lost Highway, 2003)
43. Jens Lekman, Night Falls Over Kortedala (Secretly Canadian, 2007)
42. Jay-Z, The Blueprint (Roc-A-Fella, 2001)
41. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver (Capitol, 2007)
40. TV on the Radio, Return To Cookie Mountain (Interscope, 2006)
39. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible (Merge, 2007)
38. Gentleman Jesse, Introducing Gentleman Jesse (Douchemaster, 2008)
37. Iron & Wine, Our Endless Numbered Days (Sub Pop, 2004)
36. Pedro The Lion, Control (Jade Tree, 2002)
35. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino, 2009)
34. Music From The Motion Picture O Brother Where Art Thou? (Mercury, 2001)
33. Coldplay, A Rush Of Blood To The Head (Capitol, 2002)
32. The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Warner Bros., 2002)
31. Death Cab For Cutie, Transatlanticism (Barsuk, 2003)
30. Damien Rice, O (Vector, 2003)
29. Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago (Jagjaguwar, 2008)
28. Paul Westerberg, Folker (Vagrant, 2004)
27. Drive-By Truckers, Decoration Day (New West, 2003)
26. Over the Rhine, Ohio (2004)
25. Sigur Rós, Med ud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust (XL, 2008)
24. The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow (Sub Pop, 2003)
23. Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker (Bloodshot, 2000)
22. The Decemberists, The Crane Wife (Capitol, 2006)
21. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend (XL, 2008)
20. The National, Boxer (Beggars Banquet, 2007)
19. Beck, Sea Change (Interscope, 2002)
18. Amy Winehouse, Back To Black (Universal Republic, 2007)
17. Kanye West, The College Dropout (Roc-A-Fella, 2004)
16. Rufus Wainwright, Want One (Dreamworks, 2003)
15. Patty Griffin, 1000 Kisses (ATO, 2002)
14. The Strokes, Is This It (RCA, 2001)
13. Josh Ritter, The Animal Years (V2, 2006)
12. Spoon, Kill the Moonlight (Merge, 2002)
11. The Hold Steady, Boys And Girls In America (Vagrant, 2006)
10. M.I.A., Arular (Interscope, 2005)
9. The Avett Brothers, I And Love And You (Columbia/American, 2009)
8. OutKast, Stankonia (Arista/LaFace, 2000)
7. Gillian Welch, Time (The Revelator) (Acony, 2001)
6. The White Stripes, Elephant (V2, 2003)
5. Bright Eyes, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning (Saddle Creek, 2005)
4. Radiohead, Kid A (Capitol, 2000)
3. Arcade Fire, Funeral (Merge, 2004)
2. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Nonesuch, 2002)
1. Sufjan Stevens, Illinois (Asthmatic Kitty, 2005)
The Best Albums Of The Decade [Paste]
Glad to see some latter-day Westerberg get some love, I guess, though Bob Mould’s 00’s albums are better.
Also worth noting that Kid A, Funeral, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot were all in Pitchfork’s top four (in reverse order).
It’s like the Blizzard of 77 up in here.
Also Good: They picked the right Hold Steady album. B&GiA is their Springsteeniest, and therefore best. (Not that I’m a Bruce partisan, but I just want those guys to be what they so clearly are.)
Also Bad: Remembering to include LCD’s Sound of Silver but then not placing it anywhere near the Top 10 is some kind of crime. It’s bad enough these guys have a reputation as Music For White Men Afraid Of The Dance Floor; they don’t need to affirm it like that.
I’m glad to see The Hold Steady so high, but its another list devoid of anything metal. (though I guess Pitchfork had Mastodon? But it was pretty deep).
I’d like to see one list with Bear Vs. Shark’s Terrorhawk somewhere on it.
@moulty: Am I the only person who can stand the song “idioteque” and nothing else on that album?
@TheRunningboard7: Possibly the most boring album ever. It’s my bed time music; I never make it through Everything…
Whatever the good and bad of this list, it does not make me want to shoop, if you know what I’m sayin.
The BLUEPRINT instead of KINGDOM COME? Come on, guys!
@TheRunningboard7: Eh, I like about 60% of the album. I second the chorus of Boys And Girls In America supporters.
That any list of 50 aughts albums could lack both Madvillainy AND both Dinosaur Jr reunion albums is appalling to me. Do paste readers abhor marijuana use?
@fna: My relationship with Radiohead’s weird, because I hated The Bends and Pablo Honey, I fell in love with OK Computer, then I didn’t like anything they put out until In Rainbows. I’ve been giving albums on Pitchfork’s 200 list another once through (thank you Johnson County Library!!), but the only album on the list I don’t already own that’s grown better in my opinion is Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
@moulty:
I just wished they’d picked the right Westerberg record, Stereo/Mono.
@Audif Jackson Winters III: What, really? Although, now that I think about it, Kingdom Come is probably the Paste-ier record.
Van Lear Rose should be way higher.
Gillian Welch in the top ten is pretty radical. Time (The Revelator) is an incredible record, a series of songs in which to fall apart forever.
Yeah, just a joke based on my recollection of KINGDOM COME getting an inordinate amount of praise from random, presumptively clueless places. My specific memory is Stereogum briefly (and embarassingly) listing it in their dearly departed “Rocking the Ipod” sidebar.
my thoughts:
1. Never liked Sufjan. Emphasis on the YAWN.
2. Glad to see that Kanye’s best (and first) album is the only one on the list.
3. Hail to the Thief and Amnesiac are underrated, and should be here (over In Rainbows in my opinion).
4. WHERE IS BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE YOU FORGOT IT IN PEOPLE?
5. Kala >>>>> Arular
6. Glad Stankonia is high on the list.
7. Vampire Weekend at 21. Huh. Really?
Even Paste only put two women in their top 10. Paste, the magazine that might as well have had Aimee Mann on the cover of every issue from 99-04.
I was actually fine with the list up to #21. Control, Sound of Silver, Night Falls Over Kortedala and Vespertine are all really good, and I liked Up The Bracket enough that I’m glad it’s on there. But the top 20 is not so good, is it?
@BradNelson: I’m with you on this, and I so don’t like stuff like that very much.
gentleman jesse is such a bizarre leftfield choice. totally mediocre rip on costello/joe jackson/nick lowe, even down to the this year’s model cover ape-ing.
devendra and joanna are oddly missing and i know paste must have been huge supporters of that shit in the first half plus of this decade. yes, most of the shit connected to the freak-folk scene SUCKED (i’m looking at you feathers and espers and entrance and like a million others) but devendra and joanna haven’t made a bad album yet. and, for better or worse, that shit defined a huge portion of this decade. there’s no need to pretend it didn’t exist just cause you regret giving a positive review to some 3rd tiered nu-folk bullshit 4 years ago.
I’m psyched about Vespertine being included, even though it being No. 50. It’s my favorite record.
Other thoughts:
- It’s weird seeing Coldplay in these sorts of lists. A rush… is my favorite record of theirs, though.
- Kala is so much better than Arular.
- Damien Rice, more like NO.
- Some people are right: KID A is going-to-bed music. But incredibly beautiful and complex and crazy going-to-bed music. It deserves the praise.
@iantenna: The other Feathers, from Miami, is pretty rad. They sound like Stereolab and Can.
I think The Moon and Antarctica should have made the cut.
I’m finding the revisionist exclusion of Brian Wilson’s Smile (which everyone reviewed as a new release in ‘04 and included in that year’s top new releases) from all of these Top of the ’00s kind of infuriating.
@whoneedslight: Agreed. But You Forgot It In People really, really should have made the cut too. (It is in my top 5 of the decade.)
Thierry: Infuriating that it is being excluded now, or infuriating that it was wrongly included on those lists before? I’m honestly not sure where it belongs.
@chachwitablog: A bit of both, but if I were them I would err on the side of consistency. I think that ultimately it should be considered a 2004 release - sure, much of it was composed in 1967, but the final track order and the actual recordings date from 2004. In the end it’s not unlike someone re-recording old previously unreleased tracks and calling it a new album (as Neil Young has been known to do) - the one difference here is that we’re very familiar with the backstory.