75. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale (2006)

Ghostface was always the most eccentric of the Wu-Tang Clan (except for ODB, of course, but he was on another plane entirely) and this is the one where he finally lets his freak flag fly--there's crime stories that get cut off halfway through, Rocky-ish fight songs, surrealistic drug narratives, Wu-Tang reunion tracks, and Ghostface getting yelled at by a four-year-old kid. This is, in my opinion, the greatest solo album that any member of the Wu-Tang ever put out, and considering the mindboggling quality of a lot of it (I mean, you've got Liquid Swords and the two Cuban Linx records there), that's no small compliment. There's twenty tracks here and it's all over in less than an hour but it still manages to feel epic, Ghostface serving as our weird and psychotic Mephistopheles as we travel through a world of drugs, "Krispy Kreme, cocaine, dead bodies", and whatever pops into his head. Ghostface doesn't focus as much on memorable individual lines as powerful, visual narratives, and a track like "Shakey Dog" is practically its own music video, as Ghostface focuses on little details like the seat being pushed too far up in the car on the way to a robbery. I don't know if you can call this a "masterpiece," exactly, because in any such undisciplined explosion of creativity there's bound to be a duffer or two, but the quality of the best work here is staggering.

MY RATING: 9.5

Ghostface Killah - "Shakey Dog"

76. Junior Boys - Last Exit (2004)

This album infects your mind. The first time I listened to it I didn't feel much one way or the other, but something about it led me to listen over and over again: I must have played it six times again that day, and since then it's become one of my favorite albums of the decade, despite the absence of any obvious "high points". It's a very even album, perfectly encapsulated by its cover: listening to it is like walking through the hallways of some pristine white spaceship. I know I harp on atmosphere on this page, and how hard it is to achieve, but this album is like a masterclass in it: every song uses much the same elements as the one before but never once do I grow bored or wish the group would expand its horizons. "In the Morning," as great a single as it is, would have been fatal here: there's nothing uptempo, it's all chill-out music, and even "Birthday" has a simple heartbeat-style beat that lulls you rather than excites you. The vocals are perfect, the production is perfect--this is one of electronic pop's most amazing constructions, and certainly the greatest example of it in the 00s.

MY RATING: 9.5

Junior Boys - "Teach Me How To Fight"

77. Missy Elliott - Miss E...So Addictive (2001)

What is it with albums where the second side is just a weaker version of the first? If this album were nothing but the first four "actual" tracks it would be one of the best of the decade: "Dog in Heat", "One Minute Man", "Lick Shots" and of course "Get Ur Freak On" are fucking awesome, a combination of monstrous funk bass and squiggly-sounding synths that sound not only completely new but out of time entirely: Timbaland's production here is fantastic. But the album's last two-thirds? Well, there's nothing much to say about it except that it fails to match what's come before and just makes you want to listen to "Dog in Heat" again. Actually, can we talk about "Get Ur Freak On"? That track is amazing. It doesn't reveal its genius the first time round: in fact it even sounds annoying, the perpetual Punjabi melody threatening to give you a headache, but a lot of great pop music has skirted just this side of irritation--remember "Sugar Sugar"? Hell, even on the opposite side, Laurie Anderson's "O Superman"? Pop music thrives on repetition (The Fall understand this) and "Get Ur Freak On" is such a bracing combination of genres that it transcends funk/R&B and becomes not even pop but some kind of all-encompassing music that represents all cultures: Eastern and Western, rich and poor. The rest? Ehh.

MY RATING: 6.3

Missy Elliott - "Get Ur Freak On"

78. No Age - Nouns (2008)

No Age's big breakout record jettisons pretty much everything that was interesting about them and puts in its place a somewhat generic, Sebadoh-ish 90s indie rock. Everything is fuzzy and tinny and loud, and while the songs are catchy enough while they're on there's nothing close to the previous record's "Every Artist Needs a Tragedy" or "Neck Escaper". "Things I Did When I Was Dead" is the one track that combines No Age's punk and ambient tendencies effectively, but the rest is just the same old catchy punk rock. The drums sound like a drum machine and the lo-fi-ness, rather than opening up any new creative avenues, just seems to hem the band in--the songwriting isn't good enough to make a virtue of the style, like Pavement's was, and the poor quality recording just sounds like an affectation and not something that really means much of anything. Pavement had the good sense to foreground the bass in their early records, which was interesting in such a lo-fi record; this is just fuzzy guitar and desultory vocals.

MY RATING: 4.8

No Age - "Teen Creeps"

79. Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds (2006)

This was certainly the most gigantically ambitious pop record of the decade; Timberlake was trying to make his Thriller with Timbaland to Michael's Quincy Jones, and he didn't quite succeed, but what's there is choice: the first half of this record is one of the most consistent runs of pop music anyone's pulled off yet, and even the second half has some amazing weirdness ("Losing My Way"? What the hell is that?). Weirdness is the order of the day here, with "Sexy Back" almost purposely annoying with its stuttering, whiny organ and incomprehensible vocal repetition. Timberlake almost seems to be channeling Trent Reznor's more funky stuff on the title track, and the two gigantic "suites" that sit in the center of the record are so perfectly written and arranged that time seems to stop as you listen to them. There is no more debased genre than MTV-friendly pop music, and anyone who attempts to revive it with real creativity and songwriting deserves kudos. Timberlake could have just recorded twelve more versions of "Cry Me A River" and called it a day; instead he recorded one of the longest, weirdest, catchiest, most confounding pop albums ever made. The album is so surprising that the two generic ballads ("Until the End of Time" and "Another Song (All Over Again)") are twice as disappointing when they finally show up. But hey--just skip 'em.

MY RATING: 9.0

Justin Timberlake - "Love Stoned - I Think She Knows (Interlude)"

80. The Clientele - Suburban Light (2000)

Suburban Light is one of the decade's great achievements of atmosphere, and it is all the more remarkable for the fact that it never really strays from the standard pop formula; it's easy enough to construct atmospherics if you've got ten minute-long tracks and progressive song structures to play with, but it's a heck of a lot harder if you're writing pop songs and all you're using are the standard drums, bass, vocals, guitar. This album is a kind of miracle: it perfectly encapsulates the hazy, rainy feeling of its cover, and it never deviates from it for a second. The band's discipline is such that each track adds to the experience and yet there are no songs that "stand out"; everything is very even; selecting a favorite track is impossible here. "From A Window" is a little bit faster than the rest and "Reflections After Jane" was the single, but pretty much any track could have been a single--the songs are that good. What also is impressive here is that this music evokes no specific era: it's 60s pop, it's 70s pop, there's even a little bit of the Smiths in there for your 80s pop. It exists in its own world, a world that was created for this album only and was never to be returned to again.

MY RATING: 9.3

The Clientele - "We Could Walk Together"

81. Hot Chip - The Warning (2006)

Hot Chip produce an aggressively quirky (just try to think of any other word for that--admittedly hilarious--title track) brand of electronic pop that stands and falls completely on the level of melody; whereas on later records the dance aspects got more play here there's almost nothing that's really "danceable". "And I Was A Boy From School" is a straight-up pop track with a fantastic chorus, and "Look After Me" is the same way. The instrumentation is pretty wan and forgettable, and a lot of tracks feel like demo versions of later ones. "So Glad To See You" and "Tchaperian" are gone without leaving a trace of their existence, and "Arrest Yourself" is a fairly pointless attempt at a "harsher" track. The band's secret weapon is the natural contrast between their gorgeous harmony vocals and the dark and sterile electronic beats. It feels like a more honest bit of 80s revival than Cut Copy's similar stuff two years later; this has more of its own personality and interest and while parts of it are weak there are some tracks here that deserve to stand up as classics.

MY RATING: 7.7

Hot Chip - "No Fit State"