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"

101. Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand (2004)

Franz Ferdinand's first album is one of the finest examples of a type of music that in the future is going to signify the 00s just as disco signified the late 70s and British Invasion signified the mid-60s: angular, Gang of Four-esque rock. What FF did to vary the formula was add a gigantic, ass-shaking low end (so heavy that in fact none other than Kanye West once called the band "white crunk") and catchier, Hollies-esque melodies. It's amazing how well-formed this is, and it's only a debut; only Bloc Party's first album beats it, I think, and only the Strokes come close. Everyone's heard "Take Me Out", but "Cheating on You" beats both the Vines and the Hives at their own game and the lyrics to "Michael" must have pissed off more than one idiotic jock-type who bought this record because of "Take Me Out". Granted, everything's not perfect: I've always thought the other gigantic single "This Fire" was too simplistic for its own good and "Come On Home" is pure filler. Also, the album's production is weak: playing this record back-to-back with the later FF albums just shows how much better their later ones sound (even though they never reached this level of songwriting again). A near-great album, even if it's one that people like to pile on for being "shallow"--but how "deep", exactly, are those early Beatles records, I ask you?

MY RATING: 8.8

Franz Ferdinand - "Jacqueline"

103. M.I.A. - Piracy Funds Terrorism Vol.1 (2004)

This served as little more than an introduction to M.I.A. and her music back in 2004, and today it doesn't serve much purpose now that Arular and Kala exist; all this album does is make me want to listen to an actual M.I.A. album. I did like that this mixtape looks back all the way to the early 90s when looking for stuff to sample; it's a big departure from the hundreds of rap mixtapes that never sample anything that's more than a year old. "China Girl (Diplo Mix)" starts out with a Eurythmics sample, which by itself isn't all that creative but shows M.I.A.'s awareness that she is closer to Madonna than Fela Kuti, who never once allowed the politics on his records to usurp the music, so too on this record its most powerful moments are when M.I.A. allows the political statements to come second behind the beats and samples. So this is basically a party record, to be put on when you're more focused on drinking and talking to other people than listening to music.

MY RATING: 3.8

M.I.A. - "Baile Funk One"

114. Cam'ron - Purple Haze (2004)

This is one of the most stridently awful hip-hop albums I've ever heard; nearly 80 endless minutes of subpar beats and Cam'Ron's terrible vocals. The guy is one of the least charismatic rappers there is. There are more than twenty tracks here, and while that's fine for a record with some kind of thematic through-line (Raekwon's two Cuban Linx albums) here everything is bogged down in a seemingly-endless number of skits and subpar tracks. I'm not catching any of the "atmosphere" others say this album has, and I think I'm going to have to call them on their bluff. There isn't any. Listen to Kool Keith's Octagonecologyst: there's a hip-hop record with atmosphere. Hardly a moment on this record differs from any other because Cam'ron isn't able to generate a convincing enough presence to bring us along with him. He seems like he barely cares--which might well be the effect he's going for, but that doesn't make this thing any easier to listen to. Also, if he says the word "dipset" one more time I'm going to flip out.

MY RATING: 1.2

Cam'ron - "Dip-Set Forever"

126. Mastodon - Leviathan (2004)

I don't know much about metal. I own the "masterpieces" of the genre and don't have much familiarity with anything outside those. I think Ride the Lightning is better than Master of Puppets and Slayer's Reign in Blood is better than both of them. Metal seems to exist entirely outside of most other types of music; there's very little, if any, cross-pollination between it and, say, "indie" or hip-hop or pop or whatever. This is somewhat by way of saying that the inclusion of Leviathan on this list smacks of tokenism--it's a great record, certainly, but it seems a little silly for them to include it when I find it hard to believe there are no other metal albums worthy of being on such a list. It seems like they felt that they had to put at least one metal album on a top 200 of the 00s list or nobody would take them seriously--a strange idea, since they managed to leave Metallica and Slayer off their 80s list, which to me is a far bigger omission (Mastodon are good, but this record's no Reign in Blood). Anyway, as for this one, all I can really say is that it's metal varied and well-composed enough to interest a non-metal fan (me). I was about 25 minutes into it before I consciously realized that the thing had been solidly kicking my ass for those entire 25 minutes without a break, and some of the record's best moments basically consist of one brilliant guitar riff after another, each following the previous one so rapidly your brain hardly has time to comprehend the power of the one that's been left behind. The effect is of an embarrassment of riches--like the band is so good at coming up with these riffs that they can afford to just throw them away. The band's strongest aspect, though, is Brett Dailor's drumming: the guy is clearly one of the best drummers alive, and at times the rest of the record almost seems to exist to justify his ridiculous fills. Anyway, if you are at all interested in metal, you undoubtedly already own this or have at least listened to it (it is without a doubt the most popular and critically respected metal album of the past 10 years). If you don't like metal, give it a try. It's about as good as a limited genre can possibly get.

MY RATING: 8.8

Mastodon - "I Am Ahab"

129. The Streets - A Grand Don't Come for Free (2004)

Mike Skinner was born to make this record. The concept album fits him like the proverbial glove, and what makes the whole thing even better is that this is basically a concept album about nothing much--our hero forgets to return his DVD, goes on a date, smokes pot at his girlfriend's house, etc...it's a nice way of making use of the strengths of the concept album format without falling into its worst pitfall--pretentiousness. This album is funny, catchy, and perfectly sequenced--it flows like a good story, and it seemed like a classic the first time I heard it. Skinner is probably the most human rapper there is--he's all about his foibles and little moments most others would ignore. He takes the tiniest things and turns them into epics--"Empty Cans" in particular. The production is simple and effective, the lyrics are without peer (seriously--there's hardly a weak line on the entire record) and it's about as near a classic as this decade brought us. One or two of the tracks are weaker than the others, and that's a disappointment, but the rest of the album is so exemplary Skinner can keep on making crappy follow-up records for the rest of his life and I won't care. He's earned a lifetime of goodwill with this one.

MY RATING: 9.4

The Streets - "Fit But You Know It"

145. The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat (2004)

 

This is by far the most extreme example of the (for a time) popular "progressive pop" style, in which pop melodies are placed one after another in endless profusion so we get 8 minute-plus tracks in which melodies last for about a minute, to be replaced by another. Destroyer's Destroyer's Rubies was an example of this, but this is even more out-there, with 5 tracks over 8 minutes, singing in Inuit, four-minute Steve Reich-y minimalist patterns and lengthy, surrealistic children's stories. It's too complex for its own good; to get anything out of this record requires about four or five careful listens (i.e. no distractions) and even then you'll realize that what you get out of it isn't all that great. There are catchy moments, yes, but they don't develop or lead into or out of anything and the endless childishness of the lyrics gets annoying after a while. Also, lead vocalist Eleanor Friedberger has a snobbish-sounding, schoolmarm-y voice that is totally inappropriate for this kind of music. It needed a Joanna Newsom, someone who isn't afraid to embrace her inner child when singing. But even then, would this have worked? There comes a point when the sheer amount of mental work required to understand a composition works against its quality--or, the quality revealed is incommensurate with the work you had to put in to discover it. It ain't about how good a musician or arranger you are--this is why the Ramones are a better band than say, Dream Theater. Plus there is no sense of atmosphere or any attempt at soundscaping on this record--at least when the Decemberists write their stupid songs about pirate ships they make you feel like you're on a pirate ship through the production and instrumental choices. It's all just one annoying pop bit after another, and it could have easily been 30 short tracks as opposed to 13 long ones. I want to say that despite all this, the album is still impressive in its scope and ambition, but even saying that rings false to me. It just goes to show that excellence in art more often happens when one takes a single thing and works it to perfection, rather than taking a million things and throwing them against the wall.

MY RATING: 4.3

The Fiery Furnaces - "Mason City"

148. Erlend Øye – DJ-Kicks (2004)

This is a mix record, of which there are a few on this list, but what separates this one from the rest is that Kings of Convenience member Oye uses the format to indulge his own particulars, doing things like covering "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" and re-recording certain songs with his own vocals. The whole thing is like a cross between Michael Mayer's Immer and a DJ Shadow record, and it works beautifully (most of the time). Oye has a great, soothing voice, perfectly suited for this kind of electronic pop, and the album works the best when it's focusing on that and not trying to make us "dance". Because, frankly, this isn't a very good dance record. The interpolation of "2D2F" is a near-disaster; while this kind of hyper-aggressive and filthy as hell dance track might have worked on 2 Many DJs' As Heard on Radio Soulwax, here it's a total mood-killer and doesn't fit with the rest of the record. The interpolation of the more "obvious" artists doesn't work too much either--Phoenix don't fit with this kind of record, as good as they are, and the Rapture's "I Need Your Love" is too straightforward a pop track to fit with the rest. Other than those caveats, this really is a well-sequenced, at some parts gorgeous pop record. Oye manages to keep the thing flowing nicely despite the frequent switches between tracks, and with his own re-recorded vocals there to tie everything together, it really feels all one thing, as opposed to just another mix record.

MY RATING: 8.4

Erlend Oye - "Sheltered Life vs. Fine Day (accapella)"

151. The Walkmen - Bows + Arrows (2004)

This one's definitely a grower. I don't even want to know about the number of people who bought this album on the strength of "The Rat", a fantastic song but not in any way indicative of this album's sound, and at that moment immediately swore off buying another Walkmen album ever again. That's too bad, because once you get around the fact that this is largely an atmospheric record, it works very well. The Walkmen are a five-piece rock band, yes, but they appear to be influenced less by other rock groups than by singer-songwriters like Tom Waits. Basically, if the spirit of Waits could be split among five guys in a band, that would be the Walkmen. This was the first time they found songs that were worthy of their intense command of dark and panicked atmosphere, and while it's not the best album they've made (that would be You & Me) it's probably the second best. The constant alternating between gauzy, feedback-laden ballads and aggressive rock tracks works well, and Hamilton Leithauser's voice (despite its obvious similarity to Bob Dylan's) is the perfect one for this band. Nobody else sounds quite like them, and I think that's a worthy enough achievement to celebrate. They evoke classic American folk music without falling into a single one of the obvious cliches practiced by pretty much every mediocre folk group--in its own way it's as brilliant a reinvention of blues and folk as that made by Led Zeppelin forty years earlier. But when it's all over it'll be the sound--not the songs--you'll be remembering.

MY RATING: 8.3

The Walkmen - "Little House of Savages"

154. Ghostface Killah - The Pretty Toney Album (2004)

Ghostface is without a doubt in my mind the greatest rapper of the 00s (perhaps the greatest rapper of all time) and this album, while it's considered a "minor" album in his canon, is just as good as Supreme Clientele. What helps here are the relatively short lengths of each track; most of them are done in just over three minutes, and each one is accompanied by an ass-kicking soul beat. Nobody is better than Ghostface at re-appropriating these soul beats in hip-hop, and an instrumental version of a Ghostface album would work just as well as a modern funk record. The relatively low-key quality of this album allows Ghostface to loosen up and just do whatever the hell he pleases, which gives the album the relatively rare feeling of sounding both casual and intense--or maybe it's just that Ghost is so good at what he does that he makes it look easy. Both the uptempo tracks ("Beat the Clock") and more balladesque material ("It's Over") are expertly performed and produced, and there's hardly a slow point from beginning to end, aside from a few ill-chosen skits (but thankfully, they're short--nowhere near the 3+ minute skits that were a major liability on Supreme Clientele). It's not as serious as an album like The W, nor does it try to be--it's just a fun, professional record, well-suited for the over-the-top Vegas font of the album cover. It's not nearly as weird as Ghostface's other stuff (he never would have let an obvious dumb pop track like "Tush" on Fishscale) but for what it is, it's great.

MY RATING: 8.7

Ghostface Killah - "Beat the Clock"

167. Annie - Anniemal (2004)

I'm not a fan of most modern dance-pop; it seems to me a genre that reached its apex with Michael Jackson and never really recovered since then. The very idea of "indie dance-pop" is enough to make my brain explode, because has there ever been a type of music where commercial success and radio play is so intrinsic, so utterly required? Dance-pop seems to exist only as a function of commercial success, the logical endpoint of a desire to make music as simple and unoffensive as possible. Yet every once in a while something good sneaks through, like this one. Annie's debut record is everything you'd want in a modern pop record: great vocals, great hooks, great production. The problem is that it's too unpretentious. This kind of music is pretentious as hell: fashionable guest stars and incongruous hip-hop sections are the rule. Not here. It's just 80s-style pop, through and through. It makes no concessions to modern trends; it just sounds as though Annie and her producers loved early 80s Madonna and wanted to make an album in that style as accurately as they could. It's pointless to talk about singles here: they could all be singles. It's that kind of record. It's shallow, but this music is designed to be shallow; one might as well castigate a Slayer record for being too loud. For what it is, it's as good as it can be. A weird kind of minor miracle.

MY RATING: 8.1

Annie - "Happy Without You"

171. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike (2004)

At its best, this sounds like the music that would play when you and your motley crew of well-trained misfits jump in your specially outfitted van and drive around the city solving crime and other related mysteries. At its worst it sounds like a cheap, tinny dance record recorded on some guy's boombox. I found a copy of this at Walmart (!!!) six years ago for five dollars and picked it up and loved it right away, thinking it was one of the best records I've heard in years: it smacks you in the face immediately. It's the opposite of a "grower"; it kicks your ass the first time, and then seems progressively weaker each time you listen to it. It's musical candy, in that a tiny bit of it is great, but after even fifteen minutes it gets tiresome and annoying and you want to throw in something with real substance (It reminds me more than a little of Sleigh Bells' Treats, actually: although this album's much better overall). The followup record has a little bit more of that, but unfortunately not enough, and the songs on that one are weaker overall, so it's a bit of a toss-up as to which one is better. Anyway, the point of this album is EXCITEMENT. There are no moments of quiet or reflection, except for a few interlude-y tracks, which sound like a group of first-graders banging on the school piano when the music teacher is out of the room. Again, is some of it fun? Yes. "Panther Dash" kicks ass, bursting through the gate right away with a gigantic surf guitar riff, as good as anything the Ventures ever put out. The problem with this is that four or five of these songs are just weaker versions of the good stuff, and it just isn't fun to sit through, and the final track is a bizarre, five-minute series of "western" noises (banjos, Ennio Morricone-aping orchestration) that just doesn't work. The best of this is great, but the whole thing is shallow as a puddle of spit on a sand dune and will probably end up like those thousands of "Sounds from Outer-Space!!!" records from the fifties and early sixties you can find in used bins.

MY RATING: 6.9

The Go! Team - "Junior Kickstart"

180. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (2004)

Oh yeah. Now this is the stuff. Nick Cave is one of the greatest songwriters of the past fifty years, one of rock's authentic geniuses, and this is probably one of the top three records he's made. And it's a double album! Over eighty minutes! And it's all great! Well, one or two tracks ("Abbatoir Blues", "Babe, You Turn Me On") are a little bit less great, but with this album, picking out the great songs is just a matter of listing everything. Cave's lyrics took a turn for the stranger here--whereas he used to let loose bloodsoaked tales of cowboys, murderers, and murderous cowboys, now he's replaced it for an almost Dylanesque series of bizarre images. And the music? Oh, it's great. More mainstream and less avantgarde than the earlier Bad Seeds stuff, sure, but who cares when the melodies and arrangements are so stunning? It's almost impossible to pick out the best stuff here, but I suppose I'll single out two tracks for special praise: "Hiding All Away" is about as apocalyptic as Cave ever gets, and "Easy Money" is so beautifully, flabbergastingly depressing you'll weep for humanity. I'm not saying any more--you get the drift. Why do you not have this? Buy this!

MY RATING: 9.8

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - "Hiding All Away"

191. Air - Talkie Walkie (2004)

This is, without a doubt, the single most gorgeous album on this entire 2000s list. It's an album to fall in love to; an album to stare at sunsets to. What Air have done here is take everything gorgeous about 80s pop and soft rock and jettison everything cheesy and sentimental and produce a near-masterpiece. It's the best thing they've ever done--the more famous Moon Safari, while great, doesn't have the melodic and emotional directness that this one does. Hardly a second is given over to aimless "pretty" synthesizers, as would become a problem on later Air releases, and every bit of it is filled up music that is simultaneously light and deep. I have no idea how they did this. Air have always stood on the edge of the proverbial knife--their music is always just this close to being kitsch, the kind of stuff they play to ease your pain while your teeth are being yanked out. Not this time. Just listen to something like "Venus"--never before have I heard a song that so openly courts derisive laughter, the lyrics in their entirety being the following: "You could be from Venus/I could be from Mars/We would be together/Lovers forever/Care for each other/You could live in the sea/And I could be a bird/We would be together/Lovers forever/Care for each other/if you were an illusion/I would make it real/We would be together/Lovers forever/Care for each other/If you walk in the sun/I would be your shadow/We would be together/Lovers forever." That ain't Shakespeare, but how Air make it work is to eschew all "emotion" in the lyrics, reciting them like robots, so that the words themselves become sounds, almost a religious chant. The song is, quite simply, one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard in my life. #191? Shamefully low. Buy this album. Give it to your girlfriend and she will marry you. I guarantee it (not a guarantee).

MY RATING: 9.7

Air - "Venus"

193. Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing in the Hands (2004)

 

Devendra Banhart is a hippie from San Francisco with a giant beard who just happens to make some excellent folk music. This album's greatest strength is its unpretentiousness--Banhart sings songs about his beard and people he knows and things like that. The melodies are tasteful without being boring (a hard thing to pull off--look at the depressing number of guys-with-a-guitar out there). This thing was produced by scary man and resident gothic genius Michael Gira, and even though this album, tonally, is pretty far from the Swans, it's easy to see what attracted him. Banhart's voice is fantastic, a wild quaver that almost singlehandedly pulls this album to the upper echelon of folk music records. It's tough to mention highlights on such an even record, but my personal favorite is probably "My Beard Is For Siobhan," which gains its power from the inexplicable foot-stomping hoedown Banhart tosses in at the end. A wonderful, subtle, underrated record. My little brother loves it.

MY RATING: 8.1

Devendra Banhart - "A Sight to Behold"