Albums of the Decade, Part Six (and final)
50) Patrick Wolf 'The Magic Position'
49) Lift To Experience 'The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads'
48) Smoosh 'She Like Electric'
47) Nada Surf 'Lucky'
46) My Chemical Romance 'The Black Parade'
45) CSS 'Cansei de Ser Sexy'
44) Super Furry Animals 'Phantom Power'
43) The Last Shadow Puppets 'The Age of the Understatement'
42) Murderdolls 'Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls'
41) Mogwai 'Happy Songs For Happy People'
40) Patrick Wolf 'Wind in the Wires'
39) Bat For Lashes 'Fur and Gold'
38) Goldfrapp 'Felt Mountain'
37) The Dresden Dolls 'Yes, Virginia'
36) The White Stripes 'White Blood Cells'
35) Marilyn Manson 'Holy Wood'
34) Broken Records 'Until the Earth Begins To Part'
33) Metric 'Fantasies'
32) Sparklehorse 'It's A Wonderful Life'
31) The Strange Death of Liberal England 'Forward March!'
30) Gemma Hayes 'Night on my Side'
29) Ooberman 'Running Girl'
28) Richard Hawley 'Late Night Final'
27) Bent 'Programmed To Love'
26) of Montreal 'Skeletal Lamping'
25) ¡Forward Russia! 'Give Me A Wall'
24) Mull Historical Society 'Loss'
23) Operator Please 'Yes Yes Vindictive'
22) Keith Caputo 'Died Laughing'
21) Bat For Lashes 'Two Suns'
20) Six by Seven 'The Closer You Get'
19) Deftones 'White Pony'
18) Muse 'Black Holes and Revelations'
17) The Arcade Fire 'Neon Bible'
16) Mercury Rev 'All Is Dream'
15) Goldfrapp 'Black Cherry'
14) Sleater-Kinney 'One Beat'
13) British Sea Power 'Do You Like Rock Music?'
12) The Arcade Fire 'Funeral'
11) Le Tigre 'This Island'
10) Snake River Conspiracy 'Sonic Jihad'
9) Dogs 'Turn Against This Land'
8) Eels 'Souljacker'
7) Rasputina 'Frustration Plantation'
6) The Dresden Dolls 'The Dresden Dolls'
5) of Montreal ‘Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?’ (2007)
I just want to emote to the death.
Initially I wrote this off as an over-wordy, faintly ridiculous attempt to turn from a twee alt band into a funk band. Then I listened again and the raw simplicity of 'Cato As A Pun' (“What has happened to you and I?/And don't say that I have changed.... coz man, of course I have”) stopped me in my tracks and the album revealed previously hidden layers of sadness and self-destruction. It's nice when an album's a grower, right? An album built around Kevin Barnes's difficult relocation to Norway and the disintegration of his marriage with Nina Twin, the emotional nadir of the bizarrely-named 'Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?' is the twelve-minute 'performance breakdown' feedback and Casio frenzy 'The Past Is A Grotesque Animal', after which Barnes retreats into his fictional black shemale alter-ego Georgie Fruit for some intentionally unconvincing funk-disco numbers (of which 'She's A Rejecter' is the highlight). But this album would be lost without redemption and Kevin and Nina are eventually reconciled for the sake of their daughter (they also patched things up in real life). A complex album from a conflicted and troubled time.
4) The Delgados ‘The Great Eastern’ (2000)
Finish what you started here.
Having earned enough money from their Chemikal Underground label to advance their own sound beyond the chamber quartet of 'Peloton', The Delgados's third album was a massively ambitious, sweeping album in a time when that wasn't yet passé. So much more than the Sonic Youth clones that they started out as, The Delgados threw every instrument they could think of into the mix and the results were never less than spectacular, underpinned with a woozy cynicism from twin vocalists Alun and Emma. As well as having some of the best songs of the decade ('Make Your Move' and 'Witness' particular highlights), 'The Great Eastern''s pinnacle also spawned one of the phrases I've used almost constantly since, titled as it is 'No Danger'. Nobody seems to care about Delgados in favour of similar but less interesting American bands, but this album is totally worth your time.
3) Jack Off Jill ‘Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers’ (2001)
You end up dead in the end.
An album which mostly reminds me of my first year at university but which was given another run of constant plays during the glorious Kyly years, 'Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers' has stayed with me for the whole decade and has never been far from my CD player/MP3 list. What makes this album, the second and final from a former Marilyn Manson protegee, so high on the list? Well, there's the back story: a band in a downward spiral, with SWP departing the band after contributing one track and songwriting pair Agent Moulder and Jessicka constantly at one another's throats, held together only by music and the efforts of producer Chris Vrenna, all of which is evident in their work. But mostly it's the songwriting: Jessicka had mostly expunged her early cartoon shock value lyrics and Moulder had developed into a pretty sophisticated rock bassist and the album is packed with gems all the way through. JOJ disintegrated after this and the only hatchets they're likely to bury are through each other's heads, but they accrued a surprisingly large fanbase post-break up, which is testament to how powerful 'Clear Hearts' is.
2) Sigur Ros ‘Agaetis Byrjun’ (2000)
Nice weather for airstrikes.
Hearing this album for the first time was like nothing I'd ever heard in my life. At the time I was trying to make rock music using only lo-fi equipment and listening mostly to guitar bands, and here was a band who ostensibly had the same line-up as any other guitar band but sounded NOTHING like any other. Even post-rock bands had similar patterns, but not for Sigur Ros the quiet/loud dynamic, the blast of distorted guitars at the end of an instrumental build up. Here, there was the sound of a language I can't speak a syllable of, sung in an androgynous falsetto, the glacial sweep of a bowed guitar and the various sounds of an orchestra, a marching horn section and a choir. How they persuaded their label to give them the money to do this after their mediocre debut 'Von' is beyond me, but thank goodness they did. Of course, Sigur Ros are best known now for 'Hoppipolla' and 'Agaetis Byrjun' now has the issue that, after a million nature documentaries, you can never hear it for the first time, but this album is unlikely to ever be bettered by the band.
1.Devin Townsend ‘Terria’ (2001)
OK, I'm bored now.
Given the love for 2006's 'Synchestra' it's more than probable that not even this album's fans will rate this album as highly as this, but there isn't an album released this decade which has a more consistent hit rate, which brought more lyrical highlights or which I listened to more frequently than 'Terria'- and given the album's astronomical running length (71:54), that's saying something.
Here's the bad news: this could essentially be considered prog-metal. Only three of its ten tracks are less than five minutes long, two cruise past the nine-minute mark and most are full of elongated solos in drop-C tuning. Here's the good news: the record is gorgeous, feeling both epic in size and scope and intimately personal at once; an album presented as an ode to Mother Earth which appears to be about the collapse of a relationship, or is it the other way around? An album about stagnation, frustration and homesickness by a manic depressive, this is heavy in more than one sense of the word, but it still strikes me as amazing every time I listen to it and eight years on, I'm still not tired of it. Even more incredibly, a metal album exceeding 70 minutes with about ten guitar solos and not a female in sight at any point of the album is my favourite album of the decade and possibly of all time. Think about how contradictory that is, and the boundaries this album had to overcome: this is the sign of a true masterpiece.
49) Lift To Experience 'The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads'
48) Smoosh 'She Like Electric'
47) Nada Surf 'Lucky'
46) My Chemical Romance 'The Black Parade'
45) CSS 'Cansei de Ser Sexy'
44) Super Furry Animals 'Phantom Power'
43) The Last Shadow Puppets 'The Age of the Understatement'
42) Murderdolls 'Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls'
41) Mogwai 'Happy Songs For Happy People'
40) Patrick Wolf 'Wind in the Wires'
39) Bat For Lashes 'Fur and Gold'
38) Goldfrapp 'Felt Mountain'
37) The Dresden Dolls 'Yes, Virginia'
36) The White Stripes 'White Blood Cells'
35) Marilyn Manson 'Holy Wood'
34) Broken Records 'Until the Earth Begins To Part'
33) Metric 'Fantasies'
32) Sparklehorse 'It's A Wonderful Life'
31) The Strange Death of Liberal England 'Forward March!'
30) Gemma Hayes 'Night on my Side'
29) Ooberman 'Running Girl'
28) Richard Hawley 'Late Night Final'
27) Bent 'Programmed To Love'
26) of Montreal 'Skeletal Lamping'
25) ¡Forward Russia! 'Give Me A Wall'
24) Mull Historical Society 'Loss'
23) Operator Please 'Yes Yes Vindictive'
22) Keith Caputo 'Died Laughing'
21) Bat For Lashes 'Two Suns'
20) Six by Seven 'The Closer You Get'
19) Deftones 'White Pony'
18) Muse 'Black Holes and Revelations'
17) The Arcade Fire 'Neon Bible'
16) Mercury Rev 'All Is Dream'
15) Goldfrapp 'Black Cherry'
14) Sleater-Kinney 'One Beat'
13) British Sea Power 'Do You Like Rock Music?'
12) The Arcade Fire 'Funeral'
11) Le Tigre 'This Island'
10) Snake River Conspiracy 'Sonic Jihad'
9) Dogs 'Turn Against This Land'
8) Eels 'Souljacker'
7) Rasputina 'Frustration Plantation'
6) The Dresden Dolls 'The Dresden Dolls'
5) of Montreal ‘Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?’ (2007)
I just want to emote to the death.
Initially I wrote this off as an over-wordy, faintly ridiculous attempt to turn from a twee alt band into a funk band. Then I listened again and the raw simplicity of 'Cato As A Pun' (“What has happened to you and I?/And don't say that I have changed.... coz man, of course I have”) stopped me in my tracks and the album revealed previously hidden layers of sadness and self-destruction. It's nice when an album's a grower, right? An album built around Kevin Barnes's difficult relocation to Norway and the disintegration of his marriage with Nina Twin, the emotional nadir of the bizarrely-named 'Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?' is the twelve-minute 'performance breakdown' feedback and Casio frenzy 'The Past Is A Grotesque Animal', after which Barnes retreats into his fictional black shemale alter-ego Georgie Fruit for some intentionally unconvincing funk-disco numbers (of which 'She's A Rejecter' is the highlight). But this album would be lost without redemption and Kevin and Nina are eventually reconciled for the sake of their daughter (they also patched things up in real life). A complex album from a conflicted and troubled time.
4) The Delgados ‘The Great Eastern’ (2000)
Finish what you started here.
Having earned enough money from their Chemikal Underground label to advance their own sound beyond the chamber quartet of 'Peloton', The Delgados's third album was a massively ambitious, sweeping album in a time when that wasn't yet passé. So much more than the Sonic Youth clones that they started out as, The Delgados threw every instrument they could think of into the mix and the results were never less than spectacular, underpinned with a woozy cynicism from twin vocalists Alun and Emma. As well as having some of the best songs of the decade ('Make Your Move' and 'Witness' particular highlights), 'The Great Eastern''s pinnacle also spawned one of the phrases I've used almost constantly since, titled as it is 'No Danger'. Nobody seems to care about Delgados in favour of similar but less interesting American bands, but this album is totally worth your time.
3) Jack Off Jill ‘Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers’ (2001)
You end up dead in the end.
An album which mostly reminds me of my first year at university but which was given another run of constant plays during the glorious Kyly years, 'Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers' has stayed with me for the whole decade and has never been far from my CD player/MP3 list. What makes this album, the second and final from a former Marilyn Manson protegee, so high on the list? Well, there's the back story: a band in a downward spiral, with SWP departing the band after contributing one track and songwriting pair Agent Moulder and Jessicka constantly at one another's throats, held together only by music and the efforts of producer Chris Vrenna, all of which is evident in their work. But mostly it's the songwriting: Jessicka had mostly expunged her early cartoon shock value lyrics and Moulder had developed into a pretty sophisticated rock bassist and the album is packed with gems all the way through. JOJ disintegrated after this and the only hatchets they're likely to bury are through each other's heads, but they accrued a surprisingly large fanbase post-break up, which is testament to how powerful 'Clear Hearts' is.
2) Sigur Ros ‘Agaetis Byrjun’ (2000)
Nice weather for airstrikes.
Hearing this album for the first time was like nothing I'd ever heard in my life. At the time I was trying to make rock music using only lo-fi equipment and listening mostly to guitar bands, and here was a band who ostensibly had the same line-up as any other guitar band but sounded NOTHING like any other. Even post-rock bands had similar patterns, but not for Sigur Ros the quiet/loud dynamic, the blast of distorted guitars at the end of an instrumental build up. Here, there was the sound of a language I can't speak a syllable of, sung in an androgynous falsetto, the glacial sweep of a bowed guitar and the various sounds of an orchestra, a marching horn section and a choir. How they persuaded their label to give them the money to do this after their mediocre debut 'Von' is beyond me, but thank goodness they did. Of course, Sigur Ros are best known now for 'Hoppipolla' and 'Agaetis Byrjun' now has the issue that, after a million nature documentaries, you can never hear it for the first time, but this album is unlikely to ever be bettered by the band.
1.Devin Townsend ‘Terria’ (2001)
OK, I'm bored now.
Given the love for 2006's 'Synchestra' it's more than probable that not even this album's fans will rate this album as highly as this, but there isn't an album released this decade which has a more consistent hit rate, which brought more lyrical highlights or which I listened to more frequently than 'Terria'- and given the album's astronomical running length (71:54), that's saying something.
Here's the bad news: this could essentially be considered prog-metal. Only three of its ten tracks are less than five minutes long, two cruise past the nine-minute mark and most are full of elongated solos in drop-C tuning. Here's the good news: the record is gorgeous, feeling both epic in size and scope and intimately personal at once; an album presented as an ode to Mother Earth which appears to be about the collapse of a relationship, or is it the other way around? An album about stagnation, frustration and homesickness by a manic depressive, this is heavy in more than one sense of the word, but it still strikes me as amazing every time I listen to it and eight years on, I'm still not tired of it. Even more incredibly, a metal album exceeding 70 minutes with about ten guitar solos and not a female in sight at any point of the album is my favourite album of the decade and possibly of all time. Think about how contradictory that is, and the boundaries this album had to overcome: this is the sign of a true masterpiece.