At the turn of the decade, I found myself reading a ridiculous number of lists. There are lists for the next big artist or band, lists for albums of the year, lists for the worst. In the main part, most of these lists mean absolutely nothing; robbing the contents of context and empathy.
The one list that did prick my interest were the Albums of the Decade ones that proliferated on the internet in the last week of the year. What stood out for me was how many genuinely startling albums in this time; albums that sounded like nothing before them and which ultimately was copied by derirative bands over the following years until the fad wore off.
Over the last couple of weeks, I've thought about this more and more and evenutally set about making a list of 10 albums from the 2000s that I felt were completely fresh and life-changing. Putting them in any kind of order seemed to be an impossible task (and would make me highly hypocritical after the first paragraph of this blog) so here are the ten records in alphabetical order:
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Damien Rice – O
Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
Libertines - Up The Bracket
Lily Allen - Alright, Still
PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
Radiohead - Kid A
The Streets - Original Pirate Material
The Strokes - Is This It?
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
I would split these down into a few different categories:
Category 1: Startling original
Eminem, The White Stripes, Radiohead, The Streets
Category 2: Perfectly crafted genre pieces
Damien Rice, PJ Harvey, Arctic Monkeys
Category 3: Totally Of Their Moment
Lily Allen, The Strokes, Libertines
I don't think that it would be harsh to say that there are some average moments that don't necessarily work perfectly on the Category 1 records, but this is always forgiven when the effect is so startling. Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP is a great example; whether it be some of the more drug based songs or the skits that plague all of his releases, I challenge anyone not to listen to Kim or The Way I Am and not be amazed at his sheer achievement.
The three examples for Category 2 are perhaps what I would consider to be the best crafted records of the decade. The Damien Rice album is song-for-song the best Singer Songwriter album that I've ever heard; every single track hits the spot and does what it set out to do. PJ Harvey's Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea is arguably the best rock album that I've ever heard and the same can arguably be levelled at the Arctic Monkeys.
Category 3 albums are not perfect and tend to stick within a certain set of historical boundaries but sum up their moment in history so brilliantly well that they reinvigorate their own genre. The Libertines are a great example of this; you can pick out all of the post-punk influences like the Clash and the Jam mixed in with an Indie/Brit-Pop framework but at the same time, they are unmistakably The Libertines. On each of their albums there were massive highlights and some disappointments but it didn't stop every guitar band in the country suddenly abandoning their pathway and trying to imitate the sound.
The Strokes are a similar case in point and if anything there's even less originality but there's no doubting that when I hear it, it reminds me of the early part of the decade when the New York garage rock scene really took off. It is a good album - if not a great one - but it really summed up its time in a way that few albums released in the decade managed to do.
So what makes a great album? Simply grab one of these ingredients and watch the salt: Great songs, originality and fantastic craftsmanship. Failing that, just release it at the perfect moment and watch it fizz.
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