Top 50+ Albums of the Decade

Playlist: Top 50 albums of the 2000s

1. The Wrens - The Meadowlands
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My top album of the decade is likely not even in many others' top ten, but I have to stand by The Meadowlands as my pick. The Wrens are notoriously uncompromising, which lead to their showdown with Alan Meltzer after Secaucus (1996), but the seven year wait was well worth it. Up to that point, The Wrens' noise rock was merely exhilarating, but then songwriters Charles Bissell and Kevin Whelen added heartbreaking to the mix and the result is devastating. The overarching theme throughout is failure, but the album is anything but.

Considering this is their only album they released this decade (their motto is 'Keeping folks waiting...since 1989'), perhaps their long awaiting follow up will top the next decade. They have to finish the album first, of course.

2. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
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Wilco's last album with the late Jay Bennett was a war. Much of the conflict both in the recording and with the record label was captured in the great documentary I'm Trying to Break Your Heart. By the time the album finally got a proper release, 9/11 happened, adding serious levity to a song like "Ashes of American Flags" and more. And the release still holds up to this day, while should be noted that no other Wilco (Bennett-less) follow up makes this list.

3. Spoon - Kill the Moonlight
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With Kill the Moonlight, Britt Daniel and drummer/producer Jim Eno peeled away the layers and boiled the Spoon sound down for a minimalist feel. It's an approach that served them well on this release.

4. Radiohead - Kid A
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If OK Computer changed the game for Radiohead, then Kid A made the word 'game' no longer relevant to the conversation. Like Spoon, Thom Yorke & co. rebuilt their sound from the ground up, leaving a more minimalist approach. But where Spoon retained the essential elements of 'indie rock,' Radiohead reached over to electronic music and Krautrock for inspiration.

5. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
6. Arcade Fire - Funeral
7. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
8. Sigur Rós - Ágætis Byrjun
9. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
10. Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica
11. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
12. The National - Boxer
13. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
14. The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday
15. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
16. Radiohead In Rainbows
17. Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
18. Spoon - Girls Can Tell
19. Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
20. Outkast - Stankonia
21. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
22. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
23. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
24. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
25. Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
26. Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
27. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
28. Daft Punk - Discovery
29. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
30. The Strokes - Is This It
31. M.I.A. Arular
32. Scott Walker - The Drift
33. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
34. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
35. Jay-Z - The Blueprint
36. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It in People
37. Future of the Left - Travels With Myself and Another
38. Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies
39. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
40. Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
41. The Knife - Silent Shout
42. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
43. The National - Alligator
44. Madvillian - Madvilliany
45. Animal Collective - Feels
46. TV on the Radio - Dear Science
47. Liars - Drum's Not Dead
48. The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
49. Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
50. Elliott Smith - Figure 8

More in no particular order...
Portishead - Third
Mclusky - Mclusky Do Dallas
Deerhunter - Microcastle
The White Stripes - Elephant
Burial - Untrue
Fugazi - The Argument
Kanye West - Late Registration
Iron & Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle
Sufjan Stevens - Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State
Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
Neko Case - Blacklisted
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
No Age - Nouns
Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds
The Shins - Oh, Inverted World
Antony & the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
Band of Horses - Everything All the Time
Joanna Newsom - Ys
The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree
Califone - Roots and Crowns
Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
Battles - Mirrored
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak
Sleater-Kinney - One Beat
The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
My Morning Jacket - Z
Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs
Hot Chip - The Warning
The Microphones - The Glow, Pt. 2
Phoenix - It's Never Been Like That
M.I.A. - Kala
Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
Radiohead - Amnesiac
Beck - Sea Change
The Postal Service - Give Up
The Walkmen - Bows and Arrows
Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala
Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing in the Hands
My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves
Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair
Low - Things We Lost in the Fire
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
The Streets - Original Pirate Material
Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
Kanye West - Graduation
The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots