Revisiting My Favorite Albums of The 2000s

Notice there's no parenthetical "again" following the titular decade. This is because, drumroll please*, I have not yet before revisited my Favorite Albums of The 2000s list. When I published it at the close of 2009 (and the 2000s as a whole), that was the first and only publishing. But, oh, how the times have changed. In the roughly sixteen and a half months since I released that list, I've heard many new albums--new as in I hadn't heard them before, not as in they recently came out--and reflected more on the old ones. As such, I have a new list. (Granted, one that's pretty similar to the old one...)

As I said many times in several different ways when I initially counted down my favorite albums of this past decade, I have a special attachment to the '00s. I have such an attachment on account of it's the only decade I've lived all the way through, and, as much as I love to wax nostalgic about the '90s, it's the decade during which I truly grew up and began to appreciate the music on this list and every other published on this blog. So, while I may tell myself that the music of the past is "better" music (and perhaps I'm right), there's something about this music, on these albums, that makes them far more enjoyable, identifiable, and meaningful than even the best records from the '70s. I heard many of these when they first came out. I read the reviews. I went to the store. I bought the CD (or record or mp3). And if I didn't hear them within weeks or even days of their release, I heard them maybe a year or two later. This is the music of my generation. Animal Collective is our Beatles, and TV On The Radio our Rolling Stones. (Don't hold me accountable for those analogies; I'm just trying to make a point...)

And so here is the list: 204 albums, all released from 2000 to 2009, presented in a fully overwhelming/overwrought bulk of text. Enjoy.

Record Store Day!

So yesterday was, of course, Record Store Day. To celebrate, I visited five or six of my favorite local independent record stores (plus a super awesome Numero Group-sponsored pop-up store) and, well, bought records. This post serves several purposes: 1) to inform you all of the Record Store Day's wonderfulness, 2) to list the new music I acquired that you may want to acquire too, 3) to tell you about some of Chicago's finer establishments, and 4) to let me share a great moment in my life. And thus, the saga of my 2011 Record Store Day begins...

Revisiting My Favorite Albums of The 1960s (Again)

So one year ago tomorrow, if you recall, I published this. In case you don't recall and don't feel like reading that (which would be perfectly understandable; it's very longwinded) I'll give you the highlights. Basically it said that my tastes in music change and I also hear new stuff all the time blah blah blah I'm republishing my Best Albums of Decades albums list! Yeah!

This time around, though, I'll spare you the color-coordinating and whatnot--and by spare you, I mean spare myself; that took me a long time. I also don't think I'll be writing too many (or any) explanations. The albums can speak for themselves, and, to be honest, I don't think the lists have changed too much. The major difference is that I'm including 102 albums instead of 90. So there.

Everyone knows the music of the '60s. Even if you weren't actually there, experiencing the music firsthand like James Murphy was, you're very familiar with the various strands of rock and pop and soul and jazz that were really created in the '60s and have since gone on to influence the music of every succeeding decade. Though there was certainly interesting music before the 1960s, there was a sort of synthesis of innumerable great concepts and ideas that were put into play during this particular decade. And, of course, this is the decade in which the album really became important. Prior to the '60s, albums tended to just be catalysts for singles. When the notion of the album as an art form was established in the early to mid-60s, music--especially rock n' roll--was changed for the better forever.

You'll notice different types of music on this list than on, say, the 1980s one. No hip-hop on account of it didn't exist yet. There's a lot more jazz on account of the '60s were the best decade ever for jazz. There are a lot of Beatles album on account of they're the greatest and most influential band probably ever. As such, though, this is a tricky list to put together. How does one compare the music of Peter Brotzmann and that of The Rolling Stones? They're both musicians like apples and oranges are both fruits, which is to say they're of the same family (or, perhaps, genus) but certainly not the same species. Well, I compared them anyways, and, spoiler alert, in this particular instance, The Stones came out ahead with Satanic Majesties. (Sorry for the clauses in that last sentence...) Anyways, enough talk. Here's the list.

Revisiting My Favorite Albums of The 1970s (Again)

So one year ago tomorrow, if you recall, I published this. In case you don't recall and don't feel like reading that (which would be perfectly understandable; it's very longwinded) I'll give you the highlights. Basically it said that my tastes in music change and I also hear new stuff all the time blah blah blah I'm republishing my Best Albums of Decades albums list! Yeah!

This time around, though, I'll spare you the color-coordinating and whatnot--and by spare you, I mean spare myself; that took me a long time. I also don't think I'll be writing too many (or any) explanations. The albums can speak for themselves, and, to be honest, I don't think the lists have changed too much. The major difference is that I'm including 102 albums instead of 90. So there.

The 1970s: what a decade! Seriously though, as cringe-inducing as most mainstream '70s culture was, its counterculture was unparalleled. What the brilliant music of the '60s had touched on (psych, free jazz, proto-punk) was fleshed out and explored fully in the '70s by artists of all races all over the world. There was a backlash to the Age of Aquarius, and it manifested itself in some pretty crazy music--seemingly beginning as soon as the calendar switched over to 1970. Step back and think about how violent, aggressive, and, most of all, unprecedented The Stooges' debut was. That was released in 1969. By 1970, they released Fun House, which was doubly as violent, aggressive, and unprecedented. Sly & The Family Stone, who broke ground in terms of integration--both racial and musical--in the late '60s, gave us the dark, free There's A Riot Goin' On by 1971. Just two years removed from the happy hippy days of the '60s. Fast forward to the second half of the decade: This Heat, Wire, The Pop Group, Suicide, Throbbing Gristle... You get my drift? "Tomorrow Never Knows" has nothing on the manic-ness and disturbed angst of the music of the late '70s. This is serious stuff. And seriously good. Punk, post-punk, new wave--not to mention krautrock, deep funk, electronic, and, er, Nick Drake. The 1970s are modern music. Enjoy the albums.

Revisiting My Favorite Albums of The 1980s (Again)

So one year ago tomorrow, if you recall, I published this. In case you don't recall and don't feel like reading that (which would be perfectly understandable; it's very longwinded) I'll give you the highlights. Basically it said that my tastes in music change and I also hear new stuff all the time blah blah blah I'm republishing my Best Albums of Decades albums list! Yeah!

This time around, though, I'll spare you the color-coordinating and whatnot--and by spare you, I mean spare myself; that took me a long time. I also don't think I'll be writing too many (or any) explanations. The albums can speak for themselves, and, to be honest, I don't think the lists have changed too much. The major difference is that I'm including 102 albums instead of 90. So there.

So this post will count down my 102 favorite longplayers from the 1980s. Though I didn't get to witness the '80s firsthand, I've watched enough VH1 and John Hughes movies to get the gist of the decade. Bright colors, Molly Ringwald, et cetera. I've also sampled a lot of the decade's music, from its love-it-and-hate-it-simultaneously cheese pop to its early hip hop to its more darker bits of post-punk, new wave, and proto-indie rock. That last category--"post-punk, new wave, and proto-indie rock"--is arguably my single favorite musical subgenre ever (assuming it's considered a subgenre; it's pretty nondescript, after all). Which makes '80s music really excellent. I don't have much else to add--just read through the list, I guess. Happy April.

Revisiting My Favorite Albums of The 1990s (Again)

So one year ago tomorrow, if you recall, I published this. In case you don't recall and don't feel like reading that (which would be perfectly understandable; it's very longwinded) I'll give you the highlights. Basically it said that my tastes in music change and I also hear new stuff all the time blah blah blah I'm republishing my Best Albums of Decades albums list! Yeah!

This time around, though, I'll spare you the color-coordinating and whatnot--and by spare you, I mean spare myself; that took me a long time. I also don't think I'll be writing too many (or any) explanations. The albums can speak for themselves, and, to be honest, I don't think the lists have changed too much. The major difference is that I'm including 102 albums instead of 90. So there.

This specific post is, as you can glean from its title, about the 1990s. The 1990s were this weird decade that happened a long time ago but because the people who were young during it are now young adults who produce the indie movies and write the blogs that we all watch and read, we are inundated with references to it, whether that means flannel shirts, shoegaze, Pete & Pete, etc. The thing is, I am sort of one of these people. I'm a little on the young side--I only saw Pete & Pete in syndication--but I definitely identify with the culture of the '90s. As such, the music of the '90s is some of my favorite. I love trip-hop. I love shoegaze. I love acid house. I love post-rock. I love Nirvana. So here goes: my favorite albums of the 1990s. Again. (A sidenote: in the spirit of the '90s I'm going to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor tonight at The Vic. Woo-hoo!)

My Favorite English Songs

Hey, everybody! Long-time-no-impersonal-interaction-over-the-internet! How've you been? I've been pretty good--except I'm gonna be better than pretty good next week, on account of I'm going to the United Kingdom! I'm leaving for London on Saturday, and I'll be spending the following eight days in London (seeing art, being a tourist, buying stuff) and Abergavenny, Wales (farming, hiking, birthing lambs). Neat-o!

Anyways, to get me hyped up, I decided to make a super-awesome playlist with my favorite English songs--English as in from England, not as in songs that are sung in English. When I set out to make the list, I was just going to do a hundred songs, but it quickly got out of hand and became 450. Oops. Whatever.

England (and the U.K. in general) is one of the two most relevant countries in the short-lived history of modern music. (The other is America, of course.) For whatever reason, the blokes across the pond have, for the past fifty or so years, made some of the best and most influential rock, pop, dance, experimental, etc. From British Invasion rock n' roll to psychedelic to punk to post-punk to new wave to shoegaze to acid house to trip-hop, English music has shaped the cultural landscape--dare I say--even more so than American music. (Because I'll also be in Wales, I tossed in a couple Welsh bands: Young Marble Giants, etc.)

So the playlist is just that: a playlist. It's in alphabetical order by artist and, rather than painstakingly type each song below, I've copied my iTunes into the blog. (It's amazing what the computer can do...) The songs aren't necessarily exactly my 450 favorite songs; that list would have about a hundred Beatles tunes. I tried to also give a good picture of what British music is as whole--where it was, where it's going. Enjoy, and next time I see you I'll probably be wearing tweed and have bad teeth.