My Most Important Albums of the Millennium (So Far)

My Most Important Albums of the Millennium (So Far)

I posted a status update a while back soliciting input on the best album of the last ten years, and was delighted to be reminded of some great records, as well as excited to learn about some CD’s that I had not heard before.

After much consideration I am ready to submit my short list of the records of the last ten years that have been most important to me. This is a very subjective list. There are some records that I discovered too late for them to have had super-meaningful impact on me personally, so I left those off, knowing they might be objectively “better” than some of those I included. That’s the shakes.

Explanatory remarks below.

Note: some of these bands/artists may well deserve to have more than one record on this list, but I only included one-per.

“A Squad”

Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Radiohead: Kid A
Sigur Ros: Takk
Sufjan Stevens: Come on Feel the Illinois
David Byrne: Grown Backwards
The Books: The Lemon of Pink
Lift to Experience: The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads



“Junior Varsity”

Johnny Cash: The Man Comes Around
The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Bjork: Medulla
Death Cab for Cutie: Transatlanticism
Beirut: Gulag Orkestar
Low: Drums and Guns
Arcade Fire: Funeral
Iron and Wine: Our Endless Numbered Days





The “A Squad” are the seven albums that had the strongest, lasting impact on me. Age twenty-seven to age thirty-five hipsters should not be surprised to see Radiohead and Wilco on this list. The Wilco CD is an absolute revelation. I wonder if the youngsters with great taste can feel the impact of this CD? It really brought widespread hipster credibility to a very interesting roots-driven indie music. A trend that paved the way for Devandra, Sufjan, and countless others. The record reinterprets the production innovations of Radiohead and blends it with Tweedy’s already brilliant brand of country-roots-rock. The album speaks for itself.

I could have chosen any of four Radiohead records, and they have the distinction of thriving in (at least) three wildly different styles since they first hit the radio waves with “Creep.” I give the nod to Kid A because it was their first album of the decade and their first since OK Computer. It is also their first album with synthesizers and such. This album (and OK Computer) opened the doors for a lot of stuff. I seem to remember them acknowledging Mogwai and Sigur Ros as bands that influenced them at the time, but in the tradition of the “favorite uncle,” it was precisely because of the fact that Radiohead said they were influenced by Sigur Ross that we even know who they are.

Sigur Ros is the best of the self-consciously “post rock” bands out there. Takk is likely their best album, though Me› su› í eyrum vi› spilum endalaust is also brilliant. If you have never listened to this band, the best introduction is the beautiful, perfect documentary about their tour of Iceland: Hvarf (which means “home” in Icelandic). They are too good.

Sufjan Stevens is truly unequivocal. He plays a roots-folk music with a heavy Steve Reich influence. He has apparently boundless creativity and energy. Illinois is as good a place to start as any, but really, you will need to have it all. I appreciate his Wes Andersonesque post-ironic enthusiasm.

The David Byrne album may surprise some people. For some reason this record did not get as much publicity as it should have. Byrne was the lead Talking Head back in the 1980’s and has busied himself with countless endeavors, such as starting a world music record label, publishing several books/picture books, and doing installment art. And occasionally he makes a brilliant CD. He is as witty a song writer as he ever was, which is saying something. When it is all done we will discuss Byrne in the same breath as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Andy Warhol, and Lou Reed. This is his best album ever in my opinion, including the Talking Heads brilliant catalogue.

The Books make roughly aleatoric music. What is amazing to me about this band is not only the creativity of what they do: sampling hours of audio from home movies they bought at garage sales and thrift stores and splicing it together with home made sounds--slamming filing cabinets and such--to make a music that is the analogue to rhythms of speech and daily sounds, never using synthesizers or drum machines of any kind, and adding their own concert-quality banjo, guitar, cello, piano playing. That is all quite amazing...seriously. What really gets me though is how they do all this high-intellect stuff without the slightest hint of cynicism or irony. It is deeply, deeply human and affirmative. The sound bytes they build their music around are stirringly real and beautiful to hear. I cannot say enough about this band.

The last CD on the “A Squad” is the solitary release of Texas loud-rockers Lift to Experience. The record is a concept album built around a vision that the lead guy ostensibly believes that he had. In this vision, an angel of the Lord came down while our hero was working as a ranch hand and warned the young man that judgement was coming and that he needed to make a CD to warn the faithful. The message of warning: USA is the center of JerUSAlem; Texas is the new holy land and will be the only place that is saved from God’s wrath. I cannot scream this loudly enough: the record is great.


I will give less explanation for the “Junior Varsity” list.

Johnny Cash reminded us why we love him (even before the movie reminded us again). The opening song about the coming apocalypse is breathtaking. And his covers of Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode are phenomenal.

The Flaming Lips never have equalled the genius of The Soft Bulletin, but their shows remain special. Yoshimi is a memorable CD.

If you have never listened to Bjork’s Medulla, I recommend you give it a go. She recorded Medulla almost entirely around vocals. There is a bit of electronic rhythm (which may be digitally manipulated vocals), but no real instruments. The CD was disappointing at first, but over the years, I keep coming back to it. It may be her best CD.

Death Cab peaked with Transatlanticism in my opinion.

When I first heard Beirut, I wilted.

I have discovered Low late. Drums and Guns is a great CD. Dragonfly is my favorite. Best first-song-of-the-record of the decade.

Don’t let the hyperbolic hype turn you off to Funeral by Arcade Fire. It is great.

Who can listen to Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron and Wine and not love it? I ask you.




Some of the biggest musical disappointments of the decade:

Spiritualized failed to build on the genius of their 1990’s output. In interviews Jason says that he doesn’t want to get stuck in a rut where is is always redoing Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space. That sounds respectable. The problem? The new stuff is a rut of another sort. In my opinion, he is avoiding doing a rinse-and-repeat on his best work from the old records by recycling his weakest work of the 90’s. There are some good CD’s (Amazing Grace is better than a lot of stuff). He simply never made anything that blew my mind.

Lift To Experience dissolves into oblivion. They made the one good CD and then the crazy came. Too bad.

Bob Dylan had a couple really really good albums at the end of the 1990’s but never really made a perfect record in the new millennium, though he remains (almost unbelievably) relevant and listenable.

Rolling Stones make it hard to appreciate their body of work by showing their actual bodies...which are old and arhythmic. On the other hand, Michael Jackson died, therefore making it possible to go back and fall in love with his great songs again.