My Own Private Zeitgeist: Top 40 Albums of the 00’s (#31-40)
Posted by CoreyWdeVosJan 26
“No longer do we share a single centrally-controlled cultural zeitgeist, at least insofar as music is concerned. There is now a different zeitgeist for every iPod.”
Here’s mine.
| #40: LCD Soundsystem – The Sound of Silver (2007) | ||
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| We’ve heard a lot of experiments in genre fusion during the past 10 years of pop culture, some more successful than others. But even in light of this new “mashup” culture, it’s hard to think of two genres of music less likely to find themselves in holy union than electronic and punk—one distant, decadent, and calculated; the other immediate and raw like a fresh-picked scab. LCD Soundsystem really nails this unlikely combo, which is why The Sound of Silver was one of the best electronic albums of the decade. | ||
| #39: AFX (Aphex Twin) – Analord Series (2005) | ||
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| After 2001’s experimental (and largely unlistenable, with a few notable exceptions) double-LP Drukqs, Aphex Twin’s 11-part Analord series of LP’s was a stylistic return to the deep acid grooves of his earlier work, though still marked by the choppy precision of the multi-layered sound Aphex Twin has been known for since the Richard D. James album. Played back to back, the Analord LP’s sound something like a week-long gothic rave in the mind of a demented genius. | ||
| #38: Black Mountain – In the Future (2008) | ||
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| Some good old-fashioned psychedelic wicca rock. Great sounds and great songwriting, this album has a dark and mythical undertone I’ve rarely heard since Robert Plant stopped singing about hobbits. | ||
| #37: The Black Keys – Attack & Release (2008) | ||
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| Here’s what I love about the blues: it’s one of the most basic and most stripped-down styles of music in the world, rarely deviating from the standard verse-chorus-verse structure, 4/4 timing, and I-IV-V chord progression. And yet, within these simplest of parameters, all the suffering your heart can possibly contain can be somehow transmuted into something beautiful, intimate, and transcendent. The melodies cut into your heart and pull you out of your pain, releasing you from the trauma of being you by plunging you into a pain infinitely greater than your own, baptizing you in the tears of the world. That’s some powerful shit. Produced by Danger Mouse (you will see that name a few more times throughout this list), 2008’s Attack and Release wraps new noise around the ancient pillars of rock music, and happens to be some of the best white-boy blues I’ve heard since Stevie Ray Vaughan. | ||
| #36: Brother Ali – Us (2008) | ||
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| The last ten years have been extremely polarizing for hip hop music. On the one hand, we’ve seen a clear erosion of creativity in the mainstream, both musically and lyrically. On the other, the past ten years have also seen an explosion of style, substance, and meaning in the underground, unparalleled since the “golden age” of pre-gangsta hip hop in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Brother Ali is on the front lines of this new era of conscious (dare we say, spiritual) hip hop, spitting verses that are as positive as they are provocative. | ||
| #35: Sonic Youth – The Eternal (2009) | ||
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| Long hailed as the Godfathers of Grunge, many people consider Sonic Youth to be dinosaurs since they have been around for as long as pretty much anyone can remember, having influenced almost as many bands over the past thirty years as Southern Comfort and Zig Zags. But if 2009’s The Eternal proved anything at all, it’s that these guys are definitely not dinosaurs. They are more like crocodiles—they may have been around since the Jurassic period, but have become so perfectly adapted their teeth are as sharp today as they ever have been. The Eternal is certainly a dinosaur of an album, with huge multi-layered guitars soaked in a sea of distortion, and is one of their most accessible albums in years. | ||
| #26: Tosca – Suzuki (2000) | ||
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| Smooth, sexy, syrupy electronic beats, Tosca’s 2000 release Suzuki is a downtempo masterpiece. Featuring lush soundscapes by Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber, Suzuki is as perfect for the dance floor as it is for dinner parties or late night work sessions. | ||
| #33: J Dilla – Donuts (2006) | ||
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| J Dilla (a.k.a. Jay Dee) was one of the most talented producers and beat makers hip hop has seen in a long time. Dilla’s unique style might be described as post-industrial street psychedelia dipped in musique concrete, and was critically lauded as a much-needed break from countless years of lazy hip hop productions. 2006’s Donuts was perhaps J Dilla’s greatest artistic triumph, an exquisite 40-minute journey through jagged hip hop esoteria, which made his untimely death just three days after the album’s release (after battling the incurable blood disease TTP, as well as lupus) all the more heartbreaking. | ||
| #32: The xx- The xx (2009) | ||
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| Often described as “make out music for cool kids,” the self-titled 2009 debut from British act The xx offers a slinky, sexy blend of rock and roll minimalism. | ||
| #31: DJ Q-Bert – Wave Twisters (2001) | ||
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| The art of turntablism hit a bit of an apex at the beginning of the 00’s, and DJ Q-bert’s Wave Twisters (along with the 2001 documentary Scratch) was certainly the cultural capstone. Acknowledged by pretty much everyone who matters as the world’s most talented scratch DJ, Wave Twisters was truly epic in that it was composed entirely out of hundreds of samples and arranged in a way that actually told a story (sort of like Star Wars, drenched in hip-hop references, taking place in a bizzare microscopic world). The album was then turned into a feature length animated film, which remains one of the coolest things i’ve ever watched. | ||
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