welcome to the opening post of the '09 sonic anarchy music listology. in store this year i've decide a couple of specials. first up is my rudimentary list of best albums of the decade.
doing this started as mostly an imposter move culled from other various music sites. but as i began compiling my list it became quite the journey looking back at who i was as a listener / fan / student 10 years ago, and where I am today. the writing isn't much better, the music not all that much more influential per say, but in terms of sheer tastes it's quite a change. i suppose that might be expected. but at the same time i know plenty of people who grew up with one type of music and have stayed true to that core genre throughout.
for me personally the 00's ushered out most of my influences cultivated from the darker adolescent angsty days of my youth where power chord metal, spastic hip hop , the electronic dance hall rhythms, and classic rock.
in came the search for something new. relying less on familiarity and more with experimentation with tastes i was seduced into the indie rock world. indie being a great way to describe to encompass all genres without having to be pigeonholed. as far as "indie" goes i definitely sway on the more conformist ideals, but have become comfortable in being self assured that my tastes are mine on their own merit. with that said it should be then so the following list should be taken as nothing more than the albums that helped divine me towards my current course of musical interests. it'd would be arrogant and presumptuous to call it a "best of" even though that is exactly what i have implied, but in would be more accurate as the "most influential to tony wilson" list. just keep that in mind.
the only album i'm writing about in the top of the decade list is the #1. Primarily because it's the only one that i spent significant time thinking about. To me the most significant album would have to be the Post Service's one and only LP Give Up. To me this album epitomizes the transcendence of my influences from the genres listed previously to the the more current label of indie. It was this album that opened my ears to other major influences such as Death Cab For Cutie, the Decemberists, and less obviously influences like the pixies, animal collective, and andrew bird.
Here's the list:
1the postal serive - give up
2the mars volta - deloused in the comatorium - the greatest rock concept album ever
3animal collective - strawberry jam - another year and this may have been number 1
4radiohead - kid A - the one time a band actually transformed for the better
5at the drive in - relationship of command - there is no #2 without this.
6ryan adams - love is hell - so says the gospel according to ryan
7taking back sunday - tell all your friends - the best pop punk album ever. maybe that's not saying much to some, but it does to me.
8...and you will know us by the trail of dead - source, tags, and codes - the first indie album i ever loved
9the white stripes - elephant - epic blues triumph puts jack white in all time great category.
10daft punk - discovery - the best electronic album ever
11the strokes - is this it - the best pop indie album of the decade for sure.
12M.I.A. - Kala - instant party.
13the flaming lips - yoshimi battles the pink robots - the flaming lips immortalized.
14mastodon - leviathan - i don't even listen to metal that much any more, but it is still impossible to turn this album off.
15Tool - lateralus - took their higher consciousness ideals to their climax.
16Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism
17Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell - Karen O. proved to me that punk can be sexy.
18Panda Bear - Person Pitch - A dream.
19The Rapture - Echoes - defined dance punk for me
20The Decemberists - Picaresque - a whale of a tale of a whale
The best of the rest in no particular order but certainly not for lack of importance:
ryan adams - heartbreaker
bright eyes - fevers and mirrors
battles - mirrored
the blood brothers - burn piano island burn
you forgot it in people
radiohead - amnesiac
radiohead - in rainbows
coheed and cambria - in keep of secrets of silent earth 3
camera obscura - lets get out of this country
misery is a butterfly
the moon and antarctica
muse - absolution
of montreal - hissing fauna are you the destroyer
sufjan stevens - illinois
animal collective - sung tongs
animal collective - feels
arcade fire - funeral
tapes n' tapes - the loon
the decemberists - her majesty
the exploding hearts - guitar romantic
death from above 1979 - your a woman, i'm a machine
the field - from here we go sublime
liars - drum's not dead
the knife - silent shout
the thermals - the body the blood the machine
titus andronicus - the airing of grievances
portishead - third
the white stripes - white blood cells
AFI - the art of drowning
andrew bird - mysterious production
andrew bird - armchair apocraphy
bloc party - silent alarm
jens lekman - night falls over kortedela
the walkment - you and me
wilco - yankee foxtrot hotel
sigur ros - agaetis byrjun
tv on the radio - return to cookie mountain
the shins - oh inverted world
band of horses - everything all the time
franz ferdinand - franz ferdinand
the new pornographers - mass romantic
interpol - turn on the bright lights
madvillain - madvillainy
