t was Margaret Thatcher that once said, “consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies.” As we wind down our list bonanza for this year, it seems more and more obvious that the Iron Lady had a point. While all of our individual writers’ lists are idiosyncratic testaments to the music that they’ve enjoyed over the past five years, when it’s all said and done, Stylus Magazine’s Top 50 Albums of 2000-2005 are “something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.”
Enjoy the countdown.
Todd Burns
Editor-In-Chief, StylusMagazine.com
If you’re anything like me, the main selling point of Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation wasn’t Bill Murray’s acting. It was the fact that the soundtrack contained new material by Kevin Shields. New, disappointing material by Kevin Shields. Enter M83, perhaps the first Frenchmen to come to anybody’s rescue in recent history. And what a save! Tremendous walls of lush, gorgeous noise mixes with retro drum machines and desperate, haunting vocals, almost, but never quite, audible. A 57-minute album that races by, forcing you to play it again, and again, and again. A sound that echoes, most obviously, My Bloody Valentine while also recalling everything from Sigur Ros to Daft Punk, all the while remaining absolutely unique. If Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts has a flaw, it’s the nagging fear that, having made it, M83 will disappear. Or, even worse, that they’ll try to follow it up.
[Ryan Hardy]
Tech-this, micro-that: It’s difficult to push Vocal City into one dance sub-genre, and that’s part of the reason it’s resonated with so many people. The kinky, unwinding house signatures and subtly inserted vocals coalesce so well, but it’s that gradual ambient build to the lovely emotional release of “Tessio” that makes this not just an intelligent work but also a heartfelt one. A stunning summary of the glitchy sounds that had preceded it and a promising precursor to the pop-vocal-house Luomo would introduce on The Present Lover, Vocal City is the rare album that can expand a genre’s sonic horizons and its fan base at the same time.
[Erick Bieritz]
Just about weekly, I read a fawning review that goes something like “unlike most electronic artists, X producer does more than pay attention to detail; he adds life to his music!” Well, with Dan Snaith’s band (then Manitoba, now Caribou), these accolades were actually apt. Whistles, squeaky saxophones, xylophones, and live drums abound among the electronic squiggles and bursts that comprise Up in Flames, and thanks to the diverse instrumentation and a sensibility firmly rooted in 60s psychedelic pop, Snaith and co. created an album teeming with all the joy and love in the world, one that could hardly be further removed from the somber IDM of the group’s first album, one that has absolutely no peer among either its rock or electronic brethren. Up in Flames is singular in its scope and irresistible for its utter exuberance.
[Kareem Estefan]
The biggest change to the pop star himself in this decade is that being dead has finally gone overground. Sure, the 1990s saw “Free As A Bird” and rap labels rediscovering the lost art of melting down a corpses’ fillings for the gold, but the last five years have seen a veritable explosion of rigor mortis rockers. Eva Cassidy has had two number one albums and no heartbeats, Nick Drake is a Daniel O’Donnell for aging baby boomers, “Day and Night (Runnin’ To Live)” was obviously a big joke at the expense of everyone unfortunate enough to listen to it, and then there’s Baby Girl. Thankfully exempt from the standard zombiefication of most deceased urban artistes, over the course of this album you realise that we weren’t robbed of a great musician per se when that plane hit the ground, but rather a great partnership. Working with a voice as… reserved as Aaliyah’s really tempered Timbaland’s worst excesses, the self-referencing, the need to try too much at once, the bandwagon hopping. So instead you just get a woman and the only backing band she ever needed, you get “Try Again,” “We Need A Resolution,” you get “Read Between The Lines,” you get a greatest hits album before her abrupt retirement. No comeback guaranteed.
[Dom Passantino]
The Delgados' music touches their fans in a way that inspires low chart placings and muted critical acclaim befitting their status of eternal underdogs, while their peers taste success without half their chops or innovation. Here, even at their bleakest, their aim was skyward; the string-laden production buoys the songs rather than bogging them down. And the songs themselves—boomy and grand in scale but never aimless or bloated, and each with a potent emotional wallop. Some of them are lullabies that would cause nightmares ("Child Killers," "Woke From Dreaming"), others cloaked their doom in drunken anthemics ("Favours"), but as if to prove that they truly could do anything, they threw in two gorgeous pop songs ("All You Need Is Hate" and "Coming In From The Cold"), just because they could. The fact that Emma Pollock and Alun Woodward alternate lead vocals means the album plays like a competition between them, each successive track upping the ante both in the quality of songwriting and in intensity. Hate takes you to the very bottom of the grave, but you can almost touch the stars when it's playing.
[Edward Oculicz]
A bona fide social movement and revolution, and I don’t think there’s any other acts of the past five years you could say either about. Simply put, no band since The Monkees have managed to simultaneously project that all important pop-star aura and ethos whilst managing to continuously put out 24 carat radio-devouring singles. What do you love about this album? “Love Machine” is Stray Cats gone riot grrrrl, “The Show” points out that the line between obscure European electronica and The Vengaboys is so thin that you may as well ignore it, “Wake Me Up” runs into Trent Reznor’s bedroom and puts make-up on him whilst he sleeps, “Deadlines & Diets” shoves its fingers down Bridget Jones’ throat for her, and on it goes. Not so much working class girls made good, rather working class girls made great. On their own terms. And, basically, any album that can sound good whilst still having “I’ll Stand By You” on it is something special.
[Dom Passantino]
"Crunk" became a brand when Lil Jon struck it big, a genre simultaneously loathed and celebrated, depending on your point of view. Either way, the prevailing dialogue surrounding crunk seems to regard it as an aesthetic that celebrates angry, bombastic club anthems and aggressive, super-futurist production, generally to the detriment of lyricism. David Banner's solo debut—he began his music career as a member of the excellent Crooked Lettaz—proved instantly that any attempt to pigeonhole crunk was reductive at best. An emotionally brave, highly stylized and engaging listen throughout, Mississippi is nothing less than a tour de force—from the marching band bombast of "Fuck Em," the xylophone bounce of "Like a Pimp," to the smoked-out sleaze of "Fast Life" and the agitprop funk of "Bush," Mississippi is a harrowing listen from a growling, conflicted rapper who proves there's more to crunk than the clubs.
[David Drake]
Unmistakable pop music is often judged—by both fans and critics—for listenability, with ingenuity coming in at a distant second. So why is a pop album, solid from beginning to end, so scarce in the modern age? Pop bands need not release 12 groundbreaking songs, just 12 songs that are freaking entertaining. Is that so hard? For The Unicorns, apparently not. Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? is arguably the most substantive pop album to be released in the past decade, full of quirky personality and inspiring hooks. Furthermore, the album’s unique compositional technique of combing four or more addictive chord progressions in every track, will surely inspire future pop bands who, at one time, felt restricted to verse-chorus-verse-chorus formats. Inventive, yet 100% accessible, WWCOHWWG? is truly a monster of a pop album. Now if it were only popular…
[Kyle McConaghy]
“Treat my first like my last and my last like my first” was the chorus that closed out Jay-Z’s final album and it’s an important juxtaposition to make. If Reasonable Doubt is almost universally held at the highest esteem of all his records, then The Black Album is the most obvious heir to the throne. Short running time, bulletproof production choices and his first truly focused lyrical display since The Blueprint are part of the magic, but certainly important are the affirmations he makes with himself and his listeners throughout the disc. Yes, he was a hustler. Yes, he does care about music. No, his bitch is not a problem. Beats, rhymes, life, etcetera: it all plays out like a week in the life of hip-hop’s most watched magnate and it finally creates empathy for the rich and shameless. A modern classic that ponders introspection on a life of opulence and the art of retaining street credibility in ten easy pieces.
[Rollie Pemberton]
Fever burns. Hi-NRG disco, a vocalist who is more demur than diva, and some of the most immediate lyrics to grace dancefloors internationally, Fever is one of the most compelling albums of the 00s, without question. The vocals are understated and elegant—Kylie seems pleasantly aware of her technical shortcomings and uses them to her advantage. The lyrics seem to capture those quick moments that cut straight to the heart—she knows "It's in your eyes" and it was "love at first sight" (although when she heard you, she knew you were "meant to be as one.") From the sublime transcendence of "Love at First Sight" to the evocative teardrop fog of "Fragile" to the album's climax, the searing burner "Love Affair," the album flares up like a shooting star; burns brightly, and ends far too soon. Burn on.
[David Drake]
The band's best album: a function of too many ideas, not enough technical knowledge, and just enough money. The best part of Internal Wrangler is that it doesn't even sound like a band at all. The jumble of recording levels, sound quality, and odd noises make the record play like a DJ Shadow pastiche—perhaps if DJ Shadow spent a couple weeks snorting benzedrine in a squalid flat until he hallucinated bugs crawling on his skin. Oh. And it's got a good beat.
[Gavin Mueller]
The Boredoms started out as one of the most awesomely confused bands in history, seeming to simply base their albums around who and what instruments were in the studio that day. But as they progressed, the group started to unify like no other group ever has, and by the time of Vision Creation Newsun, they sounded positively inhuman, their streamlined funk-prog-psych-krautn'bass assault sounding capable of going higher than the sun than any band since Primal Scream. Brian Wilson may have purported to create symphonies to god, but unlike the Boredoms, he didn't start a drum circle around a towering bonfire and literally try to contact the dude. Vision Creation Newsun is rock music's Tower of Babel, the most gigantic, gorgeous monument to ever try to break into heaven.
[Andrew Unterberger]
Fantastic Damage took the experimental futurism of his production on Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein and pushed it further—a dense, apocalyptic blast of abrasive New York, pushed over the edge by El-P's hollering, pack-a-day rapping and bleak lyrics. Intense cyber-funk girded to a bomb squad-styled rhythmic bounce gives the album momentum; only after several listens does the album begin to reveal its secrets; Producto wallows in the pain of familial absence and abuse ("Stepfather Factory"), watches a relationship disintegrate ("TOJ,") and experiences surreal drug-blasted dirt-ridden psychedelia ("Lazerface's Warning"). Redemption is hard to come by, but inspiration seems to come from hip-hop itself ("studied the cadences of Kool Moe Dee and Rick,") and the city he loves in all its dirty, corrupt glory. Unique, highly stylized, abrasive and forward-thinking - Fantastic Damage is an example of everything right in underground hip-hop.
[David Drake]
Fucking hippies. What a throwback betrayal this album seems like. Wire-haired patchouli stank and coarse linen, worn with all the careless indulgence of a bold-eyed drug-store paleontologist. Yes, they were busy unearthing Day-Glo floats buried under generations of dead sand and dancing soil with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. After the ground-broken mainstreaming that occurred with The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi was a long time coming, and like any heavily anticipated follow-up, it went through its share of popular reassessment. Many lampooned the band’s increased reliance on technology, their digital blunting of Steven Drozd’s stadium-sized drum-rolls. Others awoke to the band for the first time like greeting a stolen traveler at dawn, one who offers you all his smoke and any gas money he can manage, all for the very same reasons. Through it all, aside from any progressions from their previous work, the most important element to the Flaming Lips remained true: they reveled in the wide-grinned hope of the visionary. Either way you came to this album, and in any manner you looked at it, you were caught in the grasp of its sun-blind haze. God knows we could all use a little mid-day balloon-ride.
[Derek Miller]
Taking a cue from her own Homogenic (and a good handful of help from Matmos), Bjork managed to turn herself inside out, exposing everything from the heart’s deepest desires to the body’s internal washes and ticks of sound. Even the miniature insect beats and the music box melodies were made human in the company of heavenly earthly Inuit choirs and Bjork’s own voice. At the core of Vespertine is an insular, introverted woman expressing an inner private world; moments from a life held pristine and crystallised. This became her first in a series of fully realised works which created a direct channel between avant garde art and Pop. Not an easy path to walk.
[Scott McKeating]
“They don’t sleep anymore on the beach…”
So says the man of his lost boyhood playground, Coney Island, on the opening work of the second disc of Godspeed You Black Emperor’s second album. He seems to almost break down into tears as he finishes his story, bringing us along with him. GYBE has a talent for making us forget where we are while listening to their compositions. Their music subtly carries us off into the clouds, and then before we know it, we’re back on the ground, the song is over, and it’s quiet again. Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven captures GYBE at their most emotional. Full of hope, anger, and sadness, GYBE proves you don’t need lyrics to affect an audience. There’s something here to enhance any mood you may find yourself in.
[Nick Mims]
Kraftwerk were amateurs. Sure, nobody could do humans-pretending-to-be-robots better than the 'Werk, but Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo took it one step further, as humans-pretending-to-be-robots-pretending-to-be-humans. Discovery is the sound of pure human emotion, ran through a series of 25-year-olds MACs and fed into an army of synthesizers and drum machines. And it's nothing short of phenomenal, with infinitely filtered dance stompers "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" and "Face to Face" sounding just as gloriously inauthentic as robo-love songs "Digital Love" and "Something About Us," and proving influential for everyone from Kylie Minogue to Ratatat. More importantly, Discovery shows that if SkyNet and the Machines eventually do take over, we might not mind so much after all. They probably have some really kickass clubs.
[Andrew Unterberger]
Picture me, if you will, cowering in front of my computer trying to write this blurb, tossing out one clever little hook after another. With the clock ticking, I see it can’t be done. For all the clever lines on A Grand Don’t Come For Free, and there are many, the album itself defies cleverness. It confounds, repels, and dissolves cleverness, because there’s nothing “clever” about losing money, getting dumped by your girl, getting dissed by some other girl, getting fucked up in a club, getting your ass kicked by the T.V. repairman and, finally, crying your eyes out. That’s just real, son. Mike Skinner has achieved much, but this is his greatest achievement so far. At a time when music generally consisted of otherworldly prog odysseys, hedonistic dance floor smashes, and plenty of empty, ironic posturing, Mike Skinner gave listeners honesty, courage, and beauty.
[Ryan Hardy]
Yeah, it sounds like a bunch of other bands. Public Image Ltd., whose "Careering" even provided the vocal cascades of the album's title track; Liquid Liquid, whose post-punk funk provided much inspiration for the band's groove; and of course Gang of Four, whose "To Hell With Poverty" was practically the blueprint for the whole album. But despite these obvious precedents, Echoes still belongs on this list, because as important and influential artists as they are, you can't dance to Gang of Four or PiL and you can't rock out to Liquid Liquid. Echoes didn't just recycle post-punk, it perfected it, songs like "Sister Saviour," "Olio," and "House of Jealous Lovers" fulfilling everything the genre promised over 20 years ago. Perhaps people were disappointed that Echoes didn't turn out to be the future of dance music, but why pave the way for the future when the past still needs groundwork?
[Andrew Unterberger]
It’s kind of grating and silly to listen to the platforms on which people discuss Amnesiac. Whether it exists alone, or if it’s Kid B, or just Kid B-Sides, it stands as an excellent disc, though not as exploratory or interesting as that “other album” spawned by the same sessions. Amnesiac certainly wasn’t the shredding rockist salvation that some were waiting for, frightened, in the fetal position, and swaddled in blankets after the breathtaking Kid A. No “Idioteque,” “National Anthem,” or “Everything in Its Right Place,” but some haunting dystopian psychedelia (“Like Spinning Plates”), tin-roof corpse-jazz (“Life In A Glasshouse”), and mournful, polyrhythmic waltzes (“Pyramid Song”). Any way you cut it, Amnesiac, in spite of being slightly more straightforward (i.e. reminiscent of earlier material), really solidified the postmillennial model of Radiohead: less songs and more atmosphere, more eclectic and electronic, more paranoid, more threatening, more sublime.
[Mike Powell]
I refuse to believe this isn’t going to be an important album. I refuse to believe someone could craft a double album that’s this full of melody, invention, irreverence, observation, shit, contradiction, and cultural critique and have no effect on everyone in earshot. Judging by her addiction to getting attention and avoiding definition, this non-stop neurotic cabaret will be frequently compared to Prince’s Dirty Mind (and not just because all the critics love her in New York): it’s more than enough and only one part of the puzzle. A warning shot right between the eyes and proof of how much territory pop has yet to explore. Maybe she’ll really learn how to rap!
[Anthony Miccio]
One of the chief complaints of electronic music of any kind is its sterility, its lack of "a human touch." This basically means that the music sounds as though a computer, not a human being, made it. While this is bogus (listen to Shuttle358 and call me back), many electronic artists in the noughts have found inspiration in more traditional instruments, especially the guitar. At first, however, most of these artists (including Viennese artist Christian Fennesz) used the guitar the way they used any other sound source: something to be digitally processed (fucked up, if you will). On Endless Summer, Fennesz found a way to fuse the guitar's rich sound (courtesy of the Beach Boys) with a storm of static, bleeps, and other digital noises. The result is not merely one of the more beautiful electronic albums of the decade, but a meditation on the fragility of music and memory.
[Michael Heumann]
This Icelandic band's pretentiously titled ( ), featuring eight pretentiously untitled songs (they do have titles—just not on the album packaging; how pretentious is that?), is considered the ugly stepsister to the earlier Agaetis Byrjun, largely (I think) because of all the pretentiousness put into the marketing and packaging of this work. But forget all that and just listen to it. When you do, you'll uncover some of the most achingly beautiful music created so far in this decade. There's an ethereal feel to every track, as though the music wasn't created, but just appeared. It helps that the lyrics are completely indecipherable, I suppose, but credit can also go to the high, piercing guitar drones and the heartbeat-like drumming that seem designed to lull listeners into a peaceful placidity. Great stuff.
[Michael Heumann]
In a current hip-hop culture that has Puffy making pilgrimages to Ibiza and Philip Sherburne describing the influence of techno on Lil Jon’s new album in the New York Times, Missy Elliott’s Miss E…So Addictive might not sound as deliciously alien as when it first dropped back in the “two-double zero-one.” Right. As an album playing around the junction of pop, hip-hop, and dance, Miss E…So Addictive still sounds not merely vibrant, but disarming. From redefining pop into a minimal drum-circle freak-out on “Get Ur Freak On” to the slow-burning funked bassline of “Dog in Heat,” the duo of Missy and Timbaland won’t stop until you need to take another hit.
[Nate De Young]
In his Teleology of Hedonism, R. Kelly turned the damn Beckettian Chute of Soul-Crushing Inevitability into a celebration, declaring “after the show it’s the after-party, and after the party it’s the hotel lobby,” making “I can’t go on, I’ll go on” not seem like such a bad deal after all. Last Exit, however, is an aural reworking of “Ignition”’s causalities as a temporal and spatial smear of melancholy: who thought the hotel lobby would be a slate-grey mausoleum and the whole experience of the “party” would be distorted into the preemptively regretful/belatedly weary gorgeousness of the Junior Boys’ ice-blue-eyed soul? Summing up the sheen of 70’s/80’s dance and synth-pop while integrating the rhythmic trickeries that mark the 90’s and Noughts, the deeply affecting affect-less tone of Last Exit was a wrench in the metaphysics of pop—a detached, blurred vision of the dance floor as a breeding ground for the loveless and bleary-eyed, not to mention the faded solitude of the streets that take you there and back.
[Mike Powell]
Sixteen years after forming, Yo La Tengo turned another page with And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, making one of the most consistent and moving albums of their career. The blissfully saccharine feedback of their earlier catalog had been distilled and refined for the dynamic indie-eclecticism of 1997’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, and by And Then…, the trio had nearly abandoned it, opting for more subdued, velvet contours, jazzy dissonance, and some electronic flavor. Largely documenting the romance of guitarist/vocalist Ira Kaplan and drummer/vocalist Georgia Hubley, And Then… wears the Heart Beating as One on its sleeve, re-imagining and remembering the joyful ache of love’s insecurities and rewards. Hardly twee, it’s a subtle, somber, and sometimes painful experience, showing a band simultaneously cruising at the height of its powers and sliding gracefully into a stylistic twilight.
[Mike Powell]
At first it was just a damn good record with a couple of killer singles and some sick-as-shit and dark-as-hell moments that made you feel guilty just for listening, but over the years since, The Marshall Mathers LP has transmogrified into part of the all-encompassing grand narrative of Eminem, the modern-day fucked-up Elvis, the peak of the ascendancy in his self-documented rise and fall, and therefore one of the most fascinating records of modern times. The explicit gothic murder-fantasy of his pseudonymous debut album faded, and Marshall allowed his real identity to bleed into his complex construct of personas, but all the narrative tricks and self-reflexive jokes in the world would be for nothing if the tunes didn’t hold up, and Eminem’s sophomore album had them by the bucketload. His flow has never been more embittered or more spectacular, his twisted moment (“Kim”) never more disturbing, his hooks never more addictive (“The Real Slim Shady”). From start to finish it’s riveting like a great movie or a classic novel. What he’s playing at now is anyone’s guess, but listening to this record again reminds us why he can get away with it—because he’s the best.
[Nick Southall]
A sixth year zero for a band still living in the shadow of an album made at the beginning of the last decade. This time, instead of catching the zeitgeist of the expanding tastes and minds of the Ecstasy generation, The Scream reflected and dealt with a comedown of confusion, commercialism, multi-nationalism, and sickness. Counted out, distraught, and ravaged by chemicals, they offered up another album-as-mixtape with heavy nods to Joy Division, Suicide, and Can. As ever, their work had become a process of collaboration with various disparate musical souls, but the core of the songs was always definitively the input of Gillespie and comrades. XTRMNTR delivers a virtual greatest hits, writing over their past, tramsmuting the band once again into something vital, energetic, and now.
[Scott McKeating]
Deep into the 90s, Microphones mastermind, Phil Elvrum, still released his music on ¼ inch cassette tapes—quite fitting for a man who has always been a purist in every respect. On The Glow, Pt. 2, he put forth his allegiance to the tried and true, using analog equipment as his median and natural landscapes as his muse, and captured a highly personal, organic aura unforeseen in the early millennium. Contrasted to the pristine, digitally recorded masterpieces of its time—Endless Summer, The Moon and Antarctica, and Kid A— the 2001 release doesn’t present an artistic genius distant to the listener but instead places us right into the heart of Elvrum’s campfire-lit, Northwestern world.
[Kyle McConaghy]
So far it hasn’t been the best decade for super-groups. The washed-up scum of Audioslave, Velvet Revolver, and Zwan had acidic vomit burning collective esophagi while lukewarm (aka “not-so-super”) acts like Reindeer Section and Gorillaz didn’t have enough presence to keep the rising puke wave down. Luckily there was one giant mint-flavored antacid to be found in the New Pornographers. How super are they? Mass Romantic has been released twice in under five years, a feat only matched here by the overexposed-to-the-point-of-being-pure-light White Stripes. And Mass Romantic deserves it (twice), catchy as all hell and intelligent to boot. With Mass Romantic, the New Pornographers reclaimed the words super-group and power-pop all in one fell swoop.
[Mike Shiflet]
Rilo Kiley's 2004 release was called More Adventurous but that title would've been far more appropriate for the Fiery Furnaces' sophomore album. Their 2003 Gallowsbird's Bark was a modestly terrific debut—at least as good as, say, Is This It, albeit not nearly as high-profile. Still, it certainly didn't prompt one to expect a straight-up masterpiece for the Friedberger siblings' follow-up. Most albums that get saddled with the almighty m-word feel so gosh darn perfect that they're ultimately a little, well, boring. From start to finish, Blueberry Boat is refreshingly idiosyncratic, as playful as it is cerebral and as immediate as it is expansive. It's full of ideas both (and often, upon repeat listens, simultaneously) startlingly brilliant and endearingly goofy.
[Josh Timmermann]
Today, right now, this minute, Rooty is the best Basement Jaxx album. Ask me tomorrow or in ten minutes and I may very well say Remedy or Kish Kash. (The Jaxx make mood music for people who find the idea of mood music hopelessly dull.) At any rate, their second proper LP is their most through-inspired—which is really just a fancy way of saying that it's the one that I never ever skip anything on. It kicks off with the house anthem of the 21st century, and by the time Felix and Simon try to sell you some Pringles, the party's long since blasted off into the stratosphere. "Broken Dreams" is impossibly pretty; "Get Me Off" is, finally, the song that sounds as much like hot, kinky sex as John Lennon's "Cold Turkey" sounded like torturous withdrawal; and "Crazy Girl" is just down-right funny. The album closes with an unexpectedly light come-down; "All I know is my heart screams softly for you" is as straightforwardly lovely a sentiment as any put to record in recent memory.
[Josh Timmermann]
Don't fault Sigur Ros for getting extra mileage out of a few great ideas. Jon Thor Birgisson took the bow-on-guitar act further than Jimmy Page ever dared dream, and then of course there's that voice. Sure, Hopelandish looks dopey on paper, and if Birgisson had sung in English chances are they'd have been laughed out of town faster than you can say Coheed and Cambria, but on this record all that matters is the innocent alien beauty of his vocals (most appropriate album cover ever) paired in achingly deliberate unison with the band's unerringly glacier-like sonics.
[Josh Love]
"It's a cold world out there... Sometimes I think I'm getting a little frosty myself." Before either Vast Aire or Vordul Mega take center stage on The Cold Vein, that spoken-word sample at the beginning of "Iron Galaxy" tells all. The album is a sprawling, 75-minute exploration of urban mechanism, driven primarily by El-P's appropriately frosty soundscapes. Vast and Vordul work wonders on the mic, of course—particularly Vast, who steals most of the album's tracks with his charismatic delivery and clever wordplay. But it's the beats that give the album its unique stamp. The muted five-note motif in "Iron Galaxy"'s verses; the wandering keyboard lines and muffled vocal samples in "A B-Boy's Alpha"; the skittering percussion in "Raspberry Fields"; it all works towards making Vast and Vordul's tales of the Big Apple feel more like they're pulled from Day After Tomorrow-era New York than the present-day version.
[Luke Adams]
Any band whose first single is based around a Wild West doctor visit that culminates in scratched birdcalls has my attention. The Avalanches kept it by creating one of the most cohesive overtly sample-based album’s in recent memory. A taster’s choice of attention-deficit anthems in direct ancestry with the Dust Brothers’ work on Paul’s Boutique, Since I Left You is its modern-day equivalent, expanding the concept with more advanced DJ work, better sample chops and most importantly, constantly shifting arrangements.
[Rollie Pemberton]
To date, the '00s have seen Spoon progressing beyond record label horror stories and facile Pavement comparisons, honing their taut musicianship and deceptively economical arrangements, establishing an unmistakeable sonic fingerprint, and releasing a brace of nearly impeccable LPs that affirm their status as nothing less or more than the best rock band going. Kill the Moonlight, in some ways their most straightforward record, is probably their finest effort yet. Its bright, gritty tone finds a compromise between their rough-edged early work and the relatively subdued and nostalgic Girls Can Tell, and the whole thing—from the undeniable good-times swagger of "Something to Look Forward To" and "Back to the Life" to the textural experiments of "Stay Don't Go" and the mesmeric "Paper Tiger"—brims with an artless and infectious confidence.
[Ross Hoffman]
Invariably linked to The Strokes when the two bands released albums to (ahem) save rock 'n roll in 2001, The White Stripes, unlike New York's favourite sons, weren't exactly newcomers to the music world; White Blood Cells was their third album. However, it stood head and shoulders above anything else they'd released at the time, and just as far above anything they've recorded since. White Blood Cells saw Jack and Meg shelve their efforts to become the next Led Zeppelin, and focus instead on what they do best: playing two- or three-minute songs that burst at the seams with energy and urgency. It doesn't matter that Meg plays drums as if she has a hand tied behind her back, or that Jack's vocals inspire comments like, "What a guitar sound!" If anything, these alleged shortcomings only contribute to that feeling of raw, uninhibited passion that The White Stripes bring to each song on White Blood Cells. How else do you explain "Fell in Love with a Girl"?
[Luke Adams]
The frequently incognito rapper MF Doom and producer Madlib collaborated their skills and their weirdness to create Madvillainy, a 22-track, 45-minute album framed in classic radio, but displaying the future of hip-hop. That’s due to Doom’s rhymes being as bizarre as they are sensical, his flow thick but fluid. Madlib’s production helps. It’s an endless supply of funk, soul, and jazz samples that not only craft great individual beats, but propel an album of potential choppy segments into a unified piece. Never has a villain been so, so good.
[Justin Cober-Lake]
Flipping through my school notebooks from last year, I find Dizzee Rascal lyrics scrawled purposefully and dramatically across the pages: “Only yesterday life was a touch more sweet / Now I’m sitting here thinking wonk wonk wonk wonk”, “When we ain’t kids no more / Will it still be about what it is right now?”, “Sometimes I wake up wishin’ I could sleep forever”. At 18, Dizzee could have been sitting in one of my classes. But the appeal of the album was that he was doing just the opposite: he was fighting to subsist in gritty East London, he was whipping up the most innovative beats the year 2003 saw, and he was releasing his anger and malaise with the urgency of a teenager who knew he had to fight if he ever wanted to be an adult. Boy in Da Corner is the sound of youth resisting its fate.
[Kareem Estefan]
Whether you loved it immediately or spent hours on message boards grousing about how it was the 2004's biggest piece of over-hyped shit, the Arcade Fire's Funeral demanded that you respond to it. The hype alone didn't put this album into everyone's consciousness, though; unique songwriting and sincerity took care of that. The quick changes and emotional intensity cause the first-listen reactions that dominated conversation last year. From the maturing childhood angst of "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" through the adult self-delusion of closer "In the Backseat," Funeral exposes something different on each listen. It's a big album disguised as an earnest little piece of indie pop. It's an instantly recognizable classic sure to withstand the scrutiny of that label, full of characters bred for endurance.
[Justin Cober-Lake]
Rather than indulging in the usual braggadocio of garage MCs, Mike Skinner’s debut album detailed the minutiae of an in-between-life existence that is typical for so many young British men; the hours spent with only a Playstation for company, the spliff-butts and empty cans that litter the mental bedsit of existence. Rubbish with girls, nostalgic for things barely remembered, unmotivated to the point of insouciance, obsessed with cod-philosophical insights, and useless kitsch no-brow cultural inconsequentialities (kung-fu movies, MTV, the eternal stoner’s desire to be ‘deep’ via received Chinese-whispered wisdom that might once have had something to do with Einstein or Jung).
Aside from the strength of his lyrical nuggets, Skinner’s genius lay in his musical lineage—as much indebted to The Specials as So Solid Crew, Danny Rampling as much as hip-hop, the scope of his influences allowing him to concoct a lackadaisical, melancholy, post-millennial bounce that transcended genre and nationality, that worked in clubs, bedrooms, and walkmans. A Grand Don’t Come For Free may have garnered more critical acclaim, but this stands against time and pulls into constituent parts better, because OPM is a classic.
[Nick Southall]
In the mid 1990’s the steady building interest in Americana dragged country and folk music kicking and screaming out of their quiet corners and dumped them squarely into the spotlight of indie music fans. Spare a thought, though, for the bands that stayed out on the edge, between the city and the desert, who were in no rush to come in just yet. Like their spiritual forebears Giant Sand and Thin White Rope, Modest Mouse's early albums sounded as vast and cracked as a dried-up riverbed; yet with The Moon And Antarctica, they found the need to irrigate their hearts. Their first album on a major, it still had plenty of time for the addictive, nasty little buzz-saw tunes that had typified their earlier work—yet it also contained songs like “Lives,” which managed to seesaw between brusque and tender with an ability that still astonishes.
[Dave McConigle]
If the Diplomats' rapping can be called impressionistic, Supreme Clientele features the premier abstract expressionist of hip-hop. If you read the lyrics to Ghostface's masterwork, it looks like a nonsensical jumble—a child could have done it. But every phrase is a brushstroke resplendent with the individualized voice, mood, texture of its creator, created in messy bursts of creativity. A team of RZA disciples provide glittering gutter symphonies, turned into beautifully overwhelming canvasses by Tony Starks. Rap for rap's sake.
[Gavin Mueller]
Anyone that claims they were anticipating Broken Social Scene’s second album is probably lying to you. It’s the same people who say they couldn’t wait for Sigur Ros’ second album after ordering the Von import. Nobody saw this coming. Feel Good Lost, Broken Social Scene’s debut, was an album full of ambitious instrumentals, but was overlooked upon its release. After padding their band membership to 10, Broken Social Scene was ready to deliver what they always had in them. With songs like “Cause = Time,” “Almost Crimes,” and the beautiful “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl,” You Forgot It in People was an instant classic. Hell, it even won a Juno award for Best Alternative Album—further proving that Canada is the new Britain.
[Nick Mims]
Finally—proof that pop could eat itself? Interpol’s debut album turned both heads and album covers, as greying hipsters queued up to be the first to play ‘spot that riff’ with some of the bands’ early songs. The rest of us paused, scraping our jaws from the floor at the realisation that a band from New York could make an album that managed to reference everything good about British guitar music of the 80s (not limited to, but including, The Smiths, Joy Division, Echo and The Bunnymen, and The Psychedelic Furs). Typically, the mainstream press got it all wrong with the constant references that the band were Joy Division, where they should have been applauding an example of a band whom excelled in coruscatingly rough lyrics and lead guitar litheness.
[Dave McGonigle]
What is a blueprint? A plan. A definition. The shape of things to come? Jay-Z, self-proclaimed greatest rapper alive, set out to prove his claims by producing a tour-de-force that secured him as the indefatigable king of New York City. He succeeded; The Blueprint plays more and more like a greatest hits collection with each passing year, killer track after killer track, turning from cheeky (“Girls, Girls, Girls”) to sensitive (“Song Cry”) to (justifiably) boastful (um, everything?) and never being any less than masterful at anything. Jigga used The Doors to slay Mobb Deep and Nas, The Jackson Five to slay the charts and a slice of Timbaland pie to slay dancefloors. Kanye West? Just Blaze? The sound of hip-hop for the next half-decade? It all started here. Sure, there may be better raps on Reasonable Doubt, but The Blueprint is Jay-Z’s best collection of songs. It didn’t just crown him king of New York—it pretty much propelled him to the throne of the World. Shawn Carter’s runnin’ this rap shit.
[Nick Southall]
The Knack doesn’t get enough love. Sure they didn’t deserve their hype or justify their vanity, but they were a solid source for catchy little rock-bops about girls who talk dirty. For all the talk about retro-whatever, they had a wiry, unique sound that was sounded perverse and idiosyncratic on the radio: lecherous, caffeinated bubblegum from guys who are expected to be more openly ambitious. Other groups may be more influential or varied in their output, but their success created a commercial context under which other new-wavers could flourish. Who cares if they never lived up to the promise of their debut? Their job was done and I’m glad they did it.
[Anthony Miccio]
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below effected a maybe-irrevocable break in Outkast's fan base (auteurish sympathizers vs. Cadillac throwbacks), so it's nice to revisit those halcyon days of Stankonia, when Big Boi and Dre's celebrity couple status wasn't on some Bennifer-type shit, and folks simply counted on the duo for wonderfully pop-friendly hip-hop refractions of dance ("B.O.B."), rock ("Toilet Tisha") and funk ("Gasoline Dreams") rather that brand them (especially Dre) with scare-quote labels like "serious-music savior" or "rockist menace." Maybe Stankonia’s comparatively streamlined approach accounts for its fondly-remembered placement, but don't underestimate the near-guaranteed greatness of Dre and Big Boi on the same track, a phenomenon almost wholly absent from S/TLB.
[Josh Love]
Possibly the most remarkable thing about Wilco's watershed fourth album was the overwhelming, and nearly immediate, consensus it found among listeners of all stripes. This is all the more remarkable because Yankee is a complicated and subtle, often hesitant album, one that doesn't easily surrender its splendor after a couple of cursory listens. The "experimental" component of its myth was always a pretty flimsy red herring, despite its significance to the backstory—it's hard to imagine the understated electronic flourishes blunting the record's inherent appeal for anybody. In any case, the blips and static certainly contribute to a wonderfully hazy and fluid listening experience, and help to underscore the emotional instability that makes the whole thing so affecting in the first place, but like any self-respecting "Americana" record, post-alt-country or what-have-you, the album's heart is in its songs. They are unassuming and unassailable, and I guarantee we'll be singing them for years to come, as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot continues to grow into its seemingly preordained stature: an album for the ages.
[K. Ross Hoffman]
Shadowing everything they’d done heretofore like a cold black monolith, Kid A was the ultimate encapsulation of a band held firmly in the grasp of the blue-steel g-forces of technology. One October day in 2000, Radiohead stripped their threads completely, and offered us this, an album consistently devoid of context and thus one that provides its own for the decade. In its dark-hued unfolding, we began to see ourselves as faint and flimsy and perhaps even glowing with the toxicity of our own immense need for progress, detached from ourselves and those around us via the depth of our future and the inevitability of its emergence. And, yet, this wasn’t mere detachment, a leap out of step with anything we’d come to learn from OK Computer. This was linear progression via spastic EKG line, as the band slipped free from both academic IDM and mournful Brit-rock. Kid A is restrained and chained in all the right places, and boiling with such a ragged distrust of us all and all that is in us that we can’t but claim its place in our own lore. We acknowledge the same awkwardness, and understand its isolation now. That is what they’ve forced us into. And that, above everything else, is why Kid A is the most important album we’ll see this decade.
[Derek Miller]
Individual Lists
Luke Adams
01. The Wrens - The Meadowlands
02. The Strokes - Is This It?
03. Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
04. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
05. Stars - Set Yourself on Fire
06. The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
07. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
08. Dizzee Rascal - Boy in Da Corner
09. The Arcade Fire - Funeral
10. And You Will Know us by the Trail of Dead - Source Tags and Codes
11. Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
12. The Avalanches - Since I Left You
13. Radiohead - Amnesiac
14. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People
15. Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein
16. The Streets - Original Pirate Material
17. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
18. The Hold Steady - Almost Killed Me
19. 2 many DJs - As Heard on Radio Soulwax, Part 2
20. Radiohead - Kid A
21. The Walkmen - Bows & Arrows
22. The Microphones - The Glow, Part 2
23. The Rapture - Echoes
24. Brother Ali - Shadows on the Sun
25. Sleater-Kinney - One Beat
26. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
27. Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030
28. The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
29. Junior Boys - Last Exit
30. The Organ - Grab That Gun
31. Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow
32. Outkast - Stankonia
33. Enon - High Society
34. Non-Prophets - Hope
35. A.C. Newman - The Slow Wonder
36. The Libertines - Up the Bracket
37. Elliott Smith - Figure 8
38. Air - Talkie Walkie
39. The New Pornographers - The Electric Version
40. Sigur Rós - Ágætis Byrjun
41. Spoon - Girls Can Tell
42. Aesop Rock - Labor Days
43. Ratatat - Ratatat
44. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
45. M.I.A. & Diplo - Piracy Funds Terrorism, Vol. 1
46. Liars - They Threw us all in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top
47. Max Richter - The Blue Notebooks
48. Bloc Party - The Silent Alarm
49. The Deadly Snakes - Ode to Joy
50. The Notwist - Neon Golden
Erick Bieritz
01. The Avalanches – Since I Left You
02. Luomo – Vocal City
03. Girls Aloud – What Will the Neighbours Say?
04. David Banner – Mississippi the Album 2: Baptized In Dirty Water
05. The Knife – Deep Cuts
06. Pole – 3
07. David Banner – Mississippi
08. Ludacris – Chicken -N- Beer
09. Jay-Z – The Black Album
10. Ulrich Schnauss – A Strangely Isolated Place
11. Stew – Guest Host
12. Stew – The Naked Dutch Painter and Other Songs
13. Susumu Yokota – Sakura
14. Joe Henry – Tiny Voices
15. The Dismemberment Plan – Change
16. Stafrann Hakon – Skvettir Edik A Ref
17. Jay-Z – The Blueprint
18. Gotan Project – Revancha Del Tango
19. Girls Aloud – Sound of the Underground
20. Outkast – Stankonia
21. Swayzak – Loops From the Bergerie
22. Basement Jaxx – Rooty
23. Kammerflimmer Kollektief – Cicadidae
24. Fursaxa – Mandrake
25. Madvillain – Madvillainy
26. Solvent – Solvent City
27. Lansing-Dreiden – The Incomplete Triangle
28. Ricardo Villalobos – Alcachofa
29. Annie – Anniemal
30. Kylie Minogue – Fever
31. Bubba Sparxxx – Deliverance
32. Rachel’s – Systems / Layers
33. Dizzee Rascal – Boy In Da Corner
34. Lil’ Scrappy and Trillville – The King of Crunk and BME Recordings Present
35. Aspera – Sugar and Feathered
36. Discount – Crash Diagnostic
37. TI – Trap Muzik
38. Luomo – The Present Lover
39. Cerberus Shoal – Crash My Moon Yacht
40. Cinematic Orchestra – Everyday
41. The Negro Problem – Welcome Black
42. Ogurusu Norihide – Modern
43. Primal Scream – XTRMNTR
44. Michael Mayer – Touch
45. N.E.R.D. – In Search Of…
46. Ghostface Killah – Supreme Clientele
47. Richard X – Presents His X-Factor
48. Prefuse 73 – One Word Extinguisher
49. Junior Senior – D-D-Don’t Stop the Beat
50. Michael Nace – The Voyage Out
Justin Cober-Lake
01. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
02. Kanye West - The College Dropout
03. Arcade Fire - Funeral
04. Elbow - Cast of Thousands
05. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It in People
06. Ted Leo - Tyranny of Distance
07. The Streets - A Grand Don’t Come for Free
08. John Vanderslice - Cellar Door
09. Calexico - Feat of Wire
10. Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
11. PJ Harvey - Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
12. Radiohead - Kid A
13. Iron and Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
14. Dizzee Rascal - Showtime
15. Madvillain - Madvillainy
16. Jay-Z - The Blueprint
17. Jim White - Drill a Hole in that Substrate and Tell Me What You See
18. Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed
19. OutKast - Stankonia
20. Nick Cave - Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus
21. Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek - Reflection Eternal
22. The Wrens - The Meadowlands
23. Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic
24. Gotan Project - La Revancha del Tango
25. RJD2 - Dead Ringer
26. Clearlake - Cedars
27. The Rapture - Echoes
28. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak
29. Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
30. M. Ward - The Transfiguration of Vincent
31. Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica
32. John Vanderslice - Time Travel Is Lonely
33. Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
34. Four Tet - Rounds
35. Badly Drawn Boy - Hour of the Bewilderbeast
36. Spoon - Kill the Moonlight
37. D'Angelo - Voodoo
38. The White Stripes - De Stijl
39. Postal Service - Give Up
40. Sufjan Stevens - Greetings from Michigan
41. The Delgados - Hate
42. Sparklehorse - It's a Wonderful Life
43. Menomena - I Am the Fun Blame Monster
44. Missy Elliott - Under Construction
45. The Unicorns, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
46. Jay-Z - The Black Album
47. The Strokes - Is This It
48. M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
49. Solomon Burke - Don't Give Up On Me
50. Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans
Nate De Young
01. Fennesz – Endless Summer
02. Radiohead: Kid A
03. Luomo – The Present Lover
04. Isolee – Rest
05. The Avalanches - Since I Left You
06. Animal Collective – Here Comes the Indian
07. Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
08. Daft Punk - Discovery
09. Ricardo Villalobos – Alcachofa
10. Farben – Textstar
11. Modest Mouse – The Moon and Antartica
12. Junior Boys – Last Exit
13. Metro Area – Metro Area
14. Quasimoto – The Unseen
15. Manitoba - Up in Flames
16. Madvillain – Madvillainy
17. Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
18. Prefuse 73 – Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives
19. Basement Jaxx: Rooty
20. Boards of Canada – Geogaddi
21. Microphones – The Glow, Pt. 2
22. Basement Jaxx – Kish Kash
23. Annie – Anniemal
24. DJ /Rupture – Minesweeper Suite
25. Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
26. Missy Elliott - Miss E... So Addictive
27. The Streets - Original Pirate Material
28. Panda Bear – Young Prayer
29. Dizzee Rascal - Boy in Da Corner
30. The Strokes: Is This It
31. Jason Forrest – The Unrelenting Songs…
32. Primal Scream - XTRMNTR
33. 2 Many DJ's - As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt. 2
34. Phoenix – Alphabetical
35. El-P – Fantastic Damage
36. Liars – They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top
37. OutKast - Stankonia
38. MIA and Diplo – Piracy Funds Terrorism
39. Mouse on Mars – Idiology
40. godspeed you black emperor! - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
41. Outhud – S.T.R.E.E.T DAD
42. McLusky – McLusky Do Dallas
43. The Books – Lemon of Pink
44. Devendra Barnhart – Rejoicing in Hands
45. Brooks – Red Tape
46. Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair…?
47. Beck – Sea Changes
48. N.E.R.D – In Search Of…
49. Thomas Fehlmann – Visions of Blah
50. Black Dice – Beaches and Canyons
David Drake
01. Missy Elliott – Miss E … So Addictive
02. Luomo – The Present Lover
03. El-P - Fantastic Damage
04. Madvillain - Madvillainy
05. Kylie - Fever
06. Jay-Z – The Blueprint
07. David Banner – Mississippi
08. Aaliyah – Aaliyah
09. Basement Jaxx - Rooty
10. M Mayer- Fabric 13
11. Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein
12. Kaito - Special Life
13. Daft Punk – Discovery
14. Jay-Z - The Black Album
15. Vybz Kartel - Up 2 Di Time
16. Ghostface - Supreme Clientele
17. Trick Daddy - Thug Matrimony
18. Avalanches - Since I Left You
19. Kompakt Total 3
20. Basement Jaxx - Kish Kash
21. M Mayer – Immer
22. N*E*R*D - In Search Of...
23. Andrew W.K. – I Get Wet
24. T.I. - Trap Muzik
25. Clipse - Lord Willin’
26. Annie - Anniemal
27. Trillville/Lil Scrappy
28. The Streets - Original Pirate Material
29. Scarface - The Fix
30. Ghostface - Pretty Toney
31. Isolee - Rest
32. Justin Timberlake – Justified
33. Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner
34. M Mayer – Touch
35. Kanye West - College Dropout
36. Teedra Moses - Complex Simplicity
37. Felix Da Housecat - Kittenz and Thee Glitz
38. Bubba Sparxx – Deliverance
39. Outkast - Stankonia
40. Wiley - Treddin on Thin Ice
41. 50 cent - Get Rich or Die Trying
42. Atmosphere - Lucy Ford EPs
43. Sean Paul - Dutty Rock
44. V/A – Ragga Ragga Ragga 2003
45. V/A - Kompakt Total 4
46. Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
47. Non-Prophets - HOPE
48. Common - Like Water for Chocolate
49. Ricardo Villalobos - Alcachofa
50. Richard X - Presents His X-Factor Vol. 1
Kareem Estefan
01. The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee
02. Radiohead – Kid A
03. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
04. Xiu Xiu – Knife Play
05. Modest Mouse – The Moon and Antarctica
06. Dizzee Rascal – Boy In Da Corner
07. Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It In People
08. The Microphones – The Glow, Pt. Two
09. The Mountain Goats – All Hail West Texas
10. Yo La Tengo - …And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
11. The Decemberists – Castaways and Cutouts
12. Primal Scream – XTRMNTR
13. Basement Jaxx – Rooty
14. Manitoba – Up in Flames
15. The Streets – Original Pirate Material
16. The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come for Free
17. Outkast – Stankonia
18. V/A – Royal Tenenbaums Soundtrack
19. M83 – Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts
20. Radiohead – Hail to the Thief
21. Daft Punk – Discovery
22. The Strokes – Is This It?
23. Múm – Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is O.K.
24. The Decemberists – Her Majesty the Decemberists
25. The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic
26. Spoon – Girls Can Tell
27. Xiu Xiu – Fabulous Muscles
28. Jay-Z – The Blueprint
29. The Books – Thought for Food
30. Sigur Ros – ( )
31. Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights
32. Bjork – Medulla
33. The Mountain Goats – The Coroner’s Gambit
34. Out Hud – S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D.
35. Deerhoof – Reveille
36. Spoon – Kill the Moonlight
37. Xiu Xiu – A Promise
38. Super Furry Animals – Rings Around the World
39. Clinic – Internal Wrangler
40. Radiohead – Amnesiac
41. Múm – Finally We Are No One
42. The Microphones – It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water
43. Devendra Banhart – Rejoicing in the Hands
44. Annie – Anniemal
45. Ghostface – The Pretty Toney Album
46. Need New Body – UFO
47. Junior Boys – Last Exit
48. Bjork – Vespertine
49. Max Tundra – Mastered by Guy at the Exchange
50. Deerhoof – Apple O’
Ryan Hardy
01. Jay-Z- The Blueprint
02. Interpol- Turn on the Bright Lights
03. Junior Boys- Last Exit
04. The Streets- A Grand Don't Come For Free
05. Ghostface Killah- Supreme Clientele
06. Avalanches- Since I Left You
07. New Pornographers- Mass Romantic
08. Strokes- Is This It
09. Cannibal Ox- The Cold Vein
10. Modest Mouse- The Moon and Antarctica
11. The Streets- Original Pirate Material
12. M83- Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
13. The Arcade Fire- Funeral
14. El-P- Fantastic Damage
15. King Geedorah- Take Me to Your Leader
16. Sleater-Kinney- All Hands on the Bad One
17. Exploding Hearts- Guitar Romantic
18. McLusky- McLusky Do Dallas
19. Spoon- Kill the Moonlight
20. The Unicorns- Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
21. Broken Social Scene- You Forgot It In People
22. White Stripes- White Blood Cells
23. The Libertines- The Libertines
24. Yo La Tengo- And then nothing turned itself inside out
25. Sarah Harmer- You Were Here
26. My Morning Jacket- It Still Moves
27. The Postal Service- Give Up
28. Ellen Allien- Berlinette
29. Hot Hot Heat- Make Up the Breakdown
30. Boards of Canada- Geogaddi
31. Jay-Z- The Black Album
32. Cat Power- You Are Free
33. Liars- They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top
34. Prefuse 73- One Word Extinguisher
35. Grandaddy- The Sophtware Slump
36. White Stripes- De Stijl
37. Franz Ferdinand- Franz Ferdinand
38. Jewlia Eisenberg- Trilectic
39. RJD2- Deadringer
40. The Fiery Furnaces- Blueberry Boat
41. Kristin Hersh- Sunny Border Blue
42. Fugazi- The Argument
43. Death From Above 1979- You're A Woman, I'm A Machine
44. Derek Bailey- Ballads
45. The Darkness- Permission to Land
46. Sonic Youth- Murray Street
47. Kylie Minogue- Fever
48. Cam’ron- Purple Haze
49. Manitoba- Up In Flames
50. Ryan Adams- Heartbreaker
Michael Heumann
01. William Basinski- The Disintegration Loops
02. William Basinski- The River
03. Gevorg Dabaghyan- Miniatures: Masterworks for Armenian Duduk
04. Random Inc.- Jerusalem: Tales Outside the Framework of Orthodoxy
05. Sigur Ros- ( )
06. Various Artists- The Silk Road: A Musical Caravan
07. Pan Sonic- Kesto
08. Pan Sonic- Aaltopiiri
09. Tim Hecker- Radio Amor
10. Egschiglen- Sounds of Mongolia
11. William Basinski- Variations: A Movement in Chrome Primitive
12. Shuttle 358- Frame
13. Fennesz- Endless Summer
14. Various Artists- Bosavi- Rainforest Music from Papua New Guinea
15. Salamat Sadikova- The Voice of Kyrgyzstan
16. Patton Oswalt- Feelin' Kinda Patton
17. Bretschneider & Deupree- Balance
18. Jóhann Jóhannsson- Virðulegu Forsetar
19. Ensemble Bürler- Traditional Songs of the Kazakhs
20. Rechenzentum- Director's Cut
21. Dave Attell- Skanks for the Memories
22. Various Artists- Lowercase Sound 2002
23. Various Artists- Afghanistan Untouched
24. William Basinski + Richard Chartier- William Basinski + Richard Chartier
25. Various Artists- Shüüdüngüt's Road - Music Of The Kyrgyz People Of Central Asia
26. Nohon- Altai Maktal
27. Tu'm- Pop Involved
28. Various Artists- Clicks + Cuts
29. Dan Abrams- Stream
30. Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto- Vrioon
31. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds- Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus
32. Taylor Deupree- .N
33. Sogar- Basal
34. 0/R- Varied
35. Tim Hecker- Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again
36. Various Artists- Inflation (*0 0.000 Remix)
37. Tom Waits- Blood Money
38. Various Artists- Star Switch On
39. Miki Yui- Silence Resounding
40. Sogar- Apikal Blend
41. Taylor Deupree- January
42. Taylor Deupree & Christopher Willits- Mujo
43. Various Artists- Spire: Organ Works Past Present & Future
44. Brian Wilson- Smile
45. Piana- Snow Bird
46. Bjork- Medulla
47. Radiohead- Kid A
48. Mokira- Clickhop
49. David Cross- Shut Up, You Fuckin' Baby!
50. Various Artists- A Mighty Wind, Original Soundtrack
K. Ross Hoffman
01. Blur - Think Tank
02. The Shins - Oh, Inverted World
03. Elliott Smith - Figure 8
04. The Arcade Fire - Funeral
05. Spoon - Kill the Moonlight
06. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
07. Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
08. Super Furry Animals - Rings Around the World
09. Cornelius - Point
10. The New Pornographers - The Electric Version
11. Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
12. The Postal Service - Give Up
13. OutKast - Stankonia
14. Spoon - Girls Can Tell
15. Missy Elliott - Miss E…So Addictive
16. Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender
17. Solomon Burke - Don't Give Up on Me
18. Belle and Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
19. David Byrne - Look Into the Eyeball
20. Mirah - C'mon Miracle
21. Of Montreal - Satanic Panic in the Attic
22. Jim White - No Such Place
23. The Dandy Warhols - 13 Tales from Urban Bohemia
24. Rufus Wainwright - Poses
25. Ted Leo/Pharmacists - The Tyranny of Distance
26. Radiohead - Kid A
27. Hot Hot Heat - Make Up the Breakdown
28. Manitoba - Up in Flames
29. V/A - Digital Disco
30. Stars - Heart
31. Rjd2 - Deadringer
32. Elvis Costello - The Delivery Man
33. Jay-Z - The Blueprint
34. Kylie Minogue - Fever
35. Tortoise - Standards
36. Junior Boys - Last Exit
37. John Vanderslice - Cellar Door
38. The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
39. Call and Response - Call and Response
40. Guided by Voices - Isolation Drills
41. American Analog Set - Know by Heart
42. The Strokes - Room on Fire
43. Edith Frost - Wonder Wonder
44. Sufjan Stevens - Greetings from Michigan, the Great Lakes State
45. Talib Kweli - Quality
46. The Apples in Stereo - Discovery of a World Inside the Moone
47. Richard X - Presents His X-Factor Vol. 1
48. A. C. Newman - The Slow Wonder
49. The Books - Thought for Food
50. Keith Fullerton Whitman - Playthroughs
Todd Hutlock
01. Primal Scream - XTRMNTR
02. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
03. PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
04. The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
05. Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
06. Two Lone Swordsmen - From The Double Gone Chapel
07. Clinic - Internal Wrangler
08. Smog - Dongs Of Sevotion
09. Playgroup - Playgroup
10. Edwyn Collins - Doctor Syntax
11. Broadcast - The Noise Made By People
12. Nick Lowe - The Convincer
13. The Strokes - Is This It?
14. OutKast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
15. Bjork - Medulla
16. Herbert - Bodily Functions
17. Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
18. Wilco - A Ghost Is Born
19. Villalobos - Alcachofa
20. Mogwai - Rock Action
21. Fridge - Happiness
22. OutKast - Stankonia
23. Nellie McKay - Get Away From Me
24. Belle & Sebastian - Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant
25. Two Lone Swordsmen - Tiny Reminders
26. Air - Talkie Walkie
27. Sigur Ros - ( )
28. Clinic - Walking With Thee
29. PJ Harvey - Uh Huh Her
30. Super Furry Animals - Rings Around The World
31. Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi
32. David Sylvian - Blemish
33. FourTet - Pause
34. St. Etienne - Sound Of Water
35. Bjork - Vespertine
36. Spiritualized - Amazing Grace
37. Cristian Vogel - Rescate 130
38. The Avalanches - Since I Left You
39. Squarepusher - Go Plastic
40. Paul Weller - Illumination
41. Calexico - Hot Rail
42. Ikara Colt - Chat And Business
43. Kid 606 - Down With The Scene
44. Cornelius - Point
45. Dismemberment Plan - Change
46. David Holmes - Bow Down To The Exit Sign
47. Autechre - Draft 7.30
48. Manitoba - Up In Flames
49. Richard X - Presents His X-Factor, Vol. 1
50. Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
Josh Love
01. Radiohead - Kid A
02. Drive-By Truckers - Southern Rock Opera
03. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak
04. The Strokes - Is This It
05. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
06. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Tyranny of Distance
07. Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
08. Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
09. Iron and Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle
10. Ghostface - The Pretty Toney Album
11. Outkast - Stankonia
12. Dizzee Rascal - Showtime
13. Madvillain - Madvillainy
14. David Banner - Mississippi: The Album
15. Fiery Furnaces – Gallowsbird’s Bark
16. The Notwist - Neon Golden
17. Sleater-Kinney - One Beat
18. Sufjan Stevens - Greetings from Michigan
19. Gretchen Wilson - Here for the Party
20. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
21. Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica
22. Bob Dylan - Love and Theft
23. Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
24. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People
25. Buck 65 - Vertex
26. Nelly Furtado - Whoa, Nelly!
27. Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose
28. M.I.A. & Diplo - Piracy Funds Terrorism Vol. 1
29. Clinic - Internal Wrangler
30. Roman Candle - Says Pop
31. Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things
32. White Stripes - White Blood Cells
33. The Strokes - Room on Fire
34. Rufus Wainwright - Poses
35. Dntel - Life is Full of Possibilities
36. Dixie Chicks - Home
37. Bubba Sparxxx - Deliverance
38. Drive-By Truckers - Decoration Day
39. My Morning Jacket - At Dawn
40. The Arcade Fire - Funeral
41. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
42. Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
43. Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles
44. Dizzie Rascal - Boy in da Corner
45. The Darkness - Permission to Land
46. The Libertines - Up the Bracket
47. Kanye West - The College Dropout
48. Immortal Technique - Revolutionary Vol. 2
49. Gillian Welch - Time (The Revelator)
50. The Liars - They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top
Kyle McConaghy
01. Radiohead – Kid A
02. The Strokes – Is This It?
03. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
04. The Fiery Furnaces – Blueberry Boat
05. Outkast - Stankonia
06. Interpol – Turn On the Bright Lights
07. The Arcade Fire – Funeral
08. Godspeed You Black Emperor! – Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven
09. The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?
10. The Microphones – It Was Hot, We Stayed In the Water
11. Clinic – Internal Wrangler
12. The Walkmen – Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone
13. Xiu Xiu – Knife Play
14. Microphones – The Glow, Pt. 2
15. Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun
16. Xiu Xiu – Fabulous Muscles
17. Fire Show – Saint the Fire Show
18. Devendra Banhart – Rejoicing in the Hands
19. M83 – Dead Cities, Red Seas, & Lost Ghosts
20. The Strokes – Room On Fire
21. Spoon – Kill The Moonlight
22. The Walkmen – Bows and Arrows
23. And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead – Sources Tags and Codes
24. Dungen – Ta Det Lugnt
25. Animal Collective – Sung Tongs
26. Circulatory System – Circulatory System
27. Blur – Think Tank
28. The Rapture – Echoes
29. Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It in People
30. Radiohead – Amnesiac
31. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
32. Liars – They Threw Us in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top
33. The Go! Team – Thunder, Lightning, Strike
34. Four Tet – Rounds
35. Interpol - Antics
36. Death From Above 1979 – You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine
37. 90 Day Men – To Everybody
38. The Avalanches – Since I Left You
39. Castanets - Cathedral
40. Grandaddy – Software Slump
41. Nino Rijo – Devendra Banhart
42. Songs: Ohia - Didn’t It Rain?
43. Erlend Oye - Unrest
44. Microphones – Mount Eerie
45. Beta Band – Hot Shots II
46. Fennesz – Endless Summer
47. Mirah – C’mon Miracle
48. Menomena – I Am the Fun Blame Monster
49. Broadcast – Ha Ha Sound
50. Exploding Hearts – Guitar Romantic
Dave McGonigle
01. Stars of the Lid- The Tired Sounds Of…
02. Primal Scream- XTRMNTR
03. Oxbow- An Evil Heat
04. Outhud- S.T.R.E.E.T.D.A.D.
05. Interpol- Turn on the Bright Lights
06. The Coup- Party Music
07. Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
08. Modest Mouse- Moon and Antarctica
09. Cul De Sac- Death of the Sun
10. Sigur Ros- Agaetis Byrjun
11. Giya Kancheli- Lament
12. Lambchop- Nixon
13. Flaming Lips- Yoshimi Battle The Pink Robots
14. New Pornographers- Mass Romantic
15. Super Collider- Raw Digits
16. Felix Da Housecat- Kittenz And Thee Glitz
17. Sonic Youth- Murray Street
18. Thomas Fehlmann- Visions Of Blah
19. Songs Ohio- Didn’t It Rain
20. LFO- Sheath
21. Cyann and Ben- Spring
22. RJD2- Deadringer
23. 2 Many DJ's- As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt 2
24. Mùm- Finally We Are No One
25. Roots Manuva- Run Come Save Me
26. Rufus Wainwright- Poses
27. Godspeed You Black Emperor!- Yanqui U.X.O.
28. Four Tet- Pause
29. Radiohead- Kid A
30. Low- Things We Lost In The Fire
31. Yo La Tengo- And Then Nothing Turned…
32. Spoon- Girls Can Tell
33. British Sea Power- The Decline of…
34. Fennesz- Endless Summer
35. Mark Eitzel- The Invisible Man
36. REM- Up
37. Nortec Collective- The Tijuana Sessions Volume 1
38. Dangermouse & Jemini- Ghetto Pop Life
39. Ozomatli- Embrace the Chaos
40. Doves- Lost Souls
41. The Clean- Getaway
42. Aim- Hinterland
43. Teenage Fanclub- Howdy!
44. Amon Tobin- Supermodified
45. Unwound- Leaves Turn Inside You
46. Dismemberment Plan- Change
47. Black Dice- Beaches and Canyons
48. Iran- The Moon Boys
49. Yo La Tengo- The Sounds of the Sounds of Science
50. Elbow- Cast Of Thousands
Scott McKeating
01. Ryan Adams – Rock N Roll
02. Arab Strap - The Red Thread
03. Artful Dodger - It's All about the Stragglers
04. Babybird – The Black Album
05. Bjork – Vespertine
06. Bjork – Medulla
07. Bravecaptain - All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace
08. Coil – Black Antlers
09. Coldplay - A rush of Blood to the Head
10. D'Angelo – Voodoo
11. Christoph De Babalon – If you’re into it, I’m out of it
12. Deftones – White Pony
13. Mark Eitzel - The Invisible Man
14. Elbow - Asleep in the Back
15. Matt Elliott – The Mess we Made
16. John Frusciante - Shadows Collide with People
17. John Frusciante – A Sphere in the Heart of Silence
18. Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
19. David Gray - A New Day At Midnight
20. Keane - Hopes and Fears
21. Nurse with Wound - Shipwreck Radio Volume One: Seven Sonic Structures from Utvaer
22. Jim O’Rourke – Insignificance
23. Primal Scream – Exterminator
24. Radiohead - Kid A
25. Red House Painters - Old Ramon
26. Thighpaulsandra - Rape Scene
27. Justin Timberlake - Justified
28. Travis - The Invisible Band
29. Two Lone Swordsmen - From the Double Gone Chapel
30. Underworld - 100 days off
31. Rufus Wainwright – Want Two
32. Tom Waits – Alice
33. Tom Waits – Blood Money
34. Wu-Tang Clan - Iron Flag
35. Will Young - From Now On
36. Cathal Coughlan - The Sky's Awful Blue
Anthony Miccio
01. Desaparecidos- Read Music/Speak Spanish
02. Good Charlotte- The Young And The Hopeless
03. Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Fever To Tell
04. Fugazi- The Argument
05. White Stripes- De Stijl
06. Nellie McKay- Get Away From Me
07. Electric Six- Fire
08. Distillers- Sing Sing Death House
09. Kelly Osbourne- Shut Up!
10. Rocket From The Crypt- Group Sounds
11. Hives- Tyrannosaurus Hives
12. Bumblebeez 81- Printz
13. Rocket From The Crypt- Live From Camp X-Ray
14. Sugar Ray- Sugar Ray
15. Twilight Singers- Twilight
16. Hot Snakes- Automatic Midnight
17. Donnas- Spend The Night
18. Trouble Everyday- Days Vs. Nights
19. Outkast- Speakerboxx/The Love Below
20. Weezer- Weezer (2001)
21. Ted Leo/Pharmacists- Hearts Of Oak
22. Streets- A Grand Don’t Come For Free
23. Go-Betweens- The Friends Of Rachel Worth
24. Dismemberment Plan- Change
25. Strokes- Is This It
26. Clinic- Internal Wrangler
27. Neil Young- Greendale
28. t.A.T.u.- 200 km/h In The Wrong Lane
29. Radiohead- Kid A
30. Wilco- Yanke Hotel Foxtrot
31. Kimya Dawson- I’m Sorry Sometimes I’m Mean
32. Drive-By Truckers- Alabama-Ass Whuppin’
33. Drive-By Truckers- Decoration Day
34. Bob Dylan- Love And Theft
35. Limp Bizkit- Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water
36. Weezer- Maladroit
37. Tegan And Sara- So Jealous
38. New Wet Kojak- Do Things
39. Interpol- Turn On The Bright Lights
40. All-American Rejects- All-American Rejects
41. Crooked Fingers- Bring On The Snakes
42. I Am The World Trade Center- The Cover-Up
43. Liz Phair- Liz Phair
44. White Stripes- Elephant
45. Mountain Goats- We Shall All Be Healed
46. Travis Morrison- Travistan
47. Superchunk- Here’s To Shutting Up
48. David Banner- MTA2: Baptized In Dirty Water
49. Kimya Dawson- Hidden Vagenda
50. Hot Snakes- Audit In Progress
Derek Miller
01. Radiohead, Kid A
02. Beta Band, The Three E.P.s
03. Broken Social Scene, You Forgot it in People
04. Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights
05. Sigur Ros, Agaetis Byrjun
06. Strokes, Is this It
07. Augie March, Strange Bird
08. Air, 10,000 Hz Legend
09. The Postal Service, Give Up
10. Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
11. White Stripes, White Blood Cells
12. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
13. Bjork, Vespertine
14. Radiohead, Amnesiac
15. Fiery Furnaces, Blueberry Boat
16. Spoon, Kill the Moonlight
17. Grandaddy, Sophtware Slump
18. Patrick Wolf, Lycanthropy
19. Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand
20. Arcade Fire, Funeral
21. The Streets, Original Pirate Material
22. Modest Mouse, The Moon and Antarctica
23. The Mountaineers, Messy Century
24. The Walkmen, Bows and Arrows
25. Notwist, Neon Golden
26. Iron and Wine, The Creek Drank the Cradle
27. Junior Boys, Last Exit
28. Badly Drawn Boy, The Hour of Bewilderbeast
29. Shins, Chutes Too Narrow
30. Beck, Sea Change
31. Clinic, Internal Wrangler
32. Manitoba, Up in Flames
33. Dntel, Life is Full of Possibilities
34. Junior Boys, Last Exit
35. Beta Band, Hot Shots II
36. Radiohead, Hail to the Thief
37. The Rapture, Echoes
38. Mum, Yesterday was Dramatic, Today is O.K.
39. Sigur Ros, ( )
40. M83, Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts
41. Augie March, Sunset Studies
42. McLusky, . . .Do Dallas
43. Madvillain, Madvillainy
44. My Morning Jacket, At Dawn
45. Shins, Oh, Inverted World
46. Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker
47. Air, Talkie Walkie
48. My Morning Jacket, It Still Moves
49. Outkast, Stankonia
50. Four Tet, Rounds
Nick Mims
01. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
02. Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It in People
03. Modest Mouse – The Moon and Antarctica
04. Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun
05. Strokes – Is This It?
06. Radiohead – Kid A
07. The Shins – Oh, Inverted World
08. Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights
09. Arcade Fire - Funeral
10. Postal Service – Give up
11. Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days
12. Beck – Sea Change
13. White Stripes – Elephant
14. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
15. Death Cab For Cutie – We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes
16. Sonic Youth – Murray Street
17. Clinic – Walking With Thee
18. Godspeed You Black Emperor – Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven
19. Cursive – The Ugly Organ
20. The Decemberists – Castaways and Cutouts
21. Dismemberment Plan - Change
22. Sigur Ros – ()
23. White Stripes – White Blood Cells
24. Doves – Lost Souls
25. Bjork – Vespertine
26. Tori Amos – Scarlet’s Walk
27. Josh Rouse - 1972
28. Rapture – Echoes
29. Spoon – Girls Can Tell
30. The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
31. Morrissey – You Are the Quarry
32. Death Cab for Cutie – Transatlanticism
33. Blur – Think Tank
34. Bright Eyes - Lifted
35. Tom Waits - Alice
36. Sonic Youth – Sonic Nurse
37. Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
38. Trail of Dead – Source Tags and Codes
39. Radiohead – Hail to the Thief
40. The Beta Band – Hot Shots II
41 Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
42. The New Pornographers – Electric Version
43. Sunny Day Real Estate – The Rising Tide
44. The Wrens – The Meadowlands
45. Rilo Kiley – The Execution of All Things
46. Fiery Furnaces – Blueberry Boat
47. Sufjan Stevens – Seven Swans
48. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever to Tell
49. Badly Drawn Boy – Hour of the Bewilderbeast
50. Coldplay – Parachutes
Gavin Mueller
01. Ghostface - Supreme Clientele
02. Missy Elliott - So Addictive
03. Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein
04. Jay-Z - The Blueprint
05. Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner
06. DJ /Rupture - Minesweeper Suite
07. DJ Screw - The Legend
08. Kid 606 - Down With The Scene
09. King Geedorah - Take Me To Your Leader
10. Quasimoto - The Unseen
11. Ghostface - Bulletproof Wallets
12. David Banner - Mississippi: The Screwed and Chopped Album
13. Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villain
14. Justin Timberlake - Justified
15. N.E.R.D. - IN Search Of...
16. Clinic - Internal Wrangler
17. Autechre - Draft 7.30
18. Prefuse 73 - Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives
19. Sutekh - Fell
20. Electric Kettle - Faster Ceremony and Ultra Discovery
21. Sixtoo - Duration
22. Dr. Dre - Dre 2001
23. Blood Brothers - Burn Piano Island Burn
24. Clouddead - Clouddead
25. Lil Jon - Kings of Crunk
Edward Oculicz
01. Moloko - Statues
02. The Delgados - Hate
03. Shivaree - Rough Dreams
04. Kent - Hagnesta Hill
05. Neko Case - Blacklisted
06. Bran Van 3000 - Discosis
07. Cinerama - Disco Volante
08. Girls Aloud - What Will The Neighbours Say?
09. Idlewild - The Remote Part
10. Pulp - We Love Life
11. Darren Hayes - The Tension And The Spark
12. The Delgados - Universal Audio
13. Dannii Minogue - Neon Nights
14. The Cardigans - Long Gone Before Daylight
15. Garbage - Beautifulgarbage
16. Siobhan Donaghy - Revolution In Me
17. Girls Aloud – Sound of the Underground
18. Bjork - Vespertine
19. Annie - Anniemal
20. Natalie Imbruglia - White Lilies Island
21. Saint Etienne - Finisterre
22. HIM - Love Metal
23. Britney Spears - Britney
24. Missy Elliott - Miss E... So Addictive
25. Phoenix - United
26. Lene - Play With Me
27. The Notwist - Neon Golden
28. Spray - Living In Neon
29. Idlewild - 100 Broken Windows
30. Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers
31. Richard X - Richard X Presents His X-Factor
32. Cinerama - Torino
33. Caparezza - Verita Supposte
34. Kelis - Kaleidoscope
35. The New Pornographers - Electric Version
36. The Avalanches - Since I Left You
37. Shivaree - I Oughtta Give You A Shot In The Head...
38. Sugababes - One Touch
39. Audio Bullys - Ego War
40. Goldfrapp - Black Cherry
41. The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
42. Kylie Minogue - Fever
43. Catatonia - Paper, Scissors, Stone
44. The Clientele - Suburban Light
45. Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
46. Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain
47. The Delgados - The Great Eastern
48. Michael Franti/Spearhead - Stay Human
49. Muse - Origin of Symmetry
50. Ladytron - Light And Magic
Dom Passantino
01. Blak Twang- Kik Off
02. Dan Greenpeace and DJ Yoda- Unthugged: The Essential Mix
03. Half Man Half Biscuit- Cammel Laird Social Club
04. Corb Lund Band- Five Dollar Bill
05. Belle and Sebastian- Dear Catastrophe Waitress
06. Nellie McKay- Get Away from Me
07. Fallacy- Blackmarket Boy
08. Herman Dune- Mas Cambios
09. Eels- Daisies of the Galaxy
10. The Moldy Peaches- The Moldy Peaches
11. Fountains of Wayne- Welcome Interstate Managers
12. Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi- Vague Us
13. Courtney Love- America’s Sweetheart
14. Girls Aloud- What Will The Neighbors Say?
15. Sandie Shaw- La Cantante Scalza
16. Belle and Sebastian- Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant
17. Cassetteboy- The Parker Tapes
18. Ballboy- A Guide for the Daylight Hours
19. Ugly Duckling- Journey to Anywhere
20. Caparezza- Verita Supposte
21. Big and Rich- Horse of a Different Color
22. Gretchen Wilson- Here For The Party
23. Johnny Cash- American III- Solitary Man
24. Various Artists- The Royal Tenenbaums OST
25. taTu- 200 km/h In The Fast Lane
26. Adam Green- Friends of Mine
27. DJ Format- Music for the Mature B-Boy
28. DJ Yoda- How to Cut and Paste Volume 2
29. Joie Dead Blonde Girlfriend- Pretty As A Picture
30. Ghostface- The Pretty Toney Album
31. Blackalicious- Blazing Arrow
32. Gold Chains- Miss Young America
33. Green Day- Warning
34. MC Paul Barman- Paulelluiah
35. Skitz- Countryman
36. Aaliyah- Aaliyah
37. Ghostface Killah- Supreme Clientele
38. Gwen Stefani- Love Angel Music Baby
39. AM60- Always Music 60
40. Roots Manuva- Run Come Save Me
41. Clipse- Lord Willin’
42. DM and Jemini- Ghetto Pop Life
43. MC Honky- I Am The Messiah
44. Sophie Ellis Bextor- Read My Lips
45. Eels- Souljacker
46. Blondie- The Curse of Blondie
47. Gotan Project- Revencha Del Tango
48. Jeffrey Lewis- The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane
49. Kimya Dawson- I’m Sorry That Sometimes I’m Mean
50. Various Artists- World Wrestling Entertainment Presents Anthology
Rollie Pemberton
01. Beck- Midnite Vultures
02. The Avalanches- Since I Left You
03. Ghostface Killah- Supreme Clientele
04. Modest Mouse The Moon And Antarctica
05. Radiohead- Kid A
06. Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
07. El-P- Fantastic Damage
08. MF Doom- Operation: Doomsday
09. Dizzee Rascal- Boy In Da Corner
10. The Streets- Original Pirate Material
11. Cannibal Ox- The Cold Vein
12. Quasimoto- The Unseen
13. Non-Phixion- The Future Is Now
14. Deltron 3030- Deltron 3030
15. The Clipse- Lord Willin’
16. Jay-Z- The Blueprint
17. Sage Francis- Personal Journals
18. Juggaknots- Re:release
19. Liars- They Threw Us In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top
20. The Beta Band- Hot Shots II
21. Basement Jaxx- Rooty
22. Non-Prophets- Hope
23. Jay-Z- The Black Album
24. Interpol- Turn On The Bright Lights
25. Anti-Pop Consortium- Arrhythmia
26. RJD2- Dead Ringer
27. Count Bass D- Dwight Spitz
28. The Fiery Furnaces- Blueberry Boat
29. The Strokes- Is This It?
30. J-Live- The Best Part
31. Madvillain- Madvillainy
32. The White Stripes- White Blood Cells
33. Mu- Afro Finger And Gel
34. Aesop Rock- Bazooka Tooth
35. Spoon- Kill The Moonlight
36. J-Zone- Pimps Don’t Pay Taxes
37. Blackalicious- NIA
38. Prefuse 73- One Word Extinguisher
39. Fugazi- The Argument
40. Mclusky- Mclusky Do Dallas
41. The Faint- Blank Wave Arcade
42. Brother Ali- Shadows On The Sun
43. Themselves- The No Music
44. Metric- Old World Underground Where Are You Now?
45. Hip Hop Wieners- All Beef, No Chicken
46. Clinic- Internal Wrangler
47. Buck 65- Vertex
48. Hot Hot Heat- Make Up The Breakdown
49. Mr. Lif- I Phantom
50. System Of A Down- Toxicity
Mike Powell
01. Radiohead- Kid A
02. Fennesz – Endless Summer
03. Max Tundra – Mastered by Guy at the Exchange
04. Destroyer – Streethawk: A Seduction
05. The Microphones – The Glow pt. 2
06. Books – Thought for Food
07. The Mountain Goats – All Hail West Texas
08. Outkast – Stankonia
09. The Strokes – Is This It?
10. Animal Collective – Sung Tongs
11. Dismemberment Plan – Emergency and I
12. Yo La Tengo – And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
13. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
14. Spoon – Kill the Moonlight
15. Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein
16. The Streets – Original Pirate Material
17. The Hold Steady – Almost Killed Me
18. Deerhoof – Apple O’
19. The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
20. Madvillain – Madvillainy
21. Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP
22. The Mountain Goats- Tallahassee
23. Whitehouse – Birdseed
24. Junior Boys – Last Exit
25. White Stripes – White Blood Cells
26. Lightning Bolt – Wonderful Rainbow
27. Mu – Afro Finger and Gel
28. Radiohead - Amnesiac
29. Dntel – Life is Full of Possibilities
30. Antony and the Johnsons – I am a bird Now
31. Missy Elliott – Under Construction
32. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti 2 – The Doldrums
33. Dizzee Rascal – Showtime
34. Animal Collective – Here Comes the Indian
35. Mouse on Mars – Idiology
36. Boredoms – Vision Creation Newsun
37. Keith Fullerton Whitman – Playthroughs
38. Black Dice – Beaches and Canyons
39. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
40. Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights
41. Don Caballero – American Don
42. Wolf Eyes – Slicer
43. El-P – Fantastic Damage
44. Keren Ann - Nolita
45. Destroyer – Your Blues
46. Low – Things We Lost in the Fire
47. The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?
48. Zeena Parkins and Ikue Mori – Phantom Orchard
49. M83 – Dead Cities, Red Seas, & Lost Ghosts
50. Kevin Blechdom – Bitches Without Britches
Bjorn Randolph
01. Boredoms - Vision Creation Newsun
02. Beenie Man - Art & Life
03. The Degados - HATE
04. Nellie McKay - Get Away From Me
05. Pet Shop Boys - Release
06. Queens of the Stone Age - Songs For the Deaf
07. Sigur Ros - ()
08. Spiritualized - Let It Come Down
09. 2 Many DJs - As Heard on Radio Soulwax Part 2
10. Acetone - York Blvd
11. DJ Danger Mouse - The Grey Album
12. The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
13. Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
14. Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump
15. Green Day - American Idiot
16. Hope of the States - The Lost Riots
17. Kittie - Spit
18. LAMF - Ambient Metal
19. Lightning Bolt - Ride the Skies
20. Quasi - Sword of God
21. Dizzee Rascal - Boy in da Corner
22. Dimmu Borgir - Death Cult Armageddon
23. Explosions in the Sky - The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place
24. High On Fire - The Art of Self-Defense
25. Joan of Arc - Joan of Arc, Dick Cheney, Mark Twain
26. Jens Lekman - When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog
27. Kelis - Tasty
28. MF Doom - Enter the 36 Chambers of Doom
29. Randy Newman - The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1
30. Oneida - Come On Everybody Let's Rock
31. OutKast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
32. Radiohead - Amnesiac
33. Rasputina - Frastration Plantation
34. Shellac - 1000 Hurts
35. Spiritualized - Amazing Grace
36. Squarepusher - Do You Know Squarepusher?
37. The Streets - Original Pirate Material
38. Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You
39. Various Artists - Boom Selection: Issue 01
40. Various Artists - DFA Compilation #1
41. Various Artists - Troubleman Mix-Tape
Mike Shiflet
01. Kevin Drumm - Sheer Hellish Miasma
02. Fennesz - Endless Summer
03. Low - Things We Lost in the Fire
04. Microphones - The Glow, Pt. 2
05. Godspeed You Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists
06. Songs: Ohia - Magnolia Electric Company
07. Greg Davis - Arbor
08. Xiu Xiu - Knife Play
09. Paul Flaherty & Chris Corsano - The Hated Music
10. Sonic Youth - Murray Street
11. Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender
12. Keith Rowe/John Tilbury - Duos for Doris
13. Cannibal Ox - Cold Vein
14. Panda Bear - Young Prayer
15. Jim O'Rourke - IÕm Happy & IÕm Singing....
16. Bonnie Prince Billy - Master and Everyone
17. Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
18. Jackie-O Motherfucker - Magick Fire Music
19. Wolf Eyes - Burned Mind
20. Pita - Get Out
21. Keith Fullerton Whitman - Playthroughs
22. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
23. Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica
24. Comets on Fire - Field Recordings of the Sun
25. Tore H. Boe - Zenography
26. Mary Timony - Mountains
27. Matmos - The Civil War
28. Arcade Fire - Funeral
29. Madvillain - Madvillainy
30. Cosmos - Tears
31. New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
32. Bjork - Vespertine
33. Charalambides - Unknown Spin
34. Pedro The Lion - Control
35. Sufjan Stevens - Michigan
36. Lionel Marchetti - Portrait DÕun Glacier
37. Radiohead - Kid A
38. Merzbow - Frog
39. Double Leopards - Halve Maen
40. Kanye West - The College Dropout
41. Hair Poliee - Obedience Cuts
42. Greg Kelley - If I Never Meet You in this Lifetime, Let Me Feel The Lack
43. Young People - War Prayers
44. Blood Brothers - Burn Piano Island Burn
45. Apples in Stereo - Discovery of a World Inside the Moon
46. Pengo - A Nervous Splendor
47. Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse
48. Crawl Unit - Stop Listening
49. Diskaholics Anonymous Trio - s/t
50. Built To Spill - Ancient Melodies of the Future
Nick Southall
01. Embrace- Out of Nothing
02. Bark Psychosis- ///Codename: Dustsucker
03. Missy Elliott- Miss E… So Addictive
04. Lambchop- Nixon
05. Primal scream- XTRMNTR
06. The Streets- Original Pirate Material
07. Embrace- Drawn From Memory
08. Bows- Cassidy
09. Outkast- Stankonia
10. Jay-Z- The Blueprint
11. Manitoba- Up In Flames
12. Plaid- Double Figure
13. Sugababes- Three
14. Four Tet- Pause
15. Fugazi- The Argument
16. Eminem- The Marshall Mathers LP
17. Mountain Goats- Tallahassee
18. Aaliyah- Aaliyah
19. Lambchop- Is a Woman
20. Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
21. Boards of Canada- Geogaddi
22. Queens of the Stone Age- Rated R
23. The Delgados- Hate
24. Missy Elliott- Under Construction
25. At The Drive-In- Relationship of Command
26. Justin Timberlake- Justified
27. Elbow- Cast of Thousands
28. The Clientele- The Violet Hour
29. Fennesz- Venice
30. Badly Drawn Boy- Hour of the Bewilderbeast
31. The Necks- Drive By
32. PJ Harvey- Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
33. Radiohead- Kid A
34. Idlewild- 100 Broken Windows
35. Basement Jaxx- Kish Kash
36. Mogwai- Rock Action
37. Fennesz- Endless Summer
38. D’Angelo- Voodoo
39. Akufen- My Way
40. Bubba Sparxxx- Deliverance
41. Ricardo Villalobos- Alcachofa
42. Ghostface Killah- Supreme Clientele
43. Dizzee Rascal- Boy in Da Corner
44. Boredoms- Vision Creation Newsun
45. Sugababes- Angels with Dirty Faces
46. N*E*R*D- In Search Of
47. Junior Boys- Last Exit
48. Phoenix- Alphabetical
49. Interpol- Turn on the Bright Lights
50. Daft Punk- Discovery
Josh Timmermann
01. The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
02. Jay-Z - The Blueprint
03. The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
04. Cat Power - You Are Free
05. Radiohead - Kid A
06. Sleater-Kinney - One Beat
07. PJ Harvey - Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
08. Nellie McKay - Get Away from Me
09. Basement Jaxx - Rooty
10. MIA/Diplo - Piracy Funds Terrorism
11. Basement Jaxx - Kish Kash
12. Bubba Sparxxx - Deliverance
13. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
14. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
15. Daft Punk - Discovery
16. Solomon Burke - Don't Give up on Me
17. The New Pornographers - Electric Version
18. Dizzee Rascal - Boy in da Corner
19. OutKast - Stankonia
20. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
21. Northern State - All City
22. The Sounds - Living in America
23. The Streets - Original Pirate Material
24. Ghostface - The Pretty Toney Album
25. 50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin'
26. Radiohead - Amnesiac
27. Keren Ann - Not Going Anywhere
28. Bob Dylan - "Love and Theft"
29. Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
30. Mirah - C'mon Miracle
31. Kylie Minogue - Fever
32. DJ Shadow - The Private Press
33. David Banner - Mississippi: The Album
34. Sahara Hotnights - Kiss & Tell
35. Sleater-Kinney - All Hands on the Bad One
36. Big & Rich - Horse of a Different Color
37. The Avalanches - Since I Left You
38. Panjabi MC - Beware
39. The Moldy Peaches - S/T
40. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer - Once More, with Feeling
41. Bjork - Vespertine
42. Neko Case - Furnace Room Lullaby
43. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
44. Ashlee Simpson - Autobiography
45. Courtney Love - America's Sweetheart
46. Gillian Welch - Time (The Revelator)
47. Justin Timberlake - Justified
48. A.C. Newman - The Slow Wonder
49. The Donnas - Spend the Night
50. The Microphones - Mount Eerie
Andrew Unterberger
01. Broken Social Scene- You Forgot It In People
02. Boredoms- Vision Creation Newsun
03. Radiohead- Kid A
04. Daft Punk- Discovery
05. The Rapture- Echoes
06. Junior Boys- Last Exit
07. Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
08. Various Artists- Kompakt Total 3
09. Primal Scream- XTRMNTR
10. dNTEL- Life Is Full of Possibilities
11. Basement Jaxx- Rooty
12. Madvillain- Madvillainy
13. Russian Futurists- Let's Get Ready To Crumble
14. Various Artists (Ladytron)- Softcore Jukebox
15. Spoon- Kill The Moonlight
16. Various Artists- DFA Compilation #2
17. Cat Power- You Are Free
18. The Strokes- Is This It?
19. Michael Mayer- Fabric 13
20. Mum- Finally We Are No One
21. Dizzee Rascal- Boy In Da Corner
22. Sigur Ros- ()
23. Enon- High Society
24. The White Stripes- White Blood Cells
25. DJ Shadow- The Private Press
26. OutKast- Stankonia
27. Primal Scream- Evil Heat
28. Ladytron- 604
29. Need New Body- UFO
30. Xiu Xiu- Fabulous Muscles
31. Blink-182- Blink-182
32. Erlend Oye- DJ Kicks
33. Yo La Tengo- …And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
34. The DFA- Dance To The Underground
35. Wire- Send
36. Kylie Minogue- Fever
37. Ghostface- Pretty Toney Album
38. Annie- Anniemal
39. Interpol- Turn on the Bright Lights
40. Blur- Think Tank
41. Mu- Afro and Finger Gel
42. Super Furry Animals- Rings Around the World
43. Various Artists- Kompakt Total 4
44. Radiohead- Hail to the Thief
45. The Wrens- Meadowlands
46. Playgroup- Playgroup
47. Jay-Z- The Blueprint
48. Capitol K- Island Row
49. Mum- Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today is OK
50. Destroyer- This Night
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By: Stylus Staff Published on: 2005-01-18 Comments (129) |