This blog is devoted primarily to writings about film, particularly current theatrical releases. However, in the spirit of all the end-of-decade lists being published like they’re going out of style (which, by the way, they are in a few weeks), I couldn’t help but think about my own “favorites” of the decade. I will be sharing a list of top films of the decade within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I wanted to share my list of the top 10 records of the 2000s (or whatever we’re calling this 10-year period these days).The only thing more subjective than an end-of-decade film list is an end-of-decade music list. How can one possibly cover all of the genres, artists, and musical movements from an entire decade in one top-ten list? The answer is simply “one cannot.” Therefore, I will not try to be objective in any way. The following list simply represents the few albums of the past 10 years that I like the best. This list reflects my current taste in music more than my past taste. Thus, you will find it heavy in indie and alternative rock. I deeply regret that I only included two jazz records on the list, since jazz is a genre I deeply love, as both a listener and performer. There’s also only one hip-hop record included, and only one album that could be remotely called “country.” Given my love of film, it’s probably surprising to see only one movie soundtrack. Oh well, following is my list of records that I cannot imagine going through the next 10 years without:
#10: Danger Mouse, The Grey Album
Favorite Track: “What More Can I Say”
This is not only the greatest rap record of the 21st century so far, but is also a paragon of excellence for the uniquely postmodern phenomenon that is the “mashup.” Jay-Z’s Black Album + The Beatles’ White Album + Danger Mouse’s wacky creativity = a masterpiece of a unique aesthetic sensibility. Indeed, what more can I say?
Favorite Track: “When Your Mind’s Made Up”
My favorite soundtrack of the decade from one of my favorite movies of the decade. The soundtrack from Once, featuring musicians Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, demonstrates that raw emotion sometimes trumps technical perfection in musical performance. This album is about love, loss, and other simple everyday emotions. The hauntingly quiet songs got under my skin and wouldn’t let me go for almost a year.
Favorite Track: “Monk’s Mood”
This record probably constitutes the musical discovery of the decade. The tapes from this legendary meeting of the two great jazz modernists sat untouched in the Library of Congress for years. The sound quality is not pristine, but it’s enough to convey the urgent passion and utter beauty with which this ensemble played. If you only buy one jazz record per decade, this should probably be the one.
Favorite Track: “Through the Morning, Through the Night”
When I first heard that Zeppelin god Robert Plant was teaming up with bluegrass goddess Alison Krauss I smelled disaster in the air. That was before I knew that the effort was being produced by T-Bone Burnett, one of the truly gifted producers of our time. The result is an instant masterpiece. The sounds that Burnett manages to capture on this unique record are simultaneously joyful and sorrowful, exuberant and creepy. The pedal steel and hollow drums alone are worth the purchase price.
Favorite Track: “Velouria”
Jazz traditionalists hate The Bad Plus. Progressive hispsters think they’re the best thing since sliced bread. I fall decidedly in the latter camp on this argument. The Bad Plus continues to be one of the most innovative and provocative groups working in jazz today. While their postmodern juxtaposition of seemingly disparate musical elements tends to alienate purists, I tend to think they are simply continuing in the great jazz tradition of creating great art out of the standards of today. Their versions of Nirvana, Pixies, and Black Sabbath tunes are to the 21st century what “I’ve Got You Under my Skin” and “Just You, Just Me” were to the likes of Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson. To this day, I can’t hear “And Here We Test our Powers of Observation” without getting goosebumps.
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Favorite Track(s): “The Crane Wife 1 & 2” & “The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid”
I thought for sure the Decemberists had created their magnum opus with the concept album The Crane Wife in 2006. Now, they have created a second masterpiece with The Hazards of Love in 2009. Who can possibly choose between the two? Both records share a common thread that hold them together, although who can say for sure what that is. They both rely upon Japanese folklore, tales from the American past, and obscure literary references in their lyrics. The Decemberists resist coming off as pretentious, however, because their songs are just so dang catchy. Who really cares what they’re talking about when the melodies are so tuneful, the grooves are righteous, and the Hammond B3 rocks like a hurricane?
Favorite Track: “Chicago”
Sufjan Stevens, the most ambitious member of the so-called “orchestral folk” movement, has started a project to chronicle the histories, legends, and geographies of all 50 states. He has so far chronicled his home state of Michigan and the home state of our current president. If he simply stopped the project now, he will have created one of the definitive musical statements of the early 21st century. Illinoise is ostensibly about the Land of Lincoln. However, Stevens wisely uses the framework of “a concept album about Illinois” in the same way the Beatles used Sgt. Pepper and his band in 1967. We soon forget after a few songs that we’re listening to the history of the Prairie State. Illinoise is simply the most intensely personal record of the past 10 years. Stevens addresses issues of love, death, loss, rejuvenation, and faith, all the while giving us snapshots of local history and color. It takes a truly skilled artist to turn a song about serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr. into a reflection on sin and guilt, a song about the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago into a personal statement about the pangs of creating art, or a song about the celebration of Polanski Day into a testament to the inevitability and pains of mortality. In addition to Stevens’ lyrical innovation, his instrumentation is bold and original. Stevens uses the full array of instruments available to him, from guitars to keyboards, from woodwinds to brass, from orchestral sings to folky banjos and mandolins. More than any other record, Illinoise has become the soundtrack of my life for the past year or so.
Favorite Track: “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)”
We have reached the point in the list where I start feeling like a failure because my top few choices line up so precisely with critical (but not necessarily popular) opinion. Liking Arcade Fire is one of the great 21st-century trends in hipsterdem. The fact that the Arcade Fire have found such an enthusiastic following among the indie crowd, though, doesn’t stop my love for their infectious melodies and unrelenting rhythmic energy. This is simply a band that cannot be stopped. Neon Bible was also a great record, but felt a bit heavy-handed in its lyrics about commercialized religion and failed American foreign policies. I prefer the simplicity of Funeral’s meditations about relationships and mortality. This group of young Canadian indies has created some of the most strangely jubilant anthems of our generation. Who can hear “Neighborhood #1” or “Wake Up” without letting that exuberant rhythm overtake you?
Favorite Track(s): “Everything in its Right Place” ; “All I Need”
Radiohead is the quintessential band for the new millennium. This troupe of creative Brits, led by alternative icon Thom Yourke, wrap all of our 21st century hopes and fears into one big musical package, tying together emotional rock genres of the past with cold and creepy digital technologies of the future. The band’s two greatest records, Kid A and In Rainbows, represent two sides of the same musical coin. Kid A reflects the fear secretly lurking in the back of many modern heads. Will our scientific capabilities and our reliance on new technologies lead to a cold conformity? Will we gain a digital world and lose our souls in the process? In Rainbows, on the other hand, explores what it means to be human amidst all of postmodernity’s terrifying potential for dehumanizing destruction. Has any musical artist of the past decade written lyrics as clear and emotionally direct as those found in songs like “All I Need” and “House of Cards”? The fact that the financially successful In Rainbows was released using an innovative web-based price structure (pay what you want, or pay nothing at all), seems wildly appropriate for this risk-taking band. No matter what you personally paid for In Rainbows, it was probably worth a lot more. Someday, I suspect that Radiohead will be studied in much the same way we study the Beatles today. They capture something about our current cultural moment that future generations will want to comprehend. Did I mention, by the way, that their music rocks?
#1: Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Favorite Track: “Poor Places”
This Chicago-based band says more about where we have been the past ten years and where we are going now than any other musical artist, in my opinion. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, released in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, truly succeeds in expressing several contradictory impulses simultaneously. While the record was recorded before the tragedies of September 2001, its lyrics seem eerily prescient to the events that would follow. “I would like to salute all the ashes of American flags / And all the falling leaves filling up shopping bags” ; “It’s a war on war / You have to lose / You have to learn how to die / If you want to stay alive” ; “Tall buildings shake … skyscrapers scraping together …” ; “Speaking of tomorrow … how will it ever come?” The cover, depicting Chicago’s famed Marina City towers, even reminded people of a certain set of towers in another major American city. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is about war, death, and the complexities of patriotism, all relevant topics in the troubled days following the terrorist attacks. More importantly, though, it’s about our inability as human beings to connect with one another in meaningful ways. The record’s title is taken from a series of number stations, mysterious shortwave radio signals of unknown origins. Portions of an audio recording of the mysterious signals are placed at the end of the record’s climactic track “Poor Places,” a song about the disconnect many of us have with those around us (“there’s bourbon on the breath of the singer you love so much / he takes all his words from the books that you don’t read anyway …”). The record’s honest exploration of how isolated many people in the modern world feel was particularly resonant at a time when we were reminded how dangerous the world can truly be. Wilco has released three other exceptional records this decade, 2004’s A Ghost is Born, which took the bold experimentation of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot even further, 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, a quiet, subtle record exploring the joys of life amidst the chaos that surrounds us, and 2009’s Wilco (The Album), an exuberant musical summary of the paths the band has traveled up to this point in their distinguished career. Still, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot remains the band’s unambiguous masterpiece, a challenging, gut-wrenching record that only gets better with time.
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