Skeleton Crew Quarterly's Top Fifty Albums of the 00s

I’m pretty sure I was lying when I initially wrote that I’d be compiling a Decades’ list; at the very least, I doubted my ability and patience to pull one off. I can’t be bothered to count how many records I listen to in a year, let alone a decade, and besides, with the way hindsight recreates our past, who’s to say it doesn’t equally manipulate the albums that got us to the present?

So it’s with small doses of pride and a moment’s pause to recognize how easy SCQ’s Top Fifty Albums of the 00s came together. Over the course of a week, I dug through the SCQ Vault and heard records that weren’t nearly as great as I remembered, and albums that remain as thrilling as ever. I scratched out important releases I thought would make the cut and rubbed my temples over whether record A was better than record B, but at no point did any of the final choices elicit surprise in me. I didn’t listen to these releases so much as live through them, and their presence on this list is as assured as the impact they cratered in my last decade. If only I had the patience for a Top 100…

Where applicable, I’ve quoted original SCQ reviews for my own embarrassment but otherwise each record receives a quick impression, unnecessary justification, or little anecdote of how a shiny piece of plastic can save one’s life.

To everyone I’ve shared any of these records with and Penny, the little kitten who just caught up on all of them…

50. You Are Free – Cat Power (2003)

While I agree that Chan Marshall has a particular allure, I wouldn’t confuse that with a ton of textbook talent. Her instrumentation is pretty basic, her vocals self-taught and many of her lyrics personal enough to skim interpretation. And while I do think the press has hyped her beyond her capabilities, Chan Marshall is in good company there. So many idols from our parents’ generation were alluring not because they were perfectly trained musicians, but because they (Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, and Marshall’s hero, Dylan) carried a particular allure.

Before I get a tirade of emails, let me make clear that I’m not placing Cat Power in the same talent-pool as Young, Dylan or their ilk. Yet like those aforementioned artists and many since (Springsteen, Petty, etc.), Marshall has an every-person, down-to-earth quality that renders her emotions and lyrics easily shared among her fan-base. You Are Free is that album that perfectly merged Cat Power’s early cult following with newer audiences attracted by her increasingly extroverted work. Featuring Marshall at her most eclectic and commanding, You Are Free should be enough to get a petition going in order to save Cat Power from the Memphis soul that diluted her strengths on The Greatest and Jukebox.

49. Room On Fire – The Strokes (2003)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

There are some acts you don’t necessarily want to change, either because you recognize their limitations or enjoy what they have to offer. In the case of the Strokes, it’s the latter; their 30 minute records of slick Velvet Underground-influenced rock were effortlessly better than First Impressions of Earth, which almost sounded purposeful. Room On Fire best illustrates any band’s philosophy on living the high life, while leaving the tedious posturing for the magazine cover-shoots.

48. Cryptograms – Deerhunter (2007)

Microcastle was instantly loveable. By the time third track ‘Never Stops’ ran its course, I was already singing its praises and convinced of its status on my year-end list. No doubt my hype-barrier had been significantly weakened over the previous months due to the album’s early leak and all the drama that coattails anything Bradford Cox does… but that was the point, wasn’t it? Minus the leak, none of that attention hurt the release of Microcastle, I can tell you that.

Cryptograms didn’t get the benefit of that pre-release digestion-time, nor the anticipation, nor the star-power. Here’s a record so uncompromising in its love of ambience and warped rock, it spends the majority of its tracks hopscotch-jumping between genres. On paper, this stutter/stop of pulverizing black psychedelia (‘Lake Somerset’) and stillborn shimmer-stretches (‘Red Ink’) shouldn’t equate a cohesive listening-experience but, as if these divisive ideologies had been chugging at different speeds, Cryptograms takes off in its final third when these gears finally gel. The hazy shoegaze of ‘Spring Hall Convert’, ‘Strange Lights’ and ‘Hazel St’ each provide ample pay-off for the record’s earlier bipolarity. Having said all that, Cryptograms isn’t the better record because it’s difficult; it’s better because it asks you to adapt the way you listen to, and think about, albums. And it’ll mean more to you once you give in.

47. White Blood Cells – White Stripes (2002)

There’s a freedom to being a young rock duo modernizing a blues-rock tradition no one’s touched since, what, Zeppelin? And that’s exactly what White Blood Cells feels like - a blank canvas of negative space being coloured in with archaic-sounding electrics, pounding drums, white, red and lots of rash decisions (‘Little Room’, anyone?). Although in hindsight it seems a bit conservative, the foundation of their style was already concreted and tracks like ‘I’m Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman’ and ‘The Boy You’ve Always Known’ are prime examples of Jack White’s growing songwriting voice. Perhaps just as importantly, Jack and Meg were matching the quality of their songs with a lightheartedness that has proven to stretch all the way to the metal-antics of Icky Thump. When ‘Fell In Love With a Girl’ first hit the airwaves, did anyone expect the White Stripes to outlive their equally untested colleagues (The Hives, The Strokes, The Vines) to become one of the most successful American bands of the decade? That stardom began right here.

46. Tanks and Recognizers - Lights Out Asia (2007)

My friend and I have a running joke: like clockwork, Lights Out Asia show up at a random Milwaukee high school to compete in its annual battle-of-the-bands competition. They unload all of their extensive gear, play a show so immense and spectacular that the audiences’ spines go straight, the auditorium’s house-speakers blow, and Lights Out Asia are awarded second place. Sure, part of the joke is in reference to Milwaukee’s questionable music scene but mostly the joke is our way of expressing confusion that Lights Out Asia aren’t selling out shows in Paris, Tokyo and Germany. What’s that they say about a joke you have to explain…?

Tanks and Recognizers should’ve catapulted this Milwaukee trio toward the post-rock echelon with unforgettable epics like ‘Roy’, ‘March Against the Savages’ and ‘Four Square’ but word never traveled. Here’s hoping the band’s upcoming 2010 effort earns them the attention long-since due.

45. You Were Here – Sarah Harmer (2000)

A constant challenge faced amid selecting this Top 50 of the 00s list is debating which is better: an artist’s most progressive album or the one that might be slightly flawed but is of heightened personal significance. In most cases I chose the latter but here’s an exception: You Were Here may not carry the personal gravity that I’m A Mountain reminisces but it’s easily her most well-rounded, varied album. At times bare-boned (as on the haunting title track) and radio-slick (‘Basement Apt.’), the wealth of these arrangements float on a lyrical intimacy woven by this Canadian songbird’s signature voice. Sorrowful and nostalgic without a trace of regret or hang-ups, You Were Here remains the crowning statement of Harmer’s infrequent discography.

44. Set Free – American Analog Set (2005)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

If The Golden Band displayed the band at their most ambient and if Promise of Love was their rock album, Set Free is certainly their break-up swan song. The only album dutifully recorded in studio (several, in fact), this final release before their indefinite hiatus has a Long and Winding Road feel – luckily without the schmaltz. ‘She’s Half’ features multi-tracked vocals which harmonize the lyrical melancholy to wonderful effect, while ‘The Green Green Grass’ is as rocking as the Texas quintet get, locking into a tight guitar riff and dousing it in crystal psychedelics. By the time ‘Fuck This… I’m Leaving’ opens into electric strumming to close the disc, we’re left with little doubt that this is American Analog Set’s most ear-catching collection, and the fact that the band drove thousands of miles to record bits and pieces in various studios makes Set Free’s cohesiveness all the more impressive.

Each Amanset album is insular and, because their sixth album does little to deter that self-consciously sensitive reputation, Set Free is a certainly a record I’d fight the flames to save while my apartment collapsed around me. It’s a worthy curtain-close for a band that never seemed to care whether anyone was listening; they were playing their songs, their way. I’m just happy I found them in time to say goodbye.

43. No Good For No One Now – Owen (2002)

Owen at first struck me as a fine hybrid of Bright Eyes and Dashboard Confessional, in that Mike Kinsella’s heartache and complaints felt respectively drunken and, well, childish. That No Good For No One Now was recorded in the old bedroom of his mother’s house should further incriminate this adolescence. But damned if we all can’t relate to his growing pains – the breakups, hook-ups and subsequent regrets – which are sung in his always-conversational delivery and warm guitar tones.

All things considered, it’s likely that 2009’s New Leaves is Kinsella’s best release but No Good For No One Now is where I hitched my wagon to Owen’s sweetly depressed spiral toward suburbia. And it has lost none of its emotion.

42. Bloodflowers – The Cure (2000)

Here’s one of those records you’re given no differently than a love-letter or a crisply-folded flag, in that what it grows to mean can’t be quantified by its jewel-case, plastic disc or even the songs there-in. In fact, you should make it your business to never purchase or (god forbid) download this record, and instead pray someone significant will lend it your way and accidentally change your life forever. This is a record to save for your most vulnerable, romantically impossible moments.

I probably just oversold the record. In the six years I’ve owned this, I’ve probably only listened to it front-to-back four times. It’s a depressing, occasionally disturbing album but what always placates its overarching feel for me are the slowburners: ‘The Loudest Sound’, ‘There Is No If…’ and ‘The Last Day of Summer’ feature Robert Smith at his most melodically nostalgic. And since ‘Out of This World’ is my favourite Cure song ever, Bloodflowers earns an important spot on my Top 50 Albums of the 00s.

41. Cold Roses – Ryan Adams & the Cardinals (2005)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

Cold Roses is chocked full of nature imagery to the point of overkill. In this rural landscape he has painted, every street is named after plants or fruit, any obstacles made of earth and stone, every girl a river or rose. Most every reference is indicative of his own newfound peace, an easy plateau, so to speak, after the tumultuous years of Love is Hell and Rock N Roll that reached climax when he severely broke his wrist during a stage-fall in early 2004. Newly subdued and reflective, ‘How Do You Keep Love Alive’ finds Adams completely at odds with his winking counterpart while ‘When Will You Come Back Home’ is a James Taylor cover waiting to happen (as my father accurately pinned). His serene disposition even touches on ideas of spirituality in ‘Life is Beautiful’, a song that speaks volumes when compared to ‘Fuck the Universe’, written not two years earlier.

The idea of a Ryan Adams double-album rang off as redundant in some circles who deemed much of his records excessive and poorly edited, but Cold Roses proves focused, not only in its Grateful Dead jam-ability sense, but because I can only find two songs I could bear to cut from this eighteen song-cycle. And when tracks like ‘Sweet Illusions’ and ‘Cherry Lane’ aren’t wooing you with their mid-tempo guitar licks, you’re staring in the headlights of ‘Let It Ride’, one of Adams’ best songs ever.

40. Last Exit – Junior Boys (2004)

Few records reveal themselves with the nuanced steps that Last Exit does. First I was floored by two undeniable tracks - ‘Bellona’ and ‘Birthday’ - which provided the necessary incentive to listen ever-closer to the Hamilton duo’s hazier efforts. And that’s where this debut truly shimmers; between the echoed-synths of ‘Three Words’, or drifting along the North 400 with the title track, lies the frosted soul of Last Exit. In no time, this song-cycle melts together like the best post-club album one could hope for… and remains the pinnacle this group may never reach again.

39. Takk… - Sigur Ros (2005)

What did Takk… accomplish if not delivering on the promise put forth by Agaetis Byrjun? Just when fans and critics had forgave Sigur Ros’ for shunning their orchestral urges (with the stirring sterility of ( )’s waiting room, and again with warmer experimentation on Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do), Takk… launches with enough firepower to not only bring the Icelandic four-piece full circle creatively, but to trademark their own piece in the post-rock pie. In fact, there might be a tad too much firepower, as this third full-length tallies an inordinate amount of massive climaxes (I stand by my early assessment that the ten-minute ‘Milano’ needn’t have been included), but that’s just me taking Sigur Ros for granted again. After all, it takes a transcendent band to turn new tricks from post-rock’s old-hat dynamics and, for all their imitators, there isn’t a single other band in the world like these guys.

38. The Reminder – Feist (2007)

Never, at any point preceding the release of The Reminder, did I plan on buying a Feist album. Yes, I’d heard ‘Mushaboom’. No, I didn’t gush about it in public. I’d seen her live and, yeah, it was pretty much by accident. So the way I saw it, my odds of buying The Reminder on the first day of its release seemed fairly slim… but that’s because I’d never heard it.

Wandering the predictable aisles of HMV, I recognized the layered Arts & Crafts-styled guitar-pop of ‘Feel It All’ as Feist and noted some element of inner surprise. Then the eerie balladry of ‘The Water’ lulled me toward the store’s corner speakers, whispering sweet mysteries, and by the time ‘How My Heart Behaves’ trickled through my ears like the best song Bjork never wrote, I was trading scratch for it at the counter. Yes, I know ‘1,2,3,4’ is on it and, no, I don’t gush about that track either but The Reminder is truly one of the finest Canadian albums ever, and a classic where any country is concerned.

37. Talkie Walkie – Air (2004)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

If the star-gazing Moon Safari and romantically androgenous 10000hz To Legend left listeners confused over who Air were, dew-eyed dreamers or electronic misfits, their third proper full-length proves they’re the former. Mixed and co-produced by the one and only Nigel Godrich, Talkie Walkie is a bedroom record of the highest order; a collection of love letters never sent because writers (Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin) can’t be bothered to toss their bedsheets for stamps.

The album opens with the dirge-slow ‘Venus’, a deliberate piano repetition with distant hand-claps that rises into a synth-driven haze. It’s a serious statement of forlorn love that turns on its head for ‘Cherry Blossom Girl’ where its acoustic-led sweetness shows a more positive outlook – even if that sought-after love is no closer to reality. How these songs interact on a musical and thematic level is indicative of all ten tracks here, as these compositions react to each other like a smoothly executed chemistry experiment; where the theme of longing fluctuates on mood, this sequence retorts by leaning on organic or electronic treatment. The glimmering digital tricks pulled on ‘Run’, a sensational chime-stitched production of seamless beauty, fade into the unplugged allure of ‘Universal Traveler’, etc. Due to the wide range of instrumentation – that, and this being some of Air’s finest songwriting ever - Talkie Walkie is continually fresh and enjoyable listening, with just enough mood to avert becoming too sweet.

36. April – Sun Kil Moon (2008)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

All the same, a Sun Kil Moon record can’t be summed up by the tag-word ‘folk’ alone. With eleven tracks settling at 74 minutes, April is prone to classic rock and slowcore comparisons just as convincingly, the latter clearly dealing with the more superficial issue of running-time. Enough genre-ambiguity ensures April its own territory to shine, and it’s for the best; the Leonard Cohen musings and Neil Young guitar-slaying of opener ‘Lost Verses’ is enough to make anyone give up deciphering how Kozelek might feel about what Dylan did at the Royal Albert Hall forty-odd years ago.

These songs are meant to be heard outside the concrete jungles we’ve grown in, words for the rural expanses you’ve only walked from the passenger seat. ‘The Light’, like all of the LP, is a tight meditation on the guitar riff and how it can breathe relief or stiffen to a tough snarl; Kozelek’s gift is writing a seven-minute song that consistently thrills based on such minimal compositions. Occupying the best of these quiet reflections is ‘Moorestown’s string-drenched play-by-play and ‘Like the River’ (which enlists the fabulous Bonnie Prince Billy on backing vocals).

35. A Weekend In the City – Bloc Party (2007)

As impressive as Silent Alarm was, I was instantly smitten with Bloc Party’s romantic side; the fraction to their style that spawned ‘Blue Light’ and ‘This Modern Love’. They were simple, often lyrically-empty songs that nonetheless owned my stereo thanks to their urgency. A Weekend In the City, while front-to-back my vote for strongest Bloc Party album, likely wouldn’t have made this Decade’s List without the sentimental emphasis which crowds the record’s back-end. From the hungover start of ‘Kreuzberg’ through the redemptive ‘SRXT’, A Weekend In the City is flawless, its romanticism fleshed-out into open swoons and fed with some of Kele Okereke’s most personal lyrics. Countered with more experimental tracks like the M83-indebted ‘Waiting For the 7.18’ and the electronic ‘On’, this sophomore remains the band’s emotional high-ground. Not even the odd clunky lyric about consumerism or mall-kids can bring this one down…

34. Happy Songs For Happy People – Mogwai (2003)

Mogwai’s catalog is something to envy. The Scottish outfit needn’t commit to drastic changes on their songwriting, as it makes up the strong backbone to post-rock as a whole, so each album is inevitably distinguished by cosmetic differences. Young Team was raw, Come On Die Young was quieter, Rock Action carried an increasingly polished veneer and Happy Songs for Happy People went borderline electronic. And equipped with these softer, sonic lens, Mogwai transcended new ground, giving ‘Moses? I Amn’t’ and ‘Kids Will Be Skeletons’ an added cinematic touch.

Like I said, though, these are aesthetic changes; Happy Songs for Happy People also prizes some of the band’s best work. If ‘Hunted By a Freak’ isn’t a convincing candidate for Mogwai’s greatest tunes, ‘Stop Coming To My House’ is the shoe-in ringer (without doubt, one of my most played songs of the decade). Let’s hope they reach these heights again someday…

33. Concentration – Dog Day (2009)

(Taken from SCQ’s Top 20 Albums of 2009:)

From the moment I first heard Concentration on a Soundscapes listening-post, I sensed that I’d stumbled upon something irreplaceable. On the surface it sounded like a straight-forward indie-rock album but there was something to its feel, as if each chord and vocal were swamped in humid darkness and embracing that cool caress. Between Seth Smith’s vocals seemingly coated in post-punk echo and atmospheric rifts which occasionally boiled up out of nowhere, Concentration held pop songs – dark but catchy nonetheless. And as these tracks followed me around the next several months, these tracks further revealed themselves; the clinking glasses and bar chatter that swirls around ‘Saturday Night’’s close, that pristine guitar jam which turns the romantic pop of ‘Rome’ into something far greater, or the devastating breakdown that transforms ‘Judgement Day’. An indie-rock record that towers over its countless competitors usually has a calling-card, be it the rhythmic propulsion of The National, Grizzly Bear’s four-part harmonies, or the sincere psychedelia of Animal Collective. Dog Day have a calling-card, that much I’m sure of, but pinpointing its gears at work is far tougher since each member of the quartet contributes such distinctive measures to a composition. The way these songs shift and pulse, it seems positively shameful to label Dog Day something as bland as indie-rock… but if that’s the most apt descriptor available, I’ll happily pronounce Concentration the best indie-rock record of the year.

32. When the Angels Make Contact – Matt Mays (2006)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

After conquering folk, roots-rock and Springsteen-grandeur on his first two albums (one mostly acoustic, the second entirely electric), When the Angels Make Contact finds Mays mixing the aforementioned with electronic instruments, hip-hop and frankly, the best production (courtesy of El Torpedo’s Tim Jim Baker) for some of Mays best songs. Perhaps because of the unfinished film’s subject matter (a biker who searches the brink of mortality for his lost love), songs like ‘Spoonful of Sugar’ and the title track feel emotionally troubled compared to Mays’ earlier work, while ‘Rough N’ Tumble Come Down’ sounds down-right dangerous.

Truthfully, some of the songs within this 18 track behemoth are so powerful, I’ve occasionally daydreamed about how perfect this record would’ve been had he ditched most of the soundtrack-y interludes and kept the absolute essential eleven songs. It would’ve been Mays’ brooding masterpiece, and contender for SCQ’s album of the year in 2006.

31. Up In Flames – Caribou (2003)

Looking back, there’s really no other way to say it: I went positively bat-shit for Up In Flames. Half electronic, half 60s psychedelia, this record reinvented Chemical Brothers’ big-beat into an organic compost of live-drum crashes with the innocuous vocal melodies of the Electric Prunes. From the hammering, far-East spirituality of ‘Kid You’ll Move Mountains’ to the heady grooves of ‘Hendrix With KO’, Up In Flames maintains a wide-eyed, drugged-out hippie-dom that may be post-modern but never approaches pastiche.

In truth, I overplayed it. Watched Manitoba become Caribou over three shows in just under a year’s time, and adored every second of each explosive set. Dan Snaith’s subsequent work lost much of the red-sand grit that made Up In Flames such a convincing hybrid and, while I’ll keep tabs on his future work, Caribou will always be Manitoba for me.

30. Feels – Animal Collective (2005)

As gloriously justified as any long-time fan of Animal Collective must feel given Merriweather Post Pavilion’s recent indie-domination, I also feel that sliver of remorse which arises when you realize things will never quite be the same. Before that record’s svelte and juicy electronic-tinged pop songs, Animal Collective was a band to admire but also fear. They’re so prolific and so versatile, you never knew if their next record would be a scream-fest mess like their earliest releases (and most of their live shows, for that matter) or a bonafide classic. So when you’d play a new AC LP for the first time, you never took anything for granted; the lovely, echo-drenched mantras of ‘Loch Raven’, the blistering squawks that boldly intercept ‘Grass’, or the steady build of freak-folk momentum that crests through ‘Did You See the Words?’. Feels was polished to be so tantalizingly raw, written to be suffocated in muddy electric guitars, and destined to capture Animal Collective at the prime; of their Fat Cat discography? Sure, but in the prime of their DIY incorruptibility too.

29. “Oh, You’re So Silent Jens” – Jens Lekman (2005)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

For fans who just tuned in since Night Falls Over Kortedala, Lekman was as sample-happy in his earlier days as he is now, with several of these "Oh You're So Silent Jens" snippets completely lifted from its source artists (Lekman openly admits as much, stating that he only stole them because he couldn’t afford to pay the $$$ to ‘borrow’ them). As is expected, these samples are used perfectly, from the Belle and Sebastian swagger of ‘Black Cab’ to the Avalanches’ influence of ‘Maple Leaves’. With a songwriting talent as diverse as Lekman’s, the only way to really identify one of these samples is if you’ve heard the original; otherwise it fits in as another great song in this young crooner’s catalogue.

At seventeen tracks compiled from 7-inch singles and EPs, “Oh You’re So Silent, Jens” is surprisingly fluid albeit a few mediocre tracks. ‘Pocketful of Money’ suffers from a baritone-heavy chorus that quickly itches your stereo-remote finger, while ‘F-Word’, with its recordings of neighbourhood alley-cats calling out, is simply overshadowed by the songs around it. For those aching over last year’s Night Falls Over Kortedala, I beseech you to hear this compilation album of Jens' finest folk and balladry.

28. Hard Candy – Counting Crows (2002)

I was embarrassed the first time I heard ‘American Girls’ on the radio. Stuck in a truck with the same co-worker all summer long, we’d already run circles over the usual, what-music-do-you-like icebreakers. At the time Counting Crows had already been terribly misunderstood for about four years, by my count; labeled as radio-rock sell-outs next to the too-cool hipness of a burgeoning underground scene led by the Strokes and White Stripes. So naturally I’d finessed my case with this co-worker around what I believed to be their high-watermark, This Desert Life – why it found the band at their most restrained yet powerful, how it stretched out like an old Eagles record if Don Henley had an honest-to-god self-destructive bone in his body.

Needless to say, the whole case crumbled with the earnest pop flavours of Hard Candy, which covered sugary arrangements with Adam Duritz’s Motown-soul inspired delivery. Counting Crows, yet again, had reinvented themselves… and in the following weeks, then months, I began hearing the same classic songwriting, idiosyncratic lyrics and one-of-a-kind musicianship that only this band can master, disguise, and tightrope to string along one of America’s tightest fan-bases. Hard Candy became my album of 2002.

27. Sleep Well – Electric President (2008)

(Taken from SCQ’s Top Twenty Albums of 2008:)

With all the caution I exercised to avoid overinflating album reviews this year, I can’t help but marvel that my #1 Album of 2008, Sleep Well, is also the highest graded album of the year. A fluke, perhaps, although I recall knowing within the first few listens that Sleep Well was unlike any record I’d heard before. There were resemblances of OK Computer-era Radiohead (‘All the Bones’), the odd Beach Boys’ harmony (‘It’s An Ugly Life’), and Kranky-caliber instrumentals (‘It’s Like a Heartbeat, Only It Isn’t’), yet these twelve tracks bound together represented something far smarter and scarier than those brief sonic affiliations.

Crafted over thirteen months in Cooper’s backyard shed (unbelievably), Sleep Well is a perfect album, comprised of multi-tempered pop-odysseys and unpredictable chills that are too catchy and symphonic to ignore. Their synths flourish and dissipate like morning fog, Ben Cooper’s voice flexes between gruff, whispered or angelic as if possessed by several nocturnal mouths; Sleep Well documents a young band surpassing their own intentions, crafting a nighttime record that makes every daylight hour seem somehow wasteful. Beyond a doubt the year’s most underrated recording.

26. Neon Bible – Arcade Fire (2007)

(Taken from SCQ’s Top Twenty Albums of 2007:)

Within mere days of owning Neon Bible, I couldn’t help but feel a slight undertow of melancholy between my waves of record-on-repeat hysteria when I could actually admit to myself that, while it was only March at the time, no record in the following nine months would be as richly detailed, well-planned, sonically thunderous or downright gorgeous as Arcade Fire’s second album is.

25. Solaris OST – Cliff Martinez (2002)

After seeing Steven Soderbergh’s re-make of Tarkovsky’s classic Solaris, I couldn’t tell if I enjoyed the film or merely enjoying watching how the images complimented a thrilling soundtrack. Such was how my interest and eventual purchase of Cliff Martinez’s ambient masterpiece began, which has since scored many train-rides, years of late-nights and a few dozen assignments. Spaceous (no pun intended) and cinematic, Solaris is tightly-woven suite that derails into moody slivers - the uneasiness of ‘Maybe You’re My Puppet’, the solemnity in ‘Death Shall Have No Dominion’ and the heartbreaking hope of ‘Can I Sit Next to You?’) - over these eleven soundscapes. Although the re-make is alright, I certainly recommend getting familiar with the soundtrack first - it’s as versatile to your every-day life as it for ghosts in space (no spoiler intended).

24. (Breach) – The Wallflowers (2000)

I bought (Breach) in the fall of 2000 and ignored it until a year later, when I left the comfortable abode of my parent’s rule and wandered half-prepared into the structure-less, free-for-all that is university residence. I’d lost all my bearings – that much was clear – and the Wallflowers’ third outing (and the critical first since Bringing Down the Horse made them household names) became my coping mechanism. Getting lost on campus or – damn – on the way to campus never stung as badly while listening to Jakob Dylan wander his own desolate Middle-America, and trying to make sense of my new blank-slate identity was easier with Dylan’s endless self-mythologizing (his countless self-appropriations in ‘I’ve Been Delivered’, no surprise, became the swansong of my adolescence). As indebted to shellshock celebrity as it is to Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, (Breach) is the Wallflowers’ best statement and, sadly, their last stand before chasing the ghosts of their radio-rock heyday into retirement.

23. Neon Golden – The Notwist (2002)

(Taken from the SCQ review:)

2002’s Neon Golden unleashed my unaware love for German Electro-pop – a passion that would later introduce me to Ulrich Schnauss, Apparat, and the majority of the Morr Music roster – and became my mystery-band of the year. Its programmed beats were so punctuated amid string flourishes, weaving in and out of tempered atmospherics, that one couldn’t help but be hooked after a single listen. But what kept Neon Golden so dear to heart after six years in obscurity is certainly in the lyrical and vocal talents of ringleader Marcus Acher, whose obscure turns of phrases and passionless singing are but a few in a bag of Acher oddities. A tremendous breakthrough.

22. Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do – Sigur Ros (2004)

As their last album, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, seemed to resign Sigur Ros to what we expected of them – that being purveyors of grandiose, symphonic post-rock – it makes under-the-rug releases like Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do that much more interesting. Even without the Icelandic group’s slow plateau, this EP of songs composed for Merce Cunningham’s Split Sides rivals their best full-lengths. However experimental and unfurling, the melodies at work throughout these twenty-minutes ebb and flow, sympathize and dominate in turn, as Sigur Ros’ best ambient work to date.

21. Musicforthemorningafter – Pete Yorn (2001)

Pete Yorn has been one of my most consistent artists of the decade because he doesn’t change much and his songs are always engaging. If he’s garnered the reputation of being a sentimental chick-rock magnet, it’s on the coattail of two or three tracks which, yes, I still think are awesome. Even the more reserved tracks on his spellbinding debut Musicforthemorningafter have a Springsteen-esque momentum behind them ('Sense', 'On Your Side'), making them easily flexible between drinking days and lonely nights. And while Day I Forgot could stand in this position as my equal favourite, Musicforthemorningafter is his rightful breakthrough that’ll outlive all the Pete Yorn haters.

20. Heartbreaker – Ryan Adams (2000)

As someone whose entwinement with Gold in late 2001 became a hungry anticipation by 2002’s Demolition, it’s a shame I didn’t buy Heartbreaker until 2004 – a shame but no mystery. (I had – and maintain to this day – a strange bias against early albums of artists I’ve become interested in; meaning that if Pinkerton was the first Weezer album I got into, I probably would’ve assumed their ‘Blue Album’ was less focused or inferior without even hearing it. Sick, I know.)

Having collected and lived by every song on Heartbreaker over the period of a year (except ‘Bartering Lines’), I finally pitched my well-worn but order-less mp3s, jumped on a late-night bus in time to catch London’s best record-store before it closed and bought this shining knight of a full-length that, well before I’d disarmed its wrapping, had scored many hopes and fears of my confused formative years. Everyone who enjoys introspective folk owes themselves this record. Not only does it explain much of his early, irresponsible Next-Dylan praise, but it’s a document of Ryan Adams pre-fame, before the drugs and before the madness, when he was singing songs as a hung-over romantic and you’d believe every word.

19. Come With Us – The Chemical Brothers (2002)

Ah, their unsung masterpiece. Beyond my virginal interest in crossover acts like Massive Attack, the first dance album that ever opened my eyes was revealed mere days before Sam the Record Man - the record store I had worked at for two years - shut its doors forever. As is the case with any uncorrupted record store, each co-worker gets a pick and one of my colleagues chose Come With Us. All these years, I’d only ever heard lame Gatecrasher trance and then, out of nowhere, a good dance record throws me into existential crisis. Featuring such timeless hits as ‘Star Guitar’ and ‘Denmark’, Come With Us was more than Chemical Brothers most united song-suite; it opened up a new side to the electronic genre for me to wander. And I’ve never turned back.

18. Finally We Are No One – Mum (2002)

Nothing characterizes the Morr Music sound quite like this record, although it helps that Finally We Are No One was the first Morr record I’d ever heard... as soon as I awoke in the late afternoon sunset of January, the day after a house-party gutted our student home. Despite my poor condition, Mum sung a comforting yet playful divergence from then-favourite Sigur Ros (the only other Icelandic band I’d heard at the time) and this record displays both their talent for song-based vocal tracks (‘Green Grass of Tunnel’) as well as their more celebrated instrumental electronica. The band would soon-after begin fracturing (losing key vocalists in the Valtysdottir sisters) and shift gears into a more eclectic, eight-piece collective. Still, Mum’s legacy lies in their early trilogy of albums, of which Finally We Are No One is a worthy centerpiece.

17. Rounds – Four Tet (2003)

If I was ambitious enough to attempt a Top 100, 50, or even 20 Songs of the 2000s list, ‘Hands’, the first track off Rounds would most certainly be on it. In its carefully oscillating melody, those shuffling beats, and how it all assembles right in front of our ears, ‘Hands’ is a perfect song. What gives Rounds the distinction of being a near-perfect album is that the nine songs which follow ‘Hands’ are nearly as good, from the mandolin-trance of ‘Spirit Fingers and blues-guitar riffing off sharp beats in ‘She Moves She’ to the pounding kick-drum of epic ‘Unspoken’. In traditional Hebden fashion, he always offsets a record’s most heartbreaking moment with an adventurous one – in Rounds’ case, ‘As Serious As Your Life’ – which rollicks through funk-inspired bass, hip-hop stutters and, of course, a ton of well-woven samples, organic instruments and melodies to keep your pulse racing.

When Bruce Springsteen - the Boss for crying out loud - plays ‘Slow Jam’ over the house speakers at the close of each show, you know you’ve crossed a significant threshold, and Rounds will rightly be remembered as one of the decade’s most approachable and enjoyable electronica records.

16. Coke Machine Glow – Gordon Downie (2001)

Listening to the spoken-word and accordion of album-opener ‘Starpainters’ today, I can recognize that I wasn’t mature enough for Coke Machine Glow when I picked it up. Jesus, I was still listening to Incubus! How did Coke Machine Glow even happen? And yes, in my own way I’m praising myself for sticking by it because as the years have gone by, each of its songs have stood up for me in return. My teenage admiration for the electric riffs of ‘Canada Geese’ migrated into freshman-bound obsession with ‘Chancellor’’s careful instrumentation, which led to my tumultuous-twenties’ love for the dissonant squalls on ‘Vancouver Divorce’.

Covering everything from bare-boned country (‘Elaborate’), dreamy folk (‘Boy Bruised By Butterfly Chase’), semi-spoken-word brilliance (‘Insomniacs of the World, Good Night’), and polka-bluegrass (seriously... on ‘Yer Possessed’) in sixteen tracks, Coke Machine Glow is a loaded, transient solo debut from Gordon Downie that, for me, outshines every Tragically Hip album to date.

15. A Strangely Isolated Place - Ulrich Schnauss (2003)

As was the case with many of the 2000’s finest albums, A Strangely Isolated Place didn’t just sound unique or beautiful to me, it unveiled to me new possibilities and ways of hearing music. Without any prior introduction, this man Ulrich Schnauss suddenly seemed capable of chiseling addictive, breakbeat-heavy pop songs out of Boards of Canada's beard-stroking soundscapes, and integrating crushing My Bloody Valentine-esque atmospherics into airy, laptop-based soundtracks to everyday life. A Strangely Isolated Place is perhaps the most listenable album I own, in that all its disparaging elements collide into such a harmonious, head-nodding swoon, you’ll wonder why new age was never merged with shoegaze beforehand. An absolute classic.

14. Hail To the Thief - Radiohead (2003)

In Rainbows would reveal what a transitional record this 2003 outing is, clocking Radiohead’s move from enigma-riddled electronic-rock of Amnesiac back to OK Computer’s guitar-led art-rock. Still, at the time the change was a bit scary; fourteen songs on a Radiohead record? Music videos? The whole thing felt a bit like a regression… and that’s without mentioning the leaked version, all unfinished and half-cooked, which turned up three months before the album’s June release-date. With so many successes under their belt, was this to be Radiohead’s middling point?

Of course not! All of those happenings couldn’t detract from what is probably Radiohead’s third best album; a brilliant collection that opens with the symbolic warning of Johnny plugging his electric into an amp, and closes with the stream-of-conscious classic ‘Wolf At the Door’. After six years of walking on eggshells, Radiohead were unburdened by legacy or expectation and Hail to the Thief is that well-executed record that freed them – of over-thinking, of EMI, and of being what everyone thought Radiohead should be.

13. Happiness - Fridge (2001)

Just before Four Tet became his day-job and well before he hooked up with Steve Reid, Kieran Hebden hit an undeniable creative peak. So varied and provocative was his golden touch that the toughest choice I had to make in this whole Top-of-Decade list was between his groundbreaking 2003 release Rounds and his less-publicized but venomously adored Happiness. At the end of the day, Fridge’s sophomore effort for Temporary Residence won my desert-island pick and demotes Hebden’s involvement from authoritarian to contributor. A collection of dreamy acoustics and starry instrumental stretches, Happiness is anything but tightly structured, allowing ‘Tone Guitar and Drum Noise’ to stretch like morning light over bedsheets or ‘Drums Bass Sonics and Edit’ to spread into several suites without fully exploring any one idea. This organic approach to songwriting – letting the quality of a melody or beat decide its indefinite stay – may result in the occasional overdose (the barely-there evolution of thirteen-minute ‘Drum Machines and Glockenspiels’ is a bit of a gauntlet) but it also births most of Fridge’s best-ever songs. Breezy yet emotionally resonant, tracks like ‘Five Four Child Voice’ and ‘Long Singing’ are best titled in such uncalculated, studio-note fashion, as they aren’t fully completed songs until they worm lovingly into your life.

12. I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning – Bright Eyes (2005)

No masterpieces pop up overnight. Even the sudden rushes of critical fanfare that hit an unforeseen album upon release miss the months and years that said record spent in labour and, besides, Connor Oberst never had a shot at being the underdog. Signed to a label at thirteen and honing his craft in the public eye, Oberst worked hard through brilliant lo-fi promises (Letting Off the Happiness) and awkward, occasionally embarrassing concept-records (Fevers & Mirrors) for his masterpiece I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. Becoming a better singer and writing less impetuously was just the beginning; in no small part, Oberst risked his early-emo, bloodletting fanbase for a country record about New York featuring duets with Emmylou Harris.

That’s when Bright Eyes grew up, when Oberst was able to shape his songs from confidence and honesty, not delusions of grandeur. You can hear it in the patience of ‘We Are Nowhere And It’s Now’, the clearheaded poignancy of ‘First Day of My Life’ and the devastating originality of ‘Land Locked Blues’; this is Bright Eyes firing on all cylinders yet not having to scream to be heard.

11. Out Of the Vein - Third Eye Blind (2003)

(Taken from a SCQ Review:)

In May of 2003, I hobbled across my hometown mall’s parking lot with a fresh copy of Out Of the Vein in hand. Crossing to the nearest bus stop, I suddenly said aloud: “Wow, am I even going to like this band anymore?” A fraction of reasoning for this outburst was likely due to a mono/strep-throat combo that kept me fevered and under house-arrest for days but, for the most part, I was recognizing that Blue, their previous album, was my favourite new record five years ago. When confronted with a band like Third Eye Blind, whose sound is singular and unlikely to fiercely change, five years is forever; imagine all the friends, records, opinions and love interests passing through those years that shape and refine one’s musical tastes? Despite such hurdles, Out of the Vein more than satisfied my doubts, eventually being crowned as my favourite of Third Eye Blind’s output and the best record of 2003.

10. Love Is Hell - Ryan Adams (2003)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

Love is Hell Volume 1 shook me to the core. I bought it on a Friday, took it to my friend’s apartment that night, shot some rum, drank some codeine, and walked home before sunrise. When I listened to it alone the next morning, I had no idea I would spend the next three days holed up in my room listening to it. I lay in bed and memorized the words, I sat at my desk and studied the grays of his photography. Those days were an uninterrupted hangover caught in slow movements, where my body felt fine but my heart and mind suffered from something undiagnosed. I skipped meals and classes and phonecalls. I wondered how anyone could write self-absorption and desire and confusion and self-loathing with the barreled-out accuracy that Ryan Adams had.

Love is Hell Volume 2 woke me up with wintry overcast and hustled me out into a bitter-cold January of snow-stiff jeans and chimney clouds. I wanted a girlfriend who didn’t love me, I fucked over a bunch of people who didn’t die, I too wondered if it was snowing in space. Moreover, I believed it was… December through March, above the coal-black skies of Southern Ontario, tiny crystalline flakes I kicked around were arriving from unseen planets. I assumed, from lack of experience, that love was hell. It was impossible to explain to anyone how much I loved this record, or what songs represented it best. It still is. When I pass Love is Hell in a record store, I wish I could buy it again if only to experience that honeymoon once more. When faced now with the task of reviewing it, I cringe with jealousy at the idea of someone discovering such an album for the first time. When I tell people that Love is Hell isn’t Ryan Adams’ best record, I’m telling the truth and lying all at once.

9. You Forgot It In People - Broken Social Scene (2003)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

The raw edges of ‘KC Accidental’ and ‘Almost Crimes’ slide euphorically into ‘Looks Just Like the Sun’ and ‘Pacific Theme’, the latter an impressive centerpiece that gradually proves far better than its elevator-inspired source material. What really makes You Forgot It In People a spectacular summer album isn’t the wonderful memories I’ve attached from that art-affected season, but the sun-kissed freedom it implies with each plucked banjo-string (‘Anthem for a Seventeen Year Old Girl’) or distorted Sonic Youth riff (‘Cause=Time’). No BSS-associated record has proven their power in numbers like this one, as each song melds styles, influences and instruments that only a focused troupe of so many could tightly pull together.

Despite the aforementioned euphoric sensations, You Forgot It In People erupts from a dark and slightly disturbed mindset. You can hear the drone beneath and between many of these sunny tracks; the dense hum of strange voices that cry under ‘Pacific Theme’, or the cathartic ramblings that litter ‘Shampoo Suicide’. If in doubt, look up some lyrics. Like the best works of art, You Forgot It In People cannot be easily-assessed; it's sweltering, dysfunctional stuff, and it's entirely brilliant.

8. Alligator - The National (2005)

When it comes to brooding, introspective indie-rock that, you know, still rocks, The National are in a league of their own. I easily could have included Boxer – or, for that matter, Cherry Tree EP - aboard this Top 50 to stand in Alligator’s place yet neither record would’ve landed as prominently. This 2005 release contains all the lyrical wit and complexity that its periphery releases boast but Alligator wields sharper edges, deeper emotions, and the willingness to combust when the timing’s right. Even the accomplished restraint of Boxer can’t rival vocalist Matt Berninger’s bellowing cry as ‘Mr. November’, the way his lyrics intertwine with elegant piano-chords on ‘Karen’, or how the whole band charges head-first into ‘Abel’. Picking a favourite National record might be like picking a favourite offspring but, at the end of the day, the one that relives the fondest memories takes the cake. Yeah, clearly I have no kids.

7. I Am A Bird Now - Antony & the Johnsons (2005)

As close friends know, I assembled my Top Twenty Albums of the Year lists long before Skeleton Crew Quarterly came to be. And while rooting around through my annual lists, I uncovered a write-up I sent to my Dad and brother, describing my number one pick of the year. While it reads rather embarrassingly, this still sums up my general conviction for Antony’s Mercury Award-winning sophomore album:

“Nobody, including me, could get through hearing Antony's voice for the first time without thinking it might be a joke. His Nina Simone quiver initially feels like a burden, but by the second or third listen, it's pitch-perfect.

Most interesting to note, Antony and the Johnsons bridged the musical gap between more of my friends than any other record I can think of. Who would've thought a record about a boy wishing to be a girl (and who, in the end, becomes a bird) could win the hearts of a chauvinistic, AC/DC-loving jock friend? Not me. And I don't mean they nodded in approval, or downloaded it. I mean they went out and bought it. Anyway, this album will be just as incredible and timeless when I'm old and grey. Ah yes, another music nerd shouts "Modern Classic!" from his bedroom window.”

6. Vespertine - Bjork (2001)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

After invigorating dance music and electro-pop throughout the 90s and finishing the decade with the seminal Homogenic, Bjork looked inward. The digital mash of loops and beats that signified both Post and Homogenic were inspired by her five year relationship with DJ-artist Goldie; the former a testament to head-over-heels love, the latter a post-breakup onslaught. With her personal strife healed and behind her, Bjork began composing more minimal song structures that incorporated more ambient and electronic influences. Both genres are generously treated on the near X-rated ‘Cocoon’ and haunted whirls of ‘An Echo, A Stain’, while Bjork’s impressive beat-programming gives an organic pulse to album highlight ‘It’s Not Up To You’. Although equally dense in arrangements and diverse instrumentally, Vespertine is Bjork at her most pensive and intimate; her voice largely reduced to coos and echoes, her beats spliced into fluttered snowflakes, and lyrics that uncover her most private moments.

5. Illinoise - Sufjan Stevens (2005)

I wish I could say that I caught the first wave of Illinoise-Fever but that wasn’t the case. In times of unwavering critical love, I usually step back from an album. Especially if said release is by a songwriter I’ve merely heard name-dropped, who has composed a twenty-two track, seventy-minute opus to a city I’ve never seen. Boy, if any record seemed in need of a niche audience, Illinoise should’ve been it. Thankfully a good friend of mine insisted one day that I pick up the headphones of a downtown Toronto listening station and hear ‘Casimir Pulaski Day’. Right then, I knew I’d wasted the last five months of my life. Yes, I even sought out an additional copy of Illinoise that bears that famed Superman controversy... an incredible record.

4. Avalanche - Matthew Good (2003)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

As thematically loaded as Avalanche is – especially compared to his previously addictive but one-note intensity – every idea and sentiment owns its own stereo territory here. The arrangements on ‘Avalanche’ seem to reflect his sort-of-a-protest urgency and most are new to Good’s repetoire: the electronic textures of ‘Near Fantastica’, the cut-up vocal climax of the title track, and some gorgeous back-up by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on ‘While We Were Hunting Rabbits’, among others. As well as sharing a newfound sense of sonic-adventurism, each of these just-mentioned songs detail Good’s first pushes away from commercial success by crafting eight-minute epics that appealed to neither radio nor casual fans.

Although I expect his forthcoming album to challenge his best work as forcefully as Hospital Music did in 2007, Avalanche remains a turning point and his hard-fought salvation. Years after its release, Good would mull this record over and decide that had he created it all over again, he would’ve cut ‘Double Life’ and ‘Long Way Down’ from the album’s back-half. And although I completely agree that it would’ve made a wonderful album damn-near perfect, even the rough edges of Avalanche have grown, albeit more sluggishly, into the lush folds of its majority.

3. A Ghost Is Born - Wilco (2004)

(Taken from the SCQ Review:)

Unlike Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, if A Ghost is Born has any controversy, it’s because Tweedy booked himself into rehab mere days after the record’s release, citing self-medicating and pills as the issue. His diminishing health is audible on record; although his performances give no indication of trouble ahead, Tweedy’s malcontent is woven into both lyrics and music. No example is more glaringly evident than the twelve minutes of sonic layering that close ‘Less Than You Think’, which Tweedy claims is a recreation of the migraines he experienced throughout recording. His mental well-being was also under duress, as heard in the obsessive, ten minute ‘Spiders’ or the paranoid ‘Company in my Back’. Strange to think that despite these gloomy bits of trivia, A Ghost is Born remains a wonderful summer album, carrying little of the content’s burden and offering countless moments of art-rock beauty.

What makes this album one of SCQ’s all-time favourites is how versatile the material is: its sadness is uplifting, its restlessness is peaceful, its sonic ambitions are all over the place. My first taste of the album, ‘Hell is Chrome’, sent a shiver from its tastefully upbeat piano-trot. The ivories suddenly dropped into a jazz-torn heartbeat, where the electric sears in, crisp and mournful, breaking this peaceful dawn like a day’s first carhorn. Underappreciated but well-advanced from its celebrated predecessor, A Ghost is Born is Wilco’s crowning achievement; a record to fall in love with.

2. Jacksonville City Nights - Ryan Adams & the Cardinals (2005)

One of the few rules I placed on myself for this decade-spanning list is that an artist can only warrant multiple inclusions if he/she/they created something entirely different from their usual releases. In the case of Ryan Adams, my obvious favourite of the decade, the songwriter has never stood still long enough to garner the term “usual”. What is usual Ryan Adams? Alright, a few terms and anecdotes come to mind but let’s stick to the music and, better yet, the closest Adams has ever backpeddled to his Whiskeytown roots: Jacksonville City Nights. This is gorgeous country music, winking as always toward Gram Parsons, but littered with some of the finest arrangements Adams and the Cardinals ever created. Word has it Adams took a shot of whiskey before attacking each of these fourteen songs, which he claimed gave his voice an added smoothness, and the results don’t lie on this modern country classic, drenched in regrets.