One thing that happened much more in the 2000s than at any point prior was that I got into actual contemporary music, rather than listening to mostly classic rock supplemented with Blink 182. While the Beatles are and always will be my favorite band, there was a good deal of music in the 2000s that actually could compete with them for my affections, at least on a per-album basis. And there was a lot of other good stuff too. So without further ado, I'm going to be counting down my 50 favorite albums of 2000-2009.
#50
The All-American Rejects, Move Along (2005)
The start of a big countdown might not be the best place to mention this, but here goes: I'm not an extremely discerning music fan. I mean, I am, but ultimately if something sounds good to my ears I don't really care how many other people are listening to it. The music on this list mostly falls into three categories: reasonably obscure indie stuff; indie or indie-like stuff that ended up rather well-known; and stuff that would be considered "popular." The All-American Rejects certainly fall into the third category, probably more than any other band on this list with maybe one or two exceptions. But this is a difficult album to deny - "Dirty Little Secret" and "Move Along," the two big standout tracks, are both big, bop-along anthems, and if the other tracks rarely hit similar highs, they're certainly appealing enough. It's not a completely vanilla album either - "Night Drive" has a great pulsing percussion part that recalls a drum line, while "Can't Take It" is based around a string section. It's mainstream pop rock (with a bit of an emo cast), but it's about as good as albums of that sort get.
#49
Pete Yorn, musicforthemorningafter (2001)
The first half of Yorn's breakthrough album is such a string of hits that this album could easily have placed much higher - "Life On A Chain," "Strange Condition," "Just Another," "Black," "Lose You," and "For Nancy" are all great songs. The second half of the album can't say the same - aside from "Sleep Better" and the hidden track "Girl Like You," I can take or leave most of it. It's not like it's terrible, but compared to the compelling nature of the first six tracks it feels disposable. (Even "Sleep Better" is somewhat forgettable outside of the chorus.) The album earns a place on the list legitimately, but a full album of songs like the first six - or, heck, if they'd been spaced more evenly! - could have been top 30.
#48
Jet, Get Born (2003)
Jet got a lot of credit at the time for having a "throwback" sound, as if they were the only band that sounded like a 70s rock outfit. But you don't have to pretend that Jet were inventive to rock out to songs like "Are You Gonna Be My Girl," "Rollover D.J." and "Cold Hard Bitch." Between the hits, Jet alternated between songs that sounded basically the same as the hits ("Get What You Need," "Get Me Outta Here," "Take It or Leave It") and songs that played like power ballads when alternated with the anthemic rock of the hits ("Move On," "Radio Song," "Timothy"). It's all good stuff, although it's weird that Jet didn't seem to know what kind of band they actually wanted to be, and after rocking out to a song like "Cold Hard Bitch," do you need a bring-down mellow groove like "Come Around Again" or do you want more rock?
#47
Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago (2008)
An album that basically defines "stripped-down," Justin Vernon famously holed up in a Wisconsin cabin for three months and emerged with For Emma, Forever Ago, which is pretty much nothing but a falsetto-pitched Vernon and a guitar, plus some production. It sounds like an album born out of solitude, and it's exactly the kind of album I'd want to take with me if I decided to become a recluse. Many of my favorite albums evoke certain times and/or places, and this is one such. Why, then, is it not higher? Evocative though it is, it's not an album on which a lot of songs stand out, at least not to me - aside from the astonishing closer "Re: Stacks," things run together a bit, and with the falsetto it's hard to pick out a lot of the lyrics. These are not fatal flaws - obviously I really like all the albums on this list - but I didn't feel like I could rank it much higher as a result.
#46
Belle & Sebastian, The Life Pursuit (2006)
I had heard some of their earlier stuff and not really cared much for it, but I think this album was recommended to me by eMusic, and I liked it. It's shiny, jangling pop, although at times it can also get a bit funky. "The Blues Are Still Blue" is the standout for me, with "Sukie in the Graveyard" not far behind, but the whole thing is a day-brightener, with entertainingly quirky story-lyrics, ringing guitars, and the kind of harmonies and call-and-response vocals that suggest everyone's having a good time.
#45
Ben Folds, Way to Normal (2008)
Even a bad Ben Folds album is better than most, in my opinion, but this was certainly not a great Ben Folds album. (Those are to come.) The best of Way to Normal can stand with most of Folds' other work, but its worst plumbs a low for probably my favorite contemporary artist. Folds shows he can still turn out entertaining piano rock on tracks like "Hiroshima," "Dr. Yang" and "Brainwascht," and does his trademark slow jams with "Cologne" and "Kylie from Connecticut." But there's a very bitter streak lingering pretty close to the surface in a lot of the songs, and while Folds has implied that the album was not significantly affected by his divorce from Frally Hynes, it's hard to fully buy that. Attempts at social commentary like "The Frown Song" and "Free Coffee" also fall rather flat. Like some of the other albums down here, the highs more than make up for the lows, but one is left with a sense of what might have been had the whole album matched the aching tenderness of "Cologne" in its quality level.
#44
The Reindeer Section, Son of Evil Reindeer (2002)
Give Gary Lightbody credit - he had a side project going before Snow Patrol had even really hit it big. Son of Evil Reindeer was actually the second Reindeer Section album (following 2001's Y'All Get Scared Now, Ya Hear!) and it combined even more musicians than the first. It's odd to think that something like two dozen Scottish musicians are involved when listening to Son of Evil Reindeer, because it's not exactly some big, bombastic thing like the Polyphonic Spree. It's not even as loud as Snow Patrol; rather, it's mostly a lot of fairly soft, quiet songs along the lines of "Budapest" and "I'll Be Here When You Wake." But when you get an album of pleasant, sweet-sounding songs, who really cares how they got made?
#43
Five for Fighting, America Town (2000)
This album nearly defined my freshman year of college, receiving heavy rotation, and we got to feel like we were on the cutting edge; then "Superman" turned into an enormous hit and suddenly the magic was gone. I don't consider myself one of those guys who gets upset at bands that "sell out," but I saw Five for Fighting live when they (well, he) opened for Vertical Horizon, for crying out loud. (By the way: Vertical Horizon put on a surprisingly kick-ass show.) America Town isn't some indie masterpiece, but it's a very strong album of piano-driven pop rock, with plenty of good tunes besides the hits (the title track still resides on a mix CD I use as wake-up alarm music). Unfortunately, fame gave us The Battle for Everything, which contains a song called "Angels and Girlfriends," which is exactly as bad as it sounds like it would be. I lost interest at that point, but America Town remains a great album.
#42
Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights (2002)
Another album which might be higher if it weren't something of a soundscape for me. I can't tell you much about this album's lyrics because what I tend to hear is the music, but lest you think that's not an endorsement, I still remember being in Borders and playing the first track, "Untitled," in the headphones - when the drums kicked in at 40 seconds, I was already thinking, "I'm buying this album." You've gotta be good to be that immediate.
#41
Green Day, American Idiot (2004)
Aside from maybe The Killers, it doesn't get more mainstream on this list than Green Day, but there's a good reason. After having been ingrained in the public consciousness with 1994's Dookie, Green Day spent almost a decade doing not much else; aside from "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" off 1997's Nimrod, little notice was taken of them, and 2000's Warning suggested at things to come with songs like "Minority" but was mostly ignored amid a wave of newer pop-punk bands. It took American Idiot to blast Green Day back to the forefront, and it did so deservingly. Released less than two months before the 2004 elections, American Idiot was a ballsy concept album, a screed against government, right-wing politics, religion and much more that became perhaps the first pop-punk record in history to actually deserve the word "punk." And it rocks, too.
That's the first ten. It only gets better from here. And this will actually be finished before the end of the year (I promise).
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