What can I say I am fan of Top Ten lists and the end of years and decades always bring out tons of Top Ten lists so why not make one of my own. Below are the Top Ten albums of the 2000s that made an impact on my life plus some honorable mentions below. Let me know what you think?

Top Ten Albums of the 2000s

1. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – released April 23, 2002

Even though I think the music on Sky Blue Sky is far superior, YHF is a far more important record for what historians will likely call this decade the 80s of the new millennium.

There are many factors as to why this album is so great. Yes the story of being dropped by their label after hearing the album and then, after Jay left the band, the album being released by a smaller label owned by their original label. This is legend and helps propel this album ahead of many others but what puts it front and center is its musical perfection in arrangement, lyrics and execution. YHF is one of those albums that defined a generation, it’s cliché to say but it did. Many of my friends today that wear their melancholy lightly on their sleeves cherish YHF and Wilco as a whole. My own melancholy is what drew me to this record. Lyrics like ‘All my lies are always wishes/ I know I would die if I could come back new’ spoke to me. Throw in the fact that none of my friends at the time listened to Wilco at all YHF turned into my own private shrink where Jeff Tweedy bled for me. Extremely selfish I know but if music is one thing it is vicarious

2. Radiohead – Kid A – released October 2, 2000

You have to hand it to Radiohead, they had the world in their hands and they said @#$% YOU. Kid A is straight up Punk Rock. Radiohead did everything opposite of what got them to where they were in the glow of OK Computer and The Bends and it made them even more successful. Trashing Thom Yorke’s vocals, hiding them under synths and distortion it almost sounded like a swan song from the band but it worked. I can remember listening to the leaked version of The National Anthem thinking my stereo was going to explode. Hints of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother sprinkled throughout the song and Yorke’s distant apocalyptic cries made me play this song over and over again. Yes this same sonic force was used a little bit in OK Computer but this song finally brought to the forefront one of the best rhythm sections in music today.

This album pissed off a lot of people and rightfully so. It made me very, very happy. Where OK Computer showed signs of Radiohead breaking away from being another U2 clone(hello Pablo Honey) Kid A tore those fans a new you know what. No more Fake Plastic Trees, this is the new Radiohead and if you don’t like well shits to you.

3. At the Drive-In – Relationship of Command – released September 12, 2000

I don’t know about you but this album gave me hope. I thought rock and roll had died but after listening to the opening salvo of Relationship of Command I knew it hadn’t I just wasn’t looking in the right place. I knew ATDI from their previous two albums Acrobatic Tenement and In/Casino/Out(Alpha Centauri is still one of the greatest songs of all time) but this album sounded more polished and more professional. It seemed as if they had found their message and were ready to bash you over the head with it. Where the breakup of Refused left me lost this release ushered in their sonic ethos in ways that Deftones and their ilk only wish they could. Sadly it was short lived and they broke up to form two separate groups(three if you include De Facto) The Mars Volta and Sparta. I can still play this record today and be transformed into that confused little punk that shouldn’t take things so seriously, something very few bands that aren’t punk can do for me.

4. The Strokes – Is This It – released August 22, 2001

To some degree in the renaissance of rock and roll at the turn of the century this was our generations Sgt Peppers. You couldn’t look at magazine without seeing these guys on the cover with ‘Saviors of Rock’ across their faces. This type of thing could send people over the edge to where they shoot themselves in some garage apartment in Seattle but these guys rolled with the punches with ultra-coolness at every stop. Sure Julian’s dad was a fashion icon and helped them achieve the look of rock’s dead messiahs raised from the dead but at the end of the day it all boiled down to the music and sure as shit it rocked. You couldn’t go anywhere without hearing Last Night for an entire year. Yeah it got played out but the whole album made up for it. While the mass media thought Last Night was a one-hit wonder we gobbled up songs like Soma and Some Day and danced like it was 1978 all over again

5. Libertines – Up The Bracket – released October 14, 2002

‘What a Waster, what a fucking waster.’ Wow, those words turned into a something more than a song about a lost soul. It became an autobiography of Pete Doherty and Kate Moss. Yeah that crap gets played a lot in the media and it’s unfortunate because the Libertines were easily one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time.

This album was straight attitude and desperation from start to finish. Living lives of depravity Carl Barat and Doherty were able to record with reckless abandon that captured their time and place in the rock world. Equal parts The Clash, Buzzcocks and The Jam they went from nothing to saviors of English rock. In a time when English bands like Oasis were filling stadiums and fields with tens of thousands of fans The Libertines shuffled in with their stinky clothes and ‘Fuck You We’re Playing’ attitude and changed the musical landscape. Sadly bands like Coldplay would ride the Champagne Supernova formula to great success while the Libertines imploded

6. D’Angelo – Voodoo – released January 25, 2000

Although this album was recorded from 1998-1999 it technically came out in 2000 which means it makes my top 10. Straight up, this is a desert island album for me. This album is ethereal in its sexuality. It’s wet. It will have your spine moving. I’m not talking head nodding here, I’m talking carnal. This is the heart beat of life. I dare you not to want to slow jam in basement with the lights low.

Grinding music aside the musicianship on this album is unparalleled. A host of guest musicians including The Roots, DJ Premier and Redman/Method Man and a fantastic remake of Bo Diddley’s Feel Like Making Love make this a cohesive piece of music from start to finish. Hot damn this album is on fire. Any season at any time I can play this and get the biggest smile on my face. Tell you what, let’s say you are having some friends over these holidays and you have some music playing lightly in the background but people seem a little uptight throw this album on and sit back and watch people start to loosen up. I know, I’ve done – many times

7. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals – Cold Roses – released May 3, 2005

It’s no secret that I spent a lot time listening to and seeing The Grateful Dead. Their music is some of the greatest dance music ever written. Many musicians have tried to emulate what the Grateful Dead were able to capture as a band and everyone has pretty much failed. It’s also no secret of RA’s love of the Dead and what drew me to this album was the influence that the Dead has on RA and how he has transformed that into his own sound. It is very, very subtle and comes out more when you see RA live. Of course none of the songs sound like the Dead entirely, it’s the subtly eschewed in songs like Magnolia Mountain that take me back to a time when life was free.

I bought this album for my wife when we were dating and I instantly fell in love with it. Quickly this album ended up more in my car than hers and it became one of those ‘I really love the gift I gave you.’ Music and sentimental value aside RAs lyrics are stellar on this double CD release. Lyrics like Magnolia Mountains ‘It’s been raining that Tennessee honey/ So long I got too heavy to fly/ Ain’t no bluebird ever gets too heavy to sing’ and Cold Roses ‘Mirrors in the room go black and blue/ On a Sunday morning in Saturday shoes/ We don’t choose who we love’ made me appreciate RA like never before.

Cold Roses was one of 3 releases that RA and the Cardinals brought out in 2005 and this one is his best IMHO

8. Dandy Warhols – Thirteen Tales of Urban Bohemia – released August 1, 2000

Around the turn of the century I was in a bad place, without getting in too deep let’s just say that the world and I weren’t the best of friends and this album helped me through some rough times. Thirteen Tales allowed me to turn my melancholy into something positive. While riding the subway listening to this album I was able to channel my frustrations into, yes this sounds cheesy and rhymes, inspirations. Again, I don’t want to get too deep let’s just say that this album was my shrink and after getting through that period musically it still holds up and doesn’t take my mind back to those grey clouds

9. TV On The Radio – Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes – released March 9, 2004

I’m going to admit I didn’t get this album when I first heard it. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it until the winter of 2006, 2 years after it came out. The horns at the start of The Wrong Way didn’t sound accessible to me, like some people that don’t understand Jazz I was confused. I guess I needed to grow up a little bit. Once I grew up I wore this album on my sleeve, it became a part of me and I thought I would never let go. I cherished it so much that when I heard news of Cookie Mountain being released that summer I immediately dismissed the new record to be crap and boy it wasn’t. These guys keep getting better and better. Live they are amazing, able to transfer their studio wizardry into a great live show. Have you watched Sitek play the guitar? He has possibly the fastest right hand in all of music.

10. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois – released July 5, 2005

By now we all know the story that this was to be the second in a series of releases by Stevens about the 50 States with Michigan being the first release. Well, it seems that isn’t happening. No worries, if he never makes another record this will get him into the Smithsonian for sure. Taking on a project like this shows you have some big huevos but Stevens is able to deliver a complete musical composition that is nothing short of poetic in its orchestration and lyrics. Touching on such topics as the insanity of Mary Todd, John Wayne Gacy, Jr and Decatur, Stevens is able to deliver Illinois history as no one would’ve imagined. The standout song for me besides the eerie Gacy, Jr is Jacksonville. Strings flow into horns and back again, guitars pluck behind a banjo leading into slight march in the chorus that falls off into the bridge of sorts that combines all of the music into one long crescendo/ 2^nd chorus. It gives me shivers

Honorable mentions A to Z

American Analog Set – Know by Heart

Arcade Fire – Funeral

Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not

Badly Drawn Boy – The Hour of Bewilderbeast

Band of Horse – Everything Right Here

Blackalicious – Nia

Blonde Redhead – 23

Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It in People

Built to Spill – You in Reverse

Clinic – Internal Wrangler

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Some Loud Thunder

Danger Mouse/Jay-Z – The Grey Album

Death From Above 1979 – You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine

Deftones – White Pony

Eagles of Death Metal – Peace, Love, Death Metal – Death by Sexy

Elliott Smith – Figure 8

Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump

Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights – Antics

Iron and Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros – Global a Go-Go

Justin Townes Earle – The Good Life

Kanye West – The College Dropout

LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver

Madlib – Blunted in the Bomb Shelter Mix

Morrissey – Years of Refusal

Panda Bear – Person Pitch

Paul Weller – As Is Now

Pearl Jam – Binaural

Phantom Planet – Phantom Planet

Rancid – Rancid

Sade – Lovers Rock

Silver Jews – Tanglewood Numbers

Slum Village – Fantastic Voyage Vol 2

Spoon – Kill the Moonlight

Super Furry Animals – Rings Around the World

The Avalanches – Since I Left You

The Black Keys – Thickfreakness

The Mars Volta – De-Loused in the Comatorium

The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers – Consolers of the Lonely

The Walkmen – You and Me

The White Stripes – White Blood Cells

Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures

Turin Brakes – Ether Song

Ween – Quebec

Wilco – Sky Blue Sky

Zero 7 – Simple Things