And The Music Came Back On

Last week I fell back in love with music. I was listening to the podcast of NPR’s All Songs Considered from two weeks ago – which opened with “Do You Realize?” by the Flaming Lips then going to “Stan” by Eminem – and the host and three of the show’s producers were trying to sum up the last decade of music, which mostly meant they joked about how they couldn’t. They dissected the ways MP3s, the shuffle feature on iPods, and YouTube had fundamentally altered how we experience music. They voiced nostalgia for record stores and mix tapes. They demonstrated how hip-hop transfused itself into so many styles. They acknowledged the importance of the “O Brother, Where Art Though?” soundtrack. They said Sufjan Stevens was disappointing, in a heartbreaking, where-have-you-gone sort of way, and played “Casimir Pulaski Day,” maybe my favorite song of the decade. Ultimately they agreed this was music’s best ten years ever.

More than anything, though, they made me giddy about music again. Since college, my music choices have stultified. I worry it portends crotchetiness to come. While I still find new bands and sounds, what used to be a life altering discovery every month or week morphed into one just every so often. Part of this, without my realizing it, has been a rejection of buying music online, which is tied to my general internet frustration. (I should have been born in the 1930s with Gay Talese for a name.) As a writer, I place great weight on lyrics and word play: That’s why folk singers like Damien Jurado hold my heart though their guitar playing rarely makes me soar. The problem with buying some zeros and ones is you don’t get a lyric sheet with gorgeous drawings and layout, so though David Bazan sings, “This brown liquor whets my tongue,” you hear “wets,” and the message and the power dies. Just compounding the problem: At the same time physical albums became nonsense, I’ve become a poor twenty-something who can’t buy ten albums a month. It’s a double-wammy to music discovery, which, indirectly, is a knock, not hyperbolically, to my soul.

But this show might have changed that. It ended with a song by Arcade Fire, a band I’ve known about but for some reason ignored, probably through a combination of indie-hype avoidance and if-it’s-on-the-radio-I-don’t-listen-to-it snobbery. The track was great, and it capped an uplifting hour listening to people talk about their love of songs for. Maybe that’s what I’ve missed since college, maybe that’s what’s made me lose my music-hunting instinct: I’ve misplaced that communal gathering around song.

So in the spirit of hoping that the next decade will be better than the last, and that the musical joy I brought with me into the last decade will come along into the next, I’ve compiled a list of my favorite albums from the 2000s. And to rekindle that community of song I want back, I’ve asked friends to put in their own lists and to ask their friends to add theirs. The lists’ criterion is up to each person. It can be favorites, or best, or most important, or single-genre, as long as they’re albums released since 2000. If you want yours up, send me an e-mail and I’ll post it for posterity.

I hope you enjoy reading them, but mostly I hope you take the lists as recommendations, search out this music, and fall into the music. (Album title first, then artist.)

My List

1. Come On And Feel The Illinoise! - Sufjan Stevens

2. Toxicity - System Of A Down

3. White Blood Cells - The White Stripes

4. Ghost Of David - Damien Jurado

5. A Grand Don’t Come For Free - The Streets

6. Curse Your Branches - David Bazan

7. …As The Eternal Cowboy - Against Me!

8. Quality - Talib Qweli

9. Takk - Sigur Ross

10. Relationship Of Command - At The Drive-In

Beau Bailey

1. Toxicity - System of a Down

2. Elephant - White Stripes

3. Rooty - Basement Jaxx

4. Miss Machine - Dillinger Escape Plan

5. Demon Days - Gorillaz

6. Reroute to Remain - In Flames

7. Marshal Mathers LP - Eminem

8. Searching For A Former Clairy - Against Me!

9. Self-Titled - Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards

10. Dog Problems - The Format

Shane Knox

1. The Way Up - Pat Metheny Group

2. Quartet - Metheny Mehldau

3. Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust - Sigur Ros

4. Perceptual - Brian Blade Fellowship

5. Dear John - Loney Dear

6. Radiance Keith - Jarrett

7. Speaking of Now - Pat Metheny Group

8. Art of Trio Volume 5: Progression - Brad Mehldau

9. Elegiac Cycle - Brad Mehldau

10. Soviet Kitch - Regina Spektor

Bill Oram (with explanations!)

1. American IV: The Man Comes Around - Johnny Cash, 2002: Mostly covers by one of the most-covered artists ever. "Hurt' gets the pub, but "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and "I Hung My Head" make this somber album a fitting farewell to Cash, as well as the my best album of the decade.

2. The Long Way Around - Dixie Chicks, 2006 -- Triumphant return of shunned group who remained unapologetic for standing up agains the Iraq War, as evidenced by "Not Ready to Make Nice."

3. Stay Positive - The Hold Steady, 2008 -- Lord, I'm Discouraged might be one of my favorite all-time songs, and is complemented nicely by stand-out tradition alt-rock.

4. Soul Caddy - Cherry Poppin' Daddies, 2000 -- The fact that it sells for $.99 on Amazon is proof that nobody loves this album like I do.

5. American Idiot - Green Day, 2004 -- Ironically smart rock opera that asked a lot of questions about our society people weren't asking yet.

6. Genius Loves Company - Ray Charles, 2004 -- Yeah, maybe Norah Jones stole the show, but it's still the best "duets" album ever.

7. Graduation - Kanye West, 2007 -- Only rap album I've ever liked. Sharp missives buffer sentimental coming-of-age rap ballads.

8. Put the "O" Back in Country - Shooter Jennings, 2005 -- You come for "4th of July" you stay for the grungy, bitter rockabilly narratives. Money line: " Well, my old girl was a cadillac/She was long and sleek and dressed in black/But I caught her cruisin' with another dude/So I shot 'em down with my blue .22." (from "Daddy's Farm")

9. Love Is Hell - Ryan Adams, 2004 -- Listen to the Wonderwall cover.

10. Chicago (the soundtrack) - Various, 2002 -- Crashed my mom's car listening to Cell Block Tango.

Daniel Torres

1. Involver - Sasha

2. Black Sails in the Sunset - AFI

3. Miss Machine - Dillinger Escape Plan

4. Live From Stubbs - Matisyahu

5. Far - Regina Spektor

6. Speak for Yourself - Imogen Heap

7. Deja Entendu - Brand New

8. Gutter Phenomenon - Every Time I Die

9. Tear from the Red - Poison the Well

10. Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses - Atreyu