With the end of the 10s rapidly approaching and with it, an inevitable decade-recapping list, I felt a deep inspiration to look back at my previous effort to summarize a decade’s musical output. I made a list of The 100 Best Albums of the 2000s back in high school. In the year 2000, I was but a fresh 8 years old, listening to the Indigo Girls, smooth jazz and Enya my parents played in the house. Not an ideal way to keep track of releases.

Eventually I came around to classic rock and then dived into the dungeon of indie rock, thanks to discovering sites like Pitchfork, Stereogum and other music blogs. I had a lot of catching up to do in listening to albums that were released pre-2007 while making the list in 2010, but I’d say that it was a pretty decent mirror to my personal tastes at the time, with a few minor exceptions. Looking back on it now, there are a few albums in there I don’t remember ever listening to, along with a few things ranked suspiciously high.

As a fun little project that took far too much of my time, I recreated the list to accommodate all the records from the 00s I’ve listened to since I published the original list. This process served as an ample distraction while my life hurtles at an uncomfortable speed toward “adulthood”. The end product is a winning Warm Visions bingo card: my useless knack for list-making, navel-gazing circle-jerkery, music that no one on the planet would consider unique or interesting in 2018 and beyond, and being approximately 8 years irrelevant are all present. Enjoy!

* indicates a record newly added to the list.

100. HEALTH – Get Color *
99. Studio – West Coast *
98. The Postal Service – Give Up
97. Colleen – Everyone Alive Wants Answers *
96. Kanye West – Late Registration
95. The Thermals – The Body, The Blood, The Machine
94. The Tough Alliance – A New Chance
93. Lightning Bolt – Wonderful Rainbow
92. Beck – The Information *
91. Mount Eerie, Julie Doiron & Fred Squire – Lost Wisdom *
90. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
89. The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?
88. The Killers – Hot Fuss
87. Life Without Buildings – Any Other City *
86. m83 – Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
85. Sweet Trip – Velocity : Design : Comfort *
84. Smog – Dongs Of Sevotion *
83. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To Tell
82. Boris – Pink *
81. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
80. The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
79. Beck – Modern Guilt
78. A Place To Bury Strangers – A Place To Bury Strangers *
77. Outkast – Stankonia
76. Jens Lekman – Night Falls Over Kortedala
75. The Books – Thought For Food *
74. Sun Araw – Beach Head *
73. Animal Collective – Feels *
72. Portishead – Third
71. Death Cab For Cutie – Transatlanticism
70. Grizzly Bear – Yellow House
69. Ghostface Killah – Supreme Clientele *
68. Animal Collective – Sung Tongs *
67. Sonic Youth – Rather Ripped *
66. Mount Eerie – Wind’s Poem *
65. The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic
64. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
63. Have A Nice Life – Deathconsciousness *
62. Midlake – The Trials Of Van Occupanther *
61. Fucked Up – The Chemistry Of Common Life *
60. Sleater-Kinney – One Beat *
59. Stars Of The Lid – The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid *
58. Arcade Fire – Funeral
57. Sufjan Stevens – Michigan
56. MF Doom – MM.. Food? *
55. Sam Amidon – All Is Well *
54. Songs: Ohia – Magnolia Electric Co. *
53. Flying Lotus – Los Angeles *
52. Broadcast – Haha Sound *
51. Sonic Youth – Murray Street *

50. Interpol – Turn On The Bright Lights
49. Radiohead – Amnesiac
48. William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops *
47. Yo La Tengo – And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out *
46. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
45. Beach House – Devotion *
44. Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It In People
43. Deerhunter – Microcastle
42. Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam
41. Radiohead – In Rainbows
40. The Mars Volta – De-Loused In The Comatorium
39. Cat Power – The Greatest *
38. Destroyer – Destroyer’s Rubies *
37. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
36. Gorillaz – Gorillaz
35. Gillian Welch – Time (The Revelator) *
34. The Books – The Lemon Of Pink *
33. Joanna Newsom – The Milk-Eyed Mender *
32. LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem
31. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
30. J Dilla – Donuts *
29. Gorillaz – Demon Days
28. The Strokes – Is This It
27. Broadcast – Tender Buttons *
26. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
25. Madvillain – Madvillainy
24. Fever Ray – Fever Ray
23. St. Vincent – Actor
22. Modest Mouse – The Moon & Antarctica
21. Sun Kil Moon – Ghosts Of The Great Highway *
20. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
19. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver
18. PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea *
17. The Field – From Here We Go Sublime *
16. The Knife – Silent Shout
15. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
14. Boards Of Canada – Geogaddi *
13. Jay Reatard – Blood Visions *
12. Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out Of This Country
11. Dntel – Life Is Full Of Possibilities *
10. Panda Bear – Person Pitch
9. Björk – Vespertine
8. Joanna Newsom – Ys
7. Daft Punk – Discovery
6. Beck – Sea Change
5. The Microphones – The Glow Pt. 2
4. Grouper – Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill *
3. Radiohead – Kid A
2. Burial – Untrue
1. The Avalanches – Since I Left You

STATS:

• 46 new records were added to the list.
• The 46 records that fell out of fancy in the eight years between lists:
  • And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Source Tags & Codes
  • Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am…
  • Art Brut – Bang Bang Rock & Roll
  • Beck – Guero
  • Beirut – The Flying Club Cup
  • Bloc Party – Silent Alarm
  • Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
  • Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning
  • Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To The Head
  • CSS – Cansei de Ser Sexy
  • Death From Above 1979 – You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine
  • The Decemberists – The Crane Wife
  • Elliott Smith – Figure 8
  • Explosions In The Sky – The Earth Is Not A Cold, Dead Place
  • Flaming Lips – Embryonic
  • Flotation Toy Warning – Bluffer’s Guide To The Flight Deck
  • Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
  • Gnarls Barkely – St. Elsewhere
  • Hot Chip – The Warning
  • Jason Mraz – Waiting For My Rocket To Come
  • Jay-Z – The Blueprint
  • Kanye West – Graduation
  • Lambchop – Nixon
  • M.I.A. – Kala
  • m83 – Saturdays = Youth
  • MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
  • Muse – Absolution
  • Muse – Origin Of Symmetry
  • My Dear Disco – Dancethink LP
  • My Morning Jacket – Z
  • of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer
  • Okkervil River – The Stage Names
  • Outkast – Speakerboxxx / The Love Below
  • Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Raising Sand
  • Rogue Wave – Asleep At Heaven’s Gate
  • Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
  • Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun
  • Sigus Ros – Takk…
  • Spoon – Gimme Fiction
  • The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free
  • The Strokes – Room On Fire
  • TV On The Radio – Dear Science
  • TV On The Radio – Return To Cookie Mountain
  • The White Stripes – Elephant
  • The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
  • Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals
• The artists with multiple records on the list include Animal Collective (4), Arcade Fire (2), Beck (3), The Books (2), Broadcast (2), Gorillaz (2), Grizzly Bear (2), Joanna Newsom (2), LCD Soundsystem (2), MF Doom (by Madvillain proxy) (2), The Microphones/Mount Eerie (3), Radiohead (3), Sonic Youth (2) & Sufjan Stevens (2).
• The record with the highest climb between charts is The Microphones’ The Glow Pt. 2, moving from #79 to #5.
• The record with the biggest fall is The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, falling from #5 to #80. Behind that include Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which fell from #15 to #81, Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible, falling from #31 to #90 and followed by Arcade Fire’s Funeral, which fell from #1 to #58.
• The highest debut is obviously Grouper’s Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, a record that has infiltrated my entire being, a lifetime attachment.
• The lowest debut barely squeaking on this list is HEALTH’s Get Color.
• Untrue and Kid A both held strong at #2 and #3, respectively. Talk about durability!
• Embarrassingly only about 20% of this list are female-led projects (was non-binary even a thing that was acknowledged by music media back then?). This was a constant trend I noticed while mining other major outlet’s year-end lists as well.
• The year most heavily represented is 2003, with 14 albums. Second place is a tie between 2006 & 2007 with 13 each.
• If I were to make individual lists for each year of the 00s right now (I’m not), these would be the #1 Records:
  • 2000: The Avalanches – Since I Left You
  • 2001: The Microphones – The Glow Pt. 2
  • 2002: Beck – Sea Change
  • 2003: Sun Kil Moon – Ghosts Of The Great Highway
  • 2004: Björk – Vespertine
  • 2005: Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
  • 2006: Joanna Newsom – Ys
  • 2007: Burial – Untrue
  • 2008: Grouper – Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill
  • 2009: Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca 
• Other records that I listened to for essentially the first time as I was formulating this list that I greatly enjoyed:
  • Annie – Anniemal
  • Antony & The Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now
  • The Blow – Paper Television
  • Bonnie “Prince” Billy” – The Letting Go
  • Caribou – Up In Flames
  • Cat Power – You Are Free
  • The Clientele – Suburban Light
  • Deerhoof – The Runners Four
  • The Delgados – Hate
  • Ellen Allien – Berlinette
  • Fennesz – Venice
  • Herbert – Bodily Functions
    
  • The Innocence Mission – We Walked In Song
  • Lansing-Dreiden – The Dividing Island
  • Roisin Murphy – Overpowered
  • Paavoharju – Laulu laakson kukista
  • The Postmarks – The Postmarks
  • The Wrens – The Meadowlands

This was an interesting project for a good handful of reasons. The most prominent one for me is the ever-powerful factor of foresight that doing this grants me. At the time of publishing this list, Arcade Fire were probably my all-time favorite band with a new, buzzy record on the way later that year. Cut to 2018, they’ve released a stinker of a record the year previous, had at least two annoying album release cycles, and are generally still highly-blogged-about-for-little-reason group. I still feel as though Funeral is a great album, but it has surely lost some of its personal sheen since 2010. The most obvious drop, regardless of numbers, is for Kanye West, whose past musical output has unfortunately been tainted by the harmful things he’s doing in the present, right now, 2018. Fuck that guy.

On the flipside of that, my affection for The Microphones/Mount Eerie has only grown since 2010, establishing a sadboy folk niche that I’ve been residing in for the past six years or so. The forces of time influencing opinions are even affecting my album placement for the upcoming Best of The 10s list. I wonder how even a few years will alter that list when it’s done.

Thanks to everyone who helped give me recommendations and guidance throughout making this list. I am just one person, so if your favorite record isn’t on here, let me know! I might have a reason or maybe not; the world is silly like that. I hope you enjoyed reading my nerdery and are inspired to take a look back at your favorite albums of the 2000s.