Lightning Bolt(Excuse all spelling mistakes and crap sentances. I have yet to learn to check my work. This was clearly all written in one amphetamine fueled night)
50 Sleater-Kinney - One Beat - 2002
While most waited until it was a commercially acceptable and cool move to criticise the Bush Administration, Sleater-Kinney went right to it, less than a year after 9/11. Coming up with songs that included lyrics like “where is the questioning? / where is the protest song? / since when is scepticism un-American?”, “let’s break out our old machines now / sure is good to see them run again / oh gentlemen start your engines / and we know where we get the oil from” and “show you love your country go out and spend some cash” (all from one song - Combat Rock, by the way), Sleater-Kinney became the only noteworthy protest group talking about America, and hell, since we got on so well in those days, Britain too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GwaGaXdlA8
49 These New Puritans - Beat Pyramid - 2008
As mentioned in Elvis, “I can’t find the words.” Really, this album speaks for itself, I could tell you that it contains Garage influenced music, lyrics that were seemingly made with a lot of thought that contain a heavy use of repetition and a singer that might remind you of Mark E. Smith, but that description doesn’t sound like the record at all. Hmm. I hope I think of better things to say for the next 48 albums.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzHwRcOsDNw
48 Karate - Pockets - 2004
I know next to nothing about this band. I found the song “Tow Truck” on a compilation around the time of it’s release, and decided to check out the album. Apparently the band used to be a lot heavier and then turned into a weird jazz band with this album? I don’t know, nor do I care, because I like the mystery. It’s a beautiful record, and “Tow Truck” is one of the greatest songs of all time. Shame I can’t find a Youtube video of it… the kids all use Spotify right? You know what to do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOMdo5DgZfE
47 Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond - 2007
It was a huge surprise to find out that the original line up of Dinosaur, famous for their pure hatred of each other, were going to reform, then it was even more of a surprise that they would come out with a pure power pop record that was actually brilliant! If most of J Mascis’ songs were a bit samey, then it was Lou Barlow’s two compositions that saved the record from growing stale.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omC6LS-F-Tk
46 The Young Knives - Voices of Animals and Men - 2006
Representing the League of Gentlemen side of Britain, The Young Knives always reminded me of the meat section of super markets. I can’t explain this and even if I could it wouldn’t make much sense anyway. They were an fantastic band though, and wrote some of the greatest anthems of the decade. This album, produced by Gang of Four’s Andy Gill, was sharp and sounded like a band who were already masters of their craft.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5RhNbCMvYw
45 The Longcut - A Call And Response - 2006
A miniature post-rock album with an emphasis on dance-ability. The Longcut, I’m sure, would have been huge if they a) were American, and b) were trying to rip off some older genre. I figured through their lack of attention from the public they got disillusioned and broke up but the press tells me otherwise. Apparently they have a new album due in the first half of next year. Check the two videos, you may find that they were ahead of their time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDxTM7CtZ1c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84sZiG52uMs&NR=1
44 Gruff Rhys - Yr Atal Genhedlaeth - 2005
A personal favourite due mainly the fun me and my friends had through assuming Gruff Rhys was some hilariously crazy obscure Welsh guy and not the singer of Supper Furry Animals who also happens to be a crazy Welsh guy anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56PZnOMBhYg
43 Radiohead - In Rainbows - 2007
Blah blah blah online download choose your price blah blah blah. Not everyone forgot that this was the most consistent Radiohead record ever made did they? The sound of a band fully escaping the clutches of critic’s hype.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5rxMQvSXUA
42 Neil Young - Living With War - 2006
For the first time in about 15 years, Mr. Young realised he makes the best records when he keeps things simple. So for Living With War, he wrote basic folk songs with very simple lyrics and chords, then cranked them with the band that accompanied him on the 1989 noise fest Eldorado. All songs were protests against the Bush Administration and while some of it might seem they’re slightly of it‘s time, the strength of the music holds it all together. He later toured the record with CSN&Y, resulting in the excellent fan vs. artist film Déjà Vu.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf5nVk5MU70
41 Fucked Up - Hidden World - 2006
Fucked Up spent the first half of the decade playing the greatest hardcore punk rock we‘d seen in years, with some hints at the experimentalism they wished to explore. On Hidden World, Fucked Up’s true purpose of fucking up conventions came clear, by extending the length of punk songs they hinted at ways future punk bands will be able to evolve instead of just playing music Minor Threat perfected 30 years previously. The long punk song thing became the albums weakness though, as it was all a bit too much of the same and not enough variety. The long song thing was perfected on 2007’s Year of the Pig single.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBI-PkUIp3A
40 Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno - Starless and Bible Black Sabbath - 2006
A tribute to King Crimson and Black Sabbath, with an album cover and intro in debt to the latter. This was the defining album of the Acid Mothers collective, out of about a million other albums, simply down to the fact it has the best riff(s) the band ever wrote, as well as a particularly inspired freak out from collective leader Kawabata Makoto.
39 Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You - 2001
It must have been a huge surprise for all fans of Unwound, surely one of the most consistent but criminally underrated noisey groups of the 90s, that their first album of the 00s would be an ambient, restrained shoegaze album. That’s not to say the album wasn’t a great one, just incredibly difficult for new and old listeners. Perhaps the band were expecting too much from their fans though, as Unwound broke up after touring to promote it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXr1fAFmODM
38 Blood Red Shoes - Box of Secrets - 2008
Like an alternative universe version of the Ting Ting’s. Blood Red Shoes really came out of nowhere and while their album fell short of what it could have been for whatever reason, their ability to write a song as good as “You Bring Me Down” made me forgive them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jma0Rjdcmgc
37 Miss Violetta Beauregard - ODI PROFANUM VULGUS ET ARCEO - 2006
A crazy Italian woman who is living life to the fullest by the looks of it. She creates music that would make 99% of people go “uurgh that’s just noise made from five minutes on pro-tools, ANYONE can do that” and of course, that’s the best thing about it. It’s slightly less disturbing than her first record, “Evidentemente non abito a San Francisco” and all the better for it, it’s a lot more fun to listen to and even fun to sing a long to at times (or perhaps not).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbu1Sfa1g6w
36 The Flaming Lips - Embryonic - 2009
A noisy, free jazzy, Krautrock album with repeated musical themes and songs about egos and humanities primitivism. For the last twenty years, at the end of each decade, more or less, the Lips release an album that ,maps out their territory for the next ten years. If this is a hint at what we’re to expect, bring ear plugs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmjJQojMTTs
35 LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver - 2007
Beginning with James Murphy creating the most perfect dance music on the Bowieish “Get Innocuous!” , LCD Soundsystem’s second album, a much leaner machine than the sprawling first, later heads into intensely personal territory with “Someone Great” and “All My Friends”, but always keeps focused on the music being tuneful and danceable. The title track is an anthem for all middle aged hipsters, that should help them realise that trying to act young and cool isn’t really a great thing for anybody.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL79-7oo9Xc
34 Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain - 2005
One of the greatest examples of horrible noise ever made. That’s all, really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hcw1C1AzQI
33 Future of the Left - Travel With Myself and Other - 2009
After the disappointing debut “Curses”, Falco and co were set out to prove they still had everything that made mclusky so great, and prove they did. From hilariously bizarre lyrics (“This one time, I was running through the fields / When I came across a dead guy with a letter in his hand / So I scanned it / And though the grammar was okay / There was such a lack of purpose / That it was difficult to care.”) to downright bad ass guitar riffs (see: every song on the album), this album had everything we wanted from these guys. I patiently await a follow up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCvCBkx50mI
32 Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Angles - 2008
A product of know-it-all, egotistical internet junk culture, I’d hate Scroobius Pip if he wasn’t so good at what he does. Through twelve Bizarro World rap songs influenced by The Streets, he and beat maker Dan Le Sac simply tell us their opinion on just about everything they feel like. It got 0.2 on Pitchfork, I can’t sum it up better than that fact.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4467CI4y0M
31 Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll - 2004
One man’s fantasy of what American life was like circa 1986 via a Scarface or Vice City-esque backdrop without all the seedy darkness. Essentially creating all 80s nostalgia for the rest of the decade and surely providing a feel good soundtrack to countless British TV shows
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoaTea06mG4
30 Gorillaz - Demon Days - 2005
Invading the pop charts with a manufactured pop band that felt less fake than everything else in the top 40. Genius, I suppose.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OATeJdRraBY
29 Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago - 2008
Post-break up existential angst written and recorded with an acoustic guitar in a cold cabin in the middle of a forest. Seemed really just what the doctor ordered when it came out, now, slightly less so. Most of the songs are still achingly beautiful though, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it again during my next depression.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jxP7dQYBb8
28 Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers - 2009
The ghost (probably) of Richie Edwards resurrected to provide an energy into the Manics not seen since he disappeared. Intelligent, full throttle power-pop. Possibly James Dean Bradfield’s most consistent music writing to date.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5jcqIMuIc4
27 The Beta Band - Heroes To Zeroes - 2004
There is no better example of an album title summing up a bands mood anywhere else in this list. The Beta Band had gone from promising to no hopes in the space of a few years, perhaps they were too good for everyone else, perhaps no one really liked a band with a sense of humour anymore, perhaps they were cursed (more on that later). Well whatever it was, it didn’t stop the band from giving it one last shot. Heroes to Zeroes sees the band tighten up and right the perfect pop they’d always hinted at, but I guess that wasn’t enough for the masses. Exhausted and confused, the band broke up soon after.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-phgYN3GSC4
26 Boris - Pink - 2005
Always prone to surprising their audience with their journey through the many dimensions of noise rock, no one would have predicted that Boris would release the greatest riff rock album from the 70s never released, but they did, and it kicks like nothing else released all decade. It’s loud as hell too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WkaeBZ1kGU
25 Be Your Own Pet - Be Your Own Pet - 2006
BYOP were a hellish mix of a teenage Yeah Yeah Yeahs and At the Drive-In who have just discovered beer with lyrics written without much seriousness in mind. It sounds like the craziest party of all time, and isn’t that all we could have asked for from these guys? “Fuuuuuun” indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUf5Me1sjZA
24 Fugazi - The Argument - 2001
If this is the last we’ll hear of perhaps the most consistent band of all time, then at least we’ll know they left on (another) high note. Probably the most sombre Fugazi album since Steady Diet of Nothing, in terms of its sound rather than it playing, The Argument was an album that hinted at even further ways Fugazi could have expanded themselves, from the harmonies of “Full Disclosure“ to, the pop ending of “Epic Problem” to the dual drumming of “Ex-Spectator” that surely gave the Melvins an idea or two (heh heh).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7PlrBACrQI
23 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell - 2003
By toning down their noise and fucking obsessions (“Art Star” and “Bang“), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were ready to unleash themselves to the world, proving to be the best (in terms of longevity) out of all the New York bands from the start of the decade.
Oh and “Maps” essentially killed their career, but that’s a theory for another day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOL-lzVT5Jc
22 Julian Cope - Black Sheep - 2008
The return of Julian Cope into my life, hadn’t seen the guy since Interpreter. Black Sheet is a masterpiece, quite frankly, and it’s equally scary (don’t pretend the Shipwreck of St. Paul doesn’t scare the crap out of you, oh and I wouldn’t fuck with the crew Cope seems to have with him on the inside cover either ) as well as being incredibly political. To cover every aspect of this album requires an essay, an essay I will one day write. Even if you haven’t heard much or anything by the arch-drude before, give this a listen, you never know, you might even enjoy it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ju8Wq12ypg
21 Lightning Bolt - Earthly Delights - 2009
Now most people would have rated Wonderful Rainbow highest, or perhaps Hypermagic Mountain, but, in my opinion Lightning Bolt have simply improved with each release. I know that it’s early to tell whether the songs will stand the test of time, but for now it’s brilliant. Shorter than Hypermagic and arguably more melodic in places (you can sing along to “Colossus” can‘t you?) and featuring, for me, the definitive Lightning Bolt track - “Transmissionary”, for some this twelve minute finale will be pure bliss, for others it will be a Guantanamo Bay style endurance test.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okoc913fxx8
20 The Horrors - Primary Colours - 2009
No one could have predicted the follow up to Strange House would have contained songs like “Sea Within a Sea”, but somehow the Horrors did it, becoming one of the few new bands this decade to have actually improved with age (I’m looking your way, Arctic Monkeys). Primary Colours has been annoyingly seen by many as using bits and pieces of other peoples ideas and sticking them together to write songs, this is not true. Yes, the guitar on “Mirror’s Image” sounds a bit like “To Here Knows When”, the sequencer of “Sea Within A Sea” sounds a bit like Portishead’s “The Rip” (Geoff Barrowproduced some of the album anyway, so what’s the problem) and the bassline of “Scarlet Fields” does not sound like “Love Will Tear Us Apart” at all, the important thing is that they take these sounds and make some of their own with them, which they do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLPVBH2D0n8
19 Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound - 2007
Yeah, the seven year wait was a hell of a long time, but it was worth it. Excellent… was consisted of Shellac’s most experimental song writing to date (including 1998’s Terraform’s opening twelve minute, two note track) with songs like “Elephant” deciding to have almost one minute of one drum in the middle, “Be Prepared” beginning with numerous fake false stops and “Genuine Lulabelle” featuring bizarre cameos from the likes of voice-over kings Ken Nordine and Hal Douglas. In contradiction to this, the songs themselves were Shellac’s most melodic and best yet. Making Shellac’s fourth album a difficult but ultimately listenable record.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrOsqIKwdtE
18 Sleater-Kinney - The Woods - 2005
Another great band’s last album before going on indefinite hiatus (see 24), Sleater-Kinney decided to go out with one helluva bang that was louder, more distorted and groovier than anything they’d done before, just as most “indie” music was deciding to play it quieter and safer (which climaxed with Vampre fuckin’ Weekend). I really Sleater-Kinney come back, because they belonged to a community that is in server need of a distorted wake up call, all the better if the tight jean wearing men with their guitars up at their chests get slapped around by three women.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gkiYkqGU6Y
17 The Black Angels - Directions To See A Ghost - 2008
The main problem with the Black Angels 2005 debut, Passover, was that due to all the songs being the same tempo, it was a struggle to get through. How did they overcome this problem with the next album? I would have assumed before hearing that they would add more variety, but they had bigger tricks up their sleeves. Yes, the tempo mostly remained the same, but this time the songs contained something that was quite a surprise- huge soaring melodic guitars! The album also hinted at further ways the band could expand, particularly in the noise epic “Never/Ever” and the 16 minute closer “Snake in the Grass”. If anyone wants some modern music that is genuinely psychedelic, this is what you’re looking for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I24lK2owxo
16 Grinderman - Grinderman - 2007
Was it a bitter reaction to the garage rock revival or just an excuse to write songs like “No Pussy Blues?” I don’t know, perhaps Mr. Cave doesn’t know either. It’s the best thing he’s ever put his name to though, I definitely know that. Take it with coffee and you’ll call it an underrated masterpiece, replace the coffee with Tequila and you’ll have a night that ranks with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with or without a suitcase of drugs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuDP7c3Zd8I
15 The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - 2002
Remember when everyone loved this album? Well nothing should have changed. Yoshimi.. might not have the huge, raw existential emotion that the Soft Bulletin had, but it was almost as good. A product of the 00s by design (note the pitch bending synth and modern drum machines) but with songs that ought to last forever. I don’t write cheesy sentences like that for just any old album.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9saeLg_GQg
14 Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life - 2008
By slowing down the tempos and adding countless guitar overdubs, Fucked Up’s second album sounded huge and at times almost pretty. It led some punks to ask “where’s the hardcore?” seemingly aware that the song writing was as vicious as ever. The lyrics and it’s topics can be summed up with the album title, literally analysing the chemistry of common life, specifically the old punk favourite - religion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAwSnxIXank
13 Eels - Daisies of the Galaxy - 2000
From the darkness of 1998’s masterpiece Electro-Shock Blues, there was only one thing E could do, and that was to get happy, but not too happy. Daisies of the Galaxy is the forgotten gem of the Eels catalogue, perhaps due to overshadowing from Electro-Shock.. or perhaps because most fits into a samey sort of happy, sunny day singer/songwriter vibe. Either way it deserves more recognition, because it is equally as good as Electro-Shock… and much more fun and easier to listen to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Umu-7SAVTg
12 Queens of the Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf - 2003
You won’t find many metal records on this list, that’s because they’ve all been overshadowed by this. Essentially destroying any faith in anything Josh Homme and his crew would create due to it’s sheer perfection. This was the moment Queens’ mix of heavy repetitive “robot rock” and they’re love for a good melody game together in one bad ass fashion. You haven’t lived until you’ve taken a trip somewhere in the car with this album blasting, put it on the things to do before you die.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUaD4K00rDY
11 Late of the Pier - Fantasy Black Channel - 2008
The defining music of the copy and paste generation. An album made for GCSE and A-Level students with a short attention span who are scraping through their studies. LotP write music like people write Wikipedia articles, it’s all obscure reference points, general knowledge and different styles. If that makes no sense then that’s okay, ‘cause neither does the album. All I know is that there’s about a million different left turns and genre changes throughout that makes it all seem like one helluva rollercoaster ride, and, even better, once you do get used to it all, it becomes a sing-along pop classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz5Dei5O3xY
10 Foals - Antidotes - 2008
A new language for guitar invented right here? Possibly, but judging from the albums success, it was probably stolen. All the same, Antidotes is probably the defining guitar album of the decade. Here were a band who sensed that we were all getting sick of post-Strokes roughness and generic metal drop d riffs and headed to a different planet. It paid off though, “Cassius” was a huge hit, and rightfully so. In fact all the songs could have been hits, that is how consistent this album is. I’d like to think this album will have the same effect on the next generation of guitar bands in a similar way that Entertainment! did way back in 1979.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ3oIGHMYP8
09 Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights - 2001
The very best of the decades early New York hype. Interpol had what a lot of those bands (and lots of bands these days anyway) lacked - atmosphere. This was mood music that was perhaps too easy to compare to Joy Division, but that was always going to be a notably unfair comparison for anyone who was paying attention. There was no way Joy Division would have wrote songs like Obstacle 1 and there’s no way Interpol would write Love Will Tear Us Apart. Both bands had similar visions, but their attacks were quite different. I don’t mean to bring up the old Joy Division comparison but I figure it’s important. Besides, if you haven’t heard this album yet, where have you been?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3z4mNDQj9E
08 mclusky - mclusky Do Dallas - 2002
They sounded like the bastard child of the Jesus Lizard and the Pixies but with a singer and guitarist you’d avoid eye contact with if you saw him outside Spar. It was a Welsh thing, I suppose - that whole fucked off about being the least noticeable part of Britain and being a joke, the original reaction was to be constantly uptight, but mclusky added a new swing to things, yeah they were pissed off, but they realised it was all something you could laugh at. Oh and laugh they did, but they were no comedy act, and that’s the key. mclusky Do Dallas is a thorough analysis of life, and how it’s all a bit shit. One of the greatest Welsh bands of all time, and by people you can be proud of.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCrv3ofNL8U
07 The Streets - Original Pirate Material - 2002
Sharp Darts Spitting Masters , Spitting darts faster / Shut up I'm the driver, you're the passenger / I'll reign superior / The pressure blows the dial on your barometer / Do you understand or do you need an interpreter? /Now my style is distinguished / All fires are extinguished. / Ask yer girl to sing and she'll sing this / I'm a scientist / Have no prejudice, that's my hypothesis / Make your analysis, ever heard a beat like this? /I walk the beat like a policemen / No karma pedestrian / In 500 years they'll play this song in museums.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UGtlUMMkOU
06 Death From Above 1979 - You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine - 2004
The bass and drum combo was popular in the noughties, and I don’t just mean the drum and bass genre. Lightning Bolt may have been the ones were invented the manic drumming with heavy bassline thing, but until they released Hypermagic Mountain, It was DFA 1979 that most of us were tuning into. Starting off their career as standard hardcore retooled for two instrument, by the time of their first album they had mutated into an heavy disco hybrid. It was fucking awesome. Then they broke up, but hey, at least we got this out of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taXOmF7FbEE
05 Portishead - Third - 2008
Eight years of suffering through a lot of mediocre, middle of the road albums made us forget the difference between bad music and risk-taking music. Some bands, most found on this list, were attempting to push things into the unknown, but most were happy with the familiar. Third has hopefully changed all that. After being on hiatus for the best part of ten years, Portishead returned with an album not in the vein of trip hop, but in the vein of horrible atonal noise. Suddenly the hipster indie crowd were reminded that not all music has to be a repeat of something that came before. If we keep this in mind, the next ten years could be promising.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhLMz2vUldo
04 The Beta Band - Hot Shots II - 2001
Perhaps the “should have been huge” story of the decade. Cursed by bad luck and (possibly) bad management, the Beta Band never really stood a chance. I know nothing of their management, that was just an assumption but I am absolutely correct about that bad luck thing. Opening song “Squares”, as glorious and as a perfect pop as anyone had ever written was all set for release, ready to be a smash hit quite frankly, and what happened? Oh just a single released by an electronic act called I Monster used the exact same prominent sample for his song released just before. Cursed? Maybe. Maybe if this didn’t happen, the Beta Band would be filling stadiums with songs like “Al Sharp” and “Quiet”, songs with soaring choruses and intelligence, but what did we get instead? Fucking Coldplay. Fuck you world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz4WwYrGPSw
03 At the Drive-In - Relationship Of Command - 2000
Like most good bands, At the Drive-In picked a good time to call it quits, leaving a document of ridiculous power. They had been building up to this point for quite a few years, with albums that didn’t replicate the energy they possessed on stage, but with Relationship of Command, they did it. An emotionally and physically draining masterpiece.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08qk_pMJFak
02 The Knife - Silent Shout - 2006
Electronics generating emotions. Blood cracking through the unseen holes of modern architecture. A computer getting it’s wiring mistaken for human nerves. A machine screams but hasn’t got the capability to generate sound. Neon lights invade a pitch black night. The music sounds just like this, really, it’s essentially the soundtrack to world like we see in Kyle Reese’s nightmares in the Terminator. With nightclubs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxqeRMoYA5g
01 Primal Scream - Xtrmntr - 2000
A record that reminds you perfect doesn’t necessarily mean polished. A record that reminds you that a punk rock “fuck you” attitude doesn’t have to leave with age. A record that predicted the terror of the next ten years for anyone who was paying attention - war, blind patriotism, CCTV, ASBOs, the overload of consumerism creating hundreds of jobless, the BNP coming into sharp focus, it’s all here, and it's all sung through 11 distorted noise-dance-rock distopian masterpieces. Album of the decade, yo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3g8WLjkVXk
50 Sleater-Kinney - One Beat - 2002
While most waited until it was a commercially acceptable and cool move to criticise the Bush Administration, Sleater-Kinney went right to it, less than a year after 9/11. Coming up with songs that included lyrics like “where is the questioning? / where is the protest song? / since when is scepticism un-American?”, “let’s break out our old machines now / sure is good to see them run again / oh gentlemen start your engines / and we know where we get the oil from” and “show you love your country go out and spend some cash” (all from one song - Combat Rock, by the way), Sleater-Kinney became the only noteworthy protest group talking about America, and hell, since we got on so well in those days, Britain too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GwaGaXdlA8
49 These New Puritans - Beat Pyramid - 2008
As mentioned in Elvis, “I can’t find the words.” Really, this album speaks for itself, I could tell you that it contains Garage influenced music, lyrics that were seemingly made with a lot of thought that contain a heavy use of repetition and a singer that might remind you of Mark E. Smith, but that description doesn’t sound like the record at all. Hmm. I hope I think of better things to say for the next 48 albums.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzHwRcOsDNw
48 Karate - Pockets - 2004
I know next to nothing about this band. I found the song “Tow Truck” on a compilation around the time of it’s release, and decided to check out the album. Apparently the band used to be a lot heavier and then turned into a weird jazz band with this album? I don’t know, nor do I care, because I like the mystery. It’s a beautiful record, and “Tow Truck” is one of the greatest songs of all time. Shame I can’t find a Youtube video of it… the kids all use Spotify right? You know what to do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOMdo5DgZfE
47 Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond - 2007
It was a huge surprise to find out that the original line up of Dinosaur, famous for their pure hatred of each other, were going to reform, then it was even more of a surprise that they would come out with a pure power pop record that was actually brilliant! If most of J Mascis’ songs were a bit samey, then it was Lou Barlow’s two compositions that saved the record from growing stale.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omC6LS-F-Tk
46 The Young Knives - Voices of Animals and Men - 2006
Representing the League of Gentlemen side of Britain, The Young Knives always reminded me of the meat section of super markets. I can’t explain this and even if I could it wouldn’t make much sense anyway. They were an fantastic band though, and wrote some of the greatest anthems of the decade. This album, produced by Gang of Four’s Andy Gill, was sharp and sounded like a band who were already masters of their craft.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5RhNbCMvYw
45 The Longcut - A Call And Response - 2006
A miniature post-rock album with an emphasis on dance-ability. The Longcut, I’m sure, would have been huge if they a) were American, and b) were trying to rip off some older genre. I figured through their lack of attention from the public they got disillusioned and broke up but the press tells me otherwise. Apparently they have a new album due in the first half of next year. Check the two videos, you may find that they were ahead of their time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDxTM7CtZ1c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84sZiG52uMs&NR=1
44 Gruff Rhys - Yr Atal Genhedlaeth - 2005
A personal favourite due mainly the fun me and my friends had through assuming Gruff Rhys was some hilariously crazy obscure Welsh guy and not the singer of Supper Furry Animals who also happens to be a crazy Welsh guy anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56PZnOMBhYg
43 Radiohead - In Rainbows - 2007
Blah blah blah online download choose your price blah blah blah. Not everyone forgot that this was the most consistent Radiohead record ever made did they? The sound of a band fully escaping the clutches of critic’s hype.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5rxMQvSXUA
42 Neil Young - Living With War - 2006
For the first time in about 15 years, Mr. Young realised he makes the best records when he keeps things simple. So for Living With War, he wrote basic folk songs with very simple lyrics and chords, then cranked them with the band that accompanied him on the 1989 noise fest Eldorado. All songs were protests against the Bush Administration and while some of it might seem they’re slightly of it‘s time, the strength of the music holds it all together. He later toured the record with CSN&Y, resulting in the excellent fan vs. artist film Déjà Vu.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf5nVk5MU70
41 Fucked Up - Hidden World - 2006
Fucked Up spent the first half of the decade playing the greatest hardcore punk rock we‘d seen in years, with some hints at the experimentalism they wished to explore. On Hidden World, Fucked Up’s true purpose of fucking up conventions came clear, by extending the length of punk songs they hinted at ways future punk bands will be able to evolve instead of just playing music Minor Threat perfected 30 years previously. The long punk song thing became the albums weakness though, as it was all a bit too much of the same and not enough variety. The long song thing was perfected on 2007’s Year of the Pig single.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBI-PkUIp3A
40 Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno - Starless and Bible Black Sabbath - 2006
A tribute to King Crimson and Black Sabbath, with an album cover and intro in debt to the latter. This was the defining album of the Acid Mothers collective, out of about a million other albums, simply down to the fact it has the best riff(s) the band ever wrote, as well as a particularly inspired freak out from collective leader Kawabata Makoto.
39 Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You - 2001
It must have been a huge surprise for all fans of Unwound, surely one of the most consistent but criminally underrated noisey groups of the 90s, that their first album of the 00s would be an ambient, restrained shoegaze album. That’s not to say the album wasn’t a great one, just incredibly difficult for new and old listeners. Perhaps the band were expecting too much from their fans though, as Unwound broke up after touring to promote it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXr1fAFmODM
38 Blood Red Shoes - Box of Secrets - 2008
Like an alternative universe version of the Ting Ting’s. Blood Red Shoes really came out of nowhere and while their album fell short of what it could have been for whatever reason, their ability to write a song as good as “You Bring Me Down” made me forgive them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jma0Rjdcmgc
37 Miss Violetta Beauregard - ODI PROFANUM VULGUS ET ARCEO - 2006
A crazy Italian woman who is living life to the fullest by the looks of it. She creates music that would make 99% of people go “uurgh that’s just noise made from five minutes on pro-tools, ANYONE can do that” and of course, that’s the best thing about it. It’s slightly less disturbing than her first record, “Evidentemente non abito a San Francisco” and all the better for it, it’s a lot more fun to listen to and even fun to sing a long to at times (or perhaps not).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbu1Sfa1g6w
36 The Flaming Lips - Embryonic - 2009
A noisy, free jazzy, Krautrock album with repeated musical themes and songs about egos and humanities primitivism. For the last twenty years, at the end of each decade, more or less, the Lips release an album that ,maps out their territory for the next ten years. If this is a hint at what we’re to expect, bring ear plugs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmjJQojMTTs
35 LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver - 2007
Beginning with James Murphy creating the most perfect dance music on the Bowieish “Get Innocuous!” , LCD Soundsystem’s second album, a much leaner machine than the sprawling first, later heads into intensely personal territory with “Someone Great” and “All My Friends”, but always keeps focused on the music being tuneful and danceable. The title track is an anthem for all middle aged hipsters, that should help them realise that trying to act young and cool isn’t really a great thing for anybody.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL79-7oo9Xc
34 Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain - 2005
One of the greatest examples of horrible noise ever made. That’s all, really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hcw1C1AzQI
33 Future of the Left - Travel With Myself and Other - 2009
After the disappointing debut “Curses”, Falco and co were set out to prove they still had everything that made mclusky so great, and prove they did. From hilariously bizarre lyrics (“This one time, I was running through the fields / When I came across a dead guy with a letter in his hand / So I scanned it / And though the grammar was okay / There was such a lack of purpose / That it was difficult to care.”) to downright bad ass guitar riffs (see: every song on the album), this album had everything we wanted from these guys. I patiently await a follow up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCvCBkx50mI
32 Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Angles - 2008
A product of know-it-all, egotistical internet junk culture, I’d hate Scroobius Pip if he wasn’t so good at what he does. Through twelve Bizarro World rap songs influenced by The Streets, he and beat maker Dan Le Sac simply tell us their opinion on just about everything they feel like. It got 0.2 on Pitchfork, I can’t sum it up better than that fact.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4467CI4y0M
31 Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll - 2004
One man’s fantasy of what American life was like circa 1986 via a Scarface or Vice City-esque backdrop without all the seedy darkness. Essentially creating all 80s nostalgia for the rest of the decade and surely providing a feel good soundtrack to countless British TV shows
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoaTea06mG4
30 Gorillaz - Demon Days - 2005
Invading the pop charts with a manufactured pop band that felt less fake than everything else in the top 40. Genius, I suppose.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OATeJdRraBY
29 Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago - 2008
Post-break up existential angst written and recorded with an acoustic guitar in a cold cabin in the middle of a forest. Seemed really just what the doctor ordered when it came out, now, slightly less so. Most of the songs are still achingly beautiful though, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it again during my next depression.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jxP7dQYBb8
28 Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers - 2009
The ghost (probably) of Richie Edwards resurrected to provide an energy into the Manics not seen since he disappeared. Intelligent, full throttle power-pop. Possibly James Dean Bradfield’s most consistent music writing to date.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5jcqIMuIc4
27 The Beta Band - Heroes To Zeroes - 2004
There is no better example of an album title summing up a bands mood anywhere else in this list. The Beta Band had gone from promising to no hopes in the space of a few years, perhaps they were too good for everyone else, perhaps no one really liked a band with a sense of humour anymore, perhaps they were cursed (more on that later). Well whatever it was, it didn’t stop the band from giving it one last shot. Heroes to Zeroes sees the band tighten up and right the perfect pop they’d always hinted at, but I guess that wasn’t enough for the masses. Exhausted and confused, the band broke up soon after.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-phgYN3GSC4
26 Boris - Pink - 2005
Always prone to surprising their audience with their journey through the many dimensions of noise rock, no one would have predicted that Boris would release the greatest riff rock album from the 70s never released, but they did, and it kicks like nothing else released all decade. It’s loud as hell too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WkaeBZ1kGU
25 Be Your Own Pet - Be Your Own Pet - 2006
BYOP were a hellish mix of a teenage Yeah Yeah Yeahs and At the Drive-In who have just discovered beer with lyrics written without much seriousness in mind. It sounds like the craziest party of all time, and isn’t that all we could have asked for from these guys? “Fuuuuuun” indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUf5Me1sjZA
24 Fugazi - The Argument - 2001
If this is the last we’ll hear of perhaps the most consistent band of all time, then at least we’ll know they left on (another) high note. Probably the most sombre Fugazi album since Steady Diet of Nothing, in terms of its sound rather than it playing, The Argument was an album that hinted at even further ways Fugazi could have expanded themselves, from the harmonies of “Full Disclosure“ to, the pop ending of “Epic Problem” to the dual drumming of “Ex-Spectator” that surely gave the Melvins an idea or two (heh heh).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7PlrBACrQI
23 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell - 2003
By toning down their noise and fucking obsessions (“Art Star” and “Bang“), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were ready to unleash themselves to the world, proving to be the best (in terms of longevity) out of all the New York bands from the start of the decade.
Oh and “Maps” essentially killed their career, but that’s a theory for another day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOL-lzVT5Jc
22 Julian Cope - Black Sheep - 2008
The return of Julian Cope into my life, hadn’t seen the guy since Interpreter. Black Sheet is a masterpiece, quite frankly, and it’s equally scary (don’t pretend the Shipwreck of St. Paul doesn’t scare the crap out of you, oh and I wouldn’t fuck with the crew Cope seems to have with him on the inside cover either ) as well as being incredibly political. To cover every aspect of this album requires an essay, an essay I will one day write. Even if you haven’t heard much or anything by the arch-drude before, give this a listen, you never know, you might even enjoy it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ju8Wq12ypg
21 Lightning Bolt - Earthly Delights - 2009
Now most people would have rated Wonderful Rainbow highest, or perhaps Hypermagic Mountain, but, in my opinion Lightning Bolt have simply improved with each release. I know that it’s early to tell whether the songs will stand the test of time, but for now it’s brilliant. Shorter than Hypermagic and arguably more melodic in places (you can sing along to “Colossus” can‘t you?) and featuring, for me, the definitive Lightning Bolt track - “Transmissionary”, for some this twelve minute finale will be pure bliss, for others it will be a Guantanamo Bay style endurance test.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okoc913fxx8
20 The Horrors - Primary Colours - 2009
No one could have predicted the follow up to Strange House would have contained songs like “Sea Within a Sea”, but somehow the Horrors did it, becoming one of the few new bands this decade to have actually improved with age (I’m looking your way, Arctic Monkeys). Primary Colours has been annoyingly seen by many as using bits and pieces of other peoples ideas and sticking them together to write songs, this is not true. Yes, the guitar on “Mirror’s Image” sounds a bit like “To Here Knows When”, the sequencer of “Sea Within A Sea” sounds a bit like Portishead’s “The Rip” (Geoff Barrowproduced some of the album anyway, so what’s the problem) and the bassline of “Scarlet Fields” does not sound like “Love Will Tear Us Apart” at all, the important thing is that they take these sounds and make some of their own with them, which they do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLPVBH2D0n8
19 Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound - 2007
Yeah, the seven year wait was a hell of a long time, but it was worth it. Excellent… was consisted of Shellac’s most experimental song writing to date (including 1998’s Terraform’s opening twelve minute, two note track) with songs like “Elephant” deciding to have almost one minute of one drum in the middle, “Be Prepared” beginning with numerous fake false stops and “Genuine Lulabelle” featuring bizarre cameos from the likes of voice-over kings Ken Nordine and Hal Douglas. In contradiction to this, the songs themselves were Shellac’s most melodic and best yet. Making Shellac’s fourth album a difficult but ultimately listenable record.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrOsqIKwdtE
18 Sleater-Kinney - The Woods - 2005
Another great band’s last album before going on indefinite hiatus (see 24), Sleater-Kinney decided to go out with one helluva bang that was louder, more distorted and groovier than anything they’d done before, just as most “indie” music was deciding to play it quieter and safer (which climaxed with Vampre fuckin’ Weekend). I really Sleater-Kinney come back, because they belonged to a community that is in server need of a distorted wake up call, all the better if the tight jean wearing men with their guitars up at their chests get slapped around by three women.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gkiYkqGU6Y
17 The Black Angels - Directions To See A Ghost - 2008
The main problem with the Black Angels 2005 debut, Passover, was that due to all the songs being the same tempo, it was a struggle to get through. How did they overcome this problem with the next album? I would have assumed before hearing that they would add more variety, but they had bigger tricks up their sleeves. Yes, the tempo mostly remained the same, but this time the songs contained something that was quite a surprise- huge soaring melodic guitars! The album also hinted at further ways the band could expand, particularly in the noise epic “Never/Ever” and the 16 minute closer “Snake in the Grass”. If anyone wants some modern music that is genuinely psychedelic, this is what you’re looking for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I24lK2owxo
16 Grinderman - Grinderman - 2007
Was it a bitter reaction to the garage rock revival or just an excuse to write songs like “No Pussy Blues?” I don’t know, perhaps Mr. Cave doesn’t know either. It’s the best thing he’s ever put his name to though, I definitely know that. Take it with coffee and you’ll call it an underrated masterpiece, replace the coffee with Tequila and you’ll have a night that ranks with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with or without a suitcase of drugs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuDP7c3Zd8I
15 The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - 2002
Remember when everyone loved this album? Well nothing should have changed. Yoshimi.. might not have the huge, raw existential emotion that the Soft Bulletin had, but it was almost as good. A product of the 00s by design (note the pitch bending synth and modern drum machines) but with songs that ought to last forever. I don’t write cheesy sentences like that for just any old album.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9saeLg_GQg
14 Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life - 2008
By slowing down the tempos and adding countless guitar overdubs, Fucked Up’s second album sounded huge and at times almost pretty. It led some punks to ask “where’s the hardcore?” seemingly aware that the song writing was as vicious as ever. The lyrics and it’s topics can be summed up with the album title, literally analysing the chemistry of common life, specifically the old punk favourite - religion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAwSnxIXank
13 Eels - Daisies of the Galaxy - 2000
From the darkness of 1998’s masterpiece Electro-Shock Blues, there was only one thing E could do, and that was to get happy, but not too happy. Daisies of the Galaxy is the forgotten gem of the Eels catalogue, perhaps due to overshadowing from Electro-Shock.. or perhaps because most fits into a samey sort of happy, sunny day singer/songwriter vibe. Either way it deserves more recognition, because it is equally as good as Electro-Shock… and much more fun and easier to listen to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Umu-7SAVTg
12 Queens of the Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf - 2003
You won’t find many metal records on this list, that’s because they’ve all been overshadowed by this. Essentially destroying any faith in anything Josh Homme and his crew would create due to it’s sheer perfection. This was the moment Queens’ mix of heavy repetitive “robot rock” and they’re love for a good melody game together in one bad ass fashion. You haven’t lived until you’ve taken a trip somewhere in the car with this album blasting, put it on the things to do before you die.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUaD4K00rDY
11 Late of the Pier - Fantasy Black Channel - 2008
The defining music of the copy and paste generation. An album made for GCSE and A-Level students with a short attention span who are scraping through their studies. LotP write music like people write Wikipedia articles, it’s all obscure reference points, general knowledge and different styles. If that makes no sense then that’s okay, ‘cause neither does the album. All I know is that there’s about a million different left turns and genre changes throughout that makes it all seem like one helluva rollercoaster ride, and, even better, once you do get used to it all, it becomes a sing-along pop classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz5Dei5O3xY
10 Foals - Antidotes - 2008
A new language for guitar invented right here? Possibly, but judging from the albums success, it was probably stolen. All the same, Antidotes is probably the defining guitar album of the decade. Here were a band who sensed that we were all getting sick of post-Strokes roughness and generic metal drop d riffs and headed to a different planet. It paid off though, “Cassius” was a huge hit, and rightfully so. In fact all the songs could have been hits, that is how consistent this album is. I’d like to think this album will have the same effect on the next generation of guitar bands in a similar way that Entertainment! did way back in 1979.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ3oIGHMYP8
09 Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights - 2001
The very best of the decades early New York hype. Interpol had what a lot of those bands (and lots of bands these days anyway) lacked - atmosphere. This was mood music that was perhaps too easy to compare to Joy Division, but that was always going to be a notably unfair comparison for anyone who was paying attention. There was no way Joy Division would have wrote songs like Obstacle 1 and there’s no way Interpol would write Love Will Tear Us Apart. Both bands had similar visions, but their attacks were quite different. I don’t mean to bring up the old Joy Division comparison but I figure it’s important. Besides, if you haven’t heard this album yet, where have you been?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3z4mNDQj9E
08 mclusky - mclusky Do Dallas - 2002
They sounded like the bastard child of the Jesus Lizard and the Pixies but with a singer and guitarist you’d avoid eye contact with if you saw him outside Spar. It was a Welsh thing, I suppose - that whole fucked off about being the least noticeable part of Britain and being a joke, the original reaction was to be constantly uptight, but mclusky added a new swing to things, yeah they were pissed off, but they realised it was all something you could laugh at. Oh and laugh they did, but they were no comedy act, and that’s the key. mclusky Do Dallas is a thorough analysis of life, and how it’s all a bit shit. One of the greatest Welsh bands of all time, and by people you can be proud of.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCrv3ofNL8U
07 The Streets - Original Pirate Material - 2002
Sharp Darts Spitting Masters , Spitting darts faster / Shut up I'm the driver, you're the passenger / I'll reign superior / The pressure blows the dial on your barometer / Do you understand or do you need an interpreter? /Now my style is distinguished / All fires are extinguished. / Ask yer girl to sing and she'll sing this / I'm a scientist / Have no prejudice, that's my hypothesis / Make your analysis, ever heard a beat like this? /I walk the beat like a policemen / No karma pedestrian / In 500 years they'll play this song in museums.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UGtlUMMkOU
06 Death From Above 1979 - You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine - 2004
The bass and drum combo was popular in the noughties, and I don’t just mean the drum and bass genre. Lightning Bolt may have been the ones were invented the manic drumming with heavy bassline thing, but until they released Hypermagic Mountain, It was DFA 1979 that most of us were tuning into. Starting off their career as standard hardcore retooled for two instrument, by the time of their first album they had mutated into an heavy disco hybrid. It was fucking awesome. Then they broke up, but hey, at least we got this out of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taXOmF7FbEE
05 Portishead - Third - 2008
Eight years of suffering through a lot of mediocre, middle of the road albums made us forget the difference between bad music and risk-taking music. Some bands, most found on this list, were attempting to push things into the unknown, but most were happy with the familiar. Third has hopefully changed all that. After being on hiatus for the best part of ten years, Portishead returned with an album not in the vein of trip hop, but in the vein of horrible atonal noise. Suddenly the hipster indie crowd were reminded that not all music has to be a repeat of something that came before. If we keep this in mind, the next ten years could be promising.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhLMz2vUldo
04 The Beta Band - Hot Shots II - 2001
Perhaps the “should have been huge” story of the decade. Cursed by bad luck and (possibly) bad management, the Beta Band never really stood a chance. I know nothing of their management, that was just an assumption but I am absolutely correct about that bad luck thing. Opening song “Squares”, as glorious and as a perfect pop as anyone had ever written was all set for release, ready to be a smash hit quite frankly, and what happened? Oh just a single released by an electronic act called I Monster used the exact same prominent sample for his song released just before. Cursed? Maybe. Maybe if this didn’t happen, the Beta Band would be filling stadiums with songs like “Al Sharp” and “Quiet”, songs with soaring choruses and intelligence, but what did we get instead? Fucking Coldplay. Fuck you world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz4WwYrGPSw
03 At the Drive-In - Relationship Of Command - 2000
Like most good bands, At the Drive-In picked a good time to call it quits, leaving a document of ridiculous power. They had been building up to this point for quite a few years, with albums that didn’t replicate the energy they possessed on stage, but with Relationship of Command, they did it. An emotionally and physically draining masterpiece.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08qk_pMJFak
02 The Knife - Silent Shout - 2006
Electronics generating emotions. Blood cracking through the unseen holes of modern architecture. A computer getting it’s wiring mistaken for human nerves. A machine screams but hasn’t got the capability to generate sound. Neon lights invade a pitch black night. The music sounds just like this, really, it’s essentially the soundtrack to world like we see in Kyle Reese’s nightmares in the Terminator. With nightclubs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxqeRMoYA5g
01 Primal Scream - Xtrmntr - 2000
A record that reminds you perfect doesn’t necessarily mean polished. A record that reminds you that a punk rock “fuck you” attitude doesn’t have to leave with age. A record that predicted the terror of the next ten years for anyone who was paying attention - war, blind patriotism, CCTV, ASBOs, the overload of consumerism creating hundreds of jobless, the BNP coming into sharp focus, it’s all here, and it's all sung through 11 distorted noise-dance-rock distopian masterpieces. Album of the decade, yo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3g8WLjkVXk
