Our Love To Admire, Interpol's third album, might contain few tracks to rival the instant ear-grabbing spectacle of the likes of 'PDA' and 'Evil', but after several years of re-listens, the record stands on firmer legs than either of its predecessors against the test of time. Distancing themselves from the dense, anthemic leanings that always drew uncomfortable comparisons with late 70s/early 80s post-punk, Interpol here fully embrace the cold, statuesque songcraft that had previously felt like a calling card the band were hesitant to slip into their collective jacket pocket. The songs are impressive as much for the silences as for the sounds, considered riffs expanding and contracting to achieve that highly calculated impact. That might sound artificial, but album closer 'The Lighthouse' proves that Interpol are never better than when they're softly reeling you in for the knockout blow.
29. Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends (Frenchkiss, 2007)
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You know we live in a topsy-turvy world when a band of thirtysomethings can create a sound that's one of this decade's finest blueprints for being young and free. For fifteen years, Les Savy Fav have been innovating the shit out of the art-rock/post-hardcore genres. The band has spent its whole career speeding like a flaming unicorn through styles before moving on to something new and exciting while the scenesters jump on the bandwagon they've left behind and make all the dough. As is proclaimed loud and proud on the band's website: "Missing out on cashing in for over a decade". Let's Stay Friends, LSF's fourth full-length, was worth the six-year wait for fans - a riotous flight of driving guitars and pounding drums with enough whimsy and flair mixed in to upset its punk template. It's a set that puts two fingers up to restraint and dives into songs with gleeful abandon, from the unforgettable, granite-splitting beat of 'Patty Lee' to 'What Would Wolves Do?', which should be mandatory listening for directionless and discouraged youth. Hopefully we won't have to wait another six years for their next album, as 'Pots & Pans' lays out an optimistic vision of the world's Savy future: "Let's tear this whole place down and build it up again/ This band's a beating heart and it's nowhere near its end".
28. Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark (New West, 2008)
You know we live in a topsy-turvy world when a band of thirtysomethings can create a sound that's one of this decade's finest blueprints for being young and free. For fifteen years, Les Savy Fav have been innovating the shit out of the art-rock/post-hardcore genres. The band has spent its whole career speeding like a flaming unicorn through styles before moving on to something new and exciting while the scenesters jump on the bandwagon they've left behind and make all the dough. As is proclaimed loud and proud on the band's website: "Missing out on cashing in for over a decade". Let's Stay Friends, LSF's fourth full-length, was worth the six-year wait for fans - a riotous flight of driving guitars and pounding drums with enough whimsy and flair mixed in to upset its punk template. It's a set that puts two fingers up to restraint and dives into songs with gleeful abandon, from the unforgettable, granite-splitting beat of 'Patty Lee' to 'What Would Wolves Do?', which should be mandatory listening for directionless and discouraged youth. Hopefully we won't have to wait another six years for their next album, as 'Pots & Pans' lays out an optimistic vision of the world's Savy future: "Let's tear this whole place down and build it up again/ This band's a beating heart and it's nowhere near its end". 28. Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark (New West, 2008)
Three principal songwriters; three guitarists; a broad southern rock/alt-country remit that encompasses a wide range of lyrical moods and musical textures. It's a recipe for a bit of a jam-band disaster, isn't it? And, honestly, Drive-By Truckers, whilst boasting an astonishing talent pool, have often struggled in the past to cram their sheer range into one unified album. They nailed it on Brighter..., though. The duelling vocals and styles of core trio Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Shonna Tucker undertake a pretty exhaustive exploration of the best and worst of the Southern spirit (always the Truckers' prime preoccupation), tackling different topics at different tempos, gradually building up an affecting, Springsteen-esque tableau of desperation and humour, triumph and despair.
27. Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs (Epic, 2001)
September 11th, 2001. A tough old release date, that. Especially when you're seen as piano pop's clown prince. Luckily, Folds made a concerted move away from the wise-cracking schtick for his debut solo album (with the notable exception of the title track which, to be fair, is pretty funny) to create a sincere, open-hearted glimpse into middle-class American suburbia. The album's tone and quality is remarkably consistent, pumping out insistent piano-led pop numbers interspersed with emotionally resonant ballads, the redundancy-blues of 'Fred Jones Part 2' being a particular highlight of the latter. Rockin' The Suburbs remains a potent reminder of the heights Folds can scale when he goes for the heart-strings rather than the funnybone.
26. The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Warner Bros, 2002)
A continuation of the emotional directness and musical immediacy they so deftly delivered with 1999 masterpiece The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi is another record by Wayne Coyne and the Lips that grows and grows as repeated listens mesh the music with the listener's imagination. In fact, 'imaginative pop' might be the best description I can come up with to describe Yoshimi (and the wider Lips catalogue). At its heart, the band's tenth release is gloriously naive guitar pop, buoyed by subtle experimentation and anchored by Coyne's unaffected vocal delivery. Screw it, I'll just come out and say it. Wayne Coyne for President.
25. The National - Boxer (Beggars Banquet, 2007)
With 2005's breakthrough Alligator and now Boxer, The National's albums seem to have garnered a reputation as 'growers'. This refers to the tendency for the songs to keep giving over repeated listens, but that shouldn't preclude praise for the immediate impact of the band's bassy intensity and vocalist Matt Berninger's beaten-down, baritone lyricism. I still remember being hit square in the chops by the opening piano chords of Boxer's opener 'Fake Empire'. Throughout the album's 12 tracks, there's such an abundance of melodic guitar/piano interplay and rousing choruses that it's a wonder the BBC hasn't snapped up more National songs to soundtrack emotionally-exploitative montages for its nature docs. Special mention should also go to Bryan Devendorf's superb drumming, which often plays with audience expectations but is always brawny enough to give tracks that essential desk-tapping quality.
24. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois (Rough Trade, 2005)
It's the Sufjan Stevens that you know and love, but more!! Bigger!! Louder!! Longer!! Convoluted song titles!! Exclamation marks!! The second album (after 2003's Michigan) in Stevens' grand, surely-never-to-be-completed project to dedicate an album to each of America's states might seem like a novelty curio, but even on cursory first listen, it's immediately clear that this is a definitive masterpiece and his best work so far. 22 tracks filled to the brim with orchestral swirls, vibrant arrangements and a palpable sense of romance. Stevens draws from the renowned figures, features and musical styles of Illinois, channeling them through his own unique lens to craft an album that is by turns intimate and overwhelmingly vast.
23. Dinosaur Jr - Beyond (Fat Possum, 2007)
Dinosaur Jr didn't have a good 90s. After cementing themselves in the upper strata of the late 80s US alt-rock scene with You're Living All Over Me and Bug, the band's core duo J Mascis and Lou Barlow fell out over Mascis' control freakery, leading to Barlow's departure and the subsequent ten years of diminishing returns on a major label before Mascis euthanised the Dinosaur Jr monicker like some half-starved street dog in 1997. It would have been an ignominious end for such a great band. Luckily, Barlow and Mascis finally put their handbags down in 2005 and set to work on a new record. The triumph of Beyond, therefore, is that the original line-up was able to recapture the fire after over 20 years of huffily ignoring each other. The album takes the best from those original records, as well as Mascis' more structured 90s work, to create a set that sounds as noisy and vital as the early days but incorporating the lessons Mascis and Barlow had learned during their long interim. The result is classic rock song structure played at punk volumes, and arguably the purest distillation of that Dino Jr sound. Clearly Barlow, Mascis and drummer Murph realised that despite the recriminations, they had unfinished business together. And against all odds, it was worth the wait.
Dinosaur Jr didn't have a good 90s. After cementing themselves in the upper strata of the late 80s US alt-rock scene with You're Living All Over Me and Bug, the band's core duo J Mascis and Lou Barlow fell out over Mascis' control freakery, leading to Barlow's departure and the subsequent ten years of diminishing returns on a major label before Mascis euthanised the Dinosaur Jr monicker like some half-starved street dog in 1997. It would have been an ignominious end for such a great band. Luckily, Barlow and Mascis finally put their handbags down in 2005 and set to work on a new record. The triumph of Beyond, therefore, is that the original line-up was able to recapture the fire after over 20 years of huffily ignoring each other. The album takes the best from those original records, as well as Mascis' more structured 90s work, to create a set that sounds as noisy and vital as the early days but incorporating the lessons Mascis and Barlow had learned during their long interim. The result is classic rock song structure played at punk volumes, and arguably the purest distillation of that Dino Jr sound. Clearly Barlow, Mascis and drummer Murph realised that despite the recriminations, they had unfinished business together. And against all odds, it was worth the wait.
22. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells (XL, 2001)
White Blood Cells signaled the moment that Jack and Meg White exploded on to the mainstream music scene, with frantic, drooling write-ups in the music press rapidly degenerating into Heat-esque speculation on the duo's relationship. But their stadium-sized leap into the world's frontal lobes didn't come as a result of a slickly-produced update of their scuzzy garage-rock. All they had to do was write their best and catchiest record to date. Simple. The central riff of 'Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground' simply rocks on a life-changing level; 'Fell in Love with a Girl' has a feverish, deranged feel that perfectly echoes its theme of reckless young lust; 'Offend In Every Way' is giddy mix of early Kinks and Ennio Morricone. The album succeeds so effortlessly because it digests elements of rock 'n' roll from the past forty years whilst never surrendering its own jagged Detroit identity. Also, little known legal fact: if someone nonchalantly announces to you that Meg White's drumming sucks, you have a legal right - nay, obligation - to knock every tooth out of their stupid ignorant face.
21. Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner (XL, 2003)
In an age when rap has become the new pop and toothless, self-satisfied turd-wranglers rule the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, it's heartening, not to mention utterly necessary, to focus on hip hop's innovators and street gladiators who choose ugly reality over vapid fantasy. Boy In Da Corner is still a titanic record by one of this broad genre's finest talents. It's the record that introduced most of us to Dizzee's scattergun vocal delivery, the MC skipping from bravado ('Fix Up, Look Sharp'; 'Jus A Rascal') to bruised vulnerability ('Sittin' Here'; 'Brand New Day') to gritty street-level observation ('I Luv U') with a hyperactive, breathless pace. The beats are just as special, Rascal and Cage stitching grime/garage/dancehall/rock samples together to create a dexterous collage of sounds that feels authentically scavenged from Bow's clubs and pavements. Despite Dizzee's recent concessions to the T4 crowd, he delivers every time on his LPs, and even if the future sees him seduced by the fame game, we'll always have Boy In Da Corner.
20. Kings Of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak (HandMeDown, 2004)
Is it possible to recall Kings Of Leon pre-'Sex On Fire'? It's all a little hazy at this point. Well, there was that first album all the way back in 2003, which was pretty good, if a little unassuming and light on ambition. Oh wait, then there was Aha Shake Heartbreak, otherwise known as the album with which KOL quietly stole our hearts and unzipped our girlfriends' jeans. Displaying a deftness of touch that seemed to surprise us all, the album alternates between barn-dance guitar ruckus('The Bucket'; 'Taper Jean Girl') and gentle Nashville lullabies ('King of the Rodeo'; 'Milk'), all infused with the sweaty sexual energy that the Followills had so clearly been exercising on the Youth And Young Manhood tour.
19. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (Mute, 2004)
A singularly tough task to pick from Nick Cave's clutch of 21st century opuses (opae?). I was especially tempted to give 2001's No More Shall We Part a glowing recommendation, given the insistence of some writers to reduce that masterpiece to evidence of Cave's old-age softness and "domestic contentment". Still, being the established mathematician that I am, unswerving logic led me to believe that a Nick Cave double album must trump a Nick Cave non-double album. There are other reasons too, though - the fact that it's a perfect summation of a broad and varied career; that Cave's lyrics mix traditional, beauteous sentence structure with anarchic savagery and back-of-the-pub lewdness; that it's Cave's most orchestral, epic work, filled with strings and choirs and guitars and whirling Wurlitzers.
18. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain (4AD, 2006)
Three superb studio albums in and it seems there's no stopping TV On The Radio. Sophomore release Return To Cookie Mountain is the star of a very fine litter, a beguiling combination of Desperate Youth's ethereal mystery and Dear Science's dense sound-squalls. Speaking of treading fine lines, the album also expertly charts a midway course between scratchy experimentalism and the immediacy of the head-nodding beats. For that, we can thank producer/sampler/multi-instrumentalist Dave Sitek and drummer Jaleel Bunton. Meanwhile we can thank Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone for the exquisite, powerful vocal harmonies which deliver colourful and evocative lyrics, particularly on single 'Wolf Like Me', which re-casts the lusty male as lycanthropic emotional predator. TVOTR have inherited David Bowie's mantle as the prime purveyors of thinking people's party music. Bowie's vocal contribution to 'Province' may even have served as the inauguration ceremony.
17. Desaparecidos - Read Music/Speak Spanish (Saddle Creek, 2002)
I'm sorry, I can't help it. I don't like Bright Eyes that much. Given that my favourite Bright Eyes album is the much-maligned electronic jaunt Digital Ash In A Digital Urn, it seems I belong to the deformed demographic that prefers the music Conor Oberst plucks out of his butt while resting from his last proper album. With that in mind, I present to you Read Music/Speak Spanish, the first and only album by Desaparecidos, Oberst's collaboration with fellow Omaha songwriter Denver Dalley. Recorded in a week, this raw slice of post-hardcore is a product of Oberst's words and Dalley's powerchords, coming off like a more cerebral Replacements or a meatier Get Up Kids. Elevating the riffery is the bristling anger and surgical insight of Oberst's lyrics, which frantically scratch at the scabs of middle-American cash culture.
Side-note: Read Music/Speak Spanish was the subject of possibly the worst music review I've ever read, in which the writer (for the now-defunct Stylus) spends the first half of the piece comprehensively pointing out all the reasons he should never have been chosen to review the album in the first place.
16. The Besnard Lakes - ...Are The Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar, 2007)
I am as yet unconverted to the genius of Pink Floyd, being that I tend to fall asleep several minutes into each track. As such, I wasn't expecting to fall in love with Canadian duo The Besnard Lakes' second album, which shares a lot of similarities with the languorous psych-rock and prog of the 70s. But ...Are The Dark Horse made me realise that my stumbling block with Floyd isn't a matter of track length or pacing, but aesthetics. I could (and frequently do) listen to the slowly-unfolding beauty of The Besnard Lakes all day. The eight songs (with the exception of 'Devastation', which rocks like almighty fuckery from beginning to end) lull the listener into a hazy rapture by gracefully hiding in shadow before erupting into Technicolour splendour. Album opener 'Disaster' is a particular highlight - I have long harboured the irrational belief that this track should be played at Brian Wilson's funeral, with or without his consent.
15. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (ANTI-, 2007)
Lean and streamlined like a rock 'n' roll greyhound (seems they used up all their self-indulgence with the album title), Spoon's sixth album is 36 minutes stripped of pomp and frivolity, each song poised to attack. As first track 'Don't Make Me A Target' proves, the essence of Spoon is in the complex interplay of seemingly simple guitar and drum parts, the band exploring all the ways they can play around with and distort a central riff. But streamlining doesn't mean Britt Daniel and co. don't make room for experimentation. On 'The Ghost Of You Lingers', a simple lovelorn sense of longing becomes a spectral masterpiece through pounding piano, static intrusion and Daniel's distant, echoing vocal refrain.
14. The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema (Matador, 2005)
Aah, sweet melodies. Sometimes they don't have to be subverted, reconstructed or experimented on. Sometimes they just have to be fucking sweet. In 2005, accredited melody-meister AC Newman and his army of superstar collaborators (including Neko Case and Destroyer's Daniel Bejar) created a soul-affirming paean to the rippling joy of the unreconstructed hook and the rousing sing-a-long chorus. In the interest of me not repeating myself, check out the Disc Of The Day review I wrote for the MOJO website a couple of years ago for all the adjectives you can eat.
13. Rival Schools - United By Fate (Island, 2001)
Rival Schools might have only brought us one album in their short lifetime as a band, but United By Fate crams in enough rampant riffing to be a meal that replenishes itself every time you come back to it. There's enough sting in the album's tail to hark back to Walter Schreifels and the rest of the band's hardcore punk legacy, but it's mollified by a new sense of soaring melody and a varied pace that makes those fat slabs of guitar noise all the more satisfying when they drop. This is another of the three albums on this list for which I did a write-up for MOJO - have a read, if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
Side note for fact fans: the band and the album took their names from Capcom's Playstation brawler Rival Schools: United By Fate. And people say videogames can't inform wider culture. Tsk.
12. Jay-Z - The Black Album (Roc-A-Fella, 2003)
A massively-hyped album (remember all that guff about it being Jay-Z's last record?) that managed to leave a rabidly expectant fanbase satisfied like happy fat little babies, The Black Album feels like a pretty definitive exclamation mark for Jay's career and the East Coast rap scene in general. From the breezy jazz of single 'Change Clothes' to autobiographical document 'December 4th', the man is on top of his flow on every track. Even more impressive is the way that he marshals the talents of an army of producers and collaborators, incorporating their styles without compromising the unity of the album. Eminem's brooding style shines through on the chorus of 'Moment of Clarity'; '99 Problems' and 'Dirt Off Your Shoulder' are laced with Rick Rubin and Timbaland respectively, but all tracks here are firmly under Jay-Z's bootheel, partly because he made the wise decision to hog the mic, ensuring that it's his voice and his vision that comes through clearest.
11. M83 - Saturdays = Youth (Mute, 2008)
If you're going to name your band after a spiral galaxy (Messier 83), you better make sure your music makes a fair reach for the stars, and that your reach doesn't exceed your grasp. Neither of these are a problem for Anthony Gonzales, who as M83 has been pouring pure dream pop into the world like some benevolent white witch for the last 10 years. All of his five albums resonate on some deep romantic level, filled with giddy synths and swelling arrangements, but 2008's Saturdays = Youth seems to have a particular pull for wistful modernites, harking back to an entirely made-up 1980s American golden youth that we've been mythologising ever since the 90s got boring, with John Hughes' (RIP) The Breakfast Club as a new Sacred Text. It's a painfully beautiful record that's filled with the kind of adolescent ache that would seem so easy to romanticise, but is so rarely done well.
If you're going to name your band after a spiral galaxy (Messier 83), you better make sure your music makes a fair reach for the stars, and that your reach doesn't exceed your grasp. Neither of these are a problem for Anthony Gonzales, who as M83 has been pouring pure dream pop into the world like some benevolent white witch for the last 10 years. All of his five albums resonate on some deep romantic level, filled with giddy synths and swelling arrangements, but 2008's Saturdays = Youth seems to have a particular pull for wistful modernites, harking back to an entirely made-up 1980s American golden youth that we've been mythologising ever since the 90s got boring, with John Hughes' (RIP) The Breakfast Club as a new Sacred Text. It's a painfully beautiful record that's filled with the kind of adolescent ache that would seem so easy to romanticise, but is so rarely done well.
COMING SOON - The top ten! Featuring: Two albums with America in the title! Nasty music! Nice music! Alphabetical extremities! Sinny sin sins! Boys! And Girls!
