What are the (indie) records (albums/EPs/singles/songs) that have summed up this decade for you?

 

I think the album of the decade arrived in the very first year of this century when Radiohead unleashed Kid A.

 

I know it is probably a very predictable choice but when music gets this good then you just have to go with the flow.

This album crystallised a moment in time for me, when I was getting more interested in all things Warp records and allied to this of my love of ambient and krautwork and god knows how many other genres.

 

I also love how such a wilfully different album still made it to #1 in the States.

 

 

Kid A is right up there in well inside my indie/alternative Top 10 albums of the decade.

 

Mine would be Arcade Fire - Funeral.

 

With very honourable mentions going to Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain; Joanna Newsom's Ys; Portishead - Third & Rufus Wainwright - Want One.

 

 

Agreed -top of the pile is Goldfrapp's incredible 'Felt Mountain', closely followed by the crazily overlooked 'Third' by Portishead. And a stonking third - 'You Are The Quarry' by Morrissey. And not forgetting the hauntingly beautiful Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man album.

 

Honourable mentions.... Client 'Heartland', Siouxsie's 'Mantaray', Fever Ray, The Killers' debut, MGMT, Kasabian's new one, Friendly Fires debut, and Lou Rhodes' debut.

Sufjan 'The Avalanche' is probably my favourite album of the decade / ever.

 

Arctics debut, Bloc Party's debut, Frightened Rabbit 'The Midnight Organ Fight' and Metic's 'Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?' are also up there.

The Avalanche over Illinois? STOP TRYING TO BE SO DIFFERENT JONNY. D;

 

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Joanna Newsom - Ys

Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica

Arcade Fire - Funeral

 

These are clearly the top 4 of the year. ;(

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (who i saw last night and they played Luno!)

The Futureheads - The Futureheads

The Flaming Lips - Yoshmishi Battles the Pink Robots

The Libertines - Up The Bracket

The Libertines - The Libertines

Graham Coxon - Happiness in Magazines

 

 

tbh i cant remember the earlier years too well.

 

I'm still thinking about this but another of my fav albums this decade would be The Sound of Silver by LCD Soundsystem.

 

Krautrock and pulsing disco taken to new heights, it builds on the brilliance of the first album and takes off into the stratosphere.

 

It's interesting hearing other people's faves as The Arcade Fire completely passed me by and the first thing I have really liked by Modest Mouse was the EP they released this year of offcuts from the last album.

WHAT

 

Modest Mouse's latest output has been so eh. :( The Moon and Antarctica is a triumph of an album. So bleak and depressing but genius. Lives is absolutely gorgeous. "It's hard to remember we're alive for the first time / it's hard to remember we're alive for the last time / it's hard to remember to live before you die / it's hard to remember that our lives are such a short time / it's hard to remember when it takes such a long time..." Phenomonal. Their 90's output is stunning as well.

 

Good News was solid, but it's been downhill since then.

 

Sound of Silver is amazing though.

Portishead - Third is simply phenomenal, as is Burial - Untrue (such an unnerving and fragile album...simply fantastic). Kid A; For Emma, Forever Ago and Illinois certainly are worthy of their praise, as is Merriweather Post Pavilion...and I'm probably going to get pilloried for this, but Florence and the Machine - Lungs is just perfection for me. Not a single bad track - I'm Not Calling You A Liar is the only remotely weak point on that album for me, and that's still a 7/10 IMO...I'm certain I'm forgetting something, but eh.

There is a whole slew of US alternative albums that have just not clicked with me. I'm not saying they are crap, in fact I can really appreciate why people like them but I just don't get them.

These include Veckatimest, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, The Moon and Antarctica, Illinois, Funeral as well as others. I know I'm probably committing heresy here but I can't help it!!!!

Funeral is Canadian. ;o

 

I can understand the first few (especially Veckatimest and Yoshimi, as those are definitely accquired tastes - actually, Modest Mouse's older output is definitely accquired as well), but Illinois is just...fabulous. You have to give it another chance. Such a gorgeous album.

Whoops! I know Arcade Fire is Canadian as well!!! :blush:

 

Anyway I will give Illinois another go (when I have the time!)

I'm probably being a bit hasty since i only first listened to it in August, but i genuinely SURE that Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up Til It Was Light is my favourite alternative album of the decade/ever. Although 95% of vaguely alternative albums i've listened to i first listened to this year anyway... WUTIWL isn't even perfect though, the final two tracks are just interesting but not particularly enjoyable to listen to in comparison to the rest (like most of the follow up album :(), but it's by far the closest i've ever came to finding an album where i love every single track. They come across as being standard indie rock, if a bit more heavier than most, but WUTIWL is just so intricate and chaotic at the same time <3. Sigur Rós' ( ), Justice's † and Merriweather Post Pavilion, LC!'s We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed would be 2nd, 3rd, 4th and tth, though not sure in which order. The latter and first of those having NO weak tracks whatsoever. My musical knowledge over the whole decade is pretty $h!t though, so it sort of invalidates my opinion LOL :(.

Edited November 3, 200915 yr by Harve

Got the Uncut with the 150 albums of the decade and on the CD was this:

 

Spiders (Kidsmoke) by Wilco

 

Ignore the video of someone doing their smalls! This is an immense amalgamation of Motorik/Velvets and if I had heard it earlier would have been one of the tracks of the decade.

I have heard most of the rest of the album and it doesn't really measure up to this.

There is a whole slew of US alternative albums that have just not clicked with me. I'm not saying they are crap, in fact I can really appreciate why people like them but I just don't get them.

These include Veckatimest, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, The Moon and Antarctica, Illinois, Funeral as well as others. I know I'm probably committing heresy here but I can't help it!!!!

 

 

Nah, I'm the same. I could always see how people could like Americana but it would never blow me away. I do like Funeral because it changed with each song.

 

My faves of the decade have been

 

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm - each song is simply exhilerating - well nearly all of them. Great guitar work, great drums, fantastic melody and pure euphoria in several places. Just the best album of the decade, endlessly playable.

 

Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatarium. "OMG", as some people like to say. Where do you start with this album? It features fierce crashes of euphoric vocal/guitar works that just make me ecstatic. It's rare that such wild alternative hard rock music bothers with melody but this has loads of it.

 

 

 

Franz Ferdinand - self titled

Manic Street Preachers - Journal for plague lovers

The Strokes - Is this it

The Libertines - Up the bracket

Radiohead - In rainbows

Morrissey - You Are the Quarry

 

 

I've been trying to get some of my favourite tracks together but I haven't got the time to get anything definitive together but what I have so far is (in no particular order):

 

Foals - Balloons

Long Blondes - Century

Gossip - Standing in the Way of Control

MIA - Paper Planes

The Hives - Hate to Say I Told You So

British Sea Power - Waving Flags

Kasabian - Club Foot

Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out

Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.

Elbow - One Day Like This

Radiohead - Pyramid Song

The Datsuns - Harmonic Generator

Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows

Hot Hot Heat - Bandages

Jet - Are You Gonna be My Girl?

Kings of Leon - Molly's Chambers

That's an excellent list there, Grebo. Infact 9 of those feature in my Top 200 Singles of the Decade. The only one of those I don't really have any time for is Radiohead...

You have got an excellent chart there, Rabbit, so many good songs.

 

I intend to make a fuller chart as your chart is reminding of a lot of songs.

 

Are you thinking of doing a rate/decade chart coz I was thinking of doing one for indie if there was enough interest?

Joanna Newson - Ys

Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim

Polly Scattergood - Polly Scattergood

Joanna Newsom - The Milk Eyed Mender

Edited January 14, 201015 yr by nickthenoodle