hmm...loved the singles + The Youth on MGMT's album but couldn't get into the rest of it at all despite listening to it well over 10 times in a desperate attempt to try and love it :lol:

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32 Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand 2007 (Fave track: Please Read The Letter)

 

What seemed to be an unlikely pairing in the duo of former and future apparently Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant and bluegrass superstar Alison Krauss is actually one of the most effortless-sounding pairings in modern popular music. The bridge seems to be producer T-Bone Burnett and the band assembled for this outing along with a fantastic set of covers of largely plodding forlorn, world weary tracks. Yet some how this fusion of Cajun, country, roots and blues works superbly, thanks to some stunning harmonies as Robert and Alison's voices compliment themselves wonderfully.

 

31 Joan As Police Woman - Real Life 2006 (featured track: Christobel)

A long time coming by Jeff Buckley's musician girlfriend (Joan Wasser) at the time of his death, who went on as a fiddler and backing vocalist to work with Rufus Wainwright, Bob Dylan and Antony & the Johnsons, this is a beautifully constructed jazz tinged album of heartfelt soul meets post-punk meets 1970s style singer/songwriters of spine tingling music over the course of these tracks.

 

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30 Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim 2008 (Featured track: Failure)

 

What a debut folk album. Signed at 17, released at 18, this album of original compositions and the use of Laura's husky voice and acoustic guitar ian an understated affair that musically has far more in common with Joanna Newsom than Lily Allen. Plenty of mysticism, plenty of 1970s female singer/songwriter influences ... what more can you ask for.

 

29 Guillemots - Through The Windowpane 2006 (Fave track: Annie Let's Not Wait)

 

If Elbow are Coldplay's less commercial more musically adventourous brothers .... then surely the Guillemots are that more interesting equivalent to Keane. This great alternative album full of lovely melodies and interesting sonic landscapes and unusual percussion sounds like a cross between the Flaming Lips and the pre Disintegration era The Cure.

Nelly Furtado and The Go! Team. :wub: Fabulous. Explode is one of my all time favorite Nelly songs.

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28 Christina Aguilera - Stripped 2002 (Fave non single: Cruz)

 

Well Christina always had the better voice, but this album set the stall out for her career as it stretches its wings musically. Yes it is a bit all over the shop but any album that contains Dirrty; Beautiful; Fighter; The Voice Within & Can't Hold Us Down is no bad album. Plus many of the non singles tracks are as good as the singles the highlight being the 1-2-3 rush following on from Beautiful ... the psychedelic Make Over; the soaring Cruz and the gospelly Soar.

 

27 Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full 2007 (Featured track: The End Of The End)

 

Throughout his lengthy post Beatles career Paul McCartney has always created his best work when pushed into a corner. After the infamous disaster of marriage and divorce to Heather Mills, his fanbase remembering the story behind Band On The Run had hopes that MacCa would not disappoint especially now that he was 64, and my goodness he didn't. Forget the throwaway singles Dance Tonight & Ever Present Past the rest of the album is close to post-Beatles Macca at his best as looks back with mortality haunting this album on a mixture of uptempo rockers and orchestrated ballads and everything in between. And with the track The End Of The End he has simultaneously written his epitaph and blows Johnny Cash's Hurt out of the window.

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26 Britney Spears - Blackout 2007 (Featured Track: Heaven On Earth)

 

Following on from one career and personal trainwreck moment after another, who would have thought that Britney Spears would release the best album of her career to date? Not many, but that is exactly what she achieved, largely due to the fact that this album is the best Britney album for non Britney fans as it is near flat out strip club dancefloor classics after another thanks to Timbaland; Danja; Bloodshy & Avant; Clutch and the Neptunes that is the album that Madonna tried and failed to make with the underwhelming Confessions ... album. Maybe the reason it is so great is because of the lack of Britney input on the album especially knowing Keri Hilson and Lolene sung on the album who even knows with the use of Protools music technology whether we are actually listening to the wafer thin voice of Britney or someone else? Whilst the lack of cringeworthy co-written tracks on the follow up album The Circus' Mmm Papi & My Baby are a bonus.

 

25 Oasis - Don't Believe The Truth 2005 (Fave non album track: The Meaning of Soul)

 

An album that gives a lie to the myth that the Gallagher brothers have done very little of any good since they played Knebworth to symbolically announce the end of Britpop in the 1990s. The brothers with BritPop allstars with Andy Bell (Ride, Hurricane #1) & Gem Archer (Heavy Stereo) & Zak Starkey (The Who, Paul Weller, Lightning Seeds, Waterboys) made the third best studio album to be associated to the band and easily their best effort of the decade. As well as the singles Lyra, The Importance of Being Idle, Let There Be Love the rest of the album was sonically tighter and of higher quality than the rest of their post (What's The Story) Morning Glory album career.

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24 Kirsty Maccoll - Tropical Brainstorm 2000 (Featured track: England 2 Colombia 0)

 

For me one of Britain's greatest ever female singer/songwriters, this her final album (and first for seven years) was released to critical acclaim thanks to its celebration of the musical traditions of Latin America utilizing mambo and samba rhythms everywhere, and Latin percussion bumps up against violins, trombones, and Paul Simon African style guitars on almost every track. Add to that her usual heartfelt and frequently sharp and wry lyrics to her sweet-natured and exuberant voice and this is a joy to listen to. At least she died happy, even if her untimely death late in Dec 2000 killed head on by a speedboat off the coast of Mexico whilst swimming with her two sons was a personal tragedy.

 

23 Alicia Keys - Songs In A Minor 2001 (Fave non single track: Butterflyz)

 

This musical protegee released the decade's equivalent of The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill on the back on the monster breakthrough hit Fallin'. Musically her influences Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack, Minnie Ripperton, Donnie Hathaway, Prince, etc are there for all to see, but that is ignoring the brilliance of songwriting quality available on this debut which her successive albums have failed to equal.

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22 Robbie Williams - Rudebox 2006 (Featured track: The 80s)

 

Forget its reputation. This album was ahead of its time. Realising that with his Intensive Care album that he was in a creative rut he promptly made his best album since his debut and lost most of his Loose Woman and GAY fanbase in one go by making an album for himself and the critics full of 1980s ElectroPop and Daz Sampson style rapping, and Mark Ronson productions before he became huge and over-exposed/rated. Plus welcome support from Lily Allen and The Pet Shop Boys. His lyrics are certainly more sharper, savage and funnier than the best he can conjour up on his previous two and latest album perhaps because he sounds so emotionally on the edge on this album as in its own way it is his "The Dreaming"; "Station To Station" or Blood On The Tracks" because he was on the brink of a meltdown. At 18 tracks long it is 6 tracks too many, but the tabloids were wrong, and the music critics were right about this album, just go on Spotify and listen to the 1-2 of the autobiographical "The 80s" and "The 90s" for proof.

 

21 Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid 2008 (Fave non single track: The Fix)

 

Sometimes in life the good will out. The overdue success of Northerners Elbow is one example of that. More talented but less photogenic than Coldplay. Elbow finally hit the big time on their fourth album on the back of the "Hey Jude" coda ripoff inspired One Day Like This (I now know I'm not the only one, thanks to Peter Kay.. :lol:). But as a handful on Year End album awards including the 2008 Mercury Music Prize proved there is far, far more to the album than that, as like their previous three albums it is full of atmospheric, emotional, life-affirming melodic alternative music with progressive rock influences.

I don't get the appeal of The Seldom Seen Kid, but considering all the praise it gets on here from the indie crowd I suppose it's just different strokes for different folks. ;o Asleep in the Back is their best album though, imo.

Into the top 20: Two acts still have two albums to come.....

 

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20 Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion 2009 (Featured track: My Girls)

 

Although I first heard of the Baltimore alternative outfit with their singles taken from the 2007 Strawberry Jam album, they had been making music since the turn of the decade. This album was the first new studio album I bought this year it is the best alternative album I have heard this year by far. A stunning cacophony wall of sound added to 21st century Beach Boys inspired harmonies. Challenging to listen to, but very very rewarding.

 

 

19 Radiohead - In Rainbows 2007 (featured track: Nude)

 

Famously released on the internet via the pay what you want gambit (which I bought for £1.85; I later bought the physical package in a HMV 2 for £10 sale in 2009). Radiohead incorporated a wide variety of musical styles and instruments on the album, using not only electronic music; pianos but string arrangements as well. But what really struck when listening to this album was how accessible and dare I say it beautiful the music was. Easily their most commercial album since 1997's landmark OK Computer.

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18 Keane - Hopes and Fears 2004 (featured track: Bend and Break)

 

This East Sussex trio (who should not have the awful Scouting For Girls and The Script held against them in their wake) took the template of a-ha meets Coldplay inspired by a commercial sounding Jeff Buckley wannabe to create a really really great debut album. Of course the three epic singles Somewhere Only We Know; Everybody Changes and Bedshapes are superb. But their debut album has a songwriting quality not matched by their following two albums as proved by my favourite track they have ever done featured above.

 

17 Semisonic - All About Chemistry 2001 (featured track: I Wish)

 

Sometimes acts fail because of outside factors beyond their control. In 2001 Dan Wilson's power pop trio released their third and final album to critical acclaim for it's fantastic Californian melodic rock and power pop that was far better than their blockbuster Feeling Strangely Fine, but unfortunately the band lost a plagiarism case from the Rolling Stones regarding their previous album's monster hit Secret Smile similarity to the Stones' 1978 USA#1 smash Miss You losing 50% of the royalties. Feeling rightly aggrieved Dan Wilson ended the band to become a Grammy Award winning writer and producer for the Dixie Chicks.

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16 Take That - Beautiful World 2006 (featured track: Wooden Boat / Butterfly)

 

The greatest comeback since Lazarus. Despite what they say, surely seeing the box-office success of the reformed classic line up of Duran Duran, wetted the appetite for the 1990s 4 time Smash Hits Best act in the world winners, and their live gigs sold out quicker than I can type. But even remembering Gary Barlow's talents as a songwriter, surely even their most fanatical fan could not have predicted that their comeback album would sell so well and be as good as this album is. Of course Gary's melodic pop songs are superb; but Mark Owen more than adequately chipped in; Howard's songs were far better than album filler .... and the real revelation was the vocal debut of Jason Orange who's Wooden Boat is Nick Drake inspired folk brilliance. The key to their comeback album was that it sounded like they had never stopped and had just been away on an alien planet, as musically it sounded so 2006 adult orientated pop of the highest quality.

 

15 Pipettes - We Are The Pipettes 2006 (featured track: ABC)

 

"Gwenno, Rosay, RiotBecki ...." The best British girl group of the 21st century (bar possibly Client) IMHO. OK this Brighton based outfit only made one album with this line up but this album is 33 minutes of retro 1960s girlgroup harmonies inspired Northern Soul meets Motown pop (which GA ripped off to great affect on The Promise) meets 21st century girl power lyrics and attitude over 14 tracks where not a second is wasted. Roll on Gwenno and the other two new members and the 2010 album produced by legendary 1980s synth pop producer Martin Rushent (working title "We Are Pop" :thinking:). Certainly from the tracks I have heard on youtube through mobile phone recordings hopefully they will have the success that this line up missed out on.

#16 and #15 will both be in my top 50, amazing albums :D

 

I agree about Wooden Boat being fantastic, and as for the Howard songs, Mancunian Way was a huge highlight for me, such a massive chorus

Strpped

Hopes And Fears

 

:wub:

 

Oracular Spectacular

The Seldom Seen kid

 

not so much, only liked singles

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14 Radiohead - Kid A 2000 (featured video: The National Anthem)

 

Probably the most influential album in my countdown. At the time the challenging minimalist electronica with jazz inflexions that dominated this album met with mixed reviews from the critics who were taken aback at the change in sound from OK Computer and the move away from the standard verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus songwriting structure. 9 years later this album sounds so much more contemporary then it did back then; a testament that the Oxford outfit's neurotic isolated futurism was spot on.

 

13 Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain 2000 (featured video: Utopia)

 

Together with composer/multi-instrumentalist Will Gregory, Alison Goldfrapp wraps her ethereal voice around songs that borrow from 1960s sci-fi/spy soundtracks, cabaret, folk, and electronica without sounding derivative or unfocused. Much of this album feels Alpinic in sound like Kate Bush trying to be Shirley Bassey. A strange and beautiful mix of the romantic, eerie, and world-weary, Felt Mountain is one of 2000's most impressive debuts; and set the bar for one of Britain's greatest acts of the 00s that it has failed to match since.

 

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12 Late Of The Pier - Fantasy Black Channel 2008 (featured track: Focker)

 

This Nottingham based four-piece released their debut album to largely critical acclaim, but stunningly/predictably without the support of NME and the Radio 1 playlist. This album's off kilter music takes a huge variety of musical styles and acts but most closely assembles Gary Numan, Brian Eno, Bill Nelson (Be Bop Deluxe) and Metronomy via the chopping and changing of sound structures from wonderfully naff 1970s style cock rock guitar solos; gurgling new romantic era synths; thrash metal style drumming and a Bowie/Numan impersonator on lead vocals. Roll on the second album in 2010 preceeded by the next single Blueberry.

 

11 Arcade Fire - Neon Bible 2007 (featured track: Black Mirror)

 

The second brilliant album on the trot by Montreal's finest. A far darker album than their debut, as lyrically it is far more pessimistic with aspects of Pink Floyd's The Wall coming into mind due to its more midtempo murkier sound. Again musically it is inspired by David Bowie; Talking Heads; The Pixies and the soundscaping of Brian Eno but this album has a significant Bruce Springsteen feel to this album that was absent from the debut and a greater gothic gospelly feel to it. Whilst on occasions it is in danger of being overwrought it never falls into dull territory.

Blackout I can explain how much I love that album! :heart: Glad to see in top 30!

Kid A <3 Neon Bible <3

Into the Top 10 at one album at a time .....

 

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10 Lady GaGa - The Fame / Fame Monster 2009

(featured track: Speechless)

 

All decade long I have been underwhelmed by mainstream pop's ability to come up with a new pop star who was in complete control in the classic tradition of The Beatles; David Bowie; Michael Jackson; Madonna; Prince; etc. So come the end of the decade the times were crying out for a pop star like Lady GaGa — a self-styled, self-made shooting star whom unnervingly looks like the love child of David & Angie Bowie, one who mocked the tabloid digital age while still wanting to wallow in it — and one who's smart enough to pull it all off, too simultaneously inspired by pop classics of the past before she was born to recycle into the music of today and the future. This self-awareness and satire have been absent in the pop of the new millennium, where even the best of the lot (Britney & Rihanna are one dimensional pop puppets; Beyonce & Christina are pop divas; Gwen Stefani & Fergie (BEP) are just too old; Shakira & Nelly Furtado are a bit too ethnic) operated only on one level, which may be why Lady GaGa turned into such a sensation in 2009: everybody was thirsty for music like this, music for and about their lives, both real and virtual. Or to paraphrase from 1980s Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon "Music to listen to when its your last night on Earth". Whether she turns out to be a glorious one trick pony supernova or whether she is in this for the long haul radically overhauling her sound and visual image in the next decade plus will be very interesting to find out.

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09 Coldplay - A Rush Of Blood To The Head 2002 (featured track: Clocks)

 

Their best album by far, that raised the bar several notches from their debut and laid the foundation to them replacing U2 as the biggest mainstream rock band of the decade. Yes it took the template of their debut album, except on this album the band was far more confident to express themselves more musically, sonically, lyrically and vocally. It's a strong album; you can feel, hear, and touch the blood, sweat, and tears behind each song. Whilst there are echos of the 1980s (Echo & The Bunnymen; The Smiths; Kate Bush; a-ha as well as their U2 meets Radiohead music for the masses template). Ultimately, lush melodies and a heartbreak behind the songs are here because Coldplay exudes an honest passion that makes them endearing to the public, even if Chris Martin belongs to the Sting/Bono school of prats.