In response to a Paste magazine article, I've been listing what I feel to be the best 50 albums of the past decade, in no particular order. A reminder about the parameters - Paste set out to make a list of artists that "shaped your decade". I'm considering that as well as overall influence, innovation, originality and above all, my personal taste. Here are 35 through 31. Two of them Paste and I agree on. I bet you could figure out which two...
35. M83 - Saturdays=Youth (2008)
To say that I was obsessed with this album might a bit of an understatement. I saw the band perform live twice in '08 and "Kim & Jessie" is easily one of my favorite songs of the past five or ten years. Leader Anthony Gonzalez has changed his band's sound from electronic/shoegaze to something slightly more accessible, something more like pop music. There is more actual singing on this album, in addition to the spoken lyrics. There are actual choruses, in addition to the sprawling instrumental pieces. There is even a dance track ("Couleurs") in addition to the ambient sounds ("You Appearing").
This evolution provided Gonzalez and company the opportunity to expose their music to a new audience. In '08 they supported main stream acts like Kings of Leon and the Killers on tour in addition to headlining smaller venues. Don't get me wrong, they have not sacrificed themselves to the gods of mass appeal. They've simply become more complete. It helps that Saturdays=Youth distinct '80s sound (they also toured with Depeche Mode) emerged during a period when retro is in, but it fits perfectly with the rest of their catalog. It's a pretty great record.
34. J Dilla - Donuts (2006)
Maybe it's just me, but I see a clear connection between the rise of electronic/trip hop/DJ acts, like DJ Shadow in the mid '90s, and the re-emergence of instrumental hip-hop albums from folks like Madlib, Metal Fingers (MF Doom), Oh No and J Dilla. I'm not sure why that's significant, I just wanted to point it out. And maybe it's just me missing Dilla aka Jay Dee (who died in Feb. of 2006 from TTP) but it seems like he had it right with Donuts. This is the new breed of underground hip-hop, one that survives on soul samples and soft beats rather than grimy, basement bangers.
Dilla was one of the last in a shrinking number of truly great DJs and producers who don't just sample for fun or to make you dance but are real music connoisseurs, digging through crates of vinyl to bring you not only a great beat but a history lesson. What I particularly like is how Donuts was, in a way, re-sampled as several of the tracks were used on other records for folks like Common, The Roots and Ghostface. Jay Dee was a versatile talent, one that had already enjoyed a long history of success in the hip-hop game (his work on the Pharcyde's 1995 release Labcabincalifornia is some of my favorite). Still sad to lose one of the greats.
33. The Knife - Silent Shout (2006)
I've heard The Knife categorized as "dance" music in the past. If that's accurate, this is by far the most dense, dark and downright bizarre dance music I've ever listened to. You can move to most of it, sure, but it's just so interesting and unique. To me, most dance music is quite boring off the dance floor. Silent Shout is far from boring. I'm not sure what to call it. Electronic, maybe? Or, maybe just menacing and at times, disturbing. Whatever it is, it's just the kind of genre bending original material I love.
It helps that the duo is from Sweden. For some reason that makes things clearer for me. Ah, they're Swedish, that's why they're so strange. That's probably not fair to the entire country of Sweden though, and actually, I've been to Sweden. It's more beautiful than it is strange. But is it really a surprise that the region of the world largely responsible for bringing us the terrifying darkness of "black metal" would also debut such dark dance music? "We Share Our Mother's Health" and "Marble House" are my two favorite examples of the Knife's haunting sound on Silent Shout. The former is not so dark in it's music, but the vocals are deep and distorted, like that of a kidnapper demanding a ransom. The later is darker musically. Both make you want to move. And between them is a great example of a track that is neither danceable nor particularly pleasant. "Na Na Na" is just a looping keyboard with shrill vocals.
I enjoy how unpredictable this band is. One half of the duo, Karin Dreijer Andersson, released a solo effort this year under the name Fever Ray. It's even more chilling.
Check out their previously prepared videotape acceptance speech from the 2007 Grammis (Sweden's version of the Grammys). Truly bizarre, as we've come to expect.
32. The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
Before I had any idea who the Flaming Lips were I went to the Unlimited Sunshine Tour's stop at the Mann here in Philly in 2002. I was more interested in seeing the only two groups on the bill I had heard of - De La Soul and Cake. Little did I know how much I would come to enjoy the other two bands in attendance - Modest Mouse and the Flaming Lips. At that show, however, I could not have been more turned off by Wayne Coyne and the Lips. Their set featured video projections of rather unpleasant and disturbing sights like surgery being performed on an eye ball, a full frontal female photo that looked like it was from the '60s and school girl shoot outs from Battle Royale. There were several grown people on stage dancing around in animal suits and at one point, Coyne cracked a blood pack over his head and performed "Do You Realize" while the deep red dye streaked down his forehead. What a weirdo.
I described this spectacle to Andrea Collins the first time I met her and she implored me to give the band another chance. So, I picked up a copy of Yoshimi and after a couple of listens I decided I had to forget how strange their live show was and allow myself to like this band. I've always liked concept albums. How could I resist one about a small Asian lady saving the universe from evil robots? The album bounces like a big pink beach ball. It swells and races like a big pink shooting star. It makes virtually no sense, at least to me, but it's seamless and sounds fantastic. Just go with it.
31. The White Stripes - Elephant (2003)
I was working as an assistant manager at The Athlete's Foot (the retail store, not the fungus because that doesn't make sense) when "Seven Nation Army" was tearing up the charts. Most of my co-workers were strictly into hip-hop at the time, but all of them were into that song. I think it must have been the bass, or perhaps the persistent thump, but I'm honestly not sure what it was and I don't want to take away from the Whites ability to make hits with two instruments. For me, Elephant marked a change in the White's approach. They were branching out a bit from the blues rock that had made them famous and crafting songs with pop and shine like the aforementioned "Seven Nation Army" and the other singles "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" and "The Hardest Button to Button". It isn't all that surprising considering this is the major label debut for Jack and Meg.
Jack White is a genius. I believe it. Take a look at the decade he had, it's outlined on Paste's page (doh! I just gave away one of the two we have in common). Honestly, their prior releases, although solid, kind of all sound the same to me. This is the album where I started to hear a change and that trend continued with a largely experimental album for them, 2005's Get Behind Me Satan.
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