Best decade for music

[thomasowen]

American Idiot will no way be looked back upon as a classic record. It will certainly be looked at as a great pop album though, although I personally find it insufferable compared to Warning and Nimrod. I'd argue that the below will generally be seen to have defined the 00s. A great decade for music where experimentation, genre revision and new fields (especially in hip hop) in established styles were embraced thoroughly by the mainstream. Of course, there's been an insufferable amount of crap as well, but that goes for ANY decade in popular music right back to the 50s.

The Strokes - Is This It

Daft Punk - Discovery

The Libertines - Up The Bracket

The White Stripes - White Blood Cells, Elephant,

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell

The Avalanches - Since I Left You

Outkast Stankonia - Speakboxx

The Arcade Fire - Funeral

Radiohead - Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail To The Thief, In Rainbows

Eminem - Marshall Mathers LP, The Eminem Show

LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver

Kanye West - The College Dropout, Late Registration, Graduation

Jay-Z - The Blueprint, The Black Album

Bjork - Vespertine

The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say...

Sigur Ros - ()

Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights

Modest Mouse - The Moon And Antarctica

Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner

Edited May 16, 2009 by thomasowen

[hearing_aid]

American Idiot will no way be looked back upon as a classic record. It will certainly be looked at as a great pop album though, although I personally find it insufferable compared to Warning and Nimrod. I'd argue that the below will generally be seen to have defined the 00s. A great decade for music where experimentation, genre revision and new fields (especially in hip hop) in established styles were embraced thoroughly by the mainstream. Of course, there's been an insufferable amount of crap as well, but that goes for ANY decade in popular music right back to the 50s.

The Strokes - Is This It

Daft Punk - Discovery

The Libertines - Up The Bracket

The White Stripes - White Blood Cells, Elephant,

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell

The Avalanches - Since I Left You

Outkast Stankonia - Speakboxx

The Arcade Fire - Funeral

Radiohead - Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail To The Thief, In Rainbows

Eminem - Marshall Mathers LP, The Eminem Show

LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver

Kanye West - The College Dropout, Late Registration, Graduation

Jay-Z - The Blueprint, The Black Album

Bjork - Vespertine

The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say...

Sigur Ros - ()

Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights

Modest Mouse - The Moon And Antarctica

Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner

[Explosions_In_The_Sky]

I think it already is to be honest, it's a great album that summed up the mood of the time. Notice how the majority of great albums this decade have been debuts? Bands haven't been able to make better follow ups nowdays for some reason.

Edited May 16, 2009 by Explosions_In_The_Sky

[thomasowen]

Fair enough, although I'd argue it didn't really; merely reflected the media's distortion of mood in one convenient cliched package. People are going to look back at the first half of the 00s as some huge zenith of popular disapproval, and I'd hope that for us around at the time we will be smart enough to note that it actually wasn't. For every teenager that got caught up in the anti war/f**k bush brigade, I'd argue that there was at least another ten who didn't feel that way/were pro war. It's comparable to the late 60s, romanticised to hell (especially in America) as a time when everyone stood out against the administrations. Yet when you actually take a step back and read a lot of the material out there on that generation, most other young people saw the protest groups as sanctimonious middle class attention seekers with too much time on their hands. Part of my flatmate's dissertation is looking at the politics and evolution of protest, and he's finding so far that the majority just got on with their lives during the mid to late 60s. Yes you had the antiwar movement on the home front in the states...but they really did make up a minority for the best part of the conflict. That's a perhaps a bit of a long winded way of putting it, but I personally don't see American Idiot culturally as some long standing achievement which should claim to reflect the mood of the 00s. Musically it was a catchy (if not overplayed) album, but it hardly offered anything new. The rock opera of the disenchanted youth was hardly original either.

On your other point, I think debuts in general tend to make up the majority of best material. For many bands they've arguably spent their whole lives writing their first album, you get considerably less time to focus on the follow ups. The sixties in particular was an era in which debuts just creamed the crop. However in the 70s it was interesting because many of the great bands of the era actually had their roots in the sixties, so I'd argue that most of the great 70s records weren't actually debuts (except for when the punk/post punk brigade arrive) .

Yeah I wasn't presenting it as an argument for the 00s being the best decade, merely just my opinion on what the great music for this decade was.

[midnightradio]

I reckon the bands that will be remembered from this generation are:

Radiohead: yeah, they're a '90s band but some of their most prominent work has been through this decade.

Opeth: anything even linked with prog leaves me cold, but even I can't argue that they'll be seen as the most important metal act of our generation.

The Strokes: speaheaded the whole mainstream indie revolution, and helped get bands like the Arctics and Libs noticed.

Animal Collective: ultimate Pitchfork band. Latest album finally has them being recognised with practically unanimous critical aclaim.

Converge: have helped define metalcore definitely, and Jane Doe will always be seen as a classic.

Atmosphere: not only made some great albums, but by setting up Rhymesayers have really gave independant hip-hop the exposure it deserves. Madvillain and Jay Dee may have made that classic album, but they haven't helped hip-hop the way Atmosphere have.

The Exploding Hearts: very much our generations Wipers, in my opinion. Guitar Romantic will be picked up by the mainstream in around ten years.

The Microphones: K records never fails to produce amazing artists. I can see him being remembered in much the same light as groups like the Beat Happening or The Vaselines.

There's just a few, anyway. They'll be just as much as the previous decades.

Edited May 17, 2009 by midnightradio

[brighteyes]

If you're talking best decade for POP music then it's got to be the 80s. Because 80s chart music was, and still is, brilliant.

[hearing_aid]

On your other point, I think debuts in general tend to make up the majority of best material. For many bands they've arguably spent their whole lives writing their first album, you get considerably less time to focus on the follow ups.

[thomasowen]

I can't agree with this. I think debuts being the best of an artists output isn't that common. Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Nick Cave & The Bad Sees, Blur, Jesus Lizard, The Fall etc etc. There are too many bands to name where there debut have not been thier best.

[worm]

But they did learn music, they did start a band and therefore it was the beatles who were hugely influential. You can't talk in numbers but I would bet they are the most influential pop act of all time.

[worm]

I think it already is to be honest, it's a great album that summed up the mood of the time.

[kaosmark2]

I can't agree with this. I think debuts being the best of an artists output isn't that common. Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Nick Cave & The Bad Sees, Blur, Jesus Lizard, The Fall etc etc. There are too many bands to name where there debut have not been thier best.

[kaosmark2]

American Idiot will no way be looked back upon as a classic record. It will certainly be looked at as a great pop album though, although I personally find it insufferable compared to Warning and Nimrod. I'd argue that the below will generally be seen to have defined the 00s. A great decade for music where experimentation, genre revision and new fields (especially in hip hop) in established styles were embraced thoroughly by the mainstream. Of course, there's been an insufferable amount of crap as well, but that goes for ANY decade in popular music right back to the 50s.

The Strokes - Is This It

Daft Punk - Discovery

The Libertines - Up The Bracket

The White Stripes - White Blood Cells, Elephant,

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell

The Avalanches - Since I Left You

Outkast Stankonia - Speakboxx

The Arcade Fire - Funeral

Radiohead - Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail To The Thief, In Rainbows

Eminem - Marshall Mathers LP, The Eminem Show

LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver

Kanye West - The College Dropout, Late Registration, Graduation

Jay-Z - The Blueprint, The Black Album

Bjork - Vespertine

The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say...

Sigur Ros - ()

Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights

Modest Mouse - The Moon And Antarctica

Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner

[hearing_aid]

In the past thats been true but if you look at this decade the majority of great albums have been debuts and few bands I can think of have bettered them recently eg Strokes, Arcade Fire, Franz Ferdinand,

[worm]

Definitely. Although I disagree about Smashing Pumpkins. Gish edges it over Siamese Dream and Melon Collie for me.

[worm]

And underneath the outer layer of music there's a huge number of fantastic albums this decade. A lot of the acts from the 80s that we look back on with fondness weren't that huge, Pixies, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, to name some of the more famous acts.

[thomasowen]

Yes, they inspired mainstream music (west life etc). They did not inspire in the universally objective way you seem to be basing this on. They inspired the mainstream that many other cultures of music detracted from. They were the structural core to the post structural alternatives.

Edited May 17, 2009 by thomasowen

[worm]

You really are over complicating what was a very simple statement, that the Beatles are certainly one of the most influential pop acts of all time. I am mainly talking about mainstream pop i.e 4 white boys guitar, bass, drums etc

Edited May 17, 2009 by worm

[thomasowen]

You are saying that white boys, guitar, bass, drums etc is a genre. It's not. Further, it was not The Beatles who did this originally, so the band that inspired them is the most influential. Do you see?

Edited May 17, 2009 by thomasowen

[worm]

You're thinking too seriously about something that isn't meant to be taken seriously, I mean rock n roll bands don't think about it like this, they see a band like The Beatles and think 'I want to be them'

Edited May 17, 2009 by worm

[robsadler]

you could go on about influences all day.

i know artists influenced the beatles and someone influenced them and this goes back as far as you want to go BUT the beatles are the beatles.

nirvana have influenced a lot of modern bands but kurt cobain loved them (i saw a documentary on the making of nevermind the other day and to persuade kurt cobain to layer the vocals on smells like teen spirit all butch vig had to say was.....john lennon did it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles...popular_culture

the beatles.....the greatest band ever.

robx

[kaosmark2]

Only the mainstream now has tabs on the alternative (local, independent) outlets that were avalable in the 90s. The moment a band or sound is spotted at source it is given a stage and exhausted. Those bands you list were outstanding because they evolved at a pre-emergent level existing on just enough money to make a living. That doesn't happen now. Emergence has become appropriated - from source to stadium, which brings festivals into the equation quite nicely.

[kaosmark2]

You're thinking too seriously about something that isn't meant to be taken seriously, I mean rock n roll bands don't think about it like this, they see a band like The Beatles and think 'I want to be them' - at leat this is how the Majority of bands think. By 4 white boys with guitar etc a mean band likely to play a festival like Reading - Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead, Kings of Leon for example have all cited The Beatles as a huge influcence.

[thomasowen]

"I want to be them" isn't a positive influence, it doesn't encourage creativity. "Wow, their music is doing something interesting and meaningful, I want to do that" is the sort of influence that should be credited.

[thomasowen]

If that's the thinking of the artists then it's no wonder that their music sucks. Fortunately, very few artists think like that. They did for a while in the 60s in the movement known as pop art, but not since the 80s. Pop art still goes on, but you can draw a line around alternative rock.

So there we are. There's one distinction. Alternative rock does not have a pop art sensibility like the counter of the 60s did. We're getting somewhere.

[worm]

You think Radiohead suck?