Vikings & Beekeepers

 

10. The Hold Steady Boys And Girls In America (2006)

As great as The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me and Separation Sunday were (and they were great – Separation Sunday landed in at No. 101 on this list), the Hold Steady could occasionally be accused of putting the story ahead of the song. Singer Craig Finn’s stories are so fascinating and quotable that it seemed at times that the songs weren’t required to be at the same level. However, when you’re doing the whole barstool scribe schtick, it’s probably best if you project to the cheap seats. That’s what the Hold Steady do on Boys And Girls In America, their apex and one of the most thrilling straight up rock records ever. Instead of furthering the narratives of popular Finn characters like Holly and Charlemagne, the Hold Steady let the story slack, focusing more on a short story approach that allows the group to explore new territory lyrically and even musically. You still get fascinating stories in songs like the John Berryman and Jack Kerouac referencing “Stuck Between Stations” or the dry out duet “Chillout Tent,” but those songs are bolstered by some of the biggest and most infectious classic rock swipes around, courtesy guitarist Tad Kubler and moustachioed pianist Franz Nicolay. These songs are as quotable and smartly hilarious as anything Finn has ever penned, but never before and never since have the songs themselves been so absolutely stacked with goodies. You could probably write a book about Finn’s lyrics, but chances are with Boys And Girls In America, you’ll be too busy playing air guitar.

“Southtown Girls”  

 

9. Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavillion (2009) 

I still find it funny that critics spent the decade saying, “This is the Animal Collective album that finally manages to perfectly marry the polar opposite ends of the musical landscape.” The reviews were all the same: “Sung Tongs captures the balance between the avant garde and pop…no wait, it’s Feels…just kidding, we meant Strawberry Jam…or Person Pitch.” These were all good albums that showed progressing musical growth, mind you, but never quite at the level Animal Collective were capable of. That didn’t stop critics from crying wolf, however, lauding these “pretty good” albums as “important” and “essential.” Then came Merriweather Post Pavilion, an album that corrected all that (although, just watch, AC’s next album will probably take it to the next level, making MPP sound like an indulgent turd).

But what makes Merriweather Post Pavilion the best Animal Collective album is not just the fact that the songs hit harder with bigger hooks and more winning sound loops or that some of the more indulgent tendencies have been refined; it’s the album’s warmth and humanity. Merriweather Post Pavilion may sound like a party, but it’s a celebration of some of the most good and pure things not normally associated with popular music: domesticity (“My Girls”), monogamous romance (“Bluish”), not concerning yourself with image-consciousness (“Taste”) and familial support (“Brother Sport”). MPP is both exciting and oddly touching. Animal Collective still make a trippy noise here, but MPP makes not only a tremendous musical leap forward, but a surprising emotional leap as well.

 “Lion In A Coma”

 

8. Boredoms Vision Creation Newsun (2001)

It’s a lazy critical cliché to say that an album or artist has taken a variety of genres and essentially puts them in a blender. But when talking about Japan’s Boredoms, and most notably their chaotic masterpiece Vision Creation Newsun, making that claim would not be a metaphor. VCN sounds like every piece of music ever released – I’m talking everything: punk, krautrock, pop, country, negro spirituals, tribal music, jazz, folk, disco, house, metal, noise, classical…everything EVER -  placed into a blender. Literally. VCN is the sound of that blender. Each track is merely a different setting on that blender. Different, discernible sounds rise up above the racket and then sink back down into the musical swirl, replaced by new sounds that sound foreign and garbled in their new context. Then, as the sound begins to liquefy, the blender is shot into outer space only to harden and come hurtling back down to Earth, completely destroying our home planet, leaving only a single voice to float in space where Planet Earth used to be. Literally. VCN doesn’t sound like recreation of this, it sounds like the actual documentation. Of course, after the Earth was destroyed, Boredoms were still around to re-build a planet in their own image, one where “out” music acolytes like Animal Collective, Excepter, Black Dice, Lightning Bolt, Battles, etc, etc, etc. could thrive and flourish, multiplying rapidly and making the world a better place. The world is a better place now and it’s all because of the wonderful, strange and deadly concoction that Boredoms devised. Listening to this album will change you.

“(Star)”  

 

7. Ghostface Killah Fishscale (2006)

The knock on Fishscale has always been that it lacks “cohesion.” For me, that’s Fishscale’s primary virtue – it has everything anyone would ever want from Wu-Tang’s most beloved son. On the Wu-Tang Clan’s earliest releases, Ghostface Killah already showed that he had an exceptional gift. His excitable flow could put pretty much launch any song over the edge. Releases like Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Ironman, Supreme Clientele and The Pretty Toney Album would all respectively reveal that Ghost was capable of shifting into new gears. There was no containing Ghost, he simply could do too much. With that said, Fishscale is the only Ghostface album that sees him running through his entire skill-set in one singular setting. Fishscale touches on detailed, Raekwon-teamed drug epics (“Kilo”, “R.A.G.U.”), monster-sized bangers (“The Champ”, “Be Easy”), frenzied crime narratives (“Shakey Dog”, “Crack Spot”), stream-of-consciousness reference parties (“Underwater”), mega-sincere emo rap (“Whip You With A Strap”, “Jellyfish”) and even shameless, pointless, but totally awesome, crossover attempts (“Back Like That”). So no, Fishscale isn’t unified or even particularly focused, except that Ghostface has never before and never again shown this kind of diversity and skill. Everything Ghostface does well, he does incredibly well here. It’s the best overview of one artist’s varied talents released this decade. If you consider yourself a fan of Ghostface (and I honestly don’t know why you wouldn’t) this should be the one you hold in the highest esteem.

“Be Easy”  

 

6. Smog Dongs Of Sevotion (2000) 

“I root for the underdog / No matter who they are / Like the bank robber / In the getaway car.” Those words, from Dongs Of Sevotion (not a typo) opener “Justice Aversion,” tell you everything you need to know about the kinds of characters that inhabit Bill Callahan’s songs. They’re a little…off. There’s something sinister about these characters – sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly. These are not leaders of men (some are blatant followers), nor are they characters of the utmost integrity. Instead, Callahan gives of snapshots of scoundrels, perverts, bad husbands, violent malcontents, thoughtless wanderers – men either deep in regret (“Strayed,” “Nineteen”) or unashamed and unapologetic about who they are (“Dress Sexy At My Funeral,” “Cold Discovery”). There’s a lot of violent imagery on Dongs (“Justice Aversion,” “Bloodflow” and especially the “I can hold a woman / Down on a hardwood floor” refrain of “Cold Discovery”). But through all of this disturbing imagery, Callahan manages to keep things seemingly light and almost…funny? “Dress Sexy” is obviously a very humorous song and the easiest to discard from the “Misanthropic” pile with its warm sound and simple I-IV chord progression and the tension that builds on “Bloodflow” is offset by cheerleader chants (courtesy the “Dongettes”) and rhyming couplets like “No time for a tete-a-tete / Can I borrow your machete?” Also, the album is called Dongs Of Sevotion. These slightly absurdist moves make for an unpredictable listen, but a captivating one as well (it’s no wonder that Callahan briefly dabbled in comedy writing). On the other end, the more jarring lyrical ventures are also the least musically decorated, bringing Callahan’s strange, unsettling poetry to the forefront. “Nineteen” and “Devotion” are as musically spare as a song can be, but when Callahan recounts the devastation of his first sexual encounter on the former (“She didn’t even know what she was / Taking away…I didn’t even know / What I had taken away”) or seethes with bitterness on the latter (“There are some terrible gossips in this town / With jaws like vices and eyes like drains”) the words do all the work.

As Callahan’s ninth album under the Smog moniker, it was easy for people to overlook how strong Dongs Of Sevotion actually is (especially in the wake of 1999’s equally compelling Knock Knock), but having never heard any of Callahan’s work before (and purchasing the album on a whim based on the title), Dongs knocked me on my ass. It wasn’t in line with anything I was into at the time, but the songwriting and diversity of sound - the cold electro beats of “Justice Aversion” give way to gritty guitars of “The Hard Road” which gives way to the haunting Spector-sized “Permanent Smile” – hooked into me. A full decade later, Dongs Of Sevotion remains a hilarious, horrific and unexpected album – the best by one of the finest songwriters in music.

“Bloodflow”  

 

5. …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead Source Tags & Codes (2002)

Trail of Dead must have made a deal with the devil. How else can you explain the fact that they’re pretty much the only band to jump to a major label (the then-Fred Dust-controlled Interscope, remember that?), stir up all the ambition their medium talent could muster (quite a lot, actually) and come out with a spectacularly huge and high-minded rock album that managed to be accessible without being compromised, ambitious and dense without being obtuse or contrived, self-serious without being mawkish or ham-handed, expansive without sounding cluttered or filler-infested? Source Tags & Codes was a tremendous accomplishment in rock music, an album that aimed high and hit higher.

Of course, the flip side of the deal was that Trail Of Dead was never able to realize their ambition and satisfy their muse in quite the same way ever again. Diminishing returns would see many of the same people that embraced Source Tags & Codes begin to walk away from it and chastise the band’s earnestness, hokey “smash our instruments at the end of the show” routine and questionable career moves (the title track to Worlds Apart, for one).

But even if Trail Of Dead couldn’t live up to the promise of their best album, Source Tags & Codes hasn’t lost an ounce of its power in the intervening years. It’s just that the importance of the album has shifted. I spent the better part of the 2000s thinking that Source Tags & Codes was the best album of the decade, but it’s far too backward looking for that. As a direct descendant of serious minded rock acts like Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu, Jawbox, Smashing Pumpkins and Sunny Day Real Estate, Trail of Dead created an album that is less the best album of the 2000s and more the best 90s album of the 2000s. These guys have looked to their heroes and musical forefathers and said, “Let’s do exactly that – but maybe better.” There is no ironic detachment to be found on Source Tags & Codes. Instead, it’s an album with its heart on its sleeve. When Trail of Dead is playing angry, they sound more righteously pissed off than anybody. When the album aims to be beautiful and expansive, the guitars chime and glisten and the singers emote passionately. To be honest, this is largely the kind of stuff a more cynical me would begin to shun or at least not fall for in later years (you’ll notice the lack of Funeral on this list), but at the right age and at the right time, Source Tags & Codes spoke to me and instilled in me a sense that it’s alright to let people know the sweat and effort it takes to do something great and that, yes, sometimes we can find a way to exceed our own capacity for greatness.

 ”Relative Ways”

 

4. Dungen Ta Det Lugnt (2004)

2004 was the year the hippies took over. Freak folkies like Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom and the like all made their big leaps to the public eye, while psychedelic artists both traditional (Comets On Fire) and non-traditional (Animal Collective) found a home atop the underground hierarchy. No band from the class of ’04 won me over as much as Swedish psych-rockers Dungen and their riveting, rollicking and expansive album, Ta Det Lugnt. Led by multi-instrumentalist Gustav Ejstes, Dungen were more than just another band with their feet stuck in the 60s. We live in a world where, musically speaking, influence is inescapable. Every sound and every idea can be traced back to some sort of sonic forefather. This top 10 features a handful of bands that shamelessly, almost aggressively, crib moves that others have made. Even the more forward-looking bands apply old influences in the quest to create a new sound and a new concept of pop (where would Animal Collective be without Brian Wilson, for instance?). Bands going the 60s psychedelic route has been a common route since Jan. 1, 1970, so Dungen aren’t exactly blazing a new trail. But Dungen’s psychedelia seems to come from a real and exciting place, full of weird, wonderful and sometimes unexpected influences. While the work of people like Devendra Banhart could be easily traced back to early Mark Bolan, Dungen’s psychedelic background jumps from decade to decade. More than just a hippy-trippy group of Swedish fauxhemian kids, Dungen’s sound touches on everything from the pastoral folk-pop of the Kinks, the foreign man acid noise of  Amon Düül II, the fragmented jazz excursions of Alice Coltrane, the interstellar guitar wanderings of Sonny Sharrock, the diverting joyful noise of Olivia Tremor Control and the muscular roar of Comets on Fire.

But all the cool and unexpected influences stop mattering almost immediately on “Panda,” Ta Det Lugnt’s opening track. As some aimless tom-tom flourishes give way to a machine gun snare fill, Ejstes’ guitar roars out of its tube amp like a wild animal released from its cage (there was no more perfect guitar tone this decade) while a high-on-the-neck bass line nimbly chases it through the woods. It’s one of the most perfect musical moments of the decade (all 25 seconds of it) and one of many to appear on Ta Det Lugnt. That Ejstes only sings in Swedish is perhaps a benefit to the album (although some have wrongly suggested that the foreign angle merely makes the album a novelty – I’m calling bullshit). Who knows how good or bad a lyricist Ejstes might be? What’s important to us Anglos is how strong his melodies are. I often find myself singing along to Ta Det Lugnt, despite not knowing what the hell it is I’m singing (heck, I’m still not 100 per cent on how to say “Dungen”). In between these great melodies are an endless supply of enchanting rabbit holes to get lost in – spacey guitar freak outs, flute interludes, ragtime piano, druggy spoken word interjections and extended free jazz sessions. Ta Det Lugnt isn’t just an album, it’s a journey to the inner and outer reaches of psychedelic rock. As Ta Det Lugnt’s perfect first half gives away to its dreamy, druggy second half, the listener loses footing and falls deep into a world of endless ideas and the boundless ability to see them out. It’s a trip worth taking, man.

“Festival”  

 

3. Jay-Z The Blueprint (2001)

What’s left to say about The Blueprint other than the fact that it’s probably the best hip-hop album ever? In a genre where artists and albums age like warm milk, The Blueprint remains the one rap album that likely won’t ever go out of style. Even though there are elements that date the album (a Jackson 5 sample, “izzle” talk, Eminem), Jay-Z’s singular vision and impeccable taste uphold the album past the point of “just rap.” The secret to The Blueprint’s success is how it makes the commonplace seem ingenious, the simple seem magnificent. Jay-Z’s braggadocio and ability to flaunt his talents is unparalleled, but The Blueprint is a completely unadorned album – no frills, no gimmicks (no skits!), just one rapper verbally hitting his stride from one banger to the next. At only 13 tracks – a miniscule number for most rap albums – The Blueprint doesn’t come with a shred of filler. Instead, Jay-Z simply runs through the basic hip-hop tropes – the diss track, the ladies track, the Latin track, the guest spot track, the hidden track – and effortlessly does them better than anyone had before and anyone has since. Going it alone behind the mic (save for the Eminem-guested “Renegade,” where Em admittedly out-raps Hov) and employing the hottest producers (then-unknowns Kanye West and Just Blaze account for over half of the album’s 13 tracks), Jay-Z made a statement album where the statement is simple: Rap should be this good. Of course, no other rap album is this good and everyone is still desperately trying to hit on something that satisfies so completely. But listening to The Blueprint, it really sounds like there’s nothing to it. Just do what Jay-Z does: cut the bullshit and be the best. With The Blueprint, stars were born (West, Blaze), careers were ruined (Nas, Mobb Deep) and a new king of hip-hop ascended his throne. All hail the king. God MC. Jay-Hova.

“Takeover”  

 

2. Fugazi The Argument (2001)

It’s the best album by the best band – of course it’s going to rank highly! Most bands over a decade into their career have their best work behind them, but Fugazi isn’t like most bands. While it still depresses me that Ian Mackaye, Guy Picciotto, Brendan Canty and Joe Lally are no longer together releasing albums, The Argument, the band’s final release before their “indefinite hiatus,” provides a resounding exclamation of a career bookend. With The Argument, Fugazi manage to encapsulate the depth and breadth of their entire career and surpass it in one fell swoop. The Argument sees the band run through the Spartan post-punk of their earliest work (“Epic Problem”), the subdued and more deliberate sound of Steady Diet Of Nothing (“Argument”), the fiery rage of In On The Kill Taker (“Full Disclosure”) and the experimental, dubby moments of Red Medicine and End Hits (“The Kill,” featuring the underrated and underused Lally on vocals). On top of that, The Argument also shows a few new facets to Fugazi’s repetoire- guitar solos, spaghetti western whistling, strummy acoustic guitars and the ethereal bridge on “Argument.”

At the same time, the band’s lyrical focus remains as relevant as ever. Recorded in early 2001, The Argument’s lyrical themes sound unbelievably prescient, tackling subjects like the rampant and needless urge for all levels of society to spend and expand (“Cashout”), a nation’s collective bloodlust (“Life And Limb”) and a culture war that has no end (“Argument”). On “Argument,” Mackaye sings, “When they start falling / Executions will commence / Sides will not matter now / Matter makes no sense / How did a difference become a disease?” and then later “It’s all about strikes now / So here’s what’s striking me / That some punk could argue some moral ABC’s / When people are catching what bombers release.” To think that these lyrics were written in a pre-9/11 world is startling. In our Red/Blue State society, these words should take on greater meaning, but Fugazi shows that we were knee deep in shit before the shit eventually hit the fan. Although The Argument, in the end, is just a cool sounding record by some punk rock OGs, its musical and lyrical maturity is worthy of serious consideration. Fugazi were tireless in their musical progression and deliberate in their words. While it would have been easy for Fugazi to write a million versions of “Waiting Room” or “Merchandise” and spend their time railing against dumb punk kids at shows, they were never a band to make the easy moves. “I’m on a mission to never agree,” Mackaye sings. It shows. Fugazi were a band that couldn’t settle. Even as the band moved toward its end, it was a constant forward momentum. The Argument is damn near as far as any band could go.

“Epic Problem”

 

1. Dismemberment Plan Change (2001)

It’s a happy accident that David Byrne starts this list and The Dismemberment Plan finish it. No band has better carried the spirit of Byrne’s Talking Heads than the Plan. While Byrne’s gawky yelp held the strongest hold on 21st century indie rock with bands like Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, etc. etc. etc., Travis Morrison and his band tapped into a more vital, lasting aspect of Byrne’s work. More than just recreate the sound of Talking Heads (although Change bears some striking resemblances to Talking Heads, circa 1980-1988), the Plan share their sense of sonic adventure, the urge to merge the progressive and the populist and the ability to create fascinating characters and tell off-kilter, emotionally affecting stories. Both bands have fun applying new influences into their established sound, they both could play the hell out of their instruments and both were willing to take challenging lyrical routes.

For example on the latter, on “Psycho Killer,” Byrne plays the titular role, a man who rigidly requires social niceties from others or else (“I hate people when they’re not polite”). As a parallel, Morrison takes a less intense, but similarly maladjusted approach to the world on “Sentimental Man” (“I’m an Old Testament type of guy / I like my coffee black and my parole denied”). These characters are our protagonists; we’re rooting for them.

But it’s the spirit of Talking Heads that most dominates the Dismemberment Plan’s sound, not just the music – challenge yourself and challenge the listener, be constantly broadening your sound, but most of all, make it a blast to listen to. As the 2000s reached its halfway point, the concept of popism was in full swing. It doesn’t matter if you were an indie kid, a punk rocker, a metalhead, a dance music junkie, a hip-hop fan or whatever – good music is good music is good music. That ideological movement is perhaps the greatest legacy of the last decade and The Plan stood at the frontlines in that shift (in an interview in 2003, Travis Morrison championed the work of Avril Lavigne, Vanessa Williams, Dashboard Confessional and the Mighty Might Bosstones – this was not a man that was fixed to the rigid parameters set by indie rock at the time). When the Plan hit the DC post-punk scene in the mid-90s, party lines had clearly been drawn (even though their forefathers had made some inroads in applying a broader sonic palette, those DC punks didn’t have much room for traditional pop). As the Plan progressed in their career, they began deviating from the norm of indie and punk rock. Like most DC kids, the members of the Plan grew up on a steady diet of Fugazi, Shudder To Think and Brainiac, but they also horded a deep love for Prince, Public Enemy and Peter Gabriel. By 1999’s Emergency & I, the Plan had become the funkiest, most daring band on the planet, marrying sounds and ideas that hadn’t necessarily been put together by that point. On top of that, these guys could play. Undeniably the tightest most technically adventurous band of the last 20 years (Best. Rhythm. Section. Ever.), the Plan took prog swipes at pop music – Emergency & I was like King Crimson releasing Sign ‘O’ The Times. The album received untold amounts of justified praise, helped put a fledgling music review website called Pitchfork on the map and pushed music forward into the new century.

So Change comes as a transitional record (hence the title). It catches the Plan heading into uncharted territory. Where Emergency & I was manic and excitable, Change is smooth and melancholy. The transition in sound between the two records is like following up Captain Beefheart with a Steely Dan chaser. One album was bursting at the seams with frenetic energy, sexual tension and unchecked id; the other was a thoroughly in the pocket affair, all liquid grooves and self-reflection. Morrison’s unhinged vocal delivery (an occasional mix of motor mouthed white boy rap, speak-sing verses and jaw-dropping melody) was now thoroughly “hinged.” Morrison keeps things almost entirely tuneful on Change, and it works, the guys has an unbelievable voice (and it comes double tracked too). Of course, the songwriting quality was a constant. Up until the fateful release of 2004’s Travistan, Morrison had been one of the most thorough and thought-provoking lyricists in music. It was commonplace to sit and read D-Plan liner notes without listening to the music just so you could fully absorb Morrison’s words. Like Byrne before him, Morrison was never afraid to go the road less traveled with his lyrics, telling stories of having a nervous breakdown on New Year’s Eve, anonymous invitations to every party ever or a man witnessing his girlfriend get sucked up by a UFO, disappearing forever. While the Plan’s sound was changing, Morrison’s lyrical muscle’s never atrophied.

And it’s not like Change completely loses the party atmosphere. “Pay For The Piano” and “Ellen And Ben” both sizzle with the kind of keyboard buzzes and beeps that defined the more frenzied moments of Emergency & I. Even as songs seem to move like ballads, the band is applying their infinite chops, sneakily amping the excitement factor (“Face of The Earth,” “Following Through”) – the drums in constant, neck-snapping motion, the bass fluidly bobbing up and down, inciting a need to physically respond to the music (did I mention their rhythm section was better than anyone’s ever?), the slippery guitars dripping with dreamy euphoria, dropped beats, surprising compositional moves, sticky harmonies, etc. Despite being a less hyperkinetic album than its predecessor, Change remains endlessly unpredictable. What the Plan lost in sheer gut-level bombast, they made up for in warmth and songwriting growth. The jump from Emergency & I to Change is similar to the jump XTC made from Drums & Wires to Skylarking, or the one the Talking Heads made from “Psycho Killer” to “Naïve Melody (This Must be The Place).” Not better, just different – maybe a touch more real and moving.

So why is Change my favorite album of the last decade? Well, first off, a quick look at my top two albums would show I’m a sucker for DC post-punk. Secondly, nothing released since Change has sounded quite like it. The Plan properly utilized their influences, but there aren’t any bands out there right now who sound like the Plan. It would seem that there will never be another band like them and another album like Change. And lastly, I came to fall in love with Change the same way I did my favorite albums from every other decade: not immediately, but one song at a time, over a few years. Listened to in the context of its predecessor, Change was a drastic shift, but I was able to immediately get on board with the burning intensity of “Time Bomb” (“I am a time bomb / and I only live in that one moment in which you die”). That song, with its winding keyboards, perpetually building guitars and pummeling drums, hits hard and hits immediately. It’s either all chorus or all verse, depending how you look at it, but its swells and Morrison’s heart-stopping vocal performance give the album an easy in. From there, I kept finding new aspects to key in on – the unparalleled musicianship, Morrison’s stirring vocal performances or his gripping lyrics, the tricky exhilaration of singing along.

But is Change better than Emergency & I? I guess it depends on which album I’m listening to at the time. Certainly Emergency & I is slightly more praised (partially due to the fact that Change is more of a grower), but I’ll say this in defense of The Dismemberment Plan’s final album: Change takes its inspiration from the best moments from the Plan’s previous albums (“Rusty” from !, “Respect Is Due” from The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified, “The City” from Emergency & I). The album is moodier and less “punk” than what came before, but it’s more mature, more “of a piece” and more emotionally resonating. It’s also no less fun. Change is a musically adventurous ride, full of startling left turns, precise dynamics, wit and heart. In the nine years since I first listened to Change my response to it remains constant.

Change challenges me, moves me and makes me want to dance. It’s as ideal an album for my sensibility as I’ve ever listened to.

“Sentimental Man”  

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