So. Away we go. My top 100 albums of the last decade.
Some of them I already reviewed in Rocktober, some of them will get a decent review, some just a couple of lines. Note also that unlike Rocktober, this chart takes in all genres – at least the ones that I listen to, which as mentioned before, is not really what you’d call a broad church of music.
Also, it’s a very rough list, position-wise. Any entry could easily move at least 10 positions or so in either direction depending on what day of the week it is, how much sleep I got the night before, how many drinks I’ve had etc. And it’s my list, my opinion, my party and I’ll scream and cry and kick and scratch if I want to. You may cry out in dismay “What, no (Duffy/Megadeth/Dizzee Rascal/Paolo Nutini/whoever)??? Again, it’s my list. You no likee, you get your own. (Anyway I still haven’t heard Megadeth’s “Endgame”…)
That is how it is, it could never be otherwise.
#100. David Bowie – Heathen (2002) [spotify]
David Bowie - Heathen
Is it cold in space, Bowie? Do you have just one spacesuit, Bowie, or do you have a few ch-ch-ch-changes?
Say what you like about Bowie – go on, say it – but you have to admit he doesn’t just churn out the same old stuff over and over. According to his Wikipedia page this 2002 release falls into his current “neoclassicist” era. I have no idea what they mean by that, but it sounds good. This is (as WP also points out) a very atmospheric album, with a dark melancholic almost ambient vibe running through it. Ideal for driving wistfully through the night along the A66 over the Pennines in February fog.
Do they smoke grass in space, Bowie? Or do you smoke Astroturf?
TOP TRACK: #5 “Afraid”.
#099. Radiohead – In Rainbows (2007)
Radiohead - In Rainbows
How much did you pay for it?
Oxfordshire miserablists Radiohead famously released this, their 7th studio album, as a digital download for which the purchaser could set his or her own price. I’m an on-and-off Radiohead listener, having fallen out with them a bit on and after OK Computer, and having pretty much given them a miss ever since, but I applauded the idea so much that I went straight to the site and bought it for £5. Of course, the files were encoded at only 160kbps, so I think that was a pretty fair price.
How many people entered £0.00? Fucking loads, apparently. Did the experiment prove anything meaningful about the music industry and the dedication of true fans? Maybe. Was it an amazingly successful PR boost for the band and the album? Hell yes.
I like this album, though. You can take everything from Kid A up to Hail to the Thief and shove them up your arse as far as I’m concerned, but I find In Rainbows to be a lot more accessible. This is likely not the view of the proper Radiohead fan, I realise, but I never said I was one. To my mind the best thing they ever did was The Bends, and I would have liked more like that – but that’s not what Radiohead do, and all credit to them for that. Artistic integrity FTW.
TOP TRACK: #4 “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”.
#098. Daft Punk – Discovery (2001) [spotify]
Daft Punk - Discovery
Pamplemousse! Ananas! Jacques Cousteau! Haw haw hawww BAGUETTE!
I was only vaguely aware of the French technopop duo known as Daft Punk up until 2001, when this album popped out of nowhere and stormed up the UK charts and onto the radio and dance floors with the big single “One More Time”. I was moderately intrigued, and my then-girlfriend (now-fiancée) liked it enough to buy it. I recall this fact making me very happy during the summer of 2001 when I was working on-site at NTL in Hook, nr Basingstoke, since its cheery pop-synth stylings were the perfect antidote to the drudgery of the job I was on at the time. Well, so was croquet on the hotel lawn drinking mai-tais on the company bill, but Discovery certainly helped.
Bibliotheque!
TOP TRACK: #4 “Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger”.
#097. Larry Carlton – Sapphire Blue (2003) [spotify]
Larry Carlton - Sapphire Blue
Mmmm… Jazz.
I’m not a gigantic jazzer, as many will attest, but in 2003 a few fellow members of UKMG announced that they were to descend upon the trés trendy Jazz Café in Camden for a gig by this very chap, Larry Carlton. Having scant little better to do, I toddled along and was thoroughly wossname. So much so, I bought the album, and it… well, I was going to say it rocks, but clearly it doesn’t. It jazzes.
TOP TRACK: #3 “Night Sweats”.
#096. John Foxx & Harold Budd – Drift Music/Translucence (2003) [spotify]
John Foxx & Harold Budd - Drift Music/Translucence
Mmmm… Ambient.
My affinity for ambient music began when one day back at Dare someone put Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports on the office stereo. This was a pretty high pressure manic caffeinated advertising environment, but the calming effect of the ambient repetitions proved entrancing in just the right way for me to concentrate on what I was doing at the time. Further investigations led me to Harold Budd, and this double album collaboration with John Foxx is one of the best in my collection.
TOP TRACK: It’s ambient, so it all kind of merges together. S’all good.
#095. Orphaned Land – Mabool (The Story of the Three Sons of Seven) (2005) [spotify]
Orphaned Land - Mabool (The Story of the Three Sons of Seven)
Mmmm… Eastern.
So, we come to the first showing in the 100 of my recent infatuation with Folk Metal. Orphaned Land are variously labelled (metal bands must be pigeonholed, you know) as Folk Metal, Oriental Metal, Progressive Metal, Death Metal, Doom Metal… the truth is they’re all of these things together. What they definitely are is an Israeli heavy metal band with Middle-Eastern and Jewish/Arabic influences, as Wikipedia helpfully tells us.
Also it’s a concept album – about religion! Hooray! I reckon though, that folk metal is one of the genres that can really do concept albums. The folk element usually comes across in storytelling, and so expanding the story across 12 tracks rather than trying to get it all across in just one is something that works, as long as it’s done well.
I tell you this – it’s rarely done as well as it is here. This is a corker from start to finish.
TOP TRACK: #2 “Ocean Land (The Revelation)”.
#094. Audioslave – Audioslave (2002) [spotify]
Audioslave - Audioslave
I was never a huge Soundgarden or RATM fan, but the idea of them merging was definitely intriguing, and you have to admit that Chris Cornell has one of the best voices in rock today. Tom Morello has always been an intriguing player too, but on some of the tracks on this album I find him just bloody annoying. When the time comes for a break in “Bring Em Back Alive”, any other player would have probably reached for a laid back solo in a minor-ish scale with some flurries of notes in the gaps of the monster groove going down underneath, but ole Tom seems to have thought “What would be the most annoying sound I can make for 20 seconds?” Hey, I know it’s his thing to use off the wall effects and sounds, and often I love his stuff, but honestly there are some bits on this album I could really have done without. The songs rock though.
TOP TRACK: #5 “Like A Stone”.
#093. Joe Satriani – Is There Love in Space? (2004) [spotify]
Joe Satriani - Is There Love in Space?
There was a time when any Joe Satriani record would have been in the top of any chart I compiled. Back in the day, he and that Vai chap were to me the only true music and even the mighty hard rock was secondary to the protracted widdlegasms of the fast fingered ones from Long Island. But that time is long past, and nowadays I find it a bit of a stretch to sit through a whole album of this stuff. That said, this album was to my mind the last really good one Satch knocked out, and that’s despite the two vocal tracks on there (he’s since jacked the singing in properly, and this is fairly widely agreed to be a good thing). There’s some genuinely catchy stuff on here – “Hands In The Air” and “If I Could Fly” leap to mind – and you very rarely get the sensation of fingers flailing to fill the gaps, something which marred a few tracks on the predecessor Strange Beautiful Music. Pretty nifty, if not for everyone.
TOP TRACK: #6 “If I Could Fly”. (Yes, the song that he accused Coldplay of ripping off… Adrian has more about that…)
#092. Yogi – Any Raw Flesh? (2001)
Yogi - Any Raw Flesh?
Sean Farley has nowadays dropped his nom de plume Yogi and is gigging with a band under the monicker Half Zaftig, though most recently he recorded a song every week for the whole of 2009. That’s pretty awesome. I haven’t heard any of it, but damn, that is pretty awesome. Anyway, his first solo album was this one, and it’s fabulous in a kind of dark Zappa-esque way. Actually parts of it remind me of Mike Keneally and occasionally of that Vai fella again. S’quirky, and s’good.
TOP TRACK: #2 “My Love For Lois Is Real”.
#091. Powerman 5000 – Transform (2003) [spotify]
Powerman 5000 - Transform
I have very little time for most of the bands slapped with the nu-metal label, but Powerman 5000 stand out to me as having a little more to say than those floppy cocks Limp Bizkit (srsly), and to actually be a bloody good band. Also this album is more punky than the predecessor Tonight The Stars Revolt!, and is a little easier to get into as well. Fun.
TOP TRACK: #2 “Theme to a Fake Revolution”.