The Top 100 Albums of 2000-04, Part Two
Mon: 02-07-05

The Top 100 Albums of 2000-04, Part Two

Staff List by Pitchfork Staff

[Singles: 100-051]
[Singles: 050-001]
[Albums: 100-051]
[Albums: 050-001]

050: Kanye West
The College Dropout
[Roc-A-Fella; 2004]

Kanye West is a prancing contradiction. The College Dropout's boasted a devastatingly successful combination of wonton (and admitted) social irresponsibility and biting social commentary. Kanye is a exercise in ideological wanderlust in that he advocates for so much, his positions come full circle. He puts his cross above the mantle next to his Louis Vuitton backpack. He pushes for black advancement but openly mocks formal education. He mixes crotch-grabbing posturing with misty-eyed reminiscences. And in truly iconic fashion, he sees no inconsistencies.

West's enigmatic outlook fortunately spilled onto his music. The utter diversity of his collaborations immediately earns laudits for a major label release (as he shameless points on "Last Call") and easily births two-headed beasts like Jay-Z/J. Ivy and Freeway/Mos Def. The merging of underground and mainstream artists only demonstrated Kanye's ambivalence about his position in hip-hop. "We Don't Care" had us triumphantly screaming with the kids while "Slow Jamz" peeled off our jeans and socks. And at the end, "Family Business" stood at the door with the photo album and a plate of mama's pies. Not to mention Kanye's Trimspa endorsement on "The New Workout Plan". Kon covers so much ground that we should hope he can decide what he wants to be when he grows up. --Jamin Warren

 

049: Lightning Bolt
Wonderful Rainbow
[Load; 2003]

Though they haven't surpassed the gloriousness of earlier aggro group Harry Pussy, Providence's Lightning Bolt certainly pounded out a colorful packet of noise on Wonderful Rainbow, turning bass and drums into a fleshy, distended landscape. The loudest moments get deserved props ad infinitum, but it's actually the more tentative, spare beauty of the tiny "Hello Morning" and the finger-tapping/chirping of the title track that establish the compelling dynamics that separate these ragtag, stage-free comic nerds from a seemingly endless slew of like-minded noise assassins. (Of course, there's also entropic metal scowl of "Dracula Mountain" and it's equally gargantuan neighbors.) More important than volume, Lighting Bolt-- along with Wolf Eyes and Black Dice-- gave uninitiated youngsters an idea of how to differentiate between good noise and tiresome wanking. --Brandon Stosuy

 

048: ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead
Source Tags & Codes
[Interscope; 2002]

This record is full of moments that sound ridiculous when taken out of context, the kinds of flourishes that never should have flown in our cynical 00's: The spastic drum fills from "It Was There That I Saw You", the strings and bells of "Another Morning Stoner", the Muppety shouting and bombast of "Days of Running Wild", the Brian Wilson-aping segueway that closes "Relative Ways". This is a record written by kids of the 90s, kids who listened to the same Sonic Youth and Sunny Day Real Estate records that a lot of us did, and when it came time to write their opus, they went as big as possible, and Source Tags succeeds on its sheer wide-eyed exuberance and I-heart-rocknroll sincerity. --Jason Crock

 

047: The Shins
Chutes Too Narrow
[Sub Pop; 2003]

The Shins occupy a peculiar realm dominated by bands whose skills are too good for either complete suppression or mainstream success. Along with the Walkmen, Interpol, and Air, they've got Saturn commercials and "The O.C." locked down; but, Natalie Portman's iPod aside, seldom do these bands infiltrate starrier domains. With any luck, Chutes Too Narrow will get its due during the next generation's scheduled round of VH1 canonization; for now, the album stands apart from even its most competitive peers, earning rarely bestowed compliments of the utmost simplicity: consummate songcraft, an immaculate recorded treatment, and lyrics that make as much or as little sense as you assign them.

Opener "Kissing the Lipless" consolidates the band's strengths into a sleek pop farrago. Each new layer incorporates seamlessly yet feels instantly essential to the whole. The same goes for the regal promenade of "Saint Simon", the exalted shuffle-bop of "So Says I", and the organ-drenched wistfulness of "Pink Bullets". It all sounds simple enough, but Chutes Too Narrow is so nuanced it carries a nagging air of something amiss. You can never remember a Shins song exactly how it happens because the band are operating on some mystic level that tweaks memory and gives the illusion of things that aren't really there. Perhaps it's that subversiveness that's keeping the mainstream away. --Sam Ubl

 

046: TV on the Radio
Young Liars EP
[Touch & Go; 2003]

On the Young Liars EP, TV on the Radio crafted something more complete and satisfying than many top bands' best full-length efforts. Critics spoke of the comparative vulnerability of the EP's follow-up, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes as if it were an evolutionary character trait, but I think that album's quaking timorousness was the sound of humility, of a group of musicians absolutely cowed by their sudden, out-of-left-field greatness. Young Liars is a phantom Frankenstein, a bulletproof yet sensitive creature reared through unmitigated nurture that seemed to reap havoc where it never stepped. It may have changed everything, or nothing at all: At once timely and timeless, its persuasive power is endless, starting with the asteroid shuffle of "Satellite", winding through the rubble-strewn "Blind", and capping things-- presumably-- with "Young Liars", perhaps the premier fusty-garage-to-digital-age union of the decade. That indie's best a cappella caper this side of the Futureheads is tacked on as an unlisted afterthought is further evidence of Young Liars' boundless surprise, breadth of imagination, and world-weary genius. --Sam Ubl

 

045: The Arcade Fire
Funeral
[Merge; 2004]

Stuck in the cold winter of Montreal, stuck in grief for lost loved ones, stuck in an introspective rut over their conflicted childhoods, the members of the Arcade Fire look for transcendence in music, as millions of teens and twentysomethings have been doing for more than 50 years. The miracle is not that they actually found it, but that they are able to communicate it so intuitively, so urgently, and so movingly on their debut. Funeral sounds elegantly mercurial as the band finds new uses for indie-rock conventions like crunchy guitars, vaguely dance-derived rhythms, string sections, and unrelenting self-reflection. Relating tales of suburban dystopia and snowbound emotions, these songs-- which are arty and dramatic, yet earthy and tensely sincere-- change shape restlessly from verse to verse and intensify as they move toward hard-won catharses, each building on the previous song until the album's scope becomes novelistic and its emotional payoff undeniable. --Stephen M. Deusner

 

044: Deerhoof
Apple O'
[Kill Rock Stars; 2003]

Through all the flailing drums and angular, disjointed guitar lines, I hear Satomi Matsuzaki's squeaky melodies and skeletons of what should be Zappa etudes but instead come out much more...approachable. Deerhoof excel at a forgotten art wherein the complex is made simple, the convoluted made cute. Of course, "cute" isn't really an endearing quality for some people, but when it's balanced out with raucousness and dissonance, as on Apple O', it's just sour enough to sip straight. It's easy to give the band the benefit of the doubt because their tunes never leave us behind. In fact, it's fun running alongside them, humming with those squeaky songs, perfectly content with stories about flowers and pandas because nothing so benign could ever turn out bad. As we begin the second half of the decade, I wonder if this kind of music will be deemed too quaint for reality. I hope not. --Dominique Leone

 

043: Mclusky
Do Dallas
[Too Pure / Beggars; 2002]

It would be tempting to write off the sophomore slump as a rock myth if reality didn't support it so frequently. In a characteristically contrary gesture, the ornery Welsh post-humans in Mclusky pumped every iota of their ferocious misanthropy into their second album, which remains the purest distillation of their considerable wrath. Do Dallas doesn't grow on you; it savagely waylays you. It gleefully garrotes you toward epiphany. It erupts with an immediate, palpable force, the sort of spiritual cataclysm one experiences when faced with the primitive imperatives of brute violence. Bearing traces of Pixies, the Jesus Lizard, Gang of Four, and Wire, Do Dallas comes into its own with stunted rhythms and thrashing, mutant guitars, as singer Andy Falkous's deadpan, absurdist disdain locks and unloads upon trendy fashion bands on "Collagen Rock", "Fuck this Band", and "To Hell With Good Intentions" ("My band is better than your band/ We've got more songs than a song convention SING IT!"), and sprays invective on just about everything else on "The World Loves Us and Is Our Bitch". Being hated never felt so good. --Brian Howe

 

042: Manitoba
Up in Flames
[Domino; 2003]

Few records in the last five years displayed such a shocking about-face in terms of the artists' previous sound. Who would have thought in early 2002 that a record of kaleidoscopic dreampop channeling 60s psychedelia through the same busted lens as early Mercury Rev would come from "Handsome Dick" Manitoba, middle-aged lead singer of the notorious punk band The Dictators? While many old fans abandoned him completely, convinced that he'd sold out, gone soft, and was simply following trends, Manitoba quickly found a receptive (if smaller) audience for his gorgeous soft-focus blissout. --Mark Richardson

 

041: Godspeed You Black Emperor!
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
[Kranky; 2000]

Before M83 had a lock on outsized instrumental opulence, Godspeed You Black Emperor! wore the jewel-encrusted crown. Even people who write off the Canadian post-rock ensemble as crescendo-mongering showoffs would be hard pressed to deny that their sprawling opus, Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, is anything short of transcendent. Godspeed is the post-rock Platonic Ideal, and this double album is the fullest realization of their art we're likely to hear. Antennas is as engulfing and boundless as open, uncharted waters, churning with bombastic string sections, oversized melodic phrasing, vast tidal rhythms, sweepingly lyrical guitar passages, apocalyptic vocal samples, and yeah, many a spine-tingling upsurge. Everything about this record is a little too big; it spills out of windows, overflows basins, and threatens to sunder ceilings. Whether it's setting your teeth on edge with relentless, cacophonous pageantry, or lulling you into a somnolent torpor with some twinkling lullaby, Antennas consistently engages, transports and mystifies. It creates a tremulous pressure that mounts with no upper limit, a release so prolonged it becomes a more enchanting sort of tension. --Brian Howe

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[Singles: 100-051]
[Singles: 050-001]
[Albums: 100-051]
[Albums: 050-001]

040: The Fiery Furnaces
Blueberry Boat
[Sanctuary; 2004]

At the start of Blueberry Boat, Eleanor Friedberger loses her safety locket and effectively goes down the rabbit hole-- and only a cult of listeners chose to follow. While a handful of critics, mainly on the web, raved about-- and fought for-- Blueberry Boat as a modern masterpiece of adventurous album rock, the plebes dismissed it with "that's nice," or "it sure is long" or "please turn that off." But that was fine for the believers, who got sucked in the way lonely adults reread Harry Potter and who find, oh, Arcade Fire a tad blunt by comparison. With so many crevices to explore it's easy to forget that this was meant to be fun, to hurtle rather than bewilder, to evoke childhood not with dewy nostalgia but in the joy of playing hooky and landing in only enough trouble to be fun. I could argue it all over again, but it's easier to repeat what most of us told the disbelievers: "Maybe you should start with their singles?" --Chris Dahlen

 

039: Radiohead
Hail to the Thief
[Capitol; 2003]

Old habits die hard-- having left the grand spotlight-sweeping gestures of "Creep" and The Bends far behind, Radiohead still can't help but sloganeer disenfranchisement. "The raindrops." "This is the gloaming." "Little babies' eyes." "We want young blood." "Just because you feel it doesn't mean it's there." This isn't subtle stuff, even if Thom Yorke spends a good amount of time singing (mewling, wailing) in a near-whisper. These fragments repeat endlessly, transforming into funereal rallying cries, the perfect chants to accompany these resolute dirges. So damned serious and earnest, these guys. And, of course, there's title of the album, utilizing a horrifically awkward pun to announce itself and its intentions. Yet where the words and their purported import might be cumbersome, the music is sublime-- electrostatic shocks mingle with three-penny operatics and Sophoclean choral uprisings as if they're long-lost friends kicking back a few cocktails. Even the Horsemen of the Apocalypse need some down time, y'know? Yes, this is An Important Album, all of it, every scratch and breath, every tic and squeal. But don't let that nonsense stop you from enjoying it. --David Raposa

 

038: The Rapture
Echoes
[Universal; 2003]

I'll be honest: I'm still pretty disappointed that this dancepunk thing hasn't really taken off. Sure, we got a bit enthusiastic about Echoes, but can you really blame us? It seemed like the rock club and the discotheque were heading for the kind of cross-breeding that only occurs every decade or so, and usually results in a boom period for innovation and drug-taking. But the failure of the scene to achieve liftoff isn't the Rapture's fault, as their collaboration with the DFA should've been enough to light a fire under the U.S. indie scene-- if not under the nation's dancefloors. The gritty basement show vibe of the album's middle section, anchored down by the delirious "House of Jealous Lovers", is everything the genre needed to be: immediate, groovy, and not afraid of using too much hi-hat. "I Need Your Love" is the other branch of the road, pristine tech-house with Luke Jenner's frantic Robert Smith impression thawing the icy rhythm. Too bad everybody kept on talking about it, but nobody got it done. --Rob Mitchum

 

037: Ghostface
The Pretty Toney Album
[Def Jam; 2004]

Supreme Clientele was an unhinged, hallucinatory masterpiece of raw, paranoid expressionism. But on Pretty Toney, Ghostface has both of his feet firmly on the ground; his voice has a comfortable, lived-in warmth, better suited to heartfelt contemplation than abstract frenzy. The thick, lush production pulls swollen pianos and triumphant horns and liquid strings from luxurious, tear-drenched 70s soul, giving Ghost the space and lift he needs to hit tough emotional notes. And he hits those notes hard, opening the album with a few tracks of rock-hard street-rap nihilistic strut but soon veering off into desperate devotion ("Save Me Dear"), sweaty sex ("Tush"), bittersweet nostalgia ("Holla"), and sad, impotent longing ("Be This Way"). The album closes with a revelatory one-two punch as the blaring sirens and gripping, breathless scramble of "Run" give way to the soaring, gentle lilt of "Love", a sweet, natural tribute to the good things in life. --Tom Breihan

 

036: The Streets
A Grand Don't Come For Free
[Vice; 2004]

It's oddly appropriate that Mike Skinner's career arc looks more like that of a young fiction writer than that of a rising pop star, following the short stories and character sketches of Original Pirate Material with A Grand Don't Come for Free, his first novel. Skinner's storytelling skills far exceed his skills as a rapper or producer, and he knows it. His best musical touches exist to enhance his words: the hazy woosh of drugs kicking in on "Blinded By the Lights", the giddy, drunken guitar slosh of "Fit But You Know It", the angry throbbing pulse of "What Is He Thinking?". Skinner has a great writer's eye for detail: A halfway peeled label on a beer bottle, the hairspray taste of E pills, the one spot in your apartment where you can get decent cell phone reception. And he gives us a perfect ending; the moment where the piano comes in halfway through "Empty Cans" feels like the sun breaking through the clouds. --Tom Breihan

 

035: Jay-Z
The Black Album
[Roc-A-Fella; 2003]

Revisiting The Black Album while bearing the gift of retrospection certainly complicates Jay-Z's "final" performance. The terminal condition of Hov's 10th album achieved both implicit and explicit nods and culminated in his on-screen death at the end of the uncut "99 Problems" video. But while we dried our tears and pondered Jay-Z's breathless flow, the ghost of Hovito reviewed his Stephen Covey time-management plan to drop two more albums, produce a DVD, and populate Def Jam's top executive suite.

Despite revoking his goodbyes (again), The Black Album is brilliant in its execution. Enlisting every hot producer from the last decade (including a very grateful 9th Wonder) and eschewing guest appearances (save a hyper-harmonic croon from Pharrell and his mother's memories), The Black Album was a singles machine. Moreover, this release revealed a disrobed and heavily honest Jay-Z. Remove the bravado, player façade and State Property entourage and Shawn Carter is both circumstances' victim and entrepreneur. Anyone who thinks Kanye introduced emotional integrity to hip-hop need only hear one verse of "December 4th". And then to juxtapose that vulnerability with Timbaland's armpit farts on "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" is almost magical. So when Jay-Z wonders "We'll see what happens when I no longer exist," the answer is unequivocal legendary status (and probably more albums). --Jamin Warren

 

034: Sufjan Stevens
Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State
[Asthmatic Kitty/Sounds Familyre; 2003]

Browsing the Americana section of a record store-- if one even existed-- used to mean sifting through John Denver, James Taylor, and Don McLean albums. Enter this star-spangled gem from a Brooklyn-based songwriter and producer who invoked his now-infamous vagrant tendencies to promise us a record for all 50 states-- beginning with his birthplace, Michigan.

Music has a strange relationship with place: America is vast, overdeveloped, and maddeningly varied; for a record to accurately evoke its personality, it too has to be full of gaping holes, piled-high landfills, spiritless masses of pandemic symmetry, and the occasional national treasure. Michigan is almost a ruse, its surface is so beautiful. But look closer and you'll find enclaves of unemployed powerlessness, deep-rooted frustration, and mundane melodrama. Treating the state with the subtlety of a character study, Stevens makes factory layoffs, husbands and wives running into each other at Kmart, and other minutiae of recession America seem poignant and elemental. Despite its lurking cynicism, Michigan is ultimately hopeful, giving listeners reason to once again exalt America's vast, confused, apolitical beauty. --Sam Ubl

 

033: Missy Elliott
Under Construction
[Elektra; 2003]

Generally, the only rappers who adapt the aesthetic of old-school hip-hop are edgeless douchebags like the Black Eyed Peas or Jurassic 5. But when Missy Elliott raids the old-school bin, she's like a kid in a candy store, snatching up oozy elastic bass and giddy, pounding drum breaks and to-the-beat-y'alls, leaving the sanctimony on the shelf. It helps that Timbaland is constitutionally incapable of producing a track that doesn't sound like a gleaming alien starship; he makes Blondie and MC Lyte samples sound like miracles dropped from the sky. The nonsensical hooks of "Work It" and "Gossip Folks" take Missy's giddy gibberish to new levels of insane, cocky joy. Under Construction may have been Missy and Tim's victory lap after they changed the world with Miss E...So Addictive, but its deft comic touch and ecstatic bounce qualify it as a classic. It's also the only Missy Elliott album where the R&B tracks sound every bit as good as the club jams. --Tom Breihan

 

032: The Flaming Lips
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
[Warner Brothers; 2002]

Life is short. And a black belt named Yoshimi is saving the world from evil robots. I'm still not sure what this album's dual themes have to do with each other, but rarely have so many great songs been so immaculately produced. "Fight Test" turned Cat Stevens to a call to arms like no one else before Homeland Security. The title track is a meticulous masterwork of weird glee. Even the few duds ("Approaching Pavonis Mons" comes to mind) in hindsight possess a certain squiggly appeal. Nothing the Flaming Lips could have done would have equaled The Soft Bulletin, so Yoshimi's live-in-the-now subtext might well be speaking to fans who, like Wayne's "Ego Tripping" narrator, were "waiting on a moment" that might never come again. But at its best, Yoshimi is a fittingly playful follow-up to one of the finest albums in recent memory. --Marc Hogan

 

031: Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
The Tyranny of Distance
[Lookout; 2001]

Ted Leo's Pharmacists were once an inside joke, a fake band name he used for the post-Chisel tours where only a reel-to-reel machine shared the stage with the frontman. But all that alone time did Leo well, and by the time his mechanical band morphed into flesh collaborators, the Rush fanatic had a singing and guitar style brash enough to carry a song all by himself. For Tyranny of Distance, the DC friends drafted for his studio band made up the platform Leo needed to fully attain his rightful status as indie rock's reigning guitar god, a point nicely illustrated by the album's centerpiece, "Timorous Me" and effects pedal tryouts like "St. John the Divine". Yet it isn't all fiery fretwork, as Tyranny's mania is fueled by Leo's belt-out singing and spastic spin on classic rock songwriting, drawing upon everything from Irish jigs to chamber strings to Thin Lizzy harmonics. --Rob Mitchum

 

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[Singles: 100-051]
[Singles: 050-001]
[Albums: 100-051]
[Albums: 050-001]

030: Clinic
Internal Wrangler
[Domino; 2001]

What is an internal wrangler? I imagine it as a sort of cowboy of the psyche, Freud in boots with a gunbelt and 10-gallon hat sweeping into Cerebellum Town to do epic battle with the corrupt sheriff of our hang-ups and his deputies, our inner demons. Clinic came at it from a different angle, of course, defining it as a dark punk explosion of garbled syntax and paranoia shot through with waves of surf guitar, creepy melodica and song shards that mostly clocked in under three minutes long. Ade Blackburn's clench-teethed moan was capable of surprising range, even tenderness, grounding the scattershot tracklist with haunting ballads like "Goodnight Georgie" and "Distortions". But psychosis is the meat of the album, and it comes tossing the word salad every which way on blistering freakouts "The Return of Evil Bill", "Internal Wrangler", and "The Second Line", where words degenerate into gibberish heaps of syllables, and you wind up helplessly singing along to a guy who's saying "diggie diggie de momo no" while intravenous guitars bore into the core of your being. The Ornette Coleman-referencing cover art is oddly apropos; like Coleman, Clinic plays so freely with expectations on Internal Wrangler that they obliterate them, mixing traditional elements into something entirely new and exciting. --Joe Tangari

 

 

029: Fugazi
The Argument
[Dischord; 2001]

In 2002, I saw Fugazi from the bleachers of a gymnasium at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston while a couple thousand kids pogoed on the basketball courts, and the temperature in the room must have risen about 15 degrees over the course of the band's amazing, career-spanning set. Fugazi's most mythologized days may be the ones they spent burning up tiny rooms in DC, creating a DIY empire that crowned them kings of the underground, but they've never sounded better as a band than they did on The Argument. "Cashout" is a cogent, passionate lament for people displaced by eminent domain, "Full Disclosure" swings between maniacal screaming and melodic choruses filled with harmony vocals, "The Kill" is Fugazi's spookiest song, and "Nightshop" is an unstoppable raging bull in the China shop of overdevelopment and commercialization, featuring two drummers and a jaw-dropping acoustic guitar break. Fugazi are often thought of as little more than elder statesmen, but on The Argument they proved that they could play with the kids and win every time. --Joe Tangari

 

028: Liars
They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top
[Mute; 2002]

Remember, how you say, "dancepunk"? That was cute, huh? Gawd! We're so over that, right? Dancepunk is dead! Long-live freakfolk! But when Joanna Newsom is making your pets break their own necks to enjoy the sweet escape of death, Liars will be right where you left them-- as angry, nervous, and corrosive as ever, which is to say, very. Jittery funk beats set the listener up like soft hypnosis, guitars rake like claws, and Angus Andrews drinks glass after glass of battery acid, all for the audience's wonderment; forty minutes of raw tension and one mind-warping locked groove add up to, in hindsight, the unassailable, oddly transient, zenith of dance-punk. People wonder why they abandoned Trench's sound after a single album-- it's 'cause they got it right the first time. Remember Gang of Four? Yeah, me neither. Just listen to "Mr. You're on Fire Mr." and enjoy yourself. --Eric Carr

 

027: Broken Social Scene
You Forgot It in People
[Arts & Crafts; 2002]

Broken Social Scene is one of seemingly thousands of bands comprised of the revolving cast of characters from Canada's thriving art-rock circles; its double-digit lineup contains members of Stars, Do Make Say Think, Metric, and A Silver Mount Zion, just to name a few. Their grand sophomore album, You Forgot It in People, blends the scene's more adventurous tenets with the sugary pop confections of Stars and locates a perfect equilibrium between melodic accessibility and vigorously inventive songwriting. With its powerful melodies, breathy indie-dude vocals, expert playing, and sharp musical contrasts (as incandescent, shoegazing guitar figures sear crisp glyphs onto billowy, diaphanous backgrounds), You Forgot It in People rejuvenates worn-out indie rock by injecting it with an enthusiasm, vitality ,and technical facility it seldom enjoys. It's a furiously thrumming, spangled machine that never holds still, seesawing between instrumental and vocal tracks with a seamless continuity. Its exuberant spirit reminds you that it's the product of good friends just jamming out together; its mind-blowing chops remind you that the motherfuckers can play. A clattering, coasting, soaring, rambunctious space rock concoction. --Brian Howe

 

026: Fennesz
Endless Summer
[Mego; 2001]

From Tintern Abbey to Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Gedachtniskirche, Romantic sublimity finds its architectural epitome in the muted violence of the picturesque ruin; formal fragmentation imposes limits upon our access to an implied totality which struggles, we feel, to speak to us in the face of loss. With Endless Summer, Fennesz managed to transpose this dynamic into musical terms, fashioning a brilliantly seductive mirage by subjecting his instrumental performances to merciless blasts of digital signal processing, aliasing artifacts, clipped edits, and gnarled, ashen EQ. I have no idea whether or not a great lost album of sunshine guitar pop actually lies mummified beneath the gauzey layers of file-frottage, but as with the hallucinations induced by Psychocandy and Loveless, I feel that it is there. The endurance of this album lies neither in the swoony tune-writing abilities of its creator nor in the precision of his textures, but in the way that both already substantial elements have been made to reinforce each other. Perversely, the guitar's pathos expands immeasurably precisely because of the intrusive, prosthetic interference of the laptop. Many folly gardens have been subsequently built in imitation, but this ruin still stands above them all. --Drew Daniel

 

025: Brian Wilson
Smile
[Nonesuch; 2004]

Perhaps the best way to appreciate the triumph of Brian Wilson's newly completed Smile is to first consider what an utter catastrophe the restoration could've been. If Wilson and his collaborators, Van Dyke Parks and Darian Sahanaja, had mangled the Beach Boys' lost masterpiece (which, considering Wilson's always fragile psychological state, was a distinct possibility) the resulting disappointment would've dwarfed that which met such ill-guided creative resurrections as The Phantom Menace or the Beatles' "Free As a Bird". In this sense, there was no riskier musical project undertaken in the past half-decade, and thankfully we can now say that Wilson's courage has paid off in spades. Though undoubtedly not the same Smile the world would've received had it been completed back in the 60s, this record remains a staggering achievement. A surreal, frequently sublime journey through the lifespan of the American landscape and songbook, it might not be everything that Beach Boy fans have always dreamed of, but that it so resoundingly surpasses what most of us ever thought we'd get to hear is little short of miraculous. --Matthew Murphy

 

024: Boards of Canada
Geogaddi
[Warp; 2002]

Unfairly maligned at the time of its release for not deviating enough from BoC's landmark Music Has the Right to Children, in retrospect, Geogaddi registers as more tightly packed, even darker. It crackles and glows in a way that its predecessor rarely does, and leaves the impression that it was originally 130 minutes of music that's been somehow melted down into 65. As with nearly everything Boards make, there's a deep sense of black magic and mystery at work here-- from the presence of obscure geographical placeholders ("The Beach at Redpoint") to their abiding fascination with science and numerology ("The Smallest Weird Number") to veiled references to David Koresh and Charles Manson ("1969"), Geogaddi's content is as dense and as mysterious as its sounds. It's a straight-edge alternative to huffing angel dust and strapping flaming seashells to your ears. --Mark Pytlik

 

023: The Notwist
Neon Golden
[Domino; 2003]

After more than a decade of experimentation, Germany's the Notwist landed as if by accident on a seamless blend of computerized beats and guitar-pop. Just don't make the mistake of calling the former "cold" or the latter "warm"-- Neon Golden's textured electronics are every bit as organic as its banjos and saxophones, bringing high-tech down to Earth even better than the bear market. Markus Acher's tranquil voice speaks to this album's humanity even as his ESL lyrics ("You'll no longer be kissed and kind" on "One With the Freaks") cast the language in an alien light. "Pilot" pulsates with near-perfect dance-pop about desperation and escape. By the finale, "Consequence", the Notwist melt hearts when Acher repeatedly coos, "Never leave me paralyzed, love." Lap-pop is nearly as common now as garage rock was when this record was released, but rarely have both sides of the hyphen carried on so naturally. --Marc Hogan

 

022: The Microphones
The Glow, Pt. 2
[K Records; 2001]

Sewing sunspots onto rickety piano and sheets of pine-box distortion, The Glow Pt. 2 establishes an epic crackle/pop early and maintains its understated, sometimes explosive sense of space and dynamics until the end of track twenty. From joyous trumpets, overdriven drums, and tree-hugger incantations to those patented whispery body-electric epiphanies ("I'm alone except for the sound of insects flying around/ They know my red blood is warm still"), these Northwestern charms are as perfectly paced, ordered, and delivered as the scruffy acoustic elegance of Sebadoh's early masterpiece, III. Defining moments abound, but for starters pay attention to the acoustic jangle/Neutral Milk Hotel/crunk transition of "I Want Wind To Blow" and the lapidary title track. All considered-- and there's a lot to consider here-- it's no surprise Elvrum has yet to top what sounds like Emerson and Thoreau turning Nature and Walden into transcendental indie rock. --Brandon Stosuy

 

021: Radiohead
Amnesiac
[Capitol; 2001]

On what may be Radiohead's classiest and most restrained collection of songs, Thom Yorke ran endurance tests on his repertoire, having cast himself in a guitarless role that might be billed as a fight between his piano man, his personal jesus, and his paranoid android. Oddly pretty, the album's cynical showtunes slithered through pop history, flinched with futurism, drank dyspepsia, chewed troublegum, shriveled Big Brother, and inflated Chicken Little. Amnesiac crouched in its own deprivation chamber so elegantly that its initial misdiagnosis of being "10 songs in search of an album" would be forgotten if not for the reprise of Kid A's "Morning Bell". But even that echo was recast from a warm distant place, like a clone baby singing itself to sleep in a makeshift womb, its lullabies dreading much more than prequel-envy. --William Bowers

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020: The Books
The Lemon of Pink
[Tomlab; 2003]

The Books' brand of sound collage-- pristine violin squeals, weird vocal samples, chopped-up organics, and plenty of silence-- manages to scramble classic Americana into something entirely unfamiliar. The Lemon of Pink has plenty of banjo, but no beard: Despite all those scratchy strings, the Books never dip into folk structure (or folk cliché), opting instead to twist all those disparate bits into a glitchy, throbbing, and beautiful whole. Unsurprisingly, The Lemon of Pink can seem strange and familiar all at once-- not unlike tumbling down a rabbit hole, arms flailing, skirt flying high, mouth half-open, eyes wide, slowly taking in all the swirling, oddly delicious distortions... and thinking that you must be in for quite an adventure. --Amanda Petrusich

 

019: Ghostface Killah
Supreme Clientele
[Sony; 2001]

Unless your name ended in RZA or GZA, working outside of the 36 chambers seemed like a risky move. As it happened, there were no worries for hip-hop's Mushmouth: From a man seemingly at war with grammar, Ghostface's Supreme Clientele was an astoundingly cohesive and profound endeavor. To be honest, I understand Toney about 40% of the time, and anyone claiming to do better can kiss my mulatto ass. When he drops shit like, "Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious/ Dociousaliexpifragalisticcalisuper/ Cancun, catch me in the room, eatin' grouper" on "Buck 50", it infuriates my fine-tuned sense of justice. It's not fair, I always think, he's just mashing words together! Ghostface's verses are so absurd and flow with such meticulous ease, you can't help but feel like the man is teasing you, drawing you into livid comprehension before kicking you in the balls. And your balls are humongous, dude. "Yo this rap is like ziti," he says. Absolutely... --Jamin Warren

 

018: Devendra Banhart
Rejoicing in the Hands
[Young God; 2004]

Once upon a time there was a brilliant young man who was written off by his foes as a freak or a joke because he didn't sing in a way that scanned with his particular era and gender and age bracket; but his supposed "weirdness" was in fact a function of just how narrow the pop marketplace's listening habits had become. What they saw as only an air of outsider innocence or a defensive shield was actually a clever, deeply artful approach to music-making; it was precisely because he knew a good deal about what he was doing and its place in the history of popular music that each tremor of his voice and strum of his fingers seemed to telescope further and further backwards into the past even as its archly constructed feints and bluffs held fast to the present moment. People found that if they let go a bit and got over the initial shock of that voice that, in fact, the dots got connected. It liberated them and gave them joy to hear this voice singing and follow these nimble fingers as they played.

Question: Who was this man?

A. Tiny Tim
B. Marc Bolan
C. Bob Dylan
D. Devendra Banhart
E. All of the above.

Answers in the form of a fine-lined drawing on parchment please. --Drew Daniel

 

017: Boredoms
Vision Creation Newsun
[Birdman; 2001]

For all their ornery outbursts and short-attention-span splatter, somehow it's not surprising that Japan's Boredoms could create something of such sprawling, perfect beauty. It's not that it's soothing or even "pretty"; rather, its wildness and abandon bring out the crystalline allure embedded in its "songs." It's as if all the great trance practitioners of the last half century-- Ravi Shankar, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Can, Hawkwind-- got together for one last jam session to round out the millennium. But then, I mostly remember afternoons spent driving home, under the sun, staring at the traffic ahead, and lost in a trance to kinetic little songs with symbols for names. They might as well have been hieroglyphics, and Boredoms may as well have been those aliens who were supposed to have taught the Egyptians and South American Indians how to build pyramids. The trick is: just keep going up. --Dominique Leone

 

016: The Strokes
Is This It
[RCA; 2001]

Hype comes and goes. For puffed-up bands like the Strokes, it's less a matter of living up to rash, unreasonable expectations than outliving them. Eventually, the ballyhoo dies and the detractors stop caring, but ask yourself: Was it the band you were sick of or the 40-foot paparazzi boner than followed them everywhere?

Is This It? is a classic. Plenty of low-slung Manhattanites kicked out Velvet-rooted jams in Prada boots before the Strokes, but if "Last Nite" was mere stage-as-runway fluff, I guarantee the magazine rack at Barnes & Noble would look much different today. Tinged with self-effacement and more than a little earnest brainpower, songs like "The Modern Age" and "Hard to Explain" took on an uncanny melancholic glow in late 2001. Amidst a morass of mourning and mongering, the Strokes remained refreshingly sleek and straightforward. Luckily, the Strokes neither took themselves too seriously nor lacked the goods to back up the whirlwind press storm. In the months after 9/11, we couldn't pop soma, but "Soma" was our incidental remedy, and its feel-good glow hasn't fizzled a wink. --Sam Ubl

 

015: Dizzee Rascal
Boy in Da Corner
[XL; 2003]

Is Dizzee in the corner because he's being disciplined, because he's deep in contemplation, or because he's gearing up for a fight? You could make a case for any of those situations being central to Boy In Da Corner. Set against the backdrop of his frosty, industrial productions, he gulps out a portrait of life in lower-class East London that resounds with urgency, anxiety, and hope.

In Dizzee's warzone, you have to stay slippery, keep moving at all times, and avoid getting pinned by anything-- gunfire, drugs, girls, even friends. That means staying hard, and yet at the same time, he's not afraid to let us in on his sadness either. It's between those two extremes-- the barbed-wire ferocity of something like "Jus' a Rascal" (check the last verse) and the softened determination of "Do It"-- that Dizzee builds one of the richest and most interesting character studies of the decade so far. Grime's first big record is still its best, and there's no reason to think that's going to change anytime soon. --Mark Pytlik

 

014: Spoon
Kill the Moonlight
[Merge; 2002]

In my mind, Spoon songs on Kill the Moonlight are like games of Jenga-- Britt Daniel seemingly starts with a completed, fully functioning song, and then goes about removing bits and pieces to see how much he can slot out while still maintaining structural integrity. "Small Stakes" stands tall with little more than a few small bits of percussion, some organ notes, and approximately 8.6 seconds of guitar feedback. "Stay Don't Go" gets by with even less-- some rhythm guitar, a little lead, intermittent sound effects, three piano chords, and beatboxing. (In this light, I expect future songs to be MacGuyverian models of ingenuity, consisting of one rubber band, some nail clippings, and a wad of chewing gum.)

This doesn't mean Spoon has foregone writing more traditionally arranged songs-- indeed, this utilitarian want-not approach benefits the more, um, "indulgent" efforts. Tracks like "Jonathon Fisk" and "The Way We Get By" deploy their musical sorties with alacrity and efficiency, no motion wasted or unnecessary. Not bad for a group that used to crib moves wholesale from Black Francis' fakebooks-- nowadays, it's the moves they don't make that matter more. --David Raposa

 

013: Madvillain
Madvillainy
[Stones Throw; 2004]

The people thought their meeting was a myth and a rumor, a convergence so desired it had been wished into the consciousness. MF Doom. Madlib. Would the masked, metal-fingered verbalist join forces with the man who magicked the samples to refabric time? We sat on our hopes for months and years; finally, it came to pass-- Madvillainy-- could it be true?

Together, as the story ("The Illest Villains") goes, the fellows were "the personification of carnage... more accurately, the dark side of our beings." Behind a smoky veil of herbalism, the fearless duo navigated the sublime-- patching down basslines, pieces of woozy orchestra, ladies shrieking-- and laminating aural pictorials like one might splice together frames of film. (Or rather, their methods created the effect of experimental cinema, like the photo-pastiche of Jonas Mekas, which is not to say it's more legitimate or that one follows the other-- listen, have you read Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, about the confluence of hip-hop, film, and comics? That is this album.)

While Madlib's special power played tricks on your ears-- a sample you were sure was the sound of cars rolling by on the street might sound like the hiss of a record on a different day ("Rainbows")-- Doom unfurled his clever lyrics like a roll of sod on earth... and the album curved in on itself like a two-way mirror. As Doom promised on "Strange Ways": "When the smoke clear, you can see the sky again/ There will be the chopped off heads of leviathan." --Julianne Shepherd

 

012: Daft Punk
Discovery
[Virgin; 2001]

What do you think Guy-Manuel and Thomas did in the studio when they listened back to the ridiculoid moments of total genius strung across this album-- moments such as, say, the vocoder breakdown in "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"? Did they high-five? Did they do a backspin on the floor in celebration of making the tuffest, most disgustingly ill breakdown ever? Did they even know how many people were going to smile until their face hurt when they heard this shit for the first time? Did they consider the spine and neck injuries this funk could cause? Could they already hear drunken, loved-up crowds singing, "Why don't you play the gaaaaaaaamme," in hoarse football hooligan voices back at them, European vowels and all? Did they groan inwardly at the snooty comments about resurrecting ELO, the Buggles, 10cc, and Zapp that their eerily glossy pop masterpiece was going to occasion from rockist yahoos? Were they haunted by a fear that the first half of their album was so spine-tingling that people were just going to rewind it and play it over and over instead of riding this ride out to the finish? Are Daft Punk even human, or is this "ha ha I'm a fake robot wait no I'm not" shtick concealing something far more sinister? An interstellar conspiracy, perhaps? --Drew Daniel

 

011: Wilco
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
[Nonesuch; 2002]

Hey, remember when Yankee Hotel Foxtrot changed the world? When the album went ten times platinum, when Warner Bros. dissolved its music division out of embarrassment, when Jeff Tweedy became the voice of a generation? Okay, so none of that really happened, and all the instant mythologies and extramusical meaningfulness attached to YHF upon its release maybe caused it to burn a little too bright too fast. But now, as all that nonsense flakes away, we can appreciate the album for what it really is: a wildly successful crack at mild ambition for a band that could have made a comfortable living doing Woody

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010: The Streets
Original Pirate Material
[Vice; 2002]

Mike Skinner remembers the halcyon days of England's rave culture: the underground parties, the DJs, the big tracks, the pianos that loop over and over and over. He remembers following rave into superclubs, and tolerating sketchier drugs, skyrocketing prices, and massive queues. Now he sees those same superclubs shuttering up and, like rave itself, Skinner feels himself getting older. He still occasionally dabbles in pills but when he does, it feels like he's fumbling for past glories. He turns his attention instead to more earthly delights-- booze, women, weed, takeaway-- all of which he leans on to divert him from the creeping realities of depression, his bank balance, the government. Like anyone with affection for a long dead scene, he flits between indulging his nostalgia and pushing things forward. Luckily, when it comes to the latter, there's hope-- Mike Skinner feels something happening with 2-step and garage and wonders if he can happen with it. If he does, will it be the same? Probably not. Will it be as wonderful? Absolutely. --Mark Pytlik

 

009: Animal Collective
Sung Tongs
[FatCat; 2004]

After many walkabouts through the far reaches of sound, noise, and melody, Animal Collective released what you could call their "breakthrough" record in 2004: Sung Tongs was surprisingly accessible, an herbal ear bath that still satisfied their die-hard followers. While Animal Collective are sometimes mocked for their "sticks and stones" naturalism, Sung Tongs succeeds by tempering its spontaneity. With percussion and guitars that sound like they're made from tree branches, they built a single with Hollies-esque vocals ("Who Could Win a Rabbit"); every sung line of nonsense here yields a straightforward hook, and the naturalistic aesthetic comes to life in a sparkling, almost surround-sound production that lets the extended instrumentals build and ebb like gusts of breeze on your face. With no manic avant-gardisms to hide behind, Panda Bear and Avey Tare looked naked and even naive making this music; but for all the new listeners who dismissed it as just so much chanting and banging, still more were startled and pleased to discover something so original that still sounded so simple. --Chris Dahlen

 

008: The White Stripes
White Blood Cells
[V2; 2001]

Hard as it may be to remember now, there was a time when the rock stardom of the White Stripes was not a foregone conclusion. But that was before White Blood Cells came along, delivering on the tender promises made by the duo's first two albums. Jettisoning much of the more traditional blues-based material of De Stijl, Jack White lashed his massive, pile-driving riffs to lyrics of genuine emotional heft, lending "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" and the Citizen Kane-quoting "The Union Forever" a level of expressive depth that the average garage rock band-- grid-locked in the hoary clichés of hot rods/girls/beer machismo-- could never match. Nor would most bands ever attempt to muster the sensitivity and songwriting acuity necessary to make "The Same Boy You've Always Known" or the sweet nostalgia of "We're Going to Be Friends" the new classics they deservedly are. --Matthew Murphy

 

007: Modest Mouse
The Moon & Antarctica
[Sony; 2000]

Isaac Brock's universe is dark, cold, and lonely. But at least some of his desolation is self-defense, balancing the higher order he glimpses everywhere-- in microcosms, in nagging phone calls from the Lord-- against his underlying suspicion that all is "water and shit." It's the secret that Snowden gave Yossarian: Man is matter. Or, man doesn't matter. The Moon & Antarctica proved that the dark center of the universe isn't a Nissan minivan. ("Laugh hard, it's a long way to the bank.") It's the self, fucking up everything as everyone watches. Yet, for me this album always evokes "The Land of Nod", Robert Louis Stevenson's short poem depicting a child's nocturnal journey into a frightening kingdom. Stevenson writes: "Try as I might to find the way/ I never can get back by day/ Nor can remember plain and clear/ The curious music that I hear." Dude, it's Modest Mouse. --Marc Hogan

 

006: Sigur Rós
Ágætis Byrjun
[Smekkleysa; 2000]

With one or two too many aesthetically bankrupt soundtrack appearances (Vanilla Sky?), sold-out performances, and hackneyed Iceland-has-a-scene feature stories, Sigur Rós lost a bit of the white magic, but when Ágætis Byrjun appeared, its mesmerizing secret falsetto and magisterial bowed-guitar patience arrived like an unexpected icestorm with unbelievably moving aftershocks. At the time, I found "Svefn-G-Englar"'s foggy/wraithlike night buoy so all-consuming that I locked myself in a room and listened to each ripple for hours, my head resting against the buzzing speaker trying to translate faerie speak. From the glowing angel fetus to the moving boy-on-boy doll-toss of the slow-mo video for "Vidrar vel til loftarasa", there isn't a single misstep, and plopping Ágætis Byrjun back on the record player today, the attendant cloudburst feels just as new as it did during marathon No. 1. --Brandon Stosuy

 

005: The Avalanches
Since I Left You
[Modular; 2000]

A Napster classic. The Avalanches started in Australia in late 2000 and took the slow boat west, moving from one 56k modem to the next during 2001 and 2002-- a time when, as with LSD in 1965, file-sharing was still legit and above ground. The idea of stitching together songs using nothing but samples was far from a new idea by the time the group formed, but the Avalanches were on a completely different tip from someone like DJ Shadow. Instead of fetishizing breaks or searching for the elusive cool, the Avalanches mined for AM Gold, uncovering the simple joys of on-the-one-hand cheesy songs. The Avalanches applied the sampledelic technique inspired by the same idea as John "Plunderphonics" Oswald: to improve on the past. A record comprised of old records that was thick with nostalgia on the day of its release has only grown more poignant; the Avalanches have been silent, and Since I Left You remains frozen in time. --Mark Richardson

 

004: OutKast
Stankonia
[LaFace; 2000]

Upon its release in October 2000, prescient critic/author Chris Ryan called Stankonia "the brazen, cotton-mouthed blood transfusion you'll need to get through the next four years if Gomer wins the party." One term and a double album later, that statement feels eerie like the tarot: Stankonia, with all its joy and fusion, was the final great document of the Clinton years. Its classic joints ("So Fresh, So Clean", "Ms. Jackson", "B.O.B.", and "We Love Deez Hoez") defined the era's Southern shine, dished generously the daddy-love, and sounded the parallel sirens of the hood and the warzone, while OutKast made itself at home among funky freak-da-tweeter tweakers, spacefunk, soul snappin'/trappin' and the heartbeat-thrum of the speakerboxxx. Congealing the pimp and the poet, Dre and Big Boi equated Hendrixian feedback impulse with low-end theorizing, and leveled the upward push of the playas game with the ground-level rhymes of boho dreamtime. Aquemini was OutKast's pressing together and Speakerboxx/The Love Below was their peeling apart; Stankonia was one last missive of unity before their values divided. --Julianne Shepherd

 

003: Interpol
Turn on the Bright Lights
[Matador; 2002]

The following are excerpts from transcripts of the chat forum maintained by the Fall 2099 section of the required course "The Debirth of Cool" at Quilted Northern State University.

Professorbot: Why is this considered a seminal artifact from cool's last days?

Stud A: Because that word 'seminal' has something to do with semen, and this album is seedily obsessed with man-rock lineage? It writhes in anxiety over its influential fathers. I still expect Lou Reed to start singing on "NYC". I still expect Johnny Marr to sue for "Say Hello to the Angels."

Stud B: Who's the father of the deliberately awkward "Obstacle 2", then? A nerdy sperm donor or test-tube enthusiast?

Stud C: Why are we asking this album "who's your daddy?" when the more interesting question is why it seems invigorated by rivaling its British brothers in bombast and self-seriousness? Look at the big Matador band from the previous decade, Asphalt or Concrete or whatever they were called: They dressed so dumb, like they were afraid of themselves, or of success. I love that Interpol aren't "just kidding, man." They crave/mimic authority; this album exudes post-punk as much as it does Wall Street.

Stud D: The brouhaha over their poses, clothes, and underwhelming shows is a false consciousness, a foggy defense against this anxious work of art. The record's audience needs-- pathologically, almost-- to cite the artists' mortality.

Stud E: The cavernous production does sound like the music was recorded in some throne room for humorless gods. I am naming my thesis "Atmosphere and Aura in Early American" something.

Stud F: What about those lyrics, investigating the difficulty of dating and loving while being a smart person? The title of a popular "tele-vision" show from the early 2000s seems to rank this album's concerns, respectively: "City and the Sex".

Stud A: I still think that Turn On the Bright Lights is evidence of ancestor worship-cum-graverobbery.

Professorbot: Yah, but what a gorgeous pyre they built with the digitally remastered bones. Type together with me, class: "Baby, my heart's been breaking..." --William Bowers

 

002: Jay-Z
The Blueprint
[Roc-A-Fella; 2001]

Curiously, our #2 album, The Blueprint is almost completely the inverse of Kid A, our #1. One is the work of a band looking to distance themselves as far as possible from their pop-culture image; the other the work of an artist declaring his supremacy over the music world. Kid A was consciously designed to be radio-allergenic and promoted as elliptically as possible; The Blueprint is as radio-fertile as albums come these days-- it was, in fact, virtually a concept album about self-promotion.

Hopefully, you'll need no convincing that The Blueprint is any less an artistic achievement for its directness. The record found Jay-Z eschewing the space-filling crutches of skits and guest stars (excepting Eminem) and recruiting the hottest producers of the present and future (excepting Eminem). Beatmakers Just Blaze, Kanye West, and Timbaland laid down their most complicated tracks to try to snare Hov, but Hov couldn't be stopped: sludgy Doors loops, horror-movie soundtracks, Mexican dancehall, all are easily taken down by his effortlessly melodic, charismatic ruminations on arraignments, drug dealings, and of course, smacking down Nas (was there ever a more productive rap battle?). Here, Shawn Carter ascends his throne with apt regality, backing tracks appropriately cinematic, soul strings swelling, fanfare blasting, everything in its right place. --Rob Mitchum

 

001: Radiohead
Kid A
[Capitol; 2000]

Exactly how and why Radiohead's Kid A has come to stand as the definitive artistic statement for rock consumers born after 1975 is almost ridiculously difficult to discern. People believed (and continue to believe) in the metaphysical heft of Kid A: in its aesthetic worth, its innovation, its meaning. In 2000, Kid A felt true and inscrutable; five years later, it somehow still does: From its chilling opening organ figure to its closing silence, Kid A is enormous-- a huge, sweeping testament to Radiohead's ever-swelling worldview.

Kid A was an obvious departure from its predecessor, the guitar-swollen OK Computer, and it alternately challenged and confounded Radiohead's core audience. Regardless, the record's supposed difficulty also lent it a certain sense of gravity: Kid A is confrontational and insistent, mysteriously capable of convincing some of the most stridently anti-electro guitarheads that inorganic flourishes can feel bloody and real. Consequently, in the months following its release, Kid A transformed into an intellectual symbol of sorts, a surprisingly ubiquitous signifier of self. Owning it became "getting it"; getting it became "annointing it." The record's significance as a litmus test was stupid and instant and undeniable: In certain circles, you were only as credible as your relationship to this album. And that kind of intense, unilateral, with-us-or-against-us fandom felt oddly, uncomfortably apropos in the face of all that sound.

It is in this weird sense that Kid A was (and continues to be) the perfect record for its time: Ominous, surreal, and impossibly millennial, its revolutionary tangle of yelpy, apocalyptic vocals, glitchy synths, and beautiful drones is uncertain about both its past and present-- and, accordingly, timeless. --Amanda Petrusich