The Best Albums Of The 2000s-Part 1 2000

This is the first in a 10 part series. This is the biggest undertaking of an article that Speed Glue and Music has ever done. This is a comprehensive list of what I(destroy the scene) feel are the best albums from 2000-2009. That's 10 years of music to digest. 10 years of albums I have loved and hated over the years. A decades worth of albums to mull over and discuss with friends and family. Having been 5 years removed from the last year of this list I felt it was time to go back over and reevaluate what I have heard. All genres are represented here. Now I do know that Rock has a heavy hand in this list. That's just what I was most into at the time. But, these rock albums, for the most part, pull a lot from genres all over the map. Plus there are a lot of albums on here that do fall under a lot of other genres. On that note, if you have any albums you think should be on this list or just anything you think I would love to check out orrrrr if you just think I am flat out insane and you need to violently tell me what for, please do! I would love to hear about the albums you all thought were a mistake to not include, if only to further the things I need to experience with my ears in this lifetime.

So without further ado, I bring to you the best 30 albums of 2000. The rest of the years will be coming this week! ENJOY!!!!!

1.The Avalanches-Since I Left You(Modular)

Listen to this if you like the sounds of yesterday mixed with a modern party.

Genre: Plunderphonics, Nu-Disco, Experimental Hip-Hop, Neo-Psychedelia, Mashups

2. Boredoms-Vision Creation Newsun(Warner Bros)

Listen to this if you like transcendent chaos that continuously turns into beauty and back into chaos ad infinitum.

Genre: Experimental Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Krautrock, Noise Rock, Space Rock

3. Queens Of the Stone Age-Rated R(Interscope)

A perfect rock record. Nothing else needs to be said. Do you like rock? Listen to this.

Genre: Stoner Rock, Alternative Rock, Hard Rock

4. Clinic-Internal Wrangler(Domino)

Check this album out if you like 60s organ driven psyche rock with a fresh twist and weird ass vocals.

Genre: Indie Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Post-Punk, Experimental Rock

5. Modest Mouse-The Moon and Antarctica(Epic)

Check this out if you want to hear Modest Mouse at their highest capability.

Genre: Indie Rock

6. Grandaddy-The Sophtware Slump(V2)

Listen to this if you want to hear what it would be like if Neil Young started an indie rock band and wrote an album about technology taking over nature.

Genre: Indie Rock, Indie Pop, Neo-Psychedelia, Indietronica, Progressive Pop

7. Yo La Tengo-And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out(Matador)

Listen to this if you want the best jazz influenced indie rock chill out record.

Genre: Dream Pop, Indie Rock, Ambient Pop, Slowcore

8. Ween-White Pepper(Elektra)

Listen to this if you want to hear the last(so far) truly great Ween album. This one hops genres so you will definitely be able to find at least one song on here to your liking.

Genre: Alternative Rock, Pop Rock, Hard Rock, Psychedelic Pop, Art Pop, Country Rock, Calypso

9. Enon-Believo!(See-Thru Broadcasting)

Before they got a female singer and embraced some elements of electroclash(don't worry, that album made a later list). Hell this wasn't even a band at this point. This was just the guitarist from Brainiac doing some weird stuff that had hints of Beck running through it.

Genre: Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Experimental Rock, Art Punk, Industrial Rock

10. Blonde Redhead-Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons(Touch and Go)

The perfect balance in their discography between their super noisy past and their polished dream pop future.

Genre: Indie Rock, Art Rock

11. Kid606-Down With the Scene(Ipecac)

Noise techno with a punk attitude. He loves hackers and bursts of noise and both informed this masterpiece.

Genre: Glitch, IDM, Breakcore, Noise

12. Quasimoto-The Unseen(Stones Throw)

The 3rd best thing Madlib has done...can you guess the other 2?

Genre: West Coast Hip Hop, Abstract Hip Hop, Jazz Rap, Experimental Hip Hop, Boom Bap

13. High On Fire-The Art Of Self Defense(Man's Ruin)

What happens when one makes a masterpiece metal album in the band Sleep? You break up Sleep and make this wonderful crunchy metal album.

Genre: Stoner Metal, Doom Metal, Sludge Metal

14. Elastica-The Menace(Atlantic)

The last hurrah of a great band. They made something real weird, fun and quirky with this one. Also bonus fact: the artwork is the first professional piece of art M.I.A. made.

Genre: Indie Rock, Britpop, Post-Punk, Electronic

15. Starlight Mints-The Dream That Stuff Was Made Of(See-Thru Broadcasting)

Long forgotten gem of a debut album from a bunch of quirky indie rockers.

Genre: Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock

16. Goldfrapp-Felt Mountain(Mute)

Wonderfully beautiful album, the back cover in a weird way kind of sums up this album for me. It sounds like a creepy yet lovely radio transmission from the Swiss Alps.

Genre: Downtempo, Trip Hop, Dream Pop, Art Pop, Baroque Pop, Ambient Pop

17. Rilo Kiley-Self Titled EP(Rilo Records)

The beginning of a great Los Angeles band. There would be much more to come just beware the annoying noise of death!

Genre: Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Twee Pop

18. Pram-The Museum Of Imaginary Animals(Merge)

Just like Broadcast if Broadcast had a lounge jazz bent instead of a 60s psyche bent. Real kooky. Real weird. Real good.

Genre: Neo-Psychedelia, Art Pop, Progressive Pop, Krautrock

19. Radiohead-Kid A(Capital)

Radiohead went mostly electronic and the world freaked out. I don't really think I can add much to the discussion of this album. Seems like they got real into Aphex Twin and the rest of the Warp roster and then made their version of that.

Genre: Art Rock, Experimental Rock, Ambient, Electronic

20. The Microphones-It Was Hot, We Stayed In the Water(K)

Real great lo-fi indie folk album. Lots of noise. Lots of pretty parts. Lots of indie rock. Skeletal yet meaty at the same time.

Genre: Lo-FI, Psychedelic Folk, Noise Rock, Indie Rock

21. Shellac-1000 Hurts(Touch and Go)

Real negative. Real snarky. This is Steve Albini after Big Black and Rapeman and in my opinion this is his best work in Shellac. It's hard to top "Prayer To God".

Genre: Noise Rock, Post-Hardcore, Math Rock

22. Elliott Smith-Figure 8(Dreamworks)

Kind of hated this when it came out aside from a few tracks. Then I got pretty into it. Once he died and I realized this would be his last official album released while still living, it put it into a different light and made me appreciate it even more since I knew this would be all that we would get from his own artistic vision.

Genre: Singer/Songwriter, Indie Pop, Chamber Pop, Indie Rock, Indie Folk

23. Gas-Pop(Mille Plateux)

Ambient electronic music at it's near peak best.

Genre: Ambient, Drone, Nature Recordings, Ambient Techno, Minimal Techno

24. D'Angelo-Voodoo(Virgin)

Didn't care one bit about this album at all when it came out. Hated the video with his abs. Then I heard it again after I had digested classic funk, soul and hip hop albums and realized it was a masterpiece. The cool little story about this album was that it was mostly produced by Questlove who actually taught music history lessons about the bands that him and D'angelo wanted to emulate before every session. Now that's dedication and respect for the past for sure!

Genre: Neo-Soul, Funk, Psychedelic Soul, Contemporary RnB, Hip Hop, Smooth Soul

25. Outkast-Stankonia(La Face)

Same scenario as above. I thought "Bombs over Baghdad" was stupid and I thought people who listened to it were stupid. Then I started appreciating production within all genres of music and realized their shit was at the tip top of intelligence while managing to get people to get out on the dance floor.

Genre: Southern Hip Hop, Dirty South, Conscious Hip Hop, Funk, Experimental Hip Hop, Pop Rap

26. Broadcast-The Noise Made By People(Warp)

Trippy, jazzy and cool as ice. This was the original 4 piece and the sound was more an emulation of the past then a weirdo look towards the future they would latch onto on later records. The vocals are pretty much perfect.

Genre: Dream Pop, Indietronica, Psychedelic Pop, Ambient Pop, Neo-Psychedelica, Space Age Pop

27. Bright Eyes-Fevers and Mirrors(Saddle Creek)

Super intense indie folk album. When I first heard this I thought it was very simple and kind of boring. What the hell was I thinking, there is a ton of stuff both musically and lyrically on this album you can get wrapped up in. My most distinct memory of this time period of Conor Oberst was when I got free tickets to see him acoustic at the El Rey Theatre. He came out with a stool, an acoustic guitar and 3 bottles of red wine. Proceeded to drink all 3 bottles on stage in the span of an hour. Got real drunk. I remember him yelling at people in the crowd and he may have started a fight or two. The music was real intense and the drunkenness added to it all. It was chaotic and nerve racking but an amazing time.

Genre: Indie Folk, Singer/Songwriter, Contemporary Folk, Lo-FI

28. Sleater Kinney-All Hands On the Bad One(Kill Rock Stars)

Probably the most fun album of theirs. Not much to complain about this one. This didn't have the huge leap in musicality that "The Hot Rock" had or "One Beat" but the songs were solid, the playing was simple and the melodies hit just right.

Genre: Indie Rock, Riot Grrl

29. Idlewild-100 Broken Windows(Capitol)

Super addicting album that you can find in dollar bins across the U.S. I think this was a case of Capitol records thinking this band was going to blow up but instead it quietly made the critic rounds while sweeping countless British end of the year lists and virtually being ignored in the states. It's basically indie rock with a little britpop thrown in but overall it's got a dark vibe to it.

Genre: Alternative Rock, Indie Rock, Britpop, Emo, Power Pop

30. White Stripes-De Stijl(Sympathy For the Record Industry)

Their first great album after the decent debut. This ended up having some classic White Stripes tunes. The general feel of this album was that this band was great but they had no idea what the future had in store for them.

Genre: Blues Rock, Alternative Rock, Garage Rock Revival, Punk Blues