Best Albums of the 2000s

Listed below are the best albums of the 2000s as calculated from their overall rankings in over 58,000 greatest album charts. (Chart last updated: 4 hours ago).
Best albums by year or decade
Decade:
Year:
2000s decade summaryThe best artists of the 2000s were Radiohead, Arcade Fire, The Strokes, Coldplay, Sufjan Stevens, Muse, Arctic Monkeys, The White Stripes, Wilco and Animal Collective.
View chart at point in time
 Show this chart as it was on the following date
Share this chart
Collector's summary (top 1,000) Help The maximum rank used by the Collector's Summary is configurable from your profile (top 1,000 is currently selected). Log in or register to discover the great albums that are missing from your music collection!
Sort Sort by
"Room on Fire is This is It version 2.0 That is what ultimately hurts the legacy of their sophomore effort. Reptilia is better than anything on Is This It? But the whole album is safe and by the end of it the thinking is basically, "This is great too, but I have heard it before" and "Okay, but can..."  [+]  Reply
- Edwarda85 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +5 votes (5 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2003
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,828
Rank in 2003:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"I remember 2001... I thought the music industry was spiraling downhill... dominated by boy bands, Shaggy, Limp Biskit, Linkin Park, Staind, Creed, etc... Those were dark days indeed. When the Strokes and White Stripes burst onto the scene with their huge 2001 albums, it restored my faith in the m..."  [+]  Reply
- junodog4 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +3 votes (3 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2001
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,808
Rank in 2001:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"What characterises Arctic Monkeys as a great band and not just a good band in my opinion is the genius of Alex Turner's lyricism. This album may not have the same blinding wit as their first nor the poetic abstract imagery of their third but that's not to say this album has its own moments of bri..."  [+]  Reply
- andy_hunter | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +10 votes (10 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2007
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,549
Rank in 2007:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"Spoiler alert: The upcoming review is totally biased. I am not sure if I can maintain the slightest degree of objectivity (not a fan of the term when it comes to music, but you get the point) To my mind Kanye West is a godlike figure not only in hip hop but music in general. To say he single – ha..."  [+]  Reply
- kokkinos | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2005
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,511
Rank in 2005:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"This record will be considered off-putting by some, even by Portishead fans still in thrall to their first two, the second of which was over 10 years prior to this. They did make two great ones to begin their recording career in the 90s, but this blows them both out of the water. As great artists..."  [+]  Reply
- ninecurses | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +4 votes (4 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2008
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,408
Rank in 2008:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"Fantastic album, really hits off once you get to Looks Just Like The Sun. From there BSS gives you a wonderful instrumental piece (Pacific Theme) and then onto the two highlights: the beautiful Anthem For A Seventeen Year Old Girl and the excellent Cause=Time. While nothing else on the album hits..."  [+]  Reply
- VanillaBean | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +3 votes (3 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2002
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,372
Rank in 2002:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"Some of the pop references date this album and it is much more silly than The Eminem Show which I prefer over this. Can't deny the effect it had on pop culture. Can't deny his word play and linguistics. Even if the topics are now seen as immature now, they were rule benders and breakers at the ti..."  [+]  Reply
- Edwarda85 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +6 votes (6 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2000
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,293
Rank in 2000:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"Yeah this album was inescapable sometime around '06-'07, and it's not hard to see why. In a time when so many bands were taking the previously more direct routes of emotive popish-y-punk songs, this album was so self-consciously grandstanding and BOMBASTIC (do you want me to repeat that last word..."  [+]  Reply
- cestuneblague | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +15 votes (15 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2006
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,117
Rank in 2006:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"I listened to this a few times and thought it was pretty good, but didn't fully understand all the high praise. Then I listened to it and read along with the lyrics. Understood."  Reply
- pearljammer13 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +14 votes (14 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
2009
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,106
Rank in 2009:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Year of Release:
2007
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,106
Rank in 2007:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 1,000. Page 5 of 100

Best Albums of the 2000s composition

Recognised  Decade Charts (2020s)
1. 100 Best Albums of the 2010s: Staff Picks by Billboard (2019)
2. The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s by Pitchfork (2019)
3. Top 50 Albums of the 2010s by The Wild Honey Pie (2019)
4. BrooklynVegan's Top Albums of 2010s by BrooklynVegan (2020)
5. The 50 best albums of the decade – 2010 to 2019 by Independent (2019)
6. The Needle Drop's Top Albums Of The 2010s by The Needle Drop (2019)
7. All The Best Albums Of The 2010s, Ranked by Uproxx (2019)
8. The A.V. Club's 50 best albums of the 2010s by The A.V. Club (2019)
9. Gorilla vs. Bear Albums of the 2010s by Gorilla vs. Bear (2019)
10. NME's Greatest Albums of The Decade: The 2010s by New Music Express (2019)
11. Top 100 Albums of the Decade by Crack Magazine (2019)
12. 100 Best Albums of the 2010s by Rolling Stone (2019)
13. The 101 Best Albums of the 2010s by Spin (2020)
14. The 100 Best Albums Of The 2010s by Stereogum (2019)
15. The 50 Best Albums of the Decade by Deep Cuts (2019)
16. Tiny Mix Tapes 2010s: Favorite 100 Music Releases of the Decade by Tiny Mix Tapes (2019)
17. Die besten Platten 2010-2019 by Spex (2019)
18. Top 100 Albums of the 2010s by Consequence of Sound (2019)
19. BEST OF 2011 - 2020: Die besten Alben des Jahrzehnts by laut (2020)
20. Los 30 mejores discos de la década de 2010 by Esquire España (2023)