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: 40 minutes ago).
"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...""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 The Strokes do anything else or is this it?"
(pun intended)
Just as cohesive, just as gut punching. Every second has a purpose. All of this can be said about what came before but it is still fantastic."[+]Reply
"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...""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 music industry. This album is stripped down, but features great songcraft and playing. Awesome."[+]Reply
"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...""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 brilliance. Songs like "Only Ones Who Know", "Do Me A Favour", "Florescent Adolescent" and "505" deal with the angst felt my many 18/19 year olds leaving school for college in a very honest way. Lines like
"Well all the little promises they don't mean much
When there's memories to be made"
"It's these times that it tends,
The start to breaking up, to start to fall apart
Oh! hold on to your heart."
Are laden with a poignancy and create a sense of a person's comfort zone being torn down and replaced by the uncomfortable vulnerability of a lone individual.
Intentionally or not the speed of this album reflects the speed of these changes. For these reasons I dare call this album a concept album a very good one at that."[+]Reply
"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...""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 – handedly ignited my interest for this particular genre would be a fair assessment. One might argue that he leans towards the poppier end of the spectrum, so it’s understandable that I find him more accessible than other hip hop greats. He is not too hip hop, but also not too non hip hop, if that makes sense. Maybe that’s the case. No matter how he did it, he opened a whole new world for me and made me realise the endless arising possibilities. Ok, I am a fanboy, point taken, let’s move on.
To follow up the widely acclaimed and commercially successful College Dropout was no easy task, but he delivered. Production is once more the major attraction, it’s head and shoulders above every other aspect of the album. Lyrics are often the center of attention in hip hop. Well, not here. For all I care, he could be mumbling random nonsense that nobody understands and it would still sound majestic nonetheless. I don’t mean to suggest that he does, there are many great lines here. In the space of a year he managed to reinvent the sound of his debut album. The themes are a bit more serious (though there are still some moments of fun) but he doesn’t hold anything back, he is as honest and ever. The sound is, well, massive. Bigger than a Hollywood blockbuster, more epic than Homer’s poems, you name it. The variety is also outstanding. Every song is unique. The core of his sound is still a pop take on soul/funk, but he has expanded in many different directions.
Picking some highlights would be close to impossible, it’s more or less the whole album (yes, even the skits were entertaining). In Heard’ em Say he struggles dealing with the difficulties of life (“So this is in the name of love like Robert say Before you ask me to go get a job today Can I at least get a raise of the minimum wage? And I know that the government administer AIDS So I guess we just pray like the minister say Allāhu Akbar and throw in some hot cars”) , but he accompanies it with none other than Adam Levine (crazy, I know). He makes a song with Adam Levine work, for that alone he deserves full credit, don’t know who else could have pulled that off. Touch the Sky comes with a pinch of disco, followed by the club/party oriented Gold Digger which provides tons of fun. Drive Slow has an irresistible jazzy vibe, the saxophone is on steroids. By the way, Paul Wall also belongs to the Adam Levine category (in the sense that Kanye makes these things work seemingly out of nowhere, even though they seem destined to fail). Crack Music is another cool tune with a wonderful gospel touch as the icing on the cake. Roses flows as smooth as anything I can think of. Kanye is on top form there (as a rapper I mean). Even the silly Addiction is so addictive (these cringeworthy puns are becoming a thing). Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix) is just a huge song. Not a fan of remixes in general, but this is exemplary. If I had to pick one track that represents the whole album the most accurate, it would most likely be this one. We Major features Nas and is considered one of the weaker tracks. This speaks volumes about the depth of the album. Hey Mama is the pinnacle of songwriting, one of the most emotional and touching songs you can possibly encounter (“I wanna tell the whole world about a friend of mine This little light of mine and I'm finna let it shine I'm finna take y'all back to them better times I'm finna talk about my mama if y'all don't mind”). Then, as the title suggests, it’s time for Celebration- and deservedly so. And after all this insane ride, it seems he saved best for last. Gone keeps improving verse by verse. That’s what it means to go out with a bang. It’s worth noting that what I usually complain about in other album, here works the other way around. The most obvious example is the duration. It is 70 minutes long and it feels so short, it leaves you thirsty for more."[+]Reply
"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...""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 carry on they challenge themselves to push the envelope. This record does that. It is jarring in places, but that just adds to the overall sense of tension and release. This record is like an aural record of Shakespeare's rising and falling action; I honestly feel it is worthy of such praise. Album of the decade."[+]Reply
"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...""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 the high of these two tracks, Lover's Spit and I'm Still Your Fag are also highlights. I also absolutely adore how the album ends by repeating the string part from Anthem!!!!"[+]Reply
"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...""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 time. His lyrics shocked and alarmed people in a way no one had done before.
And bringing rap to white people and showing that it can be done has influenced countless white musicians since, even if this wasn't his intent. We all now know he is predominantly raised in Black culture of Detroit and is what he is most comfortable with. This guy is no white collar suburban-ite
It hasn't aged all that well as our culture over the last 15's years has become more and more sensitive and PC to cultural and genetic differences.
Criminal, Kill You, the singles, I'm Back are all excellent.
Kim literally freaked me out when I heard it. It is so shockingly uncomfortable and executed perfectly for what was intended. But, yeah, I skip that one.
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"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...""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) that it had the air of something new and important. It wasn't at all- it had the substance and danger of a Hot Topic halloween party with dime-store shrooms.
So what actually made the shoulda-been-a-trainwreck it worthwhile? Well... it was actually a lot of fun. Reviving the grand 'ol concept album formula, glam-rock poses and arena-metal that probably shoulda died with the early 80s, it apes every Big Fucking Band of the era- Iron Maiden, Supertramp, T. Rex, Danzig/Misfits, and hell there's even the Tom Waits bastard stepson of "Mama" (yes, that's Liza Minelli singing backup) but none so more than the undisputed kings of extravagant excess and Everything's Gotta Be An Anthem skin of Queen. The opener The End basically seems like the begginings of Ziggy Stardust and The Wall ran into each other, become one unholy monster walking away with blurred vision and a bloody nose. There's no way this album should've worked, but miraculously it did. Mainly cause it does mix solid songwriting with a sorta adorable sense of over-the-top surface grandeur that makes it a really entertaining spectacle, if rarely a substantive one. Not as strange or groundbreaking as it wanted to be, it nonetheless came across as a strong new millenium arena-rock album in spite of it's conspicious flaws. I may never enjoy it as much as I did when... I WAS..... A YOUNG BOYYYYYY!!!, but it's still fun to come back to once and again. "[+]Reply
"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
"Way inconsistent. Still decent at its worst, but those lows are amplified by how high the best songs are. Congratulations works much better as an album."Reply