The Weekly Roundtable
What's the best album from 2000-2008?
We thought long and hard about what we should debate this week: Britney Spears' most valuable body part? The best fast-food french fries? Worst third world country to be stranded in without a gun? We probably gave more thought to what we should debate than the debate itself. But eventually we settled on a simple question: what has been the best album to be released since January 1, 2000? A few of our responses are below, and we are all pretty confident here in our choices. Still, we're expecting you to disagree with us. In fact, we're asking you to. Go ahead and leave us a comment and let us know what your pick(s) would have been!Cory Roop: Smoking Popes - Stay Down
This album has everything, from the love songs that made Destination Failure and Born to Quit so great, to songs about Josh's kids and even one about murder. Josh Caterer's writing has matured in the years since Destination Failure and it brings a whole new element to the table. There's only so much you can do with love songs and the Smoking Popes realized that during their break. Musically, the album shows that a band can grow as a whole without tinkering with their sound. The trademark sound of Josh's vocals along with face-melting guitars makes Stay Down shine amongst the sea of the mediocre.
Alyssa Vincent: Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
I am not an album girl. Rather, I'm that annoying person that loves to pick and choose songs, and put them all on a mixtape that matches my exact mood and tastes at the time. As a result of my mix love, I find myself with few albums that I cherish in their entirety. However, one of those albums that is near and dear to my heart has to be Coldplay's 2002 release, A Rush of Blood to the Head. When it first came out, I listened to it, liked it enough, and of course put "The Scientist" next to "What's My Age Again?" on a disc without thinking twice -- trust me, it works. But in 2005, when I started my first year of college, I dug it out and listened to the whole album nonstop. Whether I was comforted by the memories it brought up, or by Chris Martin's trademark falsetto and the haunting lyrics, it got me through a transitional year that was full of all the challenges that one hears about before embarking on their post-high school life. As a result of the reassurance it offered, even a song like "Viva la Vida," with its inventive nature and rallying strings, can never hold a candle to tracks like "Amsterdam" and "Green Eyes."
Wes Soltis: Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica
My pick comes from the early part of the century, just about as early as we can go. On June 13, 2000, Modest Mouse released their major label debut The Moon & Antarctica. Widely heralded as the band's most diverse work, Isaac Brock and company took their already unique sound and expanded it into lyrics that were introspective and complex. The album has only gotten better throughout the years. Modest Mouse has yet to release anything close to the majesty that was put on The Moon, and this is coming from someone who thinks their entire catalog is fantastic.
There isn't a single bad track on the album, and the first four songs ("3rd Planet," "Gravity Rides Everything," "Dark Center of the Universe" and "Perfect Disguise") might be the four strongest opening tracks I've heard. You could even include "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes" in their as the fifth track. I had a friend once tell me that The Moon & Antarctica helped her pass physics in college. I don't know if that just meant she listened to it a lot, or Brock has the power to teach. Either way, that is some powerful stuff.
Ryan Peters: Wilco - A Ghost is Born / The Arcade Fire - Funeral
Is it fair for me to ask a bunch of other writers at Heave to pick their favorite album from the last 8 1/2 years and then turn around and claim that I cannot decide between my top two choices? Probably not. But then again, it wasn't fair that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Think about it.
My first pick for the best album since Y2K would be Wilco's 2004 offering A Ghost is Born. In the grand scheme of the Wilco catalogue, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is most-often cited as both the band's best work and the album that brought them a mainstream audience. Only the latter is true. A Ghost is Born's layered songwriting wears its blues/kraut-rock/jazz influences on the sleeve, and Jeff Tweedy's ragged voice has never sounded so expressive. Filled with images of addiction and isolation, the band found a carnival of sounds to match Tweedy's personal hell. Even the album's breeziest track, "The Late Greats," matches a sunny melody to a lyric that is alternately hopeful and suicidal: "The best song will never get sung / the best life never leaves your lungs / I never hear it on the radio / can't hear it on the radio." Pure, sad, and brilliant.
My second pick is also from 2004 (right around the same time that I got a tattoo of an eagle eating a serpent across my back, so it was a good year all-around), and also deals with death and depression. But where A Ghost is Born wraps itself in a feeling of claustrophobia, The Arcade Fire's Funeral is all about exercising the demons. The wild choruses, thundering verses, and mid-song tempo halts all work toward a sense of catharsis and release. By the end of the album you can almost picture the band standing in some freezing Canadian snow, death all around, smiling from ear to ear.
Posted by Ryan Peters on Jul 25, 2008 @ 7:10 am
