2000-2005
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Of the ‘1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die,’ 99 are from the years 2000-2005.
Which 21st Century albums are the most essential to hear again?
Ranked by their essential-ness, here’s how I’d prioritize revisiting these 99 albums, enjoy!
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99. Limp Bizkit – Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. There are more appealing titles on the list.
98. Mike Ladd – Welcome to the Afterfuture. Some standout similes, such as “like an engineer for Chrysler who spends his time with Volvos.”
97. Röyksopp – Melody A.M. Band name umlauts never hurt.
96. 50 Cent – Get Rich or Die Tryin’. Nor does a dropped ‘g’.
95. Ozamatli – Street Signs. More likely to listen to Ozma.
94. M.I.A. – Arular. One of the most recent albums on the list (only 3 from 2005 in the original book).
93. Avalanches – Since I Left You . Probably more likely to see a Colorado Avalanche game.
92. Gotan Project – La Revancha del Tango. Like the olde saying, it takes (ninety-)two to tango.
91. Christina Aguilera – Stripped. Terrific voice, though I bet I’ll rewatch her singing about tight pants first!
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90. Lightning Bolt – Wonderful Rainbow. A bolt of lightning, 1.21 GigaWatts!
89. Icarus Line – Penance Soirée. Accent aigus, magnifique.
88. Linkin Park – Hybrid Theory. I appreciate it more than I did in the early 2000s.
87. Beta Band – Hot Shots II. Perhaps out of curiousity, to see if the album syncs up with the film, Hot Shots: Part Deux, in a significant way!
86. Dizzee Rascal – Boy in Da Corner. Where I learned about the genre ‘grime’ – though probability-wise, re-watching the Frank ‘Grime’s episode of The Simpsons would be a safer bet.
85. Ms. Dynamite – A Little Deeper. A Napoleon Dynamite &/or Princess and the Frog’s Dig a Little Deeper revisit will probably come first.
84. The Bees – Sunshine Hit Me. As Will Arnett might say, Bees?!
83. N*E*R*D – Fly or Die. Having the CD helps.
82. Destiny’s Child – Survivor. Though not a Destiny’s Child track, I’m forever grateful to Beyoncé for helping teach students about the placement of assets on rudimentary balance sheets: to the left, to the left, everything you own is in a box to the left!
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81. MJ Cole – Sincere. As Bye Bye Birdie &/or The Family Guy advised, you gotta be sincere!
80. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever to Tell. I enjoyed attempting their song Maps on the video game ‘Rock Band’
79. Liars – They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. A high-stakes title.
78. White Stripes – White Blood Cells.
76. White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan.
Though the order among the 3 could change.
75. Madonna – Music. Her 3rd of 3.
74. TV on the Radio – Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes. Would be higher on a favourite band names list, intriguing notion.
73. The Roots – Phrenology. More likely to watch The Roots playing classroom instruments on the Tonight Show or listen to Mr. Burns talk about Phrenology!
72. Air – The Virgin Suicides. Their second of two.
71. Erykah Badu – Mama’s Gun. Penitentiary Philosophy in particular.
70. Red Snapper – Our Aim is to Satisfy. A Red Snapper, mmmm, very tasty!
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69. The Beta Band – Heroes to Zeroes. Can one really listen to The Beta Band without thinking of High Fidelity?
68. Devendra Banhart – Rejoicing in the Hands. Songs that would likely work well in the livestream format.
67. Justin Timberlake – Justified. I’ve been a fan of his since the ‘Sars-stock’ concert in Toronto.
66. The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come for Free. When my wonderful wife & I worked in England that summer, Dry Your Eyes was inescapable.
65. Cee-Lo Green – Cee-Lo Green…is the Soul Machine. How do I feel about rhyming album titles? To borrow a Mitch Hedberg line, I’m For ‘Em!
64. Calexico – Feast of Wire. Calexico = California + Mexico. To borrow a Keanu-ism, Whoa!
63. Björk – Vespertine.
62. Björk – Medúlla.
The speedometer from the stop-motion episode of Community was a nice detail!
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61. The Hives – Your Favourite New Band. One of the many good “The” bands from the early 2000s.
60. Goldfrapp – Felt Mountain.
59. Bebel Gilberto – Tanto Tempo.
Three very different & very fine vocalists.
57. Arcade Fire – Funeral. CanCon!
56. Missy Elliott – Under Construction. Her 2nd of 2.
55. Lambchop – Nixon. Though while listening, I find it difficult not to think of the former U.S. President &/or the children’s TV show, Lambchop’s Play-Along.
54. Jay-Z – The Blueprint. That’s the anthem, get your darn hands up!
53. The Zutons – Who Killed…The Zutons?. I enjoy the saxomophone on the debut by these Liverpudlians.
52. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Abbatoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus. Cave’s final cameo on the list.
51. Kings of Leon – Aha Shake Heartbreak.
50. Kings of Leon – Youth & Young Manhood.
Their 1st and 2nd of 2 appearances.
And speaking of Community, “Look, Kings of Leon!” proved to be an effective distraction in the Regional Holiday Music episode!
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49. Kanye West – The College Dropout. Interesting & unconventional lyrics / themes throughout.
48. Badly Drawn Boy – Hour of the Bewilderbeast. Perhaps would be an appropriate soundtrack while waiting in line for an hour to ride the Wilde Beast at Canada’s Wonderland?
47. Giant Sand – Chore of Enchantment. Though it’s the kind of sound I like, when I reviewed it, I suspected I’d be more likely to choose other comparable artists. I suppose we’ll see if current-me or past-me is correct!
46. Gorillaz – Gorillaz. Clint Eastwood might be the top single from the early 2000s.
45. The Coral – The Coral. Did I mention there are a lot of solid self-titled debuts on the list?
44. Johnny Cash – American IV: The Man Comes Around. His 3rd of 3.
43. Mylo – Destroy Rock & Roll. Especially the title track.
42. Common – Like Water for Chocolate. Powerful album art.
41. Ute Lemper – Punishing Kiss. Her duet with Neil Hannon, Tango Ballad, in particular.
40. Outkast – Speakerboxxx / The Love Below.
39. Outkast – Stankonia.
I adore the piano intro to Roses & B.O.B.’s first verse is absolutely relentless.
Nice to see Kevin McDonald make an appearance in the Roses video too!
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38. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker.
37. Ryan Adams – Gold.
His 1st and 2nd of 2.
36. Super Furry Animals – Rings Around the World. Their 2nd of 2.
35. PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. Her 3rd of 3.
34. Doves – Lost Souls.
33. Doves – The Last Broadcast.
Their 1st and 2nd of 2.
32. Jurassic 5 – Power in Numbers. The album name is apt, the multiple MC format works well here.
31. The Mars Volta – De-Loused in the Comatorium. Featuring Flea on bass.
30. Rufus Wainwright – Want One.
29. Rufus Wainwright – Want Two.
His 1st and 2nd (of 2) on the list.
And I appreciate that Rufus takes his time arriving at notes, at one point taking 16 seconds to arrive at the 2nd syllable of Ag-nus Dei!
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28. Scissor Sisters – Scissor Sisters.
Eponymous debuts, I really must remember to count how many of them ended up on the list.
27. The Thrills – So Much for the City. Not a self-titled, but not a bad debut either!
26. U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind. I was pleased to be able to play ‘Elevation‘ when teaching the angle of elevation recently.
25. Radiohead – Amnesiac. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, just playing the percentages. And there are a couple more from the 2000s that I know I’ll revisit first (and I gather they made a couple of semi-decent 90s albums as well?)
24. Elliott Smith – Figure 8. Wouldn’t Mama Be Proud especially.
23. Morrissey – You Are the Quarry. His 4th of 4 solo albums on the list.
22. The Strokes – Is This It? It ain’t bad!
21. Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Their 2nd of 2.
20. Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand. The first side especially.
19. Silver Jews – Bright Flight. The initial Pavement association doesn’t hurt.
18. Beck – Sea Change.
17. Beck – Guero.
His 2nd and 3rd of 3.
16. Radiohead – Hail to the Thief. The Beaverton hit it out of the park with this article!
15. The Vines – Highly Evolved. Love the album-opening handclaps.
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13. Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head.
Their 1st and 2nd albums (of 2) on the list.
12. Brian Wilson – SmiLe. I tend to pronounce the word vege-tables, à la Brian here.
11. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Their 2nd of 2.
10. Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP. His 2nd of 2.
9. Norah Jones – Come Away With Me. A fine debut.
8. Emmylou Harris – Red Dirt Girl. Her 2nd of 2.
7. The Killers – Hot Fuss. Side one in particular.
6. Bruce Springsteen – The Rising. His 5th of 5.
5. Gillian Welch – Time (The Revelator). The title track especially.
4. The Libertines – The Libertines. The album is holding up better than my t-shirt!
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3. Drive By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera. The top double LP of the 21st Century thus far.
2. The Darkness – Permission to Land. In my all-time Top 15.
1. Radiohead – Kid A. It’s currently in the car stereo (in its right place) – next time I start the car, unless I turn off the stereo before the music starts, re-visitation is inveitable!
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Verbalize the Positive
A colleague referenced Conan O’Brien’s In The Year 2000 the other day, naturally I think of that great recurring bit when talking about Y2K!
1001albumsin10years 
That’s quite the 99 albums. Some excellent ones in the first half of the 2000s for sure.
I must admit, the years 2006-2010 are mostly a mystery to me – so I’m pleased to have at least caught up somewhat on half the decade!
Oh, and yeah, I’ll just drop this one word here in case you thought I’d not noticed: Doves.
One word with 2 fine albums on the list, JP!
20% of these are in the Vinyl Connection collection. I’m happy enough with that, even though it is well below a pass score!
I’d say that’s a highly respectable score, Bruce!
Probably a moving target for the decades, perhaps a 50% of the 60s/70s would be considered a pass, maybe 40%/30% for the 80s/90s, and if you hit 20% on 21st Century albums, that ain’t bad!
I like your progressive approach to marking, Teach. I’ll be signing up for your next semester class.
Wow. How long did it take to settle on this 99? I can’t even pick a top 10 at times. lol White Stripes with a 3 place finish one after another in the 70’s…
Red Snapper! lol
Well done Sir!
Cheers, Deke!
The 99 may have been a bit ambitious (though the 99 albums since ’99 & Gretzky association were too tempting to resist) – but I don’t think it’ll be too controversial. I’m not anticipating too many strongly worded emails that #83 should have been at least as high as #68!
I thought I knew a lot of the music from this era, but there’s a TON of bands on here that I’ve never heard.
And shouldn’t Audioslave be in there somewhere?
they ought to be!
At least Rage & Soundgarden did make appearances in the 90s
So that’s the whole book done and dusted? Last regular post?
Pretty close – still one more album to go, an album with lyrics such as:
[title]
[title]
[title]
no one will be watching us!
Something about roads? Abbey road?
Aww, the photos of you with your baby are so cute!
Much appreciated, Lana – it was fun for me seeing the shirt age with each new baby photo!
That’s awesome! I need to take care of my favorite shirts so that they last a long time like yours did.
Washing/drying them inside out seems to add to the longevity for me, Lana!
Oh ok, I wash and dry my shirts inside out already. Thanks for the tip, Geoff!
Radiohead, yes. Of course I would rank Jurassic 5 and Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker as higher… cool list though. Poor Limp Bizkit lol. Or, wait, nah. Nevermind them.
Jurassic 5 was new to me within the past year or two – I imagine it will keep climbing over time.
And it’s funny, in the early 2000s, I had no interest in Kid A (where are the guitars???) but now I see it as an album where Everything is in its right place 🙂
I have all the Jurassic 5 albums, all are great! Yeah I remember the backlash to Kid A. But the band knew what they had.