10. Death From Above 1979- You're a Woman, I'm a Machine- 2004
This album basically amounts to one very long pick up line, With Sebastian Grainger trying every angle he can think of; He's really deep and poetic (“Black History Month”), he wants a long meaningful relationship (“Romantic Rights”), he wants to hook up for the night (“Go Home Get Down”), he wants to go steady (“Going Steady”), he wants to get back together (“Blood on our Hands”), he's a traditional family man (“Little Girl”), he just needs like 5 minutes (“Pull Out”). Whatever approach he takes, its set to really loud aggressive rock, no matter how appropriate or inappropriate the pairing is. And that's kind of the fun of this album; there is a total disregard to an overall sense of greater meaning or even continuity, instead being devoted to something trashy and salacious, this is an album that you can enjoy on a completely carefree level, which is a bit odd considering how intimidatingly loud and fast the tracks are. Its greatest achievement might actually be poking fun at, and showing how silly the whole love ballad genre of music is. You don't try and pick up a girl with some bloated Guns and Roses-esque crap rock poetry- you do it the DFA way! Loud, rude, abrupt, and fun. Musically, its about as simple as it gets but the guitar hooks are incredibly catchy and Grainger has the kind of voice that's perfect for ironically shallow and melodramatic wailing. He can scream really loud, but not to the point where it gets grating and inaudible like something like Alexis on Fire. It's a shame these guys only made one album together, more so considering the result of their demise was MSTRKRFT. Reunion tour!
Best Tracks- Romantic Rights, Blood on our Hands, Little Girl
9. Arcade Fire- Funeral- 2004
This is one of those painfully obvious choices that winds up on most people's lists, but it really is that good. Funeral is one of those rare albums that takes a decidedly classical approach to music, in terms of instruments, arrangement, vocals, and manages to modernize it and infuse it with pop beats. This does not make it shallow, rather very catchy and more palatable to listeners. Its about as far away from shallow as you can get actually as the album, just as the name implies, revolves mostly around death, remorse, and separation. But it's more reflective than whiny; Win Butler isn't complaining through music, rather he is using the medium to work out weighty stuff that would other wise be difficult to articulate in a more literal sense. Thematicly engaging as it is, Funeral also sounds really good thankfully; these are very talented people. Piano, guitar, violin are perfectly matched together creating an almost staggering variety of sounds, rhythm and pacing. Even though its a big band with a lot of instruments, they rarely use them all together at once, actually taking a more minimal approach, only rarely unleashing it all so as to heighten impact of more important moments (Maybe Broken Social Scene should try that). I love the very out of left field, startlingly fast beat endings to tracks like “Une annee sans Lumierere” and “Crown of Love”. “Haiti” is a wonderfully bright and cheerful song midway through; as if the group was very aware that you'd need a break from all the unpleasant emotion throughout the majority of their work here. Win Butler and Regine Chassagne have terrific and very obviously trained voices. He sounds frail and quivering, but very steadfast and determined throughout, while she can go from a whisper to wailing at the top of her lungs but still maintain a very soft understated presence, especially in the final moments of “In the Backseat”. Even with its voluminous amount of content, Funeral still seems to be more than the sum of its parts.
Best Tracks- Wake Up, Tunnels, Une annee sans Lumiere, In the Back Seat
8. M.I.A.- Kala- 2007
This album is the soundtrack to globalization if there ever was one. The excessive, superficial capitalism of the north is mixed together with the perceived primitive tribalism of the south and the third world. It's bizarre but strangely compelling. This isn't entirely dissimilar to the approach and views Metric had in Old World Underground, but rather than being lost and overwhelmed by despair of such notions, M.I.A. manages to rise above it, like she's toying with the concept; as if she is in complete control or at the very least, not phased by the trends she observes and documents. This is also similar to her first album Arular, but the production is much more sophisticated here with a large amount of the music drawing from traditional African, Asian, and South American sounds. Its a lot of fun listening to tribal African beats while she goes on about being a model and watching Lost on cable in “Bird Flu”, ghostly jungle chants while she raps about her phone going off in “Hustle”, or genocide in Darfur while modern production values speed up her voice to that of a chipmunk in “Jimmy”. Its the north/south relationship playing off of each other; its completely contradictory in a traditional sense but the dichotomous relationship she creates between the two is incredible. By far the best part of the Album is “20$”. She sings about the poor, destitute, tortured, and exploited people of the world- but it's played to a super slowed down version of “Blue Monday” by New Order and she samples The Pixies. Genius. It's something a jaded ironic victim of pop culture couldn't do, nor could anyone from the less develop world who only hear horror stories about the industrialized nations. But M.I.A. Occupies that liminal space in between; the daughter of a Sri Lankin rebel, yet educated in London. She, and this album has a unique quality that can't be touched by anyone else.
Best Tracks- Bamboo Banger, Jimmy, 20$, Paper Planes
7. Radiohead- Kid A- 2001
There isn't really much more that needs to be said about this album. Everyone with a passing interest of the group is aware of its genesis. After creating what many considered one of the best albums ever, Thom Yorke was overwhelmed by depression and anxiety over the possibility that there was nowhere to go but down. So instead of trying to beat the odds, the group made an album completely different from anything ever done before. In doing so, Kid A became the forerunner of the shape of music for the entire decade, as the medium slowly shifted away from studios and into computers. It would represent how music would change, becoming seemingly cold sterile and artificially created. As a result it alienated a lot of people, if only for not just being more OK Computer. But among all the alien and disorientingly inorganic qualities of Kid A there is evidence and artifacts of all the human effort behind these songs. Rather than using all the power of the digital age to brush away and delete imperfections and distortions, Radiohead uses that power to embellish them and incorporate them into the music, giving the songs something of an embryonic quality; they may have been born from computers and synthesizers as opposed to guitars and drums, but they were born, as opposed to being callously computed and sanitized. This was a sound that was being created for the first time and we can hear all the passion and excitement and aching in Yorke's voice that comes with the growing pains of it. From the discontent of the status quo in “Idioteque”, a mere thought in his head in “Everything in its Right Place”, to how ever else you choose to interpret the rest; This isn't a cold and sterile album.
Best Tracks- Everything in its Right Place, Idioteque, Optimistic
6. Sleater-Kinney- The Woods- 2006
The Woods is pure rock and roll. Not punk rock or pop rock, or metal or any other variation or perversion of the genre. Its extremely loud. As in gratingly loud, scathing and cacophonous. If your ears make it past “The Fox”, you've passed a test of sorts, and you get to keep listening. Its also extremely dense; as in complicated, layered, rich in content. That fact that so much music is made from just three people- two guitars and one drum set- not even a bass- is astonishing. This is a group that forces absolutely everything they could out of their instruments to create the richest, fullest sounds one could hope for. By instruments I also mean their voices, as Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein spend much of the album pushing their vocal chords to their limits. They have this oscillating sound quality to their voice that allows them to sustain loud bombastic wails for incredibly long times. Its exhausting listening to it so I can't even imagine what it's like to perform it. The album for the most part is relatively fun loving and doesn't really beg to be interpreted or analyzed on a lyrical level. One notable exception is the track “Jumpers”, which is a startlingly literal and eloquent take on suicide. Some of the imagery is pretty unpleasant- “my falling shape will draw a line between the plow of sea and sky/ I'm not a bird I'm not a plane... four seconds was the longest wait”. The song sort of comes out of nowhere; but it sounds amazing, with one of my favorite, albeit brief, solos. The fact that all of this is done by three approaching middle aged women who most would probably mistake for soccer moms is all the more impressive. Plus, it's got an 11 minute song about fucking.
Best Tracks- Jumpers, Entertain, Rollercoster, Let's Call it Love
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