This is it—the final entry in our Decade series. Since the beginning of October we’ve been highlighting albums released over the past ten years that made an impression—that made a difference. While we could not possibly feature all of our favorites, we did get through a good amount before the clock ran out and 2009 [...]
No Such Place is an album I have come back to over and over again this past decade. Its fusion of varied production (and producers), Southern Gothic story telling and haunting lyrics have caused me to examine its face closely and in different detail over the years, re-reading its specifics and yielding different results each [...]
The National craft mood music. In the span of four albums and an EP they have created a niche of elegant and dark atmospheric rock bolstered by vocalists Matt Berninger’s languid baritone and everyman poetics. These are the 21st century blues for those of us who grew up in the ‘80s. A world view framed [...]
I’m not going to qualify anything here—it’s tempting to get into a semantic argument about the differences between “best” and “favorite” records to explain why I think that twelve old-time rock ‘n’ roll songs spoke-sung by a broken Catholic is better than anything this decade by Radiohead, by Animal Collective, by Wilco (as much as [...]
Radiohead’s Kid A is advanced. You know this because you’ve listened to it. You know this because countless writers and critics and friends and foes have told you so. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of people who know more about the band than I do have spent countless hours in hopes of understanding the record and several [...]
There could be a lot to resent about the Strokes before ever listening to their music. A bunch of wealthy, well-traveled prep-school kids from Manhattan hit a bit of luck and became an overnight sensation. The money, the pedigree, the luck — all potential sources of envy, cynicism and ire for an everyday Joe like [...]
As Justin said in his Decade entry on Sufjan Stevens’ Michigan, some albums feel intrinsically linked to the experience of listening to them. Maybe it’s a romantic sentiment, but music works like some aural madeleine, carrying dense and indulgent sensory memories that go deeper than the textures of the notes and melodies and into some—well, [...]
It’d be easy to peg Funeral a death processional. People have done it before. Nearly every time anyone ever talked about the record, in fact. I never read the liner notes to the album, but apparently they mention the death of three family members of the band, and their inspirational impact. And then, of course, [...]
