Rockfeedback Records of the Decade – #25-1
By: Sian Norris, Fred Mikardo-Greaves, Chris Helsen, Stephen Pietrzykowski, Charlie Potter, Dan Monsell, Christiana Spens, Keri Kennedy, Michael Lewin, Hayley Leaver, Toby L, Thomas Hannan
25. Joanna Newsom – Ys
How to even describe Ys – its epic nature, its sense of the ancient whilst feeling curiously modern, the lyrical intricacy that brings unexpected tears to your eyes. Backed by a full orchestra, Joanna’s voice soars and whispers, whether exclaiming the beauty of physics in ‘Emily’, explaining the legend of the ‘Monkey and Bear’, or taking the listener on an unexplained and almost frightening journey on the 18 minute intense epic that is ‘Only Skin’. The latter is a song without comparison that takes the listener through the whole gamut of emotions, joy, love, fear, anger, death – all backed with vocals by lover Bill Callaghan. Songs about nature and science, songs about the essence of being a woman in love, songs that refuse to compromise and are happy to use the word “thee”. But it is ‘Sawdust and Diamonds’ that is my stand out track, the simplest song on the record, Joanna alone with her harp, singing a song about love and devotion - “and they will recognise all the lines on your face on the face of the daughter of the daughter of my daughter”. Desire, love, longing and the touch of darkness we associate with Joanna – perfection in five songs. [SIAN NORRIS]
24. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
2009 was without doubt the Year of the Animal. Collective. Sold out world tours, headlining festival slots on various continents, the darlings of both the global music press and the blogosphere, and two world-beating releases to bookend the year – November EP Fall Be Kind, and Merriweather Post Pavilion. Picking up where Strawberry Jam left off, the band proceed to craft a record of the most vibrant and joyous listening. Some people were put off when leaked cut ‘Brothersport’ seemed to suggest the release would be the group’s poppiest record to date, but this was nothing new. Merriweather… is merely the culmination of a process begun on Sung Tongs – that of extracting, distilling and finally utilising to devastating effect the melodies the band of Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished would have buried or mangled beyond all recognition. ‘Summertime Clothes’ buzzes with pomp and verve, splashing out into a life-affirming chorus, and ‘My Girls’ is both a touching ode to comfort and security and also to the riotous spirit of youth that lives in us all. 'Bluish' weaves a sparkling tune around lyrics that sum up all the glorious intricacies of love - "I like the way you squeeze my hand", "I like the way that you get mean", "I'm getting lost in your curls", and so on. And for those that may have thought they'd gone soft on us, they still kick harder than any of their peers. 'In the Flowers' kicks the record off with an explosion of noise halfway through; 'Lion in a Coma' cranks out a punishing digeridoo groove (in 10/4); and closer 'Brothersport' combines gospel harmony and sentiment with the best of 90s rave sound effects. Truly, Merriweather Post Pavilion, an album of such vim and life, is worthy on any list of great records, of this decade or any other. [FRED MIKARDO-GREAVES]
23. Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights
Hard to believe as it is now, back in 2002, before Interpol paved the way for the likes of Editors and White Lies, a band coming along that sounded a bit like Joy Division was actually quite exciting. It was a time when US garage rock was busy saving UK music from the aftermath of Britpop, and unlike city-mates The Strokes, Interpol did (quite brilliantly) it by selling Manchester c.1979 back to us. That said, it is a record positively dripping in ‘New York’: Paul Banks’ doleful Curtis-esque drawl and the bleak but epic post-punk musical backing illuminating the dark corners of the city caught in the beam of their titular bright lights. [CHRIS HELSEN]
22. Jens Lekman – Night Falls Over Kortedala
I can’t really listen to this record anymore, because I fell head over heels for a girl to it, and it didn’t work out, in the most spectacularly twisted circumstances. But I reckon Jens would probably appreciate that. And boy, was it utterly f**king perfect at the time. I genuinely hope I get to enjoy it again - because even though love is a complicated and often painful thing, it’s also hilarious, life affirming and beautiful. And I genuinely love this record. What’s more, much like the yarns spun within Night Falls..., you don’t need to know if the one I’m telling is true in order to find in it something to sympathise with. [THOMAS HANNAN]
21. Liars – Drums Not Dead
They might at times sound deliberately nonchalant, half asleep or, to an uninitiated ear, as if they're just pissing about, but easy this isn't, neither to listen to nor to construct. Studied, matchless and painstakingly planned, Drums Not Dead was meant to be about getting back to basics, trying something a little more traditional than their previous outing, the witch obsessed concept album They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. But, probably because they find writing proper ones impossible, they didn't manage to get back to the fundamentals of song writing at all. Instead, where they got to was the beginning of everything, the primal beat that underpins the workings of the Earth. Somewhere on the accompanying DVD should be film of God spinning this at the big bang. [THOMAS HANNAN]
20. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
It’s hard to imagine a record like Lift Yr Skinny Fists… released today. It is such an indefatigably physical album: four tracks (or movements if you’re feeling effusive) over two CDs, whose liner artwork consisted of a diagram of the whole work with segments titled within the pieces. It is almost a period piece. While GYBE’s anti-consumerist politics, multimedia tendencies and alt-aesthetics would have fitted today’s internet perfectly, the remarkable qualities of the record are derived from a love of the album in the age before the internet: ambitious with form in a manner that would seem irrelevant now. It is a grand, sweeping piece of paranoid strings and thunderous guitars, and could generously be called a composition rather than a typical post-rock record. More than most of the albums collected in end-of-decade lists, it feels like an anachronism. Released to a similar fervour of anticipation at roughly the same time as Kid A, Lift Yr Skinny Fists was the last of the old, while Radiohead’s opus was the first of the new. [MICHAEL LEWIN]
19. Lightning Bolt – Wonderful Rainbow
You could call them ‘hard rock’ or ‘noise-core’ and nobody’s going to pour a pint over your head in disgust, but if you’re being honest with yourself, which you always should be, then you’d have to call Lightning Bolt a metal band. I know, I don’t want to either. The word just conjures up too many horrible associations, either heaviness without any actual emotional weight or ideas, or macho posturing and masturbatory guitar solos. Bad metal is probably the worst music ever made. But what Lightning Bolt did with Wonderful Rainbow was to channel the volume, aggression and heaviness of heavy metal and make it something that seemed relentlessly, oppressively even, positive. They were inventive as Einstein, as talented a pair of musicians as any Ulrich or Hetfield, but crucially, on this their second LP, they found ten of the best riffs fathomable and played the living sh*t out of them. Couple that with the cheekiest sense of humour (unthinkable for most metal bands), and you had the arrival of one of the few one off’s in a decade that was often far too happy to look to the past for its inspiration. [THOMAS HANNAN]
18. Fugazi – The Argument
I found it impossible to believe that The Argument came out in 2001 for a while. Fugazi should be interred chronologically next to the Pixies, or Pavement at a push. Instead the latter pair lumberingly reform, casting bloated shadows over legacies, while the lean, fierce potency of Fugazi rests on indefinite hiatus. It’s a loss for our politics, our morals and our ears. The Argument saw the creators of hardcore, emo and post-hardcore ask themselves, what comes post post-hardcore? It could well be their best record, a document of the final act of maturity by the most righteous, rigorously progressive figures alternative music: still sometimes bracingly loud and pummelling, but more melodic, intricate and thoughtful than ever. There were perhaps never role models in music better than MacKaye, Piccioto et al. Don’t look to them for a reunion—instead, hope that continuing silence is their final lesson to us. [MICHAEL LEWIN]
17. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
As if the overuse of exclamation marks wasn’t enough of a clue, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! saw Nick Cave having blatant, identifiable fun on record for the first time, possibly ever. He knew everyone thought he was a fire and brimstone miserablist, and the title track takes the piss out of that, and himself as a whole, quite brilliantly. But what Nick cave is more than a doldrum-dwelling grumpy guts is a storyteller. He displayed here a mystery, a sense of detachment from real life at the same time as an innate knowledge of its workings, that made the whole thing fascinating. He understands that Rock ‘n Roll is not about truth – it’s about great stories. And he’s one of the best storytellers we’ve got. Lazarus makes you only want to listen to music made by people 50 or over, because nobody else really has the requisite life experience to speak to you with the same authority. It’s amazing that he can still make new fans with his umpteenth album - and I don’t bemoan at all anyone getting in to Nick Cave at this late stage. Just like Fugazi and Tom Waits, his last album is right up there with his best, ever. [THOMAS HANNAN]
16. Tom Waits – Alice
One of the few people to have been responsible for nineteen albums which range in quality only from very good to absolutely stunning, Alice is up there with the very finest of the lot. The soundtrack to the play Alice – based not on Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland but on its author Lewis Carroll’s forbidden love for Alice Lidell, for whom the book was written – it sees Waits run the gambit of emotions from the unsurpassably gorgeous title track to the thrilling guttural wrenching of ‘Kommienezuspadt’ and ‘Reeperbahn’ via meetings with mutated human forms like ‘Poor Edward’ and ‘Table Top Joe’ and ‘Lost In The Harbour’, maybe the saddest song in a career full of some pretty f**king sad songs. [THOMAS HANNAN]
15. The Libertines – Up The Bracket
With The Clash's formerly-riotous guitarist/singer Mick Jones behind the desk on technical-duties and the band's own two front-men Carl Barat and Pete Doherty already a pair famous for their unabashed, unrivalled energy, the likelihood of a first LP-outing with both class and eloquence was always a distant cry away. Yet, if you were after a bit of rough and excitement, which you should have been, and a dusty mantelpiece's worth of memorable songs, then the chances are that Up The Bracket defined your record-collection for, at the bare minimum, a year or so of the past ten. The Libertines conjured a soundtrack richly sparse enough to bark along to, get angry with and cry alongside. As such its warmth and faultless concoction of human-emotiveness made a record you'll continually embrace when times test and personal-needs soar. Understated beauty, then - in all its raucous splendour. [TOBY L]
14. Outkast – Speakerboxxx / The Love Below
In a decade when hip hop stars became pop stars in a way we'd never known before, no LP (let alone a double album) seemed to exhibit why or how good this good could be better that the loved-up acid-trip of a journey that was Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Moving from cutting-edge hip hop production to big band funk, jazz, a bucket load of Prince and an intimate knowledge of everything that makes great innovative pop music, these fur-wearing fantastical romantics here produced a modern musical masterpiece. From the decade-smashing 60s pop hit pastiche of ‘Hey Ya’ to the grimey club floor filler ‘Ghettomusik’, this was where the band let their creative freedoms go wild to the most amazing affect (probably down to it largely being two solo albums rather than a collaborative effort). Just as The Beatles had managed with their later releases, this found a place where their differing ideas could both be uniquely explored and realized whilst still pulling it together under one forward moving force. [DANIEL MONSELL]
13. LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
Sound of Silver couldn’t have been made in any other decade, such is its wanton compression of the best bits of the previous five. Yet despite its smash and grab sign o’ the times construction, at its centre was, well, a centre. There was actually something there; something that made technology that little more human and dancefloors that little less lonely even when smeared with teardrops (that remind me, baby, of you). And in “All My Friends” in particular, James Murphy achieved two truly remarkable things. First, a moan about the emptiness of fame that actually made you like him more, and second, a song that meant that if anyone were to list the best song of the decade and not include it, they were instantly wrong. ‘All My Friends’ made losing your edge irrelevant for seven motorik minutes, because taste wasn’t an issue. You either thought it was amazing, or you were wrong. The sound of silver was the sound of just getting it right, even if everything else seemed that bit wrong. [STEPHEN PIETRZYKOWKSKI]
12. Elliott Smith – Figure 8
I was first introduced to Elliott Smith in Memphis, Tennessee, by a girl called Natalie Jones, who gave me a CD with some of his songs on the first day I arrived on a High School exchange there. Little did I know how much I'd come to relate to his melancholic, painfully wistful tracks, that year, and in the few that followed. I can't think of any record I'd rather listen to when I'm heartbroken or depressed, or the bleak side of drunk. Somehow, Figure 8 always makes that string of emotions valid, rather than unbearably melodramatic (I've never been the power ballad type, I must confess) - just the awakened side of silent, just the sweet side of dead. [CHRISTIANA SPENS]
11. Aphex Twin – Drukqs
I can think of no other piece of music as dense and intricate as this - every aspect of sound has been cared for on all levels. If you look at the four attributes of music as described by John Cage - pitch, volume, timbre and duration - then you can see that most instruments come with a very specific set of constraints with respect to these attributes; when Richard D.James turns his computer on he is looking at a blank canvas where literally any kind of music is possible. That is not to say that Drukqs doesn't pay it's respects to any formal conventions: Aphex Twin has been making electronic music pretty much since the inception of its formal characteristics, and has skilfully drawn from a rich history in making some very familiar, sometimes ironic, fun music. Drukqs is the best thing Richard D. James has done - let's stop being foolish about this. [CHARLIE POTTER]
10. At The Drive-In – Relationship of Command
Relationship of Command took all that was great about heavy, visceral punk rock in the years preceding it and escalated up to a whole new level of heart-wrenching, fist-pumping importance. Whilst hitting harder than a charging bull, this groundbreaking record still managed to be in equal measures as smart as professors and as progressive as the industrial revolution. The fact that this would be the last record these five men from New Mexico would make together only seemed to heighten the highly emotional, carefully (and eventually broken down) balanced nature of such an incredible group. This LP still remains one of the most high-octane, freshest hard-rock records albums around, and in ‘One Armed Scissor’ they had an anthem to hang your everything on, and to be screamed so loud that your chest fell out. There aren't many records out there that can want to both cry and jump up and down at the same time as much as this. [DANIEL MONSELL]
9. Sufjan Stevens – Come On Feel The Illinoise!
An important development in my life as a music listener was coming to see huge, at first impenetrably large documents of sound as not something to be put off by, but something to get lost in. And I don’t think I threw the map away quicker than I did when I came across Illinoise. Most works of genius contain such a feeling of self awareness, an unshakable ‘oh-I’m-so-bloody-clever!’-ness that I find them a little bit overbearing. This was nothing of the sort. Perhaps it was the way it struck the middle ground between humour (the very idea that this was part two of an attempt to write an album about all fifty states in the USA, those track titles) and despair (Stevens comparing himself to clown serial killer John Wayne Gacy with the line “in my best behaviour I am really just like him” gets me every time), or just the fact that I cannot name a record on which string sections have ever been more perfectly arranged... whatever, it was and is a work of genius. [THOMAS HANNAN]
8. The Strokes – Is This It
This was the first record I really fell in love with. I mean, I'd had crushes on Nirvana's Nevermind and Britney Spears' Baby One More Time at twelve - but Is This It - which came out when I was fourteen - was my musical first love. I think that ‘Someday’ and ‘Trying Your Luck’ will forever affect me with a sort of adolescent wistfulness, a vague kind of optimism, a rose-tinted lust. And they never disappointed, live either. When I eventually got to hear The Strokes play a lot of these songs live at 18, I might as well have married myself off to the band. They never get old - and the records that followed Is This It were all brilliant, as were the various solo endeavours we've heard this side of the Noughties. It's been about eight years since I first fell for The Strokes, and I feel we - or they - are going strong. [CHRISTIANA SPENS]
7. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
Listening to White Blood Cells rouses now memories of a time that is amazingly almost ten years ago. Released in the same year as The Strokes’ Is This It (what a year!), the duo’s third album harks back to an era when music became iconic for bringing ‘cool’ back to American indie. This was the one to catapult the White Stripes from a twosome playing the Dirty Water Club to headline act at the Kentish Town Forum. It’s not just the singles that make this album great, ‘I Think I Smell A Rat’, and the 50 seconds of ‘Little Room’ are simply brilliant too. However, ‘Fell In Love With A Girl’, with its unforgettable animated Lego video showcase most excellently the simplicity and genius of The White Stripes. [KERI KENNEDY]
6. Arcade Fire – Funeral
A debut-album that dented the top-75 on sheer word-of-mouth power alone, a group whose first ever UK dates sold out immediately, and one who induced the sort of fever on the streets that suggested a miracle had occurred. And it had, in the shape of Funeral. Death, after all, often provokes a new beginning. This was deeply harmonic, symphonic orchestral pop music for the frail-hearted – the Cocteau Twins shoved in a blender, with only Wayne Coyne around to pick up the pieces. Swooning, and misty-eyed, Funeral seemingly came out of nowhere and made us better people. Inspired, articulate, ultimately heart-rending - Arcade Fire; there's few sentiments too praising we could ever launch in your direction. [TOBY L]
5. Dizzee Rascal – Boy In Da Corner
Simon Reynolds made some fab points on the problematic, changing nature of greatness in music during this decade that you must read. My own rubric includes the following: I love to be challenged and surprised. I want to hear something I’ve not heard and I desperately want to learn something new, too. I want the music to be mind-blowing and the artist to be just that – an artist, almost super-human, brilliant and unlikely. I want a record to be a complete vision of the world and a unit in itself, as well as having standout songs that are unmistakeably great on their own. It should arrive with the weight of social circumstance around its neck. Finally, I personally want to feel absolutely terrified and I want to feel turned on. According to this rubric of mine, there is really only one contender for my record of the decade: Boy In Da Corner. I say all of the following with passion: f**k Sound of Silver, it’s a banal choice; f**k Kid A because anyone who says that does the record’s spirit a disservice; and, I say with particular vehemence, F**K BURIAL OVER A COFFEE TABLE YOU POSEUR. Do not start me on The Streets, just do not. For launching the then-prodigiously young Dizzee into the public consciousness, a Freudian emergence of consensus mid-00s Britain’s darkest fears, for the collective breathless gasp that greeted this record’s arrival, and for a sound that even today is fresh and terrifying and paranoid and more honestly London than an Overground train at night, it’s BIDC FTW. [MICHAEL LEWIN]
4. Radiohead – In Rainbows
In any record of the decade list there are bound to be numerous Radiohead records loitering from start to finish, and for good reason. Who else has sustained such a level of inimitable acclaim? In Rainbows is the seventh album in nearly 25 years of Oxford’s greatest exports, and it will forever be the ‘pay what you want’ album: music industry (de-)evolution at your fingertips, and Radiohead going against the grain as they so love to. However, by no means should this dampen the rays of shimmering perfection emanating from every pore of this record. From the instantaneously ball-grabbing ’15 Step’ and the haunting romanticism of ‘House of Cards’, to ‘Bodysnatchers’, where Thom Yorke actually sounds like he really bloody enjoyed himself, it’s definitely different to the archetypal Radiohead stuff, but so what? If you need any more convincing that In Rainbows deserves the love and respect devoted to Kid A or Hail To The Thief, watch the performance of ’15 Step’ at last year’s Grammy’s and tell me you’ve ever been more envious of a marching band. [HAYLEY LEAVER]
3. Scott Walker – The Drift
The drift might be sixty eight minutes long, but it takes a day to listen to. Planning anything else to do with one’s time after having listened to it is an exercise in futility. When it’s playing, there’s just it, and nothing else. When it’s over, it’s still there, still lurking behind your every thought. I am still wary of listening to it alone, or without adequate lighting. Walker's voice, once the coolest croon of a free love generation, has developed a tenuous wobble, a fear of its own sound that suits the rest of the surroundings perfectly. With it, Walker only references the self (there are very few mentions of “I” or “me” here) to emphasise loneliness. The Drift works from being a deeply impersonal record made by a very private person, removed from humanity in both sound and sentiment, acting like a window in to an entirely alien psychological state. To recommend it feels bizarre, as it is encouraging one to undergo some sturdy, elongated torment. But recommend its every painful, distressing, sublime moment I shall, whilst begging you not to come back a shell of your former self, complaining you weren't warned. Such is the thick darkness of The Drift, the only ray of light one can really take from it is that one of such genius capable of its creation is still making music. [THOMAS HANNAN]
2. Radiohead – Kid A
Although since arguably overshadowed (already, In Rainbows seems to better with age), Kid A remains the most important album of Radiohead's career, if not also the decade. Simply, Radiohead changed the perceptions and boundaries of what being a major force in contemporary mainstream music can be or mean - no singles, no real choruses to speak of, instead a collage of moody, glacial genius which flirts with a curious amalgam of genres, most notably jazz and electronica. I cannot heap enough praise on this beautiful collection of songs. And it contains 'How To Disappear Completely' - the band's finest song. So there. After years of insignificant pop garbage, as Kid A laid down the gauntlet for the last ten years upon its release in 2000, 2010 needs another equivalent 'impact album' like this desperately. [TOBY L]
1. Shellac – 1000 Hurts
Boy, are we going to upset some people with this choice. So granted, it is one that needs explaining. What makes 1000 Hurts the best record of the decade? It sure as hell didn’t define it, it didn’t sell a bucketload, heck, a fair few people won’t have even heard of the band who made it, let alone have heard the album in question. But we’re not just being obtuse for the sake of it – this is a genuinely stunning piece of music, the one record where, when thinking about what should be number one in this list, I could honestly not envisage a time in the future when bestowing it this honour would be a decision I regretted.
Of course, given the personnel involved (Steve Albini, Bob Weston, Todd Trainer – two of these people are the finest engineers of their generation, the other owns a hair products warehouse), everything does sound perfect – crisp, violent and arresting – exactly how a combination of drums, guitar and bass should sound, if you ask me. Those are minimal ingredients, yes, but from such sparse beginnings comes some of the richest detailing of emotional turmoil I’ve yet to hear imparted on an album. 1000 Hurts is a loose concept record of sorts, detailing in graphic desperation the need to see an ex-partner and her new squeeze brutally terminated at the hands of a vengeful Lord in ‘Prayer To God’ (well, not her... “her, she can go quietly”, but him? “”Just f**king kill him, I don’t care if it hurts... yes I do, I want it to... Kill him, f**king kill him [repeat ad infinitum]), fantasising about shooting the same guy in to space so they can “fertilize the rice in China with the cinders of his remains” in ‘Canaveral’, wallowing in the pointlessness of it all by declaring with utmost terror “I think that there’s no heaven” in ‘Mama Gina’. But it’s also a funny record, ‘New Number Order’ mulling over what the consequences would be if the numbers went “one million and one, sixty-six, one billion, twenty-five, seventy-five thousand, one billion and eight, six...”, and ‘Squirrel Song’, a song that is actually about squirrels (“this isn’t some kind of metaphor – god damn this is real!”).
So I could quote lyrics all day long and all it’d really do would make Albini geeks go “yuh-HUH”, much like when two people who really love Stewart Lee just quote lines of his stand up routines at each other, thinking they’re entertaining other people, but actually just making those in earshot think they’re total d*cks. I do that too. But with 1000 Hurts, not only do the converted already think it’s stunning, but there’s the potential for this to be a massively important album for anyone who comes in to contact with it. Don’t be scared of it, or in awe of it either. It’s a very human, very beautiful, very honest and real thing. It’s the most human, beautiful, honest and real thing I own. And that’s why it’s the best record of the last ten years.
[THOMAS HANNAN]
THIS IS PART FIVE
A HUGE thanks to all the writers who helped compile this, and the records of 2009 list. A more beautiful bunch of geeks I could not name.
Artists in this article: Shellac, Scott Walker, Radiohead, Dizzee Rascal, Arcade Fire, The White Stripes, At The Drive-In, The Strokes, Sufjan Stevens, Elliott Smith, LCD Soundsystem, Outkast, The Libertines, Tom Waits, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Fugazi, Lightning Bolt, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Liars, Jens Lekman, Interpol, Joanna Newsom, Animal Collective