THE TOP 100 GREATEST ALBUMS OF THE DECADE
The Top 100 albums released between January 2000 and December 2009, as voted for by NME staff (past and present) plus a selection of musicians and industry figures that included Arctic Monkeys, Carl Barat, The Killers, Jarvis Cocker, Pete Doherty, Elbow, Johnny Marr, MGMT, Ian Brown, The Big Pink, Snoop Dogg, Alan McGee, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Michael Eavis and many, many more (see the full jury in NME magazine).
This list is taken from the ‘End Of The Decade’ issue of NME magazine (on sale November 18th) where each album included is reviewed again from a 2009 perspective, alongside brand new interviews and a look back at the defining musical moments of the past 10 years.
For all its musical philandering, unbridled excess and shrouds of irony, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a record with more musical depth and warmth
Read the original NME review from 2007:
It’s safe to say that, back in November, had anyone asked us which band’s album would be the first of the new year rush-released due to unprecedented demand, our answer would emphatically have been: “Not MGMT”. That’s not because the self-styled ’70s futurists seemed in any way undeserving of the current furore. It’s only because the last time an album was...
Long may The Maccabees keep on swimming against the wave machine’s tide
Read the original NME review from 2007:
Pills, speed, acid, crack… chlorine? Bands have been enhanced by all kinds of chemicals over the years on their quest for musical nirvana, but it’s probably safe to say that ‘Colour It In’ is the first album to be conceived under the eye-watering influence of high-grade municipal pool disinfectant. So, as their peers knock back the luminous rave juice inside their...
Demon Days’ is just a few IQ points away from being as clever as it thinks it is
Read the original NME review from 2005:
If you were to invent a pop act right now, where would you begin? Well, human beings take too many drugs and start boo-hooing when they don’t get their own way, so you’d create something, like a cartoon character, to front the whole shebang. You’d do something to make sure The Kids’ parents didn’t understand the appeal – it’s the punk rock way, after all. And...
Although unlikely to score them the kind of mainstream acclaim they’re accustomed to, Agaetis Byrjum’ will certainly win Sigur Rós some dedicated disciples.
Read the original review from 2000
Just as speed garage disciples make pilgrimages to Aiya Napa to sample their particular preferred sonic tipple, then perhaps space-rockafficionadoes might be pointed in the direction of Iceland. For, despite the nebulous, challenging, resolutely un-commercial noises they create, topping both the singles and albums chart comes at home comes easy to Reykjavik’s Sigur Rós. Dreamy...
A brilliant album full of memorable songs
Read a biography of Shellac:
Shellac are an American group composed of Steve Albini (guitar and vocals), Bob Weston (bass guitar and vocals) and Todd Trainer (drums and vocals). Although they have been classified as noise rock and math rock, they describe themselves as a "minimalist rock trio."
From Wikipedia
Vespertine' is way, way off the beaten track. But give it time and you’ll love it there
Read the original NME review from 2001:
Time, then, to put away childish things. Like any concession to earthly melody or conventional vocal phrasing. Any last vestige of song structure. Any lingering foothold in clubland. Pop’s last white witch has packed up her pop tent and stolen away, back to the magic kingdom of Björkonia.
After the confinement of 'Selmasongs', the sense of space and...
Threatens to leap out of the speakers and rip your preconceptions out one by one
Read the original NME review from 2002:
Some bands only sound, unwittingly, like a car-crash: Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster aspire to be one. That is, they plan to drive their own customised mutant band-wagon down any blind alley that will have them. This is to their credit. In times when the flu-rock caucus headed by
Yeah, they’re one-trick ponies alright, but what does that matter when they’re the prettiest mares in the paddock
Read the original NME review from 2005:
There’s an old adage that states The Ramones only have one kind of song. Pah! You know what? People who say that are wrong. What’s more, they’re silly and reek of wee. See, da bruddas actually had two variants of their musical palate. Songs you could jump around like a giddy dog to (‘Blitzkrieg bop’, ‘Carbona Not Glue’) and then songs you could make with girls...
'Whatever it is that's got him there, whether it's ditching the bottle or finding God, it's worked
Read the original NME review from 2003:
Sometimes those closest to you will play a trick so mean you wonder what you've done to deserve it. They'll lead you down some strange, sunlit path, make you fall in love with them - lazy eye, sticky-out ears, six toes, whatever - then, before you've realised what's happeningm, they've morphed into something completely different creature and disapeared, leaving you holding...
LSF know they’re a revelation, a revolution even. If the response is just, Harrington may become obliged to hang up those oven gloves for good
Read the original NME review from 2007:
Frank Carter, Simon Neil… 2007 has welcomed the unlikeliest of heroes with freshly-inked arms. Suitably, Tim Harrington, balding friar-clown lead singer with Rhode Island art-noise go-getters Les Savy Fav, is very unlikely. To the eye, he’s a boiled egg with a tufty ginger beard and darts player’s six-pack whom, during sunshine hours, designs patterned soft...
