ROLLING STONE TOP 100 ALBUMS OF THE 2000s

[Byron The Bulb]

This thing looks like it was generated by a computer program designed to produce the single most safe and predictable list possible. lol.

Albums of the Decade

1 | Radiohead: Kid A

2 | The Strokes: Is This It

3 | Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

4 | Jay-Z: The Blueprint

5 | The White Stripes: Elephant

6 | Arcade Fire: Funeral

7 | Eminem: The Marshal Mathers LP

8 | Bob Dylan: Modern Times

9 | M.I.A.: Kala

10 | Kanye West: The College Dropout

11 | Bob Dylan: Love and Theft

12 | LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver

13 | U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind

14 | Jay-Z: The Black Album

15 | Bruce Springsteen: The Rising

16 | OutKast: Stankonia

17 | Beck: Sea Change

18 | MGMT: Oracular Spectacular

19 | Amy Winehouse: Back to Black

20 | The White Stripes: White Blood Cells

21 | Coldplay: A Rush of Blood to the Head

22 | Green Day: American Idiot

23 | D'Angelo: Voodoo

24 | Bruce Springsteen: Magic

25 | Radiohead: Amnesiac

26 | Cat Power: The Greatest

27 | The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

28 | Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fever to Tell

29 | Sigur Rós: Ágaetis Byrjun

30 | Radiohead: In Rainbows

31 | My Morning Jacket: Z

32 | Lil Wayne: Tha Carter III

33 | Daft Punk: Discovery

34 | OutKast: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

35 | PJ Harvey: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea

36 | U2: No Line on the Horizon

37 | 50 Cent: Get Rich or Die Tryin'

38 | Ryan Adams: Heartbreaker

39 | Kings of Leon: Aha Shake Heartbreak

40 | Kanye West: Late Registration

41 | Arctic Monkeys: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

42 | Elliott Smith: Figure 8

43 | The Killers: Hot Fuss

44 | System of a Down: Toxicity

45 | Kanye West: Graduation

46 | Justin Timberlake: FutureSex/LoveSounds

47 | Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes

48 | TV on the Radio: Dear Science

49 | Fiona Apple: Extraordionary Machine

50 | Bright Eyes: I'm Wide Awake It's Morning

51 | Spoon: Kill the Moonlight

52 | M.I.A.: Arular

53 | Kings of Leon: Only By the Night

54 | Norah Jones: Come Away With Me

55 | Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: Raising Sand

56 | Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend

57 | Death Cab for Cutie: Transatlanticism

58 | Danger Mouse: The Grey Album

59 | Interpol: Turn on the Bright Lights

60 | Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

61 | The Shins: Oh, Inverted World

62 | Johnny Cash: American III: Solitary Man

63 | Kanye West: 808s and Heartbreak

64 | Gillian Welch: Time the Revelator

65 | Manu Chao: Próxima Estación Esperanza

66 | Antony & the Johnsons: I Am a Bird Now

67 | Björk: Vespertine

68 | U2: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

69 | Missy Elliott: Under Construction

70 | Sleater-Kinney: The Woods

71 | Bright Eyes: Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Eart to the Ground

72 | Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand

73 | Coldplay: Parachutes

74 | Red Hot Chili Peppers: Stadium Arcadium

75 | Arcade Fire: Neon Bible

76 | Sigur Rós: ()

77 | Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out

78 | Sufjan Stevens: Illinois

79 | The New Pornographers: Electric Version

80 | Kings of Leon: Youth and Young Manhood

81 | Ryan Adams: Gold

82 | Queens of the Stone Age: Rated R

83 | The Black Keys: Attack & Release

84 | Eminem: The Eminem Show

85 | Coldplay: Viva La Vida

86 | The Postal Service: Give Up

87 | Gnarls Barkley: St. Elsewhere

88 | Brian Wilson: Smile

89 | Radiohead: Hail to the Thief

90 | Amadou & Miriam: Dimanche a Bamako

91 | The Hives: Veni Vidi Vicious

92 | Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago

93 | Johnny Cash: Unearthed

94 | The Libertines: Up the Brackett

95 | Alicia Keys: Songs in A Minor

96 | The Streets: Original Pirate Material

97 | Wilco: Sky Blue Sky

98 | TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain

99 | The Hold Steady: Almost Killed Me

100 | Leonard Cohen: 10 New Songs

 

[Sesquipedaliantique]

Bob Dylan at 8, lol.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

I just realized that there's no Animal Collective on here. The intern that's supposed to keep track of the indie zeitgeist should probably be fired.

 

[Mattdotcom]

As a white kid who was in high school when The College Dropout came out, I thought I was going to be a huge Kanye fan. That was the album we listened to while we rode around smoking pot before we graduated. Then came Late Registration, an album that starts somewhat strongly, has nothing of substance in the middle, and comes close to having some decent songs at the end. It should have been what started the Kanye backlash instead of his stupid attitude. I couldn't tell you dick about his other stuff and somehow thought he'd only released three CDs. Oh, well, I'll just pretend I only read that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was near the top and be happy. Welp, that's my terrible opinion. I mostly just listen to bands that are dead or broken up or both.

 

[dx1997]

Not a fan of the later two albums eh?

Graduation was ok, 808's was decent, but too much of that Auto-Tune crap.

Late Registration was good, and College Dropout is still probably the best of the 4 albums.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

808's was decent, but too much of that Auto-Tune crap.

But auto-tune was basically the driving aesthetic force behind that album. 808s without auto-tune would have been a nothing.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

Also 808s and Hartbreak is easily the best "walking home in the snow at night" album of the decade, and possibly one of the best ever. Just listening to it makes me miss winter.

 

[Mattdotcom]

There hasn't been snow where I live that's stuck around past 11am since I was old enough to drive a Power Wheels

 

[Byron The Bulb]

And that's fine! You're lucky! But you really can't appreciate 808s and Heartbreak until you've listened to it while walking home with your face turned down toward the sidewalk because it's too cold out to confront the wind and snow head on. I'm pretty sure it could only have been made by someone who grew up in the upper midwest.

 

[Black Lushus]

Stankonia should be higher.

 

[Mik]

Also 808s and Hartbreak is easily the best "walking home in the snow at night" album of the decade, and possibly one of the best ever. Just listening to it makes me miss winter.

Another good winter album is You & Me by The Walkmen. I can't even listen to it when the temperature is above 30.

 

[Edwin]

I wonder if Spin's inevitable list-of-the-decade will maintain that System of a Down put out the best album of 2001.

 

[mellow]

An Arctic Monkeys album is better than Figure 8? An Arctic Monkeys album is considered to be good?

 

[Mattdotcom]

An Arctic Monkeys album is better than Figure 8? An Arctic Monkeys album is considered to be good?

Your presence in this thread caused me to notice that they didn't include anything from Jeff Buckley. I don't care if it was recorded in the 90s.

 

[KOAB]

Also 808s and Hartbreak is easily the best "walking home in the snow at night" album of the decade, and possibly one of the best ever. Just listening to it makes me miss winter.

Best Album for driving around late nights with friends while being higher than giraffe pussy.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Seconded but nine/tenths of my friends either hate that album or hate Kanye period so it usually ends up with me in my room listening to it and singing along with the chorus of "RoboCop" while my roommate politely to stop being silly. STFU loser. Nobody over the age of 8 and under the age of 55 uses the word "silly!"

 

[FLAM]

Relationship of Command is missing from this list.

 

[still fly]

Alicia Keys- Songs in A Minor should have been ranked higher.

 

[Czech]

It kinda has to be Kid A and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot at the top, though. Anything else would be a falsehood.

Didn't read the whole thing but a lot of those placements seem pretty high for bad albums. The Strokes shouldn't even be on there! What a terrible band.

 

[Mik]

Oh fuck that. That album IS classic and everything that came after can't change that.

 

[Obi Chris Kenobi]

An Arctic Monkeys album is better than Figure 8? An Arctic Monkeys album is considered to be good?

Your presence in this thread caused me to notice that they didn't include anything from Jeff Buckley. I don't care if it was recorded in the 90s.

Grace Anniversary Edition counts!

 

[Byron The Bulb]

Oh fuck that. That album IS classic and everything that came after can't change that.

Haha why am I not shocked that Mik would be the first to spring to the defense of an eight year old buzz band who basically everyone in the world has forgotten about. God, remember when people were talking about how The Strokes were going to "save rock n' roll"? And then they evaporated into thin air? What a weird decade.

 

[snuffbox]

We would've been spared their hype had the Vines guy not been crazy with Asperger's.

 

[mellow]

An Arctic Monkeys album is better than Figure 8? An Arctic Monkeys album is considered to be good?

Your presence in this thread caused me to notice that they didn't include anything from Jeff Buckley. I don't care if it was recorded in the 90s.

Grace Anniversary Edition counts!

It also gave way to the So Real music video with the exasperated monkeys, long before I could just up and find it on Youtube. Score!

Relationship of Command is missing from this list.

Because the list chokes on my cum.

 

[Mik]

Oh fuck that. That album IS classic and everything that came after can't change that.

Haha why am I not shocked that Mik would be the first to spring to the defense of an eight year old buzz band who basically everyone in the world has forgotten about. God, remember when people were talking about how The Strokes were going to "save rock n' roll"? And then they evaporated into thin air? What a weird decade.

You're kind of proving my point, though. Yes, all those things happened. Which is what I said in my original post.

But it's a damn good album.

 

[Czech]

In a worrrrrrrrrrrrrld where kids from the suburbs are buying rap records, these FIVE HOT YOUNG MEN with rich dads left Swiss boarding school behind to SAVE ROCK AND ROLL by doing a bad Velvet Underground impersonation. And the world was NEVER the same.

 

[Mattdotcom]

Where the fuck is A Ghost is Born? Czech, any idea why they left it off in favor of Sky Blue Sky?

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Huh, I remember the jazz band nerds at my high school really hated The Strokes too! Now nobody really cares about them.

I still kind of like Is This It? though

 

[Czech]

Where the fuck is A Ghost is Born? Czech, any idea why they left it off in favor of Sky Blue Sky?

I'm the wrong guy to ask on that one. I adore Sky Blue Sky while feeling that A Ghost Is Born is a little leaden and dull at times. Too many big misfires on AGIB for me, namely "Spiders" and "Less Than You Think." The songs in the middle of the album are all well-written and well-arranged, but I don't feel they're all necessarily well-performed; Kicking Television remedies this as best it can. The musicianship on Sky Blue Sky is just too much. I'll love "Impossible Germany" and "On and On and On" forever and ever. Ever listen to "On and On and On" during a thunderstorm in the summer? It's perfect.

 

[Mattdotcom]

I guess I'm biased because AGIB was my introduction to Wilco. I shouldn't have said "in favor of" because you're right about Sky Blue Sky.