A year after fielding one of the lamer Best Picture slates of recent years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has made some big changes to its headline category for the 82nd Oscars. For the first time in 66 years, the Best Picture field consists of 10 films instead of five. The move was presumably a response to criticism of last year's nominees, which failed to include popular and critical favorites The Dark Knight and WALL*E in favor of bland Oscar bait like Frost/Nixon and The Reader.
For this year at least, it appears to have worked, with the overwhelming majority of cinephiles likely to find something to like (as well as something to hate). If we assume that the five Best Director nominees correspond to the movies that would have been selected for a Best Picture field of five (probably a good bet in light of the various precursor awards), then the five additional nominees include: a sci-fi allegory (District 9), a cynical art movie (A Serious Man), a cartoon about a septagenarian (Up), a literary British prestige picture (An Education), and an MOR populist entertainment (The Blind Side). I haven’t seen the latter two, although I suspect I’ll catch up with An Education at some point. But Up and District 9 are worthy inclusions that wouldn’t have made it into a field of five, and others would make the case for A Serious Man as well. None of the three feel like the traditional middlebrow Best Picture nominee.
Likely to join those five as also-rans tonight is Precious, a mostly bleak drama about a teenage girl (Gabourey Sidibe) dealing with incest, abuse, poverty, and illiteracy in 1980s Harlem. The makers of Precious deserve some credit for putting this kind of difficult material onscreen, but the whole thing made me a bit queasy, and not always in a good way. It made me think about Céline and—well, there’s a reason Céline ended up becoming a fascist. The Jason Reitman-directed George Clooney vehicle Up in the Air, a superficial drama about a man who fires people for a living, looked like a contender back in November but happily seems to have faded. The movie has nothing whatsoever to say about unemployment or the recession or much of anything else, but it’s at least a more competent film than Reitman’s Juno.
Tonight’s contest appears to be a classic David-and-Goliath showdown between James Cameron’s super-mega-blockbuster Avatar, the highest-grossing film in the history of the universe or whatever, and Kathryn Bigelow’s critically acclaimed Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker, about a sergeant (Jeremy Renner) who defuses bombs for a living. Regardless of which way the big prize goes, it appears more than likely that Bigelow will become the first woman to take home a Best Director award.
I didn’t hate Avatar. Cameron’s groundbreaking visual effects kept me interested for the first half or so, but I lost interest in the Pocahantas/Dances With Wolves storyline after a while, and the ill-advised attempts at political allegory, which managed to be both heavy-handed and incoherent, were too much to take. And 3-D still feels like a gimmick to me; if this is the future of cinema, count me out. (An Avatar win for Cinematography would be at least as depressing as a Best Picture triumph). The superbly crafted The Hurt Locker is clearly the superior choice and would rank as one of the most deserving Best Picture winners of the past 15 years or so, but of course deserve’s got nothing to do with it. Knee-jerk futurism combined with the blind worship of money, the venerable civic religion of both Hollywood and America, could well trump everything else. But I hope not.
If there’s a dark horse in this race, it’s Quentin Tarantino’s voluble World War II fantasy Inglourious Basterds, my own favorite film of the year. Shaking off the cobwebs of generations of WWII movies, Tarantino’s film is both fluently conversant with the cinematic past and strikingly original in its appropriations thereof. It also has the most original take on Nazi evil in eons, courtesy of Christoph Waltz, whose comically deranged portrayal of the decadent Col. Hans Landa is tonight’s second-surest bet.
Predicted winners below, along with my personal choices, where applicable. The alert reader will note that I have fewer opinions than I used to, as well as less inclination to see bad movies.
Best Picture
In addition to expanding the field, the Academy changed the voting system for this category only. Rather than voting for one film, each voter is now asked to rank the nominees 1 through 10. After the first-place votes are counted, if no film has more than 50 percent of the vote, the film with the fewest votes is eliminated and its ballots are redistributed among the remaining nine films according to their No. 2 choices (i.e., the highest-ranked choice that hasn’t already been eliminated). This process repeats itself until one film has more than 50 percent of the vote. The upshot of the new system, known as “preferential balloting,” is that the film that gets the most first-place votes won’t necessarily be the winner. My guess is that this favors The Hurt Locker, a film that comparatively few people dislike, over the more polarizing Avatar.
Will win: The Hurt Locker
Should win: Inglourious Basterds
Best Director
Kathryn Bieglow’s one of those directors working on the edge of the mainstream whose name on a genre movie usually means it’s going to be interesting. Like last year’s winner, Danny Boyle, she’s put together a decent, if uneven, career and deserves to win one of these. Unlike Boyle, she has a chance to do it for one of her better films.
W: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
S: Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Best Actress
Despite The Blind Side’s getting a Best Picture nomination, I just can’t bring myself to believe the Academy’s going to give an Oscar to Sandra Bullock. Surely they won’t go through with it. On the other hand, Helen Hunt won one, so who knows? Early on, it looked like this might finally be the year for Meryl Streep to take home her third Oscar, and first since the early ’80s, for her performance as Julia Child in Julie and Julia. Bullock is the clear favorite, and she’ll probably win…but this reminds me a bit of the Jack Nicholson/Daniel Day Lewis race back in 2002, when Adrien Brody snuck in and took the statue.
W: Carey Mulligan, An Education
S: [no pick]
Best Actor
Back in November, it looked like this might be George Clooney’s year, but Jeff Bridges took control of the race around the end of the year and appears headed to a landslide win. I haven’t seen Crazy Heart, so I’ll just pretend he won for The Big Lebowski instead.
W: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
S: Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
Best Supporting Actor
That’s a bingo.
W: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
S: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Best Supporting Actress
W: Mo'Nique, Precious
S: Mo'Nique, Precious
Screenplay, Original
W: Inglourious Basterds
S: Inglourious Basterds
Screenplay, Adapted
W: Up in the Air
S: In the Loop
Animated Feature
W: Up
S: Up (close second: Fantastic Mr. Fox)
Documentary Feature
W: The Cove
S: [no pick]
Foreign Language Film
W: El Secreto de Sus Ojos
S: [no pick]
Cinematography
W: Avatar
S: Inglourious Basterds
Art Direction
W: Avatar
S: [no pick]
Editing
W: The Hurt Locker
S: Inglourious Basterds
Visual Effects
W: Avatar
S: Avatar
Costume Design
W: The Young Victoria
S: [no pick]
Makeup
W: Star Trek
S: Star Trek
Sound Mixing
W: The Hurt Locker
S: The Hurt Locker
Sound Editing
W: Avatar
S: The Hurt Locker
Original Score
W: Up
S: Fantastic Mr. Fox
Original Song
W: “The Weary Kind,” Crazy Heart
S: [no pick]
Animated Short
W: A Matter of Loaf and Death
S: [no pick]
Live Action Short
W: The Door
S: [no pick]
Documentary Short
W: The Last Truck: The Closing of a GM Plant
S: [no pick]
07 March 2010
11 February 2010
Best Albums of the 2000s (part 2)
Here's 50-1. Last list-oriented post until December, I hope.
50. Graduation—Kanye West
49. Toxicity—System of a Down
Basically prog-metal with one foot in the mainstream, Toxicity was No. 1 on the Billboard chart when the planes hit on 9/11. The music’s jagged rhythms and jumpy transitions aptly represent the chaos of the moment—a sense only reinforced by lyrical references to “self-righteous suicide” and “the toxicity of our city.”
48. Kill the Moonlight—Spoon
47. 808s & Heartbreak—Kanye West
Haunted by the sudden death of Kanye’s mother, 808s & Heartbreak stands as his most radical and introspective album to date, nearly leaving hip-hop behind in favor of a Princely amalgam of R&B and synthpop. I’m not sure where he goes from here, but I look forward to finding out.
46. Ys—Joanna Newsom
It sounds like it should be a pretentious, unlistenable mess: 24-year-old neo-folkie harpist sings five songs, backed by orchestral arrangements, ranging from seven to 17 minutes in length. But somehow it all comes together beautifully, with the arrangements by Van Dyke Parks and Jim O’Rourke’s mix creating the perfect context for Newsom’s cosmic ponderings.
45. Discovery—Daft Punk
44. Rounds—Four Tet
43. ()—Sigur Ros
Recorded in a (presumably dry) swimming pool, this lengthy mood piece lacks the bold melodic flourishes of its predecessor, Agaetis Byrjun, but nearly makes up for it in atmosphere.
42. London Zoo—The Bug
I fell hard for dub reggae sometime in 2007, and this album, released a year later, extends the legacy of that music (as well as that of the original dub revival of the mid-'90s) into the 21st century.
41. Yesterday and Today—The Field
40. Extraordinary Machine—Fiona Apple
39. Fishscale—Ghostface Killah
I initially mistook this album for little more than a retread of Raekwon’s Only Built for Cuban Linx (1995). But if you can get past the de rigueur references to Scarface, this might be the most purely enjoyable of the many Wu-Tang solo albums. And the all-star roster of contemporary producers, including Just Blaze and the late J. Dilla, ensures that it's no mere nostalgia trip.
38. The College Dropout—Kanye West
The first third or so of Kanye’s debut is so great that the rest can’t help but be a slight letdown, making the album somewhat difficult to get through in one sitting. And his anti-education shtick is still stupid.
37. Arular—M.I.A.
36. Amnesiac—Radiohead
Radiohead was on such a roll in 2001 that this album was almost taken for granted. But what seemed at the time like a slightly unwieldy collection of rejects from Kid A now plays like one of the band’s more unified and substantial records.
35. Good News for People Who Love Bad News—Modest Mouse
Isaac Brock and bandmates find a little bit of emotional stability and artistic sustainability. Many of the guardians of indie-rock purity complained about this album, but it has some of the sharpest songs of the band’s career.
34. Fleet Foxes—Fleet Foxes
33. Nothing’s in Vain—Youssou N’Dour
32. The Private Press—DJ Shadow
I suppose you could argue that Shadow was repeating himself a bit. But Endtroducing… is one of the greatest albums of all time, and nobody else sounds like this.
31. The Blueprint—Jay-Z
30. Stankonia—Outkast
29. DFA Compilation #2
Dispositive evidence that James Murphy’s career as a producer has been far more adventurous than LCD Soundsystem alone would suggest.
28. Rooty—Basement Jaxx
The best Prince album of the 2000s.
27. Modern Times—Bob Dylan
26. XTRMNTR—Primal Scream
Opening with a track called “Kill All Hippies” and closing with a cover of the Third Bardo nugget “Five Years Ahead of My Time,” XTRMNTR is the fullest articulation of Primal Scream’s complex relationship with the musical legacy of the 1960s. The album’s bleak tone and pervasive sense of a world falling into chaos, however, were all too contemporary, even prescient.
25. Brighter Than Creation’s Dark—Drive-by Truckers
24. Rings Around the World—Super Furry Animals
Smart, funny, weird, original Welsh indie rock. What more could you ask? Paul McCartney chomping celery? Done!
23. The Further Adventures of the Lord Quas—Quasimoto
22. The Woods—Sleater-Kinney
On their final album, the Washington state post-postpunk stalwarts finally let loose and bring the noise.
21. Smile—Brian Wilson
For obvious reasons, this was the single most difficult item to rank, which may explain how it got pushed out of the Top 20.
20. Third—Portishead
Mid-’90s legends return triumphantly with a new sound, channeling Syd Barrett and the Silver Apples through the Bristol murk.
19. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga—Spoon
The indie-rock MVPs of the 2000s deliver their most ambitious and consistent album, their signature new-wave-inspired sound expanding to encompass dub, raga, and Memphis soul, among other things.
18. Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea—PJ Harvey
Perennially tortured soul gets happy, accessible. It wouldn’t last.
17. Agaetis Byrjun—Sigur Ros
16. Original Pirate Material—The Streets
Mike Skinner proved to be something of a one-trick pony, but this debut, unburdened by the cramped production and narrative fixations of his later albums, aches with the troubles of drug- and Playstation-addled post-adolescents with little money and limited prospects.
15. Since I Left You—The Avalanches
14. In Rainbows—Radiohead
13. Everything Ecstatic—Four Tet
One of my favorite musicians working right now, Kieran Hebden has made a career out of the joining the dots and loops of laptop music with the fearlessness of free jazz and an obsession with pure sound. The rhythmic restlessness of this album lifts it slightly above his others.
12. No Line on the Horizon—U2
I’ve written enough about this album already. (See “Found Horizons,” posted March 10.)
11. Murray Street—Sonic Youth
Following a series of albums that had moved the band away from the pop mainstream and back toward the experimental noise-rock of the ’80s, Sonic Youth, with new member Jim O’Rourke, tries its hand at classic rock (sort of). The result is the band’s best late-period album, and possibly its best since the epochal Daydream Nation (1988).
10. Proxima Estacion: Esperanza—Manu Chao
That’s “Next Station: Hope” for all you monolingual Americans.
9. Is This It?—The Strokes
Young American rock band arrives to great fanfare. Critics go nuts. Backlash ensues. Nine years down the road, the whole Strokes phenomenon feels less like a rebirth than a last hurrah, but the album’s a stone-cold classic.
8. All That You Can’t Leave Behind—U2
Hardly a return to the expansive sound of the band’s ’80s period, All That You Can’t Leave Behind is basically Bono’s Tunnel of Love, an intimate, soulful plumbing of the hopes and fears of adulthood featuring U2’s sharpest batch of songs to date.
7. Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not—The Arctic Monkeys
Further evidence of the shrinking half-lives of critical acclaim and rock stardom.
6. Vespertine—Björk
Less immediately accessible than her earlier albums, Björk’s masterpiece both demands and rewards close attention. There may not be another great album from the past 10 years that’s so dependent on duration and song sequence for its impact. On the opening track, the singer announces that she’s going to a “Hidden Place” and the rest of the songs—mostly about fundamentals like love, sex, and family—unfold in this private, interior space until the closing “Unison” blows the lid off the whole thing and lets the world back in.
5. Love and Theft—Bob Dylan
Dylan’s late-career comeback with the death-haunted Time Out of Mind (1997) was one thing, but who could have seen this coming? Glossing musical forms ranging from roadhouse blues to cabaret to swing to I-don’t-know-what, the astonishing Love and Theft has the generic range of a Beck album with nary a sample in sight. Less unified than Dylan’s follow-up, Modern Times, it’s warmer and funnier, and its wizened master of ceremonies has never sounded looser.
4. Kid A—Radiohead
Feel the cool electronic breeze.
3. Madvillainy—Madvillain
If there’s a musician more underrated than Kieran Hebden, it would have to be Madlib, who’s virtually reinvented hip-hop over the past decade or so. This (so far) one-off collaboration with MF Doom is all about the flow, channeling the musical spirit of truly classic rock in ways never heard before.
2. Kala—M.I.A.
I’ve already written plenty about this one too. (See “Combat Rock,” posted September 20, 2007.)
1. Late Registration—Kanye West
If Jay-Z is Jordan, then Kanye must be the Steve Nash of hip-hop—a master playmaker who can make the most ordinary of teammates look like a superstar. On his best, most expansive, most fully realized album, he gets terrific performances from inferior talents like The Game, as well as greats like Jay and Nas. The opening “Heard ’Em Say” is so perfectly arranged and performed that you forget that it’s the dude from freakin’ Maroon 5 singing background. “Touch the Sky” must be one of the most obvious uses of a classic soul sample that doesn’t make you wish you were listening to the original song instead. “Gold Digger” takes on the gender wars with humor and generosity. I could go through the whole record like this, but all good things must eventually come to an end.
50. Graduation—Kanye West
49. Toxicity—System of a Down
Basically prog-metal with one foot in the mainstream, Toxicity was No. 1 on the Billboard chart when the planes hit on 9/11. The music’s jagged rhythms and jumpy transitions aptly represent the chaos of the moment—a sense only reinforced by lyrical references to “self-righteous suicide” and “the toxicity of our city.”
48. Kill the Moonlight—Spoon
47. 808s & Heartbreak—Kanye West
Haunted by the sudden death of Kanye’s mother, 808s & Heartbreak stands as his most radical and introspective album to date, nearly leaving hip-hop behind in favor of a Princely amalgam of R&B and synthpop. I’m not sure where he goes from here, but I look forward to finding out.
46. Ys—Joanna Newsom
It sounds like it should be a pretentious, unlistenable mess: 24-year-old neo-folkie harpist sings five songs, backed by orchestral arrangements, ranging from seven to 17 minutes in length. But somehow it all comes together beautifully, with the arrangements by Van Dyke Parks and Jim O’Rourke’s mix creating the perfect context for Newsom’s cosmic ponderings.
45. Discovery—Daft Punk
44. Rounds—Four Tet
43. ()—Sigur Ros
Recorded in a (presumably dry) swimming pool, this lengthy mood piece lacks the bold melodic flourishes of its predecessor, Agaetis Byrjun, but nearly makes up for it in atmosphere.
42. London Zoo—The Bug
I fell hard for dub reggae sometime in 2007, and this album, released a year later, extends the legacy of that music (as well as that of the original dub revival of the mid-'90s) into the 21st century.
41. Yesterday and Today—The Field
40. Extraordinary Machine—Fiona Apple
39. Fishscale—Ghostface Killah
I initially mistook this album for little more than a retread of Raekwon’s Only Built for Cuban Linx (1995). But if you can get past the de rigueur references to Scarface, this might be the most purely enjoyable of the many Wu-Tang solo albums. And the all-star roster of contemporary producers, including Just Blaze and the late J. Dilla, ensures that it's no mere nostalgia trip.
38. The College Dropout—Kanye West
The first third or so of Kanye’s debut is so great that the rest can’t help but be a slight letdown, making the album somewhat difficult to get through in one sitting. And his anti-education shtick is still stupid.
37. Arular—M.I.A.
36. Amnesiac—Radiohead
Radiohead was on such a roll in 2001 that this album was almost taken for granted. But what seemed at the time like a slightly unwieldy collection of rejects from Kid A now plays like one of the band’s more unified and substantial records.
35. Good News for People Who Love Bad News—Modest Mouse
Isaac Brock and bandmates find a little bit of emotional stability and artistic sustainability. Many of the guardians of indie-rock purity complained about this album, but it has some of the sharpest songs of the band’s career.
34. Fleet Foxes—Fleet Foxes
33. Nothing’s in Vain—Youssou N’Dour
32. The Private Press—DJ Shadow
I suppose you could argue that Shadow was repeating himself a bit. But Endtroducing… is one of the greatest albums of all time, and nobody else sounds like this.
31. The Blueprint—Jay-Z
30. Stankonia—Outkast
29. DFA Compilation #2
Dispositive evidence that James Murphy’s career as a producer has been far more adventurous than LCD Soundsystem alone would suggest.
28. Rooty—Basement Jaxx
The best Prince album of the 2000s.
27. Modern Times—Bob Dylan
26. XTRMNTR—Primal Scream
Opening with a track called “Kill All Hippies” and closing with a cover of the Third Bardo nugget “Five Years Ahead of My Time,” XTRMNTR is the fullest articulation of Primal Scream’s complex relationship with the musical legacy of the 1960s. The album’s bleak tone and pervasive sense of a world falling into chaos, however, were all too contemporary, even prescient.
25. Brighter Than Creation’s Dark—Drive-by Truckers
24. Rings Around the World—Super Furry Animals
Smart, funny, weird, original Welsh indie rock. What more could you ask? Paul McCartney chomping celery? Done!
23. The Further Adventures of the Lord Quas—Quasimoto
22. The Woods—Sleater-Kinney
On their final album, the Washington state post-postpunk stalwarts finally let loose and bring the noise.
21. Smile—Brian Wilson
For obvious reasons, this was the single most difficult item to rank, which may explain how it got pushed out of the Top 20.
20. Third—Portishead
Mid-’90s legends return triumphantly with a new sound, channeling Syd Barrett and the Silver Apples through the Bristol murk.
19. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga—Spoon
The indie-rock MVPs of the 2000s deliver their most ambitious and consistent album, their signature new-wave-inspired sound expanding to encompass dub, raga, and Memphis soul, among other things.
18. Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea—PJ Harvey
Perennially tortured soul gets happy, accessible. It wouldn’t last.
17. Agaetis Byrjun—Sigur Ros
16. Original Pirate Material—The Streets
Mike Skinner proved to be something of a one-trick pony, but this debut, unburdened by the cramped production and narrative fixations of his later albums, aches with the troubles of drug- and Playstation-addled post-adolescents with little money and limited prospects.
15. Since I Left You—The Avalanches
14. In Rainbows—Radiohead
13. Everything Ecstatic—Four Tet
One of my favorite musicians working right now, Kieran Hebden has made a career out of the joining the dots and loops of laptop music with the fearlessness of free jazz and an obsession with pure sound. The rhythmic restlessness of this album lifts it slightly above his others.
12. No Line on the Horizon—U2
I’ve written enough about this album already. (See “Found Horizons,” posted March 10.)
11. Murray Street—Sonic Youth
Following a series of albums that had moved the band away from the pop mainstream and back toward the experimental noise-rock of the ’80s, Sonic Youth, with new member Jim O’Rourke, tries its hand at classic rock (sort of). The result is the band’s best late-period album, and possibly its best since the epochal Daydream Nation (1988).
10. Proxima Estacion: Esperanza—Manu Chao
That’s “Next Station: Hope” for all you monolingual Americans.
9. Is This It?—The Strokes
Young American rock band arrives to great fanfare. Critics go nuts. Backlash ensues. Nine years down the road, the whole Strokes phenomenon feels less like a rebirth than a last hurrah, but the album’s a stone-cold classic.
8. All That You Can’t Leave Behind—U2
Hardly a return to the expansive sound of the band’s ’80s period, All That You Can’t Leave Behind is basically Bono’s Tunnel of Love, an intimate, soulful plumbing of the hopes and fears of adulthood featuring U2’s sharpest batch of songs to date.
7. Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not—The Arctic Monkeys
Further evidence of the shrinking half-lives of critical acclaim and rock stardom.
6. Vespertine—Björk
Less immediately accessible than her earlier albums, Björk’s masterpiece both demands and rewards close attention. There may not be another great album from the past 10 years that’s so dependent on duration and song sequence for its impact. On the opening track, the singer announces that she’s going to a “Hidden Place” and the rest of the songs—mostly about fundamentals like love, sex, and family—unfold in this private, interior space until the closing “Unison” blows the lid off the whole thing and lets the world back in.
5. Love and Theft—Bob Dylan
Dylan’s late-career comeback with the death-haunted Time Out of Mind (1997) was one thing, but who could have seen this coming? Glossing musical forms ranging from roadhouse blues to cabaret to swing to I-don’t-know-what, the astonishing Love and Theft has the generic range of a Beck album with nary a sample in sight. Less unified than Dylan’s follow-up, Modern Times, it’s warmer and funnier, and its wizened master of ceremonies has never sounded looser.
4. Kid A—Radiohead
Feel the cool electronic breeze.
3. Madvillainy—Madvillain
If there’s a musician more underrated than Kieran Hebden, it would have to be Madlib, who’s virtually reinvented hip-hop over the past decade or so. This (so far) one-off collaboration with MF Doom is all about the flow, channeling the musical spirit of truly classic rock in ways never heard before.
2. Kala—M.I.A.
I’ve already written plenty about this one too. (See “Combat Rock,” posted September 20, 2007.)
1. Late Registration—Kanye West
If Jay-Z is Jordan, then Kanye must be the Steve Nash of hip-hop—a master playmaker who can make the most ordinary of teammates look like a superstar. On his best, most expansive, most fully realized album, he gets terrific performances from inferior talents like The Game, as well as greats like Jay and Nas. The opening “Heard ’Em Say” is so perfectly arranged and performed that you forget that it’s the dude from freakin’ Maroon 5 singing background. “Touch the Sky” must be one of the most obvious uses of a classic soul sample that doesn’t make you wish you were listening to the original song instead. “Gold Digger” takes on the gender wars with humor and generosity. I could go through the whole record like this, but all good things must eventually come to an end.
06 February 2010
Best Albums of the 2000s (part 1)
Below is the first half of my Best Albums of the 2000s list, the third in a series of four posts looking back at the decade in music. Most of what I said in the intro to the Best Songs list applies here as well, particularly as pertaining to the personal and idiosyncratic nature of the list. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology (i.e., iTunes), I have a pretty good idea of how many times I've listened to various tracks over the past six years, and this data did have some effect at the margins in terms of keeping the rankings honest. I'll try to get 50-1 up no later than midweek. Until then, here's 100-51:
100. Lovers—The Sleepy Jackson
99. Party Music—The Coup
98. 100 Broken Windows—Idlewild
Early high point from promising Scottish college rockers before their (in retrospect, perhaps inevitable) descent into overproduced moderate-rock hell.
97. Confessions on a Dance Floor—Madonna
I initially dismissed this as merely Madonna’s roots move, but the sense of effortlessness here is no mean achievement.
96. Phrenology—The Roots
95. Hypermagic Mountain—Lightning Bolt
It achieves total heaviosity. But it moves too.
94. Ta Det Lungt—Dungen
93. Untrue—Burial
92. 604—Ladytron
UK-based back-to-the-future synthpoppers reflect on love and commerce.
91. One Beat—Sleater-Kinney
90. Mesmerize/Hypnotize—System of a Down
89. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb—U2
This fair-to-middling entry in the U2 catalog finds the band spinning its wheels a bit, but the group’s newfound comfort with its own grandiosity would pay dividends down the road.
88. Thunder, Lightning, Strike—The Go! Team
87. Nouns—No Age
86. From Here We Go Sublime—The Field
Envious people will tell you that anyone with access to a computer could have made this album. But of course that’s part of what makes it great.
85. Rated R—Queens of the Stone Age
84. Songs for the Deaf—Queens of the Stone Age
Dave Grohl brings the thunder, making this the band’s best album by a whisker, despite a relative lack of musical variety.
83. Neon Golden—The Notwist
82. Lungs—Florence & the Machine
81. Gimme Fiction—Spoon
80. Silent Shout—The Knife
Of the many bands who’ve borrowed from ’80s synthpop over the past decade, The Knife has been one of the most original, deploying the genre’s bouncy sounds to cacophonous, menacing effect. And the distancing devices (heavily distorted vocals, raven masks) aren’t just facile alienation effects but function to evoke buried emotions and unspoken thoughts.
79. Hail to the Thief—Radiohead
78. The Unseen—Quasimoto
This stoned underground epic takes hip-hop’s crate-digging aesthetic strain to the next level.
77. Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.—Deerhunter
Evoking classic indie/alternative sources like Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, these twin albums breathed some fresh air into a late-decade indie scene dominated by turgid hipster music.
76. Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts—M83
A consolidation, not a leap forward. But consolidations can be good.
75. Come With Us—The Chemical Brothers
74. Funeral—Arcade Fire
I remain suspicious of this band, but there are some gorgeous songs here to be sure.
73. Sonic Nurse—Sonic Youth
The second half of a productive two-album classic-rock detour with Jim O’Rourke finds the band stretching out comfortably. “The Dead are all right with me,” Thurston confides on “Stones.” As if we hadn’t known all along.
72. Beauty and the Beat—Edan
A sui generis amalgam of hip-hop and psychedelic rock.
71. Room on Fire—The Strokes
70. The Eternal—Sonic Youth
69. Magic—Bruce Springsteen
Channeling the weary-but-hopeful spirit of the ass end of the Bush administration, Magic easily achieves the political relevance that the post-9/11 The Rising audibly strained for.
68. Specialist in All Styles—Orchestra Baobab
67. Gung Ho—Patti Smith
66. Off With Their Heads—Kaiser Chiefs
Producer Mark Ronson provides some much-needed musical context for the band’s sharp-as-ever songwriting on this album, the Kaisers’ third and best to date.
65. Phrazes for the Young—Julian Casablancas
64. Girls Can Tell—Spoon
63. White Blood Cells—The White Stripes
The White Stripes made more-or-less the same album several times over, meaning that whichever one you heard first is probably your favorite.
62. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below—Outkast
Long, sprawling, self-indulgent, but almost never boring. I still think Big Boi’s disc is better, but you’re welcome to disagree.
61. Chaos and Creation in the Backyard—Paul McCartney
Forced to straighten up and fly right by producer Nigel Godrich, McCartney delivers the most disciplined album of his post-Beatles career—and one of the best.
60. Demon Days—Gorillaz
59. First Impressions of Earth—The Strokes
Not the band’s most consistent album, but an aesthetic milestone, as Julian Casablancas gives voice to the nagging realization that the world might not be worthy of his best efforts.
58. Think Tank—Blur
57. Blue Cathedral—Comets on Fire
Combining neo-psychedelic ambition, indie-rock messiness, and ear-splitting volume, this album deserves to have been more influential by now. But it’s early yet.
56. XX—The XX
55. The Cold Vein—Cannibal Ox
54. Decoration Day—Drive-by Truckers
The Truckers broke into the indie-rock consciousness with their 2001 double-disc Skynrd tribute Southern Rock Opera, but it was this follow-up that established them as a top-echelon band and Patterson Hood as a major American songwriter.
53. Up the Bracket—The Libertines
It’s a shame they couldn’t keep it together for more than two albums, but of course the feeling that it could all fall apart at any moment is crucial to this particular rock aesthetic.
52. Da Drought 3—Lil Wayne
Most people would put The Carter III here instead, but I maintain that Weezy’s mixtape work, while less polished, is a lot more interesting.
51. Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike—Gogol Bordello
It lives up to its title, and that’s all you need to know.
100. Lovers—The Sleepy Jackson
99. Party Music—The Coup
98. 100 Broken Windows—Idlewild
Early high point from promising Scottish college rockers before their (in retrospect, perhaps inevitable) descent into overproduced moderate-rock hell.
97. Confessions on a Dance Floor—Madonna
I initially dismissed this as merely Madonna’s roots move, but the sense of effortlessness here is no mean achievement.
96. Phrenology—The Roots
95. Hypermagic Mountain—Lightning Bolt
It achieves total heaviosity. But it moves too.
94. Ta Det Lungt—Dungen
93. Untrue—Burial
92. 604—Ladytron
UK-based back-to-the-future synthpoppers reflect on love and commerce.
91. One Beat—Sleater-Kinney
90. Mesmerize/Hypnotize—System of a Down
89. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb—U2
This fair-to-middling entry in the U2 catalog finds the band spinning its wheels a bit, but the group’s newfound comfort with its own grandiosity would pay dividends down the road.
88. Thunder, Lightning, Strike—The Go! Team
87. Nouns—No Age
86. From Here We Go Sublime—The Field
Envious people will tell you that anyone with access to a computer could have made this album. But of course that’s part of what makes it great.
85. Rated R—Queens of the Stone Age
84. Songs for the Deaf—Queens of the Stone Age
Dave Grohl brings the thunder, making this the band’s best album by a whisker, despite a relative lack of musical variety.
83. Neon Golden—The Notwist
82. Lungs—Florence & the Machine
81. Gimme Fiction—Spoon
80. Silent Shout—The Knife
Of the many bands who’ve borrowed from ’80s synthpop over the past decade, The Knife has been one of the most original, deploying the genre’s bouncy sounds to cacophonous, menacing effect. And the distancing devices (heavily distorted vocals, raven masks) aren’t just facile alienation effects but function to evoke buried emotions and unspoken thoughts.
79. Hail to the Thief—Radiohead
78. The Unseen—Quasimoto
This stoned underground epic takes hip-hop’s crate-digging aesthetic strain to the next level.
77. Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.—Deerhunter
Evoking classic indie/alternative sources like Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, these twin albums breathed some fresh air into a late-decade indie scene dominated by turgid hipster music.
76. Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts—M83
A consolidation, not a leap forward. But consolidations can be good.
75. Come With Us—The Chemical Brothers
74. Funeral—Arcade Fire
I remain suspicious of this band, but there are some gorgeous songs here to be sure.
73. Sonic Nurse—Sonic Youth
The second half of a productive two-album classic-rock detour with Jim O’Rourke finds the band stretching out comfortably. “The Dead are all right with me,” Thurston confides on “Stones.” As if we hadn’t known all along.
72. Beauty and the Beat—Edan
A sui generis amalgam of hip-hop and psychedelic rock.
71. Room on Fire—The Strokes
70. The Eternal—Sonic Youth
69. Magic—Bruce Springsteen
Channeling the weary-but-hopeful spirit of the ass end of the Bush administration, Magic easily achieves the political relevance that the post-9/11 The Rising audibly strained for.
68. Specialist in All Styles—Orchestra Baobab
67. Gung Ho—Patti Smith
66. Off With Their Heads—Kaiser Chiefs
Producer Mark Ronson provides some much-needed musical context for the band’s sharp-as-ever songwriting on this album, the Kaisers’ third and best to date.
65. Phrazes for the Young—Julian Casablancas
64. Girls Can Tell—Spoon
63. White Blood Cells—The White Stripes
The White Stripes made more-or-less the same album several times over, meaning that whichever one you heard first is probably your favorite.
62. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below—Outkast
Long, sprawling, self-indulgent, but almost never boring. I still think Big Boi’s disc is better, but you’re welcome to disagree.
61. Chaos and Creation in the Backyard—Paul McCartney
Forced to straighten up and fly right by producer Nigel Godrich, McCartney delivers the most disciplined album of his post-Beatles career—and one of the best.
60. Demon Days—Gorillaz
59. First Impressions of Earth—The Strokes
Not the band’s most consistent album, but an aesthetic milestone, as Julian Casablancas gives voice to the nagging realization that the world might not be worthy of his best efforts.
58. Think Tank—Blur
57. Blue Cathedral—Comets on Fire
Combining neo-psychedelic ambition, indie-rock messiness, and ear-splitting volume, this album deserves to have been more influential by now. But it’s early yet.
56. XX—The XX
55. The Cold Vein—Cannibal Ox
54. Decoration Day—Drive-by Truckers
The Truckers broke into the indie-rock consciousness with their 2001 double-disc Skynrd tribute Southern Rock Opera, but it was this follow-up that established them as a top-echelon band and Patterson Hood as a major American songwriter.
53. Up the Bracket—The Libertines
It’s a shame they couldn’t keep it together for more than two albums, but of course the feeling that it could all fall apart at any moment is crucial to this particular rock aesthetic.
52. Da Drought 3—Lil Wayne
Most people would put The Carter III here instead, but I maintain that Weezy’s mixtape work, while less polished, is a lot more interesting.
51. Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike—Gogol Bordello
It lives up to its title, and that’s all you need to know.
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