It wasn’t quite as major as a comeback story, but before Free All Angels Ash were in serious danger of irrelevance. 1998’s grimy Nu-Clear Sounds suffered from Tim Wheeler’s writer’s block and their inability to integrate new guitarist Charlotte Hatherley. Chart positions slumped, and the group was nearly dropped from its label just three years after having set the scene alight with 1977’s glorious singles. A last-ditch holiday / recording session in Spain was approved, and the tunes flowed as freely as the spirits. Housing no less than five hit singles, including the radiant ‘Shining Light’ and Buzzcocks-aping ‘Burn Baby Burn’, Wheeler had rediscovered his sense of youthful abandon (the group were barely in their twenties) and his knack for writing effortless indie-pop missiles. It rocketed to Number 1, sold half a million copies, and reinstated them as one of Britain’s best guitar bands. (LISTEN)
Having left experimental lunatics Test Icicles the previous year, Dev Hynes quickly evolved and came up with a bizarre, yet strangely mature, new indie/folk sound with his first album under the pseudonym Lightspeed Champion. Now renowned eight years later for writing some of the most intriguing pop/R&B tracks for other artists, Falling Off The Lavender Bridge is the beginning of the journey for one of the most idiosyncratic auteurs in the business. (LISTEN)
Departing Jive Records after three albums because of the lack of artistic control afforded to her, Robyn’s eponymous fourth record seemed to be self-titled as a statement of intent. Influenced by fellow Swedes The Knife and Teddybears, she set out to fuse the avant-garde with the mainstream. Containing the gorgeous ‘With Every Heartbeat’, one of the loveliest pop singles of the decade, and an avalanche of forward-thinking pop nuggets, Robyn was a stylistic dimension jump for its author and a signpost to the future for other pop artists. (LISTEN)
Completing a triptych of consecutive great pop/dance albums, Simon Buxton and Felix Ratcliffe made the most of their celebrity connections for Kish Kash, which featured Siouxsie, Lisa Kekaula (‘Good Luck’) and a young Dizzee Rascal (‘Lucky Star’), but none of that star quality would outshine the London duo’s sharp, intelligent production and ear for melody. The reputation they had gathered up to this point would allow the Jaxx to headline Glastonbury when Kylie had to pull out in 2005. While Buxton and Ratcliffe continue to this day, they’ve never come close to regaining these giddy heights. (LISTEN)
Right from the start, Elly Jackson and Ben Langmaid seemed like a cut above the other ‘80s revivalists of the late noughties, their devotion to their craft just that bit more thorough. Prefacing the release of La Roux with two glorious hit singles (‘In For The Kill’, UK#2, and ‘Bulletproof’, UK#1), they delivered on the hype they had generated with a suite of icy yet irresistible dancefloor tracks about love, loss and betrayal. The style never overtook the substance, however, as Langmaid and Jackson’s songwriting chops were always at least as impressive as the atmosphere. (LISTEN)
drukqs was Richard D. James’ second double album under his most commonly used pseudonym Aphex Twin, and one that brought this quintessentially ‘90s underground hero into the 21st century. Rendered digitally, just as 1996’s jungle-leaning Richard D. James Album had been, it was a mixture of skull-cracking, distorted electronica with impossibly complex beat patterns nuzzled up next to gorgeous, piano-based instrumentals. One of the latter, ‘Avril 14th’, has been used on copious TV and movie soundtracks, and sampled on Kanye West’s ‘Blame Game’ nine years later. Yet, despite this radical divide in mood, drukqs was a strangely coherent work – sadly, it would be the last album of original material James would release for 13 years. (LISTEN)
Often criticised for being uneven, particularly when compared to its excellent predecessor Things We Lost In The Fire, Low’s sixth album Trust in fact showcases the Minnesotan slowcore veterans at their most diverse. Contrasting dark, sweeping epics with short, unpretentious snapshots performed with different instruments, it sees husband-and-wife combo Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker challenging themselves as well as their fans. See their subtle undermining and inversion of one of the most famous American hymns, ‘(That’s How You Sing) Amazing Grace’, for the disconcerting effect this approach can have. (LISTEN)
Following the critical triumph of 1998’s breakthrough Deserter’s Songs was never going to be easy, but Jonathan Donohue’s psychedelic-pop outfit solved the problem by upping the grandeur and adding ever more elements into the mix. All Is Dream was unfashionably self-indulgent compared to the dominant garage-rock style of the indie scene at the time, but Donohue’s reference points, from Leonard & Bernstein show tunes (‘A Drop In Time’) to sun-drenched Beach Boys pop (‘Nite And Fog’), were all timelessly classic, leading to somnambulant, quixotic yet heartbreakingly beautiful pieces. (LISTEN)
Belle & Sebastian had started their career in spectacular style in the mid ‘90s, but by the turn of the millennium they had begun to grow stale. 2003’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress had put them back on the right track, but it’s the following record, The Life Pursuit, that stands as the greater accomplishment. Produced by Tony Hoffer, adept at shoring up an artist’s distinguishing characteristics while at the same time allowing them to break new ground, it’s remarkably breezy yet rocks quite hard, based on the same brand of stylish chamber-pop that had established them but veering off into soul, lounge jazz and Motown at times. (LISTEN)
With its irresistible lead single ‘Float On’, Isaac Brock’s long-running Modest Mouse project was taken from cult concern to heavy rotation virtually overnight in 2004. Yet its parent album is often forgotten, full of joyously eccentric moments reminiscent of Pixies’ finest work. On the level of songwriting, Good News… displayed a wide variation of mood and genre that saw Brock adding depth and sophistication to the melancholia of previous releases. Nominated for a Grammy for Best Alternative Album the following year, it established Modest Mouse as one of America’s premier indie-rock outfits. (LISTEN)
One of the great ‘could have been’ bands of the noughties, Brixton-based five-piece Clor were signed to a major label after only six gigs, with critics raving about their quirky, intelligent crossbreed of post-punk and electropop. Sadly, their self-titled debut album completely failed to ignite, with three exceptional singles in the form of ‘Good Stuff’, ‘Love & Pain’ and ‘Outlines’ landing just outside the Top 40, but those who did hear them remembered Clor with fondness. Frontman Luke Smith went on to be a sometime writer and producer, notably of Foals’ Total Life Forever, and the group’s solitary album remains a lost gem of the decade. (LISTEN)
Hailing from Portland, power pop quartet The Exploding Hearts seemed like a loving tribute band to the entire punk and new wave era, with their debut album Guitar Romantic sounding like Big Star and The Undertones as played by The Replacements. Truly, this was play along and scissor kick with a tennis racket in your bedroom music, made flesh and blood and squeezed into 30 minutes, and it was hugely entertaining. Tragically, three of the four band members were killed in a horrific car crash just four months after Guitar Romantic was released, and the flame was cruelly extinguished. (LISTEN)
Lazily branded as ‘the Southern Strokes’ on their emergence in 2003, it’s hard to remember that Kings Of Leon were once a hell of a lot more interesting than they later became. Youth & Young Manhood may have primarily been about good-time riffs (‘Red Morning Light’, ‘Molly’s Chambers’), but in among the partying there was a paranoid undercurrent in Caleb Followill’s songwriting, on display in ‘Joe’s Head’ and ‘Dusty’. Unfortunately, KoL promptly turned into U2 with the ubiquitous ‘Sex On Fire’ five years later, but not before they had released two more highly enjoyable records and headlined Glastonbury in 2008. (LISTEN)
Having endured the false start of 2004’s Bright Like Neon Love, Australian duo Cut Copy roared into life on their second album almost four years later. Teaming up with DFA’s Tim Goldsworthy, In Ghost Colours was cheerful, colourful and immensely enjoyable, drawing together the atmosphere of a sweaty indie gig with the noir-ish glamour of deep house and electronica. While it may not have contained anything truly original – vintage ‘80s synths were refined and rationalised, mixed with a dash of ‘00s indie-pop – it was the audio equivalent of a love letter, and difficult not to like. (LISTEN)
Just going to prove that the world will never not need Stephen Patrick Morrissey in it, the massive success of the former Smiths singer’s first album in seven years (since 1997’s lacklustre Maladjusted had stiffed on both sides of the Atlantic) caught many unaware. Direct, unforced and uncluttered, these were some of Morrissey’s most memorable tracks of his solo career. People had said that he was irrelevant, a dinosaur, but four UK Top Ten singles from a platinum-selling album emphatically proved otherwise. You Are The Quarry was a triumphant return for one of Britain’s greatest songwriters. (LISTEN)
Following their spectacularly weird and idiosyncratic debut two years previously, Open Season was British Sea Power’s lunge for the mainstream. Full of bright, clear production and soaring post-punk anthems, including love songs dedicated to Antarctic ice shelves, it retained all the nature-orientated thematic qualities of their debut but made them subservient to the goal of accessing a new audience. (LISTEN)
The Isle of Skye seems an unlikely place to spawn a superstar DJ, but the remote town of Broadford was the home of bedroom musician Myles MacInnes, who refracted his mix of house and electronica through a prism of ‘80s nostalgia, producing one of the most distinctive dance albums of the decade. Dancefloor fillers like ‘Drop The Pressure’, and its subsequent mash-up with Miami Sound Machine ‘Dr. Pressure’, smashed the charts to smithereens, but alongside these bangers laid more ambient mood pieces like the swooning ‘In My Arms’ and ‘Sunworshipper’. The world is still waiting for a follow-up: aside from a couple of free mix albums given away in magazines, there’s been total silence for over a decade since. (LISTEN)
Produced by the hip-hop dream team of J Dilla and Kanye West, Common’s sixth album Be saw the Chicagoan rapper regain his footing after the disastrous commercial performance of Electric Circus three years earlier. He’d been around for a while, but hit singles such as ‘The Corner’ and ‘Go!’ suggested an artist far more at ease in his own skin than ever before. Registering on pretty much every critic’s albums of the year list and nominated for four Grammy Awards, Be was praised for its alloy of hip-hop, soul and spoken word social consciousness. (LISTEN)
Having enjoyed one of the most celebrated and consistent careers in rock history for nearly three decades, Grinderman was the sound of Nick Cave rediscovering his Birthday Party roots when he didn’t necessarily need to – the expansive arrangements of 2004’s Abbatoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus were some of the very best of his and The Bad Seeds’ career to that point – but was thrilling nonetheless. The raw, psych-influenced garage rock sounds of ‘No Pussy Blues’ was like listening to the most well-articulated mid-life crisis ever. (LISTEN)
Having impressed neutrals with the likes of ‘Cry Me A River’ at the start of the noughties, the ‘Timbersnake’ hooked up with a host of super-producers to position himself at the cutting edge of pop by the middle of the decade. Containing no fewer than three US chart toppers, FutureSex/LoveSounds was a massive commercial success as well as a gloriously unexpected critical hit, a set of forward thinking, thoroughly modern pop music that reminded one of none other than Prince. (LISTEN)
Anthony Gonzalez’s M83 project may now be one of the most prestigious electronic acts around thanks to the Grammy-nominated success of ‘Midnight City’, but they spent the entire noughties quietly occupying a commercial hinterland. Recorded while M83 was still a duo with original co-founder Nicolas Fromageau, Dead Cities… was the first real display of their knack for creating breathtaking drama, using a smorgasbord of modern and vintage synths and keyboards to reimagine the principles of post-rock, creating dense and textured soundscapes. (LISTEN)
You can know virtually everything about The Gaslight Anthem by looking at the artwork for their breakthrough second album The ’59 Sound – leather jackets, denim, monochrome and blue writing and the ‘Stereo’ label in the top right – everything about it screamed ‘vintage’. Their single-minded dedication to old-fashioned, heartland rock ‘n’ roll would have seemed quaint were it not for Brian Fallon’s wide-eyed, heart-on-sleeve songwriting and delivery. In a decade when sincerity had virtually died, the unabashed Springstonian romance of tracks like ‘Great Expectations’ was a breath of fresh air. (LISTEN)
It’s difficult to conceive of it now, given the massive and heartfelt outpourings of grief over his death in 2016, but 15 years earlier David Bowie’s critical legacy was hardly secure. He hadn’t made a great album in nearly two decades, and his 1999 effort …hours had arguably been his weakest ever. Constructed from offcuts of an abandoned album project referred to as ‘Toy’, Heathen reminded many of why they had fallen in love with him in the first place, full of sleek and soulful back-to-basics rock that was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize as well as enjoying a four-month run in the UK charts. In particular, it was considered a revival in Bowie’s fortunes in America, the country that he had now made his home. (LISTEN)
A divisive album even among die-hard Idlewild fans to this day, Warnings/Promises was the Scottish quintet’s attempt at a big melodic breakout. It alienated a great many who had preferred their riotous earlier work, but this change had been in the offing from as far back as 2000’s 100 Broken Windows, which had demonstrated a more expansive take on their jangly, R.E.M.-influenced college rock format. It was a commercial flop that saw Idlewild dropped from their major label, effectively dooming them to cult status, but for many Warnings/Promises represents this literate group at their most intelligent and compassionate. (LISTEN)
Having dissolved his group Whiskeytown, singer-songwriter Ryan Adams began the new millennium with a much more powerful display of his talents than anything he had thusfar produced. Heartbreaker was a mature rumination on dejection, inspired by his split from music-publicist ex-girlfriend Amy Lombardi, evidenced most plainly on ‘AMY’ but also on beautifully poised alt-folk set-pieces like ‘My Winding Wheel’ or ‘Why Do They Leave?’, Adams savouring the sweet pain of losing love. However, the desolation was leavened with rockers like ‘To Be Young’ or ‘Shakedown On 9th Street’. It would also be the start of one the most productive and varied careers in alternative music. (LISTEN)
Tags: 2000s, classic album, Ed Biggs, feature, noughties, staff lists, The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s
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