The Student Playlist

Showcasing the Best New Music, Curating the Classics

The 200 Greatest Albums of the 2000s

  1. Pulp – We Love Life (2001) (Polygram / Island)

pulp_we_love_lifeAfter the Britpop hedonism of Different Class and hangover of This Is Hardcore, Pulp’s final album We Love Life was the sound of spiritual rehabilitation and clean living. Cocker’s acerbic wit was used for more idealistic purposes this time around, on humanitarian tracks like ‘The Trees’ or the two tracks entitled ‘Weeds’, but there was still time for him to cast his cynical eye on popular culture – check out the brilliant video for ‘Bad Cover Version’. Produced by none other than Scott Walker, the iconic crooner idolised by Cocker himself and whose album Til The Band Comes In is name-checked, We Love Life was a series of sparse, stately arrangements that climaxed in the skyscraping closer ‘Sunrise’, a fitting end to a brilliant career. (LISTEN)

  1. Mystery Jets – Twenty One (2008) (679 Recordings)

mystery_jets_twenty_oneHaving wowed critics with their tricksy post-punk leaning debut Making Dens, London five-piece Mystery Jets wholeheartedly embraced the ‘80s nostalgia craze in the British music scene with this glorious retro-pop breakout follow-up. But this was no archly ironic throwback: Blaine Harrison’s delivery was hopelessly romantic, welded to majestic pop songs that only a real cynic could dislike. While it was sometimes reflective, Twenty One is a dancefloor album. While almost any of the twelve tracks could have been a single, those that made it truly dazzled: the Laura Marling duet ‘Young Love’ and the irrepressible chorus of ‘Two Doors Down’ in particular. (LISTEN)

  1. Iron & Wine – The Creek Drank The Cradle (2002) (Sub Pop)

iron_and_wine_the_creek_drank_the_cradleSam Beam’s debut under his recording name Iron & Wine was an unexpected throwback to the origins of folk music, before the coffeehouse scene fundamentally altered its disposition in the early ‘60s. The fragile, tremulous tracks you hear, complete with Beam’s fingers squeaking over the strings of his acoustic guitar, were home-recorded as four-track demos to be sent to Calexico to provide a rhythm section. However, those who heard the demos were so taken aback by Beam’s whispery, soft vocals that it was released straightaway – on the indie-based Sub Pop, of all labels – and one of the most distinctive and singular presences in American music began his career. (LISTEN)

  1. Kaiser Chiefs – Employment (2005) (B-Unique)

kaiser_chiefs_employmentSelling more than two million copies of their debut and staying in the British charts for nearly two years (without ever reaching #1), Kaiser Chiefs were a bona-fide cultural sensation in their native land. Overtly in thrall to new wave and the glory days of Britpop to the extent that they worked with Blur producer Stephen Street, Employment was a frequently electrifying collection of catchy, sinewy indie-pop, suitable for pubs, clubs, festival singalongs and terrace chants all at the same time. (LISTEN)

  1. Passion Pit – Manners (2009) (Columbia)

passion_pit_mannersMichael Angelakos’ full-length debut with Passion Pit, which has since become a receptacle for his hopelessly romantic vision of synthpop, was much more of a collaborative effort. His breathy, impossibly high vocals were the first thing you noticed, particularly on the scorching opener ‘Make Light’, but it held the key to how the rest of Manners worked. Angelakos was a man in relentless pursuit of human connection, but absolutely meant every single word and spine-tingling pop moment from the bottom of his heart, and that meant the euphoric, decadent music didn’t get crushed under the weight of its own ambition, and often became something truly special. (LISTEN)

  1. Los Campesinos! – Hold On Now, Youngster… (2008) (Wichita / Arts & Crafts)

los_campesinos_hold_on_now_youngsterHumorous and hyper-literate, Welsh seven-piece Los Campesinos! careened through their debut with the kind of reckless abandon not really seen in Britain since the ultra-indie C86 movement twenty years before it. The holiday-for-glockenspiels and massive chorus of the brilliant ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ might have been the headline grabber for the casual fan, but there were hook-filled thrills and spills aplenty in a lean, energetic record. The group’s creative font Gareth traded snarky put-downs and admissions of weakness with Aleksandra’s lilting tones, and with that, the new poster boys for bookish indie boys and girls was announced. And we did it all without mentioning the word ‘twee’… (LISTEN)

  1. Blur – Think Tank (2003) (Parlophone)

blur_think_tankArriving more than four years after their last album due to Damon Albarn’s work with Gorillaz, sessions for Think Tank were troubled, not least because of the departure of Graham Coxon. But although the chemistry was necessarily different as a three-piece, the quality was up there with Blur’s best work. Lush, pastorial acoustic melodies, windswept flourishes of electronica and Albarn’s wizened vocals made for arguably the most un-Blur record in their catalogue, but moments of forlorn beauty like ‘Out Of Time’ and ‘Sweet Song’ ranked among some of their most heart-stopping moments. (LISTEN)

  1. Ghostface Killah – Supreme Clientele (2000) (Epic / Sony / Razor Sharp)

ghostface_killah_supreme_clienteleGhostface Killah’s sophomore solo album contained so many guest appearances by other fellow Wu-Tang members that it often felt like another of their albums by other means. But it was Ghostface who was the undoubted star of Supreme Clientele, breaking the latent ‘curse of the second Wu-Tang solo album’ by making something that elevated itself above the fashions of contemporary hip-hop with its snatches of piano and horn samples. Credit should also go to RZA, painstakingly reconstructing the beats and sonic landscapes having lost all the work in the late ‘90s due to a flood in his NY studio. (LISTEN)

  1. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career (2009) (4AD)

camera_obscura_my_maudlin_careerIn the first 30 seconds of opening track ‘French Navy’, with glorious strings and Phil Spector-esque drums, Tracyanne Campbell recounts a shy romantic encounter in a “dusty library”, and Camera Obscura fans were hopelessly hooked once again. Nothing revolutionary when compared to 2006’s glorious Let’s Get Out Of This Country, but one can hardly improve on such effortless beauty. Campbell’s witty, self-effacing observations prevent such subject matter from being cloying, and along with their dangerously infectious preppy pop numbers, there were a number of more complex and lithe arrangements (see the masterful melancholia of ‘James’) to prevent My Maudlin Career from being a mere carbon copy of its predecessor. (LISTEN)

  1. Test Icicles – For Screening Purposes Only (2005) (Domino)

test_icicles_for_screening_purposes_onlyThe one and only album by London cool kids Test Icicles – where the now much sought-after songwriter Dev Hynes began his career (see #199) – was one of the rare occasions where the approach of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks has actually worked. For Screening Purposes Only was an unpredictable, tempo-changing mash of metal, punk, home-made beats and feedback that produced twisted indie-disco anthems (‘Circle. Square. Triangle.’) and moshpit fillers (‘Your Biggest Mistake’) in equal measure. (LISTEN)

  1. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – B.R.M.C. (2001) (Virgin)

black_rebel_motorcycle_club_brmcWith a name like theirs, San Franciscan rock revivalists B.R.M.C. promised to be one of the wildest groups on the scene, sashaying through the door The Strokes had kicked down at around the same time. But when it arrived, their debut was a more complex beast than anyone could have imagined, full of morose and strangely spiritual tracks like ‘Rifles’ and ‘Too Real’ that seemed to soundtrack the savage hangover to a party that had already happened. Only on ‘Spread Your Love’ and ‘Whatever Happened To My Rock ‘N’ Roll’ did B.R.M.C. really cut loose and get hedonistic. Sadly, they completely blew it over the resulting years, but their debut deserves to be treasured. (LISTEN)

  1. Death From Above 1979 – You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine (2004) (Last Gang / 679 Recordings)

death-from_above_1979_youre_a_woman_im_a_machineOn the surface, DFA1979’s debut might have seemed like a mere exercise in raw, bludgeoning power, but there was more going on underneath. Beneath the cool haircuts and the PR onslaught, Jesse F. Keeler and Sebastien Grainger were simultaneously a throwback to the blood, sweat and beer of Metallic K.O. with raucous, throat-shredding proto-punk like ‘Blood On Our Hands’, but also turned out to be a signpost to the future. Taking very nearly 10 years to make another album, You’re A Woman… became a cult classic in their absence, with their brutally basic drums and bass combo presaging the balls-to-the-wall rock of Royal Blood a decade later. (LISTEN)

  1. Manic Street Preachers – Journal For Plague Lovers (2009) (Columbia)

manic_street_preachers_journal_for_plague_loversHaving reminded everybody of their brilliance with 2007’s triumphant Send Away The Tigers, the Manics unexpectedly opted to follow it up with a resolutely non-commercial move. Produced by the legendary Steve Albini, with no singles, Journal For Plague Lovers showcased the final lyrics of their vanished figurehead Richey Edwards that had lain untouched for over a decade. With crushing low-end guitars and a claustrophobic atmosphere, the lyrics were taken from a folder of sentence fragments, haikus, collages and drawings bequeathed to Nicky Wire. Covering the cult of celebrity, rampant consumerism and body dysmorphia in his typically oblique, fiercely intelligent yet curiously empathetic way, it proved that Edwards’ mind was burning as brightly as ever. (LISTEN)

  1. Spoon – Kill The Moonlight (2002) (Merge)

spoon_kill_the_moonlightBritt Daniel’s fourth album with his indie-rock outfit Spoon brought them to nationwide attention, mainly through ‘The Way We Get By’ achieving the holy grail of crossover success back in 2002 by being featured in ‘The O.C.’. But Kill The Moonlight remained one of the most compelling indie albums to revisit in the noughties, because of its ruthless sense of economy. Not a single note or second is wasted here, as garage, indie, soul and pop is parsed down to its bare bones and played with the most elegant and graceful sense of power, giving it the feel of a greatest hits album condensed into 34 minutes. (LISTEN)

  1. Hot Chip – The Warning (2006) (EMI)

hot_chip_the_warningIt’s always seemed unfair that Hot Chip were doomed to be held to the standard of ‘Over And Over’ for the rest of their careers. Fantastic though it was, Alexis Taylor and his band of brothers have always been about more than just indie dancefloor bangers, as that single’s own parent album The Warning demonstrated. The gently hypnotic ‘Boy From School’ and ‘Colours’ brushed up against truly beautiful comedown moments like ‘Look After Me’. At one point threatening extreme violence to the sound of the softest glockenspiels you ever heard, The Warning was a thoroughly enjoyable mish-mash of styles and messages, the sound of a twee indie band set to a mix of Prince and LCD Soundsystem. (LISTEN)

  1. System Of A Down – Toxicity (2001) (Columbia)

system_of_a_down_toxicitySurely one of the most gloriously bonkers albums to ever be given a major label release, never mind become a Billboard chart-topper, Toxicity was arguably the most memorable metal album of the decade. Matching the nihilistic intensity of Slipknot and welding it to a righteous political rage and some spectacularly flamboyant song structures, System Of A Down channelled folk, jazz, Middle Eastern scales and prog-rock. Sure, the sloganeering was occasionally crass and sixth-formish, with spoken-word segments about prison populations coming across as overbearing on paper, but it was impossible to argue with idiosyncratic highlights like ‘Chop Suey!’, ‘Needles’ and ‘Jet Pilot’. (LISTEN)

  1. Hope Of The States – The Lost Riots (2004) (Sony)

hope_of_the_states_the_lost_riotsThe story of the short-lived and long-forgotten Hope Of The States was tinged with tragedy almost from the beginning, with the suicide of guitarist Jimmi Lawrence during the recording of their debut The Lost Riots. Released to rapturous reviews but muted public reaction, they rushed out their muddled second album Left under two years later, before splitting up in late 2006. However, they left us with this flawed, ambitious masterpiece of lighters-aloft post-rock, a monument to corrupt politics, decadent society and the bonds of friendship. Deeply humanist and burning with righteousness, Hope Of The States have always seemed like one of the great missed opportunities in rock history – they truly could have been great. (LISTEN)

  1. Biffy Clyro – Puzzle (2007) (14th Floor)

biffy_clyro_puzzlePossibly the last British band to achieve rock superstardom the old fashioned way – slogging it around Britain’s toilet circuit for years – the watershed moment for Biffy Clyro came with their fourth album Puzzle and its battalion of killer hits. The likes of ‘Saturday Superhouse’ or the bellow-along ‘Folding Stars’ were noticeably more accessible than some of their previous singles, but it was not at the expense of Biffy’s trademark humour and mischief that had won so many fans’ hearts in the first place. With the album, and no fewer than six singles, boasting artwork by the great Storm Thorgerson, it finally promoted Biffy to the premier league of British rock, providing a textbook example of how to sell millions without selling out. (LISTEN)

  1. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning (2005) (Saddle Creek)

bright_eyes_im_wide_awake_its_morningAlt-folk / indie poster boy Conor Oberst unexpectedly crossed over into the mainstream in 2005 with two Bright Eyes albums released on the same day. The electronically-influenced Digital Ash In A Digital Urn was an experimental curio, but it was the more conventional I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning that had the critics drooling, representing the most concentrated and disciplined formulation of his vision yet. ‘Lua’ in particular, a gorgeous rumination on loneliness, rapidly became a huge hit, reaching number 1 in the Billboard Singles Sales chart, but beautifully poised moments like ‘First Day Of My Life’ and ‘At The Bottom Of Everything’ showed him to be a fully matured talent. (LISTEN)

  1. of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (2007) (Polyvinyl)

of_montreal_hissing_fauna_are_you_the_destroyerAs leader of the longest-running and most well-known band of the ‘Elephant 6’ collective in the nineties, Kevin Barnes was already a master of experimental pop by of Montreal’s eighth LP, but decided to reach further again. A bewildering, weighty concept album covering schizophrenia, perception vs reality and the idea of drugs as a source of inspiration at the same time as engendering self-destruction, Hissing Fauna… was an incredibly ambitious work threaded together by a central narrative concerning Barnes himself, and his mid-album transformation into his glam-rock alter ego ‘Georgie Fruit’. Set to a snappy, tightly-stretched canvas of synthesiser-led oddball pop, it’s a highly distinctive career best from a hugely underappreciated talent. (LISTEN)

  1. Eminem – The Eminem Show (2002) (Aftermath / Shady / Interscope)

eminem_the_eminem_showThe final instalment in Marshall Mathers’ imperial phase before he began embarrassing himself with jock-humour idiocy like ‘Just Lose It’, The Eminem Show was more theatrical than anything he’d done before. Effortless flows, humorous braggadocio and vein-throbbing rants were by now his stock in trade, more of which can be heard on ‘Business’ and ‘Without Me’, and the whole record gives off the impression of a man who’s reached the top and is intent on enjoying himself, consolidating his position with supreme confidence. However, he still finds time to provoke and bait his enemies on ‘White America’ and his great hymn of self-justification ‘Sing For The Moment’. (LISTEN)

  1. Röyksopp – Melody A.M. (2001) (Wall Of Sound)

royksopp_melody_amSometimes sneered at as the dance music equivalent of Ikea, a disposable coffee table album for middle-class households, Melody A.M. may have been irritating in its ubiquity, spending two entire years in the British album charts and selling nearly half a million copies, but it was subtly revolutionary in its own understated, charming way. Displaying a mastery of mellow, danceable grooves and sweeping, lush arrangement, Röyksopp came out of absolutely nowhere to make this music that at once felt refreshing yet deeply familiar and lived-in, like a comfortable old sweater you’ve rediscovered. The heartbroken house of ‘Poor Leno’, the blissful 5am comedown of ‘Sparks’, the distinctive bleeps and shuffling funk of ‘Eple’… an embarrassment of riches and a guilty pleasure for those who disregard the dictates of fashion. (LISTEN)

  1. The White Stripes – De Stijl (2000) (Sympathy For The Record Industry)

the_white_stripes_de_stijlMarking the last point at which The White Stripes would be your best kept secret, De Stijl captures Jack ‘n’ Meg still exploring their raw, basic template of punk and blues. Meaning ‘the style’ in Dutch, the group’s second was named after a Dutch art movement in the 1910s that dictated that structures and styles should be boiled down to their purest essences, Jack White applied that back-to-basics approach to his musical heroes, dedicating De Stijl to Blind Willie McTell. The raw, angular and angry guitars of ‘Little Bird’ and ‘You’re Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)’ contrasted neatly with the bubblegum feel of the melodies, while theatrical and heartfelt moments come in the shape of the piano-driven ‘Apple Blossom’ and ‘I’m Bound To Pack It Up’. De Stijl should never be overlooked in favour of its more famous follow-ups – more of which later… (LISTEN)

  1. Richard Hawley – Lady’s Bridge (2007) (Mute)

richard_hawley_ladys_bridgeRichard Hawley’s fifth album may have acted as something of a victory lap for the Mercury-nominated success of 2005’s Coles Corner, but the lustre of his retro chamber-pop glory was no less sumptuous or enjoyable for it. Everything about Lady’s Bridge’s presentation screamed throwback, but the lush orchestration, ‘50s groove, tinkled ivories, and melancholic ballads meant the content transcended that tag and became something much rarer: timeless. Seriously, if you don’t fall head over heels for the us-against-the-world conceit of ‘Tonight The Streets Are Ours’, haul yourself off to a doctor, there’s something wrong with you. Some dismissed Hawley as ‘50s pastiche – but they were wrong. Pastiche has no substance, but these songs, full of effortless romance and grace, were unmistakably the real deal. (LISTEN)

  1. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight (2008) (Fat Cat)

frightened_rabbit_the_midnight_organ_fightCutting out the extraneous instrumental passages of their fine 2006 debut Sing The Greys and fine-tuning the best bits, Frightened Rabbit achieved greatness with their second album. Wearing the fine Scottish tradition of indie miserablism with pride, like their near-neighbours Arab Strap before them, the Hutchison brothers delivered an album of masculine existentialism that was rain-spotted and bleak but darkly, scathingly, self-deprecatingly humorous, all set to a rousing mixture of angular alt-folk and barn-storming indie pop. Not only was The Midnight Organ Fight consistently enjoyable and affecting, it also fitted in to a fine cultural heritage. (LISTEN)

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