150. The National – Alligator (2005) (Beggars Banquet)

The National seem to have been one of indie’s established big-hitters for a long time now, so it seems difficult to remember a time when they were still your worst-kept musical secret. Their third album Alligator was the point at which everybody else started to see what the zealous converted had been preaching about all this time, with tracks like ‘Lit Up’ and ‘Abel’ packing a powerful emotional punch. The poignant closer ‘Mr. November’, written about John Kerry’s doomed campaign against George W. Bush in 2004, became an unofficial soundtrack to Barack Obama’s triumphant candidacy three years later as The National played on his campaign trail, massively expanding their fanbase in the process. (LISTEN)

149. The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free (2004) (Locked On / 679 Recordings)

Rightly praised for his 2002 debut Original Pirate Material, Mike Skinner took his urban poetry aesthetic to the next level with a full-blown rap opera. A Grand Don’t Come For Free was a conceptual middle finger to the encroaching age of iTunes and the shuffle function, but the reason it became such a massive hit was because it was also terrific fun. Over the course of the album and its array of homemade beats and sound effects, our hero falls in love (‘Could Well Be In’) and is memorably chucked after his girlfriend cheats on him with one of his mates (in the UK Number 1 hit ‘Dry Your Eyes’), all in the context of a lifestyle spent gambling (‘Not Addicted’), clubbing (‘Blinded By The Lights’), lads’ holidays (‘Fit But You Know It’) and misplacing a thousand quid. It made Skinner a huge tabloid star before a series of underwhelming albums sunk his career, but A Grand Don’t Come For Free was his second masterpiece. (LISTEN)

148. Neon Neon – Stainless Style (2008) (Lex Records)

Few side-projects in the noughties made fundamentally as much sense as Neon Neon, an occasional musical indulgence from Super Furry Animals’ leader Gruff Rhys and electronic music producer Boom Bip. A loose concept record based around the life of John DeLorean (yes, he of the Back To The Future car-manufacturing fame), their debut Stainless Style was a deliriously fun resurrection of shiny, chorus-dominated ‘80s synthpop, complete with Casio drumpads and Korg synthesisers. Boom Bip provided the perfect musical backdrop in which Rhys could explore his career-long fondness for madcap, leftfield pop music, and for all its West Coast stylings it was an unmistakably British creation that deservedly earned a Mercury nomination. (LISTEN)

147. The Libertines – The Libertines (2004) (Rough Trade)

A flawed masterpiece in the vein of Suede’s Dog Man Star, The Libertines’ self-titled second album will forever stand as Pete ‘n’ Carl’s swansong, a monument to their alchemical but highly combustible relationship. Although the band had pretty much entirely fallen apart during its recording, they just about held it together for the greater good, with that mixture of loathing and love detectable in the visceral call-and-response of ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’ and closing-time anthems like ‘Music When The Lights Go Out’, The Libertines boasts more than a few of the band’s finest moments. Many songs felt a bit sketchy and half-finished, particularly into the album’s second half, but it’s one of those records whose power derives from its symbolic value rather than the music itself. That The Libs have in fact reunited on a handful of occasions since, even recording another album in 2015, has not lessened its allure or emotional power. (LISTEN)

146. The Hives – Your New Favourite Band (2001) (Poptones / Burning Heart Records)

When Alan McGee’s post-Creation imprint Poptones uncovered its first genuine hit in 2001, nobody was quite sure that the Swedish five-piece The Hives weren’t some elaborate prank engineered by the great indie Svengali. Band members with names like ‘Dr. Matt Destruction’, ‘Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist’ and ‘Chris Dangerous’, who genuinely didn’t look like they would be friends in real life, emerging pretty much out of nowhere wearing black-and-white suits and playing songs written by a shadowy, non-playing ‘sixth member’… sounds suspicious to anyone. But what actually mattered were the incredibly fun songs: a dozen lean, rocket-fuelled garage rock nuggets creamed from their two-and-a-bit albums into a compilation lasting under half an hour. Perfick! (LISTEN)

145. Goldfrapp – Felt Mountain (2000) (Mute)

A charming mixture of spy-film noir, twilit minimalist electronica and classic ‘50s songwriting made Alison Goldfrapp’s solo debut Felt Mountain one of the slow-burning successes of the early noughties. The desolate, highly distinctive whistling intro to ‘Lovely Head’ set the tone for a sepia-tinged record absolutely in love with pre-‘70s pop, from the John Barry-style film theme of ‘Pilots’ and the queasy ballad ‘Deer Stop’, to the cabaret-influenced ‘Oompa Radar’ and the gently swaying mambo of ‘Human’. Goldfrapp’s whip-smart, fem-bot pop hits were to come later in the decade, but Felt Mountain put her on the radar and made her popular with the music press. (LISTEN)

144. Dizzee Rascal – Boy In Da Corner (2003) (XL)

British hip-hop had long suffered a credibility problem until the start of the new millennium, when albums by The Streets and Roots Manuva showed that genuine voices could emerge in the urban scene that didn’t seem like they were ripping off their American counterparts. But in 2003, British rap got its first bona-fide star in the form of Dylan Mills, a prodigiously talented youngster who was just 16 when he began recording his debut Boy In Da Corner. The thrilling sound of irrepressible, bored youth rubbing up against an ultra-mechanised society set to cutting, homemade sonics and savage beats, it made everything else seem dull and uninteresting in comparison. Dizzee deservedly stormed to the 2003 Mercury Music Prize, and helped put grime music on the map. (LISTEN)

143. Beirut – The Flying Club Cup (2007) (4AD)

At the age of just 21, Zach Condon came up with one of the most startlingly mature, diverse and fully-realised compositions of the decade under his recording moniker Beirut. Coming off like a mutated hybrid of French chanson music, gypsy folk and Jacque Brel, The Flying Club Cup was a soundtrack to a long lost, dream-like world. Thick, varied instrumentation in the form of Gallic brass and accordion replaced the thinner mix of horns and ukuleles of Condon’s 2006 debut Gulag Orkestar, but this was no exercise in cultural dilettantism. It was a beautiful New World vision for indie-pop that remained respectful to its source material, being the rich tapestry of French and wider European folk music, and The Flying Club Cup was a triumph for pure artistry. (LISTEN)

142. Soulwax – Nite Versions (2005) (P.I.A.S.)

The concept of a band re-mixing itself is not often a palatable one, but the electro/rock/DJ act Soulwax made it extremely appealing with Nite Versions. Remoulding the songs from their 2004 album Any Minute Now into explicitly dancefloor-orientated bangers, in line with their existing alter-egos 2manydjs, the Dewaele brothers made their most hedonistic and straightforwardly fun album yet. Tracks like ‘Compute’ and ‘Miserable Girl’ were simply stripped down and pumped full of stimulants, while ‘Another Excuse’ was given the full remix treatment, ‘NY Lipps’ featured a mash-up with Lipps Inc’s ‘Funkytown’, and ‘Teachers’ saw their own take on their spiritual godfathers Daft Punk. Take a look at 2008’s Saam Farahmand-directed Part Of The Weekend Never Dies rockumentary to see the truly international and long-lasting appeal that this collection of lithe, mutated club monsters had. (LISTEN)

141. The Cribs – The New Fellas (2005) (Wichita)

Bringing the ethics of underground indie to the lower reaches of the charts in the mid-‘00s thanks to relentless hard work and razor-sharp, rocket-fuelled songs, The Cribs’ riotous second album started to set them apart from the landfill post-Libertines indie that might otherwise have been their fate. Produced by Orange Juice’s Edwyn Collins, one of the Wakefield trio’s heroes, the yelping, urgent choruses of ‘Mirror Kissers’ and knees-up riffs of ‘Martell’ were massive fun but only part of the story, amid surprisingly tender moments like ‘It Was Only Love’ and ‘Haunted’. Some narrow-minded cliques accused them of selling out, when they in fact did no such thing. Their wit, vision and ambition for music was simply too big for the confines of the scene that spawned them, as laid down in the sarcastic opening gambit ‘Hey Scenesters!’. From here on out, there was no looking back for The Cribs. (LISTEN)

140. Midlake – The Trials Of Van Occupanther (2006) (Bella Union)

A wild departure from the lo-fi, scruffy psychedelia they laid down on their patchy debut, Midlake’s The Trials Of Van Occupanther was one of the biggest single artistic leaps forward of the decade, not to mention one of the lushest updates of the classic Americana songbook. Seemingly dropping out of the time continuum altogether and heading back to the Laurel Canyon singer-songwriters of the early ‘70s, this was a loving and intelligent tribute to an unfashionable era of music history, constructed from warm, billowing layers of acoustic guitars, strings, restrained drumming and no small amount of drive-time synths. Tim Smith boasted a deeply expressive, almost operatic voice but kept it tightly reined, suiting the sparse arrangements, open spaces and general wanderlust of the tracks. (LISTEN)

139. Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam (2007) (Domino)

After the best part of a decade, Animal Collective’s seventh album proved to be the great leap forwards for the group in terms of wider recognition for their strange, unique take on the art of songwriting in general. Previously the darlings of the indie community but not really written about much beyond Pitchfork, Strawberry Jam was their first album to chart in America, but it also saw them move away from the bucolic, acid-tinged campfire singalongs of their previous work towards something more electronically-rendered, hypnotic and textured, particularly on the whirring, beat-driven opening assault of ‘Peacebone’ as love, loss, doubt and confidence were packaged together in complex but appealing structures. (LISTEN)

138. The Vines – Highly Evolved (2002) (Capitol)

Attracting breathless comparisons to Nirvana when they first appeared, The Vines later suffered at the hands of an infamous ‘NME backlash’, but their debut album Highly Evolved remains an accomplished musical statement. While it may not have been much more than the sum of its ‘60s and ‘90s influences, Craig Nicholls was capable of flights of romantic fancy in ‘Homesick’ and the lovely, sketch-like ‘Autumn Shade’ as well as the dumb, raging rock thrills of ‘Get Free’. Before his much-publicised and cruelly mocked meltdown, Nicholls truly had the potential to be something special, and Highly Evolved will forever be testament to that. (LISTEN)

137. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! (2009) (Interscope / Dress Up / DCG)

After two albums of colourful punk and indie fun, Karen O and her sidekicks went ‘glam’ for their third offering It’s Blitz! Neater and more precise than its predecessors, with the guitars not ditched entirely but given equal billing to the sparkling synthesisers, they might have risked alienating their fanbase if it was not for two pile-driving singles in the shape of ‘Zero’ and ‘Heads Will Roll’. The spine-tingling ‘Skeletons’ and the calm storm of ‘Hysteric’ made for a varied and thrilling experience, as the YYYs showed more interest in dynamics than they had before. Co-producer Dave Sitek was a critical factor in this superb musical evolution, matching the new wave of ‘80s Blondie and prime-time Duran Duran with their own established brand of skewed post-punk. (LISTEN)

136. Klaxons – Myths Of The Near Future (2007) (Polydor)

Unfortunately, the death of the short-lived ‘nu-rave’ scene in 2007 seemed to take Klaxons down with it, as the band most associated with the genre (which was largely invented by the NME in any case). Its impact may have been impermanent, but it was pretty seismic while it reverberated, as many artists emerged attempting to replicate the chaotic, anything-goes approach of their debut Myths Of The Near Future. An adventure playground of an album, packed with obscure references to history and sci-fi literature, from gibberish dance/punk like ‘Atlantis To Interzone’ to the sleek, garish indie-pop of ‘Two Receivers’ and ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’, Klaxons aimed for total sensory overload and succeeded. Though it gets a harsh time from revisionist hipsters, it was one of the most thrilling and deliciously subversive pop albums of the era, scooping the coveted Mercury Music Prize that year, and it remains a guilty pleasure nearly a decade later. (LISTEN)

135. The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? (2003) (Rough Trade / Alien8)

The one and only full-length studio album by the prodigiously talented but sadly short-lived Canadian indie heroes The Unicorns, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? is one of the true lost gems of the decade. As their name would suggest, The Unicorns were about whimsy, indulging in flights of fancy launched from their bedroom-bound, lo-fi indie private universe, but beneath the surface they were so much more interesting than that. Way ahead of the indie-pop curve in the early noughties, showing genuine compositional innovation in addition to their sugar-sweet melodies, the combustible yet complementary songwriting partnership of Nick Thorburn and Alden Penner yielded this concentrated collection of multi-segmented songs that were as complex as they were charming. Eventually re-issued in 2014, it’s about time more people heard it. (LISTEN)

134. Antony & The Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now (2005) (Secretly Canadian)

His Mercury Music Prize victory in 2005 may have been controversial because he wasn’t actually raised in Britain, but nobody could have begrudged Antony Hegarty (now known as Anohni) scooping the prestigious trophy on the quality of his music. Opening with the stark, heart-rending vulnerability of ‘Hope There’s Someone’, which was responsible for most of the critical attention directed at the album when it was released as a single, I Am A Bird Now was an emotional tour de force set to unfussy yet beautifully baroque neo-classical arrangements. An intrusion of genuine art into the world of entertainment and glitz, it was a magnificent oddity in the guitar-obsessed music scene of 2005. (LISTEN)

133. Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out Of This Country (2006) (Elefant / Merge)

Camera Obscura were always one of the most criminally over-looked British groups of the noughties, for the crime of sticking with their uninhibited ‘60s chamber-pop sound over the self-conscious masculinity that dominated so much of that decade. Front-loaded with the skyscraping, string-drenched pop dynamics of lead single ‘Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken?’, a song which at last earned them some massively overdue public exposure when it was used in the opening credits of 2007 movie P.S. I Love You, their third album was their great leap forward. It was the moment when they welded the bookish, niche appeal of their previous efforts to a much more accessible sound, with ten brilliant throwback-pop nuggets conveying joy, sadness, depression and anger, all threaded together with Tracyanne Campbell’s gorgeous vocals. (LISTEN)

132. The Knife – Deep Cuts (2003) (Rabid)

Swedish dark-pop duo The Knife had been around a pretty long while by the time their 2006 album Silent Shout met with critical and commercial success outside their native country, fuelled by Jose Gonzalez’s sepulchral cover version of ‘Heartbeats’. The original track actually appeared on 2003’s Deep Cuts, which got a wider release three years after it initially came out. Olof and Karin Dreijer Andersson’s presentational quirks and inventive synth lines are the key attractions, but here they were deployed in club-ready contexts over a satisfying 17 tracks, making it arguably more accessible than its dark, brooding successor. (LISTEN)

131. Bat For Lashes – Two Suns (2009) (Echo / Parlophone)

Two Suns was a dramatic leap forwards from Natasha Khan’s promising debut Fur And Gold, whose flights of fancy often masked some flawed songwriting. Here, the writing had improved to match the music, and the results were fantastic as well as fantastical, channelling her sense of widescreen romance into the immediacy of pop. There’s an intriguing schizophrenia to Two Suns – in Khan’s words it explored “the philosophy of the self and duality, examining the need for both chaos and balance, for both love and pain”. A difficult trick to pull off, but she managed it time and time again on Two Suns, with haunting highlights in ‘Daniel’ and ‘Sleep Alone’. She even managed to get Scott Walker, the godfather of modern chamber-pop, to duet with her on the epic closer ‘The Big Sleep’. (LISTEN)

130. TV On The Radio – Dear Science (2008) (4AD)

TV On The Radio’s second effort Return To Cookie Mountain was one of the indie masterpieces of the decade, the kind of album that defines a career, so following it up was always going to be tough. From the driving, mechanical opener ‘Halfway Home’ onwards, their in-house producer Dave Sitek made everything much more precise, from the juddering Afrobeat and sax of ‘Dancing Choose’ to the improbable art-rock ballad ‘Family Tree’, making Dear Science the perfect place for any newcomer to TVOTR to start. Hitting the sweet spot between visceral and cerebral, the group retained their well-earned position as the critics’ darlings while opening up their experimental music to a more mainstream audience. (LISTEN)

129. Elliott Smith – From A Basement On The Hill (2004) (Domino)

Released almost exactly a year after his tragically unsolved death in October 2003, From A Basement On The Hill more effectively serves as Elliott Smith’s last will and testament than anything recorded during his lifetime. Originally intended as a double album, its fifteen tracks were pieced together and assembled by regular producer Rob Schnapf, Smith’s estate and his ex-girlfriend Joanna Bolme, and what’s striking – apart from the heartbreaking knowledge of a life cut short – is how remarkably cohesive and musically innovative it sounds, making sense primarily as a next step in a body of work and not just as a kind of suicide note. Tense and claustrophobic yet more expansive, and often more ferocious, than a lot of his catalogue, From A Basement… served as a beautiful swansong from a frighteningly talented writer. (LISTEN)

128. Florence + The Machine – ­Lungs (2009) (Island)

Boasting the ears and eyes for distinctiveness of PJ Harvey and the quintessentially English passion of Kate Bush, not to mention the titular lungs, Florence Welch’s slow-burning debut lived up to all the hype that trailed it. The unharnessed, primal passion of percussive anthems like ‘Dog Days Are Over’ and ‘Drumming Song’ were the star attractions, but more dynamic, atmospheric peaks like ‘Rabbit Heart’ showed that behind Welch’s stunning voice lay the brain of an extremely competent songwriter too. Lungs attracted critical and popular attention aplenty, eventually reaching Number 1 in January 2010 and scooping Best British Album at the Brit Awards soon afterwards and going on to sell more than 3 million copies worldwide. (LISTEN)

127. The Shins – Wincing The Night Away (2007) (Sub Pop)

Having cultivated one of the most feverishly devoted fanbases in music – seriously, Shins fans are as dedicated as any amount of Beliebers – James Mercer and his group’s first real shot at the big time came with their third album Wincing The Night Away. Featuring the same kind of cryptic lyrics that had made Chutes Too Narrow such a critical hit, tracks like the hip-hop-influenced ‘Sea Legs’ revealed a bold stylistic departure, but there was plenty of acoustic pop (‘Phantom Limb’, ‘Turn On Me’) and pretty psychedelia (‘Black Wave’, ‘Red Rabbits’) that showed a more confident approach to the musical side of things while keeping the faithful happy. (LISTEN)

126. Clinic – Internal Wrangler (2000) (Domino)

Picked up by Domino after a string of impressive self-financed singles, the distinctive Liverpool four-piece Clinic were sadly a little ahead of their time. Using simply the ancient template of guitar, bass, drum and organ, they made something truly magnetic and energised with Internal Wrangler (and, to a lesser extent, its impressive 2002 follow-up Walking With Thee). By stripping back almost everything except the rhythm, their sound was skeletal yet muscular and funky – the single ‘Return Of Evil Bill’ being the greatest – with Ade Blackburn’s sinister muttering over the top. Had they come out a couple of years later, when fellow Merseysiders The Coral and The Zutons were enjoying success, they might have gotten the exposure that their dark, raw take on psychedelia deserved. (LISTEN)