THE PUSHING PAPER TOP 100 ALBUMS OF THE DECADE: PART ONE

The time has come. After months of deliberation, the committee of one has finally pieced everything together, if only because I kind of want to get this thing over with. Despite the fact that the decade hasn’t ended yet, and that I’m sure I’ll want to re-order things as soon as the list is published, the world can wait no longer. Hopefully I won’t regret putting this up prior to the release of Till the Casket Drops next week, but it’s not like Clipse didn’t end up all over my list anyway. Hopefully they’ll understand.

Okay, so Part One is as simple as it gets. These albums don’t really have any sort of connotations for me other than my enjoyment of them; they’re just albums that I liked a lot. With that being their primary distinction, obviously some of these albums came close to not making the list, but I did listen to all of them a lot, and I’m pleased to say that there isn’t any filler here.

100. Krallice — Dimensional Bleedthrough (2009)

99. Baroness — Blue Record (2009)

I’m starting this list with two cop-out rankings just to get them out of the way. Both of these albums are just-released follow-ups to terrific debuts by relatively new metal bands. It hasn’t been long enough to fully absorb either of these albums yet — especially the Krallice one, which clocks in at 77 minutes — but I’ve heard enough to know that in due time I’ll like them more than some of the albums currently ranked above them. (I told you decade lists were stupid.)

98. Farben — Textstar (2002)

97. Spiritualized — Songs in A&E (2008)

96. Pitbull — Rebelution (2009)

95. Nachtmystium — Instinct: Decay (2006)

94. Jay-Z — The Black Album (2003)

93. Phoenix — Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (2009)

Me: Nuke Arizona?

Phoenix: We don’t know. Gotta nuke somethin’.

92. Boris — Akuma No Uta (2005)

91. Burial — s/t (2006)

90. Nadja — Thaumogenesis (2007)

89. Heartbreak — Lies (2008)

Here’s a great album that as far as I can tell garnered senselessly minimal attention from the non-dance crowd. Hell, it may not have garnered any attention from the dance crowd either, since I’m not really tuned into that world. Lies is the most menacingly cheesy dance record I’ve ever heard. (The album cover perfectly conveys the album’s overall sound.) I say, why listen to New York hipster music that’s just trying to sound like Italo when Heartbreak is faithfully churning out the real thing?

88. Broken Social Scene — You Forgot It In People (2003)

Admittedly, nothing on this album is even 10% as good as The Hood Internet’s mash-up of some BSS song and R. Kelly’s “I’m a Flirt,” but these songs have held up really well.

87. Stephen Malkmus — s/t (2001)

86. The Go! Team — Thunder, Lightning, Strike (2004)

85. Junior Senior — Hey Hey My My Yo Yo (2005)

This record is living proof that even in the internet era physical distribution still matters, because the two-year-plus delay of this record’s release in America is the only reason I can think of that pretty much no one paid attention to this album, especially since everyone I know who’d ever heard “Move Your Feet” loved it. What was most frustrating for me about this whole ordeal was that Hey Hey My My Yo Yo was even better than D-D-Don’t Don’t Stop the Beat. And now Junior Senior is gone forever. The lesson, of course, is that life is cruel and unfair.  At the very least, just do yourself a favor and listen to “I Like Music,” one of the happiest songs of all-time.

84. Nine Inch Nails — The Slip (2008)

No part of me is embarrassed about this. If you ever liked Nine Inch Nails at all and didn’t give The Slip a chance because it’s been fifteen years since The Downward Spiral, then shame on you. I, for one, am thankful that I grew up in a world where little kids were listening to fucked up shit like “March of the Pigs,” and I’m also thankful that Trent Reznor has somehow remained creatively viable.

83. Colour Haze — All (2008)

82. Les Savy Fav — Let’s Stay Friends (2007)

This album to me is a perfect template of how a band — particularly a band that made its name on the insanity of its live shows — should age. That’s not to say that Les Savy Fav have completely mellowed out, but what Let’s Stay Friends lacks in spastic spontaneity, it replaces with better songwriting. Prior to this album, there weren’t many LSF songs you could whistle while on a stroll without sounding like a whacked out bird. Yet no song on Let’s Stay Friends sounds like it came from any other band. To me, this is truly impressive.

81. Super Furry Animals — Rings Around the World (2001)

80. Electric Wizard — Let Us Prey (2002)

The Five Most Accurately Titled Albums Ever

The critical reception for Kanye West’s latest album, 808s and Heartbreak, has greatly disappointed me. As I sat through my first listen, I was sure that 808s was destined to be one of the most divisive albums of our time. As has been noted by many a reviewer lately, Kanye is maybe the only truly popular musical artist who could pull off an album like this. Out of all the arena-headlining superstars nowadays, Kanye by far seems the least beholden to his revenue-starved record label’s desires. I’ll never bother to find out just how much unlistenable filler there is on Beyonce’s new album, I Am … Sasha Fierce (seeing as how all the good songs will make their way onto radio/MTV Jams eventually), but I know there’s a zero percent chance that it contains nothing but songs where she cries about Jay-Z over barely-existent beats through an autotuner.

And because Kanye is in such a rare position where he can make an album like 808s, I hoped he might be able to spark a nationwide civil war between those who loved and hated it. Because nobody buys CDs anymore (you heard it here first), it’s rare that an album could set off an honest to God debate. But with Kanye, who through three albums has consistently succeeded on both critical and commercial fronts, I thought it possible that enough unsuspecting “Gold Digger” fans would be so bewildered by Kanye’s lover’s lament crap that a calculable backlash would ensue. I was eagerly awaiting the day I would be called into battle, half of my fellow music nerds with me and half against me, with the tribal drums from “Love Lockdown” thumping all around, ready to slay the non-believers. But, if Metacritic is to be believed, the almost universal sentiment surrounding 808s is, roughly, “This album’s pretty good, I guess.” Like I said, I’m disappointed.

But if 808s and Heartbreak failed in its bid to become Kanye’s personal The Final Cut (only in the public reception sense, most definitely NOT in the subject matter sense), it might possibly be the most accurately titled album ever, which counts for something, I think. Given what a striking left turn Kanye took with this album (you know, since rappers usually rap in their songs, and all) it was courteous of him to give those who weren’t paying attention all summer such a clear warning of what they were about to encounter. So in tribute to the most compelling popular musical artist of this decade, I give you my wholly undefinitive list of the five most accurately titled albums ever prior to 808s and Heartbreak, because coming up with ten was a real pain in the ass.

(And, in case any smart-ass jerks are reading this, self-titled albums, greatest hits compilations, and albums with names like Songs of Love and Hate or Live at the Apollo don’t count.)

5. Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral

Take it from someone who was a cranky little boy who couldn’t possibly get enough teen angst-type music around the time of this epochal album’s release: This title is basically perfect. Can you possibly imagine The Downward Spiral being named anything else? I rest my case.

4. Paul Wall and Chamillionaire, Get Ya Mind Correct

I’m far from alone in wishing that these two would release another album (or more) together, but we’ll always have this classic. Given that Get Ya Mind Correct is almost entirely about money and cars, it’s fitting that its title should succinctly remind not to lose sight of what really matters in life.

3. Mayhem, Pure Fucking Armageddon

I’ll be honest, I’m not all that familiar with Mayhem’s music, including this early demo they made in 1986. But I have read about them on the Internet approximately five million times, so I feel perfectly comfortable rating this one so highly.

2. Crime Mob, Hated On Mostly

I usually try not to make broad, sweeping statements about America’s moral fiber, but I think it’s safe to say that any music group that has a member who’s been incarcerated for child molestation could be accurately described as “hated on mostly.” (I really wish I were making this up.)

1. Daft Punk, Human After All

Now, most people, when they think of this title, automatically connect it with the Daft Punk boys’ personae as robots sent from outer space to teach our fair world about the finest dance music the universe has to offer. That makes total sense. However, I like to think of this title as a red-faced confession that this is a really shitty album. “So you thought we were geniuses, huh? Well, have we got some news for you.”