In this day-and-age of disposable lifestyle, where millions of creative minds can be tapped into and downloaded, something has got to give eventually. That something is the patience and understanding to let an album grow on you, which is why when we’re presented with NME’s ‘Top 50 albums of the decade’ we’re left pondering Julian Casablancas’ statement on getting top slot: “does it mean it’s a good musical decade or a bad musical decade?”
With The Libertines and Babyshambles getting two slots each, the question is maybe answered for us. Surely the past ten years has yielded a much richer harvest than this meagre allotment?
Muse’s behemoth third album, ‘Absolution’ holds epic sound that sees the three-piece backtrack from the harsh, raw tones of ‘Origin of Symmetry’ to a carefully crafted and sometimes fragile piece of art that is both massively heavy (Hysteria) and elegantly gentle (Falling Away With You) in equal measures. This decade has seen Muse voted Best Live Act at every conceivable awards ceremony and become one of the most talked about modern bands on the planet.
Stick Pete at number two. Why not?
“Oh, what’s that you say? Pete Doherty is cool, is he? Oh…we better only make Absolution number forty-nine, then. Stick Pete at number two. We’ll have to get Barat up there too.”
Despite the top fifty albums appearing upside-down at times, at least the likes of PJ Harvey, Blur, The White Stripes and Arcade Fire are mentioned. However, where are Kasabian – who unarguably catapulted from obscurity to one of the biggest bands in the country from their self-titled album in 2004 and the two albums that followed.
What of Doves – a band which, for me personally, typified everything about the culture, mindset and society that we have lived in during the last ten years in their four albums, with era-defining tracks There Goes The Fear, Black And White Town and Snowden. What kind of world is it where the Klaxons are more note-worthy than these? Oh I forgot – Klaxons where skinny jeans…my bad.
Franz Ferdinand, Frausdots, TV On The Radio, Death Cab, Postal Service, Manic Street Preachers – none are given recognition. Maybe these bands didn’t shake up the world with their noughties renditions, but they definitely deserve to be up in the top fifty. Judging from this list, there must’ve been too few (or too many?) albums of specific note during this first jiffy of the 21st century.