Best of the '00s - Music!!

It's almost the end of the 2000s, and aside from a few bands that are gonna try to squeeze in albums before the decade is out, it's safe to say that the nominations are in. Here are a few preliminary lists, followed by some preliminary defense of my evaluations.

I did try to be objective , but there's a degree of subjectivity involved in all this, so sorry to you ultra-Beck or Ben Folds fans, you didn't even make it on the Looked Over list.

Best Bands:

not including leftover bands from the 90s

The Libertines

Gorillaz

The Strokes

The Shins

You might say I overrated the Libertines, and you'd be wrong - love 'em or hate 'em, they were the biggest innovators in post-millenial music. Musically they lose out slightly to the Strokes, who brought back the pop-apathetic rock band by fusing punk and garage rock a couple years earlier.

However, the Libertines were themselves a movement, with complete disregard for the conventions of rock stardom. They used the Internet first - and more impactfully I might add - than Radiohead or Arctic Monkeys by inviting fans to less-than-secret shows in local pubs, then invited everyone back to their apartment, gave out free music and Pete's own diaries, etc.

Pete Doherty is the last great rock star, and I won't add any unnecessary examplage or substantiation to this claim; just open any issue of Clash. Also, there would probably be no Amy Winehouse without Pete Doherty, though I wouldn't give two shits. Pete and Carl's music and lyrics are timeless, epic, poetic, and simply classic. The Libertines are the greatest band of this decade for roughly the same reasons that Nirvana was the greatest band of the last.

As far as the other best bands, the Strokes are the Strokes, the Shins took large steps forward for folk and experimental folk (honorable mention to Zach Braff), and Gorillaz are just fucking awesome when you think about it.

Best Albums:

Kid A

Funeral

Is This It

College Dropout

The Libertines

By the Way

The Eminem Show

Demon Days

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

In Rainbows

Alice

Fever to Tell

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Give Up

Morning View

Typical Cats

Parachutes

Return to Cookie Mountain

Cross

Myths of the Near Future

With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly

O

Third

The Milk-Eyed Mender

Antics

On and On

Most Underrated Acts:

The Clientele

The Fratellis

Jack Johnson

Typical Cats

Final Fantasy

Acts I've Most Blatantly Looked Over:

Wilco

MGMT

Death Cab for Cutie

Lil Wayne

Grizzly Bear

Fatboy Slim

White Stripes

John Mayer

Spoon

Lily Allen

The Decemberists

The Kooks

Of Montreal

TOP FIVE (Vol. 10) - Songs to Die to

This would make one epic playlist, by the way.

1. Videotape - Radiohead

2. Svefn-g-englar - Sigur Ros

3. Love - John Lennon

4. Just Like Honey - Jesus & Mary Chain

5. Night Bird Flying - Jimi Hendrix

6. I'm Coming Down - Primal Scream

7. Ceremony - New Order

8. The Great Gig in the Sky - Pink Floyd

9. Julia - The Beatles

10. Grand Polonaise Brillante, opus 22 - Frederic Chopin

11. Postcards from Far Away - Coldplay

12. Ellens Dritter Gesang - Franz Schubert

13. Next Exit - Interpol

14. Asleep - The Smiths

15. Perfect Day - Lou Reed

16. Only Shallow - My Bloody Valentine

17. A Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harem

18. Nude - Radiohead

19. The Sound of Confusion - Spacemen 3

20. Three Little Birds - Bob Marley & the Wailers

Cool It Down

Somebody took the papers, and somebody's got the key, And somebody nailed the door shut, that says hey what you think that you see. But me I'm down around the corner. You know I'm lookin for Miss Linda Lee, Because she's got the power to love me by the hour, gives me double you l-o-v-e. Hey baby if you want it so fast, don't you know that it ain't gonna last, Of course you know it makes no difference to me. Somebody's got the time time. Somebody's got the right. All of the other people tryin' to use up the night, But now me I'm out on the corner. You know I'm lookin' for Miss Linda Lee, Because she's got the power to love me by the hour, Gives me double you l-o-v-e.

The Ross Identity, or Where is My Mind?

Rock journalists have to be very careful about categorizing new bands. For example, they can't call some bands emo, because emo kids who find the term confining and insulting won't want to listen to them. Those emo kids are like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense or Jim Carrey in the Truman Show or the girl you're flirting with who has a grotesque booger slowly ebbing down out of her left nostril; they're living a bald-faced lie. (And they'll never get their cake - also: lie) No one is permitted to inform them of who they really are.

Which is unsettling, isn't it?

I mean. Most of the people I know are in a similar predicament. Aside from a few (privileged?) people, all of whom have attended Emerson College where it's impossible to ignore (like attending clown college and claiming to hate the sound of laughter), all my friends despise the term "hipster." Understandably so, I suppose. I mean, hipsters are really an extreme, contrived version of people who actually cannot be categorized without mentioning their birthplace or birth date. '90s slackers, for instance, didn't premeditate their plain t-shirts and bored faces, that's just what was on the sale rack at Ross that week - and I always have that face on after an hour and a half at Ross.

When I go shopping, I want to buy pants that fit my legs. Generally. Said pants eventually compile holes. What can you do? I listen to music that makes me feel something (good, sad, whatever it is). The fact that this music happens to be largely made between 1962 and 2009 is not my fault. So, why I am a hipster?

Not that many people have called me a hipster if the topic hadn't already come up, but what else don't I know that people might think that I am?

Now I know how Jackie Chan felt in Who Am I?, or Matt Damon in that dragged out espionage trilogy, or Ed Norton when the Pixies kick in....

TOP FIVE (Vol. 9) - Tracks and Books That Have Changed You

15. Life on Mars (Seu Jorge/David Bowie)

14. Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)

13. Adam's Song (Blink 182)

12. Grantchester Meadows (Pink Floyd)

11. The Only Living Boy in New York (Simon & Garfunkel)

10. Green Eyes (Coldplay)

9. Amie (Damien Rice)

8. Head Over Heels (Tears for Fears)

7. I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You (Colin Hay)

6. Within You, Without You (The Beatles)

5. Don't Look Back in Anger (Oasis)

4. Piano Man (Billy Joel)

3. God (John Lennon)

2. You Get What You Give (New Radicals)

1. Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Elton John)

5. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller

4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

3. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

2. Self-Reliance, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

1. Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett

Hey, haven't been here in a while. I can do this Top List

Music: For some I have to do albums, there are just too many songs

1). Trasatlanticism (album) -Death Cab for Cutie

2). The Wall -Pink Floyd

3). Narc -Interpol

4). Kid A (album) -Radiohead

5). Moonlight Sonata -Beethoven

6). Stunt -Barenaked Ladies

7). The World At Large -Modest Mouse

8). Piano Man -Billy Joel

9). Mr. Blue -Catherine Feeny

10). Night Moves/The Fire Inside -Bob Seger

11). American Beauty (album) -Thomas Newman

12). Bookstore -Jon Brion

13). It Ain't Me, Babe -Bob Dylan

14). Greatest Hits -Electric Light Orchestra

15). Biomusicology -Ted Leo & the Pharmacists

16). Return to Cookie Mountain -TV on The Radio

17). Everyone's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) -Baz Luhrmann

19). Peyoye Healing -Robbie Robertson

Books:

1). Long Day's Journey Into Night -Eugene O'Neill

2). There Will Come Soft Rains (short story) -Ray Bradbury

3). Slouching Towards Bethlehem -Joan Didion

4). The Things They Carried -Tim O'Brien

5). Sonny's Blues (short story) -James Baldwin

6). The American Pageant -Thomas Bailey

7). Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry -Mildred Taylor (that's going back to Middle School!)

Whoa, I remember Roll of Thunder. That's like 3rd grade for me. I'm gonna read the two short stories.