When we discussed our favorite years for music, we somehow omitted one of our favorite decades: the Naughties (2000-2009). Although none of these years pop like 1994, 1977, or 2015, the decade brought a steady stream of great music. Rock gasped for a final breath of pop relevance, EDM emerged from the void left in its wake, hip-hop became a bona fide cash cow, and country music ex-communicated a band whose name evoked slavery for not being conservative enough (the Chicks have since dropped the “Dixie”). Read about our favorite music below and listen to our picks on Spotify.
Caleb’s picks
The first decade of my adult life was a transitional time. I moved South (Atlanta) then West (Boulder) then out (Milan). I began the decade by lugging leather CD books in a hockey bag (this was before airlines enforced weight limits), and ended it with 30,000 songs in my pocket. It’s a good thing too, because it would take an abandoned shopping mall to store all of the great music from the 2000s in disc-form. Here are twenty-five albums from the decade that I would have jammed into my carry-on had the iPod not been invented.
1. Boys and Girls in America - The Hold Steady (2006)
Boys and Girls in America changed the way I write songs. Its unprecedented ambition-to-pretension ratio also changed the amount of bullshit I was willing to tolerate while listening to other artists. After hearing the Hold Steady, abstractions like “the horizon has been defeated” or bongwash like “the tires are the things on your car that make contact with the road” no longer held my attention. I wanted to hear about girls who spend a week getting high after putting $900 on the fifth horse from the sixth race, Izzy Stradlin-lookalikes who wake up quoting Tennyson in the chill-out tent, and drunk and exhausted but critically acclaimed poets who miscalibrate their aerodynamic capabilities.
Quintessential Lyric:
“There are nights I think
Sal Paradise was right
Boys and girls in America
They have such a sad time together.”
Song Picks: “Stuck Between Stations,” “First Night,” “Party Pit”
2. Come on Feel the Illinoise - Sufjan Stevens
The plan was to create an album for each state. Sufjan’s home state inspired the 2003 gem “Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State,” an album that I nearly included on this list. But after Sufjan crossed the lake to document Illinois in a seventy-four-minute masterpiece of maximalist folk, I think he must have realized that there was no way to repeat the magic on this album for the remaining 48 states.
Quintessential lyric:
“I hide in my bed with the lights on the floor
Wearing three layers of coats and leg warmers
I see my own breath on the face of the door”
Song Picks: “Chicago,” “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” “Casimir Pulaski Day”
3. Decoration Day - Drive-by Truckers (2003)
Decoration Day features a little bit of twang, a lot of guitar, and three of our generation’s greatest songwriters singing about blood feuds, religion, incest, bank foreclosures, drinking, unplanned pregnancy, loaded shotguns, and running off with the maid of honor while the bride’s left standing at the altar.
Quintessential lyric:
“By the time you were born there were four other siblings
With your mama awaiting your daddy in jail”
Song Picks: “Decoration Day,” “My Sweet Annette,” “Marry Me”
4. Stankonia - Outkast (2000)
Outkast was the gateway drug that got me hooked on Tupac, Nas, and A Tribe Called Quest.
Quintessential lyric:
“Inslumnational, underground
Thunder pounds when I stomp the ground
Like a million elephants or silverback orangutan
You can't stop the train”
Song picks: “Ms. Jackson,” “Spaghetti Junction,” “Humble Mumble”
5. Separation Sunday - The Hold Steady (2005)
Separation Sunday is my favorite concept album, though the concept is the druggy little messed up teenage life of a hoodrat named Hallelujah (her friends called her Holly), a sweet girl with some not-sweet friends who walks around on shady streets half-naked and three-quarters wasted, and gets screwed up by religion, screwed by soccer players, dusted in the dark up in Penetration Park, and strung out on the banks of Mississippi river only to be reborn crashing into the Easter mass with her hair done up in broken glass and limping left on broken heels.
Quintessential Lyric:
“I guess I heard about original sin: I heard the dude blamed the chick, I heard the chick blamed the snake.
And I heard they were naked when they got busted, and I heard things ain't been the same since.”
Song picks: “Your Little Hoodrat Friend”, “How a Resurrection Really Feels,” “Cattle and the Creeping Things.”
6. Midnight Organ Fight - Frightened Rabbit (2008)
Midnight Organ Fight burns like a brushfire on a cold, stormy night. The flames roar and retreat but never cure your longing for human heat.
Quintessential Lyric:
“You’re the shit and I’m knee-deep in it.”
Song picks: “Fast Blood,” “I Feel Better,” “Head Rolls Off”
7. In Rainbows - Radiohead (2007)
In Rainbows is neither the most ambitious nor the most influential Radiohead album, but I’ve listened to it more than any of their other albums (The Bends is a distant second). Radiohead merge the angst (“15 step”), the discordant (“Body Snatchers”), the sad (“Nude”), the creepy (“House of Cards”, “All I Need”), and even the romantic (““Weird Fishes / Arpeggi”). This album earns bonus points for being a great case study on pricing: Radiohead let fans pay whatever they wanted to download the album when it was released.
Quintessential Lyric:
“Don’t get any big ideas
They’re not gonna happen”
Song picks: “House of Cards,” “Nude,” “Reckoner”
8. Elephant - The White Stripes (2003)
The White Stripes channel everyone from Led Zeppelin (Seven Nation Army) and Dusty Springfield (“I Just Don’t Know What to do With Myself”) to Shel Silverstein (“The Hardest Button to Button”) and Chicken Soup for the Soul (“Little Acorns”) to create a sound that is all their own.
Quintessential lyric:
“I had opinions that didn’t matter
I had a brain that felt like pancake batter
I got a backyard with nothing in it
Except a stick, a dog, and a box with something in it”
Song picks: “I Want to be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart,” “The Hardest Button to Button,” “The Air Near My Fingers”
9. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - The Flaming Lips (2002)
In “All We Have is Now,” the Lips sing: “As logic stands you couldn’t meet a man who’s from the future. But logic broke.” This dizzying concept album about an adolescent Japanese girl taking vitamins and honing her karate chops to take on an army of evil-natured pink robots is an ode to the beauty of broken logic.
Quintessential lyric:
“I don’t know where the sunbeams end
And the starlights begin
It’s all a mystery.”
Song picks: “Fight Test,” “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1,” “Do You Realize”
10. I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning - Bright Eyes (2005)
Bright Eyes had flirted with brilliance before (“Something Vague”, “Bowl of Oranges”) but had never released anything as consistent or resonant as “I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning.” From the opening plane crash (“It’s your birthday party – Happy birthday, darling!”) to the closing Beethoven tribute (“Fuck it up boys, let’s make some noise”), this album is pure, uncut Conor Oberst.
Quintessential lyric:
“I have my drugs, I have my woman
They keep away my loneliness
My parents they have their religion
But sleep in separate houses”
Song picks: “First Day of my Life,” “Road to Joy,” “Lua”
11. Southern Rock Opera - Drive-by Truckers (2001)
To paraphrase Springsteen, I learned more history from Southern Rock Opera than I ever learned in school. Far from the racially blind nostalgia that fueled Skynyrd’s fans and that Tom Petty repeatedly try to walk back, the Truckers describe the good and bad, light and dark, love and hate, young and old, kind and cruel, redeeming and unforgivable.
Quintessential lyric:
“Ain't about no hatred, better raise a glass
It's a little about some rebels, but it ain't about the past
Ain't about no foolish pride, Ain't about no flag
Hate's the only thing that my truck would want to drag”
Song picks: “Zip City,” “Three Great Alabama Icons/Wallace,” “The Southern Thing”
12. Sources, Tags, and Codes - …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead (2002)
When I was in college, I had one of those pre-iPod mp3 players that could only hold 15 songs on it. 11 of them were from this album.
Quintessential Lyric:
“You'll never see the light
In the darkest night
Never see the light
Never see the light
When the boredom comes
If you're one of the boring ones”
Song Picks: “It Was There (That I Saw You)”, “How Near How Far,” “Sources, Tags, & Codes”
13. St. Elsewhere - Gnarls Barkley (2006)
“Crazy” stands with “Billie Jean” and “Waterfalls” as examples of pure pop perfection. In the summer of 2006, you could hear this song on top-40, alternative, hip-hop, R&B, college, and even classic rock radio stations. And “Crazy” is just the tip of the icechip. The whole album is brilliant, from the Violent Femmes cover (“Gone Daddy Gone”) and Confucian rapping (“Feng Shui”) to the soulful odes to oddity (“Who Cares”) and depression (“Just a Thought”).
Quintessential Lyric:
“I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place”
Song picks: “Crazy,” “Just a Thought,” “Who Cares”
14. Back to Black - Amy Winehouse (2006)
Winehouse became a tragic cliché joining rock and roll visionaries (Robert Johnson, Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Pigpen, Cobain) who burn out by 27, but “Back to Black” shows that she was never fated to fade away.
Quintessential lyric:
“I told you I was trouble,
You know that I’m no good”
Song picks: “You Know I’m No Good,” “Tears Dry on Their Own,” “Rehab”
15. The Creek Drank the Cradle - Iron & Wine
Sam Beam’s lyrics, voice, guitar, and production paint meticulous portraits of the dust hiding between the cracks of an antique rocking chair.
Quintessential lyric:
“We found your name across the chapel door
Carved in cursive with a table fork
Muddy hymnals and some boot marks where you'd been”
Song picks:
“Over the Mountain,” “Muddy Hymnal,” “Southern Anthem”
16. Good News for People Who Love Bad News - Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse married the ominous jangly indie dirges of their youth (e.g., “Dramamine,” “Custom Concern”) with a patchwork of punk, pop, folk, and Swordfishtrombones to craft their biggest, bounciest, boisterousest, and best work to date.
Quintessential lyric:
“If God controls the land and disease
And keeps a watchful eye on me
If he's really so damn mighty
Well, my problem is I can't see
Who would wanna be
Who would wanna be such a control freak?”
Song picks: “Ocean Breathes Salty, “The Good Times Are Killing Me,” “Bukowski”
17. Picaresque - The Decemberists
Rumor has it that Colin Meloy ordered a subliminal learning cassette to improve his athletic prowess, but the company was out of the subliminal sportsman and sent him a vocabulary enhancer instead [see below]. The result? An album of suicide and murder ballads cloaked in aristocratic argot: palaver payments, barrow boys beneath the tamaracks, barren baronesses in palanquin pachyderm parades, and rakes and roustabouts with debonair and charming airs.
Quintessential lyric:
“Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters
Drag him to a hole until he wakes up, naked
Clawing at the ceiling of his grave"
Song picks: “The Mariner’s Revenge Song,” “We Both Go Down Together,” “The Bagman’s Gambit”
Click here for more on Colin’s vocabulary enhancer
18. How it Ends - Devotchka
Devotchka broke out of burlesque houses to craft gipsy jingles with strings, accordion, theramin, tuba, bouzouki, tenor triangle, and an ensemble of percussion instruments I’m not knowledgeable enough to name. Their name and sound are Eastern European, although they hail straight outa Colfax (or some other Denver avenue).
Quintessential lyric:
“There's something missing
When you're kissing me
It's subtle yet it's gone”
Song picks: “How it Ends,” “Such a Lovely Thing,” “We’re Leaving”
19. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
An album with twin towers on the cover that was originally supposed to be released on September 11, 2001, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot got Wilco dropped from its record label before becoming essential listening for hippies, frat boys, and acid-eating prep schoolers (link below). A lot of the lyrics are gibberish (“I am an American aquarium drinker, I assassin on the avenue”), but the music is magical. This album made it silly to describe Wilco as being an “alt country” band or to overlook Jeff Tweedy as being a visionary talent.
Quintessential lyric:
“I would like to salute
The ashes of American flags
And all the fallen leaves
Filling up shopping bags”
Song picks: “Jesus, etc.”, “I’m the Man Who Loves You,” “Ashes of American Flags”
Quote source: Pitchfork
20. The ‘59 Sound - The Gaslight Anthem
As the title suggests, the Gaslight Anthem’s finest work is unapologetically nostalgic, although it sounds more like Bruce Springsteen fronting the Ramones than Doo-Wap, Elvis, Jackie Wilson, or anything resembling 1959.
Quintessential Lyric:
“I always dreamed of classic cars and movie screens, and tryin' to find some way to be redeemed”
Song Picks: “The Backseats,” “59 Sound,” “Old White Lincoln”
21. Welcome Back Dear Children - Arizona
“Welcome Back, Dear Children” is disturbing at moments, beautiful throughout, and, will challenge even the most austere listener. “Te Amo Tanto” is an astounding opening. Like Pearl Jam’s “Once”, Jeff Buckley’s “Mojo Pin”, or Elvis Costello’s “Welcome to the Working Week”, the song boldly proclaims, We are here, we have something to say, and you better fucking listen. The album follows with bangers (“Sommersby,” “Splintering”), dreamers (“Diventa Blu”, “Waking Up”), pop nuggets (“Some Kind of Chill”, “Stay with Who You Know”), and a song (“Through the Soot”) that sounds like Elliott Smith playing country music. Tragically, I can’t find this album on Spotify. You may have to patronize Bandcamp or Amazon to hear it.
Quintessential Lyric: “I know you hate the dark, so now I’m pearly white”
Song picks: “Through the Soot,” “Splintering,” “Te Amo Tanto”
22. Stay Positive - The Hold Steady
Stay Positive is prototypical Hold Steady: meat-and-potatoes rock and roll sagas of slapped actresses, Zeppelin snobs, punks, skins, greaser guys, and hoodrat miscreants drinking atop water towers, abetting townie knifings, and getting nailed against dumpsters, subpoenaed in Texas, and sequestered in Memphis. You don’t have to dig deep into “One for the Cutters” to find the seed for our band.
Quintessential lyric:
“Me and my friends are like
The drums on “Lust for Life’”
Song picks: “One for the Cutters,” “Yeah Sapphire,” “Sequestered in Memphis”
23. For Emma, Forever Ago - Bon Iver
I would have ranked this album higher if I understood what Bon Iver (nee Justin Vernon) was singing. What the words lack in meaning, they make up for in feeling. And the feeling in these songs will bury you like a blade of grass in the Wisconsin snow.
Quintessential Lyric:
“In the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different kind
And I'll be holding all the tickets
And you'll be owning all the fines”
Song Picks: Flume, Skinny Love, Stacks
24. The Dirty South - Drive-by Truckers
DBT were on fire in the Naughties. The Dirty South continued the momentum of Southern Rock Opera (#11) and Decoration Day (#3) by painting the duality of the southern thing in all its dirty, speedy, boozy, illicit, and goddamn lonely glory.
Quintessential lyric:
“The preacher on the TV says it ain't too late for me, but I bet he drives a Cadillac and I'm broke with hungry mouths to feed.”
Song picks: “Where the Devil Don’t Stay,” “Daddy’s Cup,” “Puttin’ People on the Moon”
25. Boxer - The National
The National didn’t resonate with me until I moved to Milan and it rained for 20 days straight. They now accompany Nick Cave (who sounds like them) and Radiohead (who do not) as my go-to when the sky feels too heavy.
Quintessential Lyric:
“We’re half-awake in a fake empire”
Song picks: Slow Show, Fake Empire, Start a War
Nate’s Picks
Trouble - Ray Lamontagne (2004)
Easy folk with a voice so raspy and full you’d swear he traded his soul for it at the crossroads.
Lyric:
“Been so long since I seen your face, or felt a part of this human race,
I’ve been living out of this here suitcase for way too long."
Key songs: Trouble, Shelter, How Come, Jolene
Abattoir Blues Tour - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (2007)
Deep, dark, and rocking. Imagine gothic cathedrals in Europe dripping with Nick Cave’s signature tenor. Simply magic.
Lyric:
“He’ll wrap you in his arms, tell you that you’ve been a good boy,
He’ll rekindle all the dreams, it took lifetime to destroy”
Key songs: O Children, Red Right Hand, Stagger Lee, Babe You Turn Me On, and Lay Me Low
The Deepest End: Live in Concert - Gov’t Mule (2003)
Live album recorded in New Orleans in 2003 as a tribute to the band’s late bassist Allen Woody, this album has so many special guests it’s sick. Les Claypool, Jason Newsted, George Porter Jr., Dave Schools, Mike Gordon, Rob Wasserman, and Victor Wooten added their low end charm. On horns Karl Denson and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band wailed. Bela Fleck on banjo, and Sonny Landreth on slide guitar, just amazing.
Lyric:
“Fate should not have blinded me, for your beauty steal my eyes,
And what good is my wisdom, when there are no words to say, how I feel everyday,
But I shall return.”
Key songs: John the Revelator, Beautifully Broken, Time to Confess, Banks of the Deep End, 32/20 Blues (!!!), I Shall Return, and of course, Soulshine
Funeral - The Arcade Fire (2004)
Something about this music used to transport me away, like a good book, fusing the reality of our cruel world and the playful whimsy of what could be.
Lyric: “ As the day grows dim, I hear you sing a golden hymn, It’s the song I’ve been trying to sing…".
Key songs: Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels), Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles), Wake Up, Haiti
Up from Below - Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros (2009)
Desert vagabond music. Hippy drum circles. New age crystal singing. Just a few of the images conjured by this amorphous arrangement of musicians. This might be the perfect road trip album, and that’s a tough category. I know it could be perceived as cheesy, but I remember hauling our huge camper trailer down the highway with my family singing “home is wherever I’m with you,” and living it.
Lyric: “I was only five when my dad told me I’d die. I cried as he said son, ‘twas nothing could be done. Now all the fists I’ve thrown just tryin’ to prove him wrong, after all the blood I spilled, just tryin’ to get killed”
Key songs: 40 Day Dream, Home, Up from Below, Jade, Brother, Om Nashi Me
Old Crow Medicine Show (2004)
Americana? Bluegrass? Drug-fueled hillbilly hootenanny hooligans? These guys were discovered by Doc Watson buskin outside a pharmacy in Boone, NC in 2000. What a story they can tell.
Lyric: “I made it down the coast in seventeen hours, picking’ me a bouquet of dogwood flowers, and I’m hopin’ for Raleigh, I can see my baby tonight”
Key songs: Tell it to Me, Big Time in the Jungle, Hard to Love, CC Rider, Take ‘Em Away, and of course Wagon Wheel
Emotionalism - The Avett Brothers (2007)
Americana at its finest. A mix of bluegrass, folk, and rock with songwriting chops to match these brothers’ angelic harmonizing. So many good songs but this album made me fall in love with the Avett Brothers.
Lyric: “I once heard the worst thing a man can do is draw a hungry crowd, tell everyone his name in pride and confidence, but leaving out his doubts”
Key songs: Shame, The Weight of Lies, The Ballad of Love and Hate, Salina, Living of Love
Trey Anastasio (2002)
Self-titled (literally;) album from the guitar virtuoso of Phish, released during the band’s first hiatus. This band included influences from jazz, funk, High-life African, and latin. High energy shows and driving beats accompanied Trey’s psychedelic noodling on guitar.
Lyric: "Quietly you say to me, the time has come for you to be alive again”
Key songs: Alive Again, Cayman Review, Push on ’Til the Day, Night Speaks to a Woman, Last Tube, Ether Sunday
Attack & Release - The Black Keys (2008)
Dirty low-fi grunge rust-belt Ohio garage blues, until A&R. This Danger Mouse produced album elevated The Black Keys into stardom.
Lyric:
"Walked into the battle blind It happens almost all the time
The yard is kinda overgrown
And all those happy times are gone”
Key songs: I Got Mine, Psychotic Girl, Lies, Oceans & Streams, Things Ain’t Like They Used to Be
Adam’s picks
I’ll add, in no particular order…
Smashing Pumpkins - Machina
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
A Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms
QOTSA - Songs for the Deaf
Sigur Ros - ( )
The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute
The National - Alligator
Tool - Lateralus
NIN - Still
Pinback - Autumn of the Seraphs
Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Secret Machines - Now Here is Nowhere
Tokyo Police Club - Elephant Shell
Gorillaz - Demon Days
Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Low - Trust
…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Source Tags & Codes
The Microphones - The Glow, Pt. 2
Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
The Decemberists - Her Majesty the Decemberists
Cake - Comfort Eagle
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
John’s picks
John says that he was too busy raising children and software companies to remember any music from this decade.