Rolling Stone's 100 Best Albums of the 2000s

Rolling Stone's 100 Best Albums of the 2000s

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100.

Leonard Cohen - Ten New Songs
October 9, 2001
Critic Score
79
8 reviews

Ten New Songs manages to sustain loss's fragile beauty like never before and might just be the Cohen's most exquisite ode yet to the midnight hour.

99.

The Hold Steady - Almost Killed Me
March 16, 2004
Critic Score
73
9 reviews
Bizarrely touching and insanely original.

98.

TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
September 12, 2006
Critic Score
87
27 reviews

Evoking Fear of Music Talking Heads, Station to Station David Bowie and Sign ‘O’ the Times Prince, the resulting disc might be the most oddly beautiful, psychedelic and ambitious of the year.

97.

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
May 15, 2007
Critic Score
76
24 reviews

Sky Blue Sky is understated, erratic, often beautiful, disarmingly simple music; it really sounds like six guys playing in a room, and no doubt that's how they wanted it.

96.

The Streets - Original Pirate Material
October 22, 2002
Critic Score
86
14 reviews
On the evidence of this excellent debut, few people can challenge Skinner right now except himself.

95.

Alicia Keys - Songs in A Minor
June 5, 2001
Critic Score
76
9 reviews

94.

The Libertines - Up The Bracket
October 14, 2002
Critic Score
75
10 reviews
Eventually every song will kick in from a slightly different angle, including faux folk and cracked ballad.

93.

Johnny Cash - Unearthed
November 25, 2003
Critic Score
88
5 reviews

92.

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
July 8, 2007
Critic Score
85
23 reviews

For Emma, Forever Ago never turns into a pity party, because Vernon has a light touch, with zero interest in narrative or confessional lyrics.

90.

Amadou & Mariam - Dimanche a Bamako
August 2, 2005
Critic Score
82
6 reviews

89.

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
June 9, 2003
Critic Score
83
19 reviews

Despite the anger and bitterness, Hail to the Thief is more musically inviting than Radiohead's last two outings. The album's fourteen tracks ... are more tuneful and song-focused than 2000's Kid A or 2001's Amnesiac.

88.

Brian Wilson - SMiLE
September 28, 2004
Critic Score
92
19 reviews

It's looser and messier than Sgt. Pepper and, one suspects, always would have been. But its sui generis Americanism counterbalances its paucity of classic pop songs.

87.

Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
April 24, 2006
Critic Score
79
29 reviews

There's a creeping dementia to all of St. Elsewhere, the genre-bending debut from the Goodie Mob rapper-crooner and Gorillaz beat-brewer Danger Mouse.

86.

The Postal Service - Give Up
February 18, 2003
Critic Score
79
15 reviews
Tamborello's delightful pings and whistles (try the pixie-dust drum-and-bass of "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight") fit Gibbard's whimsy perfectly.

85.

June 17, 2008
Critic Score
73
33 reviews

Coldplay's desire to unite fans around the world with an entertainment they can all relate to is the band's strength, and a worthy goal. But on Viva la Vida, a record that wants to make strong statements, it's also a weakness.

84.

Eminem - The Eminem Show
May 26, 2002
Critic Score
72
9 reviews
Eminem just may have made the best rap-rock album in history.

83.

The Black Keys - Attack & Release
April 1, 2008
Critic Score
74
23 reviews
Burton was drafted to produce the next album by the group from Akron, Ohio, and the result is the Keys' most multicolored set.

82.

Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R
June 6, 2000
Critic Score
82
12 reviews

It's a strange, category-evading rock record, a mystery disc of gravity and low humor, of punk aggression and love-bead contentment; when you try to nail down the band's personality, it won't stay still.

81.

Ryan Adams - Gold
September 25, 2001
Critic Score
78
11 reviews

Gold lacks the concise ache of Adams' indie solo prize from last year, Heartbreaker, but it is stronger on naked truth.

79.

The New Pornographers - Electric Version
May 6, 2003
Critic Score
75
12 reviews
Despite their hookiness, the thirteen uniformly upbeat tracks do sound a little too samey at times.

78.

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
July 5, 2005
Critic Score
91
26 reviews
For a musician like Stevens, going too far and trying too hard is the point, the way to get beyond where a more austere songwriter could get with a more naturalistic pose. So the most pleasurable music here is the most ambitious.

77.

Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
February 22, 2000
Critic Score
84
8 reviews

Kaplan and Hubley sing their most confessional, intimate lyrics ever, over whispery guitars, brushed percussion, vibes and organ drones. It's a spell of blissful, psychedelic make-out music ... these songs are great - heartfelt, rugged, melodically sumptuous enough to keep unfolding after dozens of spins, full of folk-rock flesh and blood.

76.

Sigur Rós - ( )
October 28, 2002
Critic Score
82
14 reviews
This impressive follow-up sounds remarkably similar -- it's just packaged more pretentiously.

75.

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
March 5, 2007
Critic Score
85
30 reviews

On Neon Bible, the reverb is so big and black that the beat becomes boom andthe orchestral garnish, arranged by Chassagne and Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett, gets pressed to the margins.

73.

Coldplay - Parachutes
July 10, 2000
Critic Score
80
11 reviews

Coldplay make straight-ahead, melodic Brit pop that strives for significance with a capital s, even as it has a hard time shaking its influences — you can also hear the ethereal guitar chime of U2, a bit of Dave Matthews’ breathy folk implosion, even a misting of Roger Waters-era Pink Floyd.

72.

Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
February 9, 2004
Critic Score
85
18 reviews
The inevitable U.K.-press hype is justified: Franz Ferdinand's debut draws from beloved Brit pop and post-punk bands without the usual plagiarism. Favoring sweaty, uncertain rhythms over cold, processed beats, the album remains true to the band's original goal.

70.

Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
May 24, 2005
Critic Score
85
19 reviews

More than any previous Sleater-Kinney record, The Woods reflects the classic-rock undercurrent that runs through the punk heroines' live shows.

69.

Missy Elliott - Under Construction
November 12, 2002
Critic Score
81
14 reviews

Under Construction, uninhibited and unpredictable, is her best yet.

68.

U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
November 23, 2004
Critic Score
74
20 reviews

This is grandiose music from grandiose men, sweatlessly confident in the execution of their duties.

67.

Björk - Vespertine
August 27, 2001
Critic Score
84
17 reviews

Vespertine is a particle beam in comparison, as weightless as light but concentrated with direction.

66.

ANOHNI and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
February 1, 2005
Critic Score
88
21 reviews

Even in duets with Rufus Wainwright and Boy George, Antony is the dominant voice of solitude and agonized waiting.

64.

Gillian Welch - Time (The Revelator)
July 31, 2001
Critic Score
82
9 reviews

Welch ... documents the King's reckless abandon on "Elvis Presley Blues," proving that even a country balladeer can fantasize about running wild.

63.

Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak
November 24, 2008
Critic Score
75
32 reviews

Many of his best songs have focused on his ambivalence about materialism, but on 808s & Heartbreak, the theme has hardened into schtick.

61.

The Shins - Oh, Inverted World
June 19, 2001
Critic Score
82
8 reviews
Clocking in at barely more than half an hour, these eleven songs whiz by in a gorgeous blur, over far too soon.

60.

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
May 26, 2009
Critic Score
81
30 reviews
The 10 songs are sleek and clean, as if the Strokes had kept pushing a little longer and maybe bought some old disco records.

59.

Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
August 20, 2002
Critic Score
82
11 reviews

Interpol’s sleek, melancholy sound is a thing of glacial beauty.

58.

Danger Mouse - The Grey Album
February 3, 2004
Critic Score
88
9 reviews

57.

Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
October 7, 2003
Critic Score
80
15 reviews

Transatlanticism should be overwrought — it's an album about young men enduring lost love in an ocean of memory; instead, it feels like a conversation with an old friend.

56.

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
January 29, 2008
Critic Score
82
27 reviews

On their debut, Vampire Weekend mostly earn points the old-fashioned way: by writing likable songs you'll be glad to revisit next month.

55.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
October 23, 2007
Critic Score
82
15 reviews

Skilled and inspired though it is, Raising Sand's relaxed, smoky harmonies and reverbed midtempo rockabilly don't always achieve the back-porch revelation they're going for. But they do both icons a world of good.

54.

Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
February 26, 2002
Critic Score
79
6 reviews
She sings in an earthy growl that can send chills, or a conspiratorial whisper that suggests she's sharing sworn secrets, or a weary sigh that exudes the kind of quiet, easygoing intimacy that doesn't come around in songs too much anymore.

53.

Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
September 23, 2008
Critic Score
65
26 reviews

Only by the Night is long on astral, arena-ready largeness, with blippy keyboards, droney guitars and whoa-oh-oh backing vocals.

52.

M.I.A. - Arular
March 22, 2005
Critic Score
86
22 reviews

M.I.A.’s long-awaited full-length debut, Arular, is every bit as stunning as “Galang”: weird, playful, unclassifiable, sexy, brilliantly addictive.

51.

Spoon - Kill The Moonlight
August 20, 2002
Critic Score
78
8 reviews
Original Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-albums-of-the-2000s-20110718
Comments
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5y
Again, no Modest Mouse - but you're putting Bob Dylan in one of the top-10 spots. What a joke. Maybe move Dylan over to make room for a more contemporary act. No Moon and Antarctica - no Good News for People Who Love Bad News. Ridiculous.
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