Best Of The Decade

I am compiling a list of the best albums of this decade. It's hard to believe that we are quickly approaching 2010. The records released in this decade are incredibly important to me personally. Although my consciousness in music began in the 90's, the 00's is where I really grew up...beginning in those in limbo days of 2000, a world whose radio stations were either dominated by boy-band oriented tween pop, or the ear wrenching horror of nu metal and rap rock. From there, indie rock (sort of) emerged again in the form of a revived garage rock. There were a handful of bands that had the sound, all of which were quite different (it's odd that there was a time where The Strokes and The White Stripes were bound together so closely in the public's mind). From there, our sights turned back to the early eighties. A slew of bands emerged with post-punk as their template to varying success. This then led further down the influence market which gives us our mixed bag of sorts that we have today.

As for pop, it also made a huge turn around. With a few exceptions, pop music was at its most horrible at the end of the 90's, so much so it would seem it would never recover. Not so, as the mid 00's spawned a slew of pop acts (namely ones produced by Timbaland) that actually delivered catchy songs for the whole public, not just to 12-17 girls. With it, hip-hop picked up its slack that was given after the death of Biggie Smalls. While Eminem, still misogynist and hookless, reigned king at the beginning of the decade, he eventually went away, and everyone realized that Jay-Z was the king of the genre. The decade also found a return of cross genre breeding that was actually good. Damon Albarn of all people came up with a group (Gorillaz) that incorporated his britpop past with a number of genres, but most particularly hip-hop, and the results were fantastic.

I haven't come up with a number yet, but a countdown of the best of the decade will emerge soon, hopefully reaching it's end on new years eve or day. I hope you enjoy it.