Category Archives: Best Albums of the 00s

Best Albums of the 00s: She & Him (Volume One)

Volume One - She & Him (2008)

The final entry (finally!) in my dozen favourite albums of the decade is also the one with the shortest running time on the list, She and Him’s Volume One (2008). ‘She’ is Hollywood actor Zooey Deschanel and ‘Him’ is singer-songwriter and musician M. Ward. The pair met on the set of a film called The Go-Getter where they recorded a version of Richard & Linda Thompson’s When I Get to the Border for its soundtrack. The pair got on well and Ward discovered that Deschanel had been writing songs for years, but had never pursued a musical career. She sent him demos of these songs and Ward was sufficiently impressed to offer to produce and play on the album. Over the years, many actors have added a musical side to their thespian talents and, more often than not, the resulting efforts have left much to be desired. For example, 2008 also brought another pairing of an indie musician with a Hollywood starlet. Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio played and produced Scarlett Johansson’s (mostly) covers album of songs by Tom Waits, Anywhere I Lay My Head. Unfortunately, Johansson’s project was let down by her weak voice

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Best Albums of the 00s: Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (2008)

The penultimate entry in my list of favourite albums released throughout the noughties is the debut offering from the Fleet Foxes. At first, I had avoided the band because they’d been the subject of a bit too much hype in the music press and online. I imagined that they were just another cool indie band, although this was before I had actually heard any of their music. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised when I got around to listening to them. The first song I heard was White Winter Hymnal and it encapsulates a lot of what the band is about. Straight away, the close harmony vocals reminded me of a certain American group from the sixties. As nearly every review or feature pointed out, the influence of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young was quite apparent. Certainly, the vocal harmonies, the a capella moments, and the elements of folk singing were borrowed from CSNY. Another vocal influence that is not as obvious at first, but becomes apparent after numerous listens, is the influence of gospel music which highlights the spiritual side of their music

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Best Albums of the 00s: In Rainbows

In Rainbows - Radiohead (2007)

It’s taken a little longer than expected, but I continue my look back at my favourite albums of the 00s with In Rainbows. In 2003, Radiohead’s deal with EMI concluded with the release of their sixth album, Hail to the Thief. Three years later, Thom Yorke released his first solo album, The Eraser. The members of the band were now in their late thirties, while Yorke became a father of two. There had been rumours of tension between band members, but they had been working away on a follow-up to Hail to the Thief over the previous couple of years. On October 1st, 2007, the band announced on its website that they had just completed their seventh album. No less than ten days later, In Rainbows was made available for download on a specially-created website. In a bold move, Radiohead cut out the middle man and released the album themselves and, in the process, allowed their fans and music lovers to pay as much or as little as they wished for the collection of ten mp3s. As if to highlight their estrangement from traditional music industry practices, the band did not release any singles or music videos, they did not give interviews to TV or to music magazines and so made no front covers. They didn’t even send out promo copies to reviewers; the music press and the common masses received the album at the same time. The band didn’t have to worry about any of these publicity and marketing gimmicks as their innovative idea was the biggest gimmick of them all

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Best Albums of the 00s: Raising Sand

Raising Sand - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss (2007)

The 2007 collaboration between the former lead singer of Led Zeppelin and an American bluegrass musician is number nine in my chronological countdown of the albums I’ve enjoyed the most since 2000. Raising Sand is a country-flavoured collection of thirteen cover versions of songs written by such renowned songwriters as Gene Clark, Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt. The songs were chosen by the album’s producer and guitarist, T-Bone Burnett, who also assembled the excellent band that includes such wonderful musicians as Marc Ribot and Norman Blake. The real delight, however, is the pretty impressive vocal collaboration between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, who also plays a mean fiddle. I must admit that I was surprised when I first heard that they would be working together

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Best Albums of the 00s: The Greatest

The Greatest - Cat Power (2006)

The third consecutive female artist on my favourite albums from the start of the 21st century is Cat Power and her album, The Greatest (2006). Cat Power is the stage name of the Georgia state-born vocalist Chan Marshall. I first came across her when I heard her stripped-down take on (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones. I checked out the album that contains that track, The Covers Record (2000), and was quite satisfied by her equally sparse versions of songs by acts like The Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan. I didn’t come across her again until I saw her performing barefooted on Later with Jools Holland in 2006. I was even more captivated by the two songs she performed that night, Lived in Bars and the title track from the album pictured above. This was her first album to include exclusively original material and it was also notable for its musical departure from her previous six albums that featured the minimalist guitar and piano sound I knew from The Covers Record

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Best Albums of the 00s: Ys

Ys - Joanna Newsom (2006)

The second album by Joanna Newsom is the seventh in my chronological review of albums from the last ten years. The 2006 album is called Ys and is pronounced like the plural form of the fifth letter of the alphabet. The album only contains five songs but comes in at just under the sixty minute mark; the shortest track is seven minutes long. It is, therefore, an album in the proper sense of the term and not the collection of singles that has become the norm in the digital age. In addition, Newsom abandons traditional rock instrumentation as she herself is a harpist and four of the tracks feature full orchestration arranged by the man who worked with the Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks. In this way, Ys has more in common with albums like Pet Sounds and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks than it does with contemporary ones

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Best Albums of the 00s: Songs of Love & Death

Songs of Love and Death - Emm Gryner (2005)

The first entry by a female singer on this chronological overview of my favourite albums from the last ten years is the second Canadian album on my list. Songs of Love and Death (2005) is Emm Gryner’s eight album and it was her second full album of cover versions. Her earlier effort, Girl Versions (2001), featured her interpretations of hard rock songs, while this one features eleven versions of songs originally recorded by Irish acts. So, I guess that makes this the second Irish album on my list as well. I first heard the album when a promo cd turned up at Wired FM, the college radio station where I foisted my musical tastes onto listeners for a number of years. I was certainly intrigued by the idea of this Canadian woman who I’d never heard of singing her versions of songs with which I was more or less familiar

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Best Albums of the 00s: Coles Corner

Coles Corner - Richard Hawley (2005)

Number five in the chronological list of my fave albums since 2000 is Richard Hawley’s Coles Corner (2005). It was the fourth of six albums that he released during the decade and it was the album that raised his musical profile and brought him to my attention. Part of the reason for the album’s success was due to its nomination for the 2006 Mercury Music Prize. Even though he lost out to the Arctic Monkeys for their debut album, they claimed in their acceptance speech that the prize should have gone to the man from their own town. Hawley was born in Sheffield in 1967 and began playing in bands in his early teens. He first tasted success as guitarist for the Longpigs and then drifted into session work before spending some time with Pulp. It was through encouragement from Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackay that Hawley recorded his first self-titled mini-album in 2000. Two more albums followed on Setanta before he switched to Mute Records for this album named after a part of Sheffield where lovers meet

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