UltraNormal

Some folks on twitter (I saw Mark Trammell and Corey Denis do it) have started posting their top albums from the 2000's. Now that's an idea I can get behind! So, here are my top albums from the 2000-2004. I'm going to try to do just three albums per year, but I love my music, so we'll see how it goes. I'll post my favorites from the second half of the decade soon.

• 2000
  1. Eels - Daisies of the Galaxy: This is still my favorite Eels albums. It's heartbreaking and gorgeous throughout, except for the awesome and funny I Like Birds.
  2. The Crystal Method - Tweekend: Just for Name of the Game... that song is so awe-inspiringly awesome, there's no reason for any other song to be on the album. The clean version, the explicit one, doesn't matter. It's ten tons of kickass in a two pound sack.
  3. Amon Tobin - Supermodified: Unlike anything I'd heard before, or probably since. This album, a lot like Massive Attack's Mezzanine is still used in commercials, tv shows and movies to make you think something is futuristic or scary. I'll bet you've heard Get Your Snack On and Four Ton Mantis dozens of times.
• 2001
  1. Zero 7 - Simple Things: When I need to calm down and take a break, this is the band, and the album I turn to. The vocals are gorgeous and the music is lovely. In the Waiting Line and Simple Things are my favorite tracks, but I can listen to the whole thing on repeat for hours.
  2. Cake - Comfort Eagle: Yes, it's commercial rock, but it's infectious... oh so sweetly infectious. Short Skirt/Long Jacket is a fantastic song, and Comfort Eagle is great and not commercial at all. Give it up, this is just a great album.
  3. The Constantines - umm, The Constantines: If you want rock, you can't go wrong with this band. I've written about them several times before, and they just keep getting better. But, this album has some of their best all-out rockers, and one of my favorite ballads of all time: the haunting St. You.
  4. Gotan Project - La Revancha Del Tango: Oops, we've already broken the rules. Here's album number four from 2001, but I just couldn't leave it out. It's gorgeous latin tango with a trip hop twist and I still listen to this album all the time.
• 2002
  1. Lemon Jelly - Lost Horizons: Another album I can listen to on repeat for hours. This is the perfect coding music. It's got great hooks but just flows from track to track. It's not like anything else you'll hear, but it lovely nonetheless.
  2. Sigur Ros - ( ): This is the first album I got by the band and I was hooked. If you don't know who Sigur Ros is, shame on you. Second, go get this album. If you like it, then get Takk and everything else they've done.
  3. Luna - Close Cover Before Striking and Romantica: Cheating again! But, since they released two albums in the same year, and I love them both, you get a two for one. This band writes great songs that kind of fall outside of genres. I think that puts them firmly in "Alternative Rock", but that sells them short. They're just great songs, masterfully played and produced.
• 2003 - I am totally going to cheat on this one. 2003 was an amazing year of music.
  1. Fruit Bats - Mouthfuls: Kind of like Luna, these guys defy genre for me. They sound like a band out of another decade, but the songs are so... perfect... that I can't help but love them. I sing along with every one.
  2. The Wrens - Meadowlands: Enough feedback to fill a dozen albums, but these guys make it work somehow. Alternating between kicking ass and crying in their coffee, this is a great album to try to sing along with... if you can understand any of the words through the feedback.
  3. Eels - Shootenanny!: This album has my all-time favorite Eels song on it, and one of my favorite get-up-and-go tunes. Saturday Morning rocks. It's dumptrucking sugar in your morning cereal, playing outside from sun up to sun down and moving as fast as you can because there's daylight a-wastin'. It also has one of the greatest ballads of ever on it: Somebody Loves You.
  4. Sufjan Stevens - Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State: In one word, Sufjan Stevens' work is heartbreaking. Always artful, gorgeous and layered, you just can't get away from one of his albums without a tear in your eye.
  5. Mew - Frengers: Rockingly awesome and that's all. I can't really describe what's so great about this album, but it grabbed me from the first chord on the first song and doesn't let go through the whole thing.
  6. Massive Attack - 100th Window: It's not as good as Mezzanine, but it's still ten times better than almost everyone else. When Your Soul Sings is particularly good, though, and would have fit in nicely between Risingson and Teardrop on that album.
  7. The Polyphonic Spree - The Beginning Stages of the Polyphonic Spree: Jen calls them "Up With People for grownups"... and she's not really wrong. They're kind of goofy and happy, but the music's so damned good. It makes me smile every time. This is my favorite album of The Spree's three so far.
• 2004 - The year of the mashup!!
  1. The Kleptones - A Night at the Hip-Hopera: How can you go wrong mashing up classic Queen and hip-hop? You can't. Well, at least, they can't. I listened to just this album for over a month.
  2. Zero 7 - When It Falls: They successfully followed up Simple Things with another gorgeous album. The songs are a little more complex than on their first album, but still beautiful and mesmerizing.
  3. DJ BC and the Beastles - The Beastles: The Beatles + The Beastie Boys = AWESOME. It's so freaking good, especially Tripper Trouble and Mother Nature's Rump.
  4. Arcade Fire - Funeral: Granted, I didn't actually buy this album in 2004, but it's still really really good.
  5. David Byrne - Grown Backwards: I'm a huge David Byrne fan, and this is my favorite of his recent albums. I love his music because even though you really never know what you're going to get, it always sounds like a David Byrne song - which is a lot of fun.

There you go... I only cheated, well, a lot.