Top 10 of the Decade? What?

It’s only 2009, but there’s already a Blog Tour going on for the 10 Best of the Decade. If you want a great way to catch up on what you’ve missed in the 2000s, then check out the link. I’ll admit it, I’m taking notes as I follow along.

But all this musing of a Top 10 list is making me itch to make up one of my own. Of course, there are severe limitations to this listing as a) this blog officially turned two years old last Thursday, b) I am not at all exposed to The Great Indie-ness that exists in music today, and c) I still have a hankering for radio-friendly tunes. But I do have a changing taste, and it might help anyone who pays attention to this blog to figure out what I considered remotely important within this decade. Plus, I get to procrastinate!

Final notes: Yes, they’re in order. No, not all of them got 5 stars, but I’d say all were at least 4 stars. If you’re a music snob, you might want to grab an extra heaping of salt and maybe you’ll finally get it down by the end. Also, 2005 was a great year.

Anberlin’s Never Take Friendship Personal (2005)
alt rock (read review)
Purchase: Amazon, myspace

Say what you want about Cities, but this was the real breakout album for this band. Somehow, no matter what new music I hear from them, I always come back to this album as what I know and love from Anberlin. Not particularly inventive lyrically or musically, but so effectively arranged that it can’t be ignored.
Switchfoot’s Learning to Breathe (2000)
alt rock, pop (read review)
Purchase: Amazon, myspace

This was the album that started my love affair with anything released by the band members of Switchfoot. I consider this album even better than their more popular The Beautiful Letdown for two reasons: first of all, this album had the original version of “I Dare You To Move,” and second, it was (what seems to be) the last time that Jon Foreman braved religious undertones in his writing. This is Switchfoot at their lyrical best, even if their arrangements hadn’t quite caught up yet.
Copeland’s In Motion (2005)
indie rock (read review)
Purchase: Amazon, myspace

I think the best way to describe this album is as a ’90s take on the classics from the ’60s and ’70s. It’s not an album filled with covers, but one with 10 songs that speak to real-time issues in a setting enhanced by clever recording and production. It’s timeless just because it doesn’t claim to be so. I credit this album for the creation of this blog and my quest to expand my musical horizons (it’s taking a while but it’s happening).
Jimmy Eat World’s Futures (2004)
alt rock, emo (read review)
Purchase: Amazon, myspace

If you ever want to hear what a band sounds like when they ‘grow up’ (that’s arguable, since a lot of the material on Clarity and Bleed American were mature), this is the album you have to hear. Jimmy Eat World broke the emo mold and it hasn’t been the same since.
Brand New’s The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me (2006)
indie, alt rock (read review)
Purchase: Amazon, myspace

Brand New is a consistent trend-setter in what’s considered ‘indie rock’ these days – which is a sad state of affairs – but that status was ceded to them because of this album. Completely different from Deja Entendu in practically every way, it’s a lyrical and sonic slap in the face and will never bore me even when I’m 80 (if I’m that lucky) and almost deaf.
The Starting Line’s Based On A True Story (2005)
pop punk (read review)
Purchase: Amazon, myspace

I really, really hate the genre name ‘pop punk,’ but if there was ever a band that did justice to it, it was TSL. Great lyrics (see “Bedroom Talk”) and an air of never taking themselves too seriously makes this one of my favorite albums to play over and over in sequence.
Explosions in the Sky’s The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (2003)
post-rock, experimental (read review)
Purchase: Amazon, myspace

There’s no such thing as a minimal review, especially when an album without lyrics evokes so much thinking and emotion like this one. I’ll just point you to the two songs that might change your life: “First Breath After Coma,” and “Your Hand In Mine.”
Imogen Heap’s Speak For Yourself (2005)
electronic pop (read review)
Purchase: Amazon, myspace

Note how Imogen Heap is the only female on this list. Her lyrics aren’t the weepy acoustic ballads or the attempts at power pop that most record labels try to market female artists with. Heap is refreshingly honest, clever, and extraordinarily inventive. I can’t think of a single song on this album that any male or female can’t relate to.
Appleseed Cast’s Peregrine (2006)
indie rock, post-rock (read review)
Purchase: Amazon, myspace

This album was the one that really gave me an appreciation for indie rock. This wasn’t an album put out by skinny teens aping what was already on the radio; it was (and remains) atmospheric, intense, and a complete mind-trip. The lyrics themselves are a puzzle that I have yet to figure out.
The New Frontiers – Mending (2008)
indie, acoustic (read review)
Purchase: Amazon, website

The fact that it’s 2009 and I’m still listening to this album means that it belongs on this list somewhere. If it’s had any effect on my tastes, it resurfaced my appreciation for minimalism.