The Top Ten Albums of the Decade

It's easy to look at the numbers -- like the astonishing decline in physical CD sales, or the fact that the highest selling album of the decade was produced by N'Sync (!), or that the number one rock act of the decade was Nickelback (!!) -- and think that the music business went to hell in a handbasket in the 00's. I, however, have nothing but good words for the decade in music -- this was the first decade I really started following new music (thanks Napster!) and it offered an awesome introduction for a neophyte music collector. Below are my favorite albums of the aughts (note -- you shouldn't have to but you may be prompted to sign-up at Lala.com to listen to the songs. It's a painless, free process and will allow you one listen of every song here):

10) Sufjan Stevens - Illinois (2005)
The second album in Sufjan Stevens' 50 state project -- he aims to produce a CD for each state in the US -- could be the last in the series and the project would still be considered a success. It's ironic how well Stevens captures the ethos of a rough-and-tumble state like Illinois through mellifluous, delicate melodies and quirky lyrics. Ranging from the majesty of "Chicago" to the heartbreaking "Casimir Pulaski Day," Illinois is a magnificent achievement from an artist whose ambitions are bound to lead him to even greater ones.

Illinois - Sufjan Stevens

9) Kanye West - College Dropout (2004)
He seems so ubiquitous these days that it's easy to forget that Kanye West was once an unknown record producer yearning for attention and recognition. That all changed with this debut album which, despite some wonderful follow-ups, remains his best album to date. The flowing rhymes and infectious beats we know him for were all on this album, along with a little of the braggadocio that hadn't quite yet blown up into his current megalomania.

The College Dropout - Kanye We...

8) The National - Alligator (2005)
Does part of my affection for The National stem from the fact that most of the band comes from Cincinnati? Sure. But that doesn't make the third full-length album from the group any less impressive. Between lead singer Matt Berninger's smoky vocals and the powerful melodies of such songs like "Secret Meeting" and "Mr. November", Alligator showed that The National were the best entertainers to come out of the 'nati since George Clooney .

Alligator - The National

7) Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
I don't consider myself a huge Wilco fan, but there's no denying the incredible craftsmanship and beautiful sounds on this album. For an album that takes on such somber subjects as death, drinking, and loss, the album's melodies are all surprisingly catchy. I tend to think Wilco's best days are behind them, but YHF shows that the band at its best was better than practically anyone else.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco

6) Spoon - Kill the Moonlight (2002)
In terms of pure consistency across a large number of albums, I think Spoon are probably the musical artists of the decade. It's tough to choose a favorite from their catalog, but this 35 minute gem features all the signature hooks and beats that typify a great Spoon album. Songs like "Paper Tiger" and "The Way We Get By" demonstrate that great melodies don't necessarily need bombast or majestic instrumentation -- for Spoon, simplicity is stunning.

Kill the Moonlight - Spoon

5) LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver (2007)
Dance rock tends to be pretty superficial, which is part of what made this album so remarkable. Songwriter and DJ James Murphy turned his attentions to the challenges of aging and loss on Sound of Silver and produced mesmerizing results. The album features two of the best songs of the decade, "Someone Great" and "All My Friends."

Sound Of Silver - LCD Soundsys...

4) Radiohead - Kid A (2000)
Before heading off into less fruitful directions with Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief, Radiohead's penchant for experimentation found its' most clear success story with this exceptional album. Thom Yorke's warped vocals are perfectly complimented by the different tones and textures Radiohead play around with on Kid A, leaving the listener with a music experience that is completely sui generis.

Kid A - Radiohead

3) The Strokes - Is This It (2001)
In many ways, the reception of this album represented all that is wrong with indie rock culture: it was greeted with massive hype that soon turned into harsh backlash, aimed at artists who probably didn't have the stature to warrant the debate. I haven't given up on The Strokes as important musicians just yet, but even if they disappear from the landscape Is This It will still be an important landmark in the decade's music if only because it heralded the mix of garage and post-punk sound that now defines much of the indie scene. The Strokes' debut was the best of the genre, with hazy melodies and a disaffected lyrics that seemed to perfectly embody the downtown New York scene they came from.

Is This It - The Strokes

2) Outkast - Stankonia (2000)
It was always the curse and blessing of Outkast that Andre 3000 and Big Boi, the two musicians who make up the band, are individually two of the most talented songwriters and performers to enter the music industry. A curse because it caused their growing separation this decade, which by now seems essentially complete. But the blessing was their initial willingness to collaborate, which produced such magnificent discs as Speakerboxxx/The Love Below and this masterpiece. On songs like "B.O.B" and "Ms. Jackson" we see how the whole far exceeds the sum of its parts.

Stankonia - OutKast

1) Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)
What made this album so astonishing when it first appeared wasn't merely the "communal euphoria", as Pitchfork deemed it, that this Canadian band could generate -- it was the utterly primal nature of the sounds. Songs like "Rebellion (Lies)" and "Wake Up" are so unbridled and wild that it was almost like someone was orchestrating a coup in your ears. Bursting with ambition and energy, Funeral represented the music of the decade at its best -- inspired, technically brilliant, and utterly original.

Funeral - Arcade Fire

The Top Ten Songs of the Decade

I'll keep the commentary to a minimum on these, since many come from artists on my albums list and there's not a whole lot to say except that each one of these songs is a fantastic jam that you've undoubtedly heard before. Still, I think they were the best or most important songs of the decade. Below, my top ten:

10) The New Pornographers - "The Laws Have Changed"
The best of the many power pop anthems from The New Pornographers, from their 2003 album Electric Version.


9) Kelly Clarkson - "Since U Been Gone"
Clarkson remains the best of the American Idol winners, and this song featured a powerful melody coupled with tremendously catchy lyrics. What puts it over the top, though, is Clarkson's cathartic yell on the chorus. Who doesn't want to start yelling with her?

8) Phoenix - "If I Ever Feel Better"
Before they reached mainstream popularity this year, Phoenix was best known for this wonderful dance pop song that was an early sign of their eventual success.

7) M.I.A. - "Paper Planes"
The perfect distillation of M.I.A's rebel aesthetic, with gunshots adding to the hypnotic beat. It's no wonder it was used in nearly every movie that came out last year.


6) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Maps"
Karen O's impassioned belting and the intensity of the refrain are what make this song unforgettable.


5) The Knife - "Heartbeats"
The Swedes have always been good with pop melodies, and The Knife combines their country's knack for tunes with addictive electronic beats that prove irresistible.


4) R. Kelly - "Ignition (remix)"
R. Kelly is puerile, crude, and probably a criminal. But he's also some strange kind of idiot savant and this song remains his masterpiece.



3) LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends"
The song starts with a very spare melody and then crescendos into a rush of emotion. Amazing how such an exuberant song can actually be about twin challenges of aging and loss.


2) Arcade Fire - "Rebellion (Lies)"
"Tunnels #1" is the song that is showing up on all the end of decade lists, but for my money this is the track that captures the band at its best -- radical, thrilling, and full of vitality.


1) Outkast - "Bombs Over Baghdad (B.O.B)"
I remember playing this song on an infinite loop during late nights in college when the coffee had started to wear off. It's encapsulated, full-throttled energy, from beginning to end.

The Top Ten Television Shows of the Decade

The strongest argument in favor of the 00's as a landmark of artistic achievement is in the medium of television. The decade may have brought about the irreversible decline in broadcast viewership, but it turns out the splintering of the national television audience meant more than choice -- it meant increasing artistic freedom and risk-talking in a format that had too often felt comfortable and stale. The best tv series' that emerged from the decade, many which thrived on cable, strived to create experiences that had never been seen before on TV. As Emily Nussbaum notes in her excellent essay in New York Magazine, the aughts were "the first decade when television became recognizable as art, great art: collectible and life-changing and transformative and lasting." Below are my favorite tv series' of the decade:

10) (tie) Gilmore Girls/The West Wing
Gilmore Girls


The West Wing

It may seem odd to couple these seemingly different shows together, but they shared a number of traits: rapid-fire, hyper-literate dialogue, angelic characters, idealized backdrops, and incredibly smart and controlling writer/creators (Amy Sherman Palladino for Gilmore Girls and Aaron Sorkin for The West Wing). Where they differed was in the scale of their settings. Gilmore Girls told the story of a mother and daughter, so close in age they were more like best friends, living in an idyllic Connecticut town surrounded by their quirky neighbors and WASP family. For most of its run, Gilmore Girls mined the complicated relationships of the Gilmore clan for both laughs and tears, with stellar performances from its lead actresses and a marvelous ensemble cast. The show fell apart in its last few seasons when Palladino decided to leave, but until then it was wonderful television aimed at all ages.

The West Wing, too, suffered when its creator left after season 2, but it actually recovered in its last season, with the riveting election race between Jimmy Smits' Matt Santos and Alan Alda's Arnold Vinick. The high points of the show were that last season and the first, when Aaron Sorkin introduced President Bartlett and his eloquent, high-minded staff to the television airwaves. The seasons in between were filled with scandals that were either too lame to be interesting (the MS storyline) or too sensational to be believable (assassination attempts and child abductions), but with its introduction and its ending, The West Wing managed to make the dirty world of politics seem not only honorable but sexy.

9) Top Chef/Project Runway
Top Chef


Project Runway

In a decade that brought the rise and dominance of reality TV, Magical Elves Production, the company behind both these shows, deserves credit for taking a genre that lends itself to sensationalism and using it to foster real competitions with creative challenges and fair evaluations. In highlighting the worlds of food and fashion, these programs offered fascinating glimpses into the inner workings of industries we all engage with on a daily basis. They also offered real people tackling difficult competition and intense work environments, resulting in very compelling television.

8) The Office (US and UK versions)
The Office (US)


The Office (UK)

The mockumentary format gained its current prominence on TV due to the brilliant, hilarious, and intensely uncomfortable British sitcom The Office. When the show first premiered in 2001, it was practically impossible to get through a full episode given the unrelenting, cringe-inducing behavior of office manager David Brent (Ricky Gervais). But Gervais and fellow creator Stephen Merchant understood that such humor is most palatable in a setting that is universal, and in choosing the monotonous modern-day workplace as the backdrop for their comedy they also surrounded Brent with characters and plot points that were both hilarious and relatable. The American version, with Steve Carell leading the office as the equally bumbling Michael Scott, added some good old fashioned American sentiment to the proceedings and, while never quite surpassing the comedy of the original, created storylines and characters with more heart and depth.

7) Lost

Broadcast networks may have been a bit reluctant to embrace the sprawling, serialized storytelling that was thriving on cable in the first part of the decade, but ABC dove in head-first with Lost, a supernatural drama about crashed passengers stranded on an island. The show is more audacious than just about anything else on broadcast TV -- and, amazingly, it draws a mass audience (or at least it used to). But what makes the show so watchable beyond the supernatural mysteries and time-shifting narrative techniques is the well-earned character development. The island and its mysteries draw you in, but the characters keep you there.

6) Mad Men

It may be a bit premature to put a show that is just ending its third season amongst the classics of the decade, but the last two seasons of Mad Men have suggested that creator Matthew Weiner has a vision for the series that is every bit as ambitious and well-realized as any of the other shows on this list. With an impeccable cast led by the captivating John Hamm, plots that engage with the cultural milestones of the 50s and 60s while moving characters in believable and exciting directions, and an attention to detail that makes everything from the set design to the costumes a feast for the eyes, Mad Men heads into the new decade as the best show on television.

5) Deadwood

David Milch's fascinating Western was not your typical tale of the Old West. Deadwood was concerned with much more than just Cowboys and Indians, focusing instead on the town of Deadwood's transition from campground to township, demonstrating all the difficult alliances, negotiations, and compromises needed to build a civilization. Anchored by Ian McShane's brilliant performance as saloon owner Al Swearengen, Deadwood showcased a town on the verge of modernity and did so in way that was more sophisticated and profane than had been tried before. The series never really came to a satisfying conclusion, but the three seasons that aired on HBO were enthralling television.

4) The Sopranos

If any singular person deserves credit for the idea that television is an artistic medium, it's David Chase and his landmark series about a mafia family struggling to come to terms with such existential issues as morality, mortality, and the diminishing relevance of the mob. At the center of the story was a magnetic monster (beautifully played by James Gandolfini), a character viewers were attracted to even though he embodied evil. It was that paradox, that we were enchanted by a world that we were supposed to find reprehensible, that Chase used to constantly undermine viewer expectations. The series suffered when it veered in less focused directions (e.g., Vito's lark in New Hampshire), but when it zeroed in on the anxieties of Tony or Carmella (the excellent Edie Falco), it was the pinnacle of the medium.

3) Freaks and Geeks

This short-lived dramedy on NBC heralded the rise of Judd Apatow, for before he made The 40 Year Old Virgin or Knocked Up he created this beautifully observed, very funny television show. Focused on the outcasts of a midwestern high school, Freaks and Geeks was the first tv series to capture fully all the minor tragedies and occasional triumphs of adolescence. Since its debut and subsequent cancellation after one season, the players from the show -- Apatow, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Linda Cardellini -- have all gone on to bigger things, but none have been better than this gem.

2) Arrested Development

The best sitcom of the decade, Arrested Development was, as Ron Howard narrated at the beginning of every episode, "the story of a wealthy family who lost everything." With that pitch, we were introduced to the Bluth family, an incredibly stupid, selfish, and oblivious clan that served as the vehicle through which creator Mitch Hurwitz and his fellow writers delivered the most hilarious satire to air on television. Touching on subjects ranging from incest to the Iraq War, Arrested Development stocked every episode with millions of inside jokes, cultural references, and subtle visual cues, rewarding its viewers' intelligence along the way. With a magnificent ensemble cast led by the wonderfully deadpan Jason Bateman, Arrested Development was the zenith of comedy in the aughts.

1) The Wire

I've said it before, I'll say it again: The Wire is the best television series in the history of the medium. Period. Frankly, if I haven't convinced you to watch the show by this point it says more about your obstinacy than my powers of persuasion. What else is there to say? In five marvelous seasons, creator David Simon and his co-writers produced television on par with the greatest literature, with every season unfolding as a new chapter in the story of modern day Baltimore. Whether the focus was on the drug dealers who had ravaged the city, the crooked politicians who let it happen on their watch, the cops and teachers working admirably to improve an impossible situation, or the generation of children most vulnerable to powers outside their control, The Wire told the tale of city in decline with gripping honesty and emotion. We'll be lucky if the upcoming decade brings a television series with even half the ambition and flawless execution of this masterpiece.


Honorable Mention: Friday Night Lights, Veronica Mars, Chapelle's Show, The Daily Show With John Stewart, The Colbert Report, South Park

The Top Ten Films of the Decade

I've seen a great deal of movies this decade and I've been making top ten lists of films -- whether for my high school and college newspapers, or in emails to friends, or on this blog -- for so long that I figured this would be pretty easy. I'd just pick the top of my previous top ten lists and call it a day. But it's always dangerous to look back on your previous opinions -- you find that some works of art weren't necessarily the lasting achievements you thought they were at the time (cf. In the Bedroom, Sideways) and other works you dismissed have a surprisingly lasting resonance. So, starting from scratch, below are my ten favorite films from the decade:

10) The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2003)
I know it's a total cheat to count three films as one but this is at least more reasonable than my initial plan to count the entire Pixar ouvre as one movie and give it this spot. Truthfully, I'm not sure any individual film in the LOTR trilogy is all that great on its own, but after seeing Avatar I have a new appreciation for what Peter Jackson managed to do with this epic. It takes a special talent to put together a wondrous, special-effects driven fantasy and still keep the characters, plot, and dialogue first rate (Avatar and the Star Wars prequels demonstrate how easy it is to ignore the script when you're too focused on getting the CGI right). Admittedly, director Peter Jackson had a good source to work from, but he deserves credit for producing a trio of films that together capture exactly what's so magical about Hollywood movies.

9) I Heart Huckabees (2004)
I will readily admit that I Heart Huckabees is not a completely successful film -- director David O. Russell tosses so many balls in the air that invariably a few are going to drop. But it is still one of the most inventive movies to come out in the aughts and deserves to be on this list based on the ambition of its ideas. With Huckabees, Russell created a whole new genre -- the existential comedy of manners. Part slapstick farce, part philosophical meditation, Huckabees attempts to incorporate abstract philosophies from nihilism to transcendentalism into the minor events of a few very self-absorbed characters. With a superb cast -- Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman as "Existential Detectives"' who help solve personal crises, Isabelle Hupert as their nihilist rival, and Jason Schwartzman, Naomi Watts, Jude Law, and an inspired Mark Wahlberg as their clients -- Russell made what should have been an indulgent exercise in navel-gazing into an admittedly flawed but utterly enthralling piece of art.

8) Before Sunset (2004)
Richard Linklater revisited the charming, impulsive couple (Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke) he introduced to us in the 1995 film Before Sunrise in this follow-up and produced a sequel that surpassed its predecessor. That is in part because the characters in Before Sunset have grown up and cannot help looking like more cautious and complicated versions of their former selves. But what makes the film so thrilling is that we get to see their evolutions through each others’ eyes -- and watch as they realize they are with someone who is both distinctly similar and profoundly different from what they expected. The enigmatic ending leaves us hoping that, ten years later, we may be fortunate enough to see these two again.

7) 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (2008)
Romanian cinema flourished in the latter part of this decade -- Cristi Puiu's dark comedy The Death of Mr. Lazarescu could easily have made this list -- as filmmakers from that country began to tell honest and emotional stories about life under Communist rule. The most heartrending of those tales was the one told in Christian Mungiu's film 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, about two women struggling to arrange an illegal abortion . Bleak, direct, and powerful, 4 Months is an effective reminder of how the system we live in impacts even our most personal experiences.

6) No Country for Old Men (2007)
After spending the first part of the decade making such lightweight and glib films like The Ladykillers, O Brother, Where Art Thou, and Intolerable Cruelty, I just assumed that the Coen brothers had stopped taking their work seriously. So it was a shock when they delivered No Country for Old Men, a deeply serious and pessimistic look at how our society has reached a point where terror knows no boundaries. The deliberate pacing and superb acting (particularly by Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin as the cat and mouse in a cross country chase) create an aura of anxiety that pervades the entire film -- and keeps you staring at the screen even as you are certain there is death just around the corner.

5) Yi Yi (A One and Two) (2000)It is tough to describe what makes this Taiwanese film so transcendent -- after all, there is nothing particularly unique about the multi-generational Taipei family at the center of its story. But the appeal of Yi Yi is less about the story than the way it is told. Filmmaker Edward Yang mines the events of everyday life -- whether they be weddings, funerals, or first loves -- to show how even the simplest acts carry with them the weight of our past experiences. Tender and keenly observed, Yi Yi is the best foreign film of the decade.

4) There Will Be Blood (2007)This sweeping, magisterial tale of an oil tycoon's intense desire for success -- and to crush anyone who dare stand in his way -- is the kind of character study that feels as if it belongs to an earlier era of movies. That's because director P.T. Anderson is almost as ambitious as his subject. From the film's incredible opening scene, when we see future oil baron Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis, in the performance of a lifetime) find his first spurt of black gold, Anderson delivers a fascinating tale of an American dream that becomes a nightmare once achieved. There Will Be Blood is not a perfect film -- I still think the evolution of Plainview's character into total, brutish insanity is not completely earned -- but for the most part Anderson is working on a different, much higher plane of movie-making anyone else.

3) Memento (2000)Before Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan made this wonderfully hypnotic puzzle of a film about a man with short-term memory loss. It took a viewing of the recent Bollywood remake of the film (a lame imitation titled Ghajini) to remind me of how compelling and innovative the story is, with its backwards narrative and steady parceling out of clues that help solve the film's central mystery. Featuring a fiercely desperate performance by Guy Pearce as the man who struggles to remember his mission, Memento made all other thrillers look tame by comparison.

2) Capturing The Friedmans (2003)
No film better represented the huge creative strides made in the documentary genre this decade than Andrew Jarecki's tantalizingly ambiguous account of a family torn apart by reckless accusations from the outside and festering hostility on the inside. Arthur Friedman and his son Jesse are in prison on charges of child molestation -- charges that may very well be baseless, though the film demonstrates how difficult it can be to sort out fact from fiction. By the end of the documentary, it is practically impossible to distinguish truth from exaggeration and, in some cases, manipulation. Jarecki may not have cracked the case but he made a marvelous document while trying.

1) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)Would you erase your memories of a true love because losing them caused you too much pain? That's the question at the heart of Eternal Sunshine, a beautifully crafted, wildly inventive film that goes far beyond any previous love story had dare to tread. Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry set up a standard romance between Joe (a subdued Jim Carrey) and Clementine (a radiant Kate Winslet) before literally getting into the heads of these characters -- showing us the psychological effects of a relationship that blossoms and then begins to wilt. I came out of Eternal Sunshine completely in awe of Kaufman's imagination and Gondry's direction and knowing fully well it was my favorite movie of the decade so far. Five years later and I can say my memories and feelings for the film are as strong now as they were then.