Whoever that asshole is, he must have slept through 2002-2010. The Strokes? Give me a break.

“Twin Cinema” is the best New Pornos album, but “Electric Version” is way underrated. Glad to see it getting some love here.

Gee, as far as bad Lou Reed imitations go, The Raven by Lou Reed himself is better than Is This It?, and it’s not even all that good.

I rather like Is This It? But the best album of the last ten years? Nah.

Even sticking to an all straight white male lineups there are still plenty better than The Strokes.

I agree though that Amanda’s suggestions are probably all better than The Strokes/ I say “probably” because there are a couple on there I am not too familiar with.. I’ll have to check them out. Learning about new bands and artists is part of what makes Pandagon great.

I’ll be honest, I don’t understand why, between her solo albums and her work with The New Pornographers, Neko Case is not the consensus choice for Greatest Artist of the Past Decade. Isn’t this obvious?

I guess “Challengers” is more pop and not enough rock to make this list?

I actually still enjoy This is It and I think it’s a seminal album (hee hee), but it’s ridiculous to label any album “the single best album released in the last decade,” especially one that was released 10 years ago. That smacks of golden-ageism, where nothing new is good and everything old (that we can remember) is perfection.

Also seconding the fact that Neko Case should win the Nobel Prize for all rock music.

Should I even know who that band is?

10 years is a very long time. I don’t think he realizes just how long that is.
“Best Album of the year” is by definition contentious. No matter what you claim, you will always have someone arguing with you.
in theory, if you could for a universal consensus on the best album of the year all of the years, you could then build a consensus on of those, which was the best.

But that is impossible. That’s beyond impossible.

I don’t think you could call Is This It the best album of the decade. I don’t think you could even call it the best album by traditional hetero-white-male-rockers. (The Black Keys’ Rubber Factory, for example.)

in fact, anyone willing to make such a pronouncement is incredibly full of themselves as to think they have heard all there is that might be worth hearing, and that they can speak of an absolute quality across styles and genres. Quick, which is better, in absolute terms: Pete Seeger’s “At 89,” or Lady Gaga’s “The Fame?” Any response would be based on personal preferences.

Albums can be objectively good or bad. that’s pretty easy to judge. You can even judge great without too much effort. In doing so, you can form categories of great-good-bad, maybe even with some gradation along the way. but to say anything is, with certainty, the best is absurd.

Also

Gogol Bordello, Gypsy Punks
Drive By Truckers, Decoration Day
Mekons, Oooooh

The writer is hack who knows much less about music than he thinks he does.  But I assume he’s not trolling but perfectly sincere. The Strokes’ smirking-white-guys-of-privilege vibe can appeal to those nostalgic for old social structures at such a deep level that they confuse it with musical brilliance.

If you just want white dude playing rock, Kings of Leon and The Black Lips both put out better albums.  I wouldn’t call either the best of the decade though.  Mainly because who cares about what’s “best”?  Only tools need to do that.  Also, I liked Elephant more than White Blood Cells, but that’s just me.

Mainly because who cares about what’s “best”?  Only tools need to do that.

Nah. Comparing and evaluating and arguing about music, or whatever, is good for sharpening your sensibility and your capacity to give reasons for your opinions. Those are good things to sharpen. Plus it’s fun.

Being a huge dick about your rankings is toolish, of course. But that’s because of the huge dick part, not the ranking part.

I think there’s a difference between comparing/evaluating/arguing about music, and stating that one album is “The Best” end of sentence. When someone feels compelled to list “the best albums of time period X”, their list generally says more about the person than about the albums.

Which is fine, but a little bit odd for a retrospective on the 10 year anniversary of an album.

I remember when Is This It came out…. I’d spent the past four years listening to a bunch of local bands that were much better than anything I heard on the radio. I heard all the hype about The Strokes, listened… and was still bored. And sad because my local scene was dying off.

There are only a few White Stripes songs I really get into, but they’re unquestionably better and more important than The Strokes.

Standing In The Way Of Control, of course, is an amazing album.

My personal additions to the list would include Yeah Yeah Yeahs It’s Blitz and Metric’s Fantasies.

I think you’re right that this guy is just looking at straight white dudes; most of the music I’ve loved from the past decade has not fit that at all. But even within that limitation, at least the latest Foo Fighters album easily beats The Strokes. Oh wait, it has Bob Mould guesting on it. I guess that doesn’t fit either.

Mainly it’s just the silliness of “best of the decade” that gets me. I wouldn’t even know if I could come up with a defensible “best of the decade” from any decade.  I mean, who is better, Michael Jackson or Madonna?  The Beatles or the Stones?  Who knows.  I think I’ve just been in too many arguments with contrarians and now I can’t be bothered.  But I agree that some things are better than others.

[IMS] Standing In The Way Of Control is a brilliant album, but That’s Not What I Heard is still my favorite Gossip album. [/IMS]

The Strokes, you say?

I seem to remember liking that song by them that they played on the radio. Are they still around?

Amanda, reading this post, one might get the impression that the notion of “good music” is entirely objective, and that if one does not share your musical tastes, that person is objectively wrong when it comes to music.

/not defending the Strokes per se. I can’t stand the labeling of anything so subjective as musical enjoyment as “the best or worst,” period

“Is This It” is far and away not the Best Album of the Decade!!!, but seriously CSS, White Stripes, and most of “Fever to Tell” are garbage. Otherwise solid picks, but I’m willing to bet that The Strokes are what got the writer into “good” music, which probably makes it a sentimental pick. The timeline according to his article puts him at about 19 when the album came out, which seems kind of late to come to Jesus on music, but maybe he’s a late bloomer.

I was inspired to make a rage comic about this. Well trolled, Slate, well trolled.

In terms of just straight-ahead rock music, I’d put “Peace, Love, and Death Metal” ahead of “Is This It.” In terms of guitar-driven music, I’d say Derek Trucks has done more than anyone in decades to move the instrument forward, and “Songlines” and “Roadsongs” by the DTB are two of my favorite albums of all time. But the album I’ve enjoyed most from the last decade has been Janelle Monae’s “The ArchAndroid;” I didn’t think anything was going to beat “The Chase,” but I was very happy to be wrong.

I’m with Sadie (#18).  Opinions on music vary.  This thread is evidence of it. 

I still don’t see the point of nonsensical claims that something is “exponentially” better (really? not logarithmically, then?) than something else, when it is all a matter of taste.

One person’s claim that a given album is the best in a decade (particularly this recent one, given the sheer number of albums) is just as ludicrous on its face, since it’s all subjective.

Trying to refute it by giving other examples makes no sense, either.  There is almost certainly a bestselling album, but it’s probably in Hindi, and most of us have not heard it.  But “best”?

As JasonB says, it’s a fun game to play (and people are playing it), but it’s just a game. 

The complaint that the Strokes are straight white dudes is no more worth pointing out than the fact that the alternatives listed, with few exceptions, are basically rock, which is the “straight white dude” of musical genres, if that means anything.

(hint: it doesn’t).

The complaint that the Strokes are straight white dudes is no more worth pointing out than the fact that the alternatives listed, with few exceptions, are basically rock, which is the “straight white dude” of musical genres, if that means anything.

(hint: it doesn’t).

I assume the alternatives listed were all rock to give the Slate writer the benefit of the doubt. If he meant all genres of popular music, including rap and dance, then his claim that Is This It was the best of the decade is so out of touch it defies comprehension that a supposed music critic would make it.

And “straight white dude” means a lot when you’re talking about popular music, and always has. The history of radio, the history of club circuits, the history of record distribution, the history of genre distinctions, the history of backlash, demographic trends in musical taste—race and gender are the threads through it all. Nothing high-minded about pretending otherwise.

I don’t mind declaring an album “the best”, but if it’s the Strokes, uh, I feel bad for you.

Scott was also right when he says that Is This It isn’t a bad album.  Good thing I’ve learned from experience to click through the links on Amanda’s posts, as there’s a not-insignificant chance that they don’t support the argument she’s making.

Only the opening graphs are about the Slate trolling. The rest is about how The Strokes are Teh Suck, and if you so much as like them even a bit you’re hung up on Dude Rock.  So linking to someone who doesn’t remotely share that opinion seems pretty disingenuous to me.

Just so I’m clear:  I’m saying that the white-hot hatred of the Strokes is only slightly less silly than this Slate trolling, but only because of the absence of affectation that such a stance is transgressive.

Sadie, your “it’s all subjective” thing was interesting when I thought of it when I was 15, but then I put it away, along with all childish things, by about 16. Puff puff, who are you to judge, man?

Seriously, every time a blogger writes about art, there’s one person who insists that It’s All Objective, and therefore All Judgments Are Wrong, and they fail to understand how boring life would be for most of us if we actually tried to refrain from having opinions about art.

Hey, Sadie and ochl: I get that you might not be the kind of people who *get* art, and think that all arguments should be conducted along strict lines of logic and evidence. That’s fine. But here’s a suggestion: if art and music aren’t really your thing, why don’t you just skip the posts about it?  Why piss on everyone’s fun? 

Oh wait, to get a cheap shot—-an intensely cheap shot—-of self-righteousness. And it’s really not even working, because all comments like yours do to music snobs is make us chuckle int our sleeves at the nerds.

Yikes, Is This It is taking a beating in here. Which is a shame, since it’s a really good album. Maybe not best of the decade, but excellent nonetheless. Great melodies, great guitar sound, love those crisp, everything-in-its-place arrangements… plus, the best moments on there just nail this wistful, fuzzed-out, nostalgic-for-yesterday kind of vibe that I really like.

It’s kind of an introverted rock record, now that I think about it, which might help explain why I like it so much, and why others find it boring.

Anyway, I’ll nominate Masshysteri’s s/t album from last year as a better one from the past decade.

I should listen to some of these (maybe buy them first!), although I wouldn’t have a clue if any was the best of the decade.  I liked the Le Tigre I heard in The Itty Bitty Titty Committee, and even the Sleater-Kinney that I’ve heard.  Don’t know about much else, but I think I respect Amanda’s taste generally, because the things she’s listed over time that I’ve known have been things I liked.

I vented similar anger about this article earlier today on a music forum I frequent, and was reminded by friends there that this is the same Slate magazine that made defences of Limp Bizkit (http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2009/04/was_limp_bizkit_really_that_bad.html) *and* Creed (http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2009/10/creed_is_good.html)
Still that was a goddamn infuriating article. Considering I can randomly pick five friends of mine who have made better albums in the past year or two.  Grr.

I shouldn’t talk too much shit about the article considering I still defend Jane’s Addiction and Primus out of my high school nostalgia. But I would never say Frizzle Fry was the best album of the 90s.

Yeah, I know he’s wrong because Guitar Wolf released six albums in the last ten years, even after the death of Bass Wolf.

Oh, but the ones you mention are pretty good as well, Amanda.

(No, but in all seriousness, I have to third the vote for Neko Case as Greatest Artist of At Least the Past 20 Years. Her solo stuff, her New Pornographers stuff, her Corn Sisters stuff, her backup stuff for the Sadies, AND Maow? Quite a streak of awesomeness there.)

Hahahahaha Guitar Wolf rulz. But I was trying to think, you know, of records with the sort of mass appeal that allows you to be a contender in the “best of” contests.

I’m backing Carrie Brownstein as the best of the past 20 years.

ANy Guitar Wolf album trumps every other album, and that’s not even subjective. Also, Wild Zero!

But yeah on the Neko Case. Seen her three times in the past decade, always ruled.

Clearly non-music types can have strong opinions about music. Similarly, people without JDs can have strong opinions on SCOTUS decisions and people without MDs can have strong opinions on vaccinations.

But the there really are people who, you know, study music and debate it in terms other than “this sucks/rules.”  I say this for all the poor Berklee grads who have had listen to their non-music friends passionately and ineptly debate music.

My favorite part is how the author seems to think people are going to respond with “rage” rather than just laughing at the absurdity of his claim. And I like Is This It. But…seriously? Just. No.

I know #27 is supposed to be an insult, but it actually…describes me pretty well in a way I hadn’t entirely thought about before. I mean, I’m a professional nerd. I also love listening to music, and do have opinions about music, and will happily talk about music with others in the hope of discovering new music to love. But I’ve never enjoyed trying to convince anyone else that my opinions should be theirs; I just end up wanting to say, “What metric are we using here??” I need something quantifiable to work with.

But I’m perfectly happy to sit back and let y’all do your thing and stick to looking through the lists for things I might like.

This Slate trolling its own readers thing is getting really tiresome.  They’ve been around long enough that they shouldn’t need to bait for comments anymore. 

That being said, I have nothing to contribute to this discussion, because my favorite band is U2, which eliminates any music snob credibility I could try to claim.

Wow, so everyone who thinks the first Strokes album is better than the flash in the pan dreck of the Vivian Girls or CSS ‘doesn’t like music’? Good to know!

I do agree with Amanda’s stance that music is not all “a matter of opinion” and that some stuff is definitely better than others…and almost everything she lists is total garbage that, if not already totally forgotten, will be forgotten in ten years. The Woods and This Island? Sorry, but that is both S-K and Le Tigre’s weakest work, and you know it; you’re listing it to make a point (though Feminst Sweepstakes was released in 2001, so who knows why you’re not bringing that up) . Classic S-K and Helium both saved my life as a teen, but Wild Flag on album is boring, boring, boring. That Gossip album had two good songs if you are lucky. Also, though “White Blood Cells” was technically released in 2001, “Fell in Love with a Girl,” the song that introduced the band to a broad audience, wasn’t released as a single until 2002—at the time, the White Stripes were considered one of the garage bands that achieved mainstream popularity in the Strokes’s wake, not a band that was popular in the exact same second.

But hey, I guess I “don’t like music” since I don’t think the adult contemporary-lite New Pornographers are better than the Strokes, so what could I possibly know?

There is an entire category of Slate articles which is click-begging contrarianism.  Slate is worth reading for Dahlia Lithwick, and when Amanda gets an article up on XX.  That’s pretty close to it.  The smug spirit of Michael Kinsley makes Slate otherwise impossible to take seriously.

Well, hmmm. I actually really love Is This It and I might, if I were forced to pick just one, name it the best album of the past decade. But I’d have to be feeling a bit nostalgic. I probably haven’t listened to it—the whole thing, that is—for a couple of years.

And there are a whole bunch of other albums that I could conceivably put it in its place, depending on how I was feeling at the moment:

Any of LCD Soundsystem’s Albums?
Any of Arcade Fire’s albums?
The Good the Bad and the Queen?
MIA’s Arular?
Bjork’s Volta?
Yeah Yeah Yeahs It’s Blitz? (I know, I know. There’s no “Maps” on it, but I’ve played this one so many more times than Fever To Tell.)
Beck’s Modern Guilt? (Ok, definitely not the top album, but it’s really kind of awesome and underappreciated. Also Charlotte Gainsbourg’s IRM)
Lorreta Lynn and Jack Black’s Van Lear Rose?
Radiohead’s In Rainbows?
Santogold? (Ok, I like catchy pop. I’ve played this one over and over.)
Oh, and what about Girl Talk? Does that count?

Also I got a great mix CD called Disco Punk off the cover of the now-defunct Musik magazine, mixed by Tim Sweeney, mostly DFA stuff. If it counts as an album, this was my favorite album of the past decade.

But the last decade was sort of weird for me as a music listener. Because of, you know, Napster and torrents and Rapidshare and all that. I spent much of the last decade listening to old stuff that I’d never heard before. If I sat down and added it up, I probably spent a much time or more in the last decade listening to music from the 70s (dub, krautrock, Bollywood, funk) that I’d never heard before than I did listening to new music from the past decade.

If I had to pick a favorite album that I first discovered in the past decade, rather than an album that was produced in the past decade, I might pick Can’s Future Days, or the soundtrack to a Bollywood film like Caravan, or Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. (Yes, that last one is really really cheesy, but it’s catchy as fuck.)

Anyone else spend the last decade mostly listening to old stuff that was new to you?

Also, while I’m still babbling away, Le Tigre—if any of you haven’t heard their first album, which came out in 1999, so not eligible for the best of the decade thing, I think it’s their best. Brilliant and original and also quite hilarious, musically and lyrically. And Julie Ruin, the Kathleen Hanna project that basically turned into Le Tigre, also fantastic.

I love Le Tigre. Gotta say Feminist Sweepstakes is a better choice. LCD Soundsystem? I’m love/hate with them.

Hate to see Bis left out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGxu92gTeus

Call The Doctor is my favorite SK album

But my favorite song of the 2000’s is Tommy Womack’s “Alpha Male and the Canine Mystery Blood” The whole There, I Said It is an exploration of what happens to a generation raised to expect to become become astronauts and rock stars reaches the realities of middle age

Live solo version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REuECk6bfYQ

And don’t forget The Birthday Massacre. Went to see them at Numbers and felt really old. Wore my late 80s goth outfit, faded Wranglers, black loafers, black T-shirt, and 80s style navy blazer.. I think my dance club days are over.

Best album of the last 10 years? Julie Fowlis’ Mar a Tha Mo Chridhe, without a doubt. Absolutely sublime, ground-breaking stuff.

What’s that? You’re not into contemporary presentations of traditional Scots Gaelic folk music from the Outer Hebrides? Philistines…

Yeah, well, I’ve never heard of most of the bands you’re talking about either. Rock is dead. Let it go. [Runs…]

You know who I miss?  Wesley Willis.

Manboobz, thoroughly agreed on Yeah Yeah Yeahs!  I put Beck’s Modern Guilt on after Guero and Sea Change, if I’m restricting to post-1999.

Ah, Slate music articles. Has Paramore become the world’s biggest rock band yet? That was another from their classic ‘Creed is good’ period. It revolved around how they were more punk than Green Day in some way related to the singer’s public Christianity. Not that Paramore doesn’t have some solid songs.

I know I’ve heard the Strokes album in question, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it sounds like. The White Stripes album of the same year was pretty much instantly memorable.

Funny, I’ve heard about several groups on Amanda’s list and yet, never heard of the Strokes. 

To be fair, I first heard of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs! because some members were alums of my college. 

Oh wait, to get a cheap shot—-an intensely cheap shot—-of self-righteousness. And it’s really not even working, because all comments like yours do to music snobs is make us chuckle int our sleeves at the nerds.

What’s with the anti-nerd ‘tude?? Aren’t you and other musical snobs just as much “nerds” as those to whom you chuckle into your sleeves?

Anyone else spend the last decade mostly listening to old stuff that was new to you?

Not just old stuff new to me, but also a variety of international music ranging from 1930’s Chinese folk songs to Asian pop/rock songs from the 80’s and ‘90s.  Shocked relatives in my parents’ generation as they were mostly too young to remember the ‘30’s stuff….and nearly all of them preferred American pop songs from the likes of Patti Page, Doris Day, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, etc along with Elvis and country music.

Despite NY Expat’s apparent mind-reading at 25, I don’t think Amanda gave her actual review of Is This It? at any point here. Also, by the laws of common sense, Amanda is allowed to agree with one part of an LGM post, maybe quoting that part, and disagree or ignore other parts of the post. 

What do you actually think of the album, Amanda?

I gotta admit, I don’t think I’ve heard any of the above albums all the way through. I’ve got a bunch of songs from them, but haven’t listened to them as the creators presumably intended.

She claims she can make a near infinite (“I could keep going”) list of albums that are “infinitely better” than Is This It.  I think that puts your reading comprehension skills in question, chum, not mine.

The mere concept of the “best” album of the decade, is one that kinda turns me off from the out-set entirely, as it really depends on one’s individual tastes. Now, influential is a bit more of a interesting debate topic*, although even then it depends on what musical “lines” you are following. I’m not sure if anything from the 00’s qualifies as influential as of yet, but I tend to be on the musically isolated side anyway.

Anyway, my favorite albums of the last decade are James—Pleased to Meet You, Garbage—Bleed Like Me and Metric—Fantasies.

*Most people would say that Nirvana—Nevermind goes into the slot here. I disagree. I think on the whole U2’s Achtung Baby is a bit more musically influential in retrospect.

Lots of people in my generation would add Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People to that list. IMHO it’s a bit over-rated, but it’s a heck of a lot better (and more influential) than anything the Strokes ever did.

exholt, Amanda has a peculiar definition of nerb she uses which is strictly a prejoritive.  As in not even a passing association with geeks, more like dweebs but more clueless.

there’s nothing particularly revolutionary about Is This It. But I still put it on once a month or so and enjoy it. I can’t really say that about the white stripes any more.

now in terms of the band itself, i don’t give a shit about the strokes. i think i stopped caring about them completely when i saw them on their first time through NC on their tour for Is This It and they were incredibly boring and julian casablancas seemed like a dick. but that record is still great. I haven’t really listened to much past that first album except in passing.

it’s by no stretch my favorite album of the past ten years. but i’d probably put it in a top twenty and I wouldn’t say that about any of the other albums you’ve listed in the original post except the neko case albums. are “best” and “favorite” different? probably. one i’m definitely qualified to deem. the other i think needs a little more distance and perspective than i have right now. in 2050 someone might be able to talk about the “best” album of 2001-2011 with at least a little authority. and by then no one will give a shit.

and for the neko case love: i totally agree. i think she’s been one of the most consistently awesome musicians of the 2000s. And I’ll add Spoon as a group who hasn’t really had any missteps.

I always forget how off-mainstream I am in my musical interests in those threads. Not some sort of ‘underground purer than thou’ brag, just a constatation.

Basically I don’t have a freaking clue about who The Strokes are.

For the record, my favorite album of the decade is World Burns to Death’s “Graveyard of Utopia”.

She claims she can make a near infinite (“I could keep going”) list of albums that are “infinitely better” than Is This It.  I think that puts your reading comprehension skills in question, chum, not mine.

Nope, still you.

Amanda said:

I thought it would be fun to just start listing rock albums from the past decade that are exponentially better than This Is It, just because what else can you do in the face of epic trollery like this?

I could keep going, but you get the picture. And I’m trying to stick to stuff I think is just straight-up classic; not even talking about stuff I just really like for my own purposes but falls short of being one of the Big Records Everyone Should Own.

She didn’t use the word infinite, for one. That’s what I thought was weird. I very strongly doubt Amanda is afraid to write an anti-Strokes screed if that’s what she thinks, but this wasn’t it. It says weirdly little about what her actual impression of the album was.

To me, there’s a lot of mileage between ‘It’s ridiculous to say this is the best album of aughts” and “this is terrible.” Something I like quite well, like Sacred Reich’s Independent (I don’t know wtf with the name, but they’re definitely not Nazis in their lyrics or their Myspace page) is a good, solid metal album, wbut it would be insane to suggest it was the best of the 90s, because it’s pretty traditional stuff that doesn’t do anything new sounding.

@ Amanda:

“Seriously, every time a blogger writes about art, there’s one person who insists that It’s All Objective, and therefore All Judgments Are Wrong, and they fail to understand how boring life would be for most of us if we actually tried to refrain from having opinions about art.”

I assume “It’s All Subjective” was intended here.  How does the idea that one should refrain from having opinions about art follow?  The relevant distinction is between fact and opinion - if pretending that opinions are facts makes the argument more fun for you, have fun.  Is that what you’re doing?  Does reminding people of the distinction really ruin it for everyone?

I did say “it’s a fun game to play (and people are playing it), but it’s just a game.”  Borderlands is also a game. It’s awesome. Nothing pejorative about the idea of “games” was intended.  I like the “music critic” game, too.

“Hey, Sadie and ochl: I get that you might not be the kind of people who *get* art, and think that all arguments should be conducted along strict lines of logic and evidence.”

So…which arguments should be exempt from logic and evidence? Who decides which are which? 

“That’s fine. But here’s a suggestion: if art and music aren’t really your thing, why don’t you just skip the posts about it?  Why piss on everyone’s fun?”

Because I found the sneering tone of the original post grating.  Thanks for doubling down in your replies to my comment.  I guess that makes me a “nerb” in the “prejoritive” sense. (looking at you, #54). Real music snobs play instruments.

And who says art and music aren’t my thing?  I read threads like this to find out about bands that I have not heard but might like, since I tend not to listen to much music in the genres that most people here seem to favor. 

I read threads like this to find out about bands that I have not heard but might like, since I tend not to listen to much music in the genres that most people here seem to favor.

Well yeah, and because you don’t listen to those genres you don’t “get” art or music. Duh.

These threads, or anyway similar threads, used to be tagged “IMS” for “Insufferable Music Snobbery.” At some point that dropped out, but I remember being fond of the self-awareness of that term.

I never really understood the appeal of the Strokes. I mean, they failed to inspire any feeling in me… at all. Positive or negative. I guess I probably live in a weird bubble but I’m sort of puzzled by the fact that 10 years later people are still losing their shit over these guys, apparently.

Jerry,

Someone once said that when you turn on the radio, Genesis is what comes out.  I guess the Strokes are their replacement.

I love that I live in an era of streaming music services that allow me to effortlessly listen to (almost?) all the above-mentioned albums even though I don’t already have them.

On a related note, how did I go this long without hearing “This Island”?

Sour Kraut @61, I think The Strokes might’ve been the Genesis replacement a decade ago, but these days it’s Coldplay. 

There is a confusion between a personal emotional response, which someone may feel, and broader artistic critique. If you feel it, as Daniel Barenboim put it ‘how wonderful for you’,  but that doesn’t mean the rest of us should pay attention, care, or even respect your tastes. Unless you have actual reasons, especially if you suddenly want to declare it as part of a top ten or something.

Oh and. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor. Amazing album.

“There’ll be no more counting the cars on the garden state parkway
Nor waiting for the Fung Wah bus to carry me to who-knows-where
And when I stand tonight, ‘neath the lights of the Fenway
Will I not yell like hell for the glory of the Newark Bears?
Because where I’m going to now, no one can ever hurt me
Where the well of human hatred is shallow and dry
No, I never wanted to change the world, but I’m looking for a new New Jersey
Because tramps like us, baby, we were born to die.”

What, no Grinderman?

In the Strokes’ defence, the album was in its own way almost as much of a game changer as Nevermind was ten years before, in that it broke the hegemony of the Limp Bizkits and Creeds of the world and brought the White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, Franz Ferdinand and just about every other indie rock band in the last decade into the mainstream on their coattails.

That’s not to say it’s the best album of the last ten years (that would be Speakerboxx/The Love Below or The Woods or even the new Fucked Up, at least in my opinion) and it’s aged badly but it’s a lot better than, say This Island, which was easily the worst Le Tigre album, or even Welcome to the Monkey House, which was at least half filler. Either way, taste is subjective but when it comes to art an opinion’s worth precisely as much as the reasoning behind it.

I try not to jump into Best Album debates, since when I do I tend to sound just like #45/Dunc saying “Julie Fowlis’ Mar a Tha Mo Chridhe, without a doubt” (hopefully I sound as charming; probably not). But I’m gonna try to find overlap between my tastes and Amanda’s - we do, after all, have New Pornographers, TV on the Radio, Sleater-Kinney, and Mary Timony in common - to suggest:

Kate Miller-Heidke - Curioser
(which has marvelous videos, such as for the peppy, rueful negative-body-self-image dance floor hit “Can’t Shake It” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2o6buiDlfo
the funny, defeatist political anthem “Politics in Space” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-qljhoH57o&feature=relmfu
and the moving story of and apology for a childhood misdeed, with fine character sketch of her victim, “Caught in the Crowd” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIDarYJHCpA )

Jesca Hoop - Kismet
(the perky snide “Money” is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m3OH_fXApA
the sexy “Out the Back Door” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEbcpW82mqw
the tricky, steadily unfolding “Seed of Wonder” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bao6YFzfOGg )

Dresden Dolls - S/T or Yes, Virginia
(the coy, playful, until suddenly it’s no such thing “Coin-Operated Boy” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAnyYTjjhJ0
the word-drunk kamikaze momentum of “Girl Anachronism” at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO5APfKnR50
the pop summary of evo-psycho gender expectations “Shores of California” at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awnjw36mNEs
the two-songs-at-once “Sex Changes”, which works if you hear the lyrics assuming the title is Adjective Noun but is devastating, with the same lyrics, if the title is Noun Verb, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO-dT913Zmg )

*****
With more hesitation, on the grounds that I don’t know if even the funniest, smartest, most beguiling frontwoman is going to sell Amanda on music that’s as much classical and avant-garde as it is rock, I’ll also suggest
Amy X Neuburg - Residue (my favorite album of the decade) and
Amy X Neuburg - the Secret Language of Subways
and link to “Difficult” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6Bl7eXUXVg
and “Residue” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VibMUvuqfnw

*****
Finally, I’m pretty sure Tris McCall - Let the Night Fall would be a good recommendation, but YouTube’s no help. Amazon will let you do 30-second samples at
http://www.amazon.com/Let-The-Night-Fall/dp/B0031SCFX8/ref=sr_shvl_album_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1318563867&sr=301-2
while the lyrics are available at
http://trismccall.net/lyrics/

At absolute minimum, I recommend the story-song “Ballad of Frank Vinieri” and the surprisingly affecting, if-only-Born-To-Run-Springsteen-was-also-funny “First World, Third Rate”. I love the whole thing, though.

P.S.: the Tris McCall lyrics page now includes a module that streams the entire album! So that’s a nice discovery.