A friend asked me a couple days ago if I thought that the overall quality of popular music had declined in the past twenty or thirty years. I told him “No” because I don’t think it has. Although I know plenty of boomers my age who lament that it’s all been downhill since Led Zeppelin stopped releasing album titles with Roman numerals, this guy is not one of them, and he stays fairly current on popular musical trends and innovations. But he did start me thinking. Are there as many great albums being released now as there were during, say, the supposedly halcyon days of the 1960s (funny how everybody forgets Herman’s Hermits and Freddie and the Dreamers)? And I don’t know the answer to that question. Part of the dilemma is that hindsight is a great teacher, and artists who were virtually ignored when their music was initially released (e.g., Nick Drake) are now justly recognized as the innovators they were. So it’s entirely possible that some obscure band in Vancouver or Omaha will be heralded as musical geniuses in 2030.
But I certainly believe that great music is being made these days. You have to dig a little deeper for it than you did thirty years ago, when you could actually hear it on the radio in most major American cities. That’s no longer the case. But there are ways to find it. Think Paste Magazine. Paste is your friend.
For what it’s worth, these are, in my opinion, the 5-star albums that have been released since 2000:
Radiohead – Kid A
Sun Kil Moon – Ghosts on the Great Highway
Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun
The Arcade Fire – Funeral
Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out of this Country
Drive-by Truckers – Southern Rock Opera
Brad Mehldau—Places
Godspeed You Black Emperor! – Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
Sufjan Stevens – Come on Feel the Illinoise!
Bob Dylan – Love and Theft
The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America
Konono No. 1 – Congotronics
Kate Rusby – Underneath the Stars
That’s my list. What’s yours?
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Glad to see Camera Obscura there—fantastic album. I would add Ryan Adams - Jacksonville City Nights, too.
I’d probably add TV on the Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain and possibly Spoon’s Kill the Moonlight, but I’m rather scared of handing out the five-star designation. I have several 4.5 star albums, though…
I’d add Patty Griffin - 1,000 Kisses, Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Rufus Wainwright - Want One, Over the Rhine - Ohio, Erin McKeown - Grand, and switch the Sigur Ros album to (). I’d agree on Sun Kil Moon, Arcade Fire, DB Truckers, Sufjan & The Hold Steady.
I agree with:
Ryan Adams - Jacksonville City Nights
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Here are my additions:
Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
Outkast - Stankonia
Aimee Mann - Bachelor No. 2
Gillian Welch - Time (The Revelator)
Beachwood Sparks - Once We Were Trees
My Morning Jacket - At Dawn
The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Todd Snider - Near Truths & Hotel Rooms
Drive-By Truckers - Decoration Day
The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
Paul Westerberg - Folker
The High Water Marks - Songs About the Ocean
The Avett Brothers - Mignonette
Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose
Bright Eyes - I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
Here’s a couple rockers I forgot to include…
The Libertines - Up The Bracket
The Strokes - Is This It?
The White Stripes - Elephant
Glad to see sufjan and radio head,
I would also throw on
Hello, dear wind: Page France
Orphans: Tom Waits