Frequency blog: Music news and reviews from Bend and Central Oregon, by Ben Salmon | The Bulletin

(This post is part of Frequency’s coverage of the best music of the past decade. You can see all of that coverage in one place by clicking here. And be sure to tune in Dec. 18, when I’ll post “Near/Far,” our annual, downloadable MP3 compilation of the best music of 2009, to go along with our year-in-review package in that day’s GO! Magazine.)

If you’re looking for a pivotal year in the development of music in the 2000s, look no further than 2004. I don’t believe this is the decade’s strongest group of albums, but I do think there are a lot of records on this list that significantly shifted the musical landscape, or at least portended a coming shift. To wit:

-This was the year Kanye West took over the decade. He has not yet let go.

-The success of the Arcade Fire’s “Funeral” — released by the independent Merge Records label — opened a door to the mainstreaming of indie music and indie culture that would dominate the second half of the decade.

-DJ Danger Mouse, who blended Jay-Z with the Beatles, and DJ Diplo, who reconstituted what would soon become M.I.A.’s stunning debut album, introduced a wider world to mashups and mixtapes. It was a harbinger of things to come as the Internet evolved, first in hip-hop and then spreading to other genres.

Oh, and Brian Wilson got a 38-year-old monkey off his back by finally releasing “Smile,” Franz Ferdinand helped usher in a dance-rock revival, Arthur Magazine‘s “The Golden Apples of the Sun” comp shined a light on the freak-folk scene, and everyone liked Snow Patrol but no one could figure out why.

Arcade Fire, “Funeral”
Aveo, “Battery”
Danger Mouse, “The Grey Album”
Eluvium, “An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death”
Franz Ferdinand, “Franz Ferdinand”
Helio Sequence, “Love and Distance”
Iron & Wine, “Our Endless Numbered Days”
Kings of Convenience, “Riot On An Empty Street”
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, “Shake the Sheets”
Ben Kweller, “On My Way”
M.I.A. and Diplo, “Piracy Funds Terrorism”
The Mountain Goats, “We Shall All Be Healed”
Rogue Wave, “Out of the Shadow”
Josh Rouse, “Rarities”
Snow Patrol, “Final Straw”
Sufjan Stevens, “Seven Swans”
The Thermals, “F–kin A”
Various Artists, “The Golden Apples of the Sun”
Kanye West, “The College Dropout”
Brian Wilson, “Smile”

(This post is part of Frequency’s coverage of the best music of the past decade. You can see all of that coverage in one place by clicking here. And be sure to tune in Dec. 18, when I’ll post “Near/Far,” our annual, downloadable MP3 compilation of the best music of 2009, to go along with our year-in-review package in that day’s GO! Magazine.)

(Note: I messed up. I had The Postal Service’s “Give Up” on my 2002 list, but it was actually released in 2003. So I have removed it from the 2002 post and placed it here.)

I have long believed that 2003 was the best year for recorded music in the 2000s. Only time will tell if that’s true, once the sounds of the decade’s later years have settled into their legacies.

But 2003 will be hard to beat. In my book, about half of the albums listed below are undeniable classics that I continue to reach for frequently in 2009. This is the 1983 NFL Draft quarterback class of music in the new century.

Just look. We have amazing debuts from Kathleen Edwards, Jose Gonzalez and Damien Rice, plus sweeping epics by Death Cab for Cutie, Sufjan Stevens and Sun Kil Moon. We have Fountains of Wayne, Nada Surf and The Shins at the peak of their powers. For variety, there’s hip-hop from U.K. grime pioneer Dizzee Rascal and twitchy, German electro-pop from The Notwist. Brad Paisley and Switchfoot both released excellent albums that earned them oodles of mainstream success.

There’s even tragedy here. Click on The Exploding Hearts album to read about the late, great Portland pop-punk band.

Add in great EPs from The Decemberists, Benjamin Gibbard, Ben Folds and The Morning After Girls and a roster of pop singles that remain some of the defining songs of the decade (Outkast, “Hey Ya!” / Beyonce, “Crazy In Love” / 50 Cent, “In Da Club” / Justin Timberlake, “Rock Your Body” and “Cry Me A River”) and you have a year of music that can pummel your ears with wave after wave of great stuff.

Death Cab for Cutie, “Transatlanticism”
The Decemberists, “Her Majesty the Decemberists”
Kathleen Edwards, “Failer”
The Exploding Hearts, “Guitar Romantic”
Fountains of Wayne, “Welcome Interstate Managers”
Jose Gonzalez, “Veneer”
Damien Jurado, “Where Shall You Take Me?”
The Long Winters, “When I Pretend To Fall”
Nada Surf, “Let Go”
The New Pornographers, “Electric Version”
The Notwist, “Neon Golden”
Brad Paisley, “Mud On the Tires”
The Postal Service, “Give Up”
Dizzee Rascal, “Boy In Da Corner”
Damien Rice, “O”
The Shins, “Chutes Too Narrow”
Sufjan Stevens, “Greetings From Michigan”
The Strokes, “Room On Fire”
Sun Kil Moon, “Ghosts of the Great Highway”
Switchfoot, “The Beautiful Letdown”

(This post is part of Frequency’s coverage of the best music of the past decade. You can see all of that coverage in one place by clicking here. And be sure to tune in Dec. 18, when I’ll post “Near/Far,” our annual, downloadable MP3 compilation of the best music of 2009, to go along with our year-in-review package in that day’s GO! Magazine.)

Music history is littered with under-appreciated power-pop bands and records that deserved better. For every act that broke out of this insular genre — Cheap Trick, the Raspberries, Fountains of Wayne — there are dozens that, for whatever reason, couldn’t make their guitar-crunchy, ultra-catchy tunes connect with the masses. (There’s an excellent overview here.) And so, power-pop auteurs are often viewed as oddball geniuses, crafting power-chord progressions and hook after hook in basement lairs under the watchful eyes of The Beatles and The Who posters in a quixotic quest for the perfect melody.

There are no fewer than four amazing (mostly) power-pop records on my list of 2002′s best albums; Brendan Benson, Ben Kweller, The Mayflies USA and Superdrag each released records packed wall to wall with solid, guitar-based rock. Which is good, because their energy was needed to counteract what was otherwise a year of downers: Beck released his ode to a crumbling relationship. So did John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats. Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes bleated his way through an epic of self-loathing. The Decemberists and Dixie Chicks each put out the most downcast records of their careers, and the world was introduced to the fragile whispers of Sam Beam, aka Iron & Wine.

The most important musical event of the year, however, was one that many people had already been listening to for months. Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” — delayed by label problems and leaked to the Internet by the band before it was officially released — is not only one of the best albums of 2002, but also a turning point in the way we consume music. More on that next week…

Bobby Bare Jr., “The Young Criminals Starvation League”
Beck, “Sea Change”
Brendan Benson, “Lapalco”
Bright Eyes, “Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground”
Broken Social Scene, “You Forgot It In People”
The Decemberists, “Castaways and Cutouts”
Dixie Chicks, “Home”
Hot Hot Heat, “Make Up the Breakdown”
Iron & Wine, “The Creek Drank the Cradle”
Ben Kweller, “Sha Sha”
The Mayflies USA, “Walking In A Straight Line”
The Mercury Program, “A Data Learn The Language”
The Mountain Goats, “Tallahassee”
The Postal Service, “Give Up” (Oops. Released in 2003.)
Sigur Ros, “( )”
Spoon, “Kill the Moonlight”
Superdrag, “Last Call for Vitriol”
Wilco, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”

(This post is part of Frequency’s coverage of the best music of the past decade. You can see all of that coverage in one place by clicking here. Tune in Dec. 18, when I’ll post “Near/Far,” our annual, downloadable MP3 compilation of the best music of 2009, to go along with our year-in-review package in that day’s GO! Magazine.)

You’ll note that neither my best-of-2000 list nor the one below contains a nice, round number of albums. Instead of sticking to a top 10 or 20, I’ve decided to cut off my lists wherever it feels right — wherever I think there’s a noticeable drop in quality. These lists should contain great albums, not merely very good ones.

One advantage of this method is that you can see how the individual years stack up against each other. The 2000 list has 17 albums; 2001 has only 14. That means just what you think it does: When compared with its predecessor, 2001 looks a little anemic. There are a couple classics here and a few other solid albums, but overall, the quality drops off pretty quickly. Heck, this list almost had 13 entries. I’ve often thought Gillian Welch’s “Time (The Revelator)” is overrated, but it was the perfect soundtrack for a recent drive to Portland, so it snuck in at the last second.

The most striking trends I see here are that it was a strong year for some big alt-country acts (MMJ, Whiskeytown, Old 97s, Easton, Welch) and we got a bunch of albums from bands (Death Cab, Shins, Strokes, Spoon) that would soon become big-time stars. Sprinkle in some melodic electro-noise from Fennesz, a little Scottish punk by Idlewild, a blueprint for hip-hop’s future from Jay-Z and the joyous choir-pop of The Polyphonic Spree, and you have the world of recorded music in 2001.

Death Cab for Cutie, “The Photo Album”
Fennesz, “Endless Summer”
Jay-Z, “The Blueprint”
My Morning Jacket, “At Dawn”
Tim Easton, “The Truth About Us”
Idlewild, “100 Broken Windows”
The Old 97s, “Satellite Rides”
The Polyphonic Spree, “The Beginning Stages Of …”
The Shins, “Oh, Inverted World”
Spoon, “Girls Can Tell”
The Strokes, “Is This It”
Gillian Welch, “Time (The Revelator)”
Whiskeytown, “Pneumonia”

(This post is part of Frequency’s coverage of the best music of the past decade. You can see all of that coverage in one place by clicking here. And be sure to tune in Dec. 18, when I’ll post “Near/Far,” our annual, downloadable MP3 compilation of the best music of 2009, to go along with our year-in-review package in that day’s GO! Magazine.)

The year 2000 was my last living in my home town in Kentucky, and my last working at the greatest college radio station in the world, WRFL, and living around the corner from a tremendous record store, CD Central. It marked the end of my opportunity to grab an unfamiliar CD or LP off the station’s shelves, give it a spin, and, sometimes, discover a new favorite band. Probably half the bands on the list below I found through DJing at WRFL. And it marked the end of my ability to stop at the record store on a regular basis and browse for hours. In early 2001, I moved to the wilds of Idaho, more than two hours from the nearest shop, and even that one was pretty underwhelming.

Here, in alphabetical order, are what I believe to be the best albums released in 2000, which was a pretty strong year for music. It’s a nice mix, I think, with some indie rock, some power pop, some twangy stuff and a little hip-hop, plus one of the weirdest records I own. (And yes, no “Kid A”.) Stick around to find out if any of these ranked among my favorites of the entire decade.

Ryan Adams, “Heartbreaker”
The Anniversary, “Designing A Nervous Breakdown”
Death Cab For Cutie, “We Have The Facts and We’re Voting Yes”
Steve Earle, “Transcendental Blues”
The Glands, “The Glands”
Godspeed You Black Emperor, “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven”
Grandaddy, “The Sophtware Slump”
Marah, “Kids In Philly”
Modest Mouse, “The Moon & Antarctica”
The New Pornographers, “Mass Romantic”
Outkast, “Stankonia”
Pontius Copilot, “Madagascar”
Slobberbone, “Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today”
Sunny Day Real Estate, “The Rising Tide”
Superdrag, “In the Valley of Dying Stars”
Ultimate Fakebook, “This Will Be Laughing Week”
Wolf Colonel, “Vikings of Mint”

How about you? Sort your iTunes by “Year” and tell me what 2000 release still strikes a chord with you.