LISTED: 30 Best Albums of the Last Decade (2000 - 2009)
*As the year 2010 is about to draw its curtain close, it is the time of the year (of any year) for many music sites and blogs to come up with a top list of albums of the year. Yes indeed the year 2010 has seen many interesting releases worthy of at least a top 20 list. But here at The Genuine Mind Zine we decided to do things a bit different and take a look at some of the best (of the best) releases throughout the last decade. This may not be the most comprehensive list around, lack of hip hop records for one, but all the albums listed here are indeed the most precious of last decade's precious gems.
27. Sonic Youth - Murray Street (2002)
To copy the words of Heather Phares, "Virtually every album Sonic Youth has released since the underrated Goo has been hailed as a return to form". I will admit that SY did came about earlier than I could properly appreciate music, so the critic's love of 1988's Daydream Nation still is a bit perplexing for me because for four years now since I first listened to the album, I still could not properly love it. For me, the real music of SY is intricate, layered textures of guitar tones that is greeted by occasional burst of distorted noise and tortured screaming of feedback. That and Kim Gordon's occasional post punk ranting about uh, things. The only thing that I can recollect from Daydream Nation was just lots of distorted noise. Which then brings us to 2002's Murray Street.
Return to form or no, MS was a genuinely amazing record. For the entire decade (last decade that is), they have released five studio albums, and to be quite frank, their last effort, 2009's The Eternal was their most epic record. Kicked to life with the art punk two minutes outburst of "Sacred Trickster" and ended with the sprawling closer "Massage the History", technically speaking, TE is the one that should have made it into this list instead of MS. But without plunging further into confusion, allow me to explain one thing why MS was instead picked as the best album for the decade. While TE has the better technicalities over MS, it however lacked the overall coherence and consistency of the latter. I dare to say that MS is probably SY's most quiet album to date. It does not feel rushed - there's no urgency to the whole album. And that is a very interesting point to make considering SY's riotous history in their entire existence. They are essentially a post punk band so you'd imagined that they would kick out the jam at any given time and opportunity - and they did. But on this album however, the band has somehow mellowed a little bit and become subdued. Not that it's a bad thing actually, but it has made MS such a refined album.
It feels rich, it is carefully textured, properly thought out, and perfectly executed. It may sound like it has just defeated the whole point of being SY, but sometimes to get a moment of ease, of perfect clarity from such a chaotic band is actually a classic moment that begs to be enjoyed. It's like been living in Calcutta or Hell for a long time, and then one day you wake up and you see the road is empty, and there is not a single soul around. You may be alarmed at first, but after a while you sort of enjoy it and hoped that there will be more moments like this to come in the future.
*As the year 2010 is about to draw its curtain close, it is the time of the year (of any year) for many music sites and blogs to come up with a top list of albums of the year. Yes indeed the year 2010 has seen many interesting releases worthy of at least a top 20 list. But here at The Genuine Mind Zine we decided to do things a bit different and take a look at some of the best (of the best) releases throughout the last decade. This may not be the most comprehensive list around, lack of hip hop records for one, but all the albums listed here are indeed the most precious of last decade's precious gems.
27. Sonic Youth - Murray Street (2002)
To copy the words of Heather Phares, "Virtually every album Sonic Youth has released since the underrated Goo has been hailed as a return to form". I will admit that SY did came about earlier than I could properly appreciate music, so the critic's love of 1988's Daydream Nation still is a bit perplexing for me because for four years now since I first listened to the album, I still could not properly love it. For me, the real music of SY is intricate, layered textures of guitar tones that is greeted by occasional burst of distorted noise and tortured screaming of feedback. That and Kim Gordon's occasional post punk ranting about uh, things. The only thing that I can recollect from Daydream Nation was just lots of distorted noise. Which then brings us to 2002's Murray Street.
Return to form or no, MS was a genuinely amazing record. For the entire decade (last decade that is), they have released five studio albums, and to be quite frank, their last effort, 2009's The Eternal was their most epic record. Kicked to life with the art punk two minutes outburst of "Sacred Trickster" and ended with the sprawling closer "Massage the History", technically speaking, TE is the one that should have made it into this list instead of MS. But without plunging further into confusion, allow me to explain one thing why MS was instead picked as the best album for the decade. While TE has the better technicalities over MS, it however lacked the overall coherence and consistency of the latter. I dare to say that MS is probably SY's most quiet album to date. It does not feel rushed - there's no urgency to the whole album. And that is a very interesting point to make considering SY's riotous history in their entire existence. They are essentially a post punk band so you'd imagined that they would kick out the jam at any given time and opportunity - and they did. But on this album however, the band has somehow mellowed a little bit and become subdued. Not that it's a bad thing actually, but it has made MS such a refined album.
It feels rich, it is carefully textured, properly thought out, and perfectly executed. It may sound like it has just defeated the whole point of being SY, but sometimes to get a moment of ease, of perfect clarity from such a chaotic band is actually a classic moment that begs to be enjoyed. It's like been living in Calcutta or Hell for a long time, and then one day you wake up and you see the road is empty, and there is not a single soul around. You may be alarmed at first, but after a while you sort of enjoy it and hoped that there will be more moments like this to come in the future.
Labels: 30 Best Albums of the Last Decade (2000 - 2009), sonic youth
posted by Hafeez at 12:21 AM
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