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.
25. Sigur Rós - Takk... (2005)
Without a single shadow of doubt Sigur Rós's best effort to date still is their second album, Ágætis Byrjun. But then due to a minor problem, that album cannot make it into this list (because or else it would have been positioned way higher than this). That minor problem is the fact that the album was technically released in 1999. So that left me with either the untitled one, Takk, or the one with butt exposed on the cover to choose from. Now, Sigur Rós did not make it into this list just to fill in a gap or something, now that I have said that their second album is their best effort so far. This may sound like consolation prize, that Takk is the band's second best effort overall, but consider the fact that it is genuinely an amazing album. A breathtaking one just to be more precise.
Choosing which album of the three to make it into this list was actually a pretty easy task. First, the untitled one, though mesmerizing in its' bleak beauty, gets pretty dreary after a while. At first, the idea of not putting any title on all eight tracks in the album, and leaving empty pages in the CD sleeve sounds pretty ingenious. Because the initial idea was to allow the listener to make up their own interpretation of the songs based on their own listening experience. So if a listener see harrowing images of suicidal men and women slitting their wrists in a darkened room, then that listener is pretty much doomed. I guess. Which actually was what I saw when I listened to the album - it was the saddest, bleakest, slowest album ever known to man. It was, for me, the perfect soundtrack for you to commit suicide to. The other problem is the monosyllabic, unintelligible warbling that punctuates the songs. None of what Jonssi sang in the album makes any sense (because it was in a made-up language). So you get frustrated halfway through the album because it kind of gets repetitious, even on the first listen.
Their fourth album on the other hand was the complete opposite of the untitled one; in fact, it was the complete opposite of all their first three releases. Sigur Rós's music, originally, was actually very dark, and even if it has beauty in it, it's in a very dark and depressing way. But with Takk... they greeted the listener with an explosion of warmth and harmony, bathed in a gentle symphony of the angels strumming their harp on pillows of cloud, opening a gate that leads the listener to a vast green field where the air is pure and there is a hint of gaiety hanging about in the atmosphere. For the first time ever, a Sigur Rós's album came to life. Kick-started by the springy "Glósóli", and then followed by the joyous "Hoppípolla", it is a desperately beautiful album. You have to shed a little tear just by the sheer enjoyment contained within this album. It will mesmerize you, it will leave you breathless, it will rock you, it will stifle you, it will bring even the most dead soul to wake - it will bring forth a new life in you. If you need a basic idea of how Spring sounds like (if it can make a sound), this album has that.
*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.
25. Sigur Rós - Takk... (2005)
Without a single shadow of doubt Sigur Rós's best effort to date still is their second album, Ágætis Byrjun. But then due to a minor problem, that album cannot make it into this list (because or else it would have been positioned way higher than this). That minor problem is the fact that the album was technically released in 1999. So that left me with either the untitled one, Takk, or the one with butt exposed on the cover to choose from. Now, Sigur Rós did not make it into this list just to fill in a gap or something, now that I have said that their second album is their best effort so far. This may sound like consolation prize, that Takk is the band's second best effort overall, but consider the fact that it is genuinely an amazing album. A breathtaking one just to be more precise.
Choosing which album of the three to make it into this list was actually a pretty easy task. First, the untitled one, though mesmerizing in its' bleak beauty, gets pretty dreary after a while. At first, the idea of not putting any title on all eight tracks in the album, and leaving empty pages in the CD sleeve sounds pretty ingenious. Because the initial idea was to allow the listener to make up their own interpretation of the songs based on their own listening experience. So if a listener see harrowing images of suicidal men and women slitting their wrists in a darkened room, then that listener is pretty much doomed. I guess. Which actually was what I saw when I listened to the album - it was the saddest, bleakest, slowest album ever known to man. It was, for me, the perfect soundtrack for you to commit suicide to. The other problem is the monosyllabic, unintelligible warbling that punctuates the songs. None of what Jonssi sang in the album makes any sense (because it was in a made-up language). So you get frustrated halfway through the album because it kind of gets repetitious, even on the first listen.
Their fourth album on the other hand was the complete opposite of the untitled one; in fact, it was the complete opposite of all their first three releases. Sigur Rós's music, originally, was actually very dark, and even if it has beauty in it, it's in a very dark and depressing way. But with Takk... they greeted the listener with an explosion of warmth and harmony, bathed in a gentle symphony of the angels strumming their harp on pillows of cloud, opening a gate that leads the listener to a vast green field where the air is pure and there is a hint of gaiety hanging about in the atmosphere. For the first time ever, a Sigur Rós's album came to life. Kick-started by the springy "Glósóli", and then followed by the joyous "Hoppípolla", it is a desperately beautiful album. You have to shed a little tear just by the sheer enjoyment contained within this album. It will mesmerize you, it will leave you breathless, it will rock you, it will stifle you, it will bring even the most dead soul to wake - it will bring forth a new life in you. If you need a basic idea of how Spring sounds like (if it can make a sound), this album has that.
Labels: 30 Best Albums of the Last Decade (2000 - 2009), sigur ros
posted by Hafeez at 2:08 AM
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