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.

24. System of a Down - Toxicity (2001)


What a delicate year it was in 2001 following the events of 9/11. Everything ever since was then viewed by the media with a rather high level of suspicion (and paranoia I have to add) that certain things might somehow has any indication that could have precipitated another string of terrorist attack. It was a question that haunts the whole nation: "How could have not even one person saw that this was coming?" "Was it really a tragic event or was there some kind of a conspiracy that is behind it?" That there: you can have your choice of either playing camp, or go the way of Michael Moore and many others who thinks and believes and have evidential proof that such event was only a staged performance in which many explosives were used.

It was exactly seven days before 9/11 took place when a still-little-known Armenian-American 'nu metal' quartet released an album, accompanied by a leading single that for a while, sounded innocent enough for safe family consumption. However, after details were made known all over the media that four airplane had crashed, piloted by kamikaze jihadists, suddenly a certain line in the fore-mentioned song took on a deeply poetic and significant meaning. "I don't think you trust in my self-righteous suicide" is by then considered too sensitive for a still-in-shock, still-mourning nation. That line was delivered with much conviction and emotion by the-then fast rising System of a Down from the single "Chop Suey!".

Being Armenian, ethnically, it was deemed natural by the media that some of the content of their music leaned towards politics. In fact, the band has actually been rather outspoken in expressing their views, especially regarding the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the war on terror. Thus, when Serj Tankian greeted listeners into Toxicity with the line "They're tryin' to build a prison", it kind of straight away set the mood for the album - that this album is going to be political, that this album is going to be rancid. Tankian stressed his point further: "Following the rights movements you clamped on with your iron fists/Drugs became conveniently available for all the kids". And just before he nail down his main point with a shout, a snippet came in: "Nearly two million Americans are incarcerated in the prison system/Prison system of the U.S."

Had the entire album been filled with such scathing attack on the current administration (of the time the album was made), what was the main weapon for the band could have actually been the final nail in the coffin for the album, that the future of the album could have been fated much worse. You see, in spite of the band being at the height of their career, at the top of their game when the album was released, that the band was very much relevant at the time, to solely focus the album on what was the crowning jewel in their achievement as a band might have not been the most brilliant move in their career. Such lesson is best learned with another political band that came much earlier than them - Rage Against the Machine. The de la Rocha fronted rap rock band spent their entire career (or existence) fighting for a cause that seemed like they could never win in their lifetime - and rightly after four albums in eight years, the band lost their sting. They were no longer the champion of championing for a cause; they have simply lost, fair and square.

However, the band showed a surprising quality of maturity when they very subtly put non-political materials in between the 'go marching in the street for it' ones; songs like "Needles", "Psycho" and "Shimmy" teeters on the edge of the water, once and for all saving the band from circling the creativity drain. In a much simpler term, this album is not delivered in a very straight forward manner, unlike their previous debut album. In fact, songs that carry political views are rather rare throughout the album. In one moment Tankian was shouting about a hypothetical prison being built around us all, in the next he spewed head-scratching metaphor "Life is a waterfall/We're one in the river and one again after the fall". Then he went into a Dadaist mode, singing how he want to 'get down' with his wife while dreaming of having a house. Startling confusion, indeed.

But what comes together in the end is not a confusing record that seems to lack a focal point of direction. It does not feel like all the songs are put together just to fill in the blanks, that they are there to round up the total playing time to 44 minutes so that it qualifies as a long player - the whole album actually feels bespoke. When you listen to the album as a whole, you can still feel that the real intent of the album, the real message that they are trying to get across is still there, but it was only served in a much more subtle, sophisticated manner. They are no longer, metaphorically speaking, marching in the street shouting slogans and starting a riot. This time they are more restrained and well-thought out in their action. When Tankian claimed: "Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep/ Disorder, disorder, disorder", Toxicity was that exact moment of sacred silence and sleep, and hidden somewhere beneath the album is a warning about chaos and disorder that is permeating through our society and our country. Brilliant.