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.

26. Dimmu Borgir - Death Cult Armageddon (2003)


OK so first of all, a frank admission: not the biggest fan of metal music. I do listen to a smattering few metal bands but then that's it. Other names whom I reckon are the true heavyweights within the metal circle might not be available in my list of preference - hence Dimmu Borgir. Second of all, I may not be the biggest fan of metal but some of my friends do, and I have this feeling, a sense that somehow DB is just one Hell of a joke band. Or if they are not funny then they are just a bunch of bastards. Whichever works - and I might agree on that one too. Largely because for one, some people (or was it the band themselves, I don't know) claimed that they play black metal, to use the term in its' vaguest sense. Or to play it safe among the black metal purists, they call it symphonic black metal. Or because since they have sort of become the standard template for many later Scandinavian metal bands, they called it Scandinavian black metal. Which is too long a name actually considering it could have been called 'It's Shit, Really'.

Now, I promise I won't spend two third of this entry bashing this band, saying why it's not black metal, or heck why it is not even metal at all, but here's a final parting shot. Four years ago, I watched this amazing documentary produced by NRK (if I'm not mistaken) on black metal, and in that documentary, they interviewed musicians who are involved in the movement, telling the audience the history behind the development of the genre, what are their concerns and what are they fighting for, the inner turmoil within the movement and within band members - the lot. It was an eye-opening documentary for me because for once, I actually understood what black metal is, and so I can safely say that, to be with the black metal purists, Dimmu Borgir are just a bunch of pussies.

However, and that's a very big however there, there is a very good reason as to why Death Cult Armageddon made it into this list of the best album of the previous decade - it is highly entertaining. Now, I'll make it clear once again, yes, in my eyes, DB is like a comic relief in an otherwise a very serious movie. You don't take them seriously. You will never take them seriously. But then again, in a very serious movie, a comic relief brings much needed uh, relief. You know that this character is bound to do something stupid and in fact you actually quietly hoped that they would do something stupid, just to draw some laughter from you, to ease the pressure that is mounting from the rising action in the plot. You know that they are an unimportant character and is not at all central to the whole action, but without realizing it, they actually enliven the whole movie. They actually make the movie a pleasurable experience. This comic relief, is Dimmu Borgir, and what a real huge, gigantic, enormous blast they did when they released this epic operatic piece.

For me, listening to DB is not about song craftsmanship, and it's a fact that the band knows. They know that their strength is not in song writing, but in creating atmosphere because they know how to use a whole symphony arrangement to their advantage. They know that when people listen to DB, they're not in it for memorable melody, or delicious guitar solo. So in 2003, what they did was not release an album, but an atomic bomb. The whole album was too over-the-top in its' theatrical atmospheric, it borders on absurdity - and actually that was a good thing. Because they are doing what they are very good at, perfectly. You listen to the album, come out of it thinking that the whole universe is about to explode very soon; that the Norse Gods in the heaven are having a war in a space jet, shooting laser rays; that the sun is about to melt and harden back again into a rock the shape of Shagrath 10 million feet high - just because it was too awesome. Play this album in your iPod quietly while browsing for books in the library, and the book shelf will explode to pieces - just because it was too fucking awesome.

And I personally liked the third track, "Lepers Among Us", because the song would suddenly turn dramatic for no obvious reason. It just has to be dramatic, because it's the Dimmu Borgir we're talking here that's why. I am totally in love. There can never be any other album that is way more awesome than this (on the strength of its' dramatic-ness).

One Day Holiday - A Death Cult in a Dark City

* One Day Holiday is an unscheduled, published-whenever-I-feel-like-it column for Hafeez, a resident blogger for this blog. This column is centered mostly around music and random stuff that ranges from the coherent to the absolutely absurd.


The one thing (among other things, that is) that I can still recall clearly about 2001 is that sensational coverage by the nation's leading tabloid Harian Metro on a sinister underground movement among teenagers called Black Metal. The way it was treated is as if the movement is almost like a separatist cult group, paving a way for mostly innocent and quite possibly brainwashed teenagers into the depth of satanism, paganism, and a few other -ism's that is associated with the act of disassociating oneself away from God and religion, or THE TRUTH. Which, by the way, is the big worry. Every day since after that revelation, the whole nation was gripped in fear as we all are treated with countless stories of how these young men (who listens to Black Metal) piss on the Holy Book, burn it, excrete on it (I might make that one up), perform religious acts towards Lord Satan, holy-fucking-shit sacrificed black goat (you'll see a color pattern emerging) and drank its blood, supposedly which will put the person 'in the zone' or something. The fact of the matter is that Black Metal is an evil movement that is for sure not welcomed in this country of peace-loving, mosque-attending, Qur'an-reading citizen - or so how the tabloid wants you to see it.

The reason I'm bringing such an old issue up is because recently I am attracted to the concept of the power of suggestion. By merely suggesting to a group of people that something is the norms onto which that group of people should behave because it is the perceived norms of that group of people (and in which case might not necessarily be the case), it then became accepted as the truth. In the case of the Black Metal movement AND the sensational revelation by Harian Metro, it was suggested subtly that by merely listening to Black Metal, then the listener of said music is automatically enlisted in the secret underground movement of Satan worshiper, and therefore must have gone through the rituals of satanism and paganism, and thus therefore must go through yet another ritual of spiritual cleansing and 'aqidah correction. Just why did the tabloid had to pick on Black Metal is not quite certain but most certainly, what was actually, and originally, a genre of music that highlights the darker side of humanity, of suppression of troubled emotion, of the darker side of human psyche, of the dark side of the moon as I would say, had become the easy scapegoat for being a fertile breeding ground for vice. As if Black Metal in general is the music to worship to Satan as how Space Rock is the music to take drugs to.

Perhaps the most ridiculous part of the whole situation is in how the general masses, who have not even the slightest of hint of what Black Metal is, and what constitutes as Black Metal, accepted and used the key word to conveniently pigeonhole every other metal music-associated acts with the acts that was clearly not ingrained and essential to the being and the existence of it. In other words, worshiping Satan is not Black Metal's problem - worshiping Satan is the society's problem. It's a personal problem, it's a personal reference, it's a mental reference. It is the choice and the act of an individual, not a collective one. And just because a small group of Black Metal listeners worship Satan, it does not necessarily means that all other forms of metal music is also associated with the act. Metallica is not a Satan worshiping band; Iron Maiden are partly political in their musical stance, but not satanical; Slipknot is just a bunch of posers much like Marilyn Manson - they are in it for the shock value, not because they actually practice satanism; and Dimmu Borgir, one of the most well-known Black Metal act in the world - they're not even that "black", they are actually quite comical. I believe the metal music community might bash me on this one but I've been listening to Dimmu Borgir for quite some time and I truly believe that they are one Hell of a funny band. Because they are very (and sometimes quite overly) dramatic all of the time, it's almost quite impossible to take them seriously.

But perhaps the most damning thing from the whole Black Metal debacle is that two years later, the Norwegian 'black' metal band went on to release what must have been the most defining album of their career - Death Cult Armageddon. I'd say it's the most defining album of Dimmu Borgir's career because all of the trademark that what made Dimmu Borgir's sound is there, and then amplified by a thousand times, it's almost nuts. It felt like the whole band was just going for broke in this album. When I said that D.B. is overly dramatic in their music, the whole album was overly dramatic from start to finish, at every track. The over-pompousness nature of their sound is close to ridiculousness, but none will dare to ridicule the band. Because the way they are playing the game, it is totalfuckingbadassery and holyfuckingshitawesomeness. Seriously, I am surprised that they don't use the two said words as the title to their songs. Because if they did, it would have completed the package and solidify the status of this album as the most awesome Black Metal record ever recorded. I am that in awe with D.B.

And no, they don't worship Satan. They are just a bunch of musicians.