Albums of the decade?

As well as albums of the year, the fact that the year itself has a '9' in it has inevitably resulted in a slew of lists of best albums of the decade; this time 10 years ago we were worried about the Y2K bug, and had never heard of an iPod; now we are worried about swine flu, and the CD is fast becoming something we expect to see in a museum in the near future.


Some of the lists I have found are as follows:

Uncut magiaxine (of course)
http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/uncut/special_features/13807

The Observer:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/nov/29/albums-of-the-decade

The Irish Times:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2009/1201/1224259791948.html

E-music:
http://www.emusic.com/features/hub/decade_albums/index.html

NME
http://www.nme.com/list/the-top-100-greatest-albums-of-the-decade/158049/page/10

So, what are the big winners? Common threads (easier to pick out than for the best of 2009, as commented in my last post) are as follows, in an ad hoc assembled meta-analysis top 10 (no particular order, not scientific methods applied).


Arcade Fire - Funeral (my thoughts of this have been clear on this blog before)
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (respected, but not loved)
LCD soundsystem - Sound of silver (stole Uncut's 1997 poll from 'Boxer' but did like some of it)
Radiohead - Kid A (never warmed to it, ever, not inclined to try again)
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand (liked but not loved)
The Streets - Any of them (must admit to loving 'Dry your eyes')
The Strokes - Is that it? (everything about it put me off, never tried it)
The White Stripes - Elephant (recently commented on this)


The absence of alt-country music from most charts (with the occasional exception of Lambchop's wonderful 'Nixon') betrays why my tastes for most of the decade diverge from the lists. I know I am just showing my age here but I would tend to moan predicatbly that my favourite decade for music (so far) is the 1980s, but of course that was when all was new and wonderful and I was impressionable and suddenly interested - such formative influences cannot easily be shrugged off.

I will finish with two tracks I do like from common poll-toppers, the first being 'Crown of love' from Arcade Fire's 'Funeral':

and the second is 'You've got her in your pocket' from 'Elephant' by the White Stripes.

The last two posts have been on the theme of how my tastes and those of critical analysis do not seem to align very well. In 2010, I hope to blather on some more about my tastes, and we will just have to see if they ever converge (as they did, albeit briefly, in 2008) again.