Favourite albums of the '00s (#1 through #20)

For the second half of this list and to see my favourite songs of the decade, click here. Otherwise, read on...


20. Jill Barber, Chances

For her fourth album, Jill Barber decided to ditch her country leanings in favour of something a little more indebted to jazz and big band sounds of decades long past. Chances shows that she made the right decision. While it often sounded more like it had originated in 1948 (or, possibly, 1958) than in 2008, there's no denying that Barber had the arrangements and the vocal prowess to pull it off in a way that sounded timeless.

Download "Chances"

19. The Rural Alberta Advantage, Hometowns

It was kind of a surprise to me when I realized that Hometowns was, technically, only released less than two years ago. After all, I've been hearing most of these songs for a significantly longer amount of time -- a chunk of them were on the band's debut EP (which I first heard back in 2006), while I'd heard the rest several times out of the dozen or so times I've see The RAA live. Still, having all the tracks together in one place makes for a very convenient listen, and (up until Saddle Creek and Pitchfork discovered them) made the perfect piece of evidence for anyone who wanted to point to The RAA as the best unsigned band in Canada.

Download "The Dethbridge in Lethbridge"

18. Death From Above 1979, You're A Woman, I'm A Machine

DFA79's debut was just loud, heavy fun. Even if it sometimes seemed like their career was an exercise in making everyone wonder whether they were serious about what they were doing or just trying to screw with people's heads, there's no denying that the one full-length they did make was seriously awesome. It thunders into your skull from the opening riffs of "Turn It Out", and doesn't let up for any of the next ten tracks.

17. Rah Rah, Going Steady

As I wrote back when I first heard Going Steady: no matter how high my expectations were for Rah Rah's first full-length (based on my love for their debut EP), I really wasn't expecting them to come up with something this good. They completely blew all those Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene comparisons out of the water, taking those influences and incorporating a distinctly prairie vibe into a sound that was unmistakeably their own.

Download "I've Got Faith"


16. Born Ruffians, Red, Yellow and Blue

Born Ruffians's first full-length is the ultimate example of a grower. When I first heard it, it seemed like a bit of a letdown after their outstanding debut EP. Even with that disappointment, though, I still went back and gave Red, Yellow and Blue another few listens when it came time to vote on the Polaris Prize Longlist. Lo and behold, it turned out that the album got a lot better the more you listened. Born Ruffians replaced the immediate punch of their first EP with a surprising amount of depth and restraint. Songs like "Little Garçon" and "Foxes Mate For Life" were like nothing I'd ever heard from the band before, while both "Hummingbird" and "Hedonistic Me" showed that they hadn't ditched their old sound entirely. Ultimately, Red, Yellow and Blue struck a nice balance between their older sound and moving forward, and wound up being a really great album.

Download "Foxes Mate For Life"

15. Young Galaxy, Young Galaxy

While many people were disappointed with Young Galaxy for what they weren't (specifically, they committed the apparently unpardonable sin of being an Arts & Crafts band that didn't sound like Broken Social Scene or Stars), I preferred to see the band's self-titled debut for what it was: a gorgeously spacey-sounding masterpiece. On tracks like "The Sun's Coming Up And My Plane's Going Down" and "Swing Your Heartache", Stephen Ramsay showed himself to be more than capable of creating a dreamy atmosphere, while moments of full-on rocking (particularly "Come and See" and "Searchlight") helped to ensure that the album never wandered too far into the ether.

Download "Come and See"

14. Tokyo Police Club, A Lesson In Crime

In my mind, Tokyo Police Club are sort of a bizarro world version of Born Ruffians. Like Ruffians, TPC started out with a masterful debut EP, brimming with yelped vocals and youthful exuberance. Unlike Ruffians, however, when it came time to make a full-length, Tokyo Police Club decided to turn their backs on what made them special in the first place, and churned out Elephant Shell, an exercise in middling, generic "indie rock".

As you can tell, I'm not a fan of Elephant Shell in any way, shape or form. To a large extent, however, this disappointment is shaped entirely by how much I absolutely loved A Lesson In Crime. It captured all the joy and energy of their live show and distilled it into eighteen or so minutes of handclappy, shoutalong brilliance. I can't imagine they'll ever go back to sounding like they did here, which is a shame, because it really is one of the most fun albums I've ever heard.

Download "Be Good"

13. Plants and Animals, Parc Avenue

It still annoys me a little that Parc Avenue didn't bring Plants and Animals the 2008 Polaris Prize, but they'll just have to settle for the knowledge that they've created an epic masterpiece. There aren't many bands out there who could release an eleven-track album in which the average song length is well over five minutes and every single song is an exciting listen, but P&A do exactly that here. Their full-length debut is jammy, proggy, over-the-top genius.

Download "New Kind of Love"


12. The D'Urbervilles, We Are The Hunters

Even now, a few years after I first heard We Are The Hunters, I'm still struck by how delightfully menacing it all sounds. There's something sinister in frontman John O'Regan's flat, deadpan vocals (particularly when he and his bandmates shout lines like "We're your hunters, we're you're children / It's time for killing"), and the creepiness levels are only ratcheted up by stabbing guitar riffs and post-punk-y basslines. Like any good thriller, though, it all adds up to be absolutely riveting.

Download "The Receiver"

11. Black Hat Brigade, Black Hat Brigade

I know, I know: with the hiccuped vocals and apocalyptic music, Black Hat Brigade sounds a lot like Wolf Parade. But you know what? When the music is this good, that doesn't bother me one bit. I've gone back to each of this album's five tracks again and again, and every single time it's left me completely awestruck. My favourite thing about the album, though, is the way it all flows together seamlessly -- while each song stands up well on its own (even the instrumental "Pictoral History"), ultimately you can't help but want to listen to the whole thing, as if it's one 26 minute-long track.

Download "On Leave"


10. Young Galaxy, Invisible Republic

Part of me wants to rate this album even higher -- after all, I've been listening to it pretty constantly for the last year or so, which probably indicates that it'll have some staying power for years to come. Like he does on the band's debut, Stephen Ramsay shows an impressive ability to balance spacey sonic dreamscapes with memorable rock songs, but this time he has a lot more support from his music/life partner, Catherine McCandless, who steps up and shows that she's just as talented as he is. Ultimately, though, it seems wrong to place an album from just this past year any higher on a best albums of the decade list. (That said, though, who knows how high I might rank it if I were to rethink this list five years from now?)

Download "Pathos"


9. Ketch Harbour Wolves, Dead Calm Horizon

It still boggles my mind that the best album of 2008 was (and still is) being given away as a free download, but such is the state of the modern music industry, I guess. It's important, however, to recognize that Dead Calm Horizon's price had no relation whatsoever to its quality. Anyone willing to spend a few moments downloading the album was rewarded immensely, with a wonderfully dark, National-esque masterpiece.

Download "Animals"


8. The Unicorns, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?

Like Death From Above 1979, it was often hard to tell how much of The Unicorns' schtick was genuine and how much they did just to try and screw with people. Also like DFA79, the band quit far too early, and its members have spent the rest of the decade trying to live up to the expectations caused by one classic album.

Of course, that's where the similarities end, since one thing The Unicorns were not was heavy. They had a bit of punk in their music, I guess, but basically they always seems like a trio of obnoxiously brilliant songwriters, all of whom could effortlessly toss out unforgettably catchy pop gems. I don't use "toss out" lightly there, either -- really, a significant chunk of Who Will Cut Out Hair When We're Gone? sounds like the band just happened to have the "record" button on when they were playing around in the studio. But that's part of the band's charm, and it's what makes their one album such an essential listen.

Download "I Was Born (A Unicorn)"


7. Broken Social Scene, You Forgot It In People

There's not a lot to say about Broken Social Scene's sophomore release that hasn't already been said. It's pretty much the album that awakened the rest of the world to Canada's music scene, it played a key role in pushing forward (and, arguably, killing) the idea of "Torontopia", it brought together some of the country's most talented musicians, who in turn made an album that matched and exceeded their collective talent level.

Even with all that talent, however, what makes the album stand out was the fact that it doesn't push itself on you. The whole album drifts along in a dreamy haze, to the point that it even sounds like it burbles out of your subconscious with album opener "Capture The Flag". Obviously, given all the other plaudits this album has received over the years, there's nothing I can add, apart from saying that You Forgot It In People really is as good as everyone says it is.

Download "KC Accidental"


6. The Weakerthans, Reconstruction Site

Coming as the follow-up to Left & Leaving (more on that in a moment), I couldn't have been more excited for Reconstruction Site. Of course, I also couldn't have had more unrealistic expectations, which meant that, initially, I was a little disappointed by The Weakerthans' third album. After all, I'd been waiting for a follow-up to Left & Leaving since 2000, and most of what was on offer here was either stuff I'd seen the band play several times before in concert, or songs that I didn't really like.

A half-decade after the fact, however, and any disappointment I may have felt has entirely faded. While there are still a few songs I'm not a huge fan of (mainly concentrated near the end of the album, which is what bumped it down behind Left & Leaving), what I do like, I really, really like. The first six songs on here (from "(Manifest)" through to "Our Retired Explorer (Dines With Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961)") are all incredibly good, with John K. Samson showing the full range of his lyrical and songwriting ability. Even when things slow down a little after towards the end, there's still the one-two punch of "A New Name For Everything" and "One Great City!" to ensure that even the latter half of Reconstruction Site is better than most very good full albums. It may not measure up to Left & Leaving, but by any normal standards, it's still pretty darn good.

Download "Plea From A Cat Named Virtue"


5. Henri Faberge & the Adorables, Henri Faberge & The Adorables

As I mentioned a few days ago, the self-titled debut from Henri Faberge & The Adorables is one of the albums from the past decade that delights and frustrates me most.

First, why it's so frustrating: it's astonishing that one band could have so much talent in one place, and then manage to lose it all before they could even put together a second album. The band's roster of contributors and associates is practically a who's who of Toronto music from the second half of this decade; just off the top of my head, the band featured members of The Bicycles, Entire Cities, Born Ruffians, The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Hidden Cameras (though Laura Barrett may have joined that band after her time as an Adorable), Woodhands, Caribou, The Basement Arms, The Township Expansion, We're Scared, The Meligrove Band, The Postage Stamps and countless other groups. Obviously the members of those bands were involved to varying degrees, but still: with that level of talent involved, the band should've at least managed to survive to a second album (I mean, if Broken Social Scene could do it, the Adorables surely could have). Instead, "complicated" ahem interband dynamics and difficult personalities (not to mention physical fighting) meant that most of the band was either fired or quit within a year of the album's release.

It's a shame because the band's one album is stunningly good. They're nominally a pop band, but there's something subversive about the band's idea of what pop music means. Whether it's the obscene lyrics of "Rub&Suck&Tug (Til My Vacation's Over)", or a mid-song rant in "Out of Your League", or a Wu Tang Clan reference in "Ventriloquist Love", or the pure punk blast of "Dance Dance Revelation"...on Henri Faberge and the Adorables' one album, they consistently took the expected and turned it on its head. It made for an incredibly fun listen, and it's impossible not to feel a little cheated they didn't get to explore their talent a little further.

Download "Out Of Your League"


4. The Weakerthans, Left & Leaving

For most of the first half of this decade, Left & Leaving qualified as my easy and obvious favourite album of all time. Even if John K. Samson's lyrics didn't necessarily speak directly to my situation (I don't think that I can ever say that I "Rely a bit too heavily on alcohol and irony", as he does in "Aside"), it still had that quality of speaking to me in a way that no other album I'd ever heard did.

More importantly, though, was that the band made that angst and worry sound good. I was only vaguely aware of emo at the time, but what I did hear (Saves The Day, The Get-Up Kids, etc.) was a little too whiny and boring for my tastes. While Samson's lyrics may have been intensely personal, he didn't sound like a cliché when he sang them. On top of that, the music behind it was enjoyable; songs like "Watermark" and "This Is A Fire Door Never Leave Open" were melodically interesting, in addition to having poetic lyrics. Even looking back now, I'm able to hear exactly what was so appealing about it all -- in other words, it's not embarrassing to hear these songs now and think that they once really meant something to me. Actually, past tense seems wrong in this case; even if they don't hit me quite as deeply as they once did, they still make me feel more than a little introspective, and they definitely still make me want to listen to Left & Leaving over and over again.

Download "My Favourite Chords"


3. Arcade Fire, Funeral

Funeral is a weird album, at least to me. For every song I love ("Wake Up", "Rebellion (Lies)", "Power Out"), there are just as many songs that I can't stand, at least by themselves -- "Crown Of Love" reminds me of a bad Elvis song, "In The Backseat" can be grating if you're not in the mood for Régine Chassagne's vocals, and "Laika" just isn't a song I enjoy.

That said, not only do I sort of tolerate those songs when I hear them within the context of the album, I actually like them. This is because the album works extremely well as a cohesive whole; "Crown of Love" flows naturally out of "7 Kettles", and the two Régine songs fit around "Rebellion" very nicely. While many people have spent the last few years proclaiming the death of the album as a format, Funeral is a great argument to the contrary.

Download "Wake Up"


2. Wolf Parade, Apologies To The Queen Mary

My initial reaction to Apologies to the Queen Mary was actually disappointment. I'd been really excited for Wolf Parade's full-length debut because of their self-released, self-titled EP and a great live show, but when I finally got to hear it, I was let down by what I perceived as an unnecessary glossing of their sound. After all, what I'd liked most about their early recordings was the rawness and raggedness, so hearing the songs produced this much was a bit of a shock.

Given enough time, however, I've come around to see that no amount of production can obscure the greatness of these songs. Apologies... was, apparently, recorded at the perfect point in time -- just as Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug had refined their songs to the point that they achieved their respective ideal sounds, but before they diverged off on different paths entirely. The result was a thundering, apocalyptic force of nature, wherein both men (along with Arlen Thompson and Hadji Bakara) pushed each other to the peak of their songwriting abilities, delivering an album for the ages in the process.

Download "This Heart's On Fire"


1. Amos the Transparent, Everything I've Forgotten To Forget

Given the wealth of great -- and, more importantly, high profile -- Canadian releases over the last decade, I'm sure that there are quite a few people out there who are stunned by fact that my favourite album of the past ten years comes from a relatively unknown, unsigned (at present) Ottawa band. Or maybe not; after all, I've been fairly consistent in my support for Amos the Transparent, so maybe it's not so surprising that their debut is #1 on this list.

Regardless of whether it's surprising or not, I'm quite certain of one thing: whether you're talking about Everything I've Forgotten To Forget as an album or as a collection of individual tracks, it's an excellent album. One of the things that impresses me about it most is that I can pick a song from it at random, and I'm guaranteed to like it. "I'm On Trial", "My Fear Of Animals", "(Here's To) New Beginnings", "OK, OK, Fine, OK", whatever -- I'm not exaggerating when I say that, at some point over the last two and a half years, I've been obsessed with every single song on here.

But Everything I've Forgotten To Forget is no mere collection of singles (assuming bands even record albums of singles anymore). It's also a very good album. It flows from one song to the next; it creates and sustains a mood from beginning to end; it just sounds great as a singular, cohesive whole. Even now, in fact, well after I've listened and relistened more times than I can count, I'm still discovering new things about it. It makes for one of the best albums I've ever heard, and I'm quite confident when I state that it, unequivocally, is my favourite album of the last ten years.

Download "I'm On Trial"