OUCH... my head hurts. I've been trying to turn 10 years' worth of music into a concise list - replaying albums, thinking about their impact, how the fans and critics raved. At the heart of it, I've tried to lay personal feelings aside and think objectively about the albums that shaped the Double-Os - the ones that shaped music, culture and really affected people. There's a couple of albums here I don't even like but can't ignore. But we all know deep down that musical taste is pretty subjective... oh well. Also I've limited each band to one entry only on the list so it doesn't fill up with Radiohead, Muse and Gomez albums.
51. Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea - PJ Harvey (2000)
FIVE albums into her career, Harvey got her best reviews and biggest sales right here - and that's saying something considering the adoration she attracts. Filled with post-punk progressions, Stories... is a delicately balanced masterpiece. It manages to be both deceptively simple and surprisingly intricate, beautifully passionate and bluntly forceful, disconcerting and embracing. And all the while, Harvey's New-York-State-Of-Mind poetry and that honest as hell voice drag you through backstreets and romances, occasionally stopping to take in the view. Plus, the duet with Thom Yorke is an absolute jaw-dropper.
52. F**k The Golden Youth - The Mint Chicks (2005)
SO garage-rock is this disc that it sounds like it really was recorded in a garage. These crazy Kiwis kick their way out of your speakers in a barrage of edgy, barely controlled chaos - the guitars sound like they have razorwire for strings, the vocals are a mix of ragged ranting (Rubbage Rat) and British indie pop (the title track), and the whole band has a wonderfully obtuse way of shifting gears and time signatures. With a tip of the hat to Fugazi and Wire, this is post-punk so lively and in-your-face (but not snotty or stupid) that you feel like you're sitting there in the garage with them.
53. Any Minute Now - Soulwax (2004)
TAKE Nine Inch Nails' dirty synths, love of noise and fractured heavy guitars and stick it in a happy disco place and you've got a rough approximation of this dance-rock delicacy. Amid the chaotic mirrorball madness there are moments of sour-sweet beauty (A Ballad To Forget) and upbeat freak-pop (NY Excuse, Slowdance). But the bits that make your armhairs stand up are when they pull out the six-strings, stick them in a blender and let them loose in a cut-and-paste barrage, like on the barnstorming title track, the druggy haze of E Talking or the surging industrial KracK.
54. Lovers - The Sleepy Jackson (2003)
MUSICAL genius Luke Steele has always been bat-shit crazy, but before he started dressing like he'd just come from a gay Aztec disco, he was creating amazing old-sounding pop albums like this. The real trick is that every song here sounds like a different band - Good Dancers is one of the best songs George Harrison never wrote, Vampire Racecourse sounds like Dave Grohl drumming for The Velvet Underground, and Acid In My Heart and Old Dirt Farmer are unashamedly country. A precociously adventurous record that gave the first hints of Steele's ability and self-belief.
55. Suck - The Revs (2003)
THESE riff-toting Irishmen segued the 12 songs on this, frustrating DJs everywhere but taking listeners on a journey of delicate pop-rock numbers punctuated by heavy alt-rock diversions, often in the same song (such as the Muse-like Give Me Something To Believe In and Your Last Day). There's a focus on death and faith, apparently influenced by the writings of Bill Hicks, and the band even had a minor hit with the anti-pop machine Death Of A DJ, but for the large part this album was criminally over-looked. Catchy and calculated yet still raw and fiery.
56. Lost Souls - Doves (2000)
THIS Mercury Music Prize-nominated album is the sound of a band rising from the ashes (literally) and not just landing on its feet, but hitting the ground running. After a studio fire destroyed three years of work, UK dance group became Doves, trading their drum machines for acoustic guitars and pianos which lumped them in with the likes of Coldplay, Travis, and Keane. But this fellow soft-rock group came off sounding wiser and more fully formed, particularly on the likes of Sea Song, Catch The Sun and the assured near-Latin pop epic of The Man Who Told Everything.
57. In Case We Die - Architecture In Helsinki (2005)
SOUNDING like it's bursting out of a toybox, AiH's second album is a perfect blend of their twee-pop debut and the dancey art-rock of Places Like This. Ever-changing and upbeat, the band's trademark op-shop-pop approach to recording is pushed to the limits thanks to a great collection of criss-crossing melodies and relentlessly shifting song structures. Amid the cuteness there are hints of Roxy Music and Talking Heads, and plenty of great singalong moments. And the whole thing's just so bloody happy-sounding you can't help but smile along, no matter how bad your day was.
58. Aiming For Your Head - Betchadupa (2004)
LIAM "Son of Neil" Finn has a big shadow to escape, but I'll be damned if this album isn't better than anything his old man did this decade. And forget Finn Jr's solo album, because his mates prove a formidable line-up on this remarkable collection of guitar-driven pop numbers. There's pre-Kid A-Radiohead-esque moments (My Army Of Birds And Gulls), startlingly smoove time-signature changes (Weekend), balls-out rockers (RT 10 90) and an array of great alt-rock songs that song Liam copped his old man's knack for melody (The Bats Of Darkwell Lane, Move Over, Who's Coming Through The Window).
59. The Tabloid Blues - Dan Kelly & The Alpha Males (2004)
LIKE a cross between his uncle Paul and Tim Rogers, Dan Kelly spins a great suburban romantic yarn, whether he's singing about hotties in supermarkets (Checkout Cuties) or just getting pissed in the sun (Summer Wino). All the while, this debut's way with words is backed by the raw-ified production that would make The Pixies proud as it bursts free with equal doses of pop and noise. As a bonus, Step Forward has one of the best choruses of the decade to go with the rest of the track, which is a rip-snorter.
60. Echobrain - Echobrain (2002)
THIS is my secret treasure. Featuring two unknown kids and Metallica bassist Jason Newsted, it's an alt-rock lowlight just waiting to be spotted by everyone else. Kicking off with the driving southern rock-meets-Liverpool Colder World, it swings through all manner of post-grunge flavours, from the ramblin'-on Adrift to the Jeff Buckley-esque choruses of Ghosts, from the '90s hangover epic of Sucker Punch to the ominous Crying Shame. Check it out before all your friends do.
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