22. Wasp Star - XTC (2000)

THIRTY-TWO years on from their spiky post-punk debut, XTC make it all sound so simple. A single repeated riff (Stupidly Happy) or even just one chord played right (Playground, I'm The Man Who Murdered Love) is all you need, right? But that's selling this ingeniusly clever album so short it's not funny. Impossible harmonies, astoundingly layered lyrics, remarkable melodies and perfect sound construction make this the album that keeps giving 10 years on for those lucky enough to find it. I'm The Man Who Murdered Love is just one of dozens of examples of Andy Partridge's supreme mastery of the written word as he spins a weary and sarcastic fable about the joys of a world without love, broken-heart tale Wounded Horse somehow sounds exactly like it's name suggests, Church Of Women is suitably gospelly and beautiful, We're All Light merges the universal and the personal with lusty precision, while Colin Moulding's contributions (the cheeky adultery of Standing In For Joe, the hammer and nails of Boarded Up, and wistful shanty In Another Life) are equally fascinating. Lyrically and melodically, these guys have few peers in the pop world.

23. Liquid Skin - Gomez (2001)

AS good, if not better than, they're Mercury Prize-winning debut, this is more of what Gomez do best - filter beautiful Americana sounds through a British pop sound and some of the best home-spun production you've ever heard. With it's three distinctive-voiced singers and a fearless approach to arrangement, Gomez make every song feel fresh and different to the next, despite a focus on acoustic guitars and gentle mid-tempo rootsy-pop. The electronic experimentation of next album In Our Gun is hinted at here notably on the kitchen-sink barnstormer Bring It On, one of many highlights on the record. Others include their first serious rock anthem, the apocalyptic stirring strings of We Haven't Turned Around, the swampy Fill My Cup, their modus operandi Rhythm & Blues Alibi and the closing bluesy-funk epic Devil Will Ride. Part of the trick is that they manage to sound like everything and nothing else all at the same time - the familiar and the fresh rolled up in sweetly sung package.

24. White Pepper - Ween (2000)

THOSE wacky genre-hopping geniuses delivered their most focused and - dare I say it? - poppiest album to date at the start of the decade. That's not to say their usual ADHD tendencies weren't still on display. So while they aped The Beatles (Even If You Don't) and Steely Dan (Pandy Fackler) with mainstream radio-baiting accuracy, they still switched their dial to hard-rock (Stroker Ace), calypso (Bananas And Blow) country (Falling Out) and some kind of weird station where they play woozy soundtracks to '80s fantasy movies (Ice Castles). But all the while, their sound and arrangements are cleaner then ever, even if their warped sense of humour is firmly intact (after all The Beatles wouldn't say someone was "acting like a jerk-off" in a song). What's more surprising is when they lay the jokes aside - Exactly Where I'm At and Flutes Of Chi are life-affirming mantras that wouldn't have been out of place on their maritime masterpiece The Mollusk, while Stay Forever, Falling Out and She's Your Baby are some of the sweetest sentiments Gene and Dean Ween have ever released. Taken as a whole, this album ticks more disparate boxes than most, while somehow remaining coherent and cohesive.

25. Toxicity - System Of A Down (2001)

THE best metal album of the '00s. Maniacally inventive and fiercely political, it merges punishing riffs with eccentric melodies, constantly testing the listener with its gear shifts and daring eclectic nature. Deer Dance goes from pounding metal to gentle pop, as does killer single Chop Suey, in a matter of milliseconds, driven by Daron Malakian's flexible guitarwork, an impressively solid rhythm section and the astonishing many-voices of Serj Tankian. It's their insane disregard for the rules of the metal militia that make Toxicity so endearing and ground-breaking, but there's a heartfelt seriousness at the heart of what many dismissed as just bizarro heavy rock.

26. The Woods - Sleater-Kinney (2005)

RAW, frenetic, powerful and razor-edged - this all-girl trio went out on a high with their ferocious finale. Driven by their usual punk energy but bouyed by some classic rock 'n' roll sounds, the record is an overdriven masterpiece of super-fuzzed riffs, see-sawing vocals and bombastic drumming. There are gentler moments among the crash and distortion, such as the dreamy Modern Girl or the opening to Jumpers, but when they really kick out the jams they're at the peak of their awesomeness. The dynamic Steep Air, the jag-and-noise of What's Mine Is Yours, grungey opener The Fox, and the album's 11-minute epic Let's Call It Love are impressive demonstrations of what Sleater-Kinney do best, which is cover the light and shade of indie rock... like stroking your hand reassuringly one minute and kicking over your speakers the next.

27. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco (2002)

WILCO'S fourth album is filled with relatively straight-forward acoustic rock songs. Then the band took those and threw them in some kind of sonic blender, coming up with a wonderfully unique and challenging record that takes abrupt left-turns, buries its hooks in noise and generally goes about tearing up the rule book and then setting it on fire. The songs are strong enough to survive what their label saw as a kind of self-sabotage but it's actually nothing of the sort - this is a band following its artistic goals and merging bold experimentation with intelligent songwriting, as best illustrated by the otherworldly I Am Trying To Break Your Heart and War On War, and adding to the mood of each piece in just the right way. The proof is also in the mostly untampered-with gems like Kamera, the charmingly nostalgic Heavy Metal Drummer and Jesus, Etc - these guys knew what they were doing and when to do it.

28. Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia - The Dandy Warhols (2000)

DISPENSING with the noise but not the psychedelica of their awesome previous record Come Down, The Dandys rooted themselves in the sounds of the '60s and '70s to craft a mixture of wonderfully droney stoner-pop tunes (openers Godless and Mohammed) and up-tempo pop-rockers (singles Get Off and Bohemian Like You). They could still get down and dirty and druggy (Nietzche and Horse Pills) but the whole thing is more focussed than they'd ever been before. Some called it a sell-out, but then some said that about Come Down. The record does strive for commerciality, but never at the expense of The Dandy's stock-in-trade of substance-fuelled weirdness. It also happens to be the best collection of songs they've ever put together.

29. Parachutes - Coldplay (2000)

A SHY and unassuming debut that hints at their dreams of stadium-sized fame but holds an intimacy lacking from their later records. Combining a love of Radiohead's quieter Bends moments, the guitars of U2, and Jeff Buckley's falsetto-laden melodies, Coldplay (along with Travis) helped spawn the British soft-rock movement of the '00s, but never was it done better than here. Chris Martin's plain-speaking love odes are beautiful in their simplicity, even if his future penchant for nonsensical couplets can be heard on Yellow, while Jonny Buckland's Edge-like guitar flourishes are pure precision. Drummer Will Champion is an unsung hero here, mkaing Parachutes work through the common sense approach of knowing when to play and when not to play, yet still coming up with some inventive simplicity (see Spies or the harried Shiver). That's part of the album's appeal as a whole - everything is simple, restrained, balanced, well-paced and refreshingly lacking in excess.

30. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (2008)

THERE is much to be made of their bold Afro-beat appropriatation - after all, that's part of what makes this such an attention-grabbing and fresh debut. While those worldly hints are dazzling and charming in their old-is-new honesty, they're mere window-dressing without the songs and arrangements to go with it. But these indie collegiates have the tracks to pull it off. Every single song on their upbeat self-titled has the memorable vocal lines, tasteful live-room sound and wonderous instrumentation to make this more than just an oddity from a band in love with Paul Simon's Graceland and the name-checked Peter Gabriel. Picking a highlight is impossible - every song is astonishingly good.