2000: Laurent Garnier – Unreasonable Behaviour (FR)

2001: The Avalanches – Since I Left You (AU)

2002: The Streets – Original Pirate Material (UK)

2003: OutKast – Speakerboxxx / The Love Below (US)

2004: Annie – Anniemal (NO)

2005: Broadcast – Tender Buttons (UK)

2006: The Knife – Silent Shout (SE)

2007: Feist – The Reminder (CA)

2008: Erykah Badu – New AmErykah Part 1: Fourth World War (US)

2009: The Juan Maclean – The Future Will Come (US)

Think less than half of those will actually make a 00s top 10 now, using the average percentage rating system. I think I overrated Garnier, OutKast (tho maintain there’s as many good-great tracks on there as on any of the other single albums here), Broadcast and Feist a bit but still like them all. Of course there’s a few albums I overlooked or didn’t get round to in their year of release that became firm favourites later, one of which is likely to top the overall list.

Pleased also about the amount of different nationalities there. Three American albums, two British and one each from France, Australia, Norway, Sweden and Canada. Only three debut albums which is interesting although for three others (Garnier, Feist and The Juan Maclean) it was the first album I’d heard in full by each. Two solo men, three solo women, one male duo, three male/female duos, only one group of sorts – again quite a nice balance (I guess I hate Actual Bands tho ha).

I think that’s enough sad-statting for now…

1. The Juan Maclean – The Future Will Come (US)
2. Washed Out – Life Of Leisure [EP] (US)
3. Mungolian Jet Set – We Gave It All Away…Now We Are Taking It Back (NO)
4. Fever Ray – Fever Ray (SE)
5. Röyksopp – Junior (NO)
6. St. Vincent – Actor (US)
7. Telefon Tel Aviv – Immolate Yourself (US)
8. Toddla T – Skanky Skanky (UK)
9. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (US)
10. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport (UK)
11. Flying Lotus – Los Angeles (US)*
12. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! (US)
13. The xx – The xx (UK)
14. Major Lazer – Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do (US/UK)
15. Electrik Red – How To Be A Lady (Vol. 1) (US)
16. DJ Sprinkles – Midtown 120 Blues (US)
17. Andrew Weatherall – A Pox On The Pioneers (UK)
18. Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires (UK)*
19. Washed Out – High Times [EP] (US)
20. Meanderthals – Desire Lines (NO/UK)

Just under: The-Dream, Cortney Tidwell, Franz Ferdinand (with ‘Blood’, not ‘Tonight’!), Falty DL, Moderat, Lindstrom & Christabelle, El Perro Del Mar, Ebony Bones, Junior Boys, Little Boots, Julian Casablancas and Broadcast & The Focus Group

* released in 2008. Artist name in bold indicates debut LP under that name.

Ignored by pretty much every big mag when it came to end of year lists, ‘The Future Will Come is an ambitious, bittersweet but dry-witted album with a general theme of a relationship on the edge (be it in the painful process of deterioration or literally a love affair with a machine) carried primarily by three practically perfect pop dance tracks; the very lovely ‘One Day’, marred only by it’s relative briefness and not-quite-satisfactory arrangement, the terrific ‘No Time’ with it’s dry ‘lovers tiff at a rave’ theme and ‘Mentasm’ revival, plus the teary epic disco of ‘Tonight’ demonstrating what the Pet Shop Boys COULD be doing now instead of their stagnant (by their standards) ‘Yes’ LP). But the title track, ‘Accusations’ and the poignant ‘Human Disaster’ aren’t far behind and with ‘Happy House’ closing proceedings I remain frustrated by the lack of love for the album out there. The sudden death of drummer Jerry Fuchs in November may add extra poignancy to the experience now but this seemed like a winner even before I saw their small but perfectly formed live show at Cargo in the Summer.

Just missing out on the top spot is the equally scintillating but deeply frustrating Life Of Leisure EP from Washed Out. The hooks, moods and ideas throughout this sequence of demo-like half-songs sounded SO pure, fresh and exhilarating to me (and of course capturing that sense of hedonism thru a melancholic lens that I tend to favour) that despite every track being far too short and under-developed it came very close to edging out The JM. Hopefully 2010 will see a longer FLESHED out piece of work from Ernest Greene that builds on the potential shown here.

From the agonisingly short to the almost unbearably long, Mungolian Jet Set’s own universe of sonic splendour was completely new to me last year so although many double-album’s tracks are remixes and go back a couple of years, it felt like a genuine ‘blast of future’.

Karin Dreijer Andersson left brother Olof on the dancefloor to take The Knife’s dark fantasies out of the club, through paranoid suburbia and back to the forest – retaining all that was great about ‘Silent Shout’ bar the dancefloor dynamics (instead provided by reliable remixers from Rex The Dog and Studio, to Martyn and Scuba) and consolidating her position as a towering goth pop force.

Röyksopp finally returned and so keen was I for them to do so that Junior was the year’s easiest sell. Armed with a new cascade of dreamscapes, deftly twisted samples of Funkadelic and Stevie Wonder, and an all girls guestlist of Karin, Robyn, Lykke Li and Anneli Drecker, no ambient pop album last year sounded as unfussily lush and comforting.

I can thank Pitchfork for introducing me to Annie Clark aka St. Vincent who delivered where The Bird And The Bee failed to this time and threw in all kinds of extra wonders with co-producer John Congleton, including shades of Talking Heads and Bowie on the superb ‘Marrow’. ‘Save Me From What I Want’ even reminds me of LFO’s ‘Loch Ness’.

Telefon Tel Aviv also mesmerised with ‘Immolate Yourself’ esp. its highlights ‘The Birds’ and ‘Stay Away From Being Maybe’ (too bad Depeche Mode’s ‘Sounds Of The Universe’ didn’t sound more like this imo), released a week before the death of its co-creator Charles Cooper whose dazzling talents as demonstrated here reveal another huge and terrible loss.

Youthful Yorkshireman Toddla T released my favourite (and the funn(i)est) British album last year with the help of Mr Versatile, Serocee, Roots Manuva, Tinchy Stryder and more. A few annoying bits (most of ‘Sunny Money’ and the inclusion of the “Queens Of Noise” skit) couldn’t spoil the party.

Animal Collective made up for often annoying vocals with a brilliant palette of sounds daubed throughout the duration of MPP, evoking Magnetic Fields ‘Holiday’, The Orb’s wackier escapades and…I’m still trying to work out what else it can be compared to, which means I should stop.

Fuck Buttons, assisted by Andy Weatherall, built giant beautiful storms of rhythmic textures, and though some of them went on too long without progressing for me, the results overall were pretty undeniable.

I listened to a few more albums than usual in 2009 thanks to Spotify making it much easier to do so. As a result this list is a bit more detailed and thorough than what I usually come up with (despite my continued annoyance at how album-centric things remain). Part of that may be down to thinking it might be the last time I do such a thing but as it’s likely to become even easier to hear them…I can’t decide. Anyway for the first time ever I made the list based on rating each track on an album out of 10 and calculating the average score from the total – a technique I find quite useful but hadn’t used in this way before. It’s not really worth posting all the scores but fwiw Juan and co. scored 81/100 and there were only 5 points between St. Vincent (74) and Meanderthals (69).

Some albums from 2009 I didn’t make time to hear and rate (but might get in next year’s list if I do one) in 09:

• Black Meteoric Star – Black Meteoric Star
• Hudson Mohawke – Butter
• Joe Goddard – Harvest
• Martyn – Great Lengths
• Memory Tapes – Seek Magic
• Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
• Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms
• Nite Jewel – Good Evening
• Redshape – The Dance Paradox
• Smith & Mudd – Le Suivant
• Shafiq Husayn – Shafiq En’ A-Free-Ka

I’ve really enjoyed being able to hear music the way I want to this year (streamed in high quality and CORRECTLY TAGGED for last.fm purposes Spotify may already be too successful a method tho – I’m inclined to download stuff less and less without hearing it first, and I effectively abandoned last.fm’s own radio system last year which is a shame as it remains good in its own way.

I just wrote way more than I meant to so that’s enough for now. Happy listening in 2010 and beyond.

*released in 2008

That was ruthlessly whittled down from a shortlist of around 160 and that was without even thinking too hard about it.

Acts who made last year’s top 100 re-appearing here are Little Boots, Telefon Tel Aviv, The-Dream, Surkin, Air France, Friendly Fires, Kris Menace, Tinchy Stryder (both as a guest vocalist), Apparat (in 09 as half of Moderat), Skepta and The Juan Maclean.

Acts included with debut singles, EPs or LPs (not including remixers):
Washed Out
Secret Circuit
House Of House
Richgirl
Toddla T (+ Serocee & Mr Versatile)
Moderat (aka Apprat & Modeselektor)
Mungolian Jet Set
Fever Ray (aka Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife)
Electrik Red
Major Lazer (aka Diplo & Switch)
Joy Orbison
Meanderthals
Memory Tapes
Walter Jones
DJ Sprinkles
Azari & III
Pearson Sound (aka Ramadanman)
Lady Gaga
Princess Nyah
Hudson Mohawke
Culoe De Song
The xx
Subeena
Ebony Bones!
Ear Dis (aka Arms)
Falty DL
Royal P
The Focus Group (with Broadcast)
Bag Raiders (as part of a mash-up)
Rudimental & May
Nite Jewel
Raffertie
Heartsrevolution
Kevin Rudolf (as part of a mash-up)
Roos (with Air France)
Joker
The Dead Weather (ft. Jack White & Alison Moorhart)
Defend Moscow

SPOTIFY playlist (ft. 69 tracks)

YOUTUBE playlist (ft. 90 tracks)

Best song not from 2009 I heard for the first time last year: St. Etienne – Like The Swallow (Foxbase Alpha was my most listened to LP of last year and that’s even before the remastered edition!).

Stay tuned for a list of favourite albums from 2009, the final top 100 00s tracks and a 00s albums list soon.

List does not include Instrumentals although Rex The Dog’s ‘I Look Into Mid-Air’ should probably have been on that list due to it’s minimal repetetive vocal hook. And again, only one track per album – otherwise e.g. all of the singles from The Knife’s ‘Silent Shout’ LP would be here.

* May not have been released in the UK but has an official promo video
** Was available on 12” in the UK

So it was a bit difficult to work out whether a few tracks qualified here or not but the main aim of this list was to honour the singles I thought deserved better as far as chart performance goes. Many of these songs did break into the Top 75 (and nearly the 40 including perennial near-missers Ladytron) but others were way off. I would put the chart positions in brackets beside each entry but…no. I was surprised when checking chart positions that a few I’d misremembered going Top 40 hadn’t e.g. Roots Manuva’s ‘Witness’ and So Solid Crew’s Oh No’.

This is the fifth and penultimate 00s tracks list. The final one is just a top 100 combining the top 20 from each of the five lists, ranking them into a definitive order of excellence. I might actually write a bit about each song in the final hundred and post them in order, one by one, here over the next few weeks.

LISTEN TO THE TOP 100 ON YOUTUBE HERE

or via the embedded player

Eminem probably the most glaring omission here but no Kylie or Goldfrapp either. Interesting that Sugababes got three singles in (more than any other act) while Girls Aloud could only manage one (tho it’s higher than any of the ‘Babes songs). Choosing ‘Smiley Faces’ over ‘Crazy’ isn’t contrarianism for its own sake either! Altho I’m sick of ‘Toxic’, leaving it out felt too wrong – unlike ‘Hey Ya’ or even ‘Miss Jackson’…

Basically doing a ‘Top 40 only’ just gave me an excuse to include a bunch of glitzy cheerful pop that I liked. Other tracks just missing out include Mint Royale’s ‘Show Me’, Supermen Lovers ‘Starlight’, New Order ‘Crystal’, Ian Brown ‘FEAR’, Sweet Female Attitude’s ‘Flowers’ (too late for a 90s list also), Louise ‘2 Faced’…ARGH. As with the other lists, the ‘only one track per album’ rule applied (particularly bad news for Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx) and this list does not include remixes, instrumentals or “b-sides”.

But congratulations to Dizzee for one of the greatest debut singles ever (if it can be called that) – a remarkable sonic event and artistic statement that still stands out years later as a definitive 00s sound. It’s also quite funny if not really danceable.

YouTube playlist here

or embedded here: