The year 1980 marked the waning of the malaise era in America and the second year of Thatcher in the UK.  The anything goes 70s was being supplanted by the glossy, go-go 80s where the shiny surface masked such travails as AIDS and a resurgent Cold War.

The first year of the decade catches music frozen in midstream – hip-hop is beginning to surface across singles and a few albums such as Kurtis Blow’s debut, disco still lived, post-punk was giving way to new wave, and classic rock wasn’t yet classic. Here then are the 40 best albums of 1980:

40. The Sound – Jeopardy
Mostly overlooked in the UK during their career and wholly overlooked in the US where their albums weren’t even released, The Sound seems an unlikely candidate for a best of the year list. They now have a small but deserved cult following who quite rightly slot them in alongside contemporaries like XTC, Echo and the Bunnymen and Psychedelic Furs with leading a tough tuneful postpunk sound that still impacts bands like The Strokes and Spoon today.

39. Robert Palmer – Clues
On his way to louche Power Station lead singer and solo artist backed by manikin models, Robert Palmer was actually interesting. His 70s albums usually had fine songs and a crack band putting the man through some hot R & B paces (Sneaking Sally Through the Alley is the best of these). Clues was a left-turn towards new wave and rock signaled by the Gary Numan cover but achieved more ably on songs like “Johnny and Mary” and the delightful title track. Palmer’s previous rhythm excursions serve to underpin everything here with a strong groove, grounding the record and connecting it to his past work just as the harder edge looked forward to the ersatz rock of his future commercial breakthrough.

38. The Fall - Grotesque (After the Gramme)
The Fall’s first essential album, this chugs along consistently with some of Mark E. Smith’s best songs and freshest rants. The hooks are there and the playing stays on the right side of tight. It’s not hard to imagine “New Face in Hell” lodging in young Stephen Morrissey’s brain as a touchpoint just as “How I Wrote Plastic Man” would be later transmuted by Elastica.

37. Pylon – Gyrate
Pylon came out of the same fertile Athens, Ga. Scene as The B-52s and R.E.M. but never had a scintilla of the commercial success that those other two bands did. What they did have was a spring wound sound that owed more than a little to the Gang of Four. In this they actually were similar to R.E.M. at this point in their careers. Singer Vanessa Briscoe helps to distinguish the band from their British forebears and their co-scenesters as does the cooly detached guitar playing of Randy Bewley which recalls Tom Verlaine. Gyrate is terrific album which marries the herky jerky rhythms to the atmospheric and even majestic arrangements.

36. Alex Chilton – Like Flies on Sherbert
Released in many forms and different times across different labels and countries, this captures Chilton at his career bottoming out on the cusp of re-discovery and a major shift in focus away from rock to gutbucket R & B and standards. Though it’s been described as a sorry mess, the high art sloppiness of artists like Spoon and lo-fi fetishism of Bob Pollard give this  record a kinder frame of reference. Covers like “Boogie Shoes” are stripped to deranged minimums while the prickly guitar squalling of “My Rival” neatly prefigures Sonic Youth and Pixies. For those who were interested in seeing how far Chilton could go after Big Star’s Sister Lovers it’s a bracing trip.

35. The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta
The knock on The Police is that they were a bunch of cynical journeyman who lucked into punk and new wave and rode it to success. While that’s true to a point, it misses the song skills of one Gordon Sumner, along with the elegant instrumental chops of all three members, without which they would have been little more than three bottles of blond hair-dye. On this, album number three, the band began to tap into their ambition with bigger, more anthemic songs and an eye for world events. While Sting’s pomposity is always lurking the sheer joy evident in the grooves is enough to keep it at bay, delivering what might be the band’s most consistent record.

34. The Suburbs - In Combo
For a brief moment in 1980 the Minneapolis rock scene was dominated by this band, whose guitars and synths sound would be soon eclipsed in local adulation by the harder edged punk of Husker Du, The Replacements and Soul Asylum even as they persevered. The songs here borrow from British punk, American punk, funk, and post-punk and it works, prefiguring bands like Interpol and the Killers while still hewing to their own distinct sound.

33. Prince – Dirty Mind
Like the Suburbs, Prince was sent forth from Minneapolis to commingle elements of several different genres in new and better ways. While his 1978 debut suggested a Funkadelic follower this third album added to the palette with pop and rock arrangements and some stunning songs like “When You Were Mine” and the salacious “Head.”  Aptly titled, this signaled the start of his hot and heavy phase which also coincided with his songwriting and commercial peak over the next decade.

32. The Cars - Panorama
The Cars were looking to vary things a bit on their third outing. Already one of the most successful new wave bands (the new wave moniker was ironic since they were Bostonians), Ocasek, Ben Orr and company wanted to get cred as artists as well. Ocasek even produced pioneering synth duo Suicide’s second album, surely a sign of where his head was at. Indeed Panorama is darker and less immediate than the hook extravaganzas that were the Cars’ first two albums. The single, “Touch and Go”, is one of the band’s best and most challenging songs combining icy Tangerine Dream-ish verses with bouncy country and western derived choruses. Not surprisingly the single and album stiffed.

31. The Brains- The Brains
The Brains blew some minds in 1980 with their off-kilter new wave, yet never achieved the success they deserved (like so many of these albums). Their debut included their best known song, “Money Changes Everything”, made famous three years later by Cyndi Lauper’s hit cover. There is more here than just that song though – The Brains suggested an alternate take on classic rock sensibilities fused with post-punk approaches to songwriting and instrumentation that sets them apart from bands with similar components like The Cars. The Brain’s touchstones were as likely to be Mott The Hoople as opposed to Roxy Music. A terrific lost classic.

30. Iggy Pop - Soldier
By 1980 Iggy’s career had been well and truly revived in the wake of punk and three excellent solo albums. So it’s understandable that Soldier isn’t quite on par with his best – it’s still pretty damn good. This is despite a tortured creation process that according to rumor included fights with Bowie, James Williamson, and the session band. Said band includes ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock who by then was in The Rich Kids. Still you can’t beat down and dirty Iggy like “Dog Food” or the sublime “Low Life.”

29. Suicide – The Second Album
This Ric Ocasek-produced gem was originally and oddly credited to Suicide’s two members, Martin Rev and Alan Vega, but subsequent re-issues have rectified this and returned it to the seminal band’s catalog. Suicide’s first album was ahead-of-its-time ghostly synthpop in 1977 and so it is with this follow-up. However the palette has broadened considerably from their groundbreaking debut. The music is still electronic but the sound is bigger, the songs more epic. Within a few short years bands like Depeche Mode and New Order would be running with the sound that Suicide helped create.

28. The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight
Before Robyn Hitchcock made a name for himself as a solo purveyor of macabre quirkery he led The Soft Boys alongside guitarist Kimberley Rew whose heavy melodic guitar style is an often unacknowledged influence on the likes of Johnny Marr and Peter Buck amongst others.  The lyrics equate falling in love to insects laying eggs under your skin and at their rousing peak The Soft Boys declare “I Wanna Destroy You.” And they do.

27. The Jim Carroll Band – Catholic Boy
Poet and Basketball Diaries memoirist Jim Carroll took a cue from his fellow downtown NY scenester Patti Smith and started a band to explore his musical musings. Luckily, like Smith, Carroll proved to be a natural gracing us with this last blast of classic CBGB’s style New York punk. Though “People Who Died”, a litany of friends who met untimely ends, is the best known track there is plenty here to delight aficionados.

26. Grace Jones - Warm Leatherette
Like Jim Carroll, Grace Jones was a New York fixture but in the disco party scene. While she had transitioned from modeling to performing in clubs in the late 70s it took the reggae production team of Sly and Robbie to push her (and them) into a new musical dimension. Whether covering Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug” or Tom Petty’s “Breakdown” Jones and team make these songs their own with slinky grooves and her trademark hard-edged voice. This is more than just disco, it’s domme disco.

25. Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth
This album is one of those unique records that could have been released yesterday, a week from now, or indeed 1980. It simply sounds like nothing else.  Alison Statton’s detached vocals glide above the terse guitar and pulse like keyboards as songs like “Credit in The Straight World” build and circle around their themes and motifs.

24. John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy
It was bands like Young Marble Giants and The B-52s that caused John Lennon to declare to Yoko that the music scene had finally caught up to her musical experiments. He was about ten years too early but to help the pill go down he returned to recording as well after his self-imposed five year exile and traded off songs with her on a concept album meant to evoke their marriage. In a sense this is really two EPs that don’t fully assimilate with each other – Yoko’s avant-pop and Lennon’s slick songcraft celebrating the joys of house-husbandry. Nevertheless it’s some of the best work from each of them and ultimately a sad epitaph to Lennon who would be assassinated shortly after the album’s release.

23. The Psychedelic Furs - The Psychedelic Furs
The Psychedelic Furs emerged from London with this debut album and one of the most interesting takes on post-punk, aided by Richard Butler’s rasping croon which can snarl like Johnny Rotten or insinuate like David Bowie. The band locks into a tight groove on tracks like the dubby “Wedding Song” and the slow burner “Imitation of Christ” churning it’s way through rich chord changes.

22. XTC – Black Sea
XTC pulled back from their earlier arch art moves on their previous LP Drums and Wires but they embraced pop hooks fully on this, their third (and best) album. Partridge and Moulding still write songs about architecture, history, and other such things but here they come across all punchy and direct on tunes like the magnificent “Towers of London” and the transcendent “Generals and Majors.”

21. Bruce Springsteen - The River
Brooooce splits the difference between Born to Run’s anthems and Darkness on the Edge of Town’s noir menace with this generous double that can feel overstuffed but rewards with a clutch of great songs. “Out in The Street” is still a live staple, as it should be given the effortless updating of classic early 60s swagger that recalls the Shangri-La’s and Dion but then there’s the balance of a pensive song like “Stolen Car.” This is the Boss arguably at the height of his powers.

20.  Swell Maps - Jane From Occupied Europe
It would be hard to imagine a whole swath of indie rock, from Pavement to No Age to dozens of groups in between without the experimental songcraft of Swell Maps. From the Cold War-baiting album title to the even more breathtaking tunes their second album is a lofty triumph of soundscapes and sideways hooks that unexpectedly sink in.

19. The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
Hoboken’s Feelies flew the nerd rock flag high at a time when few bands dared to be uncool. Now though you just check the way the cover of Weezer’s debut album references the blue background portrait of this, The Feelies first. The title is apt as they sound ready to leap off of their feet with their Velvets meets the Beatles jangle pop. Later incarnations of the band would sound more conventional but here they serve up a fairly original take on some venerable forebears.

18. Squeeze – Argybargy
Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook, the two main songwriters in Squeeze, helped keep Britpop alive through the new wave era, serving as the link between bands like The Kinks and future bands like Blur. Argybargy is chock full of sharp-edged tunefulness and armed with an armada of great singles from “Pulling Mussels (From a Shell)” to “If I Didn’t Love You”, not to mention should-have-been singles like “Separate Beds.”

17. X - Los Angeles
John Doe and Exene Cervenka took on a distinctly Los Angeles approach to punk with an assist from Doors keyboard man Ray Manzarek in the production chair and their ace in the hole – guitarist Billy Zoom. Though Exene’s sometimes off-key harmonizing can grate on some ears the boy/girl vocal arrangements were highly influential on bands like Pixies and the seamy downtown lifestyle songwriting is full of gems on this, their debut.

16. The Specials - More Specials
The Specials first album flew in the face of Britain’s rising racial tensions with an interracial band and music that fused the balls-out attack of punk with the skipping beat (and many of the songs) of 60s Jamaican ska. The Specials were nothing if not ambitious though and this followup  sees them broadening an deepening in every way. If not as immediate as its predecessor, More Specials also jettisons the casual misogyny of songs like “Little Bitch” for the satire of “International Jet Set” and the timeless melody of “Do Nothing.” The epic “Stereotypes” introduces Ennio Morricone as an influence stretching the original shorter single past the seven-minute mark. Sadly tensions would split the band apart into Fun Boy Three and Special AKA after their best single, 1981’s “Ghost Town” though they recently reunited for a short tour.

15. Dexys Midnight Runners - Searching for the Young Soul Rebels
While American’s knowledge of this band begins and ends with the 1982 song “Come On, Eileen”, a massive one-hit-wonder, this debut was celebrated in the UK as a groundbreaking fusion of punk spirit and soul songwriting chops. Singer Kevin Rowland is no Al Green, his slightly strangulated vocals recalling the yelping of folks like Tom Verlaine, but against the R & B chops of the band it makes for a bracing combo – and they know it.

14. The Jam - Sound Affects
Paul Weller and company just kept getting better and better after their debut. This, their fifth album, is also arguably their peak with a terrific batch of songs the grabs you right from the start with “Pretty Green.” Speaking of start, “Start!” is one of their best songs, extracting a bassline derived from the Beatles “Taxman” and constructing a sturdy groove around it that hints at the soul stylings to come on future Weller and Jam albums.

13. Devo – Freedom of Choice
Devo posited their theory of de-evolution on their early art-damaged albums, that the human race was essentially devolving into a stupid drooling mass of automatons. This is of course satire and what better way to slide into it than to be it so the band “dumbed” their sound down, losing the most dissonant elements, and gaining big shiny synth driven hooks. The result is their most enjoyable album, beyond even their signature song “Whip It.” “Gates of Steel” grabs you by the throat, “Girl U Want” is a classic and the title track was an apt send-up of the American electoral process.

12. Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Get Happy!!
Like Dexy’s, Elvis the C here takes classic soul moves and roughs them up with punk attitude though he is both less and more faithful to the source. Less in that he can’t help but write his own  wonderfully convoluted wordplay and punnery as well as slipping in left fielders like the stately “Riot Act.” More in that he lifts elements faithfully from Stax and Motown and even covers Sam & Dave.

11. The Rolling Stones - Emotional Rescue
Partisans argue over which Stones albums are the most underrated and Emotional Rescue can stake a claim to the number one slot on the list, overlooked as it usually is in favor of it’s predecessor Some Girls and follow-up Tattoo You. It’s a gritty grimy affair that effortlessly swims in the sleaze that the band strained to evoke on later albums like Undercover. The title track is the best known song here, a delightful slice of falsetto disco cheese with an insinuating melody and Jagger’s hilarious spoken come-ons: “Yes, you will be mine…” he intones. But “She’s So Cold” is a nervy jittery marvel in their rockabilly vein, “Down in The Hole” a slice of molten blues decadence, “Send it To Me” a clipped cod reggae attempt. The fact that most of this is less played out makes it a great secret treasure in the Stones’ twilight period of relevance.

10. Joy Division – Closer
The death of Ian Curtis by suicide after the release of this, the band’s last album before regrouping as New Order, can’t help but cast a pall over a record that should have signaled a bright future. The band was playing with song structure, rhythm, melody, all in an attempt to stretch past the focused terseness of their groundbreaking debut. For the most part it works, and there are intriguing signs of the electronic and dance flourishes that New Order would pioneer.

9. Roxy Music – Flesh + Blood
Flesh + Blood has a bit of a mixed reputation in Roxy Music land but its outlandish covers of “Eight Miles High” and “In the Midnight Hour” are endearing in their slick disco pop-ishness. More important is the fact that the sound they perfect here is what fuelled dozens of bands in next 2-3 years from Duran Duran to ABC to Haircut 100. While that’s not inherently a good thing, Roxy Music (and increasingly singer and leader Bryan Ferry) own the sound and deploy it better than any of their followers on songs like “Over You.”

8. The Clash - Sandinista!
Oh, what a glorious mess. London Calling, their 1979 double album, was simply too tight and consistent to rank as the band’s equivalent to The Beatles White Album. This triple (!) record threat (on vinyl) however, fits the bill – dividing fans and acolytes with a huge smorgasbord of songs that ru the gamut from punkified Reggae covers (“Police on My Back”) to hip-hop (“Magnificent 7”) to out and out dub, art-rock surf, Motown, and kids covering Clash classics. No weed-fuelled idea was too puerile to commit to tape and surprising amounts are worthwhile. More importantly, no two people make the same mix tape of favorites out of this.

7. AC/DC - Back in Black
Like Joy Division, Australia’s hard rock heroes AC/DC ought to have been laid waste by the loss of an iconic lead singer. Yet after the death of Bon Scott (from general carousing), new singer Brian Johnson and company took up right where the band had left off, creating their masterpiece and one of the finest rock albums ever. Their hard-partying, tune-loaded approach also paved the way for the rise of 80s hair bands (along with Def Leppard), essentially acting as a bridge between the blues riffing of Led Zeppelin and the leaner, less prog-rock sounds to come.

6. Pretenders – Pretenders
The first Pretenders album was a showcase for one of the most unheralded rock lineups, one that would be sadly devastated over the next four years by drug abuse. From brilliant guitarist James Honeyman-Scott to propulsive drummer Martin Chambers to bassist Pete Farndon the band rocked out on both blazing rave-ups and moody ballads. Chrissie Hynde’s expressive vocals and crackerjack songwriting provided the canvas for what would be one of the most acclaimed debuts of the 80s. Sadly Honeyman-Scott and later Farndon would both die of overdoses after the release of the band’s second album, and Hynde would later rely on a succession of sidemen under the Pretenders name to flesh out her still considerable songwriting and fronting skills.

5. Killing Joke - Killing Joke
Killing Joke were amazingly visionary as well as difficult to pigeonhole. Described variously as post-punk, goth, metal, industrial, and electronic, they fittingly landed this debut on EG, the same label as Brian Eno. Why not for a band whose influence ranges from Nirvana (who famously nicked the riff for “Come as You Are” from them) to Metallica to Pigface and even an early version of The Sugarcubes. The music is martial, chugging, spacious, often cinematic and apocalyptic in the way that only early 80s Cold War influenced bands can be.

4. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (“Melt”)
Did someone mention Cold War angst? Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers” is loaded with it, as well as an irresistible melody that tricked American’s into thinking this was some new wave debut rather than the third solo record by a former prog-rock frontman. And why not, since this very well might be the best record of his career. The surfaces Producer Steve Lillywhite conjures are immersive and widescreen, the dread suffusive, and yet the album isn’t a downer – particularly on the incredibly moving finale of “Biko.” In its sound and subject matter the record prefigures so much of what would be done in the rest of the decade, usually with far less finesse.

3. The Wipers – Is This Real?
Portland’s Greg Sage led The Wipers, one of the most criminally underappreciated bands to emerge from the American punk scene. From Sage’s blazing guitar chops to his yearning, questioningly tuneful songs like “D-7” and “Don’t Know What I Am” this record is the equal of anything The Replacements, Husker Du, or anyone else would bring out over the next few years.

2. Talking Heads – Remain in Light
Talking Heads released a remarkably consistent yet adventurous string of albums beginning with their 1977 debut and extended their streak with this remarkable melding of African rhythms and arrangements alongside David Byrne’s jittery vocals and the band’s skewed hooks. Producer Brian Eno plays a larger role, essentially as a de facto band member. The tension this created may have led to the band’s long three-year layoff in the studio after this was released but the record it created is a landmark.

1. David Bowie - Scary Monsters
It can be said now that this is the last of a string of classic Bowie records that began with Hunky Dory in 1971. What a way to go out – “Ashes to Ashes” extends his Berlin sound to revisit Major Tom from “Space Oddity”, another Tom (Verlaine) gets a stellar cover treatment with “Kingdom Come” and overall the record shows man at his peak. The 80s would be indelibly influenced by his example musically and professionally (think Madonna’s many ch-ch-ch Changes) but sadly Bowie himself would lose the plot after the of-the-moment Let’s Dance in 1983.

It’s fair to say that although he enjoyed a number 1 single at the height of the 1960s Alex Chilton’s influence has far, far exceeded his record sales. While he may not be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame his genius, his songs, and his career have inspired multiple generations of bands and several important genres ranging from the blue-eyed soul of Hall & Oates, the power pop of Cheap Trick, 80s alternative and indie rock like The Replacements and R.E.M., and lo-fi experimentalists like Pavement, Guided by Voices, and No Age.

I remember listening to a cassette of his band Big Star’s second album, Radio City in high school and wondering what kind of world could let music so perfect go undiscovered by so many. But I’m skipping ahead.

Like some alternate universe Bowie, Alex Chilton had distinctly different phases of music. Unlike Bowie there was never any hint of premeditation – Chilton seemingly couldn’t help himself and would go so far as to renounce his previous work. It started in Memphis with the Brill Building blue-eyed soul of the Box Tops. Chilton was just 16 when “The Letter” ascended the charts but his voice was at it’s huskiest. He chafed at the restriction of having songs written by others for the band to play and he to sing but he stuck with them through lesser hits like the wonderful “Cry Like a Baby” and some better than average singles and albums.

By 1970 the band had broken up and Chilton bummed around the Memphis scene before hooking up with fellow songwriter Chris Bell, drummer Jody Stephens and bassist Andy Hummel who were all members of a band called Icewater. They called the new band Big Star, in homage to a chain of southern supermarkets. Big Star’s first record, #1 Record was released on soul label Stax’s Ardent imprint and was a sales disaster. Yet the glorious songs inside were anything but. Inspired now by the shimmering songcraft of mid 60s Beatles and Kinks but with an undertow of wonder, nostalgia and heartbreak that was all their own, like all Bog Star albums it’s an essential for any serious rock fan. It was also completely out of touch with where the music world was in 1972.

Bell split from Big Star and would die in a car crash in 1978 (the posthumously released I Am The Kosmos Cosmos (thanks for catching the title mis-spelling Aaron) includes his only released solo single alongside never before released tracks.) Big Star went their separate ways initially but regrouped for 1974’s Radio City which found the band with a lean, tough sound and tighter more dynamic playing and Chilton’s best set of songs yet – some consider this his masterpiece. It’s a mind blowingly good record. Like it’s predecessor it was a complete flop commercially, in part due to Stax’s money woes.

Chilton was becoming increasingly frustrated – if his brilliantly arranged and executed songs couldn’t find an audience, why bother with the niceties at all? Recording for a third album commenced in 1975 but the sessions were chaotic to say the least. Where Radio City found tension in pushing and pulling the songs and adding different coloration here and there these new sessions featured songs that seemed scotch-taped together, on the brink of despair or even madness. Weary, resigned, resentful, defiant and yet with an undeniable tunefulness at it’s core – the sessions sat unreleased for years. In 1978 they appeared in Europe under the title Third and also Sister Lovers with slightly different track listings. Once heard (they’ve since been issued in their entirety) they are unforgettable and every bit as satisfying as the first two records if not more so. A whole chunk of indie rock starts right here.

In the meantime Chilton had hit the bottle hard and finally began to launch a solo career that was even more shambolic than Sister Lovers had been with surly, sometimes atonally barbed guitar playing and casually tossed off production and arrangements. While this could be hit or miss at times it also resulted in the amazing “Bangkok”, some great covers, and the fantastic 1980 album Like Flies on Sherbert.

He also began producing for groups like The Cramps and The Replacements (their new major label rejected the results) who returned the favor with their tribute song “Alex Chilton” in 1987, one of their most beloved tunes. In a nice twist it was produced by Memphis legend Jim Dickinson (who also recently died) – the producer of Big Star’s Sister Lovers sessions.

By the 80s Chilton was playing blistering guitar in Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, a Memphis band that added punk grit to rockabilly and blues and had also returned to making solo records. Now however he was reincarnated as a gritty soul man, pumping out greasy R & B with sweaty abandon. While the covers-heavy content may have disappointed some fans, albums like High Priest were extremely enjoyable.

The 90s brought long overdue accolades and elder statesman status along with a series of Big Star reunions that seemed a bit grudging on Chilton’s part, as he was clearly lukewarm on the idea of living in his own past. Yet his heart attack came on the eve of a Big Star performance scheduled this weekend at SXSW. Viewers likely didn’t know it but the theme song to That 70’s Show was a rerecorded version of Big Star’s “Out in The Street” by Cheap Trick – making it a bigger hit in the 90s than it had ever been initially.

Alex Chilton was a true American great. There was a time when meeting a fellow Big Star or Alex Chilton fan was to meet a kindred spirit. R.I.P.

Here are just a few of his career’s many high points:

The Box Tops – “The Letter”

The Box Tops – “Cry Like a Baby”

The Box Tops on Mike Douglas do “Turn on a Dream” and “Soul Deep”

Big Star – “Thirteen”

Big Star – “Ballad of El Goodo”

Big Star – “September Gurls”

Big Star – “O My Soul”

Big Star – “Kanga Roo”

Big Star – “Kizza Me”

Alex Chilton covering the Seeds on “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine”

Alex Chilton – “Bangkok”

Chilton on 120 Minutes circa 1985

Alex Chilton – “No Sex”

The Replacements – “Alex Chilton”

If the 80s and 90s saw music fragmenting into hundreds of tiny subcultures the 00s offered a way out – in part by destroying the very music industry machinery that encouraged such fragmentation. File sharing may have killed music but it also saved it by letting people hear thousands of songs they never would have been exposed to.It also freed musicians like M.I.A., Radiohead, and Girl Talk to make music that was as boundary-less as their audience.

Here they are, my pick for the 100 best albums of the last decade:

Best of the 00s 100-76

Best of the 00s 75-51

Best of the 00s 50-26

Best of the 00s 25-1

Sky Saxon of the Seeds, who died in 2009

So the 00’s come to an end with a whimper, not a bang. These 25 albums were all great but I’d be lying if I told you that there was another 25 I was anguished about leaving off the list. Even so Dylan, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Raekwon, Monsters of Folk, Talbot Tagora and M. Ward all just missed the cut – to name a few. It was a dismal year for hip-hop but the likes of Wale and Kid Cudi give hope to the future. Merge records celebrated their twentieth anniversary while venerable Touch and Go announced their imminent closing.

Here without further ado, were my favorite 25 albums of the year:

1. Girls – Album
Get over the disappointment that Girls doesn’t even have any girls in the band and you’ll find that the duo of JR White and Christopher Owens have crafted an exquisitely detailed album that slides comfortably into the slot marked “Indie Rock” without becoming a slave to the genre’s tropes. It’s like Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted run through a gloriously filter of Smiths sensibility.

2. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
It may seem like Neko Case has been wrapping her considerable lungpower around the same seam of country tinged alt-Americana for several albums now. She’s so consistent and subtle in the ways she moves her craft forward from record-to-record that it can be heard to realize how much she’s progressed until you compare this to her earliest works. Her country twang has been leavened into a sweeping epic atmospheric sensibility underpinned by a sly sense of humor. Little flourishes color each song and her cover of Spark’s “Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth” shows how unique her sound has become.

3. Thermals - Now We Can See
A concept album about death? Major bummer dude, and pretentious as hell. Yet The Thermals pull it off with the best album of their career, a considerable feat considering the breakthrough that was 2006’s The Body, The Blood, The Machine. This is the kind of melodic, intelligent, heartfelt punk that Green Day wishes they could write.

4. Future of The Left – Travels With Myself and Another
When the perpetually cross Welshmen in McLusky decided to call it a day, few thought that they would return in all but name and bassist but plus two members from the equally defunct Jarcrew. Yet return they have, with a brace of abrasively melodic post punk on this, their second album. All the snarkiness remains, abetted by pogo-worthy choruses and clever wordplay.

5. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
After spending most of the decade perfecting their neo-psych chops and expanding their audience Flaming Lips take a hard left into Krautrock territory with Can in particular serving as a touchstone for a sprawling bass heavy album. There are moments that recall PiL’s classic Metal Box/Second Edition as well, minus Johnny Rotten.

6. Japandroids – Post-Nothing

Japandroids are the best kind of bubblegum lo-fi – chiming squalling guitars plus killer songs recorded with punch and definition enough to not obscure the fun. Anthems abound from “Wet Hair” to the magnificent “The Boys are Leaving Town.”

7. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
Grizzly Bear’s debut was praised (perhaps overly) for it’s Brooklynite take on the pastoral sound sweeping indie circles so it’s a treat to find the follow-up bettering it’s predecessor in every way. The influences du jour are still there – as with Animal Collective a Beach Boys streak tempered by a touch of freak folk and out-and-out experimentation. The arrangements are less dry than before, with a marvelous command of build and release all of which sets off a remarkable set of songs. A triumph.

8. Surf City – Surf City (EP)
As their name implies Surf City has a touch of classic surf rock to them, but it’s by way of The Pixies, spiked with the Cure’s romantic melodicism and a dash of good old fashioned fuzz. The sheer enthusiasm of the songs and the performances is infectious – just try not to bop along.

9. Abe Vigoda – Reviver
Not the aged actor from Barney Miller, these art punks have flown under the radar successfully enough to avoid a lawsuit – so far. That may not last because as cool as last year’s Skeleton full-length was, this EP is better – song after great song. Like No Age this isn’t quite lo-fi enough to count as the mannered sludge passed off by Times New Viking but it has a raw immediate quality with songs that can come off like Grizzly Bear’s hard-rocking little brothers.

10. Sonic Youth – The Eternal
Sonic Youth’s return to indiedom may be a tad less satisfying than their last Geffen album, Rather Ripped, but it’s their rockingest album since 1992’s Dirty. It’s chock full of Johnny Thunders asides and nods to The Stooges as well as the bands trademarked sideways riffs and alternate tunings. Of course it’s the tight, focused songs that elevate this to the top tier of their ever-growing canon, plus the novelty of hearing them attempt something like vocal harmony and interplay on many songs, another new wrinkle for these vets.

11. Dan Deacon – Bromst
As interesting as Dan Deacon has been in the past, he’s always undercut his songs with skronky dissonance and over-syncopation that make listening a challenge for many (me included). On Bromst he lightens the stew just enough to still be distinctive but also highlight his rhythmic inventiveness and control of texture and pacing resulting in his best record yet.

12. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion
Animal Collective keeps edging closer and closer to melody while always underpinning what they do with a sense of playfulness and anything-goes studio arrangements. Their off-kilter sensibility gets it’s fullest expression to date here on a record that finds room for paeans to fatherhood and family life amongst the close-knit harmonies, circular rhythmic pulsing, and unexpected side turns. The Beach Boys are a touchstone but only if Brain Wilson had been able to channel his madness completely and musically, had embraced the chaos equally with the melody. A true stunner.

13. AC Newman - Get Guilty
While New Porngraphers have begun to sound a bit overstuffed on recent releases bandleader Carl Newman brings things back down to the basics on Get Guilty, his best work since the Porno’s Twin Cinema. It’s not that he does anything new here, it’s that he does his schtick with expertise. If powerpop full of big meaty choruses and thundering drums is your deal then sign right up.

14. Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
The louche former Pulp frontman gets in touch with his guitar-heavy side and brings noisemeister Steve Albini to man the control board. The result is lean and mean and full of horny tongue-in-cheek single-entendres like “Caucasian Blues” (in which he laments being hung like a white man) and the utterly brilliant “I Never said I Was Deep.”

15. Atlas Sound - Logos

Nealy shelved after an early version leaked last year, the latest album from Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox has thankfully seen the light of day and it’s as good as anything by his increasingly notable day band. Noah Lennox from Animal Collective guests on the awesome “Walkabout” and there is a certain shared sensibility but Atlas Sound is skewed less towards rhythm circularity and more towards chewy hooks and strumming guitars.

16. St. Vincent – Actor
Like Neko Case and Spoon’s Britt Daniel, Annie Clark (who is St. Vincent for all intents and purposes) is a thinking person’s pin-up, as glorious for their art as for their looks. Her background in Glenn Branca’s guitar orchestra, The Polyphonic Spree, and Sufjan Steven’s band give a pretty good idea of her take on music – a sort of Kate Bush as guitar slinger. On Actor she has the songs to pull it off, sounding like early solo Peter Gabriel if he had roped Thurston Moore into playing guitar for him.

17. Mos Def – The Ecstatic
In a lousy year for hip-hop it was good to welcome Mos Def back with a first-rate album after years of tossed off efforts. Sounding more vital than he has in years over a set of clever engrossing beats and soundscapes it’s a reminder of how great rap can be when it’s not subject to rote rhyming and mega-sales expectations. The cherry on top is a great guest verse by Slick Rick.

18. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
The Jesus and Mary Chain have much to answer for in the last few years but inspiring a band as fun and freewheeling as this one is nothing to feel bad about. To be fair The Smiths and a fair sampling of other late 80s British indie rock can also be detected here but the attack is as fresh as a naughty schoolkid. It all sounds new to them and they write and play their damn bleeding hearts out, which almost is enough to forgive their unfortunate band moniker.

19. Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
Callahan may no longer operate under the name Smog but he still has the same laconic delivery, insinuatingly dry songwriting, and command of melody. This time he’s backed with the richest instrumentation of his career with pianos and french horns and the likes standing ready to aid and abet but never overwhelm. In fact his use of space is more strategic than ever letting every violin or bell register like a thunderclap.

20. Polvo - In Prism
An unexpected comeback, Polvo was saddled during their early 90s heyday with the mathrock label and while their riffing is angular and their song structures can be architectural they have always had a warmth and humor that transcended the genre. They’ve also had Ash Bowie (who went on to play guitar in Helium) as a secret weapon, a guitarist with a knack for wringing melody out of sometimes dissonant patterns. Welcome back.

21. Franz Ferdinand – Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
For all the initial talk about this being a departure for the band it came as a bit of a letdown to hear that they actually sounded like… Franz Ferdinand. Repeated listens proved that the band had moved the game forward subtly, primarily by centering every song around the rhythm section. This is no bad thing as Franz bassist Bob Hardy and drummer Paul Thomson are one of the best in rock. On “Lucid Dreams” they do extend past the 8-minute mark (though the earlier, tighter version may be superior) and hints of T. Rex and Bowie still surface through the dancefloor. Undeniably catchy ass-shaking.

22. Kurt Vile – Childish Prodigy
The name is a tip-off that that Vile is a throwback to the theatrical self-mythologizing of 70s punk as it edged into glam. Ballads jostle with fuzzed out Iggy-esque rockers but there is always a twist instrumentally or lyrically to make it sound fresh rather than a guy living in the sounds of the past. Each successive song cements that Vile is a talent to watch.

23. Mika Miko – We Be Xuxa
The world surely needs more femme punk and Mika Miko are as good as it gets. Synthesizing sources as varied as The Raincoats, The Descendents, and Agent Orange makes for an album that pogos as much as it thrashes and that’s a damn good thing. It’s a short sharp shock of an album with room for detours like the mid-period Replacements-like jape “Turkey Sandwich.”

24. The Very Best – Warm Heart of Africa
While the band name The Very Best makes this sound like a compilation of some sort, what’s being sampled here by the production team Radioclit and singer Esau Mwamwaya is the very essence of music from around the world. Appropriately they are joined by a member of Vampire Weekend and M.I.A., a handy guide to the globe spanning beats and melodies found within. An audacious follow-up to last year’s jawdropping mixtape.

25. Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
Wilco studiously avoid making the same album twice, so it’s not surprising that the new one was met with a mixed reception. They also vary their approach from song to song to the extent that “Bull Black Nova”, a droning drama that I love, has been denounced by several friends as the worst track on the album. Whereas the last record served up gloriously tangled guitar lines in the guise of classic LA rock, this one puts the screws to triple AAA radio but still finds time for a straight ahead ballad like “You and I”.

After a little heard set of sunny debut EP’s MBV mastermind Kevin Shields discovered the joy of effects pedals and massive feedback and used them to push his surprisingly catchy melodies off-center, scuffing up his band’s songs and laying on thick sheets of guitar on albums like 1988’s wonderful Isn’t Anything and their towering 1991 classic Loveless.

Loveless found them with growing acclaim but a crippling inability to deliver on a follow-up, going Axl Rose one better by helping to bankrupt their record label in the elaborate process of endless studio recording and tinkering. The last time the band had played live together before this year was in 1992 and they had long dispersed to other projects by 1997 without any of the abandoned studio work seeing the light of day.

So out of the mists of time comes My Bloody Valentine and nothing much has changed except the ability to now headline a barn like New York’s Roseland two nights in a row as well as the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival upstate, and some extra dosh to spend on a big light show and projected images.

What needs to be said here is this band is freaking loud.

Earplugs were handed out at all the ticket collection points and woe to the badasses who tried to go it nude of ear. The H.R. Giger-like stacks of amps cantilevered over the front of the stage ominously forewarned what was to come. As the guitars cranked up and numerous tiny hipster chicks were lofted upon their boyfriend’s shoulders to see I thought, “Well, this isn’t all THAT loud…” and slid one earplug out only to quickly force it back in against the assault of sound.

The light show, which even Shields (who kicked out a light petulantly mid-show) thought was a bit overbearing for the space, and the sculpted slabs of guitar noise made each song into its own fascinating slow motion plane crash- flashes of light, groaning metal, whooshing air. Juxtaposed on this are the melody and choruses that seem as inevitable as gravity. Even their poppiest song, “Soon”, takes a jaunty Manchester beat and turns it into the sound of Happy Mondays being tortured by Al Pacino in Scarface (bathroom, chainsaw, ‘nuff said?)

Then of course came the climax, “You Made Me Realize” which devolves from mere song into what was 20 minutes (concert companion Joe Sofia was counting) of sheer rumbling, testicle jiggling, jowl flattening ever-shifting blare that can only be approximately described as the aural equivalent of tectonic plates making love. After awhile (5 minutes say?) you begin to hear notes that aren’t even there in amongst the shifting swirling monumental texture. There was no encore. The only thing they could have possibly followed up with would have been to come out and do “Have You Never Been Mellow” accompanied on a xylophone- merely as a palate cleanser.

This is all to say it was a very good show indeed. Regrets? As Joe Sofia pointed out, the vocals are mixed so low as to be practically non-existent. This isn’t a band anyone goes to for the words but it still felt like an element was getting a little short shrift. The crowd was made up of a high proportion of boorish louts – surprising for a Tuesday. There was one moron who clearly hadn’t been let out of his cage for several years and felt the need to get into a fight and mosh and generally do all sorts of things that were probably slightly more amusing when he was 15 years younger. Then there were the asinine shouts of “Play Louder” from some audience members which received a delicate middle finger from bassist Debbie Googe.

Still, a few boobs weren’t enough to ruin a fantastic show and some of the worst offenders were probably the same folks who inflicted permanent hearing damage on themselves so it all ends well.

Here’s a hint of what the twenty-minute section of “You Made Me Realize” sounded like – just a hint mind you:

…and here’s “When You Sleep” both from earlier this year:

(If the vids show up as unavailable, hit refresh in your browser — it’s just the YouTube demons getting fresh)

The late 70s and early 80s were confusing and disturbing times for many in the music industry. For some of the great titans of rock and many of the little titanettes punk, disco, and new wave were confounding forces. Some plowed ahead, others chose to dip a toe in the funky stuff and try out this thing the kids were calling “disco.” Even some new bands saw the merit in a quick easy hit off disco’s crystalline white powder.

Starting today I will be presenting a new video every day (or thereabouts) of a rock band trying their hand at disco. Of course I wanted to start off with a biggie so today I bring you one of the all-time disco-rock classics, “I Was Made for Loving You” by Kiss.

Kiss of course started out as glam rockers, honing a metallic sheen that by the mid 70s would prove to be a formative influence on the hair bands of the 80s like Motley Crue. In 1979 though, they found their energy diluted by a rash of solo albums and the rising disco tide. Peter Criss sat the accompanying album Dynasty out and future World’s Most Dangerous Band drummer Anton Fig was on the studio drums. Their response was this classic (shown “live”, with Criss):

Now I admire Iggy’s fight against the tyranny of the shirted but it’s not like we’re looking at LL Cool J’s abs here. More to the point, is there any activity that Iggy does that he feels actually requires a shirt?

Here’s the clip from Colbert:

And here’s Hancock’s original video from 1983:

As I perused the list of albums Magnet came up with I was struck by how many of them I liked, Give ‘Em Enough Rope by The Clash, Pretenders II, Room on Fire by The Strokes. With that in mind I thought I’d lay down a list of great second albums, which includes one from Magnet’s list of stinkers because uh, they don’t know what they’re talkin’ bout.

1) Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)
Dylan’s debut album announced the arrival of a new star on the folk scene but it was 1963’s Freewheelin’ that catapoulted him into the ranks of pop genius. “Blowin’ in The Wind” alone cemented his songwriter status but add to that “Don’t Think Twice, it’s Alright” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “Girl From The North Country” and you get a classic album and a touchstone for where one of the greatest American artists in any field would go for the rest of his career.
Here’s Bobby doing “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”:

2) Weezer – Pinkerton (1996)
Weezer’s self-titled first album was a phenomenon in 1994, selling several million copies and spawning quirky power pop angst hits with “Undone (The Sweater Song)”, “Buddy Holly” and “Say it Ain’t So”. Their second album landed with a thud, shunned by radio, MTV and casual music buyers. Pinkerton was a more obviously dark and aggressive record, dealing with frontman / headcase Rivers Cuomo’s wierd fan and groupie relationships, self-loathing, a leg operation and oh yeah, The Mikado. Weezer went on an extended hiatus in the wake of the album’s failure but during that time it picked up a devoted cult and is now a favorite among the hardcore Weezerati who welcomed the band back to hitdom in the early 00s.

3) R.E.M. – Reckoning (1984)
R.E.M.’s debut album Murmur hit the nascent alterna-rock scene like a bomb. It was an hermetic, quirky, tuneful yet weird album unlike anything that came before. R.E.M. would have a hard time following it up but as it turns out, they’d never make another record that sounded like it again. If Murmur sounded like the experimental album of a seasoned band, Reckoning was more akin to a typical debut. Accessable and rocking, it’s a strong set of songs stripped down to their base elements and helped cement R.E.M. as part of the revival of American “roots” sounds while still keeping their alternative audience intcat and growing: Check out Stipe’s hair in the video for “So. Central Rain”:

4) Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique (1989)
The Beastie Boy’s debut was the biggest selling rap-album ever by the time they got around to prepping the follow-up and the knives were out. There was bad blood because they were white, seen as a novelty act, tagged as misogynist, and behaved in a generally frat boy way on tour. Sure enough Paul’s Boutique struggled to sell upon it’s release, yet began to gain status from music lovers for it’s innovatively groundbreaking and creative use of samples and song structure thanks to producers The Dust Brothers and clever funny and sometimes cerebral rhymes from The Beasties. As with Weezer, what appeared to be a setback at first set the stage for a surprise comeback third album that cemented the band’s star status. Here’ s the video for “Shake Your Rump”:

5) Blondie – Plastic Letters (1977)
Blondie wasn’t coming off of a hit when they did Plastic Letters, one of the most underrated albums of 1977. Though their debut had garnered some attention in the UK, they were still considered an also-ran to the other more “serious” bands on the New York scene — Television, Talking Heads, The Ramones. Plastic Letters had a slar trajectory, doing even better than the debut in Europe but still failing to find favor in their home country. As a record though the band had moved beyond the girl-group aping of the first album and stretched out into evocations of Stax soul on “Rifle Range” (a dead ringer for “In The Twilight Zone” by The Astors) , mid 60’s Stonesy cool in “Youth Nabbed as Sniper” and baroque pop-prog with “No Imagination.” Here they are doing “Detroit 442″:

6) Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory (1991)
Tribe hit the scene in 1990 as part of a wave of positive rap that included De La Soul, Brand Nubian and The Jungle Brothers. As good as their debut was it was The Low End Theory that commenced to mind-blowing, both lyrically and musically. Rappers Q-Tip and Phife Dog effortlessly trade quips and wisdom over exquisiyely tense, stripped down jazz beats. The album is aptly named as the bass lines on songs like “Buggin’ Out” seem to exist on another plane entirely, big and goopy and full of portent. Though the sound is spare, it’s also detailed, with every song building and moving on an insistent bed of rhythm. Here’s the very future looking vid for “Scenario” featuring a pre-stardom Busta Rhymes:

7) The Velvet Underground – White Light/ White Heat (1967)
The Velvets brilliant first album was compromised by their Andy Warhol arranged shotgun marraige with German chanteuse Nico. Compromise is not the word that comes to mind with album number 2 which comes out of the gate blazing and never looks back. There is the occaisional foray into brain scrambling as on the John Cale narrated macabre joke of “The Gift” and the guitar shards of “I Heard Her Call My Name.” “Sister Ray” closed out the album, 17 minutes plus of squalling feedback drenched madness that pushed the Stooges, punk rock, and Yo La Tengo out of its womb before expiring in a pool of blood. Or something that sounds like that. Here’s “White Light / White Heat “