[Singles: 100-051]
[Singles: 050-001]
[Albums: 100-051]
[Albums: 050-001]

050: Kanye West
The College Dropout
[Roc-A-Fella; 2004]

Kanye West is a prancing contradiction. The College Dropout's boasted a devastatingly successful combination of wonton (and admitted) social irresponsibility and biting social commentary. Kanye is a exercise in ideological wanderlust in that he advocates for so much, his positions come full circle. He puts his cross above the mantle next to his Louis Vuitton backpack. He pushes for black advancement but openly mocks formal education. He mixes crotch-grabbing posturing with misty-eyed reminiscences. And in truly iconic fashion, he sees no inconsistencies.

West's enigmatic outlook fortunately spilled onto his music. The utter diversity of his collaborations immediately earns laudits for a major label release (as he shameless points on "Last Call") and easily births two-headed beasts like Jay-Z/J. Ivy and Freeway/Mos Def. The merging of underground and mainstream artists only demonstrated Kanye's ambivalence about his position in hip-hop. "We Don't Care" had us triumphantly screaming with the kids while "Slow Jamz" peeled off our jeans and socks. And at the end, "Family Business" stood at the door with the photo album and a plate of mama's pies. Not to mention Kanye's Trimspa endorsement on "The New Workout Plan". Kon covers so much ground that we should hope he can decide what he wants to be when he grows up. --Jamin Warren

049: Lightning Bolt
Wonderful Rainbow
[Load; 2003]

Though they haven't surpassed the gloriousness of earlier aggro group Harry Pussy, Providence's Lightning Bolt certainly pounded out a colorful packet of noise on Wonderful Rainbow, turning bass and drums into a fleshy, distended landscape. The loudest moments get deserved props ad infinitum, but it's actually the more tentative, spare beauty of the tiny "Hello Morning" and the finger-tapping/chirping of the title track that establish the compelling dynamics that separate these ragtag, stage-free comic nerds from a seemingly endless slew of like-minded noise assassins. (Of course, there's also entropic metal scowl of "Dracula Mountain" and it's equally gargantuan neighbors.) More important than volume, Lighting Bolt-- along with Wolf Eyes and Black Dice-- gave uninitiated youngsters an idea of how to differentiate between good noise and tiresome wanking. --Brandon Stosuy

048: ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead
Source Tags & Codes
[Interscope; 2002]

This record is full of moments that sound ridiculous when taken out of context, the kinds of flourishes that never should have flown in our cynical 00's: The spastic drum fills from "It Was There That I Saw You", the strings and bells of "Another Morning Stoner", the Muppety shouting and bombast of "Days of Running Wild", the Brian Wilson-aping segueway that closes "Relative Ways". This is a record written by kids of the 90s, kids who listened to the same Sonic Youth and Sunny Day Real Estate records that a lot of us did, and when it came time to write their opus, they went as big as possible, and Source Tags succeeds on its sheer wide-eyed exuberance and I-heart-rocknroll sincerity. --Jason Crock

047: The Shins
Chutes Too Narrow
[Sub Pop; 2003]

The Shins occupy a peculiar realm dominated by bands whose skills are too good for either complete suppression or mainstream success. Along with the Walkmen, Interpol, and Air, they've got Saturn commercials and "The O.C." locked down; but, Natalie Portman's iPod aside, seldom do these bands infiltrate starrier domains. With any luck, Chutes Too Narrow will get its due during the next generation's scheduled round of VH1 canonization; for now, the album stands apart from even its most competitive peers, earning rarely bestowed compliments of the utmost simplicity: consummate songcraft, an immaculate recorded treatment, and lyrics that make as much or as little sense as you assign them.

Opener "Kissing the Lipless" consolidates the band's strengths into a sleek pop farrago. Each new layer incorporates seamlessly yet feels instantly essential to the whole. The same goes for the regal promenade of "Saint Simon", the exalted shuffle-bop of "So Says I", and the organ-drenched wistfulness of "Pink Bullets". It all sounds simple enough, but Chutes Too Narrow is so nuanced it carries a nagging air of something amiss. You can never remember a Shins song exactly how it happens because the band are operating on some mystic level that tweaks memory and gives the illusion of things that aren't really there. Perhaps it's that subversiveness that's keeping the mainstream away. --Sam Ubl

046: TV on the Radio
Young Liars EP
[Touch & Go; 2003]

On the Young Liars EP, TV on the Radio crafted something more complete and satisfying than many top bands' best full-length efforts. Critics spoke of the comparative vulnerability of the EP's follow-up, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes as if it were an evolutionary character trait, but I think that album's quaking timorousness was the sound of humility, of a group of musicians absolutely cowed by their sudden, out-of-left-field greatness. Young Liars is a phantom Frankenstein, a bulletproof yet sensitive creature reared through unmitigated nurture that seemed to reap havoc where it never stepped. It may have changed everything, or nothing at all: At once timely and timeless, its persuasive power is endless, starting with the asteroid shuffle of "Satellite", winding through the rubble-strewn "Blind", and capping things-- presumably-- with "Young Liars", perhaps the premier fusty-garage-to-digital-age union of the decade. That indie's best a cappella caper this side of the Futureheads is tacked on as an unlisted afterthought is further evidence of Young Liars' boundless surprise, breadth of imagination, and world-weary genius. --Sam Ubl

045: The Arcade Fire
Funeral
[Merge; 2004]

Stuck in the cold winter of Montreal, stuck in grief for lost loved ones, stuck in an introspective rut over their conflicted childhoods, the members of the Arcade Fire look for transcendence in music, as millions of teens and twentysomethings have been doing for more than 50 years. The miracle is not that they actually found it, but that they are able to communicate it so intuitively, so urgently, and so movingly on their debut. Funeral sounds elegantly mercurial as the band finds new uses for indie-rock conventions like crunchy guitars, vaguely dance-derived rhythms, string sections, and unrelenting self-reflection. Relating tales of suburban dystopia and snowbound emotions, these songs-- which are arty and dramatic, yet earthy and tensely sincere-- change shape restlessly from verse to verse and intensify as they move toward hard-won catharses, each building on the previous song until the album's scope becomes novelistic and its emotional payoff undeniable. --Stephen M. Deusner

044: Deerhoof
Apple O'
[Kill Rock Stars; 2003]

Through all the flailing drums and angular, disjointed guitar lines, I hear Satomi Matsuzaki's squeaky melodies and skeletons of what should be Zappa etudes but instead come out much more...approachable. Deerhoof excel at a forgotten art wherein the complex is made simple, the convoluted made cute. Of course, "cute" isn't really an endearing quality for some people, but when it's balanced out with raucousness and dissonance, as on Apple O', it's just sour enough to sip straight. It's easy to give the band the benefit of the doubt because their tunes never leave us behind. In fact, it's fun running alongside them, humming with those squeaky songs, perfectly content with stories about flowers and pandas because nothing so benign could ever turn out bad. As we begin the second half of the decade, I wonder if this kind of music will be deemed too quaint for reality. I hope not. --Dominique Leone

043: Mclusky
Do Dallas
[Too Pure / Beggars; 2002]

It would be tempting to write off the sophomore slump as a rock myth if reality didn't support it so frequently. In a characteristically contrary gesture, the ornery Welsh post-humans in Mclusky pumped every iota of their ferocious misanthropy into their second album, which remains the purest distillation of their considerable wrath. Do Dallas doesn't grow on you; it savagely waylays you. It gleefully garrotes you toward epiphany. It erupts with an immediate, palpable force, the sort of spiritual cataclysm one experiences when faced with the primitive imperatives of brute violence. Bearing traces of Pixies, the Jesus Lizard, Gang of Four, and Wire, Do Dallas comes into its own with stunted rhythms and thrashing, mutant guitars, as singer Andy Falkous's deadpan, absurdist disdain locks and unloads upon trendy fashion bands on "Collagen Rock", "Fuck this Band", and "To Hell With Good Intentions" ("My band is better than your band/ We've got more songs than a song convention SING IT!"), and sprays invective on just about everything else on "The World Loves Us and Is Our Bitch". Being hated never felt so good. --Brian Howe

042: Manitoba
Up in Flames
[Domino; 2003]

Few records in the last five years displayed such a shocking about-face in terms of the artists' previous sound. Who would have thought in early 2002 that a record of kaleidoscopic dreampop channeling 60s psychedelia through the same busted lens as early Mercury Rev would come from "Handsome Dick" Manitoba, middle-aged lead singer of the notorious punk band The Dictators? While many old fans abandoned him completely, convinced that he'd sold out, gone soft, and was simply following trends, Manitoba quickly found a receptive (if smaller) audience for his gorgeous soft-focus blissout. --Mark Richardson

041: Godspeed You Black Emperor!
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
[Kranky; 2000]

Before M83 had a lock on outsized instrumental opulence, Godspeed You Black Emperor! wore the jewel-encrusted crown. Even people who write off the Canadian post-rock ensemble as crescendo-mongering showoffs would be hard pressed to deny that their sprawling opus, Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, is anything short of transcendent. Godspeed is the post-rock Platonic Ideal, and this double album is the fullest realization of their art we're likely to hear. Antennas is as engulfing and boundless as open, uncharted waters, churning with bombastic string sections, oversized melodic phrasing, vast tidal rhythms, sweepingly lyrical guitar passages, apocalyptic vocal samples, and yeah, many a spine-tingling upsurge. Everything about this record is a little too big; it spills out of windows, overflows basins, and threatens to sunder ceilings. Whether it's setting your teeth on edge with relentless, cacophonous pageantry, or lulling you into a somnolent torpor with some twinkling lullaby, Antennas consistently engages, transports and mystifies. It creates a tremulous pressure that mounts with no upper limit, a release so prolonged it becomes a more enchanting sort of tension. --Brian Howe