The Best Albums of the '00s

As you may or may not remember, back in December 2009 we presented our Top 20 Albums of the '00s in an epic 20-day posting marathon. Lists with the best of the decade were all the rage back then and Cool Music Central couldn't stay out of the fin-de-siècle fun. However, as I had pointed out then, I think it's good to have some distance from the period you're evaluating in order to have a better perspective and therefore better judgement. So, almost 14 months later, we return to the subject and this time we don't reveal just the tip, but we give you the whole iceberg - the complete, final (?) and most certainly very subjective list of our Top 200 Albums of the '00s.

The above link will lead you to Cool Music Database, the blog where we now have all our year-end lists from 1980 to the present day. For easier access to these lists, we have also implemented the new pages tab that you see at the top of this page, from where you can jump to each decade's own page and find out all our favorite albums by year and decade. The next step for Cool Music Database will be to start adding our Singles lists for each year.

Check out below the new version of our Top 30 Albums of the past decade (this time I have included entries from 2009) as well as our Top 25 Bands of the '00s (in parenthesis the number of albums in the Top 200 from each one):

Top 30 Albums of the '00s

1. Stories from the city, stories from the sea - P.J. HARVEY
2. Is this it - THE STROKES
3. Turn on the bright lights - INTERPOL
4. Return to cookie mountain - TV ON THE RADIO
5. Songs for the deaf - QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
6. Elephant - THE WHITE STRIPES
7. Fever to tell - YEAH YEAH YEAHS
8. Exterminator - PRIMAL SCREAM
9. The unutterable - THE FALL
10. Dig!!! Lazarus, dig!!! - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS 
11. Let’s stay friends - LES SAVY FAV 
12. Franz Ferdinand - FRANZ FERDINAND
13. Whatever people say I am, that's what I am not - ARCTIC MONKEYS 
14. Good news for people who love bad news - MODEST MOUSE
15. Silent alarm - BLOC PARTY
16. LCD Soundsystem - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
17. Dance mother - TELEPATHE
18. Source tags and codes - …AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD
19. Throwing Muses - THROWING MUSES
20. 23 - BLONDE REDHEAD
21. Funeral - ARCADE FIRE
22. Yoshimi battles the pink robots - THE FLAMING LIPS
23. The eternal - SONIC YOUTH
24. Gimme fiction - SPOON
25. One beat - SLEATER-KINNEY
26. Coral fang - THE DISTILLERS
27. Group sounds - ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT
28. Isolation drills - GUIDED BY VOICES
29. Take them on, on your own - BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB
30. Exploding head - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS

Click here for the complete Top 200. You can also find this list on rym here.

Top 25 Bands of the '00s

1. The White Stripes (3)
2. The Fall (4)
3. The Strokes (3)
4. TV On The Radio (3)
5. Sonic Youth (4)
6. Interpol (3)
7. Yeah Yeah Yeahs (3)
8. Queens Of The Stone Age (3)
9. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds (3)
10. Modest Mouse (3)
11. Sleater-Kinney (3)
12. Arcade Fire (2)
13. P.J. Harvey  (2)
14. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (3)
15. The Kills (3)
16. Spoon (3)
17. Franz Ferdinand (2)
18. Arctic Monkeys (2)
19. Bloc Party (2)
20. Primal Scream (2)
21. LCD Soundsystem (2)
22. Blonde Redhead (2)
23. The Flaming Lips (2)
24. Bright Eyes (3)
25. The Decemberists (2)