REASONABLY GREAT ALBUMS OF THE LAST DECADE THAT EVERYONE IS LEAVING OFF THEIR LISTS
Presumably because they are so totally embarrassed/uncomfortable with having purchased them (and indeed they probably were among the last actual CDs they purchased; I know for one that I was spending my babysitting money on these CDs at Sound Exchange on Rte 23 in good old Wayne, New Jersey, and then in 2003 we got broadband and it all went to hell) and that we all feel more comfortable pretending that “emo”/super-earnest-pre-Arcade-Fire-indie-rock were all solidly part of “the 90s” but FACE IT, assholes, I know how old a significant portion of y’all are, and you were listening to things besides the Strokes and YYYs in the first 5 years of the “noughties” and you fucking know it, especially if you were born after 1982 or so, and you know that you bought these CDs too and LISTENED TO THEM and it’s about time you admit it even if they are so hopelessly uncool and lacking in critical thought or singers who aren’t tonedeaf because it’s really lame for you to retroactively make yourself more emotionally mature/culturally sophisticated than we all know you were a decade ago.
First person who actively owns up to listening to a Dashboard Confessional/Alk3/Xiu Xiu/Bright Eyes AOL screenname gets a prize. Maybe.
Rainer Maria - A Better Version of Me (2001)
Death Cab for Cutie - The Photo Album (2001) and Transatlanticism (2003)
Saves the Day - Stay What You Are (2001)
Alkaline Trio - Maybe I’ll Catch Fire (2000)
The Appleseed Cast - Mare Vitalis (2000)
Bright Eyes - Fevers and Mirrors (2000) and Lifted (2002)
Dashboard Confessional - The Swiss Army Romance (2000) and The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most (2001)
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Twinkle Echo (2003)
Pretty Girls Make Graves - Good Health (2002)
Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles (2004)
Hey Mercedes - Everynight Fireworks (2001)
Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American (2001)
And slightly more ‘respectable’ but still vastly underrepresented and hugely important to me circa 2000-2004 when I still wore Converse every day:
Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica (2000)
Dismemberment Plan - Change (2001)
Godspeed you Black Emperor! - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000)
Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker (2000)
…Trail of Dead - Source Tags and Codes (2002)
LET ME KNOW WHAT ELSE I AM MISSING HERE. I just don’t have time to go home to my parents’ house in New Jersey and go through boxes in their attic to remember what they all were.
