The Top 40 Best Albums of the 21st Century: #35 — 31

30th Oct 2009

You can see the albums voted 40–36 here.

A Spo­tify playlist of the tracks is avail­able here.

35 Mew

Frengers 2003

MEW drew from their pre­vi­ous two albums to pro­duce some­thing wor­thy of their then newly acquired major label sta­tus. Frengers is sur­rounded by many inter­est­ing back-stories; but sim­ply analysing them as a col­lec­tion of songs, they gel well. The first three tracks pro­vide an ener­getic and slightly pop-ish start. Oth­ers such as Eight Flew Over, One Was Destroyed are slower and more vocally dom­i­nated. If you lis­ten care­fully to both the lyrics and the music, a darkly sin­is­ter and yet mag­i­cal side of Mew is revealed. Don’t think you’ve heard this all before. You haven’t. Their sound is unde­ni­ably unique. Mew have cre­ated a niche and still to this day, they’re com­pletely alone in it.

Writ­ten by Erica Anne Vernon

34 P!nk

I’m Not Dead 2006

P!NK’S fourth album proved once again that P!nk is far from afraid of speak­ing up and let­ting the world know how she feels. Although best known for sin­gles like Stu­pid Girls, there is a lot more to this album than meets the eye. The title track for exam­ple, is full of gui­tar riffs and strik­ing vocal imagery, whilst acoustic tracks The One That Got Away and Dear Mr. Pres­i­dent show a very dif­fer­ent side to P!nk’s music. The lat­ter song takes the form of a metaphor­i­cal let­ter to the for­mer Pres­i­dent, ask­ing much needed ques­tions. How­ever, this album is not just about P!nk shar­ing her opin­ions, it truly is a jour­ney through her emo­tions and experiences.

Writ­ten by Ellen Tout

33 Devin Townsend

Zil­toid the Omni­scient 2007

GREATEST con­cept ever. Sim­ple. Nobody else would have the deranged genius to con­struct an album fol­low­ing the exploits of an inter­galac­tic being in search of the ulti­mate cup of cof­fee. The album takes in every style of music imag­in­able in lis­ten­able songs (none of that prog rub­bish), never los­ing sight of the humour with daft inter­ludes and voices. Sim­ply put, Devin Townsend has exceeded his own stan­dards with an album that moves from bru­tal­ity to beau­ti­ful sound­scapes, often in the space of one song. Per­haps most remark­able is the fact that Townsend wrote and pro­duced the entire album him­self. You have no rea­son not to pick up a copy of the best album of the decade.

Writ­ten by Char­lie Bailey

32 Lost­prophets

Start Some­thing 2004

THE sec­ond Lost­prophets album deserves its place in the list due to its impres­sive hit list. The band rarely put a foot wrong dur­ing the whole album. Chart sin­gles like Last Train Home and Last Sum­mer have become sing-along anthems that have the power to unite a sta­dium, or bring you closer to your mates. From the hard gui­tar riffs of Burn Burn to the chilled out sounds of Sway, the band show just how dif­fer­ent they can make each song sound. Yet even with the vari­a­tion between each song, the album plays through seam­lessly. The band chan­nels pure energy through­out the album, elec­tri­fy­ing the lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence, and mak­ing it a pure plea­sure to lis­ten to.

Writ­ten by Louisa Robinson

31 Death Cab For Cutie

Transat­lanti­cism 2007

SINCE its 2003 release, the title track has been the go-to song for mean­ing­ful mon­tages in Wed­ding Crash­ers, Cal­i­for­ni­ca­tion, Dis­tur­bia et al. Thank God it was too edgy for Grey’s Anatomy. Transat­lanti­cism has been well and truly Seth Cohen’ed; as seen on the poster above his bed and in his ‘Chris­mukkah’ starter pack — but try not to let that colour your view.

I actu­ally had a painfully earnest extended metaphor ready to go here but thank­fully there are not enough words to play with… A col­lec­tion of melan­choly, wist­ful, long­ing. As undu­lat­ing as the Big Sur coastal tem­pests that helped inspire it. Ben Gib­bard gives voice to the timid, sub­ur­ban dreamer. Qui­etly powerful.

Writ­ten by Lexie Frost

To con­tinue the count­down from 30 to 26, you can go here.