Artists of the Decade


Looking back ten years, this decade has produced some of the coolest music. Here are my "hits" and "misses":

Hits:

Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and U2 did not rest on their laurels, stayed productive in the studio, toured endlessly with real fire, and ended the decade on top of their game.
Not a bad album in the bunch. Not bad for a bunch of geezers whose collective musical experience rests at 130 years.

The Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear and a dozen other young bands went their own way and proved that indie music, produced on small labels, is the sound for today. Quirky yes; boring no. Made me forget the 1960s,1970s,1980s, 1990s, and actually live in the moment.

Radiohead put a bullet in the heads of every major music label by offering their music up at any price. They could get away with this because of the brilliance of the music. Name a better band that so effortlessly put out work as diverse as Kid A and In Rainbows. The new Beatles? You bet.

Hats off to Timbaland and Kanye West for taking Hip Hop to new places. Hard not to admire the ear candy that diverse artists like Missy Elliott routinely served up. And to M.I.A., who made it global, without borders, mixing in sounds at will like a chef adds spices.

And kudos to Apple, whose creative energy designed a device called the iPod and software called iTunes that brought convenience and portability to hundreds of millions of end consumers.

Misses:

Watching talented individuals like Ryan Adams and Elliot Smith self destruct.

Having America buy into the herd mentality of American Idol.

The vinyl revolution. Way too much hype for a medium that failed three decades ago. 2 million units actually shipped; yet thousands of Audiogon posts waxing estatic. Nobody actually talks about the dead wax they own and the wide range of quality problems. I pity the suckers who bought into the 180 versus 200 gram hype.
bongofury
Tfkaudio, are you referring Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco? I spent months trying to like it and it never sunk in. Just now I put it on and all the songs sound familiar, as you might guess, but they still miss. I still don't get them.
One more candidate: Eels

Started in 200 with "Daisies of the Galaxy" IMHO a flat out great record.

The next CD, "Shootenany" was terrific and was followed by "Souljacker" which was interesting but not particularly special.

The double CD "Blinking Lights" was (along with "Daisies") IMHO on the short list for Best of the Decade.

The most recent "Hombre Lobo" didn't do much for me.

Overall, this band (basically Mark Everett) probably produced more music in the last ten years that I found memorable than any other.

Didn't come to mind at first because the latest release was the weakest.

Marty
I agree with you Marty, the Eels (Mark Everett) has released some of my favorite albums of the last decade. Hombre Loco was a pretty big disappointment to me though, a real loss of artistic momentum.
To all you defenders of 'rap': How low do we have to get as a culture before you guys admit that there has been serious deterioration? Outright glorification of criminality is not enough for you? It is not like rock-n-roll in the 50's at all. Elvis did not advocate gratuitous violence. Neither is it generational. I am sure if you played rap (and explained it) to a group of ancient greeks they would agree something is wrong here.
"How low do we have to get as a culture before you guys admit that there has been serious deterioration?"

I guess we're going to find out!

BTW I am ambvilant to most rap/hip hop but I do believe it has a rightful place in modern culture. It is a modern day equivalent of what rock and roll was back in the 50's....we've just come a long way since back then, for better or for worse. Personally, I blame Howard Stern!

I agree that there is a lot wrong but music is typically just a response to the times, not a cause of it.

Both good rap and classic rock and roll makes for good workout music. I put together a workout CD including music from Chuck Berry, The BEAtles, Dick Dale, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Flo Rida. It is awesome!