2000-2009:20-11

20) Neko Case - Blacklisted
Even those tired of country music will stick around to listen (really listen) to Case's resounding and haunting vocals. Echoes, slide guitars, vocal pipes, and basically everything are perfectly utilized to create an atmospheric album culled from a sepia-toned past located somewhere between the Appalachians and the American mid-west.
Neko Case - Deep Red Bells

19) Pedro the Lion - Winners Never Quit
A David Bazan project through-and-through (he performs all the instruments and wrote all but one of the songs) Winners spills the details of a cautionary tale full of political scandal, murder, familial turmoil, and redemption (with a Bazan twist, naturally). Fun for everybody!
Pedro the Lion - A Mind of Her Own
Pedro the Lion - Never Leave a Job Half Done


18) Aaron Sprinkle - The Kindest Days
Known primarily for his production work and his 1990s contributions to Poor Old Lu, people forget that his solo stuff is marvelous. So dig this overlooked gem out of some discount CD bin somewhere and marvel at it. Elliott Smith-ish, and hooky as heck.
Aaron Sprinkle - Genevieve

17) Mason Jennings - Boneclouds
Jennings does what he does best here, and that's croon the loveliest love songs this side of Neil Young balladry. He has the sense of rhythm and positivity that will draw comparisons to Jack Johnson, but here he puts together something very solid without losing the folkiness that makes him so appealing in the first place.
Mason Jennings - Moon Sailing On the Water

16) Elliott Smith - Figure 8
I hear a lot of White Album in there, that oximoronic subtle lushness. Songs here are divided into two categories: the acousties and the rockies. The acousties sound bare despite the studio effects and are disarming in their ability to twist the hearer's emotions (even the bouncy acousties). And the rockies... well, they just freakin' rock.


15) ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - Source Tags & Codes
Pitchfork gave Source Tags a rare 10/10, for whatever that's worth. I give it a high-five for devastating the way I think about music. It is agitation musically embodied without any of the cliches that riddle rock and roll.
...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - Relative Ways

14) Bob Dylan - Love & Theft
Released on September 11, 2001, the fact that this album was not ignored in the ensuing months is a testament to how good it is. Dylan voice is froggier, but the man himself is just as wily as ever. Hear him swagger them Delta blues. Feel some banjo-pickin'. Lap up the mud.
Bob Dylan - High Water (For Charley Patton)

13) Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers
Listening to this album (save for the couple fun upbeat tunes) is like putting your heart in a vise and having your every human failing turn the crank as they're revealed to you. Of course, Edwards does this with musical sensibilities of a morose Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen, but with sultrier vocals.
Kathleen Edwards - Goodnight, California

12) Royksopp - The Understanding
There's some pop in there, but this album isn't electro-pop. But neither is it convoluted electronica. It's butter-smooth and open like a clear winter sky. The Norwegian duo's strength relies on their mid-tempo output, but there's subtle genius in the slower and faster songs as well.


11) mewithoutyou - Brother, Sister
This is the band's best album. Deal with it. Deal with the melancholy, deal with Jeremy Enigk dropping by to blow you away, deal with the flugelhorn, deal with interludes full of multi-colored spiders, deal with convicting lyrics, and deal with the passion with which it's all delivered.
Now watch them undermine it all with just one music video that grows increasingly more awkward as it progresses.