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Love And Theft - Bob Dylan [2001]

To release your 31st studio album is pretty impressive. To still be touring 300 days of the year aged 60 is quite an achievement too. To use those rare days off to record one of the best albums you've ever made in a 40-year career is just plain extraordinary.

And it is. It really, really is. With no exaggeration, I would genuinely place Love And Theft in a top five - even top three - list of Bob Dylan albums, with the legendary likes of The Freewheelin' and Bringing It All Back Home.

Dear God, it's a good record. Where to start? Dylan opts for Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum, a song that sets the tone and pace of the album with a rolling, rollicking delta blues rhythm. It's not the strongest song on the album, but it's great fun.

The desperate regret of Mississippi provides a superb follow-up, creating intrigue and empathy in the bars of an easygoing melody. Then Elvis takes over for Summer Days, at least if the opening guitar riff is anything to go by - except Elvis didn't reach 60 in time to sing:

Well, I'm drivin' in the flats in a Cadillac car
The girls all say, "You're a worn-out star"
My pockets are loaded and I'm spending every dime
How can you say you love someone else when you know it's me all the time?

Well, I had to go down and see a guy named Mr. Goldsmith
A nasty, dirty, double-crossin', back-stabbin' phony I didn't want to have to be dealin' with
But I did it for you
And all you gave me was a smile

With a thumping bass drum, tambourine and deathrattle groans for backing vocals, High Water is musically stunning. It transfixes you. Indeed, it's so good the whole of the Richard Gere/Billy The Kid segment of the film I'm Not There appears to have been made just so this song could be included. Then you have Dylan's typically marvellous scene-setting, of course:

They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway 5
Judge says to the High Sheriff, "I want him dead or alive.
"Either one - I don't care."
High water everywhere

As for Dylan's love-it-or-hate-it singing voice, he finally seems to have found the husky old-timer's hushed whisper he's always wanted. Since the age of 21 he's done an impression of an old man with a whisky-sozzled blues croak; now he has it, it sounds damn good.

What with Love And Theft, modern classic Modern Times, the even better Together Through Life (in which his vocals hit their absolute best) and his incomparable Christmas album, this decade has turned out to be pretty fruitful for Dylan fans. Here's to another.

Spotify, you're really not impressing me at the moment - less, even, than YouTube, which has NO videos of songs from this album in their original arrangement (Dylan fucks about with them live).

Tomorrow: the album of the decade, revealed on its last day. Gasp in shock! Choke in horror! Roll your eyes in indifference!

Howl - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club [2005]

Where the hell did this come from?

After two albums with good singles but on the whole worthy of the description 'not bad', a pretty decent but by no means special rock band suddenly delved deep into their hearts, found their inner blues, which I don't think anyone thought existed in them, and pulled out a bloody stunner of a record. As I said: where the hell did this come from?

The title says it all. Howl is raw to the core. It's a cry of justice, injustice and misery. It's, well, a howl.

I'm born and weary but life's just begun
And I've run from the reasons and roamed to the gun
They say I'm the killer and thy will be done
And the doors won't be open when I finally become
And I've seen the battle and I've seen the war
And the life out here is the life I've been sold

It could be said there's a lack of invested feeling in observant third-person ballads such as Restless Sinner - though I don't agree; it's a brilliant song with wonderful guitar work - but that never hurt Dylan, and if it's personal emotion you want, look no further than Fault Line. With copious amounts of harmonica, that most underrated of instruments, and a refrain of "Racing with the rising tide to my father's door", it's really quite moving.

But it's not all one-paced: Shuffle Your Feet, all handclaps and bottleneck guitar, and Ain't No Easy Way, one of the few indie singles of late to feature an instrumental mouth organ chorus, raise the tempo and are both absolute stompers in their own right. They provide a perfectly judged antidote to the bittersweet laments of the rest of the album's noose-fearing gospel.

It is, quite literally given their previous guitar anthem dreams, an incredible modern blues album.

And yet no one else seems to think so. From the universally acclaimed Since I Left You yesterday to the largely deplored Howl today, it's a bit of a fall. But I don't care.

This is gem of an album. What a shame that as soon as they could, BRMC went back to their old rocky road. But at least we are left with this - Howl.

No Spotify link because Spotify doesn't have this album. It's all on YouTube, though - give it a listen.

Thank God for faceless men in suits: if it wasn't for organisers at the Eurovision Song Contest, Georgia could be sparking another war with Russia.

Their song for 2009, We Don't Wanna Put In - an unsubtle reference to Vladimir Putin - has been ruled unacceptable for the competition because no entries will be permitted with "lyrics, speeches, gestures of a political or similar nature". Strange, that, because I seem to remember a slightly political entry last year called Peace Will Come. The entrant? Georgia.

Clearly the worry is that given last year's events in Eastern Europe, letting Georgia slag off the Ruskis - in their own country - in one of the (tragically) biggest European soirees of the year isn't great thinking, and so the song has been forcibly withdrawn.

Probably for the best.

I was gutted to hear yesterday that erstwhile Britpop survivors (until now) Supergrass have decided to call it a day after 17 years. Busy as I was, it almost consumed my day - I listened to I Should Coco on the walk home from work and remembered how good a debut it was, and would have written this blog last night except I was PLUG a bit PLUG busy writing PLUG this one first.

There's not really much for me to say, either, except that their departure from the scene is a great shame. It's true their star faded a while back - most people I've spoken to thought they'd split years ago - but they kept making good music that was, above all, great fun. Even their deliberately downbeat Road To Rouen had a wonderful sense of mischief about it. Indeed, though they released a considerably happier album a few years later, Road To Rouen was really their finale. It even ended with a song called Fin.

But it was good to know they were still around. And now they're not. All we can do is listen to their lasting classic, In It For The Money - surely the best name for a follow-up album ever, not to mention its opening song and chorus - and remember the good times.

I was going to put a Spotify playlist on here for anyone unacquainted with Gaz, Mick and Danny's (what names) particular brand of joyful guitar pop, but my friend's theory that a greatest hits collection is the best introduction works better for Supergrass than it does most bands. Supergrass Is 10 is an ace party album, if nothing else (and even if it does only have tracks from the first four of their six albums).

Supergrass Is 10: The Best of 94-04

Give it a go. And if you've heard it all before, psht - stick it on shuffle and remember the good times. If you don't like it, well, fine. But fewer bands created such a sense of fun as Supergrass, and for me, that's something music needs on occasion.

Anyway, times change and with a fond, lingering memory, we - fine, I - should move on. Ironically, perhaps, Supergrass put it best themselves way back in 1995, when they closed their debut album with these words:

Thanks to everyone for everything you've done
But now it's time to go
You know it's hard
We've had some fun
But now the moment's come
It's time to go

Who could ask for more?
Who could ask for more?

So, farewell then, the 2000s. It's been a good decade, if you ignore all the shit stuff.

Before #1 - this.

I won't go into all the albums that nearly made this list, but a couple of absentees have grabbed my attention. So please let's charge our glasses to Absent Friends. No, not the album at #7; the albums that didn't make it. Apologies to:

- Re-releases etc. I know fully enhanced mixes of older recordings are being put out like fires in a flame factory, but I refuse to count them as new albums. Except, of course, the Love reworkings of Beatles tracks, but that's not in there just because I don't love it. Kudos to the people who made it, though. KUDOS.

- Classical music. I won't pretend to know who's new on the scene, but I do really like Katherine Jenkins' Living A Dream. You can all throw things at me now.

- Hip-hop/rap/grime/etc. Oh, I don't fucking know, OK? Honourable mentions (I know these artists are very different; I'm just lumping them all together): Boy In Da Corner by Dizzee Rascal; The Red Light District by Ludacris; Original Pirate Material by The Streets.

- Messiah J & The Expert. See above; an artist in and around the above genres that I very nearly included. I'm a big fan of their album Now This I Have To Hear, and not just for its album cover, but they were squeezed out when I, uh, released I'd picked 31 albums instead of 30. Damn you, Cat Power! Lingering in the back of my mind and not on my spreadsheet...

- The year 2002. Looking through my selection, there's a lot from the start of the decade (11 of the 30 were released in 2000 or 2001), yet nothing at all from 2002. I feel a good year is being a bit hard done by, so off the top of my head, in no particular order, here are ten very good albums released in that year: Original Pirate Material by The Streets; Sea Change by Beck; American IV by Johnny Cash; Melody AM by Röyksopp; Souljacker by Eels; Come With Us by The Chemical Brothers; Life On Other Planets by Supergrass; Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips; Come Away With Me by Norah Jones; and Highly Evolved by The Vines. 2002, I salute you.

If I could have written the list again, yes, I would have done it to bring music and joy to people's ears, no, I wouldn't have done it because it took more time out of my life than I expected, and no, I wouldn't have included Lemon Jelly either.

And so for number 1 - the Album of the Decade. Call me predictable; I call it perfect.

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Rings Around The World - Super Furry Animals [2001]

Perfect. Completely perfect. It's annoying, actually, because I know I can't write a review to do it justice.

I know I'm not the most creative, but I can't think of a way in which this album could be improved. Even the opening and weakest track Alternate Route To Vulcan Street has grown on me that much. It's a slice of serenity interspersed with explosions. Only the Furries could make that work.

Ostensibly an album about technology and progress, Rings Around The World - a mesmerising and damn cool concept in its own right - muses about a Revelations-style armageddon, brought on by humanity's desperate desire to move quickly, no matter in what direction.

But it has time to diverge into religious fundamentalism (the brilliant epic Run! Christian, Run!: "Bang on the hour of 12, to a forest clearing we'll delve, with guns to our heads for we know that Heaven awaits us"), rising house prices (the sublime Juxtaposed With U, originally intended as a duet between Brian Harvey and Bobby Brown) and, brilliantly, the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair (Presidential Suite: "Honestly, do we need to know if he really came inside her mouth?"). It's a diverse album, to say the least.

Not least in its sound. After the unsubtle and goshdarnit fun Britrock of their first two LPs, experimentation with Guerrilla and Welsh-language jazz in Mwng, Rings sees the Furries delve into their more natural home of laid-back orchestral pop for the first time.

In doing this, many bands could have slipped into a musical coma, but SFA are wiser to it, largely because they get bored quite easily. So, Sidewalk Serfer Girl is a juddering slammer of a song, juxtaposing (sorry) gentle folkish guitar with thumping guitar chords on its way to a strangely heartwarming chorus - heartwarming in its tenderness; strange in that it comes in a song about comas, famine and bungee jumping.

The title track is simple, no-nonsense stuff, but then it's also the song that first got me into SFA and as such, a personal favourite. In fact, it's one of my favourite songs ever. Sounding the whole way through like a warm-up into a bigger song, it also hits its stride from the off and finds a refrain to stay in your head until you die. Nice video, too.

Fan favourite and live masterpiece Receptacle For The Respectable is almost as fantastic, skipping between genres like they're on a hopscotch pattern. From pop to swing to metal, it sweeps you up and away before throwing you nosedeep into one of the best miniature techno instrumentals you'll hear, [A] Touch Sensitive (another great song title).

Oh, I could go on. The brilliance of folk ballad-turned-industrial rave No Sympathy. The video to It's Not The End Of The World?. The beautiful build-up of Shoot Doris Day, which transformed in my mind from average to extraordinary in a couple of listens (it's a microcosm of the whole album in that it's a grower; if you don't like it straight off, you'll love it later). Even Paul McCartney turning up on Receptacle For The Respectable chewing celery down the phone in an homage to the Beach Boys (well, why not?)

But I won't. I sense the job's not done, but that's because I'm writing about an album that must be listened to. So listen to it. Now. Lush in sound, intelligent in words, fun in spirit and imbued with a fragile happiness, it's probably the best thing made this decade.

Spotify link.

Thanks for reading, if you did. If you didn't... well, you're not reading this.

Come back tomorrow, next year as I begin my daily countdown of the 365 Best Songs Ever Written.

The Sophtware Slump - Grandaddy [2000]

I, like at least three other people, was actually very sad when Grandaddy announced their split a few years ago. They've made some damn good records in their time - 2003's Sumday is well worth a listen or four - but no better than this, their defining opus, The Sophtware Slump.

The album is often called an American OK Computer, which really doesn't do it justice. Yes, the two are similar in handling the concept of technology: as the self-explanatory Broken Household Appliance National Forest demonstrates, The Sophtware Slump sees Grandaddy at the height of their 'Won't somebody think of the machines?' distress. But it's so much more than an imitation of a much more successful band; in fact, comparing it to OK Computer possibly does it something of a disservice. Besides, in sound it has more in common with Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.

Bookending The Sophtware Slump are two earth-shatteringly beautiful songs, albeit beautiful in very different ways. He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot, opening track, nine-minute single and the true triumph in Grandaddy's career, is a truly wonderful epic split into three parts. After a stuttering intro, the long-awaited chord on 1:19 is somehow one of the most heartwarming sounds put to record. Then "I believe they want you to give in" and the melancholy layered vocal refrains carrying you through to the end. It's wondrous.

At the other end of the scale and tracklisting, So You'll Aim Toward The Sky sweeps you up into the clouds with a soaring string arrangement and plink-plonk piano, before landing you back in the real world with a bump as the album finishes with the whisper, "Good luck." Shame that luck never held out for Grandaddy.

Other standouts include simple rocker Hewlett's Daughter, even simpler rocker Chartsengrafs, the more complex and mesmerising Miner At The Dial-A-View and Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground), a low-key number with a superb tune and playful lyrics:

You said I'd wake up dead drunk alone in the park
I called you a liar
But how right you were
I try to sing it funny like Beck but it's bringing me down
Lower than ground
Beautiful ground

The whole of The Sophtware Slump conjures one of the most unexpectedly potent images imaginable: a desolate world of broken machines, backward men and rotting countryside. It's one hell of an sight.

So is this album placed this high on the list because of posthumous nostalgia, just as everyone raved that much more about Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker? I'd like to think not. The Sophtware Slump is an alternative classic of the turning millennium, that should be listened to in decades to come. It is sad Grandaddy are gone, but they did leave us with this: an utterly beautiful record - no more, no less.

Spotify link.

'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' The Soundtrack - Various Artists [2000]

The record that launched a thousand careers.

This compilation, soundtrack to what I personally think is the most perfect film ever made (but let's put that aside for now because that's another list no one will agree with), collected the finest crafters of folk and bluegrass the world has to offer, and in return for their rewarding viewers and listeners with unbelievably good music, rewarded these masters of their art with recognition not before known or appreciated.

Sorry, that was a sentence more unnecessarily long than Nelson Mandela's. Heigh-o!

Legends such as Alison Krauss (God, I love her voice), Gillian Welch and even Emmylou Harris do feature, it's true, but it was wonderful to see some appreciation for producer T-Bone Burnett, Dan Tyminski and, yes, Ralph Stanley. On his 75th birthday, he sang O Death - a capella - at the 44th Grammy Awards. I'm sorry, but I just find that unbelievable. In retrospect, it's a miracle Kanye West didn't turn up promising to let them finish but first adding by gum, Bob Dylan was robbed.

Yes, Dylan lost out to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack for Album of the Year. I imagine he was very happy about it, actually. Fellow losing nominees OutKast and U2 (hah!) were probably less thrilled.

The award, and Stanley's, were just two of five Grammies won by the record - and deservedly, fully deservedly.

Anyone who knows the Coen brothers' films know they care deeply about their soundtracks, and each song fits its moment in the film perfectly, but it works so well in its own right too. To hear modern legends recreate classic bluegrass songs and make them their own is no less than incredible in effect.

Highlights? Ooh, not easy. The Soggy Bottom Boys' acoustic and full band recordings of Man Of Constant Sorrow both go down as classic versions of the song, and rightfully so, thanks to Tyminski's artful arrangement and damn fine singing.

The aforementioned O Death is another fantastic song, crooned with such fragility by Ralph Stanley it's like hearing his soul be ripped apart with his ageing body. But, y'know, more cheerful. Stanley also turns up on album and film closer Angel Band, which is just bloody lovely.

What else? Down To The River To Pray and Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby are much-admir'd thanks to Alison Krauss' involvement, and they are both beautiful renditions, but credit must also go to Chris Thomas King for his heartbreaking version of Hard Time Killing Floor Blues.

John Hartford is responsible for two gorgeous string-laden instrumentals, there's a brilliant rare 1920s recording in Harry McClintock's Big Rock Candy Mountain (corking song) and actor Tim Blake Nelson has a more than decent stab at In The Jailhouse Now. Give that man a recording contract.

To be honest, there's only one recording on this 19-track album I would call any less than wonderful, and that's because it's excruciating - three pre-teen girls murdering In The Highways. Still, they're young. I'll forgive them.

What an album. What bluegrass. What gospel. What brilliance.

So I suppose the final question is: does this count? I wasn't going to include the album on my list because I wasn't sure if a soundtrack created by various artists should be included on an albums of the decade list. But then I took away the rules and thought about it simply: it's one of the best records of the decade. Simple as that.

How nice. My 100th post on this silly little blog, set up well over a year ago, and I get to celebrate my favourite film as well as one of my favourite albums.

Tomorrow, I'll probably pick the Being John Malkovich soundtrack (does it have one?) just so I can drone on endlessly about the film.

Spotify link.

Since I Left You - The Avalanches [2000]

Truly a breakthrough in the world of dance music

- PopMatters

It's downright shocking how fun this is

- The Austin Chronicle

Please, for the love of God, check out Since I Left You

- Drowned in Sound

There's little doubt to Since I Left You's status as one of the most intimate and emotional dance records that isn't vocal-based

- Allmusic

Quite possibly the best sample record ever made

- The Onion AV Club

A masterpiece

- Pitchfork

From the opening chords of Since I Left You to the final refrain, "I tried but I just can't get you, since the day I left you" it's gloriously joyful and about as close to perfection as an improvised record made from 9000-odd samples can be.

Fuck YOU, Lemon Jelly.

Get a drink, have a good time now. Welcome to paradise

Absent Friends - The Divine Comedy [2004]

Beautiful; intelligent; haunting.

After his decision to 'go straight' with Regeneration, it was with open arms that I welcomed the real Neil Hannon back to the stage. He's complained before that Regeneration is an underrated album, but it's completely the other way round. Fans love it. Critics love it. And it's fucking awful.

I agree the overblown scores and comedy sound effects of Fin de Siècle et al undermine Hannon's brilliant, clever, gently comic lyrics, but Regeneration made the music boring and the lyrics worse. There's a song in which he lists things he's lost. The whole album's neither funny nor deep. It's horrific.

The superb Absent Friends, then, made me breathe such a sigh of relief I blew away a small child.

But the thing to remember about Neil Hannon as a lyricist is that he's actually bloody miserable. Tell anyone you're a Divine Comedy fan and they sing National Express at you (it's really annoying); they don't know he's made nine albums, each more depressing than the last.

And in Absent Friends, he found the music to fit the words. To fully express every minutiae of sadness in its core, a full orchestra with string-led melodies are used to perfection, although Hannon still lacked the confidence to really pull off his massive orchestral gigs at the Royal Albert Hall and the Palladium (though the second half and encore of the latter is excellent).

But in Absent Friends, it's a perfect fit - chamber pop at its very best. Case in point: Sticks And Stones, with its stabbing cello and sweeping violins. The song absolutely soars. It's also hard to dislike a song that begins, "You and I go together like the molar and the drill." The title track is another cracker, uplifting and melancholy at the same time.

Hannon knows when to show restraint with his instruments, though: My Imaginary Friend is a quiet, friendly, banjo-led ditty very much in the middle of the road, but it's so utterly lovely you'd be a bastard to hate it.

The same goes for album closer Charmed Life, which, being a sugary sweet tribute to his young daughter, should by all rights be awful. But it's not. So there.

Let's not go around thinking this is happy happy fun times though. Leaving Today, about leaving his family behind, is a heartbreaker of pure misery. Musically, it's no less than haunting. Lyrically: "So suddenly awake," it begins. "No light through yonder window breaks. No crowing cock; just my old clock... "

Our Mutual Friend - definite emphasis on friends in this album - is the true standout, however. Listen to it. From the opening confession, "No matter how I try I just can't get her out of my mind" to its shattering conclusion (via the lovely throwaway line, "I woke up the next day all alone but for a headache), it involves you completely, and every individual line is perfect. The scene is so beautifully set, it's impossible not to feel for the speaker when it closes.

Sad, observant and wryly comic, Absent Friends is the album to give Divine Comedy fans hope. Can't wait for the new album.

Sorry, that was a terrible review of a wonderful record. Please listen to at least a bit of it. Merry Christmas! I'll be back with #6 on Boxing Day. Until then, here's a present, made around the release of this album:

Spotify link.

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys [2006]

Yawn. Sigh. Predictable.

There's nothing to say about this album that hasn't already been said, so I'll just summarise: Alex Turner is genuinely one of the finest lyricists of the 21st century. Being able to write with such skill aged only 19 makes him an absolutely massive cunt.

And that's all I have to say on the matter.

Spotify link

La Peste - Alabama 3 [2000]

Sorry.

The good thing, I suppose, is that in knowing I'll never justify this selection to anyone who takes their music seriously, I can write pretty much whatever I want about it.

But I do want naysayers to know this - it's not a comedy record. I've heard, and detested, enough comedy records to know that. The tongue that was planted so firmly in cheek for their brilliant debut Exile On Coldharbour Lane (at least listen to the first track, Converted, before you judge it) is still there in La Peste, but as the title and cover sleeve suggest, it's a darker and much more serious album, more likely to draw on the absurdism of Albert Camus than take the piss out of the orchestrator of the Jonestown Massacre, as they did in their debut.

It's true that Alabama 3 have since lost sight of their original goal. They've gone MOR; 'sold out' into Midwestern country-pop. Setting aside 2005 release Outlaw, which is really rather good, it's not that bad an idea to pretend they stopped making music after their first two albums.

So, for that reason and the fact it's bloody marvellous, La Peste should be remembered. Whether it's the opus that defines their career or whether that honour belongs to Exile On Coldharbour Lane depends on how much you like your gospel, but even the most pretentious of tryhards should at least give this album a go. You never know. There might be a guilty pleasure within.

La Peste certainly starts brilliantly. Too Sick To Pray is actually, just, wow. Not always have the band succeeded in effortlessly blending their yin and yang of blues and techno - that "sweet country acid house music" - but Too Sick To Pray sees them on fire. The spirit of Hank Williams is more present than the first verse's namedrop, inspiring lyrics of defiant deathbed faith as the music spirals into a perfect mesh of slide guitar and 21st-century (ish) production.

The pace doesn't let up with Mansion On The Hill, one of Alabama 3's shortest and most dance-influenced efforts. There's not a whole lot of religion in a song about housebreaking, but it's hard not to enjoy a shouted refrain of "The meek ain't gon' inherit SHIT."

There's some very nice balladry, too, in Dylan-referencing Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlife and Walking In My Sleep, which, once you get past the oddly off-form rambling of The Very Reverend Dr D Wayne Love (aka Jake Black) at the start, shows itself to be a downbeat little corker. Larry Love/Rob Spragg's hushed vocals have, at this stage of his life, hit the perfect blues pitch, croaky while still intact and filled with both frailty and venom. The first line is enough to send a shiver down your spine.

From there, it's a bizarre but splendid mix of acid raves (Cocaine Killed My Community) and whisky-fuelled country ballads (The Thrills Have Gone), plus a fantastic slice of good old-fashioned Christian rock - never thought I'd ever use those words in a positive light - in the sublime Wade Into The Water. Admittedly, the breakdown house cover of The Eagles' Hotel California may have been ill-advised. Some fans swear by it, but it is pretty bloody awful.

It's the only bad track on a funking great album, though. You couldn't ask for a much better finish than bible-bashing 2129, lyrically depraved techno thumper Strange and Rime Of The Ancient Mariner tribute Sinking... , which ends with a wonderful Beatles-esque horn outro and singalong of "It's gonna be all right." Quality.

I think La Peste is a great, great album.

Sorry.

Spotify link

Icky Thump - The White Stripes [2007]

By ’ick, we’re into the Top Ten.

Most of these end-of-decade lists have had a White Stripes record or two numbered in their ranks – clearly they’re an ‘important’ band (hmm) – and in that respect mine is no different.

However, unlike the others I’ve not chosen the admittedly impressive Elephant (2003), the deeply flawed but intermittently excellent White Blood Cells (2001), or even fan favourite De Stijl (2000). Nope, I’m plumping for this baby, Meg and Jack’s sixth outing and in my view, their most accomplished to date.

There are so many good songs on Icky Thump it’s hard to know where to begin. The quite phenomenally good acoustic closing number Effect And Cause? The exhilarating country-rock merriment of You Don’t Know What Love Is? The bottleneck blues mix of Dylan and Led Zeppelin on 300mph Torrential Outpour Blues? There’s not a bad track in sight.

It seems the Detroit duo still haven’t come home to roost: after embracing English culture and recording studios with their two previous records, Icky Thump, despite the bastardisation of Mrs. Jack White’s Lancastrian exclamation ‘Hecky thump’ in the title, has more of a Celtic lilt to it. Look no further than Jim Drury’s bagpipes mid-record, which fit far better than they have any right to.

It’s not the only inspiration from leftfield: I’m Slowly Turning Into You was born from a music video. Michel Gondry directed a video with no backing, then Jack wrote the song to it. How, then, it came to be one of the best songs on the album I have no idea.

Lyrically, Icky Thump shows The White Stripes to be a touch more mature than in previous efforts. Reminiscing about school and adolescence is gone in favour of political pokery (“Americans – what, nothing better to do? Why don’t you kick yourself out? You’re an immigrant too”) and, in the superb blues song Effect And Cause, wry observations on blame-casting in a break-up:

I ain’t sayin’ I’m innocent – in fact, the reverse
But if you’re headed to the grave you don’t blame the hearse
You’re like a little girl yelling at her brother ’cos you lost his ball

After the piano pop disappointment of Get Behind Me Satan, it’s also heartening to hear a return for Jack’s incredible electric guitar skills. There are solos aplenty, but it’s not self-indulgent; indeed, on I’m Slowly Turning Into You Jack hides a virtuoso solo behind a vocal outro.

Catch Hell Blues is the closest you’ll get to guitar-wank, with White basically having a good time on a slide guitar for four minutes. Naturally he’s very good, but the whole effect isn’t as bluesy as you feel he would like. Still a good song though.

It’s an album of instant hits (even shy ballad A Martyr For My Love For You is ripped up into an uplifting rocker), which is why I find it odd they released Conquest as a single, the mariachi-punk cover of Patti Page’s classic. It’s hardly the White Stripes at their best, even if it is great fun.

Quibbles all. Icky Thump is a fantastic record – surely The White Stripes’ best in my opinion, even if no one shares that view – and it would be nice, really, if Jack White stopped fucking around and got on with making the follow-up.

Spotify link

Phantom Power - Super Furry Animals [2003]

Well, for the millions of you reading this, I'm sure my #11 will be something of an anticlimax after this. What a story. I feel overshadowed.

Phantom Power is a wonderful record from start to finish. For a 10-song concept album in which every song used D-A-D-D-A-D tuning - surely the worst idea for a concept album ever - to be turned into a 14-song masterpiece virtually flawless in its creation and implementation is quite something.

In a way, it represents the Furries taking many new steps. For one, it's the last time they ever really made any dent on the charts, effectively cutting off quite a lot of MOR listeners to their sound. I'm sure Gruff Rhys and his merry mentalists couldn't care less, but a fall in mainstream success often spells a change in a band's approach.

This time, the band allowed themselves to be much more technical about the album's production (reflected in its title, a reference to a tool often seen on mixing desks). They engineered the album themselves and had endless discussions about things I won't pretend to understand. Gone, it seems, were the days of making poorly-produced shoutfest B-sides just for the fun of it.

They did get to play with guns though.

Yet the band are right in calling the album "a little more human" than its predecessor Rings Around The World. There's a sentimental warmth to songs such as Sex, War & Robots, and not just because of its pedal steel guitar. "If tears could kill, I'd be a long time gone," croons Huw Bunford over a languid melody.

Yes, Huw Bunford. Bunf. It's the first time a song of the guitarist's had made a Furries studio album, but more noticeable is his vocals being used instead of Rhys'. It was the catalyst for everyone having a go on Love Kraft, with each band member bar Guto Pryce - he's shy, bless him - taking the lead at one stage. Again, a new sound, and one that works really well, on Phantom Power at least (Love Kraft's not all that).

But to my mind, though this album shows a band at their stage-sharing democratic best, it's brothers Dafydd Ieuan and Cian Ciaran's record. Daf is given a huge amount more freedom with his drumming, from the heraldic announcements of the gorgeous Father Father instrumentals to the frantic drum solo outro of Valet Parking.

Cian, meanwhile, is the man behind Slow Life, one of the greatest offerings of the Furries' career - a seven-minute semi-improvised experiment (the rest of the band just jammed over the top of his pre-prepared mix) that weaves seamlessly between techno and folk-rock then mashing the two together. What a finale.

I should probably write more about the songs themselves, but I doubt I'd do them justice. Suffice it to say the album is eclectic as the Furries ever are, but with an often gentler, more countrified sound. True, Out Of Control and Golden Retriever are steeped in '70s rock 'n' roll and I don't even know what The Undefeated is, but the general atmosphere is laid back to the point of falling over, and in a damn good way.

Lyrically, it's, uh, diverse. The band claims Phantom Power is about broken relationships and war, and I suppose that's partly true. But it doesn't do justice to the sheer number of subjects tackled, nor the intense amount of feeling they manage to generate on topics such as the Falklands War (The Piccolo Snare, an incredible track with some of the most beautiful close harmonising you'll ever hear) and the Chernobyl disaster's effect on North Wales (Bleed Forever).

Oh yeah, and a song about a dog. With Golden Retriever and outpourings from the soul about pan-European road travel and pet tortoises called Venus and Serena, it's good to see the Furries didn't lose their sense of fun with this one.

Even against the brilliance of Radiator and Rings Around The World, Phantom Power could just be the Super Furry Animals' best album. And if that's not enough, it's certainly one of the best albums released this decade. SFA OK.

(Wow, I managed to make a spectacular album really boring. Just listen to it.)

Spotify link.

You Are Free - Cat Power [2003]

Well, hello. I like this. Who are you again?

Apparently, Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter and this was her sixth album, her first original offering in five years after personal struggles including a drinking problem. Nasty. Psht, I just know it's a fantastic album. What do you expect from me, information?

You Are Free is a superb display of minimalism at its very best. Stripped down to its bare bones - nothing but vocals and either piano or acoustic guitar most of the time - it's simple, pure and utterly, utterly brilliant.

Yes, utterly, utterly. That utterly.

Free, which is arguably the best track on the album - God, it's good - shows how minimalism is not just a technique, or even a theme, but a total movement. It could be anthemic, an alternative indie anthem even, but almost every effort is made to avoid that happening. A beat comes in... then it stops. An electric guitar comes in... then it stops. They come back occasionally, but refuse to fit into the rhythm as they conventionally should. It's odd, but wonderful.

Musically, Werewolf is fuller but similarly confident, and very good for that precise reason - but lyrically must be where Marshall thinks she shines, seeing as that's what she's promoting by having refrained supporting melodies (the Bob Dylan method). Fortunately for her, she's good enough to get away with it. Babydoll is a lyrical cracker; so too, I Don't Blame You.

You Are Free's most talked-about song, Names, could fall into the territory of push-your-buttons-make-you-cry-look-at-me-I'm-so-sly, but there's a true tenderness beneath the attention-grabbing tragedy:

His name was Perry
He had a learning difficulty
His father was a very mean man
His father burned his skin
His father sent him to his death
He was 10 years old

Her name was Sheryl
Black hair like an electric space
She would pretty-paint my face
She was a very good friend
Her father would come to her in the night
She was 12 years old

Spotify link.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control (no, really), today I can only offer you my own review without a Spotify link or a blog WITH a Spotify link but with the words written by someone else.

I figured you'd prefer the latter

The first thing I should point out is that I'm hideously underqualified to write an album review. The second thing is that if this were my top thirty albums of the decade, it would read very differently.

And thirdly, I love this album, and I will tell you why.

My relationship with Guero starts with the esteemed Mr Davies. We had known each other for about a week when he made me a copy of this album and told me that I'd like it. I in turn gave him a copy of Rooster's self-titled debut. Needless to say, he never listened to it.

However, the first time I actually listened to it was probably around six months later on the Welsh M4. This was unfortunate for me because my first instinct was to dance. This album is full of beat, drawing heavily from its South American inspiration. It's also got clear lyrics that can be happily mumbled along with, and those are my two main requirements in an album, so it was obviously going to be a favourite.

If you came looking for comments about structure, symmetry and the poignant irony of a white man referencing Latino slang, you've come to the wrong place. Instead, I suggest you click on E-Pro and watch the puppets:

I've been told that I'm not allowed to link to Qué Onda Guero, which is unfortunate because it's really rather good. About an outsider in a marketplace, the shout of 'What's up, white boy?' makes sense with the rest of the lyrics, making it quite unusual for a Beck song (see Devil's Haircut for comparison).

Well, apart from this:

James Joyce
Michael Bolton

But you're allowed to listen to Black Tambourine. I have no idea what it's about, but it's probably sexy. However, it is one of the worst songs on this album to pole dance to, and that's obviously what's important.

Anyway, this is your unlucky 13, which is why I'm breaking Mr Davies' rules and inserting a track by the artist that definitely doesn't feature on the wonderful Guero. It also stars a fictional robot.

XTRMNTR - PRML SCRM [2000]

As Kermit once said (almost), it's not easy being a Primal Scream fan. You have to deal with their delving into any genre they think is profitable at the time. You have to accept that Bobby Gillespie can be a dick at times.

But most dishearteningly, you have to put up with, and stick up for, them spending most of their time being unutterably shit.

There's been a lot of twaddle in Primal Scream's career, it's true. Fortunately, they also happen to have made two phenomenally good albums, ten years apart, in Screamadelica and XTRMNTR. The bizarre thing is they couldn't be any more different.

I have this theory Primal Scream have never actually written a song; only albums. Every record has a distinct sound - acid jazz; MOR pop; Southern rock - but the lyrics are always, always meaningless. So, then: Screamadelica is the soundtrack to a stoner's summer. And XTRMTR begins with a song called Kill All Hippies. It's their 'loud' album. And it's pretty aggressive. Exterminator, Shoot Speed/Kill Light, MBV Arkestra (If They Move, Kill 'em)... Come Together this ain't.

But what an album it is. It's easily the heaviest record they, or indeed most bands, have made, but it retains its quality without descending into complete anarchy. Accelerator, for example: loud and distortion-packed, but still a damn good tune.

The acid jazz of Screamadelica and Vanishing Point is still present: there's some fantastic brass on Insect Royalty and Blood Money, a sort of homage to Radiohead's just as - fine, more than - excellent National Anthem but born nine months earlier.

XTRMNTR is heavy on the production, but rightly so. MBV Arkestra (If They Move, Kill 'em) is, as you can probably guess, essentially an extended reworking of Vanishing Point's best track If They Move, Kill 'em, but it somehow manages to surpass the brilliant original. It's an incredible genre-fusing opus that creates an immense wall of sound then descends into... just... noise. Lovely, lovely noise.

Together with the superb Kill All Hippies, Swastika Eyes is the strongest track - Jagz Kooner's mix, that is (I'm unsure about having the same song remixed twice, but I suppose it's not unlike having a reprise, as many artists do). It's a top song benefiting from a top mix. The second reworking by good Scream friends The Chemical Brothers - after collaborating the previous year on the mighty Chems' Surrender - is a cracker too, though, and almost as worthy as Kooner's superlative effort.

But sod Kooner and everyone's good friends Tom and Ed. This album is Primal Scream's victory. We can only hope that in years to come, people will remember this record and Screamadelica - and forget almost everything else they made.

Spotify link.

Because Of The Times - Kings Of Leon [2007]

The first and possibly only band to feature on this list twice, the Kings Of Leon have done it with two very different albums. The first, Youth & Young Manhood (#23), was a belter of a debut steeped in razor-edged blues. This, their third album, was a more mainstream effort that edged them towards stardom - before Sex On Fire did the rest.

The difference between Because Of The Times and Only By The Night is simple and hopefully obvious: the former is a cracking album.

To open with a meandering seven-minuter in Knocked Up is brave but pulled off superbly. Brooding and understated, it's oddly anthemic, and somehow succeeds in making the refrain, "I don't care what nobody says - I'm going to be her lover" as pathetic as it is winsomely defiant.

Charmer shows off those aforementioned vocal talents to extraordinary effect, as does turn-it-up-until-it's-quite-antisocial thumper Black Thumbnail, easily one of my favourite rock songs of recent years. I can't get enough of it.

From start to finish it's an album of classics, thanks to sound lyrics, lyrical sounds and a fantastic mix of fun throwaway tunes (Camaro; My Party) and serious gloomers (Arizona; McFearless). They even get away with writing a song to their fans (Fans, if you hadn't guessed) because it actually sounds heartfelt. And with an uplifting chorus, attacking drums and a bassline to make you air pick, it's one of their best singles yet.

It's sad, but almost certainly true: the Kings Of Leon will probably never make a better album than this.

Spotify link.

Consolers Of The Lonely - The Raconteurs [2008]

Well, this was a bolt from the blue.

After a mismatched first album from this Jack White/Brendan Benson lovemaking session, I thought this was a project gone wrong - a tiresome whim annoyingly taking songwriting time out of Jack's White Stripes commitments.

Then this came along and, not to put too fine a point on it, how wrong I was.

Consolers Of The Lonely is an astonishing roughtooth gem of an album, harking back to the sounds of Zeppelin et al but with an even older quality to it. Recorded in double-quick time then rushed out with absolutely no promotion for release a few weeks later (apparently the band liked the idea of people finding it on the shelves and wondering if it had always been there) it should have been an even bigger disaster than the first album.

(Actually, I'm being a bit harsh on Broken Boy Soldiers: it's all right, really.)

But Consolers Of The Lonely is much better than all right, and much better than the mixed reviews it received. Each one agreed the album was chaotic; not all agreed this was a good thing.

It definitely is in my book. The frantic pace of lead single Salute Your Solution gets the adrenaline running, and epic closer Carolina Drama is an incredible effort that thrives on the chaos of the record (no one knows how the story ends, admits White in the song). An account of violence and greed in, well, Carolina, it rattles along thanks to superb fiddling and anguished vocals and by the end seems to struggle to contain itself. As the orchestral mayhem rises, the song breaks free and breaks down into a joyful, anarchic nonsense refrain of "La la la"s, helping the album to reach a perfectly imperfect zenith - beautiful chaos.

It's not even the best song on the album, and neither is Salute Your Solution. Even the title track, with its sublime changes of pace and White and Benson swapping vocals so smoothly it takes a while to notice, doesn't win the honour. No, it's Top Yourself - not about suicide; about bettering oneself - with its amazing blues sound, all slide guitar, banjo and bitter, spitting lyrics, that most deserves listen after listen after listen.

I don't know what's going to become of The Raconteurs, but I really hope they make an album as enjoyable as this one. Shit, I didn't even mention You Don't Understand Me and its wonderful piano. Ah, just listen to it.

Spotify link.

Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars - FatBoy Slim [2000]

While I'm pissing people off with this list, I'm going to throw this out there: FatBoy Slim's You've Come A Long Way, Baby is one of the best commercial dance records ever made.

There, I said it.

Block the overplayed irritation that is The Rockafeller Skank for a minute and you have an album of simple perfection: funking great dance tunes with singles coming out of every pore. Take that, Homework, you boring bastard.

So I'm going to follow up that contentious statement with this one: his follow-up, Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars, is one of the most underrated commercial dance records ever made.

There, I said it.

Take a stroll through Amazon and you'll find love for You've Come A Long Way, Baby, appreciation for excellent chrysalis of a debut Better Living Through Chemistry (cunning little grower) and appallingly good reviews for the appallingly appalling Palookaville, which is a massive pile of shit. But Halfway... - nothing. No one's a fan.

Maybe they don't like change. Fans bizarrely felt betrayed when Norman Cook started writing songs about the new woman in his life, Zoe Ball, even though Talking 'bout My Baby is an self-explanatory cracker of an intro. I don't know why: it's not like this was Morrissey suddenly writing love songs to puppies - Cook just moved from looping "FatBoy Slim is fucking in Heaven" to "I want to go out on a picnic with you, baby, under the big bright yellow sun."

My own view is that people felt let down by FatBoy's decision to work with guest vocalists for the first time - a change in direction suggested to him by good friends The Chemical Brothers, who had reaped the rewards by bringing in indie kings from the mainstream (Noel Gallagher on Let Forever Be and number one single Setting Sun) and the more obscure (Beth Orton and Mercury Rev).

I was sceptical too at first that this would work with FatBoy's big beat sound, but it would be absurd to say Weapon Of Choice is a weaker single because it features vocals from Bootsy Collins. It's not. It's a brilliant tune. And Demons, one of two tracks featuring Macy Gray (incidentally raped on his Greatest Hits, cut down from nearly seven minutes to just over three), is one of the best songs he ever made.

Anyway, it's not like he lost the big tunes. Ya Mama is a floorfiller in the truest sense of the phrase, and Mad Flava is, for want of a real word, funkadelic. Even Star 69 transcends its appalling 'lyrics' to show its true colours as a dance anthem.

But it's three songs in a row that define this album's brilliance: tracks 8 through 10. There's slam-classic Weapon Of Choice, which I've already mentioned. Then there's Drop The Hate, a baptist minister-sampling thumper with a fantastic build up and drop that possibly surpasses even Praise You. Then there's Demons, with its ace video, Bill Withers piano and Macy Gray growl; an almost soulful piece of big beat artistry that kicks the bollocks off anything Basement Jaxx ever made.

The critics are wrong. Once again I'm self-consciously defending a choice, but Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars is a superb modern dance album. It's just a shame Norman Cook went on to make wank like Palookaville and That Old Pair Of Jeans.

Another talent reducing himself to nothing. Man, this decade's been depressing.

No Spotify link - ever - but listen to the album if you can; your complaints will be stronger if you do.

Only joking.

No, after yesterday's noise and bluster - not from Wolfmother; from people criticising my choices - it's time for something a bit quieter (but probably no less offensive).

Riot On An Empty Street - Kings Of Convenience [2004]

Norwegian nerds Kings Of Convenience are a wonderful oasis of calm in a stressful, shouty world. All gentle acoustic guitar and vocal harmonies, they receive a lot - a LOT - of comparisons to Simon & Garfunkel and with some justification, but with their interest in dance music as well as indie folk (best buds with compatriots Röyksopp, dontchaknow) they have more strings to their... guitar.

Riot On An Empty Street sees Kings Of Convenience at their best, even if their most famous song (and admittedly one of their best) Toxic Girl will be found on their debut release, Quiet Is The New Loud. This, their second album, is understated, lyrically superb and wonderfully melodic - if you don't believe me, try the Spotify link (with the previously missing #20 and #21 also there).

Although plugged-in jumpers Love Is No Big Truth and I'd Rather Dance With You (featuring the winning line, "I'll make you laugh by acting like the guy who sings") do stand out, it's naturally the slower tracks that really impress. Gold In The Air Of Summer is a luscious ballad and so is Surprise Ice, while aptly titled closing track The Build Up, featuring gorgeous vocals from Canadian singer Feist, is just excellent - no less.

String-led Stay Out Of Trouble is another cracker, but the album's highlight for me is Sorry Or Please, a heartfelt tale about prison redemption and the possible end of a relationship. Its nervous see-sawing between being fearful and being hopeful - "Your increasingly long embraces: are they saying sorry or please?" - is wondrous in its emotion, as lush strings add further tension.

There's a very sweet shyness in the album's lyrics (again, evident in Toxic Girl) that adds to the general loveliness of it all:

Even if I could hear what you said
I doubt my reply would be interesting for you to hear

Riot On An Empty Street is intelligent, soulful and tender, as well as being the best album for relaxation you'll ever hear. And having just watched The Thick Of It, I think we need it.

Spotify link: #19. Riot On An Empty Street - Kings Of Convenience

Spotify link: #20. Wolfmother - Wolfmother

Spotify link: #21. Shootenanny! - Eels