Monstrous Media!

If you can remember, we all entered this decade together with Limp Bizkit farting out one of the worst mainstream rock records of all time, 2000′s “The Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water”, whilst The Backstreet Boys and *NSync battled for the number one slot on TRL.

These were dark times. Since, rap/rock has ceased to exist entirely and, at least for the time being, it seems that the world has tired of boy bands. We can all give ourselves a pat on the back for eradicating that one.

We’ve witnessed the demise of tangible media, namely the compact disc, in exchange for digital versions of the audio we love. Following the CD closely down the tubes went the entire mainstream music industry as it was once known.

Thanks to this, the shift in the way we listen to our music, and the proliferation of the internet, music of all kinds became nearly as accessible as the air we breath.

Because the mainstream had become polluted and failing, casual listeners turned their attention toward the underground. This enabled independent artists to become noticed by larger audiences and prosper. With the internet on their side independent artists were defining the large-scale musical trends of the later quarter of the decade.

Everyone was making music, everyone was experimenting, and everyone else was listening. When music becomes as ubiquitous as it had by the end of the 2000′s it gets difficult to single out the true gems of an entire decade past. The flawed mainstream had skipped over nearly all of the true genius musicians of the last 10 years, unlike during the 60′s and 70′s where the artists in the limelight deserved the respect they got.

My thoughts are that the true stars of this decade haven’t yet been truly acknowledged by the world and that one day they will surface and be properly celebrated.

This was a substantial decade for music, even if the world doesn’t quite know it yet. I think we can all agree that we’ve seen a paradigm shift in popular music as we know it and the years to come are only sounding better and better. The following are the 10 most decade-defining records, in order of release.

Relationship of Command – At The Drive-In [September 2000]

You Forgot It In People – Broken Social Scene [October 2002]

The Ugly Organ – Cursive [March 2003]

De-Loused in The Comatorium – The Mars Volta [June 2003]

Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? – The Unicorns [November 2003]

Satanic Panic in the Attic – of Montreal [April 2004]

Come On Feel The Illinoise! – Sufan Stevens [July 2005]

Strawberry Jam – Strawberry Jam [September 2007]

In Rainbows – Radiohead [October 2007]

Sea Lion – The Ruby Suns [January 2008]

Don’t forget to check out Michelle’s equally outstanding best of the decade list!