In the 21st century, music became more universal, immediate, and accessible than ever before. On Jan. A change in cultural consumption that sweeping is bound to be an enormous mixed bag.
Early in this century, the album was alleged to be dying at the hands of single-track downloading. The biggest artists have often been the most radical innovators. Those are just a few of the biggest big-name examples. In compiling our top albums of the quarter-century, we wanted to show as much of the scope of this story as possible. So when given the choice between including multiple albums by an artist and finding room for a record that added something important or interesting to the list, we almost always took the second option.
Still, this is a list of albums, not artists, and certain heavy hitters just put out too many amazing LPs to deny. There might not be too much to be optimistic about in , but the mountain of good records will always keep growing. More importantly, he distilled his persona into a memorable album, Come Home With Me, that served as an entry point for the Dipset movement that briefly fascinated the rap industry and Pabst-drinking hipsters alike.
It became fodder for his early aughts glow-up. A French Indie-pop band singing a hot little ditty about the frenzied response inspired by 19th century composer Franz Liszt? How could such a thing not be a huge hit? The whole record is a rarified Paris riot, full of New Wave guitar churn, spit-polished grooves, and sleek melodies.
Like their contemporary countrymen Daft Punk, the mirror-shade sophisticates of Phoenix went for the pop jugular without sacrificing a bit of the continental style. Where We Come From is coming from a spectacular place. Taylor Swift has been many things in her nearly year career. But in , she was a petty Sagittarius with a point to prove: Yes, she did write her own songs, and she was so confident in her ability, she made an album entirely devoid of co-writers.
