200 favourite albums, 2000-2009

1. M.I.A., Kala
2. Franco, Francophonic Vol. 2
3. King Sunny Ade, The Best of the Classic Years
4. James Carter, Chasin' the Gypsy
5. New York Dolls, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This
6. Franco, Francophonic
7. Sleater-Kinney, One Beat
8. Kanye West, Late Registration
9. Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP
10. Taylor Swift, Fearless (Platinum Edition)
11. Bob Dylan, Love and Theft
12. Franco, The Very Best of the Rumba Giant of Zaire
13. PJ Harvey, Stories from the City
14. Mekons, OOOH!
15. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
16. Buck 65, Talkin' Honky Blues
17. Gogol Bordello, Super Taranta!
18. Ghostface Killah, Fishscale
19. Brian Wilson Presents Smile
20. M.I.A., Arular
21. Youssou N'Dour, Nothing's in Vain
22. The Coup, Party Music
23. DJ Shadow, The Private Press
24. Lucinda Williams, Essence
25. K'naan, The Dusty Foot Philosopher
26. Ornette Coleman, Sound Grammar
27. Bob Dylan, Modern Times
28. OutKast, Stankonia
29. Mos Def, The Ecstatic
30. The Best Best of Fela Kuti
31. Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III
32. Rilo Kiley, More Adventurous
33. Amy Rigby, Little Fugitive
34. The Best Bootlegs in the World Ever!
35. Manu Chao, La Radiolina
36. The Moldy Peaches
37. Tabu Ley Rochereau, The Voice of Lightness
38. OutKast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
39. Johnny Cash, American IV: The Man Comes Around
40. Art Brut, Bang Bang Rock and Roll
41. Irene Schweizer, Portrait
42. Daft Punk, Discovery
43. Kanye West, The College Dropout
44. Drive-By Truckers, Decoration Day
45. Orchestra Baobab, Specialist in All Styles
46. The Streets, Original Pirate Material
47. Golden Afrique Vol. 2
48. Mavis Staples, We'll Never Turn Back
49. Brad Paisley, American Saturday Night
50. Papa Wemba, 1977-1997
51. Liz Phair
52. The Avalanches, Since I Left You
53. Lily Allen, It's Not Me It's You
54. Radiohead, Kid A
55. Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane, At Carnegie Hall
56. Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 4
57. Nas, Untitled
58. Sonic Youth, NYC Ghosts & Flowers
59. Gogol Bordello, Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike
60. Manu Chao, Proxima Estacion: Esperanza
61. Leonard Cohen, Live in London
62. The Rough Guide to the Music of the Sahara
63. Jimmie Dale Gilmore, One Endless Night
64. Todd Snider, The Devil You Know
65. Le Tigre, This Island
66. Miranda Lambert, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
67. N*E*R*D, In Search of...
68. Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak
69. Yo La Tengo, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
70. Loudon Wainwright III, High Wide & Handsome
71. William Parker, Raining on the Moon
72. Wussy
73. Wussy, Funeral Dress
74. Drive-By Truckers, Brighter Than Creation's Dark
75. Youssou N'Dour, Egypt
76. TV on the Radio, Dear Science
77. Lil Wayne, Da Drought 3
78. Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped
79. Sonny Rollins, This Is What I Do
80. William Parker Violin Trio, Scrapbook
81. William Parker, Double Sunrise over Neptune
82. Randy Newman, Harps and Angels
83. Pat Metheny & Ornette Coleman, Song X
84. Amy Rigby, Til the Wheels Fall Off
85. Sonic Youth, Murray Street
86. Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra, MTO Vol. 1
87. Tricky, Blowback
88. Imperial Teen, On
89. Steinski, What Does It All Mean?
90. Sonic Liberation Front, Ashe a Go-Go
91. Luomo, Vocalcity
92. Basement Jaxx, Rooty
93. Imperial Teen, The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band
94. Ne-Yo, Year of the Gentleman
95. Powerhouse Sound, Oslo/Chicago Breaks
96. Public Enemy, Rebirth of a Nation
97. Bjork, Vespertine
98. The Klezmatics, Wonder Wheel
99. Wu-Tang Clan, The W
100. William Parker Quartet, Sound Unity
101. Conor Oberst
102. Sleater-Kinney, The Woods
103. Warren Zevon, The Wind
104. Gothic Archies, The Tragic Treasury
105. Blackalicious, NIA
106. Lyrics Born, Later That Day
107. Atmosphere, Lucy Ford
108. Rachid Taha, Made in Medina
109. Orlando Cachaito Lopez, Cachaito
110. Basement Jaxx, Kish Kash
111. Fountains of Wayne, Welcome Interstate Managers
112. The Libertines, Up the Bracket
113. Serengeti, Dennehy (Lights, Camera, Action!)
114. Lupe Fiasco, Food and Liquor
115. New Order, Waiting for the Sirens' Call
116. The Coup, Pick a Bigger Weapon
117. Postal Service, Give Up
118. The Go! Team, Proof of Youth
119. Strictly Kev, Raiding the 20th Century
120. Aimee Mann, Bachelor No. 2
121. Kimya Dawson, I'm Sorry That Sometimes I'm Mean
122. Mastodon, Crack the Skye
123. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
124. The Wrens, The Meadowlands
125. Lifter-Puller, Fiestas + Fiascos
126. David Murray, Like a Kiss That Never Ends
127. Kelis, Tasty
128. Art Pepper, Unreleased Art Vol. 1
129. Wide Right, Sleeping on the Couch
130. African Pearls
131. Cornershop, Handcream for a Generation
132. Jon Faddis, Teranga
133. Girl Talk, Feed the Animals
134. Jon Langford, All the Fame of Lofty Deeds
135. Jewels and Binoculars, Ships with Tattooed Sails
136. Willie and the Wheel
137. Northern State, Dying in Stereo
138. Old 97's, Satellite Rides
139. The Go-Betweens, Oceans Apart
140. The Go-Betweens, The Friends of Rachel Worth
141. Matthew Shipp, Harmony and Abyss
142. Les Amazones de Guinee, Wamato
143. Vijay Iyer, Reimagining
144. Nellie McKay, Obligatory Villagers
145. Todd Snider, East Nashville Skyline
146. Spaceways Inc., Version Soul
147. The Hives, Veni Vidi Vicious
148. Lily Allen, Alright Still
149. Lou Reed, Ecstasy
150. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
151. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca
152. Pink, I'm Not Dead
153. King Kapisi, Savage Thoughts
154. The Apples in Stereo, New Magnetic Wonder
155. Missy Elliott, Miss E.. So Addictive
156. The Vandermark 5, Elements of Style, Exercises in Surprise
157. Tune-Yards, Bird-Brains
158. The White Stripes, White Blood Cells
159. Holy Modal Rounders, I Make a Wish for a Potato
160. Mos Def, The New Danger
161. Golden Afrique Vol. 1
162. Wussy, Left for Dead
163. Eminem, Encore
164. Amadou & Mariam, Dimanche a Bamako
165. Pink, Try This
166. Dizzee Rascal, Boy in Da Corner
167. Festival in the Desert
168. Marianne Faithfull, Easy Come Easy Go
169. Common, Finding Forever
170. Art Brut, Art Brut vs Satan
171. Primal Scream, XTRMNTR
172. Missy Elliott, Under Construction
173. Robyn
174. Billy Bragg & Wilco, Mermaid Avenue Vol. 2
175. Leonard Cohen, Ten New Songs
176. Youssou N'Dour, Rokku Mi Rokka
177. 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong
178. Craig Harris, Souls within the Veil
179. Jonatha Brooke, The Works
180. Rancid, Indestructible
181. Courtney Love, America's Sweetheart
182. Nellie McKay, Get Away from Me
183. The Mountain Goats, Tallahassee
184. Shelby Lynne, I Am Shelby Lynne
185. Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight
186. Joanna Newsom, Ys
187. Lil Wayne, The Carter 3: The Mixtape
188. Amadou & Mariam, Welcome to Mali
189. Buddy Guy, Sweet Tea
190. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell
191. Frank London Klezmer Brass Allstars, Carnival Conspiracy
192. Franco, Classic Titles
193. Buck 65, Square
194. Erykah Badu, Mama's Gun
195. Britney Spears, My Prerogative
196. Brakes, The Beatific Visions
197. The Strokes, Is This It?
198. Yo La Tengo, Summer Sun
199. Oumou Sangare, Seya
200. Barbershop 2: Back in Business

The decade in Claire Denis

It's obligatory to mention that the career of Denis is difficult to extricate from that of Agnès Godard, her regular cinematographer for two decades (though Godard has worked with other directors); indeed, Beau travail might have the most incisive shots of male bodies ever, and there seems no point in dividing credit between the two of them. But too little attention has been paid to Denis's relationship with the other senses besides sight. Music is part of this – not so much the scores, which are middling, but the use of pop, most famously Corona's "Rhythm of the Night" and Denis Lavant's aberrant dance to it. But Friday Night seems to me to be a pretty straight-up-and-down movie about touch, and this is achieved through sounds – the matching of effects to actions. When we hear masking tape coming off the roll near the beginning we can feel it. Over-amplifying not the background buzz but the personal sounds your brain’s trained to block out – simply being able to hear the characters chew – gives a solidity that’s most notable for allowing the most physical sex I’ve seen on camera. Not sure which sound guy to credit, so I’ll take a stab: Jean-Louis Ughetto, I salute you.

The Intruder is certainly beautiful: most movies don't give us images as warm as Michel Subor drinking with a Pusan local or as vivid as a flashback to a boat's arrival at a French Polynesian island. But from Denis, that's not enough. Subor's character, Louis, is an intruder; various people are intruders in Louis's life (notably Béatrice Dalle); Louis even has an intruder inside his body - his transplanted heart. The heightening of Louis's condition, at first achieved through long looks at his huge chest scar, becomes absurdly literal when we see a bloody organ lying in the snow. All this is meant to make some vague point about rejection, and how communities and their outsiders relate to each other, but except in the Korean section and parts of the Tahitian one, Denis's use of photogenic isolated locations defeats her theme by not giving Louis enough human life to interact with.

35 Shots of Rum is Denis's variation on Ozu's Late Spring, except Ozu never had a chance to hear Lionel Richie. It's approximately as good as Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Ozuist Cafe Lumiere, which is pretty brilliant. Denis has complete confidence in Alex Descas (playing Chishu Ryu), and those of us who hadn't previously noticed he was among the most attentive actors around now wonder how we missed him.

SPOILER AHOY

The decade in Radiohead

It's as clear that Kid A is not the best album of its decade (or second, or third, or...) as it was that OK Computer was not the best album of its decade (or second, etc.), but shouldn't distract you from the band's achievement. It's difficult to recall how controversial Kid A was upon release: even before a decade of dubstep, its sonics seemed pleasant, not harsh, and the album was scarcely less tonal than their previous work ("What we're doing isn't that radical" -- T. Yorke). Having said that, "National Anthem" is a fun freakout and "Everything in Its Right Place" is a flicker of warmth amidst a freezing soundscape.

The soundscapes in Amnesiac, this time including a higher proportion of guitar, are uglier, and not always in a useful way. Colin Greenwood, as always, manages to hold the album together.

Hail to the Thief refocuses on writing, and Thom Yorke holds up his end of the job, even if his themes are limited (if not his concepts). "Sail to the Moon" is particularly simple and fetching.

The group rejuvenated themselves in public opinion by offering In Rainbows on a pay-what-you-wish download basis. In Rainbows is more of a band album, with Jonny Greenwood in especially fine form. And "I have no idea what you are talking about" is a definitive lyric one way or another.

Favourite video games of the decade

From the point of view of a casual player with too short an attention span to play all the way through games, and applies to most of the below.

1. Guitar Hero III
The series is good for musicianship, though who knows if it'll be good for music in the long run? Song choices have been pretty lame compared to Rock Band, and anything that prolongs the prog revival is a mixed blessing. What these games do, though, is to lower the barriers to participatory enjoyment to something achievable for people like me who lack hand-eye co-ordination. I can now hear guitar tracks (and not just for songs I've played) in a way I couldn't before. That said, the reason that no. 3 is the classic so far (Beatles Rock Band has the setlist to be the definitive play-along game, but I haven't played it yet) is because it takes single-player as far as it can go, which basically means it's really fucking hard. I am no longer confident that I will pass "Raining Blood" on Hard (forget Expert) at some point in my life, but it could happen.
2. Grand Theft Auto III
We're still waiting for some genius robot to make sandbox narrative something other than a mixed metaphor. No human has yet improved on this.
3. Super Mario Galaxy
Everything you ever wanted to know about gravity but were afraid you'd get beaned with an apple for asking. Coming: Super Mario Relativity!
4. Pac-Man Championship Edition
Toss-up as to whether Ms. Pac-Man or this is the sweetest Pac-game. If you're pressed for time, though, it's probably this.
5. Kingdom of Loathing
The sharpest writing, line-for-line, and just below the maximum tolerance for Monty Python references. Pretty cleverly structured, too.
6. Portal
7. The Sims
8. Wii Sports
9. Sid Meier's Pirates!
10. Desktop Tower Defense 1.5

And I also liked:
No More Heroes
Punch-Out!!
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
Rock Band 2
Burnout: Revenge
The demo for World of Goo
Wii Fit
Fancy Pants Adventure: World 2
The demo for Plants vs Zombies, even though you only get to play for an hour
And why not Cursor*10, which is immensely enjoyable for several minutes

2009 favourites:
Punch-Out!!
Street Fighter IV
Plants vs. Zombies demo
Braid demo
And special mention to Lose/Lose, the best game I'll never play

50 favourite fiction books of the decade

Not a pure response to this, since my working definition of "of the decade" is more flexible. Though the Brits are overrepresented (too much reading of the Guardian) my list is more internationalist than the Millions list, plus I like some picture books a lot. Comics aside, there's very little genre fiction on the list: I find it hard to work out what's worth reading, as recommendations, whether from inside or outside the relevant subcultures, more often than not end up dead ends for me. Leads consistent with the list below welcome.

1. Orhan Pamuk, Snow
2. Richard Powers, The Time of Our Singing
3. Irene Nemirovsky, Suite Francaise
4. Zadie Smith, White Teeth
5. Morrison/Quitely/Grant, All-Star Superman
6. Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty
7. Alice Munro, Hateship Friendship Loveship Courtship Marriage
8. Roberto Bolano, 2666
9. Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions
10. Ali Smith, The Accidental
11. Junot Diaz, The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao
12. Aaron McGruder, The Bookdocks: A Right to Be Hostile
13. Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan
14. W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz
15. Ian McEwan, Atonement
16. Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
17. Per Olov Enquist, The Royal Physician's Visit
18. Mary Gaitskill, Veronica
19. Michel Houellebecq, Platform
20. Sarah Waters, Fingersmith
21. Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
22. Philip Roth, The Human Stain
23. David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
24. Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
25. Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow
26. Caryl Phillips, A Distant Shore
27. Sarah Waters, The Night Watch
28. Monica Ali, Brick Lane
29. Dave Eggers, What Is the What
30. Ian McEwan, Saturday
31. Imre Kertesz, Fatelessness
32. Kate Atkinson, Case Histories
33. Toni Morrison, Love
34. Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days
35. Mikael Niemi, Popular Music from Vittula
36. David Mitchell, number9dream
37. E.L. Doctorow, The March
38. Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners
39. Javier Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis
40. Irina Denezhkina, Give Me (Songs for Lovers)
41. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus
42. Edward P. Jones, The Known World
43. Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
44. Carol Shields, Unless
45. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
46. Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra, Y: The Last Man
47. Julian Barnes, Arthur & George
48. Dubravka Ugresic, The Ministry of Pain
49. Arthur Phillips, Prague
50. Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Decadal music notes

Jimmie Dale Gilmore: Smokey doesn't write much anymore, which should be fine as he's as heartugging a ballad singer as we have. The quality of his performances, however, seem strangely uncorrelated with the quality of his material. Who could've guessed he'd pull out more from the ersatz melodrama of "Darcy Farrow" than from "Mack the Knife"? Anyone who doesn't believe in Verfremdungseffekt, for a start.

Kocani Orkestar: Most people watching Borat wouldn't have realised the soundtrack was mostly Balkan and Gypsy music, with nothing to do with Kazakhstan. "Siki, Siki Baba" stands even from the Mahala Rai Banda and Fanfare Ciocarlia peaks, with the most meaningful "oh-oh-oh" chorus ever. Hope they've finally got their royalties.

Northern State: Hey, Lauryn had skills, and what did they get her? Well, recently. Northern State's early enthusiasm has few precedents, and it was enough to make the great lines in "Dying in Stereo" sound great. They never managed to hold up over anything longer than a mini-album, but they seem certain to inspire someone who will.

Liz Phair: If Liz Phair isn't up to Exile in Guyville and whitechocolatespaceegg, that just means it'll be in the middle of best-of-decade list instead of near the top. The critics instead took it as a fuck-you, and Phair responded by telling them to fuck off, so they did, and there went the Capitol deal. Lost in all this was "Little Digger", a terrific piece of writing; fortunately the kids realised "Why Can't I?" was a terrific piece of popcraft, and that song will soundtrack teen crushes for years yet.

Yo La Tengo: By now you know they're going to make good records until their limbs fall off. My favourite this decade is I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, among art's deepest explorations of the upside of monogamy even though I couldn't quote you a sentence of it. Slightly short of Sonic Youth as music, though not as a life project.

Favourite gallery artists of the decade

The list below is far too white and too, uh, young. Artists whose work looks good in two-dimensional reproduction have an unfair advantage. On the plus side, there's only one Turner Prize winner.

1. Edward Burtynsky
2. Wilhelm Sasnal
3. Lucy McKenzie
4. Trisha Donnelly
5. Simon Starling
6. Paul Chan
7. Cindy Sherman
8. John Bock
9. Sze Tsung Leong
10. Allora & Calzadilla
11. Andreas Gursky
12. Robert Polidori
13. Carol Bove
14. Johanna Billing
15. Fiona Rae
16. Monica Sosnowska
17. Urs Fischer
18. Catherine Sullivan
19. Jeremy Deller
20. Rivane Neuenschwander

Ten architects whose work I've liked this decade

This is very much a list of the usual suspects. The selection is biased towards stuff I've seen in person, not that I've seen everything linked. But this might be of interest to someone too lazy to look up a Pritzker Prize list or something.

Herzog & de Meuron
Frank Gehry
Thom Mayne/Morphosis
Zaha Hadid
Jean Nouvel
Rafael Moneo
Norman Foster
Álvaro Siza
Don Bates & Peter Davidson/Lab Architecture Studio
Rem Koolhaas

Uninformative best TV shows of the decade list

I think the UK Office is the only show of which I've watched every episode premiered this decade and thought each one worth my time, so that can be number one.

I think Doctor Who and Futurama are the only other shows of which I've been satisfied by at least two-thirds of all the episodes shown, so they can be numbers two and three. (South Park is at about 60%.)

Despite everyone saying that TV wouldn't suck anymore after The Simpsons and Seinfeld and HBO supposedly changing everything, it still mostly sucks. It's still bloody hard to put out a season of 20+ episodes without resorting to filler. 24 and Veronica Mars both did it in their respective first seasons and while their second seasons were so much mountain lion bait.

Maybe The Wire is as good as people say if you watch the whole thing (the few isolated bits I've seen haven't grabbed me). The Sopranos probably isn't though. Don't talk to me about Lost.

This concludes my contractually obligated one blogpost per month.

Favourite hip hop and R&B albums of the decade

For genre clarity, I'm restricting this to American and Canadian records.

1. Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP: His usual problem -- his disses are pro forma when he's merely contemptuous -- and his usual solution -- unrivaled vitriol towards those targets he truly hates. Poor ICP. Oh wait, fuck ICP. (What's possibly his new usual problem -- dull beats -- hadn't set in yet; Dre is on fire here.) The first album has fewer deadweight guest spots, but this is his best album more or less because of "Stan", and "Stan" isn't even the best song on the record. The decade's best work of art about the role of the artist, though it helps that he has, or at least had, a more interesting role than, say, any contemporary novelist.
2. Kanye West, Late Registration
3. Ghostface Killah, Fishscale
4. Nas, Untitled
5. Buck 65, Talkin' Honky Blues
6. Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak
7. OutKast, Stankonia
8. DJ Shadow, The Private Press
9. Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III
10. The Coup, Party Music
11. K'naan, The Dusty Foot Philosopher
12. OutKast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
13. Kanye West, The College Dropout
14. N*E*R*D, In Search of...
15. Lil Wayne, Da Drought 3
16. Steinski, What Does It All Mean?
17. Mos Def, The New Danger
18. OutKast, Idlewild
19. Ne-Yo, Year of the Gentleman
20. Public Enemy, Rebirth of a Nation
21. Kelis, Tasty
22. Wu-Tang Clan, The W
23. Atmosphere, Lucy Ford
24. Blackalicious, NIA
25. Lupe Fiasco, Food and Liquor
26. Northern State, Dying in Stereo
27. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
28. Lyrics Born, Later That Day
29. The Perceptionists, Black Dialogue
30. The Coup, Pick a Bigger Weapon
31. The Roots, Rising Down
32. Erykah Badu, Mama's Gun
33. Missy Elliott, This Is Not a Test!
34. Nas, Street's Disciple
35. Raphael Saadiq, The Way I See It
36. Kanye West, Graduation

Percolating:
Tanya Morgan, The Bridge
Why?, Alopecia (if it counts)
Black Milk, Tronic
UGK 4 Life

Movies I need to re-watch before making my inevitable favourite X movies of the decade list

The leaderboard:
Army of Shadows
Before Sunset
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Far from Heaven
Funny Ha Ha
Ghost World
Hamlet
Happy-Go-Lucky
King Kong
Kings and Queen
La Commune
Mulholland Drive
Spellbound
Springtime in a Small Town
The Best of Youth
The New Country
The Return of the King
The Wayward Cloud
Time Out
Yi Yi

Could easily move up on a second viewing:
A History of Violence
Beau travail (really 1999 I suppose)
Elephant
Femme Fatale
Flight of the Red Balloon
Friday Night
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
I'm Not There
Inland Empire
Land of the Dead
Lost in Translation
Persepolis
Spider
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Three Times
To Be and To Have

For the acting:
Before Night Falls
Iris
Michael Clayton
Sexy Beast
The Last Mistress
The Pianist

Can't be as bad as I first thought it was:
Million Dollar Baby

Haven't yet seen:
A Christmas Tale
Cadillac Records
Che (part 2)

and there are surely other contenders I'm neglecting.

Have already made up my mind about:
In Praise of Love (anti-Yank sentiment less annoying on second viewing, if I make a top 100 it'll be in the bottom half)
In the Mood for Love (have seen it three times, probably top ten but not number one)