My hipster report card: 2000-2010 edition

Pitchfork dot com, the independent-music website du jour, just published their list of the 200 best albums of the 2000s (apparently they'll publish an addendum early next year on the off chance that any decent music comes out in the next three months). Since the 2000s neatly coincided with my young adulthood and career in higher education, and correspondingly, the likely pinnacle of my ability to maintain decent taste in contemporary music, I thought it'd be fun to edit their list down to the albums that I own, or owned at one point, so here it is. The numbers reflect Pitchfork's original rankings, which are preserved in order except for the deletion of albums I don't have:

01. Radiohead, Kid A
02. Arcade Fire, Funeral
03. Daft Punk, Discovery
04. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
05. Jay-Z, The Blueprint
06. Modest Mouse, The Moon & Antarctica
07. The Strokes, Is This It
09. Panda Bear, Person Pitch
11. Ghostface Killah, Supreme Clientele
12. The White Stripes, White Blood Cells
13. OutKast, Stankonia
14. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavillion
15. The Knife, Silent Shout
16. Sufjan Stevens, Illinois
17. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
18. Kanye West, Late Registration
19. Spoon, Kill the Moonlight
20. Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights
21. Radiohead, In Rainbows
22. M.I.A., Kala
23. Broken Social Scene, You Forgot It in People
24. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell
25. Madvillian, Madvilliany
28. Kanye West, The College Dropout
31. TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain
34. Radiohead, Amnesiac
35. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
36. The Streets, Original Pirate Material
40. The National, Alligator
41. Burial, Untrue
42. Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
46. The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow
48. The Hold Steady, Separation Sunday
49. Antony & the Johnsons, I Am a Bird Now
50. Deerhunter, Microcastle
51. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
52. Clipse, Hell Hath No Fury
53. Clinic, Internal Wrangler
54. M.I.A., Arular
56. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca
57. The Rapture, Echoes
58. The Field, From Here We Go Sublime
59. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Hearts of Oak
62. Dizzee Rascal, Boy in Da Corner
63. Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
64. The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America
65. Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven
67. The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
69. Liars, Drum's Not Dead
74. The White Stripes, Elephant
75. Ghostface Killah, Fishscale
82. Beck, Sea Change
83. Joanna Newsom, Ys
87. Kanye West, Graduation
89. Wolf Parade, Apologies to the Queen Mary
90. Jay-Z, The Black Album
91. The New Pornographers, Mass Romantic
99. Lil Wayne, Da Drought 3
100. ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Source Tags & Codes
101. Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand
102. The Mountain Goats, The Sunset Tree
104. The Postal Service, Give Up
110. The National, Boxer
111. M83, Saturdays=Youth
112. Feist, The Reminder
113. LCD Soundsystem, LCD Soundsystem
114. Cam'ron, Purple Haze
115. The Shins, Oh, Inverted World
119. Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP
122. Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker
126. Mastodon, Leviathan
129. The Streets, A Grand Don't Come for Free
130. Clipse, We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 2
134. Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf
140. TV on the Radio, Dear Science
141. Neko Case, Blacklisted
142. Primal Scream, XTRMNTR
143. The Decemberists, Picaresque
144. Andrew W.K., I Get Wet
145. Fiery Furnaces, Blueberry Boat
146. My Morning Jacket, Z
147. T.I., King
150. The New Pornographers, Twin Cinema
152. Cannibal Ox, The Cold Vein
154. Ghostface Killah, The Pretty Toney Album
155. Clipse, Lord Willin'
156. Bloc Party, Silent Alarm
158. Destroyer, Destroyer's Rubies
159. Girl Talk, Night Ripper
162. Wu-Tang Clan, The W
163. DJ /rupture, Uproot
174. Okkervil River, Black Sheep Boy
176. The Mountain Goats, Tallahassee
178. Lil Wayne, Tha Carter II
181. Andrew Bird, Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs
190. Elliott Smith, Figure 8
191. Air, Talkie Walkie
192. Art Brut, Bang Bang Rock & Roll
194. Pulp, We Love Life

So that's 99 out of 200 albums. I'm a little unsure about whether I ought to be proud or ashamed of that. Is there a word that describes being a little of both? In German, maybe?

In all seriousness, it's not terribly surprising that this list overlaps substantially with my collection; I've been a pretty avid music consumer over the course of the decade, and I've been reading Pitchfork since 2003 or so. Even though the site (justifiably) comes under fire pretty frequently for its pretentious tone, I've kept reading it for the simple fact that more often than not, when I buy a record they recommend, I wind up enjoying it. Despite my cultural tastes, I've never really ran in hipster circles, so the indie-cred wars that Pitchfork so frequently winds up embroiled in don't really register with me on an emotional level. I just like the music.

So, how's this list rate? Let's start with the nitpicking, bullet point style:

• I think that the single biggest improvement to this list that I'd make is swapping the positions of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Fever To Tell (currently #24) with Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP (currently #119). Nothing against Fever To Tell, but The Marshall Mathers LP managed to be a brilliant album, an enormous commercial success, and a culture-war touchstone all in one. It deserves top-25 status, easily.
• Among New Pornographers albums, Twin Cinema is hands-down better than Mass Romantic.
• I'm really surprised that a Pitchfork list of the decade's best albums includes two Shins LPs and only one by the Decemberists. Picaresque is definitely the best Decemberists album, in my opinion, but I was sure that Castaways and Cutouts would be on there as well. Maybe Pitchfork's still upset that The Hazards of Love sucked balls.
• Even though they both have respectable ratings, I'd put both Of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? and Liars' Drum's Not Dead at least 20 slots higher. Also, Okkervil River's Black Sheep Boy would be in my top 50, not bringing up the rear.
  
• I like Animal Collective well enough, but I honestly don't get why some people flip their shit for them. Are Merriweather Post Pavilion and Person Pitch really both top-20 albums for the entire decade? (Not to mention the other Animal Collective albums further down on the list that I don't own).
• I have the feeling that Is This It got a serious mulligan. On what grounds, I have no idea.

On the whole, however, I think this is a really strong list. In particular, the top 20 includes some of my absolute favorite records of the era. I'm particularly pleased by the inclusion of Ghostface Killah's Supreme Clientele at #11, an absolutely transcendent album that could have easily been slighted (while the likes of Spoon, Interpol, Arcade Fire, and The White Stripes are also definitely deserving, they were lead-pipe cinches for high slots).

And Pitchfork delivers at the number one spot, where it really counts. I won't even make a pretense at objective analysis here; Radiohead's Kid A is an incredibly evocative musical work for me personally. All of my favorite albums bring back memories of where I was in my life when I first connected with them. Of all of them, the first time I listened to Kid A stands as the most perfect confluence of music and moment I've yet to experience. When it came out, I was a shade over a month into my freshman year at college, a time when the experience of being at school and the formation of new friendships hadn't quite solidified yet. Being a massive fan of Radiohead's OK Computer in high school, I pre-ordered Kid A through Amazon (my college town wasn't the type where there was a dedicated music store, much less one you could walk to from the dorms). It came the day after it officially released. I put it in for the first time on my headphones on my way to my introductory psychology class, which started at 7:30 AM. I left earlier than usual so I'd have extra time to listen. It was cold and drizzling and sun hadn't come up yet. Hardly anyone was out. With "Everything In It's Right Place" turned up high in my headphones, right then it felt like I was the only person in the world. I remember how intimate those first few tracks sounded, despite the fact that they were plainly conjuring up Radiohead's now-trademark tone of alienation. I remember thinking how incredible it was that they'd come up with something that stood up to OK Computer.

That was nine years ago, almost to the day. A third of my life, including almost everything truly important that's ever happened to me, has passed since then. That memory stands vividly, alongside countless others that are inextricably bound with music. I'm sure that I'd have plenty of richly experienced memories even if I'd never heard a note of recorded music. But I can't for the life of me imagine what that would be like.