the final installment? mayhaps. i might go backwards to 85-89 someday, though.

2000: The Moon and Antarctica - another great year, with lifter puller, radiohead, and the avalanches as contenders...but not really contenders, compared to this. the best album of this decade so far, in my humble opinion, and it's no slouch as albums-of-the-decade go. this album paints a portrait of cold, sublime beauty - fitting for an album of its title. it makes you happy, it makes you sad, it makes you think, it's absolutely fucking amazing, and it's beyond perfect when you're stoned - it's an exploration of the universe through the microcosm of the earth, and the earth through the microcosm of humans - and then it travels back out to infinity again. few things make me happier than the opening notes to "3rd planet," the thundering drums and windy feedback of "the stars and projectors" (brian deck = among the best producers ever), the swerving, lazy high organ droning in harmony with the guitar in "life like weeds," or the simple acoustic guitar chords and fiddle under isaac brock's chilling lyrics, "it's hard to remember to live before you die" in "lives." with so many sounds, so many instruments, so many production tricks, and so much drive, this is more than just modest mouse with a reverb pedal - this is modest mouse in 3-D.

2001: Go Forth - finally, a motherfucking rock album. granted, the not-so-rock daft punk and more-general-weirdness-than-actual-rock boredoms are runners-up for this year. but yeah, this is kind of the first straight-up rock album since 1997 on this list. and oh man, does it rock - one of the most underrated albums ever. if the pixies and interpol had a baby that went completely insane, it would probably sound like les savy fav. with guitar riffs that jab and cut through the rhythms and frontman/madman tim harrington spitting some of the wittiest, most biting lyrics in modern rock without missing a beat, it's sad that this album is so overlooked, while the "rome (written upside down)" ep and singles retrospective "inches" were so favored. LSF are the masters of the chorus that leaves your jaw on the floor, and every song on this album manages to hold its own, with moments of true perfectness - the end of "crawling can be beautiful" and "disco drive," the breakdown of "pills," and the entirety of "bloom on demand," specifically - this is what rock is supposed to do: rock the fuck out.

2002: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - one of the best years for music in recent memory, as interpol, broken social scene, the notwist, trail of dead, and sleater-kinney all put out fantastic albums (well, the BSS one is a little iffy - its stateside release was '03, so does it count as '02, when it came out, or '03, when everyone discovered it?). in any case, wilco wins because it's just so easy to fall in love with. every song is gorgeous, and it takes a scarily low amount of time to start having an emotional, potentially romantic connection to the jewel case that holds such beauty. i don't know what more i can say. the slowest, least-like-former-wilco songs such as "i am trying to break your heart," "radio cure," and "poor places" are some of my favorite songs ever (especially "radio cure," oh my god), but every song has its own brilliance to offer. while "summerteeth" improved on "being there" by adding layers and overdubs, "yankee hotel foxtrot" took the classic wilco sound (and, by extension, the classic alt-folk sound) and broke it apart piece by piece before reconstructing it with perfect arrangements, fantastic electronic tricks, and simply better melodies and progressions. oh, also, i really want to make out with jeff tweedy. an emotional blanket like none other.

2003: ...Burn, Piano Island, Burn - okay, so broken social scene might win over it, but we have the '02/'03 discrepancy...plus, this is probably still better. also-rans include manitoba and the books. but really, hardcore with two vocalists dishing out utter lyrical brilliance in tag-team style, a band that serves up some extremely technically demanding lines with ease, and standout after standout showing what hardcore can do when they aim for a studio masterpiece (okay, so refused proved it first, but BPIB is on a different wavelength). this is like being run over by a 55-minute bullet train, with the band barreling through chord after chord and riff after riff complete with stop-start rhythms and time signature fuckups all over the place - and when the band gets more than 5 seconds of ripping power chords in 4/4 time, they play them as if they've never been played before (see "ambulance vs. ambulance," the best hardcore song of all time). amazingly, this all takes a backseat to the charisma of the two vocalists, who are so full of energy, rhythmic intensity, and lyrical genius that two of them can approach energy that should devolve into cacophony, but always remains really fucking smart. the surprising catchiness of the songs, as well as the fervent experimentalism in what is usually a very stagnant genre, prove that BPIB is exactly what hardcore should be.

2004: Sung Tongs - i discovered this album a year ago, and if you had told me then that i would eventually favor this album - let alone any album - over the arcade fire, i probably would have laughed at you. but my play counts on this here site will give you an indication of how much i love sung tongs. it gets better and better with each listen, and if you haven't heard it, pick it up now as winter approaches...there is not a better soundtrack to winter. trying to sum up my feelings about this album here is pretty impossible - i will say a few things though. the attention to detail is really what got me. only two people made this album, and it hardly took them a year to make. god damn it's genius. getting lost in the seas of guitars (which see-saw between freewheeling power chords and intricate polymelodies), or the oh-my-god-how-did-they-do-that brilliance of the vocal harmonies, or the perfect production and fitting samples is ridiculously fun. on the surface this album is really weird, but after a few listens it makes so much sense, and it's so, so comforting, providing the perfect music to fall asleep to, or to do work to, or to get stoned and relax to while watching snow fall. amazing.