scarves of red tied round their throats

Top 10 Albums Of The Decade

3. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (2008) (Swisslet)

The Fleet Foxes are from modern Seattle but sound as though they have just stepped out of the Bruegel painting that graces the front of their brilliant debut album, released in June 2008. They are city boys, but their songs reference squirrels, mountains, woodland and meadowlarks. Their musical references are rooted in Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young and the other singer-songwriters of the 1960s Laurel Canyon set, and yet somehow their sound is so timeless that they could have been performing at any point in the last five hundred years.

Take White Winter Hymnal for example, still their most famous song: it sounds as much like a medieval rondel as it does a contemporary rock song, an image that intensifies when you look at the band in all their weirdy-beardy, hairy glory: medieval minstrels to a man. It's a simple song, with pure, clear vocal harmonies looping around a haunting and yet oddly sinister refrain of children playing in the snow and of blood spilled.

I can’t think of any other band that has sung this well together since the Beach Boys: the singing on the album is exquisite throughout, with the highlights for me being Ragged Wood, Your Protector, Blue Ridge Mountains and Oliver James. That last track in particular, a tale of a tragic drowning, features Robin Pecknold singing unaccompanied, and the effect is electric as his clear, pure voice rises unfettered towards the skies. I’m not sure where they can go after this, but it’s beautiful whilst it lasts.

Listen to: White Winter Hymnal

3. The Strokes - Is This It (2001) (bedshaped)

This is an amazing album. And not only that, but a fantastic debut album, taboot! Have they ever come close to bettering it? No. Nowhere near. Have they still got some miles left in them? Yes, I think so.

This is what indie is all about. Short running times, warped vocals, grinding guitar, groovy basslines and pounding drums. Catchy songs and perfect air guitar music. The sort of songs that young kids can pick up on a guitar in like....three days.

Unfortunately, I think The Strokes suffered from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, when they became the band to like, if you were in the 'in' crowd. And that unfortunate move put a little distance between the band and the majority of the music appreciating public. People wanted to like The Strokes, even love them, but the Music Snobs already loved them, so it was now quite uncool to like such a cool band. Yes, it complicated. And I think, to The Strokes detriment.

Packed with brilliant singles; Someday and Last Night being amongst the best known, I guess. But in my opinion, any track could have been released from this album and it would have gained perfect momentum.

I think I particularly like this album because it sounds like it was recorded in a garage by five friends. The production is raw, and that's a really winner with this band. Too studio loved up and you get the poor brother Room On Fire or the very sad First Impressions Of Earth, both lacking in what made The Strokes so great to listen to in the first place. That simplistic sound of raw rock and roll, delivered by a band that you and your mates could replicate in less than four weeks.

Favourite track: Soma. A genius song. Short, bittersweet and to the point. The guitars are great, the breaks are perfect. His vocal....just fit. Disjointed in places, with a brilliant pair of guitar hooks fighting over each other. Everything about this song sounds just right. And I bet they put this together in about twenty minutes, the talented fuckers!

Listen to: Soma

3. Athlete - Tourist (2005) (LB)


I'll be honest, when they first burst onto the scene in 2003 I couldn't abide Athlete. I thought their brand of daft, jaunty guitar pop was completely forced and I got the distinct impression that they were trying way to hard. Singles El Salvador and You Got The Style did nothing for me, despite their significant airplay and Mercury Music Prize nomination.

And then, in 2005 they released Tourist. I knew I'd like it after their debut single Wires made the UK top Ten. The tale of Joel Pott's premature baby being rushed to intensive care is a superb record and won the Ivor Novello for 'best contemporary song'.

I listened to Tourist again the other day and it was just as good as I always remember it. It was the first record I bought after I moved out of my marital home in early 2005 and so I vividly remember sitting on the floor of my mum's hallway (it was the only way to get online) listening to Tourist and Thirteen Senses' The Invitation over and over again.

Singles Twenty Four Hours, Half Light and Tourist are superb, but I really also like the opening track Chances which builds to a beautiful anthemic chorus. They had managed to eschew the daft London-ness of Vehicles and Animals and instead release a beautifully crafted record in the style of Coldplay and many of their peers. Many people bemoaned this move into what you'd probably call the 'mainstream' but for me it turned a silly guitar-pop band into one of my most cherished records of the decade.

Listen to: Chances