pave, it probably goes without saying, but Funeral by Arcade Fire needs a major boost.

it has tons of musical impact but almost nothing else. how high do you see it?

by the way, i'm adding cultural impact to the criteria. there is an impact that College Dropout and Marshall Mathers LP had when they were released that isn't quite captured by sales or musical impact. they became media stories, and in the case of MMLP, it became a political topic of discussion. i don't think that should be ignored.

I'm not entirely sure, but its current position of #51 seems awfully low for perhaps the most acclaimed album of the last decade.

btw, i think it was the consensus that Marshall Mathers LP would take the top spot over Stankonia. they have similar musical impact while MMLP has more popularity (top 5 of the decade in popularity) as well as enormous cultural impact.

HOWEVER, because i am a huge Eminem fan, i am cautious about making the switch until i know for sure that its not just bias. (although to be fair, i'm also a huge Outkast fanboy, but not to the same extent)

It seems MMLP is clearly the victor here, for the reasons you provided.

MMLP is the #1 for sure, specially if you add cultural impact.

I would actually like to know why is Stankonia so high and people are undecided wether it should be first or not. Is their influence/musical impact so damn high? I don't really see it. Considering it's not half as popular as MMLP in the US ... if you take worldwide figures the difference is even bigger.

I would love to see Funeral higher, but acclaim isn't part of the criteria, really. They did have a pretty big impact on indie music, though.

I would definitely drop The Emancipation of Mimi. I don't see much for that album besides popularity.

i'm thinking the top of the list looks something like this:

1. The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) - Eminem
2. Stankonia (2000) - OutKast
3. The College Dropout (2004) - Kanye West
4. The Blueprint (2001) - Jay-Z
5. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003) - OutKast
6. Kid A (2000) - Radiohead
7. American Idiot (2004) - Green Day
8. Late Registration (2005) - Kanye West
9. Lil Wayne (2008) - Tha Carter III*
10. FutureSex/LoveSounds (2006) - Justin Timberlake*

two things i've noticed so far, the great female artists of the decade are far more singles-oriented (i'm really unsure where to rank Dangerously in Love or any of Britney's albums). also, the sales for albums in the second half of the decade dipped dramatically (probably a combination of factors, the most important being the continued rise of the internet and file sharing).

albums that will likely move up:



and there is no Nelly, which is not right. DDD, and really the entire internet music community, has also always been a bit unfair to the 3 Doors Down/Creed/Nickelback group. a style of music that is extremely easy to dislike, and has virtually no musical impact (as it was seen as watered down grunge). but none-the-less, it was a massively popular style of music in the 00s and this list is not a good snapshot of the decade without them at least near the end of it.


btw, did i have control of this list in the past at some point? cause looking through the list, i see a lot of decisions a younger me would have made. including Iron & Wine for example.

Is This It by The Strokes shouldn't be out of the Top 10. It's influence/musical impact is so massive that it cannot be justified to see it lower than 10.

PS: I agree on adding bands like Nickelback, etc. They have enough popularity to show up. Plus, taste is subjective and shouldn't matter to be taken into consideration for the list.

the 10th spot is the most difficult for me. because that top 8 i think its pretty much locked in and i also see Wayne being a solid number 9 choice. but i just don't know about 10. there are massively popular albums like Oops I Did It Again, Hybrid Theory, and No Strings Attached that lack musical impact. there are highly praised albums like Funeral, Is This It, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot that lack any real popularity outside of small corners of the internet (Is This It had a small amount of mainstream popularity and YHF has seen its popularity grow a bit over the years imo, but it doesnt compare to the top albums on this list). then you have albums who do well in both musical impact and popularity like FutureSex/LoveSounds, Toxicity, A Rush of Blood to the Head, Elephant, and The Black Album. its a tricky situation.

what i want to be careful about is not getting swept up in acclaimedmusic's rankings, because of the indie rock bias that comes with compiling that many online publications. its a good source to use, but not a perfect one. i think its important to remember that what is big on the internet and within indie rock circles is not always that big overall. that's not to say that Is This It wasn't a great album, because it definitely was. but FutureSex/LoveSounds and The Black Album weren't just big in one corner of the rock world, they were big on a massive scale.

^btw, i don't want to make it sound like Is This It's musical impact was kept to just indie bands or the internet music community. because that's not true. they were the catalyst for the garage rock revival that dominated "modern rock" radio for about 2 years. and they were the most talked about band in hard rock when that album debuted. they have musical impact to spare.

Yeah. Is This It basically ended with the nu-metal thing that was going on and hugely popular around the year 2000 and gave a break from all the boyband teen pop that was also very big. They were hugely influential for garage rock revival and bands like Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, White Stripes, Kings Of Leon, The Killers basically came out of that. All those bands have cited Is This It as a huge influence in their sound and for giving alternative/retro rock a commercial chance. Something I've read and I mostly agree is that in the 90's rock was more emotional, introspective and kinda depressive with grunge being the main reason that happened. With The Strokes, rock&roll became fun again, which was a shift from what was being done at the moment and the direction that had been going on for 10 years.

Is This It scores hugely in all parts of the criteria. The only "weak" part is Popularity, but its still a Platinum album in the US and UK which is very good. If you consider Acclaim, Is This It scores even higher. It also has a high cultural impact. Grunge and rap were the main trend-setters in terms of fashion for the 90's. With The Strokes people went back to a more retro look: leather jacket, skinny jeans, etc. And manymany bands adopted that as well after them.

I honestly do not see how Tha Carter III can beat it. I only has a higher popularity which I don't think can make up for the difference in the rest of the criteria points.

i think you underrate Tha Carter III, which i believe does very well in all the criteria. but i'll get to that later. right now, i came here to post this:

the albums that aren't on the list as it stands right now, but should be at least considered:

locks are bolded
Tha Carter III (Lil Wayne)
FutureSex/LoveSounds (Justin Timberlake)
The Fame (Lady Gaga)
Nellyville (Nelly)
Dangerously in Love (Beyonce)
Britney (Britney Spears)
Justified (Justin Timberlake)
No Strings Attached (*NSYNC)
Oops!... I Did It Again (Britney Spears)
Celebrity (*NSYNC)
The E.N.D. (The Black Eyed Peas)
Survivor (Destiny's Child)
I Am... Sasha Fierce (Beyonce)
B'Day (Beyonce)
Destiny Fulfilled (Destiny's Child)
Konvicted (Akon)
Because of You (Ne-Yo)
Country Grammer (Nelly)
Word of Mouf (Ludacris)
The Massacre (50 Cent)
Back for the First Time (Ludacris)
Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends (Coldplay)
Suit (Nelly)
Release Therapy (Ludacris)
T.I. vs T.I.P. (T.I.)
Paper Trail (T.I.)
Pain is Love (Ja Rule)
Chocolate Factory (R.Kelly)

Yeah, perhaps "Funeral" deserves to be in the top 20.