51. Three 6 Mafia - Da Unbreakables
(Hypnotize Minds/Columbia Records, 2003)
Triple 6 and HCP turned out such a huge volume of music this decade, so consistent in a if-you-like-one-you’ll-like-them-all way, that it seems almost arbitrary to pick one or another to hold up for praise on a list like this, but they definitely deserve a spot, and this album is a worthy one, kind of in that transitional era with Crunchy Black still hanging out and mumbling an occasional verse and Paul & Juice still working the goth synth sound with “Testin’ My Gangsta” foreshadowing the Willie Hutch overkill that would follow soon after.

52. Parts & Labor - Stay Afraid
(Jagjaguwar, 2006)
A good number of the albums on this list are by people that I’ve interviewed or met or been in some contact with at some point, but Christopher G. Weingarten, Parts & Labor’s drummer on this album, is pretty much the only one that’s on my AIM buddy list and that I shoot the shit with on a regular basis. So take that with a grain of salt, but they were an awesome awesome band with him behind the kit (and still are without him, last year’s Receivers was great too), and they really nailed their particular brand of bombastic screaming noise pop on this record.



53. The 410 Pharaohs - 410 Funk
(Strictly Rhythm/Ill Friction, 2008)
The last few years of Baltimore hip hop and club music have seen a ton of attempts to mix one with the other with limited success and, often, even more limited creativity, a few great tracks aside. So it was pretty exciting when veterans from both scenes, Labtekwon from the former and DJ Booman and Jimmy Jones from the latter, got together to create a definitive fusion that felt both natural and offbeat.

54. Beyoncé - B’Day
(Columbia Records, 2006)
After the ballady bloat of Dangerously In Love and half of its singles being total shit, it was a genuine and refreshing surprise for B to hole up in a studio for 3 weeks and rush out a brash 38-minute album, not counting the bonus track reprise, where even the softest cut is a ruthless breakup anthem (and make no mistake, I’m talking about that stripped-down 10 track original album, not the deluxe edition full of duds like “Listen” and “Beautiful Liar”). Rich Harrison may not have upped the ante, but the introduction of Swizz Beatz to R&B was an inspired move that’s still paying dividends today. It’s kind of crazy to think of how many sounds and templates in countless hits over the past few years were introduced on this album: without “Get Me Bodied” there’s no “Single Ladies,” without “Upgrade U” there’s no “I Can Transform Ya,” and without “Irreplaceable” we wouldn’t have dozens of strummy Stargate tracks. Or we would, but none of them are nearly as good.

55. Radiohead - Kid A
(Capitol Records, 2000)
There’s something inherently pompous and ridiculous about a rock band with three guitarists and a boring rhythm section stripping away the guitars (on 6 out of 10 songs, anyway) to focus on “beats,” and a certain unconvincing false modesty about them holing up for 3 years to follow up a huge hit, and then deciding a big epic double album would be gauche and releasing two records a year apart, with no singles. In the big grand Radiohead fan narrative, this was them being genius mavericks, but as far as I can tell they were pulling a lot of the same moves as a lot of bands that were really full of themselves have throughout rock history. And it was the beginning of them painting themselves into a corner so tiny that whatever sounds that escape from it now, like In Rainbows, sound completely dead and bereft of ideas or energy. Still, for a second here their ambitions (or contrarian aspirations to not be ambitious) didn’t totally get the best of them, and they ended up with a pretty good-sounding album.

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