Hip hop and hard rock greatness percolates throughout the top 15 albums selected for 2001 for the best 1,000 albums ever, a five-year epic project that includes an article for each of the thousand albums that have meant the most to my life.
Each album gets a pop culture-meets-memoir piece, and you can find selected pull quotes for each of the 15 albums below.
From the Wu-Tang Clan, Beatnuts, and Gorillaz to The White Stripes, The Von Bondies, and Weezer, 2001 offers up an array of great music.
And then the gem of an indie record, The Shins’ Oh, Inverted World, might just be the most 2001 album of them all.
Here they are, the best 15 albums from 2001 ever.
1) The White Stripes – White Blood Cells (#19 of the best 1,000 albums ever)
A song popped onto the radio, and it struck me immediately. I assumed it was some kind of 1970s rock classic that somehow had passed me by. I also recall having several thoughts at the same time – that it sounded nothing quite like I had ever heard before, that it also sounded weirdly familiar, and most of all I immediately loved it deeply.
The song was “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” the lead track on White Blood Cells.
To this day, there’s something absolutely timeless about it. Like so much of The White Stripes’ output, it’s stunning in its originality, its confidence, its power, and yet its disarming sense of intimacy.
2) The Von Bondies – Lack of Communication (#54)
“It Came From Japan” will blow you off your ass. Your mileage will vary of course in terms of how much you enjoy getting blown off your ass in this fashion, but the truth of the ass-blowing (blown-assing?) is undeniable.
3) Tenacious D – Tenacious D (#91)
“Tribute” is not only one of the best songs Tenacious D has released to date (in addition to not being the greatest song in the world, of course), but it also perfectly meshes pop craftsmanship, explosive hard rock/metal, and deeply funny and re-listenable comedy that only the combination of Jack Black and Kyle Gass (a.k.a. KG a.k.a. Rage Kage) can pull off.
Take away the amazing music and take away the hilarity, and you still find that Tenacious D laces a strange yet enduring mythology into its music that fuses together with the relationship of the two bandmates and their wild and sometimes supernatural adventures.
4) Cappadonna – The Yin and the Yang (#133)
“Love Is the Message” – credited to Cappadonna and Raekwon and leveraging a magical, funky, and percolating sample from MFSB – is one of my favorite underground hip hop tracks of all time.
It’s the perfect combination of raw and polished, gritty and groovy, and overall it’s catchy in the kind of way that I could just put this thing on repeat and I’m set for the entirety of the party’s duration.
5) Wu-Tang Clan – Iron Flag (#145)
It speaks to the quality of Iron Flag that I’ve gotten this deep into the piece and have not yet mentioned “Ya’ll Been Warned,” which alone is better than 99% and change of all the hip-hop songs that have ever been laid down. The production work – led by True Master in this case – is well… masterful.
6) The Beatnuts – Take It or Squeeze It (#179)
The Beatnuts make no bones about leaning into the naughty and debaucherous, but they always maintain an abiding sense of fun.
And that’s all part of why Take It Or Squeeze It is the greatest collective work of the trio – Psycho Les, Juju, and Al’tariq – who comprise The Beatnuts. There’s also something so inherently East Coast – and specifically New York City – about this rap crew that enhances their greatness.
7) Gorillaz – Gorillaz (#181)
There’s a strange and wonderful and off-kilter vibe to “Clint Eastwood,” as there is throughout the album. It has a European-inspired feel to it, but there’s also a very Britpop thing going on (which makes sense, with Damon Albarn of Blur fame’s involvement), but then we also get the absolute best deployment of Del the Funky Homosapien’s talents that I’ve yet heard to date.
8) R.E.M. – Reveal (#220)
New Adventures in Hi-Fi, released in 1996, conjures feelings of movement and travel, while Up (1998), R.E.M.’s first post-Bill Berry album, focuses on moody keyboard sounds and electronic experimentation.
Then we get Reveal in 2001, which feels more like a mystic journey in many ways, a journey into oneself, perhaps. It’s a dreamy-feeling album that reminds me of the desert, and it’s also one that feels a bit more self-assured versus Up.
9) Weezer – Weezer (Green Album) (#222)
The Green Album is crisp and tight at ten songs that run less than a half-hour end to end, and shows off Rivers Cuomo and crew’s expertise in cranking out a mixture of pop punk and hard rock tracks that can infiltrate your thoughts and waking life for days at a time.
10) Manu Chao – Próxima Estación: Esperanza (#267)
“Me Gustas Tu,” arguably the best song on the album, has a gorgeous sweeping sense to it, and you have that feeling you get with the best songwriters and song crafters where you’re in strong, confident hands in terms of how the musical experience builds and flows and resolves. And on top of that, check out the outstanding vocals and how they transition easily back and forth between Spanish and French.
11) The Kinks – BBC Sessions (1964-1977) (#388)
There’s a really fun effect that happens when I throw on this expansive collection of Kinks live recordings for the BBC, spanning more than a decade of performances.
The BBC announcers you hear introducing some of the tracks are part of the kick.
And whether it’s relative deep cuts or The Kinks’ biggest hits, such as “All Day and All of the Night,” it’s a blast to hear these versions, that all feel lived in and fantastic.
12) Pixies – Complete ‘B’ Sides (#389)
If it’s not enough that I’m crazy for doing this best 1,000 albums ever project, I’m also crazy enough that I found myself playing “River Euphrates – Version Two” as presented on Complete ‘B’ Sides, and then pausing it and listening to sections of “River Euphrates” as included on Surfer Rosa. There’s something about “Version Two” that sounds cleaner and more distinct, and in any event it’s simply the version that I prefer best.
Which is a long way of getting around to stating that I have great love for “River Euphrates” and it’s one of my favorite Pixies songs: it’s strange and powerful and pleasing and contains that classic soft/loud dynamic that the Pixies are so rightfully famous for. Bonus: the vocal dynamic between Frank Black and Kim Deal is just perfect.
13) Cunninlynguists – Will Rap for Food (#439)
The jaunty, frantic-paced “616 Rewind” is exquisite underground hip-hop that happens to have high end production – which includes incredible classical music instrumentation. And it’s something of a masterclass of how a rap collective can divide and conquer when divvying up verses.
14) Masta Ace – Disposable Arts (#610)
It’s always a pleasure to encounter a hip hop album with superior production and a rapper or hip hop crew who can truly bring the goods. As you might have guessed, such is precisely the case with Masta Ace’s Disposable Arts.
A great example is “Acknowledge,” where right away I’m all in as I love a hip hop track that effectively uses strings on top of a nice break beat. Masta Ace’s clean, precise flow cuts through it perfectly.
15) The Shins – Oh, Inverted World (#700)
Anytime I think of The Shins, “New Slang” from Oh, Inverted World starts playing in my head.
It’s the kind of song that locks into your mind, gets under your skin, but in a good way. It’s pleasant and soothing and gentle. And it’s also very early 2000s and yet oddly timeless at the same time.