And so we arrive at State’s ten finest albums from 2000 to 2009. An amazing six debut releases feature, including our highest polling record from this year. There’s also one of the decade’s most potentially exciting band’s final roll of the dice, the record that revitalised the Irish singer songwriter, a cult classic plus, of course, that album of the decade. Did we get it right? Let us know…

Albums of the decade: 50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21 | 20 -11 | 10 -1

10. Florence & The Machine – Lungs (2009)

With a mere six months to impress us enough to make the list, Florence Welch rose up the ranks with some soulful yet garagey attitude (-Kiss With A Fist’), some love-at-first-sight covers (-Hospital Beds’), a fiery mane of the thickest red hair and some press shots of pure joy (her, falling off a chair). So we had expectations. But to deliver almost every song on your debut as an individually packaged gift, uplifting and soulful, perfect vocals filling every corner and making even your lowly headphones listener feel they’re in a vast space – well the young lady is truly on to something. The music exists between genres without ever landing on one though often there’s a nod to a certain prisoner no.1873015′s Wall Of Sound. The songs that you were pretty sure were your favourites change almost daily, but they are always lifting your mood, lifting your arms too perhaps and certainly lifting your ass off a chair. Lungs is rich, intriguing, escapist and sexy as hell. (Simon Roche)

9. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver (2007)

Having provided the preening electro-indie scene with a cold, reinvigorating shower in his debut, James Murphy somehow managed to rip the throat out of everything he’d helped create with the instantly classic Sound Of Silver. It’s hard to know if he’ll ever scale the heights of the heartbreaking ‘All My Friends’ or hypnotically rhythmic ‘Get Innocuous!’, but there’s no doubt that there’s genius at work here. Unflinchingly indie but unafraid of wearing its pop sensibilities on its sleeve, Murphy sums up an entire generation (and their record collections) with a startling dance-rock album that’s almost entirely perfect and stupidly essential. (Sophie Crowther)

8. Damien Rice – O (2002)

While the years after O‘s success saw Damien Rice gain a reputation as a bit of an arse and subsequently find himself portrayed as -the rich one who made it in the Shtates’ on animated series Eyebrowy, there’s no denying the savage immediacy, raw emotion and injection-of-life-into-a-stagnating-singer-songwriter-scene this album delivered. Rice has described song-writing as expressing ‘immature’ emotions in a more eloquent form and there’s a hefty dollop of narcissism and -woe is me’ to be found here – but the songs are mostly so good it doesn’t matter. The refreshing minimalism of the music and the breathy vocals, from both Rice and the astonishing Lisa Hannigan, lends O something of an uncomfortable but ultimately hypnotic vibe. Yes, the pained troubadour’s lyrical candour can be a tad cringe-y at times and he would clearly be a difficult -other half’ (not to mention one who might end up writing songs about you, eh Miss Zellwegger?) but when you have songs as impressive as ‘Cannonball’ or ‘Volcano’ up your sleeve does it really matter? (Adam Lacey)

7. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago (2008)

The brittle, unforgiving cold of a desolate January shudders throughout this extraordinary ode to heartbreak, rumination and isolation. Whilst there are hordes of albums born in the unkempt bedrooms of unshaven men who’ve been shattered by women or life, Justin Vernon’s Emersonian exile to the backwoods of Wisconsin, in search of words and music to match his despair, redefines the sad-guy-with-guitar genre. Vernon infuses lyrically cryptic songs like ‘Blindsided’, ‘Re-Stacks’ or ‘Lump Sum’ with gentle production flourishes that evoke hoarfrost, the gunshot crack of melting ice and the muffled, steady crunch of snow underneath boots. In turn, the warmth of his husky, cracked tenor offsets the chill, beckoning us inside, just for a spell, for whiskey, a warm fire and a good cry if needed. A quiet, unsettling album – and a remarkable debut – that manages to not only capture the winter of one man’s discontent, but the universality of aching, snow-blanketed solitude. (Kara Manning)

6. At The Drive-In – Relationship Of Command (2000)

At The Drive-In couldn’t have continued. In 2000, no star burned brighter or faster than this extraordinary punk quintet from the Texas border town of El Paso. Their split in 2001 came amid a riot of hype the band were reluctantly receiving after an eight-year career, one that saw them widely hailed as -the new Nirvana’ and an urgently needed antidote to the boorish rap metal of the time. It wasn’t just the fact they had afros, their singer was called Cedric or that Iggy Pop provided guest vocals that did it. Fusing Latino flourishes, post-hardcore energy and an anger that was uncommonly sincere, ROC grabbed your attention, held it and then spat you out at the end. This is why so many people remember where they were when they first heard the tightly wound spasms of -One Armed Scissor’ or the twist-and-shout of -Pattern Against User’. For influence, it ranks as one of the biggest of the decade – its angular sonics and restless tempo shifts can be heard everywhere from The Redneck Manifesto and Bloc Party, to Battles and Foals, and beyond. (Hilary A. White)