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)

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

20. Sigur Ros – ( ) (2002)

After being justifiably praised on high for 1999′s Ágætis Byrjun this, the follow up, is almost a concept album of purity, the only text on the white album cover and transparent booklet was the band’s name and website (they even include a request on the barcode and legal info sticker to remove after purchase). None of the songs were titled (it’s hardly even a real album name either) and onto this blank canvas the Icelanders painted a post-rock angelic landscape expanding on earlier orchestral approaches to their sound and mellowing them a little while still digging deep into the darkness. Tracing a path from heaven to hell through the barren Icelandic lava fields it is Handel’s Messiah for the electric generation and its own -Hallejluia’ chorus, the 12 minute closing track, descends from acoustic beginnings to a Bosch-like rapture and if you are luck enough to witness it live, the most intense moment you will spend in front of a band. (Simon Roche)

19. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells (2001)

He’s one smart cookie, that Jack White character. He knew exactly how to sound (dirty blues minimalism), what to say (mostly spoofs about him and Meg being siblings) and what to wear (any combination of black, red and white) from the start. But when The Strokes exploded in the same year, the window of opportunity had opened for the White Stripes and has remained open since. This record, their third, sealed the contract, charming everyone on this side of the pond with a playful take on the blues songbook by way of a rough-hewn garage approach. Desperado thrash (-I Smell A Rat’), grunge (-Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground’) and porchfront rockabilly (-Hotel Yorba’) were all present and accounted for. Along with Is This It, the garage rock axis of power was now firmly Stateside, and while The Strokes have struggled to match former glories, Jack and Meg have never looked back. (Hilary A. White)

18. Daft Punk – Discovery (2001)

Discovery is more than just an album of the decade – it is part of the decade in a way, like musical DNA. Almost ten years after it came out, the influence of Daft Punk’s monumental, big-hearted, retro-futuristic, and sublime take on house and disco can be spied everywhere. From Madonna videos to car advertisements, from underground blog-house nights to handbags-on-Saturday-nitez, the tendrils sprouted by this record remain as fresh and pervasive today as they quickly became upon its release. It wasn’t just about the music either. Daft Punk’s carefully constructed anonymous robo-aesthetic fast became iconic. Indeed, anyone looking for an image to define the decade in music could do a lot worse than picture two unknown entities in robot masks perched upon a Technicolor pyramid, pumping out oddly romantic music and waving benignly at a euphoric mass of humans below. (Darragh McCausland)

17. Panda Bear – Person Pitch (2007)

Before they released Sung Tongs, Animal Collective were the ultimate cult proposition – a group of willfully obscure envelope pushers who dabbled in extreme noise and clattering tribalism. Who could have ever suspected that a songwriting talent as awesome as Noah Lennox’s lay hidden within their thick soup of otherworldly howls and strange sounds. While later Animal Collective albums would showcase his gift for a giddy melody, it is on his second solo album Person Pitch that Lennox’s abilities achieve full flight. On it, he manages to strike a sublime balance between classic songcraft (just listen to the goosebump-inducing harmonies on ‘Take Pills’) and that questing sense of wonderment and experimentalism which made his main band so influential. ‘Bros’, the finest song on Person Pitch, is also one of the finest songs of the decade, and over 12 bewitching minutes it distills everything great about the album into one long exhalation of pure joy. (Darragh McCausland)

16. And So I Watch You From Afar – And So I Watch You From Afar (2009)

The whispers were there in Belfast from early in the year, that And So I Watch You From Afar’s self titled debut was – in the words of one music industry name – a masterpiece. They weren’t far wrong. ASIWYFA took the concept of an all instrumental album and turned it on its head. They’re a rock band, a metal band, a post-rock band. they’re whatever the hell they want to be. The record’s greatest strength was that, amongst the noise and mayhem, were actual melodies that stuck in your consciousness. It didn’t hurt that they were the live band of the year too. (Phil Udell)

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

30. Wolf Parade – Apologies To The Queen Mary (2005)

In 2005 Wolf Parade offered their most sincere Apologies To The Queen Mary after being banished from an ocean liner of the same name for breaking down the doors of a ballroom and performing a violent séance. It’s a tale befitting of an album that is a fantastical flight of the imagination through dilapidated grandeur and timeworn whimsy. Unusual musical arrangements and eccentric instrumentation are entwined with unstoppably emotive vocals, creating an enchanting hotchpotch of idiosyncratic love songs and surging, winsome choruses. Spencer Krug’s brainsick, opulent inventions (‘Fancy Claps’, ‘Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts’) segue seamlessly into Dan Boeckner’s equally compelling if slightly more orthodox offerings (‘It’s A Curse’, ‘Shine A Light’) in a compendium of heartfelt songs that radiate with charm and ramshackle romanticism. (Sophie Elizabeth Smith)

29. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion (2009)

Greil Marcus once said: “Rock ‘n’ Roll is a combination of good ideas dried up by fads, terrible junk, hideous failings in taste and judgment, gullibility and manipulation, moments of unbelievable clarity and invention, pleasure, fun, vulgarity, excess, novelty and utter enervation.” Baltimore’s Animal Collective have managed to touch upon all these things, at one time or another, in their long career. With MPP, the Hipster Runoff’s favourite altbros took the Wilson-esque harmonising perfected on Panda Bear’s solo jaunt, dived into the deep blue with their man-bags of samplers, laptops and glowsticks and pumped rapturous hybrid-techno from the ocean-floor to the salivating masses. This is music as it should be: beguiling, euphoric and sexually rhythmic – a triumphant melange of cohesive musical experimentation and a synesthete’s paradise. Released in January, this was immediately hailed as album of the year by many and now, as the cold fingers of winter prod at our flesh, the warmth and enveloping bliss of Animal Collective’s ninth album is as welcome as it has been since that first knock-your-head-off listen. A modern masterpiece. (Adam Lacey)

- Read the State interview here.

28. M.I.A. – Arular (2005)

M.I.A. (known to her family as Maya) burst onto the scene in 2005 in a whirlwind of fierce beats, neon and political righteousness. Her turbulent upbringing is laid out bare in her debut Arular, which brazenly runs the gamut of genres from dancehall to grime, and back again via bhangra with a dash of punk and sprinkling of movie soundtrack tunes lashed in indiscriminately. At times a confusing whirlwind mish-mash of, well, everything, Arular in some ways set the precedent for all underground urban music thereafter. Shifting easily from sampling the Rocky theme tune on ‘Bucky Done Gun’ to melding eerily sultry grooves with political rhetoric on ‘Sunshowers’, it’s easy to see why Maya became the all-conquering force she is these days. It would be churlish to deny that Arular is one of the defining and most important albums of the past decade. (Sophie Crowther)

27. Four Tet – Rounds (2003)

Rarely was a record so aptly named. Like merry-go-rounds, or mantras, the compositions on Kieran Hebden’s third full-length move in beautifully assured circles. While the album was given the reductivist tag of ‘folktronica’ on its release, the individual elements of its tracks demonstrate a musical sensibility just as tuned into jazz, or indeed, hip hop. But why bother dissecting something so seamless and complete? While it perhaps wields a subtler influence than other albums on this list, there is no denying that Rounds set the high water mark for a certain quiet type of electronic album. It’s a minor masterpiece. (Darragh McCausland)

26. Jape – Ritual (2008)

I don’t know how many times, Jape was asked when Ritual was coming out’¦but it was a lot. I mean, it had been over four years since his last release and in that time, Jape’s sound had changed considerably. Incorporating samplers, synths and sequencers into the live show, did a lot to liven things up and as the new set list grew, a bolder and more exciting sound slowly began to emerge. After some troubles with labels, Ritual, was finally released on Co-Op Records, and by golly, was it worth the wait. It’s as close to a perfect Irish indie/electro/dance/pop record, as one could wish for, with gems like ‘I was a Man’, ‘Streetwise’ and ‘Christopher and Anthony’ sounding as great on record as they did on the dancefloor. At the same time, the anthemic ‘Phil Lynott’ and tender sounding ‘At The Heart Of All This Strangeness’ showcased Richie’s growing skills as a talented songwriter and storyteller. Ritual‘s brilliance was rewarded when the album picked up this year’s Choice Music Prize and confirmed Richie’s spot as one of Ireland’s most exciting songwriters. With the talk of new material for 2010, even now the questions are already starting, ‘So, when’s the new album coming out’¦?’ (Julian Clancy)

Albums of the decade: 50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21 | 20 -11 | 10 -1
40. Outkast – Stankonia (2000)

With a new decade came a new Outkast. Formerly lauded for their space-age gangsta-rap with added surrealism, Stankonia is where the dichotomy of the group’s two distinct individuals in Big Boi and Andre 3000 truly meld. Three years later, we would see the stark division in the packaging of two solo albums on Speakerboxxx/The Love Below but on Stankonia the difference bleeds into a hugely creative endeavour in which the pendulum swings from Big Boi’s gangsta-leaning verses to Andre’s more feminine, scopic visions. It helps that in ‘Ms. Jackson’ and ‘So Fresh So Clean’ they had two huge radio hits while the more adventurous amongst us had our appetities sated by the explosive (no pun intended), gospel choir-featuring ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’ – a song which manages to still turn its nose up to the largely staid conventions of hip-hop. Add to that some genuinely funny album interludes which also manage to avoid cliché and you’ve got the best example of pushing the envelope in a largely conservative genre. (Niall Byrne)

OUTKAST – B.O.B. on MUZU.

39. Band of Horses – Everything All The Time (2006)

Real men cry, and when they do it’s probably to the strains of a song like ‘The Funeral’ from this, alt-country rockers Band of Horses’ debut album. The members may look like they’d whoop your ass in a bar fight, but the sweet strains of the epic yet achingly beautiful tracks on Everything… only betray the fact that they’re heart-on-sleeve-wearing softies underneath. Lead singer Ben Bridwell has the toothy grin and blurry eyes of a seasoned smoker, so it’s no surprise that ‘Weed Party’ is one of the only times that this album reaches ‘real’ country territory, extolling as it does the joys of a hazy ‘night in’ with friends. This is an album for those who like their licks fierce, their harmonies spot on and their men with fire in their bellies, scruffy beards on their chins and eyes that aren’t afraid to weep. (Aoife Barry)

38. Bloc Party – Silent Alarm (2005)

Arriving at a time when the idea of a four-guy rock band seemed to have shot its load, Bloc Party subtly pumped in inspiration from the club side of their world but never made it feel less than honest. Nothing felt forced about their 13 track debut. Seamless as an album, almost every song was either released as a single or sent to an inspired array of remixers for club play broadening the reach hugely. Any track is as likely as another to mix dark deliberate bass sounds and Kele’s grim urban fables with guitars and synth sounds that lift you through and out of the suburbs like a car chase at night. If you’re in doubt this happens tangibly just 1:01 minutes into -Banquet’. (Simon Roche)

37. Fight Like Apes – Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion (2008)

There was a time towards the end of 2007 and the first half of 2008 when it was hard to escape Fight Like Apes, near impossible even. Yet this was not success based on an overnight sensation or lack of substance. Their first two EPs immediately marked them as contenders but it was this debut long player that acted as their proper calling card. The songs managed to balance melody and menace perfectly and John Goodmanson’s production helped the band to up their game considerably. Perhaps even more notable was that it was an album that broke through the traditional glass ceiling for independent Irish bands and make considerable inroads overseas. They’ll need to avoid simply repeating the trick for next year’s album number two but this will always remain a thrilling debut. (Phil Udell)

36. Fever Ray – Fever Ray (2009)

When Karin Dreijer Andersson, the icy-voiced frontwoman of Sweden’s The Knife, released her debut solo album under the moniker Fever Ray this year, could anyone have predicted the itchy creepiness than underpins this slice of oddball synthtronica? Well yes they probably could have, given the originality of The Knife’s sound, but it doesn’t lessen the impact of the unique tunes that lurch languidly from this ode to postnatally-induced sleep-deprivation. If auto-tune brought a certain hollow-yet-catchy weirdness to R&B, then Dreijer Andersson’s use of -looney-tune’ pitch-shifting and vocal distortion brought an unnerving edge to the indie scene of 2009. Listening to this, one can imagine the wacky Swede wandering around a Scandinavian castle listening to cheesy 80s synthpop in the wee hours, attempting to recreate it on her computer, but only managing to make her newborn child cry with her off-kilter 3am-tinged efforts. Songs like -Concrete Walls’ and -I’m Not Done’ are deliciously disturbing/terrifying and, as if the album wasn’t enough, her penchant for freaky laser shows and masks at gigs makes her live show comparable to snorting vodka and watching Drag Me To Hell in a dark wooded area. Utterly engrossing. (Adam Lacey)

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

50. Justice – ‘  (2007)

There’s been a bit of Francophobia doing the rounds since Monsieur Henry’s armed robbery, but remember the French also dealt some winning hands in dance albums over the last 10 years. The first third of the decade belonged to Digital Lovers Daft Punk, Vitalic La Rocked the mid section and Justice came along in 2007 and turned the Marshall amps up to 11 with a big noisy techno headbanger. Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Auge pissed off the purists by taking the sleek French house blueprint and filtering it through caustic synths, distorted riffs and Godzilla-like kick drums. ‘  goes from frenzied overdriven dancefloor pile-ups (-Waters of Nazareth’, -Stress’, -Phantom’) to shiny electro and future funk like -D.A.N.C.E.’ and -DVNO’. Okay, -The Party’, featuring Ed Banger’s rent-a-rapper Uffie is Peaches-lite drivel, but it’s a tiny glitch in a rarity – a cohesive dance album that just makes you want to dance. (Conor McCaffrey)

49. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid (2008)

After Elbow bagged the Mercury Prize it became popular to do one of two things: knock them as bed-wetting, Coldplay-alikes or say -Aw, they deserve it soooo much’. The former was done by those who had missed out for years on the fabulous outsider-pop of this Bury quintet; a band who were shunted from label to label all the while creating epic songs full of Guy Garvey’s distinctive vocals and the band’s accomplished, experimental musicianship, whilst garnering zero mainstream recognition despite the release of four albums, four EPs and ten top fifty singles in the UK. The Seldom Seen Kid changed all that with no compromise to their sound or work ethic. Elbow are, and have always been, an album band, and the deserved Mercury prize victory delivered to the world’s festival circuit a band with a back catalogue of incredible songs, heart-tugging, intelligent lyrics, a singer born to perform in front of huge crowds and five men who should have been a massive deal ten years ago. The album also gave us -One Day Like This’, a modern festival classic. At least they’ll have a bit of cash now but Elbow fans know the talent has always been there. (Adam Lacey)

48. Efterklang – Tripper (2004)

Efterklang compose soundtracks to movies that should exist, but have yet to be filmed. Like a reel of decaying celluloid flickering across a tattered screen, the Danish collective’s 2004 debut Tripper flutters, sighs and trembles, unspooling choral-and-brass ruminations like ‘Step Aside’ or the placidly menacing ‘Prey and Predator’. The mad murmurs of the somnambulant ‘Doppelgänger’ seems oddly transmuted from one of Pink Floyd’s better nightmares or Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, evoking a similarly unhinged, depthless melancholy. Though five core founders drive Efterklang, the band’s guest membership swells and ebbs from project to project; ten musicians (including the Amina string quartet) embarked on Tripper‘s orchestral odyssey and patiently took an entire year to record the album. Densely and delicately constructed from an electronic blueprint of jittery beats and repetitive loops, each song unfurls with chimerical, feverish abandon, flush with brooding strings, hushed vocal chants, the sorrowful exhalation of a trumpet, and even, in the case of the busily beautiful ‘Chapter 6′, a choir burrowed within a howling windstorm. One of the most astonishing and unforgettable debuts of the decade. (Kara Manning)

47. Antony & The Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now (2005)

If Speech Debelle is feeling the frustration of her Mercury Music Prize success failing to propel her into the mainstream, she should take heart that she’s not the first to suffer that fate. Then again, Antony Hegarty was hardly going to be your average pop star and I Am A Bird Now wasn’t your normal hit record. A guest list including Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, Devandra Banhart and Boy George could easily have overshadowed its creator, but Hegarty himself is the towering presence here, delivering the record’s successive torch songs with overwhelming power and emotion. (Phil Udell)

46. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (2009)

Shimmering guitars, ethereal barbershop vocals, and an expansive aesthetic that sounds like little else in your record collection – Veckatimest is the album Grizzly Bear have always been threatening to make. It’s a patchwork of gentle folk songs that carries a tension that builds and builds, bursting into joyous refrain on ‘Two Weeks’, or ominous anger on ‘I Live With You’. There are individual moments here when the band seem peerless, as on the cathartic chorus of ‘While You Wait For The Others’, or the delicate strains of ‘Foreground’ – but Veckatimest demands to be taken as a whole. This is undisputedly Grizzly Bear’s masterpiece. (Shane Culloty)