These five albums are things to be cherished. Their brilliance launches them high above all the other albums of the 00’s, and I will be listening to them as long as I live.

1. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – No More Shall We Part (2001)

See also: The Boatman’s Call (1997) and Nocturama (2003)

Nick Cave continued to disappoint his traditional fan base with another album of ballads and tracks of a more soft and sensitive nature than his usual frantic style, and I’m sorry, trad Cave fans, but I’m so pleased he did. In my opinions, “No More Shall We Part” is the pinnacle of Nick Cave’s experiments into this softer genre, and sees him reach the apex of his song-writing craft.

The melodies and harmonic progressions on this album are worthy of mention, but it’s the lyrics and the atmosphere conjured by Cave and the Bad Seeds that lead you deep inside. “As I sat sadly by her side” tells of a discussion about determinism and divine intervention in stanzas that just want to lollop in your mouth and off your tongue.

She said, “Father, mother, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece,
Soldier, sailor, physician, labourer, actor, scientist, mechanic, priest
Earth and moon and sun and stars and planets and comets with tails blazing
All are there forever falling, falling, lovely and amazing”

Semi-autobiographical songs like the frantically paranoid “Oh My Lord” and the personally apocalyptic “Hallelujah” take us into Cave’s haunted world, where Kate and Anna McGarrigle are wisps in the frozen night, and the torment suffered by Nick Cave’s struggle to overcome heroin and alcohol addiction while writing the album comes to the fore. And then it dies down into beautiful ballads like “God is in the House”, which I once saw performed so delicately by Cave and his piano that the entire audience of thousands held their breath not to break the silence.

Jessica and I were so inspired by this album that we travelled on a kind of pilgrimage to “the ivy coloured windows of the Angel” in Bury St Edmunds, the place to which Nick Cave retreated when battling heroin, as documented in the “Gates to the Garden”. Its atmosphere followed with us throughout the decade. This album is a masterpiece.

1. Super Furry Animals – Rings Around the World (2001) 5/5

See also: (Any SFA Epic Era album 2001-2005)

Super Furry Animals opened their Epic Records era with their luscious “Rings Around the World”, where high-production budgets seemed to liberate their song craft. The sound reproduction on their three Epic Records albums has been such an ear-opener for me, but I’ve picked out “Rings Around the World” due to its sheer accessibility and the impact it had on me when it arrived.

In contrast to their thrashy guitar indie that they made with Creation records, their new style involved deploying lots of strings, pianos and brass to compliment their guitars and techno-breakdowns. The album goes from the mellow and psychedelic “Alternative Route to Vulcan Street” and “A Touch Sensitive” to the indie-disco-pop anthem of “Juxtaposed With You” via the identity crisis of “Receptacle for the Respectable” (hard-rock mashup meets easy listening) without anyone getting injured on the sharp turns. It’s more exciting for these angular genres, like their rich parents (Epic) have let them go running with scissors. The title track, “Rings Around the World” shows us what magnificent harmonies SFA could produce, sounding like the Beach Boys would have if they were a rock band. A great rock band. One that really rocked. These rich harmonies continued through the rest of the album and into the others they made whilst signed to Epic.

Highlights are “Presidential Suite”, which takes us back to the days of the good old fashioned sex scandal with the Clinton/Lewinsky affair (Remember that?) “Honestly! Do we need to know if he really came inside her mouth?” and the delay laden melodica and steel-pedal infused “Run, Christian, Run”, which softly looks forward to the next decade of religious fundamentalist suicide. “With guns to our heads for we know that heaven awaits”

Lyrical content aside, what you’ll find in strength in this genre-collecting album is in SFA’s ubiquitous beautiful melodies surrounded by luscious arrangements, and liberated by a generous production budget.

1. Toxicity (2001) 5/5

See also: Steal this album (2003), Mesmerize (2005)

I had this album in mind for the “Sublime section” but harboured doubts at its strength in context of this category. I hadn’t listened to this album for a year or two – how could it be one of my favourites. I decided to give it a listen and was instantly reminded of how good it was. It is amazing. It’s unrelenting in its quality, and will be the kind of friend that isn’t scared to pick you up by the hair and shout its brilliance in your ear.

So this album is unique in this list due to its genre. It’s shouty loud guitar music, which is a genre enjoyed almost exclusively by teens, right?

No – it is so much more than that. It’s intelligent, catchy, melodic, harmonic, right-on shouty loud guitar music, and the best I’ve ever heard. SOAD draw on influences from all over the musical world. Spend some time in this album and you’ll experience gypsy folk, L.A. hippydom and Cossack breakdowns.

SOAD have achieved a higher degree of musical proficiency than any of the other artists listed here, but this album isn’t just a display of sports musicianship. Amidst the sea of detuned guitars synched perfectly with the semidemidemidemi-drum beats are really catchy and playful melodies which hook you like playground chants, and bravely intelligent pop songs. Which other metal bands release singles composed in 6/8 time, like SOAD do with “Toxicity”? A shouty metal pop song which ends with the psychedelic shouts of “When I became the sun I shone life into the man’s heart!”

1. Kate Bush – Aerial (2005) 5/5

That Kate Bush returned after 12 years with something that sounded fresh, original, relevant and distinctively Kate Bush is testament to her stature as an artist. This album has the quality of a “best of” compilation of these 12 hidden years, except for the way it weaves each song into another with a fluidity and consistent atmosphere which builds and persists unlike a greatest hits compilation.

“Aerial” is the most mature album that Kate Bush has produced, and the fervour and angular squiffiness of her earlier work has simmered into this gentle collection of songs, where Kate invites us into her castle-home, where she brings the magic out of motherly tasks and introduces us to her little Bertie.

Listening to the album feels like an we’ve been let into the private world of Kate Bush, where she shares her own memories and dreams, and her wonderful perceptions of life and things such as PI (“a great big circle of infinity”) and the creative process of the pavement painter (“A flick of the wrist, that bit there – it was an accident. He’s so pleased. It was the best mistake he could make”). She takes us into her summer garden, (with birdsong to accompany), and then on a countryside walk through the gloaming to a desolate beach. The atmosphere of Kate’s shyness

“Which one of us will dare to break the silence?”

The music and production is luscious, and softer than Kate’s previous albums, but the sense of spirituality in Kate’s music is as present as ever. “Aerial” is Kate Bush’s masterpiece.

1. Bat For Lashes – Fur and Gold(2006)

I was so underwhelmed when I first saw Bat for Lashes play at the Green man in 2006. “Why bother?” I thought whilst traping through the mud from the performance, “We could have just listened to a few Kate Bush and Bjork albums, rather than this pale imitation”.

Oh how wrong I was.

Luckily Jess persisted and bought “Fur and Gold”, and although I winced in the car-seat at the spoken opening to “What’s a Girl to Do?”, I was gradually sucked into the magical world of Bat For Lashes, casting my aspersions and prejudices aside along the way. And now I listen to it as one of my favourite albums of all time. I can listen to it at any moment and it never fails to fill up my spirit.

So it may seem like an obvious thing to do, combing folk instruments and drum machines, and I’ve heard it done many times. But never as well as Natasha Kahn does in “Fur and Gold”. When she’s being folky it sounds contemporary and when she gets with the buttons it sounds like circuitry was invented by druids. The music sits behind the album’s atmosphere, and Natasha displays a master class of song writing and minimalist composition. Highlights of this are “Tahiti”, where she plays an unchanging arpeggio piano riff on her right hand throughout the song, whilst bringing in an octave bass motif on her left hand for added drama every now and then, relying on her soft whispery vocals and accompanying autoharp to hint at the harmonic progression. And “Sad Eyes”, which runs amok with that “cliff-edge melodic resolution” I was talking about in the description of “Funeral”. In “Sad Eyes”, Natasha portrays such a yearning loneliness in her voice in a heart-breaking tale of unrequited love which encompasses the magic of Bat for Lashes whilst also bringing in down-to-earth imagery of washing dishes and making dinner. The song comes awake at the coda with great positivity when the protagonist brings out the mantra to help cope “Trying to hold it together, keep my love as light as a feather.” It’s such a great line which so accurately communicates the dilemma. It’s so beautiful.

The album’s singles continue in the same atmosphere but add strength in their poppy catchiness. The epic “What’s a girl to do?” combines big pagan drums with the 808 kind and “The Wizard” has the best opening melody I’ve ever heard. Ever. “Prescilla” has a Wicker Man style stampy-clap-along beat and a sing-along refrain of “Queen of the highway” which will gently animate the sleepiest zombie. There’s a great use of reverb which haunts the production of the album and Natasha shows she has a great sense of dissonance. There’s even a fantastic bum note in “Bat’s Mouth” which confirms “Fur and Gold’s” status as the greatest album ever made.