Best of 2000s Bonus: Interpol and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

My write-up of Beyonce's I Am...Sasha Fierce was supposed to be the last in my short essays looking back at the decade's best album. Yet, now at the point of compiling my list, I find there are a couple more albums I want to feature: one that I recently discovered and another that has really grown on me lately.


Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights (4.5/5)

Interpol's 2002 debut is an amazing record, effectively demonstrating how sonically beautiful rock music can be. The austere, mostly instrumental "Untitled" sets a plaintive mode before kicking in the drums on "Obstacle 1," my favorite track of the album. Love the dual guitar playing here that forms the key transitions during the song, as well as the casually off-the-cuff lyrics ("she's always boring and stuff"). That song's energy gives way to the plodding, guitar-driven weepy "NYC," another highlight. "PDA" is darker and more immediate, with hard-hitting, repetitive guitar melodies. They continue to show their guitar versatility on the radio-fire "Say Hello to the Angels," which shifts guitar melodies between jaunty plucking to more assured strumming. "Hands Away" is another gorgeous melody, complimenting its guitar-and-drums rhythm with ethereal synths like far away voices. The guitars on "Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down" are reverbed to give them as big a sound as possible. The band is frequently compared to Joy Division, a band from the late '70s that I'm not familiar with, but as much as I like Interpol, it's piqued my curiosity to find out what they're like.

Best: Obstacle 1, NYC, PDA, Untitled, Say Hello to the Angels


Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand (4.5/5)

I gave this four stars when I reviewed it 2 years ago after it first came out, but up it to 4.5 now. Surprisingly, it's been an album I've turned to again and again, and not just because it won the Grammy for Album of the Year earlier this year. Raising Sand, like Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan's Ballad of Broken Seas, shows how fruitful a collaboration between two seemingly different artists can be. Down home toe-tappers like "Rich Woman" with is vibrating guitar and energetic "Gone Gone Gone" are a lot fun. But also good are the album's ballads such as the gentle twang of "Killing the Blues," the heavy atmosphere of "Polly Come Home," and the heartbreak of "Through the Morning, Through the Night." Even the quirky banjo- and violin-based "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" is fun, but the album's best track has to be the charging and lovely "Please Read the Letter."

Best: Please Read the Letter, Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) Killing the Blues, Rich Woman, Polly Come Home, Through the Morning, Through the Night, Stick with Me Baby