The Nothing Decade

I'm going to call the last ten years the "Nothing Decade". That sounds better than "the zeros" or "the naughts". In my opinion, since 2000, there have been no interesting developments in the arts. Up until now, every decade has an amazing musical genre: disco and punk in the seventies, electronic music in the eighties, grunge in the nineties. What will the Nothing Decade be remembered for? Rap metal? Creed? Music hasn't sucked this bad since Journey topped the charts.

Sure, there have been some great albums. I liked electroclash, and intelligent dance music, and even twee chamber pop and freak folk. But none of those could be considered a "movement". They are barely novel. Some have speculated that the internet now makes it impossible for one trend to capture the entire country's attention. I'm not sure I believe that: there are plenty of things we can all agree on. Please - next generation - show me something interesting!

But here are the best CDs and DVDs that I loved this Nothing Decade:

Best Music
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1. Damian Rice "O"
2. Amanda Palmer "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?"
3. The Postal Service "Give Up" and Death Cab For Cutie (all other CDs)
4. Daft Punk "Alive 2007" (2 CD version)
5. The Shins "Chutes Too Narrow"
6. Nellie McKay "Get Away From Me" and Regina Spektor "Begin to Hope"
7. The Decemberists "Her Majesty The Decemberists" and/or "Picaresque" (and all other CDs)
8. The New Pornographers "Twin Cinema" (and all other CDs)
9. The Langely Schools Music Project "Innocence & Despair"
10. Tenacious D (all songs)

Best Movies
-----------------

1. Memento
2. The Prestige
3. Once
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
5. Children of Men
6. American Astronaut
7. Oldboy
8. Coraline
9. High Fidelity
10. Synecdoche, New York

10 comments — :

( 10 comments — Leave a comment )

thornyc

2010-01-04 03:59 am (UTC)

Did you know I'm on the DVD of American Astronaut?!!

(Well, the back of my head and my voice.)

mudcub

2010-01-04 04:04 am (UTC)

I didn't know that! I want to download Stingray Sam sometime soon

etherealprey

2010-01-04 06:10 am (UTC)

agreed memento was awesome, so was oldboy, was surprised to see that coraline was on your list, but still good choices.

progbear

2010-01-04 07:33 am (UTC)

Does the Langley Schools Music Project really count as “new music,” since it’s technically a reissue of 1970’s recordings? Well, that basically sums up my experience of the 00’s in a nutshell; lots of people listening to old Nick Drake tracks and Brian Wilson’s Smile, because the very idea of listening to the ossified crap that passed itself off as “new music” (Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Tool, ad nauseam) was just too horrid a thought to contemplate.

scream4noreason

2010-01-04 07:45 am (UTC)

I think IMHO that AIDS created a cultural and artistic vacuum that we really only saw come to frution in the 00's. It was a boring decade.

timberwoof

2010-01-04 08:23 am (UTC)

I think the lack of lots of *good* new music comes from the record companies demanding instant gratification: creating their little made-to-order pop stars devoid of talent, warbling bubblegum rock on all the same top-40 radio stations.

Remember The Band? A scruffier bunch of guys haven't been seen since, but they learned the music biz the long way and became highly influential. But they'd never get great exposure now; they just don't have instant star-appeal.

fillerbunny9

2010-01-04 04:10 pm (UTC)

It could also be a consumer base jaded by the meddling of the RIAA coupled with the ridiculous price for any given album. It is tough to accurately point a finger. The industry is unwilling to take a risk because they want sales, so they sell what the market actually pays for. Simultaneously, they alienate consumers who don't listen to whatever American Idol shat out this year and want something different. While all this is going on, we are spending millions of dollars witch hunting music pirates, because they're obviously the root of all evil in the world and would never pay money for anything. (which in turn causes the high cost of music to fund the RIAA and record companies, since more money is made by a band via merchandising, licensing, touring etc than off record sales.)

what we really need is to kick all those executives in the balls and inform them that people will pay for GOOD music, and to start making some.