eMusic's Top 100 albums of the decade

[Football_Bat]

Obviously a non-commercial list because Arcade Fire's Neon Bible was pretty dang good.

Or maybe obviously not so because of Franz Ferdinand's payola issues mid-decade.

 

[Bob Cook]

You ask, where are The White Stripes? Emusic doesn't sell 'em.

Otherwise, "White Blood Cells" would be the No. 1 album. For quality, influence and ubiquity, at least on the rock 'n' roll side, Jack White is the artist of the decade.

A.V. Club picked WBC as their No. 1 of the decade.

Actually, I wonder what happened with eMusic and the White Stripes. Because a while back, I DID purchase some of their stuff from the site. I presume it has to do with eMusic's low royalty rates.

It seems to fluctuate quite a bit. Before the Sony deal eMusic had the Atco catalog of the Rolling Stones, but that seems to be gone now.

I went through the list and I'm at least familiar with 68 of the 100 artists there. Scratching my head that the Pernice Brothers aren't represented at all, since they did very well on every top 100 eMusic did year to year. (And honestly, if I do a top 10 for the 2000s it probably has 3 Pernice Brothers albums on it.)

I think the Atco Stones catalog was up for two weeks. Literally. I downloaded some the first day then went up, and went back later to get some for my wife's uncle. And they were all gone.

Part of the Sony deal was that eMusic had to boost its royalties to at least a pittance, which is why my 90-songs-for-$19.99-per-month became 50 songs. At least now with some very lesser-known albums, there's a flat rate per album rather than only a per-song rate.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

You ask, where are The White Stripes? Emusic doesn't sell 'em.

Otherwise, "White Blood Cells" would be the No. 1 album. For quality, influence and ubiquity, at least on the rock 'n' roll side, Jack White is the artist of the decade.

A.V. Club picked WBC as their No. 1 of the decade.

Actually, I wonder what happened with eMusic and the White Stripes. Because a while back, I DID purchase some of their stuff from the site. I presume it has to do with eMusic's low royalty rates.

It seems to fluctuate quite a bit. Before the Sony deal eMusic had the Atco catalog of the Rolling Stones, but that seems to be gone now.

I went through the list and I'm at least familiar with 68 of the 100 artists there. Scratching my head that the Pernice Brothers aren't represented at all, since they did very well on every top 100 eMusic did year to year. (And honestly, if I do a top 10 for the 2000s it probably has 3 Pernice Brothers albums on it.)

I think the Atco Stones catalog was up for two weeks. Literally. I downloaded some the first day then went up, and went back later to get some for my wife's uncle. And they were all gone.

Part of the Sony deal was that eMusic had to boost its royalties to at least a pittance, which is why my 90-songs-for-$19.99-per-month became 50 songs. At least now with some very lesser-known albums, there's a flat rate per album rather than only a per-song rate.

The one thing that's aggravating to me is the flat rate is always 12-credits, no matter how many songs are on the album. That's great if it's a 20-song album. It's not so good it it's a 4-song EP with one song that is "album only." There's a 4-song Springsteen EP that includes an acoustic "Born To Run." To get "Born To Run" you have to download the whole EP, and the whole EP is 12 credits.

 

[Human_Paraquat]

If any of you like Springsteen and the Replacements, do yourself a favor and get some Hold Steady into your ears. Also maybe the best live band working right now, at least for small venues.

DBT kicks some serious live ass. Interestingly enough, they love The Hold Steady. The Truckers toured with them as co-headliners recently, but I wasn't able to make a show.

I saw Hold Steady and DBT in Bloomington, IN last winter. Something about DBT's sound wasn't right that night; I don't feel I got a good example of their live presence. Hold Steady also played first and as usual set the bar pretty high.

 

[DisembodiedOwlHead]

If any of you like Springsteen and the Replacements, do yourself a favor and get some Hold Steady into your ears. Also maybe the best live band working right now, at least for small venues.

DBT kicks some serious live ass. Interestingly enough, they love The Hold Steady. The Truckers toured with them as co-headliners recently, but I wasn't able to make a show.

I saw Hold Steady and DBT in Bloomington, IN last winter. Something about DBT's sound wasn't right that night; I don't feel I got a good example of their live presence. Hold Steady also played first and as usual set the bar pretty high.

I also was in the building that night. Hold Steady sounded great, and glad they played first because I had to bail before DBT took the stage (more of an HS fan anyway).

 

[YGBFKM]

If any of you like Springsteen and the Replacements, do yourself a favor and get some Hold Steady into your ears. Also maybe the best live band working right now, at least for small venues.

DBT kicks some serious live ass. Interestingly enough, they love The Hold Steady. The Truckers toured with them as co-headliners recently, but I wasn't able to make a show.

I saw Hold Steady and DBT in Bloomington, IN last winter. Something about DBT's sound wasn't right that night; I don't feel I got a good example of their live presence. Hold Steady also played first and as usual set the bar pretty high.

I wonder if they have a new sound guy. Or different equipment. I saw them twice in 2008 (indoor and outdoor) and they sounded great. I saw them over the summer and it took about five songs before they sounded right.

 

[Herky_Jerky]

I'm an indie music snob and I haven't heard of at least 30 percent of this list.

http://www.emusic.com/features/hub/decade_albums/index.html

I, too, am an aspiring indie music snob and just figured you guys all sucked or something. But there's a lot of stuff on there I'd never heard of. And there are a crapload of bands that I have heard of, but I didn't know or own the album that was listed.

I'd heard of 74 of the bands, and I own 28 of the albums.

But I'm definitely going to bookmark this list and start checking everything out.

 

[Human_Paraquat]

If any of you like Springsteen and the Replacements, do yourself a favor and get some Hold Steady into your ears. Also maybe the best live band working right now, at least for small venues.

DBT kicks some serious live ass. Interestingly enough, they love The Hold Steady. The Truckers toured with them as co-headliners recently, but I wasn't able to make a show.

I saw Hold Steady and DBT in Bloomington, IN last winter. Something about DBT's sound wasn't right that night; I don't feel I got a good example of their live presence. Hold Steady also played first and as usual set the bar pretty high.

I wonder if they have a new sound guy. Or different equipment. I saw them twice in 2008 (indoor and outdoor) and they sounded great. I saw them over the summer and it took about five songs before they sounded right.

Hood's vocals were almost inaudible at times that night, and while I'm sure the band's playing was fine, the sound just wasn't very crisp. I was disappointed because I know ow good the songs are from listening to the albums. I hope to see them again at some point.