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Updated Jun 27, 2026The 25 best albums of the 2000s
The 2000s was the decade where the music industry's two-decade-long album-format era ended. CD sales peaked in 2000, then fell every year through the decade; iTunes Music Store launched in 2003; the iPod and the album-as-playlist transition was complete by 2009. The decade's best albums were the last great album-shaped records before streaming changed the listening default.
This list ranks across genre. Hip-hop dominates the first half of the decade; indie rock dominates the middle; the late decade is a renaissance for electronic music and the early 2010s indie wave starts here. Twenty-five albums; every one of them taught the decade something it didn't already know.
01#1 · 2000
Kid A
“The most aggressive sonic reset any major rock band had attempted.”
Released October 2000 — three years after "OK Computer" — and the most aggressive sonic reset any major rock band had attempted. Radiohead replaced the guitar-band template with electronic textures (Ondes Martenot, processed voice, sampled trumpet), and the album that came out of the change is the warmest, strangest, and most-imitated experimental rock record of the 21st century. "Idioteque" is the album's centerpiece; "How to Disappear Completely" is its emotional peak.
02#2 · 2001
The Blueprint
Released September 11, 2001, which has nothing to do with the music but everything to do with how the album entered the culture. Jay-Z's vocal performance is the most relaxed of any rap album from this era — he sounds like he's talking to you in a hotel lobby, then suddenly the punchline lands. Kanye West and Just Blaze provided the soul-sampling production that defined the 2000s. "Takeover" is the most surgical diss track ever recorded.
03#3 · 2004
Funeral
Arcade Fire's debut, released on Merge Records and built around a series of deaths in the band's families during recording. Eleven tracks of orchestral indie-rock with maximalist arrangements (strings, accordion, multiple drummers, group vocals). "Wake Up," "Rebellion (Lies)," and "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" became the album's enduring tracks. The record that opened the door for every orchestral-indie band of the next ten years.
04#4 · 2001
Discovery
The dance-pop album that taught indie-rock to love disco again. Fourteen tracks of vocodered, sample-heavy, melodically obsessive electronic-pop — "One More Time," "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," "Digital Love," "Aerodynamic." The album's opening run is the longest stretch of perfectly-crafted pop singles in the decade. The 2010s' obsession with maximalist pop production traces back to this record.
05#5 · 2004
Madvillainy
MF DOOM and Madlib at the absolute peak of their respective games. Twenty-two tracks, 46 minutes, no choruses, no clean song endings — the album rolls like a single long beat tape with the most cryptic, internal-rhyme-dense lyrics in the genre. "Accordion" and "Rhinestone Cowboy" are the entry points; the deep cuts ("Strange Ways," "Bistro") are why the album has only grown in stature in the 22 years since release.
06#6 · 2007
In Rainbows
Radiohead's pay-what-you-want digital release, but more important: the warmest, most musical album the band ever made. Phil Selway's drums and Colin Greenwood's bass anchor every track; Jonny Greenwood's electronic textures are at their most subtle. "Reckoner" is the band's most beautiful song; "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" is the eight-minute build that proves rock could still find new tempos in 2007.
07#7 · 2005
Late Registration
Kanye's second album, recorded with Jon Brion as co-producer — the orchestration and live-instrument layering across the album is the most fully-realized arrangement-driven Kanye ever made. "Gold Digger," "Heard 'Em Say," and "Touch the Sky" became the singles; "Roses" and "Hey Mama" are the album's emotional centerpieces. The record that proved Kanye's first album wasn't a fluke and his ambition wasn't capped at chipmunk-soul.
08#8 · 2002
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Wilco's fourth album and the moment alt-country evolved into something genuinely new. Jim O'Rourke's mixing and Jay Bennett's arrangement work pull the songs through field-recording static, glitched percussion, and beautiful country-rock structure simultaneously. "Jesus, Etc." and "Heavy Metal Drummer" are the singles; "Poor Places" is the seven-minute centerpiece that closes side one. Released eleven days after September 11; the album somehow scans as a response to the event without being about it.
09#9 · 2004
The College Dropout
Kanye's debut after years of behind-the-scenes production work for Roc-A-Fella. The chipmunk-soul production style he'd been honing for Jay-Z became his own front-and-center sound; the lyrics introduced the self-deprecating, religious, anxious-genius persona that would dominate the next two decades of pop music. "Jesus Walks" was the first hit single about Christianity to hit mainstream rap radio.
10#10 · 2001
Is This It
The album that revived guitar-rock as a commercial format for the 2000s. Eleven tracks, 35 minutes, every song a tightly-arranged pop-rock distillation of Velvet Underground, Television, and Tom Petty. "Last Nite," "Someday," and the title track became the singles. The album's influence on every garage-rock revival band of the next five years (The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, Franz Ferdinand) is total.
11#11 · 2007
Untrue
The most album-shaped electronic record of the 2000s. Burial's anonymous, late-night dubstep-adjacent production layers cracked-vinyl samples, sped-up R&B vocals, and sub-bass into one continuous fog. "Archangel" is the album's centerpiece; "Endorphin" and "Etched Headplate" are the deep cuts. The album's influence on every dark-electronic record of the 2010s (James Blake, FKA twigs, the entire Tri Angle Records catalog) traces back here.
12#12 · 2000
Voodoo
Released January 2000 and recorded across the previous four years with the Soulquarian collective (Questlove, J Dilla, Roy Hargrove, Pino Palladino). The album that codified neo-soul — D'Angelo, Questlove, Pino, Roy playing a live, in-the-pocket version of soul-meets-hip-hop that no one else was attempting. "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" was the single; "Spanish Joint" and "The Root" are the deep cuts. D'Angelo wouldn't release another album for fourteen years.
13#13 · 2000
Stankonia
OutKast's fourth album and the record that put Atlanta rap on the global mainstream. "Ms. Jackson" and "B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)" pushed the genre's tempo and production palette in directions no one else was attempting in 2000 — drum-and-bass-influenced rap on a major label. André's vocal performance is at its most charismatic; Big Boi's verses anchor the album. The bridge between OutKast's regional past and "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below."
14#14 · 2007
Sound of Silver
James Murphy's second LCD Soundsystem album — the moment dance-punk grew up. "All My Friends" is the album's emotional centerpiece, an eight-minute build that became one of the most-quoted songs of the decade. "Someone Great" turned a death in Murphy's life into a synth-pop elegy. The album's influence on every "indie-band-grows-up" record of the next decade is total.
15#15 · 2006
Donuts
Released three days before J Dilla's death, this is the most influential instrumental hip-hop album ever made. Thirty-one short tracks of looped, off-grid, drum-shifted beats — the album taught a generation of producers how to humanize sampled drums. The album's influence on Kendrick, Flying Lotus, Madlib, and the entire LA beat scene is total. Listen as background music; you'll hear it lurking in every rap album made since.
16#16 · 2003
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
The double-album where OutKast finally split into two solo records bound together by shared cover art. Big Boi's "Speakerboxxx" is a sharper, faster, more straightforwardly-rap version of the band; André 3000's "The Love Below" is a Prince-meets-funk-meets-jazz-meets-Broadway personal statement. "Hey Ya!" became the most-played pop song of 2003. The album won Album of the Year at the 2004 Grammys — the first hip-hop album to win the category.
17#17 · 2003
Hail to the Thief
Radiohead's most overtly political album, recorded during the run-up to the Iraq War. Fourteen tracks across guitar-rock, electronic, and piano-driven balladry — the most stylistically diverse record the band has made. "There There" was the single; "2 + 2 = 5" opens the album with one of the band's most-quoted political tracks. Often dismissed as the lesser entry in the Kid A / Amnesiac / Hail trilogy; underrated.
18#18 · 2007
For Emma, Forever Ago
Justin Vernon recorded this album alone in a Wisconsin cabin during a winter spent processing a breakup, a band split, and mononucleosis. Nine tracks of layered acoustic guitar and falsetto vocals — the album's lo-fi production is part of the argument. "Skinny Love" became the indie-folk anthem of the late 2000s. The album that made cabin-folk a viable genre and kicked off Bon Iver's complicated decade-and-a-half evolution.
19#19 · 2002
The Eminem Show
Eminem's third album and the most fully-realized version of the persona he'd been refining since "Slim Shady." The production is more sample-heavy and orchestral than "Marshall Mathers LP"; the writing is more autobiographical. "Without Me" was the lead single; "Sing for the Moment" turned an Aerosmith sample into a state-of-rap address. Sold ten million copies and confirmed Eminem as the decade's most commercially dominant rapper before 50 Cent.
20#20 · 2007
Boxer
The National's fourth album and the moment they became the working band of the indie-rock decade. Matt Berninger's baritone is at its most controlled; the Devendorf brothers' rhythm section is the album's secret engine. "Mistaken for Strangers" and "Fake Empire" are the album's defining tracks. The album that established the band's tempo, mood, and lyrical posture for the next fifteen years.
21#21 · 2002
The Rising
Springsteen's first studio album with the E Street Band in eighteen years, recorded in response to September 11. Fifteen tracks across rock, gospel, qawwali (the Pakistani devotional music), and Americana. "The Rising," "Lonesome Day," and "Into the Fire" are the album's centerpieces. The most direct artistic response to 9/11 in the American mainstream — the album that made post-tragedy rock feel possible.
22#22 · 2006
Silent Shout
The Swedish brother-sister duo's third album — twelve tracks of glacial, vocoder-saturated, paranoid electro-pop. "Silent Shout," "Heartbeats," and "We Share Our Mothers' Health" became the singles; "Like a Pen" is the album's centerpiece. The record's influence on every dark-pop electronic act of the 2010s (Grimes, Chairlift, Blood Orange, Banks) is total. The Knife retired after one more album.
23#23 · 2003
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
The biggest commercial debut in 21st-century rap. Produced largely by Dr. Dre and Eminem, recorded after 50 Cent had survived being shot nine times, and structured around hooks that nobody else was writing — "In Da Club," "21 Questions," "P.I.M.P.," all simultaneous radio hits. 50's flow on this record is the most relaxed-confident in mainstream rap; the album sold 12 million copies.
24#24 · 2002
Turn on the Bright Lights
The post-punk revival album that defined New York indie's late-90s aesthetic for the rest of the decade. Eleven tracks of clean, austere, Joy-Division-influenced rock — Paul Banks's baritone is the album's signature voice. "Obstacle 1," "PDA," and "NYC" became the singles. The album the entire mid-2000s indie-rock revival was reading from.
25#25 · 2009
Merriweather Post Pavilion
Animal Collective's eighth album and the moment indie-rock fully embraced electronic production. Eleven tracks of layered samples, looped percussion, and harmony-stacked vocals. "My Girls" became the breakthrough single — the most-streamed indie-electronic song of the late 2000s. The album that prefigured the Bon Iver / Sufjan / Grizzly Bear electronic pivot of the 2010s and made indie-rock unafraid of the dance floor.
Twenty-five 2000s albums leaves out an entire alternate top-25. Where's "American Idiot," "Demon Days," "Z," "Sea Change," "Person Pitch," "Black on Both Sides" (1999, technically), "The Black Album," "Modest Mouse's Good News for People Who Love Bad News"? They all belong on a top-50.
Drop your case for the missing 2000s record by rating the album on Goat. The chart updates as community ratings catch the omissions. Up next: the editorial calendar pivots to year-end content for the November ramp.
Questions.
What's considered the best album of the 2000s?
Two answers compete in critic polls — Radiohead's "Kid A" (2000) and Jay-Z's "The Blueprint" (2001). Pitchfork picked Kid A; Rolling Stone picked The Blueprint. This list takes the Kid A position; reasonable people disagree.
How was the 2000s different from the 90s for music listening?
The album lost its primacy. iTunes Music Store launched in 2003 and made unbundled single-track purchases the default for casual listeners; LimeWire and Napster had already eroded the album's revenue model. The albums that survived as albums (rather than as a folder of MP3s) tended to be either concept albums or albums whose sequencing was the point.
Why is Kid A at #1 instead of OK Computer?
OK Computer is on the 90s list (#1, in fact). Kid A is its 2000s sister — released October 2000, it doubled down on OK Computer's anxieties and replaced rock-band instrumentation with electronic textures, ondes martenot, and free-jazz horns. The album taught a generation of indie-rock bands what it sounded like when guitars stopped being required.
Where's the country, pop, and electronic?
Country: it's a strong decade for the genre but no album broke out of it in a way that earns a generalist 25-slot. Lambchop, Drive-By Truckers, and the Dixie Chicks's "Home" all came close. Pop: the decade's pop is mostly singles; the best pop album that scans as an album is at #19. Electronic: Daft Punk's "Discovery" (2001) is at #4 and Burial's "Untrue" (2007) is at #11.
What about 808s & Heartbreak vs. Late Registration vs. Graduation?
Three Kanye albums in five years, all defensible top-25. This list picks "Late Registration" (#7) — the most fully-realized arrangement-driven Kanye record. "808s" was more genre-shifting (it invented Drake), "Graduation" was more commercially successful, "Late Registration" is the most-listenable on its own merits. Reasonable people disagree.
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