GQ Magazine’s recent list of the 21 best albums of the 21st century caused quite a stir, namely for its omission of acts such as Radiohead, Arcade Fire, and Wilco. But could a think tank of four million music fans do any better? The Reddit subdomain r/music has generated its own list of the best albums from the 2000s, culled from thousands of user submissions.
The results were broken down between three categories: most popular, very popular, and popular. Just four albums appear in the first category: Radiohead’s Kid A, The Strokes’ Is This It, Arcade Fire’s Funeral, and Kanye West’s The College Dropout.
The “very popular” category, meanwhile, includes two albums from The White Stripes (Elephant and White Blood Cells), Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Radiohead’s In Rainbows, LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver, and Gorillaz’s Demon Days, among others.
The 12 albums comprising the “popular” category include Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinoise, Modest Mouse’s The Moon & Antarctica, and Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m No.
Among the noticeable omissions? Jay Z, Elliott Smith, The Postal Service, Ryan Adams, The Mars Volta, and The Shins — at least, if you go by the selections in our own list of the 2000s’ 50 best albums. Even still, I think Thom Yorke, Jeff Tweedy, Win Butler, and the rest of us can all agree that Reddit > GQ. And not just because of r/aww.
Check out the full Reddit list below. All the albums have also been compiled in a Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure.
Most popular:
Radiohead – Kid A
The Strokes – Is This It
Arcade Fire – Funeral
Kanye West – The College Dropout
Very popular:
LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
Gorillaz – Demon Days
Radiohead – In Rainbows
The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
The White Stripes – Elephant
Queens of the Stone Age – Songs for the Deaf
Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News
Green Day – American Idiot
Popular:
Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP
Sufjan Stevens – Illinoise
Madvillain – Madvillainy
MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
Daft Punk – Discovery
OutKast – Stankonia
Modest Mouse – The Moon& Antarctica
Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m Not
Brand New – The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Interpol – Turn on The Bright Lights
