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The 100 Best Albums of the 2000s: 20-1

These 20 best records of the 2000s feature some familiar faces, but also several that have grown more fond in memory.

                                      
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These 20 best records of the 2000s feature some familiar faces, but also several that have grown more fond in memory.

Journey back 13 years to a stellar year for Rihanna, M.I.A., Arcade Fire, and Kanye West. From hip-hop to indie rock and everywhere in between, PopMatters picks the best 50 songs of 2007.

From tech house to Radiohead and Americana to indie and everything in between, the 60 best albums of 2007 included many of the 2000s' best albums.

Epic, sleek, weed rap, emo, sociopolitical, gangsta, or house party? In which direction will hip-hop go? 2010 was a year for all of the above.

2010's best albums are highlighted by the emergence of a future superstar, two veteran and virtuoso rappers, and a Dream Team of indie bands releasing career peaks.

Journey back to 2010 for 60 slices of musical greatness highlighted by one of the most delightful expletive-ridden hits in pop music history.

Kanye West's Sunday Service Choir create a debut, Jesus Is Born, that's powerful and, at times, repetitive.

Kanye West's rap is rooted in gospel right from The College Dropout days. These five songs, which explore the relationship between Yeezus and Jesus, show that his recent album, Jesus Is King, isn't an aberration.

Let's pretend for a moment that Bret Easton Ellis is capable of such a staggering feat of truth-telling, and read White as if it is indeed a work of nonfiction.

From Kanye tweets to Drake and Pusha T diss tracks to literary masterpiece "This Is America", 2018 was quite the year for rap. But if we had to boil it all down to just 10 albums, we think these are the cuts that truly rose above and summed up 2018 the best.

The musical and vocal performances on K.T.S.E. are Teyana Taylor's strongest. But in terms of messaging, she still needs to get in formation.

On NASIR, Nas is completely overshadowed by the musical performances of Kanye West and his collaborators.

Ye Season continues with what will be remembered as the most uplifting, cohesive, spiritual, and sonically excellent episode of Kanye West's serialized works.

Although not a masterpiece like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, ye shares an abbreviated, yet complete look at Kanye, both the highs and the lows.

How the allure of newness is leading Kanye West astray.

Get Out's Sunken Place is not at a distant location -- it subsists and persists in the here and now. Kanye West, Kim Kardashian and Bill Cosby should know this.

Where Elvis meets Nixon is the narrative of a poor boy smothered by the star-making machinery, Kanye meets Trump is a mixture of bi-polar manic depression, hubris, and misdirected energies.

Dropping unexpected albums is a growing trend and one that should be done away with.

Kanye West and Frank Ocean have created imperfect perfect albums which invert our notions of flaws and challenge our perception of the album as an art form.

Sirens is a masterpiece. Melding pop and experimental music, it reflects the uneasiness of our difficult times.

Kanye West samples some of the best house and soul from the second half of the 20th century.

As Digitalism continues to bring back the ghosts of old songs, Mirage demonstrates the duo’s willingness to welcome new ghosts, promising them a more audacious future.

Charles Mingus and Kanye West represent an extreme form of the complicated-and-proud-of-it black man, within a society that prefers its black men as uncomplicated and untroubling as possible.

The Life of Pablo is an ideological attack against the pop institutions that continually try to mystify art and control the artist's identity for profit.

Because The Life of Pablo pulls from so many parts of West's career the end result, unsurprisingly, is an absolute mess.

Speculating on the nominees' odds in a dozen big categories.

When it comes to enjoying great art made by not-so-great people, where can you reasonably draw the line?

Kanye West's melding of multiple genres into the hip-hop fold is a complex act that challenges the dominant white notions of what constitutes true "art" music.

In the eyes of critics, can David Lynch ever make a bad film? Or Kanye West a bad album?

The latest PopTalk podcast takes a look at whether or not, as Kanye West suggests, the Grammys and awards culture in general can or should care about "true artistry".

No one man should have all that power. The 97th most acclaimed album of all time is living in that 21st century, doing something mean to it. Counterbalance has a listen.

Arca, Yeezus co-producer, produces the heck out of his debut album.

Kirk Walker Graves' mix of fanboy marvel and critical detachment will convince even Kanye West detractors to give My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy a close listen.

Ten years after Kanye West's first album, The College Dropout, we count down the rapper's top lyrics.

The historical unfolding of hip-hop bears a strong similarity to that of literature. With that lineage in mind, it's easy to see why the '00s found hip-hop taking on its postmodern stage.

Seeing Kanye West perform, I learned not only what it's like to see a master at the top of his game, but also what it is that makes the polarizing artist so fascinating.

Given the anticipation level and lack of pre-release availability, Yeezus offered a perfect test case for the nagging question: How has the model of digital media changed the amount of time music critics spend with the records they’re assessing?