Clash is 10! Founded in 2004, and with our 100th issue imminent, we’re having just a small celebration. It’s alright, we’re quite sober, promise. But we do have a top 100 albums of Clash’s lifetime to share with you. Which is pretty much a party, in list form.
No mucking about then, getting right into it.
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100
Kode9 And The Spaceape – ‘Black Sun’
(2011, Hyperdub)
Much like the image of a black sun, Hyperdub’s 10th anniversary year (feature) has been marked by both darkness and light. Steve Goodman’s long-time collaborator and friend passed away – and it’s his earthy vocals that create a deep sense of foreboding on this shared record, which was uncharacteristically light in its production thanks to Kode9’s twinkling synths. RIP Spaceape. Felicity Martin
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99
The Child Of Lov – ‘The Child Of Lov’
(2013, Double Six)
A saturated, sparkling debut album – and sadly the final word from the Dutch producer and musician otherwise known as Cole Williams, who passed away in December 2013 at the uncommonly young age of 25. This eponymous set is a gloriously intoxicating mix of sinuous D’Angelo-style RnB, glitchy broken-down beats and sweet, soulful vocals. The influence of J Dilla hangs heavily over tracks featuring impressive collaborators such as Damon Albarn and DOOM. It’s a low-slung, luscious swansong from an unquestionably unfulfilled talent. Anna Wilson
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98
Beach House – ‘Teen Dream’
(2010, Bella Union/Sub Pop)
Beach House scored a hat trick with their third instalment of dream-pop. Youth nostalgia got a fitting soundtrack from the Baltimore duo, with Fleetwood Mac-style flourishes and frail, bright choruses – proving that a distinctive style can evolve while staying true to its main elements and not grow stale. Let’s all go back to our teens and never grow up. Felicity Martin
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97
Panda Bear – ‘Person Pitch’
(2007, Paw Tracks)
Plunging himself back into solo recordings after Animal Collective’s 2005 LP ‘Feels’, Panda Bear – real name Noah Lennox – used his laptop to piece together the myriad influences buzzing around his head. Fusing Beach Boys harmonies to avant electronics, gorgeous acoustic guitar to feral percussion, ‘Person Pitch’ remains a stone-cold masterpiece. Hugely refreshing, its atmosphere of purity and innocence stood starkly out from the crowd, and has – if anything – only strengthened over time. Robin Murray
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96
Thom Yorke – ‘The Eraser’
(2006, XL Recordings)
‘The Eraser’ properly introduced the skittering, jittery ADHD sound of Yorke’s solo electronica, which close to a decade later has become an indelible part of the topography of contemporary music. Slight but satisfying, it’s flawed but still quite brilliant in part. That voice, wholly unique, is allowed to soar over these glitch-riddled tracks like a bird of prey over a barren and burned-out landscape. But it’s a bird on a string and the landscape is intensely claustrophobic: monochrome, rain-soaked and singularly English. Anna Wilson
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95
Franz Ferdinand – ‘Franz Ferdinand’
(2004, Domino)
While most of the post-punk revival was arid and a little joyless, Franz Ferdinand’s debut stuck out like a glistening desert island amidst a vast ocean. Packed with pop potential, each track seemed destined to become an anthem – ‘Take Me Out’ flounced into the top five, while the gleefully camp romp that is ‘Michael’ remains a live favourite. ‘Franz Ferdinand’ swiftly followed these tracks and soared into the charts at number one – in both a commercial and songwriting sense, they’ve yet to top it. Robin Murray
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94
Grizzly Bear – ‘Veckatimest’
(2009, Warp)
Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear already had a mesmeric long-player beneath their collective belt with 2006’s sumptuous, detailed ‘Yellow House’, a palpable critical hit. That they followed what might have been another act’s highest-water mark with an even better set speaks volumes of the foursome’s incredible ambition. Adored in the press, and rightly so, ‘Veckatimest’ also proved a commercial success for its makers, charting in the top 10 stateside and transforming the band’s fortunes in a single studio set. A record born from isolation, from escaping the city for more natural surroundings, this is both widescreen and undeniably intimate, a stylistic blend of traditional and experimental sounds that manages to suit both the fireside and the freeway. Mike Diver
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93
The Kills – ‘No Wow’
(2005, Domino)
Back when Alison Mosshart was still known as VV, and Jamie Hince was going by the name Hotel, The Kills fizzed with enigmatic curiosity. Their second album heightened the nihilistic menace of their ominous, austere motorik blues that their 2003 debut, ‘Keep On Your Mean Side’, introduced. As a result, songs like ‘Love Is A Deserter’ and ‘The Good Ones’ thrilled with dark, Velvets-like coercion and sexual intensity, confirming the duo’s successful chemistry, in more ways than one. Simon Harper
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92
SBTRKT – ‘SBTRKT’
(2011, Young Turks)
A paper mask exploded onto the UK’s ‘post-dubstep’ wasteland in 2011, and we all lost our shit. Aaron Jerome’s self-titled debut had him moving away from his former garage aesthetic and into the pop sphere – but he brought some of that essential grit with him. Joining him: a handful of vocalists (Sampha, Jessie Ware and Roses Gabor among them) who contributed to a playful, experimental – and moreover, coherent – breakthrough LP. Felicity Martin
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91
Liars – ‘Sisterworld’
(2010, Mute)
Men of many musical colours, of myriad strands of sonic exploration, Liars’ fifth LP was – much like everything that came before it – always going to challenge expectations. As it happened, the album captured the trio flitting from enveloping ambience to bombastic assaults on at least three of the senses – yep, you get this stuff stuck on your tongue as easily as it enters the ears to send rainbow patterns sashaying across the retinas. Noisy, sure, but never without the sweetest of melodies peeping over the parapets of what’s up next, ‘Sisterworld’ is this always-inspired band’s most definitive release – well, as ‘definitive’ as any one set can be when the band behind it just does whatever the hell it wants to come every new collection. Mike Diver
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Part two of this list, 90-81, coming soon.
Get involved: tell us your own favourite albums of the last 10 years, here.
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