The albums that defined
the 2000s.

The 2000s are when the music industry as we knew it ends and something quieter takes its place. Napster opens the decade, Spotify closes it. CD sales collapse. Pitchfork supplants Rolling Stone as the consensus tastemaker, and "indie" stops meaning a label and starts meaning an aesthetic. The album doesn't die — but it stops being the only unit that matters.

The records, though: extraordinary. Radiohead's Kid A redefines what a big-band rock album can be. Outkast's Stankonia and Speakerboxxx/The Love Below open hip-hop to anything and everything. Kanye drops his first three albums and reorders the genre's center of gravity. Arcade Fire, The Strokes, Wilco, Sufjan Stevens, M.I.A., Beyoncé — every quadrant has its decade-defining record. The early '00s are also when "soundtrack rock" — the strain that fits perfectly into prestige TV and indie film — calcifies into a recognizable thing.

Where to start: Kid A for art-rock's first 21st-century classic, Funeral for the indie record that taught a million bands how to feel big, Late Registration for hip-hop's best mid-career run, Sea Change for Beck's quiet masterpiece, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for the alt-country record that turned out to be about the future. The '00s are easy to dismiss as the decade rock peaked too late — but the catalog is deeper than its reputation.