1. Radiohead — Kid A (2000)

What’d you expect? Radiohead, coming off the release of what many still consider the best album of the last 25 years (OK Computer), decided to completely reinvent itself — a risk that resulted in the “difficult,” droning, mechanized, beautiful, triumphant Kid A. It’s hard to believe now, but the initial critical reaction was largely divided — a lot of people simply did not know what to make of it.

But Kid A’s power, bewildering as it was, couldn’t be denied even back in 2000, when it debuted at the top spot of the Billboard 200. Its influence is impossible to quantify, but every time a modern band forgoes the expected, every time an album challenges us and rewards us in equal doses, every time something or someone overturns musical convention and shifts people’s perspectives, Kid A looms in the background as the decade’s bold pioneer. What’d you expect? In 2000, certainly not Kid A. In 2009, nothing less.

— Jeff Sanford

2. The Arcade Fire — Funeral (2004)

Yarning together themes of love, yearning and fatalism residual in a generation bogged down by cynicism and teen angst, Funeral served as a voice of our time and the decade’s quintessential epic record. Right from the opening piano twinkles of “Neighborhood #1,” frontman Win Butler’s passion and intensity grabs you as he describes a world of adolescent fantasies where children are unmarred by the jaded miseries of adulthood. Under bottomlessly symphonic orchestrations, neighbors danced on powerless streets, pubescent lovers dug tunnels between snow-buried homes and the realization and acceptance of identity and purpose was achieved in the peace of the backseat.

— Kristyn Acho

3. Wilco — Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

A pop album shipwrecked on the shores of Lake Michigan and scrapped for parts, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was the decade’s best proof that, from the depths of despair, inadvertent brilliance often emerges. As good as the album itself, the unlikely story of YHF’s against-all-odds conception and birth is a biblical epic that needs no retelling. What matters now is that the record’s left-field majesty is more apparent than ever. “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” is a breathtaking, slurred stroll down psychosis lane, “Jesus Etc.” is an enchanting smoky séance and “Pot Kettle Black” is a classic rocker on Quaaludes. By allowing uncompromising creativity and astonishing cohesiveness to coexist, YHF is a Beatlesque accomplishment. Just like frontman Jeff Tweedy saluted the ashes of American flags, we should salute the ashes of Wilco, a band that could never top Yankee and never will.

— Dave Watnick

4. The Strokes — Is This It (2001)

Is This It displayed New York wunderkinds The Strokes at their disenchanted finest, showcasing Julian Casablancas and Co.’s clear penchant for imploring croons and garage-y nostalgia. Often mimicked by lesser bands for their coolly disaffected sound, The Strokes may not have single-handedly saved rock ‘n’ roll (as some of the more eager members of the press gushed when Is This It first dropped in 2001), but the band has unquestionably left an indelible mark on the aughts by magnetically capturing the disillusioned sentiment of an entire generation.

— Jasmine Zhu

5. Radiohead — In Rainbows (2007)

For anyone who was starting to see Radiohead as a bunch of soulless, dial-twiddling extraterrestrials flying light-years above the rest of the music world in an ivory tower, In Rainbows arrived as a sharp rebuttal. Emerging after three consecutive albums of metallic sci-fi atmospherics, the record’s undulating warmth came as a bit of a shock.