64. 10 Songs from my 10 Favourite Albums of the Last 10 Years

So, it is that time again, irrestistible to an inveterate lister like myself, when the lists and polls come out, whether in a fun small personal way or a big annoying publication way.
Uncut has already done their Top 150 albums of the 21st century, and as is obvious from my taste, I've been an avid Uncut reader for many years and it's informed my music taste more than most.
Their list, however, was sufficiently irritating to make me, for the first time, write a letter of complaint, or warning to the editor.
It's hard to put my finger on what was wrong exactly (i did attempt to, at length, in the letter, but i won't bore you with too many details) and I wasn't so out of step with the list, as I owned 100 of the 150, but I felt that rather qualified me to comment on how awry some of the choices at the top of the list were compared to some much lower down or ignored entirely. Indeed, i noted that most of the albums that really were my favourites of the last ten years weren't there at all.
This prompted me - well, ok, it didn't prompt me, i'd have done it anyway - to list my favourite 10 albums of the last 10 years, and then, for the purpose of the blog, to choose one song from each. The order isn't in terms of favourites, but in terms of what'll make the best compilation tape order.
I will attempt to explain and offer excuses for exclusions afterwards

To be Young, is to be Sad, is to be High - Ryan Adams (Heartbreaker)
The Shining - Badly Drawn Boy (Hour of the Bewilderbeast)
Shining Light - Ash (Free All Angels)
Bryte Side - The Pernice Brothers (The World Won't End)
Hummingbird - Wilco (A Ghost is Born)
Van Occupanther - Midlake (The Trials of Van Occupanther)
More Adventurous - Rilo Kiley (More Adventurous)
Jesus Etc - Wilco (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)
Sad Eyes - Josh Rouse (Nashville)
Dinner at Eight -Rufus Wainwright (Want One)

OK, so two Wilco. Boo, you might say, but, both these albums really are just better and better every listen and inseparable. Indeed, Wilco (The Album) was a fair contender too. And no Furries? But i love the Furries! Yes, but I will admit they haven't released a defining album this century, nor really have B and S.
Unlucky to miss out are Funeral, victim of me not really liking Arcade Fire's second album and so going off them, Come on Feel the Illinoise, an extraordinary work, but just a bit too busy, Is This It and Fleet Foxes, both just a bit too ... popular, Strangers by Ed Harcourt, which I love, Hate by the Delgados and Moving Up Country by James Yorkston, and Josh Rouse, Ryan Adams and Rilo Kiley both also could have had two albums on the list, in 1972, Gold and Execution of all Things.
And you can say Badly Drawn Boy? Really? But remember how good it was when it came out, and how well it all fitted together. Ash I make no apology for, that's just an album full of golden tunes. Rufus Wainwright might elicit the same response as Badly Drawn Boy - i think Want One is his one great album, its follow-up unspeakably poor.
For once, I haven't tried to be fair and show i was eclectic - there really are no hip-hop, soul, pop, dance albums anywhere near it (and I have bought a few), it's pretty much all alt-country for me. I am slightly disappointed that these albums don't stand out more, they're hardly definitive or breathtaking, they're just my favourites. I'm drawn, in an way, to quite middling music ...
Anyway, this blog was started with the idea of me trying to establish some orthodoxy of critical judgement, a basically impossible task. Lists are always going to be vexing bullshit to a greater or lesser extent.

Amusingly, what I wrote below is actually from exactly 10 years ago, in response to some bullshit Channel 4 Music of the Millennium Poll, where, as I recall, Robbie Williams was judged the 6th most significant artist of the Millenium. Behind the Vengaboys. Not really.
I'd hope that I'd matured since then and i was more capable of restraining my apoplexy, but although it's modified, and I wouldn't expect better of Channel 4, with Uncut it really was a case of "I expected better of you".
This is funny: it's like some crazy rhyme heavy performance stuff, like Scroobius Pip or something. Talking of lists, his list song Thou Shalt Not Kill, that's fun.

I'd like to dismiss as
ridiculous these tricksters
who pick pocket polls -
but they're taking their toll.
What kind of shit is this?
Whose Christmas wishlist?
What sickness infects us
that taste is so restless?
Maybe I'm twisted,
listless and pissed off,
a stickler for mistakes
in critic list pisstakes
so wearyingly risque,
focus-group risk takes -
but if these lists didn't exist
I'd miss what they miss.