As we enter the second decade of the second millennium AD, Q is pausing to look back on the last ten years. Other contributors in this series include Andy Crouch, Brett McCracken and Margaret Feinberg.
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I went into this last decade knowing that there was a lot of wonderful, under-appreciated music in the world. But until launching Paste magazine and digging through piles of CDs every week, I had no idea quite how much. Narrowing a decade of music down to 10 albums ignores the breadth of musical innovation and inspiration during an era where anyone with some instruments and computer could create their own. But these are the 10 albums that moved me the most.

Ten | Janelle Monáe: The ArchAndroid (2010)

The ArchAndroid's best song "Tightrope" opens with crackles from a record player as Janelle Monáe unleashes old-school James Brown funk on a futuristic concept album about a time-traveling android savior of humanity. It's safe to say there's never been anyone else quite like her. With guests that include Big Boi and Of Montreal and a guitarist who plays like Prince, she straddles musical worlds, enjoying every new path she blazes.

Nine | LCD Soundsystem: This Is Happening (2010)

Dance music hasn't traditionally been the domain of the best wordsmiths, but James Murphy turns a phrase as well as just about any current troubadour with a beat-up acoustic guitar. His witty, cynical observations cut through the pulsing keyboards like Jonathan Swift armed with a laser gun. It took me seeing the band live to fall fully in love with this record, but after sweating with 2,000 other devotees, I fell hard.

Eight | The National: Boxer [Beggars Banquet] (2007)

There's something about the restrained energy of The National that never wears on the listener. It's slow music that always seems right on the verge of exploding, so that its rare moments of bombast snap forward like a rubber band. The first time I heard put this CD in my car stereo, it was two weeks before I realized I hadn't swapped it out for anything else.

Seven | Iron & Wine: Our Endless Numbered Days (2004)

It’s rare that a debut album rolls around as lovely and original as Iron & Wine’s The Creek That Drank The Cradle, but for his sophomore effort, Sam Beam managed to improve upon the basement-tapes sound of his new Americana without sacrificing its intimacy. He enlisted producer Brian Deck (Modest Mouse) to give musical depth to match the songs’ haunting lyrics.

Six | Josh Ritter: The Animal Years (2006)

After the latter third of the 20th century became littered with “new Dylans,” it became obvious that no one could ever fill that role. So when Ritter made his first few strummy, literate records, there were no lofty expectations to keep him from developing his talent and fanbase. After three promising albums, the masterpiece arrived. Recorded with producer Brian Deck, who stretched Ritter’s rootsy folk in more ambitious directions, The Animal Years is bookended by a pair of epic ballads—“Girl in the War” and “Thin Blue Flame”—which helped secure his place at the table of great songwriters without ever having to live in anybody’s shadow.

Five | Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More (2010)

Marcus Mumford's lyrics wrestle with grace and, more specifically, his overwhelming need for it. His quartet uses mostly acoustic instruments and four-part harmonies to build swells worthy of Arcade Fire. The combination of music and lyrics is beauty striving for goodness and truth, and these British lads have pulled that off without sounding the least bit trite or cheesy. It's a joyful debut and the one record I can't stop playing this year.

Four | The Avett Brothers: I and Love and You (2009)

The Avett Brothers had long been one of the most energetic and entertaining live acts in the U.S., but it wasn't until this Rick Ruben-produced effort that I fell in love with one of the Brothers' studio albums. The band's rough edges had been a big part of its charm, but Scott and Seth Avett proved they can clean up real nice, too, on this broken-hearted record.

Three | Arcade Fire: Neon Bible (2007)

After releasing the most breathtaking debut of the decade, music fans everywhere wondered how Arcade Fire would follow up the most joyful album about death. The answer turned out to be a reverent, often melancholy album about life. The sound is even more expansive and ambitious with church organs giving heft to “Intervention,” mandolin energizing “Keep the Car Running” and every instrument under the sun transforming older song “No Cars Go” into a stadium anthem. If Funeral was lightening in a bottle, Arcade Fire has since made catching it seem  easy.

Two | Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

We launched Paste magazine with a track from this album on our first sampler, and no other album would influence more of the music we've covered since. Uncle Tupelo's Jeff Tweedy had proven himself as a great songwriter, but the sonic experimentations on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot would change the way we listened to music in the 2000s.

One | Sufjan Stevens: Illinois (2005)

There was simply no album released in the last 10 years that took my breath quite like Sufjan Stevens' orchestral folk masterpiece. Ostensibly about the state of Illinois, these 22 songs and musical snippets are also about goodness and evil, loss and joy, and Stevens himself. Tracks like "Casimir Pulaski Day" and "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." still break my heart every time I hear them, while "Chicago" and "Decatur, or, A Round of Applause for Your Step Mother!" make it soar.
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In your opinion, did Josh miss anything? What would be on your list?

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Editor's note: The artwork above is by Julien Pacaud.

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