The idea of Yeah Yeah Yeahs excited me into writing a 2003 novel about a young man struggling with his sexuality while playing guitar in a post-punk-indebted trio unencumbered by bass and even rhythm. When a hard drive crash wiped every trace of the manuscript except a printed copy, the world proved too indifferent to even sigh happily. YYY persisted, though, releasing two subsequent albums in which the the flash of their star power painted fetching eyeliner around sturdy tunes. I sang “Heads Will Roll” last night at karaoke, kids, and I can tell you it killed.
More on those later this week. OutKast’s triumph was universal, and while it wasn’t my favorite triumph, I’ll accept it, for the purposes of this list, ahead of Missy Elliott’s most sustained album post-debut and The Libertines’ own debut, strong enough to mitigate their laughing-stock status in the UK. I’ll defend it as one of the decade’s most surprising guitar albums. But, yeah, not a good year based on the consensus.
As for the rest: The Black Album gets into the top category despite “Justify My Thug” and an awful first single. I also see the Pernice Brothers persisting beyond what I’d thought was a limit on their critical fervor. And the Liz Phair revulsion looks even sillier than when “poptimism” was coined to describe a habit as natural to workaday critics as checking the mailbox for the check.
Meh
The White Stripes – Elephant
Lucinda Williams – World Without Tears
Cat Power – You Are Free
Kings of Leon – Youth & Young Manhood
Grandaddy – Sumday
Fiery Furnaces – Gallowsbird’s Bark
Sound, Solid
Liz Phair – Liz Phair
The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
Four Tet – Rounds
50 Cent – Get Rich or Die Tryin’
Rapture – Echoes
Rufus Wainwright – Want One
Basement Jaxx – Kish Kash
Jay-Z – The Black Album
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever to Tell
Radiohead – Hail to the Thief
Warren Zevon – The Wind
Postal Service – Give Up
Pernice Brothers – Yours, Mine & Ours
Good to Great
OutKast – Speakerboxx/The Love Below
Missy Elliott – This Is Not a Test!
Dizzee Rascal – Boy in Da Corner
The Libertines – Up the Bracket
The New Pornographers – Electric Version
Fountains of Wayne – Welcome Interstate Managers
Drive-By Truckers – Decoration Day
Belle and Sebastian – Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Johnny Cash – American IV: The Man Comes Around
The Jury’s Out
My Morning Jacket – It Still Moves
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists – Hearts of Oak
Junior Senior – D-D-Don’t Stop the Beat
Humanizing The Vacuum 
American IV is one of Johnny Cash’s best recordings ever.
Agree.