Must hear: I Bet You Look Good On The DancefloorĪfter revolutionising house music with their debut album, Homework, French duo Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo branched out into their love of 70s soul and full-on rock riffs with their follow-up, Discovery. Casting a jaundiced eye over weekend warriors and flirty nightclub-goers on songs such as I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, Turner’s songs connected with a UK audience who embraced Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not as one of the best 2000s albums, and hailed Arctic Monkeys as the most exciting British band of the 2000s. As much inspired by the verbosity of UK hip-hop pioneers Roots Manuva and Mike Skinner of The Streets as it was by the scrappy garage-rock of The Libertines, Alex Turner’s songwriting painted a vivid picture of mid-2000s British youth, from wayward street workers (When The Sun Goes Down) to pub brawlers who “scrap with pool cues in their hands” (A Certain Romance). Melding Elliott’s eye-popping R&B impulses with Timbaland’s eclectic hip-hop sampling, Miss E… So Addictive still stands tall as one of the best albums to emerge from the early 21st-century rap explosion.ġ7: Arctic Monkeys: ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’ (2006)īelonging to a lineage of fiery UK acts, such as The Kinks and The Jam, who mixed social commentary with scorching rock tunes, Sheffield group Arctic Monkeys broke the record for the fastest-selling debut album in British music history with Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not.

Largely thanks to quirky hits such as the bhangra rap banger Get Ur Freak On and a club remix of 4 My People, by house duo Basement Jaxx, the album would clock up two million sales after shifting 250,000 copies in its first week. Listen to our Pop playlist here, and check out our best 2000s albums, below.Ģ0: Missy Elliott: ‘Miss E… So Addictive’ (2001)Īs the third album masterminded by Missy Elliott and super-producer Tim “Timbaland” Moseley, Miss E… So Addictive followed 1997’s Supa Dupa Fly and 1999’s Da Real World, and catapulted the game-changing star into nightclub notoriety. The best 2000s albums, from artists as diverse as French house pioneers Daft Punk and virtual group Gorillaz, saw genres collide and give us glimmers of hope and escapism just when we needed it most. Just like previous decades, however, countless musicians were on hand to shine brightly in humanity’s darkest moments, offering us a smorgasbord of pop, rock, and hip-hop that helped unify a world that seemed to be coming apart at the seams. With 9/11 and the “War On Terror” dominating the news headlines, the 2000s was a politically turbulent era with more than its fair share of anxiety and disillusionment.

New album releases rap