Favourite Worst Nightmare by Arctic Monkeys

A more serious album than their debut, on its release Favourite Worst Nightmare seemed to succeed in keeping their energy whilst broadening their sound a little, yet in retrospect it sounds anything but essential. Like 2nd albums from Franz Ferdinand and the Strokes, the near perfection of the debut vision saw album number two as having the right moves, but not the songs.

Musically its fine enough, their energetic but economic guitar combo sound augmented with some spaghetti western turns, and an ever-willingness to rock in a way that few indie bands really achieve. Yet singles Brianstorm and Flourescent Adolescent aren’t quite as strong as the debut. Alex Turner would shortly broaden his palate with the Last Shadow Puppets and they remained, and remain in the first division of British alternative bands, but in many ways they’ve become just another band.

Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow

Elbow’s fourth album shouldn’t have happened. Dropped by their label, producing themselves, and four albums into a twenty year career that had only really begun to happen this decade, it came out without much in the way of expectation, but by the time it had shortlisted and won the Mercury Music Prize Elbow had gone up a notch in popularity, a stadium band, who were also seen as national treasures.

Guy Garvey’s down-to-earth Bury persona is part of this, but Garvey has always worn his heart on his sleeve lyrically, and with this album being a tribute to a dead friend, that honesty reached its apex with their fourth album. Always less than content with the short form pop song, their albums are integrated works, which still manage to have the odd radio hit on them – in this case, the song that the BBC chose to soundtrack the Olympics, the euphoric, One Day Like This, possibly the most conventionally structured song of their career.

Yet its Garvey’s world weary vocals, and the ever varied sonic palate that makes this album in particular so resonate with the times. It seems now that Elbow, four albums in, are the honesty and soul of the decade’s British music.

X&Y by Coldplay

A band’s success often takes a certain trajectory. There is the breakthrough album, then the one that takes them to another level and then the next one… for Coldplay, X&Y was the “next one” and it suffers as they often do from expectations. There had no doubt been a massive progression from debut Parachutes to A Rush of Blood to the Head, but X&Y, despite protestations at the time, seems in retrospect to be the difficult one. It has none of the standout tracks that characterised both their predecessors, or rather, those emblematic tracks were too sombre, too mainstream.

It’s a downbeat album, and I’m not sure it was what the world wanted from Coldplay in record number 3, though the world as ever gave them the benefit of the doubt. It would probably take Viva La Vida, with its renewed optimism, to stop them going into a downward spiral. There’s the troublesome Talk, a riff looking for a song, and only finding one in a sample of Kraftwerk’s Computer Love. Then there’s there most maudlin and barren ballad, the piano led Fix You. Never a guitar act in the same way that Radiohead are, the acoustic guitars and pianos on this album dominate to a somnabulistic effect.

Deliberately put into 2 sides, X and Y, the latter is the more upbeat – and there are some nice melodies, and some pleasing arrangements, but everything is either tentative or tasteful. Album tracks like What If and The Hardest Part see Chris Martin at his most plaintive, and that’s part of the band’s appeal, yet there’s something distant about the album compared with what they’ve done before.

Opening single Speed of Sound sounded beautiful but overproduced and there was some anger from commentators when it was kept from number one by a novelty record, Crazy Frog’s ringtone based version of Axel F. It was a certain irony that a band trying to cope with being modern was beaten to the top by an effortless modernity.

Yet Speed of Sound is more similar to the previous albums anthems than X&Ys acoustic ballads.

At the end of the day, the album remains a solid piece of work, beautiful in parts, but one-paced, and seeming to lack the definition of their best work. Its sales were still remarkable though – and Coldplay would end the decade having released four multi-million selling records.

Lost Souls by Doves

Though it was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, Manchester-based Doves’ debut seems curious in retrospect. Released in April 2000, Lost Souls was long awaited locally, following on from the 3 EPs/singles that had preceded it. Here it comes and particularly the epic The Cedar Room remain highlights of the album, as well as their first great melody, Catch the Sun.

Elsewhere the album’s very tentative – a sign of a band that is mingling their rave past (they used to be Sub-Sub) and a desire to become an anthemic guitar band. There’s a naive psychedelia about much of the album. At their best they hint at the euphoria that would dominate their best known works, on the 3 other albums that they’d release during the decade. An album of their live show, it primarily fillets their existing single releases for the best songs – yet they are only just beginning to try the kind of anthemic rock that would be one of the most successful forms of the decade.

In many ways its the model that New Order had always followed, though leaning heavier on the guitars, as New Order would do themselves in the following year’s Get Ready comeback album.

Singer Jimi Goodwin’s vocals aren’t at their best on this album, he, like the rest of the band seems to be still finding their feet. The dour, dark Factory Records style cover doesn’t help either – and it was only with the following album, the Last Broadcast that the band really came into its own, their always invigorating live presence making it onto record. Like Elbow, who came around at the same time, there’s an element of being a post-Radiohead band, but whereas Elbow’s introspection is often heartbreaking, Doves remain partially on the dancefloor. Here it comes and in particular Catch the Sun are euphoric anthems for a post-rave generation that still wants to go to gigs.