Artists of the Decade

Looking back ten years, this decade has produced some of the coolest music. Here are my "hits" and "misses":

Hits:

Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and U2 did not rest on their laurels, stayed productive in the studio, toured endlessly with real fire, and ended the decade on top of their game.
Not a bad album in the bunch. Not bad for a bunch of geezers whose collective musical experience rests at 130 years.

The Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear and a dozen other young bands went their own way and proved that indie music, produced on small labels, is the sound for today. Quirky yes; boring no. Made me forget the 1960s,1970s,1980s, 1990s, and actually live in the moment.

Radiohead put a bullet in the heads of every major music label by offering their music up at any price. They could get away with this because of the brilliance of the music. Name a better band that so effortlessly put out work as diverse as Kid A and In Rainbows. The new Beatles? You bet.

Hats off to Timbaland and Kanye West for taking Hip Hop to new places. Hard not to admire the ear candy that diverse artists like Missy Elliott routinely served up. And to M.I.A., who made it global, without borders, mixing in sounds at will like a chef adds spices.

And kudos to Apple, whose creative energy designed a device called the iPod and software called iTunes that brought convenience and portability to hundreds of millions of end consumers.

Misses:

Watching talented individuals like Ryan Adams and Elliot Smith self destruct.

Having America buy into the herd mentality of American Idol.

The vinyl revolution. Way too much hype for a medium that failed three decades ago. 2 million units actually shipped; yet thousands of Audiogon posts waxing estatic. Nobody actually talks about the dead wax they own and the wide range of quality problems. I pity the suckers who bought into the 180 versus 200 gram hype.