Albums Of The Decade - A Couple Of Missing Legends

My wrists hurt (insert wank joke here). This is from finally writing down the 200 albums for my albums of the decade list due to start sometime next week. The list is extensive, beautiful, in fact it also brings a small tear to my eye when I look at it (even though they aren't in order yet). However there are two artists who have released really good albums this past decade however they have been squeezed out of my final list.

These two artists are Stereolab and Belle & Sebastian:

Both of these artists have extensive discographies that reach back into the early nineties. However as much as I love their albums this side of 1999, the reason that say albums as good as The Life Pursuit and Margerine Eclipse they justdon't come near to the sheer class of If You're Feeling Sinister and Dots & Loops. Maybe it is wrong to judge a band on previous exploits I don't know. I feel a certain sense of sadness that I have no room in a list of 200 albums for two of my favourite artists ever.

The absence of these artists annoys me further as neither of these bands were part of particular scenes, they didn't carry any allegiances, they stood on there own amongst the vile of britpop, boy-bands and the dreadful Cool Britannia that enraptured our nation. Yet as we move into the 21st century maybe it's time that both Stereolab (on a hiatus) & Belle & Sebastian (just coming offa hiatus) take a break and just look back at their legacy and those great albums that they created in the mid to late nineties and acknowledge the way they have influenced the artists of the decade just gone. They may not be here today but will certainly NOT be gone tomorrow.