I frankly don’t understand the need to make top ten (or 25, or 50, or 100) lists for the past decade.  Why examine the period from 2000 to 2010?   Why not 1998 to 2008, or 1995 to 2005?  What is the difference?  Each industry or category to be measured goes through major hurdles at different times.  Obviously politics isn’t even measured in ten year cycles.  Social opinion about international issues would be better measured in the period from 2001 to 2011…  Music would probably be better measured from the period of Napster (2000) to the advent (or major use anyway) of reliable easy to use (and free) streaming music services (I haven’t listened to an mp3 for at least six months now because of grooveshark) in 2010. 

Since I follow the music community I’ve seen a ton of lists for the past ten years of music.  How can you do that?  How can you include Kid A in the same time frame for consideration with groups like Does It Offend You, Yeah?  The latter where likely in high school or junior high when Kid A was released.  Music, and many things, can’t be measured in convenient epochs.  Nirvana changed music forever, but didn’t release their album January 1st, 1990, but September 1991, almost two years into that decade. 

Even making a top list for a single year is a ridiculous task for industries like music in which new fads can spring up overnight (like this dumb lady gaga thing).  These lists also tend to favor what has happened recently. Just look at any top music list and you’ll see MGMT … I like MGMT as much as the next guy, but really?  Top ten albums of the decade?  No. 

A better idea maybe would be to compile an ongoing list of “what is truly great.” Perhaps something can only be added a year after it’s release, to gauge it’s effectiveness… I think that might work better than “top ten albums of the decade.”