Spoon, Escovedo dominate our list of past 10 years' best Austin albums

What a difference a decade makes. As 1999 became 2000 (and the world didn't end), Spoon was a bitter band in limbo. They had been dropped by Elektra just a couple months after their 1998 major label debut "A Series of Sneaks" was released; singer-songwriter Britt Daniel was working as a substitute teacher and proofreader to pay the bills.

But he kept writing songs, and in 2001 the band signed to Merge Records and released its comeback album, "Girls Can Tell," to critical raves. After the 2005 release of "Gimme Fiction," with its bouncy, falsetto, everywhere song "I Turn My Camera On," Spoon became superstars of the indie rock scene, playing to huge, frantic crowds on the festival circuit.

But between those two milestone releases, Britt and the boys recorded a looser, yet more urgent-sounding album called "Kill the Moonlight," which our group of critics has voted the Best Austin Album of the Decade. Using the same descending 15-6 point rating system as for our annual Austin Music Pundits Awards, "Moonlight" edged "Gimme Fiction" by a single point, 68-67. Spoon landed three albums in the top 10, though 2007's "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga," the band's best-seller, didn't make the cut, perhaps because Daniel had moved to Portland, Ore., by that time and the record wasn't made in Austin.

Alejandro Escovedo placed two albums on the decade's best list, both of which had previously won AMP Awards as best album in their respective years.

Another perennial critic fave, Patty Griffin, landed "1000 Kisses" in the Top 5, with her albums "Children Running Through" and "The Impossible Dream" also receiving votes, but not enough for the top 10. Some of our eight voters decided to go with one album per artist, while others listed their 10 favorites without feeling the need to spread around the love.

The final list follows.

— Michael Corcoran

1. Spoon, 'Kill the Moonlight' (2002)

From the spare electric piano and tom-tom conversation on opening track "Small Stakes" to the Tin Pan Alley rocker "The Way We Get By" that follows, Spoon sounds on a mission to strip away all the tension that made "Girls Can Tell," recorded just a year earlier, such a major message of re-arrival. They've never before (or since) rocked harder than on "Jonathon Fisk" and "Back In the Life," but the real revelation is "Stay Don't Go," with Daniel's dreamy falsetto and giddy guitar riffs wrapped loose around a breathy beat-keeper to make the risk pay off.

— Michael Corcoran

2. Spoon, 'Gimme Fiction' (2005)

The debate rages as to whether this or "Moonlight" is the better album overall. But few bands this decade produced a side one quite like the first half of "Gimme Fiction." From the spare, apocalypse-now anxiety of "The Beast and Dragon, Adored" to the suave fairy tale "The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine" to the hard-swinging, disco-sexy hit "I Turn My Camera On" to the "My Mathematical Mind" and "The Delicate Place," few albums move with such confidence in their own sound and vision. The first track on side two, "I Summon You," is a love song that must have had Billy Joel wondering where it all went wrong. A stunning album (again).

— Joe Gross

3. Alejandro Escovedo, 'Real Animal' (2008)

Often when a veteran rocker releases an album that falls into the category of "classic rock," the result is boring or worse, a mish-mash of guitar riffs and painfully cheesy lyrics. "Real Animal" is neither. Opening with the still catchy "Always a Friend," the album is founded on good old rock 'n' roll while still managing to sound fresh. If you've spent much time in Austin over the past couple of years you've probably gotten to know tracks like the lighter-but-worthy "Sister Lost Soul" from the heavy radio play it received, but even the deeper cuts, like the Stones-esque "Smoke" and "Real as an Animal," show that Escovedo's 21st-century comeback continues to be energized.

— Peter Mongillo

4. Okkervil River, 'The Stage Names' (2007)

Will Sheff and company's follow-up to 2005's acclaimed "Black Sheep Boy" turned off some of the band's fans with its decidedly more pop-oriented direction. For every fan they lost, however, they probably gained 10. There is a lot to love about the album, so much so that it is a bit difficult to pin down what exactly makes it so special. From the opening licks on "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe," Sheff harnesses a not-quite-punk sensibility as he kicks and screams his way through a set of songs that tell a story of American culture. At first glance, some of the tracks seem doomed to failure. The gimmicky "Plus Ones" plays a numbers game with classic songs like "96 Tears" and "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"; "John Allyn Smith Sails" somehow makes its way into a cover of "Sloop John B." With this album, Okkervil River solidifies its place beside Spoon as a definitive part of Austin's indie rock sound.

— P.M.

5. Patty Griffin, '1000 Kisses' (2002)

"1000 Kisses" doesn't just ache, it stings. Seven powerfully personal original songs and three thoughtfully selected covers paint a spare, acoustic portrait of the gifted country songstress at her most shatteringly exquisite. Whether on the deeply nostalgic "Making Pies" or the heartbreakingly mournful "Long Ride Home," Griffin turns her guitar and airy, gently twangy voice toward songs of devastating emotional power. Nowhere is that more evident than on "Rain," perhaps the best side one, track one of any album this decade, an ethereal stunner that, like the album it kicks off, is so poignant it practically hurts.

— Patrick Caldwell

6. (tie) Dixie Chicks, 'Home'

Of course, "Home" was a landmark album as much for what it was as the tour around it. A mix of bluegrass instrumentation and flagrant pop moves, "Home" blended high-octane country twang ("Long Time Gone") with a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" and two Patty Griffin tunes ("Top of the World" and "Truth No. 2"). In a moment of jaw-dropping irony, the Chicks' cover of Bruce Robison's dazzling "Travelin' Soldier" was the No. 1 country song in the nation in March 2003 when lead Chick Natalie Maines spoke her mind about President Bush at a London concert and all hell subsequently broke loose. The album sold six million copies; the band's career hasn't been the same since.

— J.G.

Spoon, 'Girls Can Tell' (2001)

From the haunting solitude that sleeps alone at the center of "Everything Hits at Once" to the evocative shimmer of "Chicago at Night," Spoon emerged from the Elektra debacle with a renewed vigor and pop-crafting savvy on "Girls Can Tell." By turns pensive and playful — just ponder the contrast between the painful longing of "1020 AM" with the inviting clap-along pep of following track "Take the Fifth" — it's an 11-song journey that's occasionally spooky, occasionally rocking and constantly engaging. Britt Daniel makes it all sing, literally and figuratively, with the self-assuredly sexy swagger that's now as comfortingly familiar as the distant whistle of a train. In retrospect, it sounds like the opening salvo of a band preparing a decade-long assault on the hearts of toe-tapping Austinites everywhere. In 2001, it just sounded magical.

— P.C.

8. The Gourds, 'Bolsa de Agua' (2000)

The Gourds are incapable of making a bad album, but this one gets extra points for "El Paso," a country stomp with a nifty rhythm that never gets old. With Kevin Russell as Levon Helm, the Gourds are the closest Austin's ever gotten to the Band. Multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston makes his insertion into the lineup felt throughout, and Jimmy Smith delivers the quite engaging "Layin' Around the House." Fifteen tracks and not a weak link among them.

— M.C.

9. Alejandro Escovedo, 'A Man Under the Influence' (2001)

Like a decades-old house in the dead of night, "A Man Under the Influence" bursts with mysterious sounds, from the plaintive, pleading pedal steel on "Wedding Day" to the subtly insistent strings on "Across the River." Appropriately so, too, since the album's as lived-in as any residence — whether on the tear-stained and heartbreaking "About This Love" or the furiously rollicking guitar of 21st-century Austin anthems "Castanets" and "Velvet Guitar." "A Man Under the Influence" is a portrait of a life lived in Technicolor, rich with profound loves and losses, an Amexicana genre-hopper as indomitable and ceaselessly passionate as Escovedo himself.

— P.C.

10 (tie) ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, 'Source Tags & Codes'

Plenty of people scratched their heads when chaos-slingers \u2026And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead ended up on Interscope — could this partnership really benefit either party? Then again, it did produce "Source Tags," one of the last truly excellent indie-rock-to-major-label albums. Expanding and focusing the sounds on the striking 1999 album "Madonna," the band's wall of noise — part Sonic Youth overdrive ("Another Morning Stoner"), part Olympia, Wash., art-punk ("Homage"), part prog-rock sprawl ("Monsoon") — was never more fully realized (or better balanced). Getting a 10.0 from Pitchfork didn't hurt its iconic status either. Subsequent albums threw that delicate balance off a bit, but they'll always have this monster of toke.

— J.G.

Hayes Carll, 'Trouble in Mind' (2008)

His first album for Nashville's Lost Highway established Hayes Carll as the heir to Townes Van Zandt, or at least a Texas wharf rat version of Tom Waits (whom Carll covers here). Carll uses humor like Van Zandt used dread, with such tunes as "She Left Me for Jesus" coming dangerously close to Doctor Demento territory. But the co-write with Ray Wylie Hubbard on "Drunken Poet's Dream" is Carll at his best, riding rich imagery ("wine bottles scattered like last night's clothes") to a special place.

— M.C.

Voters: Michael Corcoran, Patrick Caldwell, Sharon Chapman, Peter Mongillo, V.M. Black, Brian T. Atkinson, Joe Gross, Kathy Blackwell, John T. Davis.