10 2000s Albums That Are A Lot Better Than You Remember

Out of all the glory years of decades past, the start of the new millennium definitely had the most interesting trajectory. From the worlds of rock, pop, and hip hop, the early '00s has gone from cool to dated and now back into being cool within the span of just a few years. Then again, when you had these albums to choose from, it's no wonder why mass opinion was divided so much.

As much as these albums are great for what they are, they've definitely been misunderstood in their time. Whether it was because of the drastic shift in direction or just the shock factor of something like this even working, a handful of these albums were met with disdain or at the very least confusion by those who were listening to it, deeming it almost too weird to be anything worthwhile. This wasn't weird though...it was the sound of the future.

Across every one of these albums, you can hear the seeds of what we now see in modern music sprinkled throughout all of them, including some of the old guard roaring back to life. They may look like they've aged as badly as the cringiest moments of TRL, but the tracks from these deserve to be remembered a lot more for the laughs.

By the time the '00s really started rolling, the idea of alternative hip hop wasn't necessarily all that new anymore. After all, a Tribe Called Quest had been making waves since the '80s and the amazing beats of someone like J Dilla were peppered throughout hip hop's history for a while. That was just the earthly moments though...how about hip hop that sounded like it came from another galaxy?

With only one album to its name, Delton 3030's debut is everything you could really want in a hip hop album around the turn of the century, as it tells a loose futuristic tale of this one man's journey through a space age society. Aside from the raw bars across here, the production is also immaculate, bringing a grimy feel that wouldn't feel that out of place on the first handful of Star Wars movies.

This is also responsible for giving us the first appearances of Del the Funky Homosapien, who most people know nowadays as the voice of the internal ghost of Russell on Gorillaz' debut singles like Rock the House and Clint Eastwood. Hell, even Damon Albarn has a few guest spots on here to add that alternative leaning tone. Even though Gorillaz might have been way more profitable for each of these men, this was a sign that we were only going up from here.