3 of the Best No-Skip Albums of the 2000s

What’s better than an album so cohesive that it requires no skips? There are a lot of albums out there that have plenty of skippable songs—tracks that are seemingly where they shouldn’t be, or that don’t match the mood of the overall album. However, there are also a handful that are so perfect and complete that there’s no reason to skip anything. Here are three albums from the 2000s that meet that rare criteria.

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Arctic Monkeys Consistently Produce No-Skip Albums, But Their Debut is One of the Best

A prime example of a perfect no-skip album is Arctic Monkeys’ 2006 debut Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not. Their rowdy, nervy rock sound would come to a polished shine as the years progressed, culminating in 2013’s AM before veering off into sultry concept albums, but in terms of debuts, this one is grade-A certified fresh—there’s not one song skipped when I listen to this album.

Starting with “The View From the Afternoon,” an ode to drinking away writer’s block, the album then explodes into the hit single “I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor,” which possesses a rollicking urgency. “Fake Tales of San Francisco” paints a clear picture of a bored gathering to see a terrible band, as well as commentary on people who say they’re from certain cities to seem more important than they are (He’s not from San Francisco he’s from Hunter’s Bar / I don’t quite know the distance but I’m sure that’s far; for reference, Hunter’s Bar is in Sheffield so, yes, it is quite far).

Overall, with lyrically dense tracks like “Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secure,” “When The Sun Goes Down,” and “From The Ritz To The Rubble” (who else do you know who has worked the word “totalitarian” into a rock song?), Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not was a veritable explosion of sound and lyrics. Essentially, this album is my Roman Empire.

Joanna Newsom Knows How to Keep a Thread Going in a 16-Minute Song

Joanna Newsom is my personal queen of freak folk, and it comes down to the fact that she consistently writes no-skip albums featuring songs that are probably too long to put on when someone passes the aux in the car. However, her 2005 album Ys has a special place in my heart and on my CD shelf.

There are only five songs on this album, but it runs almost 56 minutes long, and you better believe we’re sitting through all of them and doing a close listening. The album opens with “Emily” (12:08), then goes into “Monkey & Bear” (9:28), which weaves a narrative of a monkey and a bear escaping captivity and experiencing the world and its hardships, at least on the surface. Next, the incredible “Sawdust & Diamonds” (9:55) features lines like And the little white dove made with love, made with love / Made with glue and a glove and some pliers / Swings a low sickle arc from its perch in the dark / Settle down, settle down my desire.

“Only Skin” clocks in at 16 minutes and 53 seconds, and every one of those minutes is spent in poetic bliss. She squawks and yodels through lines like Scrape your knee: it is only skin / Makes the sound of violins / And when I cut your hair and leave the birds all the trimmings / I am the happiest woman among all women. This is the crowning jewel of Ys, as it references images and ideas from each song before as well as the closer, “Cosmia.”

Before Their First Hiatus, Fall Out Boy Produced Their Best No-Skip Album

Released in 2008, Folie a Deux was Fall Out Boy’s last offering before their hiatus, and it’s a perfect no-skip album of emotional bangers. After this album, when the band returned in 2013, their sound had changed slightly, taking on more of a pop-rock sound than their old, textured pop-punk sonic experience. Folie a Deux was, in my opinion, the last true Fall Out Boy album.

What made this album was the song “What a Catch, Donnie,” one of the band’s only ballads. It features their friends and labelmates closing the song by singing snippets of old Fall Out Boy tracks just to get all the emo kids misty-eyed. For example, Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco took a line of “Dance, Dance,” while William Beckett of The Academy Is… signed, sealed, and delivered it all with the emotional ending of “Growing Up.”

Folie a Deux is a no-skip album because the songs are good, of course. But it’s also a no-skip because of the part of Fall Out Boy that it represents—the last album (at the time), their aggressive punk roots blended with the theatrics that made them unique. This is an album best experienced in full, and ideally in 2008. If you don’t have a time machine, just put Folie a Deux on repeat and you’ll feel like you’re there.

Featured Image by Robin Little/Redferns