Top albums from this decade:
2006 (so far) - Arctic Monkey's Whatever People Say...
2005 - Sufjan Stevens' Illinois
2004 - Franz Ferdinand's Franz Ferdinand
2003 - The White Stripes' Elephant
2002 - Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2001 - The Strokes' Is This It
2000 - Radiohead's Kid A

Anyone else notice a trend?

They're all eithe UK or USA

I could be wrong, but I believe the 'trend' Jason is referring to is related to a word contained in one of the artists' names ...

Ah Jason... It was a long time since you last talked about your favourite subject, "white people vs. black people"... Wouldn't you like sometimes just to talk about music ?

Looks like white people make better music. ;)

UK is 90% white so that explains the UK artists.

Interestingly, the singles lists show an entirely different picture:

2005: Amerie - 1 Thing
2004: Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
2003: OutKast - Hey Ya!
2002: Missy Misdemeanor Elliott - Work It
2001: Missy Misdemeanor Elliott - Get Ur Freak On
2000: OutKast - Ms. Jackson

If I'm not mistaken, these are 5 black artists and 1 white. Any thoughts on why?

Kanye West and Outkast have topped us American's list. It's the brits that screwed up the list.

Rap/hip hop was always based on singles rather than albums while indie rock is the opposite. Traditionally the first genre is almost exclusively black musicians and the latter, white. So Jason's results are hardly surprising (or anything to be ashamed of).

O RLY

NME albums of the year for the 1980's

1989 De La Soul - 3 Feet High And Rising
1988 Public Enemy - Nation Of Millions
1987 Public Enemy - Yo! Bum Rush The Show
1986 Prince - Parade
1985 JAMC - Psychocandy/Tom Waits - Rain Dogs (tie for first place)
1984 Bobby Womack - The Poet II
1983 Elvis Costello - Punch The Clock
1982 Marvin Gaye - Midnight Love
1981 Grace Jones - Nightclubbing
1980 Joy Division - Closer

Yeah, I think it's a difference in how they are viewed. Urban music tends to have more successful singles, I guess. And, yeah, the U.S. list would look a lot different.

Anyway, I am surprised no one has mentioned that all of the artists on the list are male.

Well, all except half of one.

Well this isn't the 80s anymore. All those writers are probably long gone. Can you show me some evidence from at least after Tony Blair was sworn in.

No those writers aren't long gone, they are the ones that are putting things like The Streets first two albums, Dizzee Rascal etc and the like at the top of their lists in magazines like Uncut and Mojo. While their plenty of great hip-hop records made this decade their are at least five great singles (no shame in that, see Punk and Post punk) very much away from those era defining 'black' albums of the 80's. What kind of UK publication would be representing their reader's and writer's tastes by over-representing hip-hop over folk, pop or female artists? Unlike the USA hip-hop doesn't out-sell rock music and individual studio albums never do well for a sustained period unless they have big radio 1 and 2 airplay.

Less black people in Europe & Canada than the USA. Sometimes I think americans live in a box and cant be arsed to look outside it.