Three albums from the 2000s you should listen to again now

The 2000s—a time of rapidly changing technology, geopolitical instability, and existential dread. It was a decade of musical innovation too, where artists across genres flirted with the digital while grappling with the analog, tapping into both societal unrest and personal angst. As the years pass, certain albums have come to feel like period pieces, their relevance diminishing alongside the flip phones and MySpace pages of that era. But then there are the others—those albums that still feel eerily pertinent today, as if they were written not for 2007, but for 2025.

Here are three such albums. If you’ve heard them before, you should probably hear them again. If you’ve not, then what are you waiting for?!

Porcupine Tree — Fear of a Blank Planet (2007)

If there was ever an album that captured the restlessness and alienation of the 21st-century teenager, it’s Fear of a Blank Planet. The brainchild of Steven Wilson’s progressive rock project, Porcupine Tree, the record might seem, at first blush, like an artefact of the ‘00s, but listen closer and it becomes clear that Fear of a Blank Planet is less about teenage malaise and more about a kind of universal, ongoing disconnection.

Written at the dawn of the iPhone era, the album’s meditation on technology-induced numbness feels prophetic today. The opening title track is both a lament and an accusation:

X-box is a god to me
A finger on the switch
My mother is a b***h
My father gave up ever trying to talk to me.

What was once a teenage anthem about retreating into digital escapism now sounds uncomfortably familiar to everyone. Musically, it’s prog rock with the emotional urgency of Radiohead, the complexity of early Genesis, and a touch of metal’s sharpness—a combination that keeps Fear of a Blank Planet still fresh. It’s as relevant as ever, if not more so, in a world where screens dominate our daily lives.

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Muse — Absolution (2003)

Muse’s Absolution is many things: dramatic, bombastic, paranoid. In the early 2000s, it was also a bit over the top, the kind of album you either loved or eye-rolled through. But two decades later, it feels startlingly of the moment. Written in the wake of 9/11, when the world was reeling from newfound threats and old fears of nuclear apocalypse, Absolution bursts with anthems about destruction, survival, and the search for meaning amidst chaos. Sound familiar?

Take “Time is Running Out,” with its jittery bass line and Matt Bellamy’s soaring falsetto. It’s a song about an impending sense of doom, of being out of control—and it hits home in an era of climate anxiety and global instability. The apocalyptic overtones of tracks like “Stockholm Syndrome” and “Hysteria” no longer seem melodramatic but prescient, reflecting a world teetering on the brink. What once felt like youthful melodrama is now the soundtrack to middle-aged existential dread. Musically, Muse’s theatrical rock sound was both ahead of and perfectly of its time, blending classical influences with post-grunge crunch. If you once dismissed it as too much, it’s worth revisiting to find that maybe, just maybe, the world caught up to Muse’s maximalist vision.

John Mayer — Continuum (2006)

When John Mayer released Continuum, he was still best known as the guy who sang “Your Body is a Wonderland”—a talented guitarist, sure, but someone originally slightly more associated with radio-friendly pop than with musical gravitas. But this third album, blending blues, rock, and Mayer’s reflective lyrics, changed that. It was a crossover moment, where he shrugged off the “pop star” label and revealed the depth of his songwriting.

The themes of Continuum—love, loss, hope, and melancholy—are timeless, but the way Mayer approached them felt especially tuned in to the quiet, personal crises of the late 2000s. In “Waiting on the World to Change,” Mayer wrestles with a generational feeling of helplessness. This was 2006, but the sentiment resonates just as strongly today.

Mayer’s guitar work throughout the album is sublime, his guitar providing the emotional heartbeat of the record. Tracks like “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” and “Gravity” find Mayer at his most introspective, both musically and lyrically. Where Muse went maximalist with Absolution, Mayer distilled his emotions into minimalist blues, as if trying to carve out a quiet space in a loud, chaotic world. It’s an album for grown-up reflection, and maybe that’s why it sounds even better today—whether you’re 35 or 25, Continuum finds you where you are.

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In revisiting these albums, we’re not just indulging in nostalgia; we’re recognising that the music of the 2000s, at its best, was grappling with themes that continue to define our lives today. Whether it’s technology’s alienating effects, the looming spectre of societal collapse, or the personal struggles of navigating love and loss, these records still resonate. They were never just products of their time—they were soundtracks to the human condition, playing on an endless loop.