THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2001:
Love, Theft, Innocence, & Despair
Introduction
Albums Of The Year:
Bob Dylan - "Love And Theft"
The Langley Schools Music Project - Innocence & Despair
2001’s co-winners of my Album Of The Year couldn’t be more different in
more ways, but, bafflingly enough, they couldn’t be more similar. One is
by a sixty year-old icon of rock music who, in 2001, reached a new
career high, and the other is a twenty-five year-old recording by a
group of pre-teen children. So wildly different, but they seem to
complement each other perfectly.
This past spring, it was announced that Bob Dylan had surreptitiously
headed into the studio for a fortnight, and the resulting disc, entitled
”Love And Theft”, was to be released the coming fall. Fan
speculation about what the album would be like was rampant, and in the
end, it turned out to be completely different from 1997’s excellent
Time out Of Mind. Gone were the brooding atmospheres of the
Daniel Lanois-produced Time out Of Mind, in favour of a more
stripped-down sound. And what a sound…Dylan’s band, arguably the most
versatile backing band on the planet, at long last got a chance to show
their chops on record, resulting in one of the most exuberantly-played
albums of Dylan’s long career.
But it was Bob who still stole the show. On ”Love And Theft” he
did a 180 degree turn from the introspective themes of Time… and
focused on the ancient tradition of plain old storytelling. The title
”Love And Theft”, lifted from a book of the same name about
turn-of-the-century minstrel music, explored the roots of 20th century
American music, from twelve-bar blues, to rockabilly, to country folk,
to searing rock & roll, to old-fashioned, languid, crooning ballads.
Dylan’s love of life is very evident, and a whimsical spirit lies
beneath almost every track, and you can practically see Dylan’s
mustachioed grifter’s face winking right back at you. On ”Love And
Theft”, Dylan’s music has never sounded more vital.
Over on the other far end of the musical universe is a strange cd
entitled Innocence & Despair, by something called The Langley
Schools Music Project. The story behind the album’s release is as odd as
the music it contains: A Vancouver fan of a New Jersey radio station’s
regular program featuring eclectic music happened across an old copy of
a record made by a Langley, BC area school in the 1970’s, and was so
amazed at what he heard that he burned a cd copy of the record and sent
it to the radio station. The show’s host, Irwin Chusid, was equally
blown away, and proceeded to try to get the music rereleased to a wider
audience. He found a taker in the form of Bar None Records, and
Innocence & Despair, a combination of two albums made for the
students in 1976 & 1977, arrived in music stores everywhere, like it had
been beamed in from another planet.
Innocence & Despair is simply astounding. The music, recorded on
two tracks under the supervision of an unknowingly whacked-out visionary
music teacher named Hans Fenger, features a group of sixty elementary
school students singing the popular pop music tunes of the day, with
minimal musical back-up of drums, a cymbal, xylophones, and one-string
bass, all played by the students, and guitar and piano played by Fenger.
At times the songs, which range from the work of Brian Wilson, to Paul
McCartney, to the Eagles, to Fleetwood Mac, surpass the original
recordings, either making the songs virtually explode with youthful
energy (case in point: the raucous cover of the Bay City Rollers’
‘Saturday Night’) or overflow with naïve melancholy (case in point: the
jaw-dropping version of the Eagles’ overwrought ballad ‘Desperado’, sung
solo by a little girl). If that weren’t enough, the, er, ‘musicianship’
by the kids is something to behold. Drummers are overeager and can’t
hold the tempo properly, cymbal crashes come in half a beat too late,
and the xylophone fills sound primitive. Yet it all comes together in
the end, and something that sounded extremely strange in the beginning
winds up leaving you incredibly moved at the end.
But how are both records similar? First off, there’s the theme of light
and darkness, happy and gloomy, or, if you will, love & theft or
innocence & despair. Dylan exuberantly sings “lift up your glasses and
sing” on the rollicking ‘Summer Days’, and jokes on ‘Floater’ and ‘Po’
Boy’, while the Langley kids have a blast singing songs like ‘Good
Vibrations’ and ‘I’m Into Something Good’. On the other side of the
coin, Dylan sings a surreal, apocalyptic tale in ‘High Water’ and chides
a woman in ‘Sugar Baby’; meanwhile, if the closing harmoies of the kids’
version of ‘God Only Knows’ doesn’t break your heart, you’re not
human.
The albums also have similar production. ”Love And Theft”,
produced by Dylan himself, has a stripped-down sound, allowing his
formidable band to let loose. Multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell
remains Dylan’s ace-in-the-hole, providing back-up with guitar,
mandilin, fiddle, bouzouki, you name it. Charlie Sexton provides ace
guitar fills, while the rhythm section of bassist Tony Garnier and
drummer David Kemper sound ultra-tight. Meanwhile, over in little ole
Langley, the acoustics of the schools’ gymnasiums, combined with the
voices of the kids and all the instruments, all recorded on two tracks,
often stunningly resemble Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound.
Most of all, though, is the shadow of the tragic events that defined
2001 for the ages. ”Love And Theft” will be forever, inextricably
linked with the WTC attacks, not only because it was released on
September 11, the new millenium’s own Day Of Infamy, but also because of
both the themes of impending darkness, best illustrated on ‘High Water
(“Big Joe Turner looking east and west from the dark room of his mind/He
made it to Kansas City, Twelfth Street and Vine/Nothin' standing
there/High water everywhere”), and the ultimate theme of love and
redemption conquers all (“Love is pleasing, love is teasing, love not an
evil thing”). Innocence & Despair, released on October 23, serves
as an antidote to all the doom and gloom of the past four months. Here
is a record of a bunch of regular kids, singing their guts out just for
the fun of it. They’re not a polished choir, but they sound infinitely
better than technically proficient children. They’re just having fun,
and while listening to Innocence & Despair, you realise that
despite what’s going on in the world, it’s not all that bad.
Ranging from Dylan’s wry Bo Diddley-fused fable ‘Tweedle Dun & Tweedle
Dee’, his masterfully melancholy ‘Mississippi’, his portentious ‘High
Water’, and the powerful ‘Sugar Baby’, to The Langley Schools Music
Project’s sweet rendition of ‘Mandy’, the innocence-epitomizing ‘In My
Room’, their whacked-out version of ‘Space Oddity’ that even managed to
blow away Mr. Bowie himself, and the astonishing finale of the
ultra-cheesy ‘Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft’ with the chorus
of “We are your friends” really sounding like they actually do
want to contact life out there, both ”Love And Theft” and
Innocence & Despair ultimately resonate with something that has
been absent from ninety percent of the music that has come out this past
year: Life.
2. Pulp - We Love Life
Following the staggering success of their mid-Nineties masterpiece Different Class, Pulp had a bit of trouble coming to grips with their sudden fame, after years of living in relative obscurity. Their follow-up, 1998's gloomy, yet still enthralling, This Is Hardcore was a rather paranoid little exercise, and its haphazard shifting of styles from song to song seemed like the band couldn't really decide what direction to go in next. When frontman Jarvis Cocker wasn't sounding like his normal self, he was imitating either Nick Cave or David Bowie. Pulp's identity crisis came to a head a year ago, when the band scrapped an album's worth of recordings, and for a while their future was in limbo. I don't know whose idea it was, but Pulp headed back into the studio to give it another shot, this time under the tutelage of legendary recluse Scott Walker, and the result, the optimistically titled We Love Life, in my opinion, eclipses the great Different Class.
Unlike This Is Hardcore, We Love Life is a much more focused album, and its eleven tracks, lushly produced by Walker, have more of a cohesiveness than its predecessor. Walker's production is gorgeous, deftly treading the line between full-sounding and complete overkill. With string sections, choirs, and the aural equivalent of throwing a warm, comfy blanket over everything, Walker's studio touches enhance, instead of drown out, Cocker's typically introspective lyrics.
And those Cocker lyrics...there are few great pleasures in new music like encountering brand-new Jarvis Cocker songs. His lyrics, which are wry, self-deprecating, hilarious, and tragic, are like nothing else in music today. For me they've always bore much similarity to the films of Mike Leigh, contemporary portraits of lower-class UK life. 'Weeds' ("We are weeds, vegetation, dense undergrowth") and 'Weeds II (the origin of the species)' ("Found flowering on wasteland, unnoticed") have Cocker revisiting his lower-class milieu, while 'The Night Minnie Timperley Died' and 'Bob Lind' are excellent portraits of sad characters. 'The Birds In Your Garden' and 'Bad Cover Version' are classic Cocker love songs, and the album's penultimate song, 'Roadkill', is a dark, lonely song that precedes the soaring, uplifting 'Sunrise'.
Two songs on We Love Life rank among Cocker's best ever. 'The Trees' is an absolutely beautiful song, with a pretty strings sample from 'Tell Her You Love Her' playing behind some of Cocker's most vivid lyrics: "Your skin so pale against the fallen autumn leaves...the trees, those useless trees, they never said that you were leaving." Better yet is the eight-minute epic 'Wickerman', which has to be the best thing Cocker & Pulp have ever done. A mostly spoken-word portrait of his native Sheffield, it juxtaposes descriptions of the river that runs throught he city ("Just behind the station, before you reach the traffic island, a river runs thru a concrete channel") with scenes of Cocker reminiscing of his early years in the city. The images Cocker writes are unforgettable: "Beneath the old Trebor factory that burnt down in the early seventies. Leaving an antiquated sweet-shop & caverns of nougat and caramel", "pensioners gathering dust like bowls of plastic tulips", "pudgy fifteen year-olds addicted to coffee whitener". A brilliant sample appears midway through the song, a subtle acoustic guitar sample from the song 'Willow's Song' from the film The Wicker Man, which also fits; although the film and the song are not related, Cocker used to live in a Sheffield area called The Wicker, so that adds a nifty touch to a spectacular song.
We Love Life came very, very close to being my favourite album of the year, and the fact that it's Number Two doesn't diminish its stature in my books. It's a more mature, optimistic Pulp we're hearing, and though it won't generate five massive singles like Different Class did, it's Pulp's greatest record. Hey, if nothing else, it was the following line that clinched it for me: "It's like a later 'Tom & Jerry' when the two of them could talk, like the Stones since the Eighties, like the last days of Southfork. Like 'Planet Of The Apes' on TV, the second side of 'Til The Band Comes In', like an own-brand box of cornflakes: he's going to let you down my friend." I love We Love Life.
3. Super Furry Animals - Rings Around The World
It has to be every indie band's dream to be given a kazillion dollars by a generous record company to head into the studio and try to produce the album of their lives. In the case of Welsh band Super Furry Animals, this actually did happen, and they took the opportunity to throw everything, including the proverbial kitchen sink, into Rings Around The World. It was a huge gamble, but the result is an exuberant, mind-blowing, psychotic, schizophrenic opus that is a complete blast to listen to.
Although Rings Around The World has so many studio bells and whistles enhancing each track that there are too many to mention (The overall production resembles a whacked-out hybrid of the Beatles, Beach Boys, ELO, Ziggy-era Bowie, and Phil Spector), the quality of each song holds up. The title track is so stinkin' ELO that Jeff Lynne should sue, 'Sidewalk Serfer Girl' is a glammed-up Beach Boys parody, 'It's Not The End Of The World?' sounds like Blur's best ballads (complete with orchestral backup), '(A) Touch Sensitive' is a very effective stab at trip-hop, 'Shoot Doris Day' resembles a twisted Elvis Costello, 'No Sympathy' is a cross between Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young and electronica, 'Run Christian Run' is a country-tinged ballad, and 'Fragile Happiness' sounds like something off the Velvet Underground's third album. Wow...and I'm not even finished yet.
Two songs on Rings Around The World, believe it or not, are even more astounding. 'Juxtaposed With U' is a seamless combination of electronic pop, Marvin Gaye soul, and social commentary, that features singer Gruff Rhys alternately singing vocoder-enhanced verses and a crooning chorus of "I'm not in love with you, but I won't hold that against you." Even better, though, is the four-minute burst of genius, 'Receptacle For The Respectable'. It starts off with a clappy-rhythmed, upbeat section that sounds most like Paul McCartney's solo work, complete with catchy 'ba-ba-ba' harmonies. Suddenly the song shifts into sn Abbey Road-like bridge that's half as fast. But wait - the song beaks again into a slower coda, sounding like Pet Sounds era Brian Wilson, with the inspired backing accompaniment of the sound of Paul McCartney himself eating carrots and celery (!), and then it gathers momentum again, and the song concludes very loudly, with Rhys doing his best death metal vocal impersonation. Needless to say, it's one of the coolest songs I've heard in a long, long time. Whew!
Lyrically, Rings Around The World is at times oblique (so what is the alternate route to Vulcan Street, anyway?), but it has its moments of profundity. There's the satire of the aforementioned 'Juxtaposed With U', as well as 'Sidewalk Serfer Girl', and the sharp-tongued Clinton satire of 'Presidential Suite'. 'Shoot Doris Day sounds like Rhys has something against the film The Man Who Knew Too Much, with the hint in the line 'sentimentality pause/as Jimmy Stewart ignores her question."
Rings Around The World might be stylistically all over the map, and some people may think it sounds like Super Furry Animals are desperately trying to show the world how clever they are, but it's so much fun to listen to, that it hardly matters. It's pretty much a perfect album, and I'm ever-so-thankful there are bands out there willing to throw everything they've got into a record just to see what comes out. Sometimes it comes out as a colossal failure, but in the case of Rings Around The World, there's the slight chance that it just might be a resounding success.
*An import-only release this past year in North America, Rings Around The World will be released domestically over here in March 2002.
4. The Strokes - Is This It
Hype, thy name is The Strokes. From late 2000 to this past October, the
anticipation towards the debut album by The Strokes grew and grew
(thanks mainly to their songs being exchanged online in mp3 form) to the
point where some cooler-than-thou's who considered them so cool in
February thought them bland and mainstream in September. Funny how a
band, who ranks now among the best bands in America, who are so
quintessentially New York, should give all credit for their success to
the British music press. It was the Brits who first swarmed all over
2000's astounding The Modern Age EP, and it's still the Brits who
consider their album, the wryly-titled Is This It, a modern
classic.
It's ironic how a band like The Strokes, who evoke the best qualities of
New York rock music in the past thirty years, from Lou Reed & the Velvet
Underground's pioneering guitar rock, to the punk, DIY aesthetic of
Television and the Ramones, can come off today as sounding, well,
UnAmerican, something completely different than the boring,
angst-ridden loud guitar rock we hear on the radio. From the presence of
preening singer Julian Casablancas to the jaunty, jangly, and (gasp!)
melodic songs on Is This It, The Strokes sound more like a
typical UK band. In fact, Is This It is the best, most arrogantly
self-assured debut since Oasis' Definitely Maybe. They're not
mincing words...they're here to be stars.
Sounding like it was recorded in a sweaty, stinky basement (apparently a
more slickly-produced version of the album was scrapped), Is This
It possesses as much energy as other lo-fi classics as The Ramones'
debut and the Velvets' White Light White Heat, and every song
over the thiry-five minute cd is instantly memorable. The mellow opening
title track resembles something Pavement might have done, while songs
like 'Last Nite' and 'Someday' pick up the pace. 'The Modern Age' is a
well-executed Velvets impersonation, right down to the guitar solo,
which sounds lifted straight off 'I Heard Her Call My Name', but it
doesn't get much better than the new-wave tinged 'Barely Legal' and
'Hard To Explain (the latter was a monster single in the UK this past
spring), two songs that rank among the year's best. By the time
Casablancas is defiantly howling "Take it or leave it" at the album's
conclusion, you can't believe it's over, and you wind up reaching for
the repeat button.
I might have ranked Is This It higher on my list, were it not for
a couple of politically correct moves by their record label, RCA. The
original cover was much more provocative and attention-getting, one that
spits in the face of what the suits deem proper, but instead was
replaced by comparitively ordinary artwork. Also, and most
significantly, the band was forced to replace the killer, raucous 'NYC
Cops' with the good, but again, ordinary, 'When It Started', all to
avoid a likely huge backlash by ignorant people blinded by the Sept. 11
tragedy enough not to realise the song is tongue-in-cheek. 'NYC Cops' is
a searing, Ramones-like rave-up, and today, tomorrow, and for a long,
long time after, people will be questioning and lampooning authority,
and looking back in the future, the omission of such a great song will
look trite. The UK version of Is This It has the song, as well as
the original cover art, but for now, we in North America will have to
make do. Thankfully, there are more than enough good qualities on Is
This It that more than make up for it, and we'll play the heck out
of it, eagerly anticipating the follow-up to what is, in the end, a
great, great album.
5. Tool - Lateralus
It takes one listen to Tool's 'Ticks & Leeches', from their album
Lateralus, with its perfect combination of intricacy, percussive dexterity, and controlled intensity, to realise they've redefined progressive metal for the
new millenium. The rather heady genre had been dormant for the past
decade, peaking in 1988, but bands like Dream Theater and Nevermind
proudly carried the torch for what became a cult following in the
1990's. With Lateralus, however, Tool completely lives up to
their great potential, delivering their best album ever, one that will stand
alone as one of the best metal albums of its era.
The album is dense, very bass-heavy, but the production is remarkably
crisp, and unlike all other nu-metal albums of the past few years, it's
Justin Chancellor's bass that carries the melody, instead of being tuned
down and serving only as a supplemental percussion instrument. On
Lateralus, Chancellor's bass lines are both intricate and
melodic. Also at the forefront is Danny Carey's spectacular drumming.
With all the complicated time signature changes on the album, you end up
sitting there, marvelling at his deftness. Guitarist Adam Jones and
Maynard James Keating both take a bit of a back seat, but both Carey's
inventive and subtle guitar and Keating's introspective, but never
whiny, lyrics add to the album's dark, obsidian lustre.
Aside from a couple of short instrumental tracks, every song on
Lateralus is of epic length, and surprisingly, thanks to all four
factors noted above, there is never a dull moment. 'The Grudge' and
'Parabol/Parabola' are searing, intense songs, two of the more
accessible tunes. The most well-known song, 'Schism' is the best example
of Chancellor's bass playing carrying the melody, while 'Ticks &
Leeches' spotlight's Careys virtuosic percussion stylings. The album's
title track stands out, both musically and lyrically, with Keating
waxing philosophic so well that it puts the nu-metal whiners all to
shame: "I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough
to step aside and weep like a widow to feel inspired, to fathom the
power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the
spiral of our divinity and still be a human." Lateralus concludes
with the fascinating, very lengthy trilogy of 'Disposition',
'Reflection', and 'Triad', with the addition of keyboards, tabla-styled
percussion, and Eastern instrumentation, at times sounds like a cross
between 'Within You Without You' and 'Tom Sawyer'.
Finally, you can't talk about Lateralus and not mention its
packaging, which is by far the best I've seen all year. The cd comes in
a slipcase resembling an x-ray, and the cd booklet is made of clear
plastic, a mock-up of a layered human anatomy diagram. As you flip
through the brilliantly illustrated diagrams of a human male profile,
you notice it goes from muscle structure, to skeleton, to the body's
organs, until you see something that may represent the soul. What it is,
only the members of Tool can tsay, but it also serves a sly hint at the
musical and lyrical depth the band has always been capable of, and
which, on Lateralus, they have fully realised.
6. Mercury Rev - All Is Dream
One review I read of Mercury Rev's All Is Dream album nailed the sound of the album perfectly, saying the opening orchestral flourishes of 'The Dark Is Rising' sound like they came stright off a 1950's John Huston western. The entire album's like that. Just plain majestic. But there's also a dreamlike quality to the album, with several enigmatic, slightly unsettling moments that are more entrancing than perplexing.
Singer/guitarist Jonathan's Neil Young imitated falsetto adds to the surreal quality of All Is Dream on such songs as 'The Dark Is Rising', 'Chains', and 'Lincoln's Eyes', while his lyrics are charmingly left of centre: "What explodes like a fractal/Pops like a lite bulb", "but I was caught, like a fleeting thought/Stuck inside of Leonard Cohen's mind", "words climb your tongue...like a ladder to speak." Add in a musical interlude with a bowed saw and a few melodies so sing-song they sound like nursery rhymes, and you've got yourself a pretty original recording.
The combination of lyrical depth, pretty melodies, and lush production come together best on songs like the lush 'Nite And Fog', the gentle yet driving beat of the brilliant 'Little Rhymes', and the Velvet Underground-styled 'You're My Queen'. All Is Dream concludes with the modest epic 'Hercules', which starts off with quiet acoustic guitars, but slowly, slowly builds to a swirling climax as Jonathan sings lyrics that evoke the genius of Syd Barrett, a fittlingly dreamlike soundscape of comfy music with vivid imagery until the lyrics conclude with "All is One, All is Mind, all is lost and you find, All Is Dream", and then the song reaches full speed and propels you toward the end.
Like Yo La Tengo, Mercury Rev have transformed their sound from spaciness to just plain spacious, utilizing guitar feedback at the right moments, while not overdiong the orchestration. All Is Dream, while seeming a bit unsettling at first, really grows on you, and after a few listens it's guaranteed to become a complete pleasure to listen to. Great album.
7. Radiohead - Amnesiac/I Might Be Wrong (Live Recordings)
Over the past year or so, Radiohead has proven that a massively popular
band can still branch out creatively, without sacrificing album sales
and still maintaining a loyal fanbase. The biggest band in the world
doesn't need Big Rock Guitars or sing-along choruses. Radiohead is one
of very few bands out there today who respect their audience enough not
to put out retreads of 'Karma Police' or 'Just' (great as they are)
every couple years.
Kid A was Radiohead's first installment in their great sonic
experiment, and was a resounding success, both commercially and
artistically. Amnesiac, recorded at the same time as Kid
A, continues right where its predecessor left off. Kid A will
likely be recognised as the superior album of the two, a fact I
completely agree with, but, oddly enough, Amnesiac's high points
eclipse the best songs on Kid A.
Amnesiac's five best songs rank among the best Radiohead have
ever produced. 'Knives Out', with its swift, gliding rhythm, and the
blues-tinged 'I Might Be Wrong' are back-to-basics guitar-oriented
efforts, proof that Radiohead still know how to play the conventional
way. 'Dollars And Cents' is a more brooding song, made all the more
powerful by Phil Selway's menacing percussion, while Thom Yorke rants
"we're gonna crack your little souls" in a seeming rant about
globalization. Of course, there has to be the requisite
me-against-the-world diatribe ('You And Whose Army?'), and nobody does
it better than Radiohead. Best of all is the powerful 'Pyramid Song',
consisting little more than piano and Yorke's otherworldly singing, in
which he meditates about life while remaining in limbo, sailing on a
river (the River Styx, perhaps?).
I Might Be Wrong (Live Recordings) serves as a perfect companion
to the two studio albums. In a way, it's like a remix album, only sort
of in reverse, with Radiohead transforming songs previously enhanced by
studio wizardry into a live setting. The result is a revelation; the
seven Kid Amnesiac songs on the live cd are all better than the
originals (the outstanding unreleased track 'True Love Waits' is also
included): 'The National Anthem' and 'I Might Be Wrong' burn with
intensity, while 'Morning Bell' and 'Everything In Its Right Place'
surprise you with how good they actually sound live. The live version of
'Idioteque' is incredible, with some brilliant audience participation
(who says they can't be stadium rockers?). The biggest surprise is 'Like
Spinning Plates'; the Amnesiac version is an incomprehensible
mess of tape loops, but here it's completely transformed into a
beautiful, mesmerizing piano ballad.
Radiohead are in the middle of an incredible run right now. They're
making music so good, so vital, so challenging to the listener, that
they're the only popular group in the world with the ability to do so
and not alienate their core audience. Every release by the band is a
major event, and without the heavy anticipation of their three most
recent releases these past fifteen months, the world would be a much,
much duller place.
8. Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American
Every year there's an extremely catchy album of guitar pop that, despite possessing all the qualities of a potentially monstrous hit, just falls by the wayside. This year, it's the Arizona quartet Jimmy Eat World, and they must be wondering what on earth they have to do to break on through to the seamy, TRL, three-second-attention-span side of Global Teen acceptance. All the pieces had fit into place: they have a huge megalabel behind them (Dreamworks), they featured prominently in Rolling Stone's Hot Issue, the same magazine gave a very favourable review of their album (both articles likely bought by Dreamworks), the cd was priced several bucks cheaper in all record stores, and they spent the summer opening for Blink 182. Well, at least we who have Bleed American playing in our stereos know what everyone's missing.
Bearing much similarity to Fountains Of Wayne, though a bit more sincere than wry, Jimmy Eat World have proved they're masters of the Perfect Three Minute Pop Rock Song. All eleven tracks on Bleed American are either very good or outstanding, and the hooks...this band has hooks up the yinyang. And their enthusiasm is shameless, epitomized in the ludicrous yet infectious "If you're listening/Whoa Oh Oh Oh" intro to 'Sweetness'; with the vocals so up front in the mix, it's like the band is throwing down the gauntlet, challenging the listener to drop any ironic facade, any 'cool' aloofness, and just dig some seriously hummable tunes.
And what a bumper crop of tunes: the title track evokes the more commercial moments by Nirvana, 'Hear You Me' and 'My Sundown' are shimmering acoustic songs, while 'Get It Easier' and 'Cautioners' bring you back to The Cars in 1985, at the height of their Heartbreak City success. However, along with the aforementioned 'Sweetness', four other songs are the album's finest moments, songs so full of hooks that they practically explode. 'The Middle''s deft combination of hopeless optimism and melody resembles Grant Hart's efforts on Husker Du's Warehouse: Songs & Stories album, the breezy 'If You Don't, Don't' and its priceless line "we once walked out on the beach and I almost touched your hand," 'The Authority Song', with its sly John Mellencamp references and sweet backing vocals by Rachel Haden, and, best of all, 'A Praise Chorus', one of the year's best songs, with a bridge that combines Tommy James, Motley Crue, and Madness so perfectly it'll blow your mind.
Bands like Jimmy Eat World, that combine smarts and pure pop sense, are so rare these days. The radio stations either play pop with no brains or the most dour, miserable, whiny loud music Soundscan tells them to play. A wonderful, happy album like Bleed American, while not getting the heavy airplay it deserves, still restores one's faith in pop music.
* Late this year, in the wake of Sept. 11, Dreamworks changed the album's title from Bleed American to an eponymous title. I don't know what's sadder: Dreamwork's ridiclous attempt to prevent any controversy, or the fact that some chuckleheads out there would actually raise a big stink about it. Me, I'll stick with Bleed American. It's a cool title.
9. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
At first glimpse, first impression you get from The White Stripes is yet another charmingly kooky indie music project. Just look at them: a duo (siblings? ex-husband & wife? what?) from Detroit, of all places, thrashing out discordant tunes on screeching guitar and pounding drums, with barely any other accompaniment: how much more Indie can you get? Incredibly, The White Stripes have a lot more going for them than being just another band that's name-dropped by hipster doofuses.
This isn't your regular snarky, calculatedly oddball independent label music. In fact, the music on White Blood Cells sounds as ancient as them thar hills. A back-woods distillation of Appalachian ballads, gritty blues, and even a little bit of gospel, Jack and Meg White put their own twist on musical traditions centuries old. Songs like 'Dead Leaves And Dirty Ground' and 'I'm Finding It Hard To Be A Gentleman', along with being bang-on brilliantly titled, are nothing but old, raw country blues, with acoustic slide guitar replaced by Jack's loud, loud, yet nimble guitar and Meg's mechanical, sometimes sloppy, yet pounding drumming.
White Blood Cells has its gentler moments, too. 'We're Going To Be Friends', with its acoustic guitar, the accompanying sound of a tapping foot, and Jack's Ray Davies-imitated vocals, sounds as comfortably familiar as any other folk ballad you've ever heard. Meanwhile, the deliciously snarly 'I Think I Smell A Rat', with its menacing Dr. Seuss-like lyrics, provides a vicious counterpoint.
One of the best songs on White Blood Cells is also their most ambitious. 'The Union Forever', which seems to the listener to be a whacked-out meditation on love and marriage. It starts out with a dismal guitar riff, funereal organ, and Meg's relentless drumming (that's the only way she seems to play...no subtlety here) before Jack starts in on a rant that sounds like it came straight off The Pixies' Surfer Rosa. Then suddenly everything stops, and Jack delivers an a capella bridge, before the creepy organ comes in again.
Alternately disturbing, wistful, rollicking, intensely painful, and sometimes all at once, White Blood Cells doesn't pull its punches. Like Meg White's drumming (which has to be heard to be truly appreciated), this album is completely, irrefutably, if I may further beat a tired old phrase to death, in your face. It's also proof that people can still lift myriad influences and create something original and fun to listen to.
10. Kevin Kane - Timmy Loved Judas Priest
Way back when, like, the late Eighties, I didn't really like The Grapes Of Wrath (the band, not the book). In fact, I hated them, and my reasons were as stupid as you'd expect, coming from a metalhead teenager. I craved the aggression of Metallica and the pomposity of Iron Maiden more than the Grapes' gentle melodies and lovey-dovey lyrics. Plus, there were guys in school who listened to them who I just couldn't stand. Totally unfair, I know, but some weird outside factors do have an influence on what kind of music you like. My being a blithering idiot also played a large part.
Still, as the years went by, my reaction to The Grapes Of Wrath was always an indifferent "Ehhh", though, hypocritically, my musical tastes were starting to gravitate toward similarly introspective fare. So here I sit, with Kevin Kane's new solo cd playing, a humbled, humbled man.
Kane's new album of acoustic covers is wonderful, thirty-three minutes of songs by ten different diverse artists, just Kane, his guitar, and minimal overdubs. Cover albums by artists are a dime a dozen these days, but the intimate, gentle renditions Kane reels off on Timmy Loved Judas Priest make this collection better than average.
His song selections run the gamut of pop music: Madonna ('Borderline'), The Stranglers ('Golden Brown'), David Bowie ('Ashes To Ashes'), The Kinks ('Two Sisters'), and The Beach Boys ('God Only Knows'), to name a few. The album's high points are his subtle reworking of the Go-Go's 'Our Lips Are Sealed', featuring Neko Case providing her own version of Jane Wiedlin's classic bridge, and a melancholy version of Pavement's 'Here', which bears more similarity to the Tindersticks' own cover version of the same song. Kane gives a gorgeous rendition of Guided By Voices' 'Motor Away', one of my favourite songs from the Nineties, and just because he's skilled enough to do so, a fine version of Krafftwerk's 'Neon Lights'.
Just a few weeks before the end of the year, I was indecisive about what album to put in the Number Ten slot, and thanks to brother-in-law (and major Grapes fan) Steve, my dilemma has been solved.Timmy Loved Judas Priest, whose title has to be inspired by the real-life tale of Tim 'Ripper' Owens, is an understated, unpretentious, unpolished gem. I think I've crossed over to the other side at long last...
(Timmy Loved Judas Priest is a limited edition of 500 copies, complete with a nifty, rubberstamped cover, and is available here)
Introduction
When it came to music this year, it stunk. Big time. Compared to 2000, this past year pales in comparison. The sheer volume of amazing cd releases from 2000 is astonishing; looking back now, there were thirty albums that were so good that it made my choice of the final ten an extremely difficult task. Hey, when PJ Harvey's outstanding Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea, this year's Mercury Prize winner, places only tenth on my year-end list, then yeah, it's a pretty good year.
Though there weren't as many great albums that came out this year, and though the pickings for my best-of list are rather slim, my top five albums is a better group of discs than the top five of my 2000 list (click here)...but it might've been different, had I gotten a couple before last year ended. So, in keeping with my annual elitist tradition of forcing my extremely biased musical opinion on anyone willing to listen, which is now in its sixteenth year, I'll be starting a countdown of my favourite albums of the year on this weblog. Today, however, I'll begin with the honourable mentions, the albums that were great, but just flawed enough to miss out on placing in my top ten, and to start off, six cd's from 2000 that I didn't buy until this year, which deserve mentioning:
Past albums of the year (uh, please bear in mind I was sixteen when I started this):
1986: Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time
1987: Def Leppard - Hysteria
1988: Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime
1989: Voivod - Nothingface
1990: Megadeth - Rust In Peace, Led Zeppelin Box Set (tie)
1991: Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
1992: R.E.M. - Automatic For The People
1993: Nirvana - In Utero
1994: Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
1995: Elastica - Elastica
1996: Pulp - Different Class
1997: Bob Dylan - Time Out Of Mind
1998: Monster Magnet - Powertrip
1999: Metallica - S & M
2000: Yo La Tengo - ...And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
