Category Archives: albums

In Search of the 21 Best Albums of 2021: July

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Okay, look, this is the July review. And yes, it’s September. Perhaps the August review will make it out before the end of the following month? We’ll see. Meanwhile, whatever month it is, our search for the 21 best albums of 2021 continues!

If this is your first time here, I’m listening to new releases each month, sorting them into categories, and then I’ll do a final shakedown to get the best 21 after the year ends. If you missed previous months, you can find them here:

( January February March April May June )

This is one of three music-related blog series I’m doing this year. We’re at the halfway point of my ongoing review of critic’s choices for the best albums of the 2010s, and my final installment on my reviews of the 20 best albums of 2020 is here.

Before we go on, a quick note about the three categories:

Yes– These are the albums that, based on my initial listen, are in definite contention to be considered for the 21 best albums of the year. As of the end of July, this list is up to 140 albums, so, you know, it’s going to be a brutal reckoning at the end.

Maybe– These are albums that had definite strengths, but about which I have some reservation. I’ve noticed over the years that sometimes “maybes” linger, so I’m giving them a category just in case.

No– These albums are not in contention. Some of them deserve discussion, though, which I note.

And with that, we better get going, because I listened to 95 new releases in July. So there’s a lot to get through!

Billie Eilish, Happier Than Ever– Her smoky vocals and sharp emotionally complicated lyrics are in top form here, and the music works well with it, be it low-tempo piano cords, waves of electronic shimmer, or smooth beats. A worthy entry, all the way around.

Chet Faker, Hotel Surrender– This alter ego of Australian musician Nicholas Murphy brings a piece informed by electronica, R&B, and 70s flourishes, with a nice spare power, clean production, and some interesting musical, vocal, and lyrical twists. It’s really good, doesn’t sound like everything else I’ve heard this year, and also threw in a Star Trek reference. So, you know, that’s it for me.

Cookie Kawaii, Vanice– Oh my gosh, I love this! Apparently, she’s a Jersey club DJ who broke out on Tik-tok. There’s a2021 story for you. And here she’s delivering electronic dance/hip-hop that’s pure catchy fun, and is smart and coming from a unique point of view.

Dave, We’re All Alone in This Together– Dave is a British hip-hop artist, who turns out to have fierce and intelligent vocals and lyrics, delivered on a nuanced and subtle musical background. His songs deal with the personal and with social issues, and sound authentic and powerful in each vein.

Jodi, Blue Heron– Stripped-down, plaintive, vaguely melancholy. Offbeat and vulnerable lyrics and vocals, with a lurch that is reflected in the music sometimes too. In all, it’s really affecting despite its low-key tone.

John Glacier, SHILOH: Lost for Words– She (this London-based artist, despite the name, is a woman) delivers a disorienting tapestry of beats, music and vocals, informed by a left field hip hop sound and a strong, personal lyrical narrative. A great, low-key gem.

kolezanka, Place Is– Musically and vocally a swirling incantation, with the sweetness of melody, but the surprise and sometimes bite of musical experimentation. Kolezanka is the debut solo project of Kristina Moore, an Arizona native and current New York City resident who is a veteran of several indie bands. You can tell she’s learned her craft well along the way.

Ledisi, Ledisi Sings Nina– Ledisi is amazing, and the Nina Simone source material is great as well. So we have a solid basis, and from there the vocal performance is top-rate, the lyrics are smartly updated, and the musical delivery is in a swinging jazz style that’s a delight.

Los Lobos, Native Sons– Los Lobos is here paying tribute to their roots with a dozen covers of artists from Los Angeles that have influenced them. Multiple genres and eras from the 40s to the 80s get a  turn, in fitting with the band’s own eclecticism. As both a love letter to LA, and a tribute to their influences, it’s pretty effective. And as a showcase for the band’s 40+ years of craftsmanship it’s smooth and powerful.

Lucinda Williams, Lu’s Jukebox, Vol. 2: Southern Soul – From Memphis to Muscle Shoals– Part of the “jukebox” series of Lucinda Williams covering favorites. The source material for her covers here is great stuff. And she covers it well- her strength in terms of musical approach and sensibility fits it so well.

Mega Bog, Life, and Another– The music is acoustic with hints of jazz, flamenco, brill building pop, brittle noise, unusual vocals (sometimes quirky, sometimes whispery, sometimes discordant) and smart, off-center lyrics. It puts me a bit in mind of Laurie Anderson, Lydia Lunch, and the musically sharper side of Ani DiFranco. overall, the whole thing sits on the fine edge of charming and challenging, and that’s a great fence to straddle.

Molly Burch, Romantic Images– Musically and vocally, this sounds like its title-bright and lush with romance. A lot of the songs here felt familiar, in that “this is that song I used to like!” kind of way. One of the songs specifically pitches the joys of nostalgia too, so I think she knows what she’s doing.

Patrick Paige II, If I Fail Are We Still Cool?– The title of this is so charming I was pulling for it on that basis alone. As it turns out, his flow is smooth, the lyrics are sharp, clear and positive, and the production and sampling is spare and off-center (jazz, video game sounds, synth sound effects all make an appearance) in a way that drives everything along. There’s even a framing motif of an airplane flight that actually works with the theme of striving for personal uplift!

  

Rose City Band, Earth Trip– Country inflected indie with a warm hazy feeling. It reminds me of a certain vein of Neil Young and CSN&Y, but with a contemporary flourish. This turns out not to be an accident as guitarist Ripley Johnson apparently aims for this space in his projects. Just a delightful listen the whole way through.

Sault, Nine– I listened to Sault’s two 2020 releases as part of my review of the critic’s top twenty albums for that year. Darned if they weren’t both excellent, and this is too. Sault is an anonymous British hip-hop collective that mixes influences from electronica, hip-hop, and classic soul in a dizzying and skillful way. The musical side alone would be a treat, but then they have sharp, lucid, and uplifting lyrics and vocals on top of it.

Sonny & The Sunsets, New Day With New Possibilities– It started off sounding like moody and atmospheric acoustic folk with country flourishes, then got weirder and funnier from there. It reminds me of the attention to solid musicianship married with intelligent lyrics and a big sense of humor that Camper Van Beethoven had. Also more than a hint of Jonathan Richman. And it turns out they’re a San Francisco band, so no wonder I like them!

The Go! Team, Get Up Sequences Part I– So fun and energetic- it mixes full on indie rock in a synth/bedroom pop vein, 80s-flavored hip-hop, and what sometimes sounds like high school band practice. This the 441st new album I’ve listened to this year, and nothing else sounded like. And not many were as delightful either!

The Wallflowers, Exit Wounds– So, I’m from the 90s musically, thus I’m going to be interested in the Wallflowers based on lingering love for their 1996 album Bringing Down the Horse. Also, I’m a huge Bob Dylan fan, so I’ll always be curious about what Jakob’s up to musically on that basis. The good news for me on both fronts is that, without ever sounding derivative, he does remind of his father, and he continues to have his 90s gift for incisive lyrics, and a way with melody within solid rock structure. This album works, start to finish.

Tones and I, Welcome to the Madhouse– This Australian singer-songwriter delivers dance music as madness. The opening is cheerful and truly unsettling. Subsequent tracks are more conventional but still have a lot of intelligence emotional bite and surprise twists, unusual flourishes to both the music and the lyrics.

TORRES, Thirstier– Hello, is this a guitar wall of sound? With pleasing outbreaks of dynamism? And smart heartfelt lyrics delivered via lackadaisical yet powerful vocals from a frontwoman? I am practically required by law to like this combination. The album even has an ending that feels like an honest-to-goodness ending! TORRES is Mackenzie Ruth Scott, and I approve her message.

 

Wavves, Hideaway– Great lo-fi ringing indie rock from this San Diego band. Callbacks to 50s/60s rock, garage rock, the rockier side of 80s alt. Male and female vocalists trading off too, which you don’t hear nearly often enough. If you’re like me, this may restore your faith in the anarchic appeal of real rock.

Willow, Lately I Feel EVERYTHING– This was much rockier than I was expecting. Mostly rocking from a young Taylor Swiftian kind of direction, but full of attitude and musical verve. And sometimes coming in from metal and even Bikini Kill territory, with R&B and hip-hop dashes along the way. Well done young Willow!

Yola, Stand For Myself– Rich, sparkling, full, R&B. This British soul artist’s voice is a force, and musically this has a modern classic sound from all kinds of Soul/R&B directions. You’re in good hands from start to finish.

Maybe

  • Andy Bell, Another View  -This is not Andy Bell of Erasure, but Andy Bell of shoegaze pioneer Ride. Let me tell you, this makes it difficult to search for. An electronica album by a shoegaze pioneer, well, I thought I was in trouble. But it turns out this is one of the livelier and more interesting electronica rides of the year!
  • Attacca Quartet, Real Life– One source described this as “classical crossover”, and I can see what they mean. A classical quartet goes for a spin that, while instrumentally still classical, has the flavor of rock and electronic dance music. It’s lively, powerful, and feels like it understands the spirit of rock, which I often wish rock still did. Call me crazy, but despite/because of the unusual genre approach, I think it could be a contender!
  • Barenaked Ladies, Detour de Force– They’ve never been less than really fun, and it’s still true here. Some of it feels a little by rote, but other tracks really stand out, and it’s impossible to find anything bad in this album. So I’m not sure it reaches “out of the park, best of the year” status, but maybe?
  • Bleachers, Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night– Headed by very in-demand songwriter Jack Antonoff, Bleachers at times sounds like new wave, at times sounds like Springsteen (no accident, they’re both from New Jersey and Bruce even appears on one of the tracks), and their album is full of songs about yearning for rising above. The only thing that bumped it off of “yes” was the decision to end on two very muted low-key tracks in a row.
  • Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, 662– You know who’s got it going on as a genre? Contemporary blues. This album is muscular, electric, skillfully played. It falls prey a little too much sometimes, maybe, to production slickness, but really it’s pretty excellent. I wish rock would learn this lesson and be unafraid to produce unapologetic genre music.
  • Dusted, III– I kept thinking this was too much in a muted acoustic vein musically and vocally, but the emotional complexity, intelligence, and bite of the lyrics kept winning me back. Well done, Canadian indie rock band! I’m telling you, Canada is where it’s at!
  • Dave McMurray, Grateful Deadification– A jazz fusion great makes an album of Grateful Dead covers. How’s that for an album concept! My 80s alt teen self would have been aghast at two of the great enemies- Jazz and the Dead- being combined, but my more nuanced adult self thinks this take on it often works surprisingly well.
  • G Herbo, 25– There’s some great song structure work here and powerful clear flow, but it does tip into the autotune school of hip-hop on some tracks. Also, the subject matter and personality behind it is often quite interesting and revealing, but it dips into gangster cliches. On the other hand, he also questions these same tropes, and expresses a yearning for rising above it. And as it goes on, this actually increases.
  • Laura Mvula, Pink Noise– Starts off with those nice sharp metallic beats from the 80s, and strong vocals. It has a late-80s soul/R&B feel, also informed by jazz, and the dub/Caribbean influence often found in British soul/R&B(which makes sense since she’s British). I wonder about the dated feel, and it’s a little more produced than I often like things, but it’s such a fun mix, and her strong presence carries it through.
  • Marisa Monte, Portas– I’m not really up on my Afro-Brazilian pop/jazz artists, but she seems like a really good one! On the one hand, it’s not Portugese’s fault, but I don’t understand a word of Portugese. On the other hand, this is so engaging and charming. So maybe we average out at “Maybe”?
  • Prince, Welcome 2 America– This posthumous album is from unreleased 2010 sessions, but darned if they don’t fit 2020/21 weirdly well, which is one sign of his power. It’s lyrically, vocally and musically for the most part subtle but tight, and full of the utopian themes were one of Prince’s classic preoccupations. This isn’t the most innovative thing he’s ever put out, but it is eerily resonant of our moment.
  • Rodney Crowell, Triage– A country music veteran who helped kick start the neo-traditional movement in the 80s. This outing is often very personal and introspective (fueled both by the influence of the pandemic, and a nerve disease he has developed). The only reservation is that the music and lyrics sometimes go for an almost cliche standard, but he always sound sincere, and affecting. Some good covers, and his originals bring to mind Neil Young and Bob Dylan, which is a pretty impressive thing to have one’s originals do.
  • Son Volt, Electro Melodier– When the principals of Uncle Tupelo went their separate ways, the way Jay Farrar went was to Son Volt, where he continued a sound rather like Uncle Tupelo’s. Which is great! The lyrics do tend a little toward the klunky side of topical here and there, in a way that was charming for an 80s underground band and isn’t as much now, but that’s about my only reservation.
  • Taphari, Blind Obedience– A fun dynamic hip-hop outing, full of unusual musical, vocal, and lyrical choices that evoke a kaleidoscope of ideas and images. A little light/not always coherent, perhaps, for annual best. But maybe not!
  • The Flatlanders, Treasure of Love– Founded in 1972, The Flatlanders were a short-lived country rock/outlaw country band, but the individual members went on to long careers harking to traditionalism, which has fueled interest in their reunions over the years. There are a few originals here, mostly covers. This sounds just like you’d expect based on that, which is a sort of a minus- is it too familiar?, but also a strong plus- it sounds timelessly classic.
  • Tom Petty / Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Angel Dream– It’s a bit of a peculiar story. This album features songs from his soundtrack for “She’s The One” in 1993, but it’s not simply that soundtrack- it features some, but not all of the songs from it, and adds four previously unreleased songs from the same period. And it was released by his estate, so it’s official, and in, a way, a new album in its own right. The peculiarity is keeping it from “yes” for me, but it is such an excellent window into one of his most interesting and often overlooked periods.
  • Towa Tei, LP– I do have a generational soft spot in my heart for Deee-Lite, so maybe I’m biased, but this album reminds me of how fun electronic music can be. How it can be clever, knowledgeable of and conversant with musical idioms and what makes a song work, weirdly electronic and futuristic sounding, high energy, and just joyful. It got just bumped out of “yes” by having an out-of-tone with the rest of it dreamy slow number at the end, but otherwise excellent. Thanks Towa!
  • U-Roy, Solid Gold– A fitting send-off for a reggae veteran who is also often credited as one of the inspirations for the development of hip-hop. This album, completed in 2020 and then followed shortly after by the 78 year-old U-Roy’s passing in February of this year, is chock full of well-used guests, and  excellent songs with the particular spiritual-political charge and simultaneous joy of Rastafarian-inspired reggae. If not for two 15-minute versions of the same song in a row at the end, it would have been an automatic “yes”, but even that couldn’t fully defeat it.

No

  • Alasdair Roberts/Volvur, The Old Fabled River– If you say “Scottish folk musician” to me, I’m well-disposed in advance. That being said, it was a little too all in one groove on the mellow side of folky to stand out. 
  • Always You, Bloom Off The Rose– Lost 80s alt album of the intersection of synth and moody pop rock variety? It was very pleasant, but it got a little too into the sameness of its own grove after a while.
  • Amaro Freitas, Sankofa– A Brazilian jazz album is bound to be a little borderline in terms of what I’m looking for, but, no stone left unturned. It was very nice, but in a too low-key, mellow way to really leave much impression.
  • Anika, Change– This British/German musician, journalist and poet delivers electronic/dance music, but with a spare post-punk edge, high intelligence, and a somewhat unsettling lyrical and vocal presence. The best tracks are great, but it’s a little too inconsistent between the ones that really hit and and muted fade-to-background numbers.
  • At The Gates, Nightmare of Being– Swedish death metal band, from the technical/orchestral side of metal, with a fair twist of thrash thrown in. The vocals are in the shouted school of metal vocals, but are clear enough to make out, which isn’t always the case with that school. Ultimately, I don’t know that it’s committing enough to one or the other of its sounds, or doing anything new or especially excellent enough to reach “best”.
  • Blues Traveler, Traveler’s Blues– I like the inversion of the name. This album sees the band doing a variety of blues covers, which plays to their strengths. For a band fan, for a genre fan, it’s a very worthy endeavor but, though it catches fire on some tracks, for the most part it doesn’t rise decisively to the level of year’s best.
  • Born of Osiris, Angel or Alien– Metalcore band from the Chicago area. Technically very proficient, it’s, well, a little shouty vocally, which largely prevents me from approaching it lyrically. The album picks up some of the worst habits of 2000s metal and hardcore, and even works in a little autotune.
  • Cautious Clay, Deadpan Love– A hip-hop album, but one that leans very heavily in an R&B direction. Or vice versa? Makes some unusual choices, which is interesting, and the tone is very positive, but ultimately too all one tone.
  • Charlotte Day Wilson, Alpha– A solid serving of smoky soul from a Canadian R&B singer. It’s well done musically and vocally, but sounds too much the same track to track. As a debut, though, it carries a lot of promise.
  • Clairo, Sling– A kind of hazy 70s feel to it, her cool vocals and warm syrup of the swinging, even sometimes orchestral, music nicely offset each other. The tracks also have a strong individual identity. It was a real contender until it lulled out for a few too many tracks 3/4 of the way through. She’s worth keeping an eye on, though!
  • Darkside, Spiral– A kind of discordant and spare album. Too often trending toward abstract/background.
  • David Crosby, For Free–  David Crosby, of course, never sounds bad. And he doesn’t here either. It does have that “rock veteran makes album in 80s with slick production” feel though. I certainly wouldn’t tell fans of his to stay away from it, but it doesn’t get into “year’s best” territory.
  • Declaime, In the Beginning, Vol. 1– Ah, the Oxnard school of hip-hop! Okay, maybe there’s not such a thing. It’s a solid album, but doesn’t really do anything special to stand out or rise above.
  • Descendents, 9th & Walnut–  This album sounds like it could have been produced at any point in the group’s history from 1977 to now, which is both a strength and weakness. I don’t hear “best of year” here, but it does do what it does very well. And you have to admire punk’s ability to pack 18 songs into 25 minutes.
  • Dot Allison, Heart-Shaped Scars– She got her start in electronic music in the 90s, and this is electronic, but in a strings kind of way, which, with her flowing wisp of a voice, brings to mind Celtic and new age music. Pleasant, but fades into the background.
  • Durand Jones & the Indications, Private Space– I couldn’t decide if this was an early 80’s R&B sound I really liked, or a too-produced muzak/light-jazz 80s soul that I didn’t. Ultimately there was too much of the later for it to make it to yes for me, but enough of the former that it deserves mention.
  • Emma-Jen Thackray, Yellow– Discordant electronica, surging jazz opening, spoken word poetry, then shifts into a jazz-inflected dance music with clever lyrics, but it gets a little too into the jazz easy listening vein after that.
  • Foodman, Yasuragi Land– This electronica album is from Japanese DJ, Producer, and Painter Takahide Higuch. It’s interesting, but a little abstract and a little too all in one tone track to track to really stand out for me.
  • Guardian Singles, Guardian Singles– Rock! Hi-energy, sunny rock! Every time I hear it again, I remember how much I’ve missed it. You know when a song ends and the feedback fuzz is still there? That’s good stuff. Unfortunately, it mushed up into undifferentiated low-key tracks at the end. Alas!
  • Half Waif, Mythopoetics– The spare but powerful production-leans toward electronic/keyboard, plaintive slightly ghostly vocals, darkly textured lyrics. These are the strengths, and they are considerable, but ultimately too much of it just fades into the background of track to track similarity.
  • Horsey, Debonair– For the majority of these tracks, this South London band sounds like a muscular out of control lounge singer, kind of like if “Helter Skleter” Paul McCartney played the sweet diddies of sweet diddy Paul McCartney. And then methed it out a step further. I loved it, until they decided to end with a long low-energy song followed by a meandering “Revolution #9” type style track. Album greatness squashed.
  • Jackson Browne, Downhill From Everywhere– Like the David Crosby album, there really isn’t a version of Jackson Browne that sounds bad. And this doesn’t sound as “80s production” as Crosby’s album, though it does have traces of that. On the whole, it’s energetic and well done, and won’t do any Jackson Browne fan wrong, but doesn’t rise to his/the year’s best.
  • Jam & Lewis, Volume One– This is the debut album of Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, but of course their production work loomed so large in soul/R&B in the 80s and 90s that it’s hardly an unknown quantity. And that is maybe part of the problem here- it is, as one might expect, extremely finely produced. It’s also very familiar, and a little plastic feeling. There’s not enough of the dynamic or surprising here.
  • Jeff Lorbe/The Jeff Lorber Fusion , Space-Time– There is, maybe?, a version of jazz fusion that I like. Maybe. This isn’t it, it’s practically muzaky.
  • Jehnny Beth/Bobby Gillespie , Utopian Ashes– Sort of the post-punk version of a country duets album, featuring the front-man of 80s alt stalwarts Primal Scream and the vocalist of 2000s post-punk band Savages. The songs are well done, very fine in fact, but beyond some scattered moments here and there, the whole never really catches fire or raises above.
  • John Mayer, Sob Rock– I like John Mayer, but only in a certain small dosage, so between that and the title, I was a little leery going in. Boy do I stand by that! Vapid lyrics, smooth soulless music, coupled with 80s-style production. Saints preserve us!
  • John McLaughlin, Liberation Time– Based on its clanging electric opening, at first I thought that this might be the fusion album that I turned out to like. Then it started to go down the dark path of bubbly light and easy.
  • King Woman, Celestial Blues– A thick, somewhat doomy, somewhat orchestral sound, with vocals that started out more in the yearning than the screaming category. But then, alas, got more screamy. If you’ve ever been a goth kid, there is good stuff here, but ultimately it’s kind of the same track to track.
  • Koreless, Agor– Extremely minimal, even as minimal electronic albums go.
  • Leon Bridges, Gold-Diggers Sound– Definitely a solid soul/R&B album, but a little too in the autotuned direction, and I never felt like it consistently rose above.
  • Lucrecia Dalt/Aaron Dilloway, Lucy & Aaron– Well, they’re both experimental musicians, and this was very…experimental. Interesting, but a little too deliberately grating to be consistently listenable.
  • Luminol, Midwife– An ethereal swirl of vocals and muted keyboard chords. The lyrical voice is quite interesting and strong, which makes the best tracks very affecting, but it doesn’t happen consistently.
  • Maxine Funke, Séance– A folk-flavored outing from a New Zealand singer-songwriter. The songs are quiet, spare, and arresting. Ultimately too quiet to hold attention in a “year’s best” kind of way, but still very fine.
  • Moin, Moot!– Some moody and menacing electronica, some wailing in the background, some muttered lyrics. At its best, it’s actually pretty compelling, but the best is unfortunately only every other track or so.
  • Nancy Wilson, You And Me– This was a May release that I somehow missed! Over the years, I’ve slowly come to terms with not marrying her, and silently admired her too-often undersung guitar playing from afar. There are some great covers here, and the best items crackle. Then there are a few too many ballads/80s production numbers. Drop 4 tracks, and this might have been a “yes”.
  • Ora The Molecule, Human Safari– This is more accessible than you might think upon hearing that it’s the vehicle of a Norwegian avant-garde artist. It sometimes feels a bit too abstract, and isn’t consistent/coherent enough for album “best”, but there’s some worthy material here!
  • Paul McCartney, McCartney III Imagined– Not quite covers, but rather, a variety of artists doing remixes of Paul McCartney’s well-received album from last year McCartney III. Kind of like the Gray Album in reverse, and with a wider variety of artists working it (Beck, Phoebe Bridgers, and St. Vincent, among others, get in on the action here). It’s really quite fun, and was well on its way to being a “yes” until it ended with a low-energy 11 minute electronica track. There’s just no call for that. Alas!
  • Peyton, PSA– A pretty, pleasant soul/dance album, with some pleasing cursing thrown in, but it never really sparks up.
  • Piroshka, Love Drips and Gathers– The music by this supergroup composed of members of Elastica, Lush, and Modern English is surging and shimmering, and the  vocals have some verve to them. You can certainly hear the roots, and they’re good roots. It was really winning me over until it delfated at the end by having multiple slow/abstracts tracks in a row.
  • Rey Sapienz & The Congo Techno Ensemble, Na Zala Zala– This was very interesting, with unusual beats, and at times almost grating. I do like African music, but this was too opaque between the grating quality and foreign language. It is certainly unusual though, and doesn’t sound like everything else.
  • Rodrigo Amarante, Drama– Brazilian Singer-Songwriter, ultimately a little too world/jazz and in Portugese for me.
  • Royal Canoe, Sidelining– I definitely feel like Royal Canoe is an appropriate name for a Canadian band. They don’t sound as canoey as you might expect, more like an electronic-informed indie rock, with lurches into and out of guitar rock and dance/disco mode. It didn’t quite come together consistently enough for me in terms of track by track quality and coherence to reach “best”, but it is fun and often interesting.
  • Sennen, Widows (Expanded Version)– This re-masters the band’s original 7-song album from 2005 and adds 7 unreleased songs from that same era. It’s all a little too slow and fuzzy for me, without enough musical or lyrical hook to keep it moving from track to track.
  • Snapped Ankles, Forest of Your Problems– A real solid post-punk outing, it would feel very at home on College Radio in the 80s. It was a borderline call, and it really is well done, but it feels so much like an archive item.
  • Stimulator Jones, Low Budget Environments Striving for Perfection– The artist name and album name are both pretty great, though one shouldn’t judge by that. What it turns out to be is hip-hop flavored electronic music. It’s nice background music, and interesting, but too low-key/low-content to really stand out.
  • Surf Gang, Surf Gang Vol. 1– The opening is less surf music than you might think, and much more psychedelisized hip-hop. After that it’s uneven- some very fun and unusual mixes, some autotuned dreck.
  • Tangents, Timeslips & Chimeras– An expansion (like, really, more than doubling) of a 2020 release by an Australian band. This particular mix of all-instrumental deconstrcuted jazz and electronic is certainly interesting, but never really gets over the top in terms of being compelling.
  • The Orange Peels, Celebrate the Moments of Your Life– This band originated in the Bay Area during the indie rock outburst of the 90s, and they’re still very good at what they do! They’re here with a double album, thick with melody, pop sensibility, and rock that recalls the 80s underground, the 90s, and a sunny dreamy side of the 70s all at once. The best material here is really great, but the double album sometime meanders and bogs down, which keeps it from coming together. More streamlined and they could have been a contender!
  • Trees Speak, PostHuman– This instrumental album from an Arizona duo would have sounded very at home in a new wave or industrial dance club in the 80s. It does what it does well, but I don’t know that it does it “best of year” well.
  • Twin Shadow, Twin Shadow–  Poppy-rocky, and fun, outing from this  Dominican-American singer-songwriter. Some 90s soul/80s alt feeling, a little dash of ska. It’s all very fine, but doesn’t feel to me like it consistently rises above and beyond to “year best” territory.
  • Various Artists, Bills & Aches & Blues– A variety of artists cover songs from throughout 4AD’s catalogue in honor of their 40th anniversary. It seems like a promising setup, I mean I was practically raised by 4AD. And some of the covers are truly grand. Then some of them kind of fizzle out, or are of material that is itself very low-key. So it ends up being a little uneven.
  • Various Artists, Changui: The Sound of Guantanamo– A box set documenting contemporary rural Cuban practitioners of the changui style of Cuban music (influenced by Spanish and African musical traditions and instruments, and an ancestor of salsa) compiled in support of a documentary. There are 51 songs, with a four hour run time. Given this sprawling range, it’s difficult for it to work as a coherent album, though this definitely can happen for something similar in more compact form (cf. Buena Vista Social Club). A fun window into a fascinating style, though.
  • Vince Staples, Vince Staples– This hip-hop album is a little autontuned, a little one-tone musically and vocally. It’s a shame because the content is actually pretty good!
  • YN Jay, Coochie Chronicles– The name might give you certain expectations. While it sometimes rises above, the content largely bears out these expectations. It could possibly get away with it with very clever or unusual flow or off-beat musical choices, but it doesn’t do either often enough.

And there we are, finished with July! Before the first half of September. So I guess that’s something? Now, I better hop on over to working on August now so we can catch up!

What Were the Best Albums of the Twenty-Teens? (Part 5 of 10)

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Here we are with part five of my ten-part review of critic’s choices for the 52 best albums of 2010-2019! Halfway there! (52’s a weird number isn’t it? See below for the reason why…)

If by chance you missed the earlier editions, you can find them here:

(Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4)

This is one of three musical blog series I’m doing this year. So go check out the final installment of my overview of the critical consensus on the 20 best albums of 2020, and my latest monthly review of 2021 new releases en route to finding the best 21 albums of 2021.

So. 52. It’s like this: I took “best of decade” lists from the AV Club, Billboard, Jim DeRogatis, Greg Kot, the New Yorker, New Music Express, Paste, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Vice. For any album that appeared at least once in these lists, I tallied up votes between them. Albums getting 4 votes and up totaled 52, which was close enough to a top 50 that I decided to go with that as a cutoff.

I’m doing 10 posts of 5 albums each (or 6 each on the last two) and then a final wrap-up. With that explained, let’s get on with Part 5!

DAMN. (Kendrick Lamar, 2017, 5 votes)– From the first this made musical and lyrical choices that show something special is going on here. The dense weaving of storytelling, the unusual vocal mixing choices, the strategic deployment of music samples to set a mood, it all works. His 2012 album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City was a heck of a thing to have to live up to. Darned if this doesn’t do it!

Days Are Gone (Haim, 2013, 5 votes)– For my 2020 list I’d listened to their album Women in Music, and quite liked it. This feels like it leans even more poppy than that, but retains what I really liked about that album- a nearly perfect pop sensibility but some power and substance behind it. This does register as lighter than their later album, though. Is this the earlier album’s fault? No, and yet they must reverse-chronologically suffer for my knowledge!

Daytona (Pusha T, 2018, 4 votes)– It’s got energy and swagger, all right, and the wordplay is top notch. The music mix and sampling is crisp and sharp. The lyrics have some weight and meaning too. A little derivative (you’ll hear lots of influence of Jay-Z and Kanye West here- who produced it) but all in all, this is a very worthy effort.

Dirty Computer (Janelle Monae, 2018, 5 votes)– If you make a sexy, smooth R&B/dance album, I’m on your side. If you make an album with political/social import that doesn’t get polemical, I’m on your side. If you make an album full of smart, unusual lyrical, vocal, and musical choices, I’m on your side. If you make an album with sci-fi/tech themes, I’m on your side. If you do all of these together, you are Janelle Monae, and I’m over the moon.

DS2 (Future, 2015, 4 votes)– Early on I’m thinking this is a little more autotuned than I like, but the lyrical content is interesting at times, and there’s a pleasing air of menace in the music. However, there seems to be a lot more “bitch” and “pussy” here than I like. On balance, it’s a “no” for me.

And there we are with Part Five. 25 down, 27 to go. Five more posts. We can do it!

In Search of the 21 Best Albums of 2021: May

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Well, it looks like we just barely got the May review done before the end of June. Better that then even later!

As part of my continuing search for the 21 best albums of 2021, I’m listening to new releases every month, sorting them into categories, and then I’ll do a final shake-down after the year ends. If you missed the previous editions, you can find them here:

( January February March April )

This is one of three music-related blog series I’m doing this year, you should also check out my ongoing review of critic’s choices for the best albums of the 2010s here, and my wrap-up on reviews of the 20 best albums of 2020 here.

But, for the moment, we’re concerned with 2021. And the 92 new releases I listened to in May! Before we go on, a quick note about the three categories:

Yes– These are the albums that, based on my initial listen, are in definite contention to be considered for the 21 best albums of the year. As of the end of May, this list is up to 95 albums, so the reckoning is going to be bloody.

Maybe– These are albums that had definite strengths, but about which I have some reservation. I’ve noticed over the years that some “maybes” have a habit of lingering, so I’m giving them a category just in case.

No– These albums are not in contention. Some of them deserve discussion, though, which I note.

And now, boldly forward with May!

Alan Jackson, Where Have You Gone– This feels like it’s just on this side of cliché, but almost classic, and musically and vocally straight up. Much of it is a conscious paean to the best of 70s and 80s pop country, and he delivers the feel. Despite the album running over an hour long, when it ended, I honest to gosh had the immediate impulse to play it again.

Allison Russell, Outside Child– Between the soulful jazzy first track, and the country third track, I had a feeling I would like what was going on here. Vocally powerful, musically complex, she tours genres like nobody’s business. All with looming feeling. A Montreal native and fixture of the Chicago and Nashville music scenes working with other bands, this is her debut solo album. She’s apparently self-taught and a multi-instrumentalist, which speaks to her range and power. Personal, meaningful, magnificent.

Aquarian Blood, Bending the Golden Hour– Neo-psychedelia, but also with some 90s rock and indie folk feeling to it. It’s a great mix, well-rendered, the male and female vocals add to it, and there’s an element of darkness and even menace to it that I appreciate.

Buffet Lunch, The Power of Rocks– I like buffets and I like rocks, so I walked into this album well-disposed. It turns out it delivers an offbeat, psychedelic-flavored sometimes discordant rock that repays my initial good will. The opening reminds one of the sillier side of the Beatles, in a good way. It stays in that vein but also gets discordant in a post-rock kind of way. It’s an interesting combination!

Chrissie Hynde, Standing in the Doorway: Chrissie Hynde Sings Bob Dylan– All right, the basics- Bob Dylan is in my all-time top five, I love Chrissie Hynde, and I really like cover albums. So Hynde covering Dylan starts off conceptually ahead for me. Hynde capitalizes on this head start, though, by choosing some more unusual songs from the catalogue, and giving them her own sound while honoring the spirit of the original. She is superb, and this is a definite contender.

Current Joys, Voyager– There’s a spareness and sometimes even delicacy to the music that is a nice offset to the emotional seriousness of the lyrics and yearning vocals. This album by Multi-band alumni Nick Rattigan feels like an evocation of Alex Chilton, with a good layer of 80s alt via a 2000 indie rock treatment.

Czarface/MF Doom, Super What?– One of two posthumous hip-hop legend releases we have this month. RIP MF Doom. I don’t think it’s just that sentiment that’s got me liking this- the delightful swirl of music and samples, pounding vocal flow, themes of superhero/sci-fi, pandemic, and pop culture, all add up to a great outing! And all the more reason for sadness that there isn’t more to come.

DMX, Exodus 1:7– The other of the two posthumous hip-hop legend releases we have this month. RIP DMX. This starts off muscular and menacing. Then is, by turns, a flashback to late 90s/early 2000s hip-hop, spiritual, and a considered meditation on age and parenthood. A tour de force, and fitting final testament.

Fiver, Fiver With the Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition– Sometimes it seems like a country album, sometimes it seems like a jazz album, at times it gets almost psychedelic, and the vocals of lead singer Simone Schmidt have a subtle power that often breaks out into downright soaring. An unusual and arresting album.

Gruff Rhys, Seeking New Gods– Well this is lovely! Melody, clear instruments, and the thick voice of this Welsh singer-songwriter (and Super Furry Animals alum) all work together to create a feeling reminiscent of some of the highlights of pub rock, art rock, and prog rock.

J. Cole, The Off-Season– Musically muscular, great mixing, strong and clear vocals, great energy and variation on tracks. When it comes to contemporary hip-hop, I do appreciate that ROC production…

Jack Ingram/Miranda Lambert/Jon Randall, The Marfa Tapes– Several pop country stars hang out together on a porch in West Texas and record what they get up to, and it’s better than anything on pop country radio.There’s a lesson here! The songs are stripped down (including talk between takes, mistakes, and background noise, almost like demos really), honest, and shine like gold.

Jerry Douglas/John Hiatt/The Jerry Douglas Band, Leftover Feelings– By turns rollicking, relaxed, and tender, this music lives at the intersection of rock, blues, and country. Hiatt’s voice is just the right kind of ragged to fit with this and make it feel utterly authentic. You may hear echoes of Dylan, Springsteen, the more wistful edges of Outlaw Country, and even, I swear, Carl Perkins here. None of it is derivative though, that’s just the mythic space this album is inhabiting.

Johnny Flynn & Robert Macfarlane, Lost in the Cedar Wood– Kind of a hardcore folk album, it also reminds me of the folk side of Led Zeppelin. Strong music, clear vocals, and lyrics that create a world. And I thought Johnny Flynn was just a pretty lovelorn BBC shows-TV face!

Jorge Elbrecht, Presentable Corpse 002– Strains of dark folk, psychedelia, indie rock, put together in a way that is menacing and mind-bending. It feels like a time-lost classic. Reading up on it after listening, there is a through story, which is hard to get at first listen. Even without that, though, it’s thoroughly well done.

Lydia Ainsworth, Sparkles & Debris– Toronto composer and singer, this is musically simple, electronic and just on the edge of dance, and in a sense vocally straightforward, but with interesting touches to both, and her literate lyrics are arresting. Pop but deeper-think of, perhaps, Dido? It even gets philosophical and metaphysical! And the “Good Times” cover is amazing!

PACKS, Take The Cake– Surging guitar rhythms, darkly inflected vocals with a lackadaisical undertow. Am I in the 90s? Musically, I love being in the 90s! As per many an excellent rock band from the last decade plus, they’re from Canada (Toronto, to be exact). Oh Canada!

Pardoner, Came Down Different– You know that promising young band of indie rock guys with great crunching guitars? This is them! I always like them, whoever they are. This particular iteration are from San Francisco, which is maybe an additional reason as well, but I swear the promise is there.

Riley Downing, Start It Over– A croony soulful swell of music, informed by some country flavor, some soul and blues, and some glowering alt presence. The vocals are like spoken word soul, except with a country inflection, and remind a little of Tom Waits. It all adds up to something pretty compelling.

Robert Finley, Sharecropper’s Son– This Blues and Soul veteran returned to recording in 2016 after a break of many years, and is here coming out with an album produced by the Black Keys. You might figure these would be the elements of excellence, and they gosh darn are. Muscular electric blues and soul.

St. Vincent, Daddy’s Home– Attitude, vocal verve, sometimes dancey sometimes smokingly croony music informed by multiple genres, with clever lyrics. What here is not to love? Honestly, she reminds me of Prince in her playfulness, range, and power.

Texas, Hi– Brooding, swinging, rocking, smooth and sophisticated, familiar with 80s alt, indie rock and classic idioms, full of feeling. I do love my Scottish bands, so I don’t know why I didn’t know about Texas a lot earlier than this, but they have got it going on!

The Black Keys, Delta Kream– This Black Keys homage to Delta Blues is clearly a sound that’s in their wheelhouse. A bunch of 2000s white guys covering early/mid 20th century black blues musicians certainly has representation problem potential. However, their whole lifetime approach holds this music in such reverence that I think it avoids that trap and shines as a labor of love.

The Chills, Scatterbrain– A very lost in time feel, one might legitimately think one was stumbling across a lost classic of the psychedelic era, though as it goes on it picks up more than a little twist of synth pop. Not a track misfires.

Weezer, Van Weezer– Not an album of Van Halen covers, but rather an invocation of the spirit of that era/style of music. This is near and dear to my heart, and obviously to theirs as well. So well done!

Maybe

  • Aly & AJ, A Touch of the Beat Gets You Up on Your Feet Gets You Out and Then into the Sun– A very pretty and well done pop record. It’s not profound, but it also never lets you down, and I kept wavering between “not substantive enough”, and “yeah, but it’s pretty good”. So I guess by definition this is a maybe!
  • Bachelor, Doomin’ Sun– Friends from two indie bands rent a house together during the pandemic and get as deep and weird as they want to home recording. That’s a good start, and the results are shimmery, raw, and real. Their visions are complementary, but not identical, and the results are beautiful and always interesting, albeit maybe it doesn’t feel totally coherent.
  • CHAI, Wink– The “quirky becomes downright weird” side of J-pop is one of my favorite locations. They play around with dance music and disco to excellent, and consistently subversively fun, effect. It feels a little light and slight, perhaps, which is the only thing keeping it from a “yes” for me.
  • Damien Jurado, The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania– The title is great, and the cover is pretty good too. Don’t judge a book by it’s…? Well, the lyrics and vocals are lucid, even poetically luminous. It’s all on the acoustic and mellow side musically, maybe a little too same that way, but the lyrical/vocal side of it keeps it in strong contention!
  • Dispatch, Break Our Fall– Wastes no time, started out rocking. With 60s classic/80s jangle feel-rocking numbers, ballads, lighter almost novelty songs. A little klunky in its topicality and maybe too long, but song structure and music is 100%. A lot of it sounds instant classic.
  • Giant Claw, Mirror Guide– I kind of liked the discordant random plucked notes start to this. I made it to halfway through and realized, unlike many electronic albums I listen to, I wasn’t questioning its or my continued existence. There’s something weird, off-beat, even sci-fi about it that keeps it compelling. Despite the oddness, because of the oddness? This is a definite maybe for me!
  • Juliana Hatfield, Blood– I really like Juliana Hatfield, and I’m also required by law to like smart, angsty, fuzz-guitared 90s songstresses in general, and this is firmly in that vein. She’s never not had an edge, but this is nasty in a sharp-tongued kind of way, and hilarious. The lyrics feel a little too topically on the nose sometimes, which is the only thing keeping it from a “yes”.
  • Kasai Allstars, Black Ants Always Fly Together, One Bangle Makes No Sound– African folk from a Congolese group, delivered with exuberance. There is obvious application of the roots of their sound to American music as well. There is the foreign language issue, but the music is so dynamic and fun it pretty much overcomes that for me.
  • L’Orange/Namir Blade, Imaginary Everything– It didn’t quite feel like it came together, but there’s a lot of excellent hip-hop experimentation going on here. The eclectic musical sampling work is superb, the mix and wordplay is surreal.
  • Lord Huron, Long Last– I’ve been curious about this Lord, and his great lakey realm, for a while. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this is a very welcome surprise- country inflections with that spooky minor chords sound, sometimes in a downright cowboy ballad vein, but with a heartfelt air. There’s even a framing device for the album that works. It was all superb, and was headed toward being an automatic yes until a 14-minute ambient track at the end. Alas!
  • Lou Barlow, Reason To Live– Nice acoustic energy, evocative vocals, I kept teetering toward everything sounding too same early on, but the songs sound looming, like something important is going on. This 80s/90s lo-fi rock pioneer (alumni of Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh) knows what he’s doing, I think.
  • Mach-Hommy, Pray for Haiti– The musical/mix side of this is great, with many offbeat choices, and the vocal flow is smooth but dynamic, and the subject matter-a kaleidoscope of personal and cultural references focused by an overarching meditation on the political and economic straights of Haiti-is compelling. It was very promising on the first half, but got unfocused and over-run with guest MCs who watered down the coherence on the second half.
  • Micky Dolenz, Dolenz Sings Nesmith– The more poppy former-Monkee covering solo work from the more experimental former-Monkee is an interesting idea. Like, imagine what a McCartney covers solo Lennon album might be like? It turns out really well, and the only thing going against it as an album is also it’s strength- a wide diversity of source songs. So it doesn’t really come off as coherent, but it is fun!
  • Moby, Reprise– This is literally a reprise- Moby not just re-recording, but re-imagining, a baker’s dozen plus one of songs from throughout his career. Between the strength of the original source material and the interesting nature of the re-works, it’s pretty compelling.
  • Mustafa, When Smoke Rises– Spoken word, hip-hop, and there’s something quiet and compelling about it. It’s very low-key, musically and vocally, which is about my only reservation, but it gets under your skin and is talking about things that have some weight to them. It doesn’t sound like everything else, and all-in-all is a pretty hefty accomplishment for someone who’s only 24.
  • Natalie Bergman, Mercy– Is this an electronic indie neo-disco gospel album? I kind of think yes! I actually liked that idea pretty well, and it’s weirdly compelling. I was with it for quite a while, until it got a little wobbly halfway through, but then ended powerfully.
  • Paul Weller, Fat Pop, Vol. 1– Paul Weller walks into this with a problem that’s really sort of his fault, which is I’m expecting a lot from him. And you know what, I hear the Jam here and the Style Council in parts, also a fairly strong Bowie influence, and a lot of variety and verve. The only thing keeping it from a “yes” is some of it sounds cliched/by rote. But, come on, his rote is better than most people’s best effort.
  • Sophia Kennedy, Monsters– This is fascinating. Largely keyboards and electronic percussion, but with unsettling brooding and flashes of musical discord, sharp vocals, and dark lyrics. And unlike many another album, it actually gets more interesting and varied as it goes on, with tin pan alley pop and even dance beats rearing their heads. In fact, it got so variable that lack of coherence popped it out of automatic yes!
  • TEKE::TEKE, Shirushi– Now this is suitably strange! A Japanese band, and their music is a mix of surf music, traditional forms, and psychedelia-flavored electronic. There’s the language issue, and the fact that it sometimes get a little too experimental, but on the other hand it’s a fun and interesting listen, and the experimentation goes somewhere.
  • The Reigning Sound, A Little More Time with Reigning Sound– Swaggering but melodic indie rock with hints of country, 50s rock, the Beatles, and Dylan. When I heard this band was from Nashville, I kind of hoped they’d sound like this. The vocals are klunky in a wonderful way that actually highlights the directness of the musical approach. It slowed down a little in the middle, though never got bad or fully deflated. These pacing issues just keep it from “yes”.
  • Van Morrison, Latest Record Project Volume 1– I do admire the school of album naming this hails from, but also must note that there are very few circumstances, even for a living legend, under which a more than two hour album is justified. The opening track is kind of brilliantly solipsistic, though. So there’s the length, a general crankiness, and a certain level of right wing ranty in the lyrics. On the other hand, it’s so musically and vocally excellent I don’t feel let down by a single track for more than hours. Does this all equal out to a maybe?

No

  • black midi, Cavalcade– The opening is really something. Disco, rock, lurching music, trippy spoken word. The next track is even more disorienting with it’s trip into a classic croon. The third track lurches back and forth between these two modes. And so on. Ultimately a little too much on the “not consistently listenable” side of experimental. But interesting!
  • Blackberry Smoke, You Hear Georgia– This band is deeply steeped in southern rock, very skillfully rendered, but I can’t escape the feeling that it’s too often a little “prefab” in terms of lyrics and production.
  • Blake Shelton, Body Language– This is a little too on the “pop” side of pop country for me, and falls into the cliché/rote route too often. That being said, he has tons of charm, and as pop country goes, this is very well done.
  • Carlos Nino & Friends, More Energy Fields, Current– A little too jazzy and instrumentally mellow for me.
  • Cheval Sombre, Days Go By– The first track sounds like a grunge ballad. Now, I like an occasional grunge ballad, but it turns out pretty much every track either sounds like that or a slow slide into My Bloody Valentine. That’s too much in that vein for me!
  • Cloves, Nightmare on Elmfield Road– Mellow dance beats and shimmery vocals, I gather that there is a kind of horror story going on in it, but it’s too mellow and shimmery for me to pick it up.
  • Colleen, The Tunnel and the Clearing– The down-tempo here almost fades into non-existence. The third track sounded like it had sea lions in it, so I liked that.
  • Dark Tea, Dark Tea [2021]– Brooklyn based musical collective. A little country and classic rock twist, excellent song structure, vocals, and melody. At its best, it’s very good, but it too often falls prey to a feeling of sameness, and long pacing lulls.
  • Dave Holland, Another Land– As funk-flavored all instrumental jazz outings go, this is a fine one, but this cup of tea, it is not mine.
  • David Gray, Skellig– This may have suffered from being the second mellow acoustic album I listened to in a row. It’s solid, but I never really caught a spark from it.
  • Dodie, Build a Problem– English singer-songwriter, kind of a mellow electronic folk. It’s nice enough, literate emotionally sophisticated lyrics, but eh.
  • Dorothea Paas, Anything Can’t Happen– She has a really great voice, and things are well played on this folk album, but it doesn’t feel like there are enough moments that are surprising or get beyond a certain narrow musical/emotional range.
  • Erika de Casier, Sensational– The music is more on the subtle side than I often prefer, but the changeable flow of the vocals and the emotionally vulnerable lyrics are compelling! It ends up being a little too musically thin though, and the tracks fade into a kind of sameness.
  • Facs, Present Tense– I mean, it’s kind of punky, kind of electronic, kind of glowery, there’s feedback and distortion and anguished shrieking in the background. It all got kind of tiresome pretty quickly.
  • Fatima Al Qadiri, Medieval Femme– This is interesting, but it’s a little too “fade into the background” world music for me.
  • Fly Pan Am, Frontera– Well, there’s beats, moody background music, and some occasional screaming. No.
  • Georgia Anne Mudrow, Vweto III-Sadly, no. This is mostly instrumental, but there is a lot of verve in its mix of influences- hip-hop, 80s club, disco, and funk all make an appearance. Not bad by any means, in fact really good, but it doesn’t feel like there’s enough connecting it together to add up to a great album.
  • GoGo Penguin, GGP/RMX– Some tracks totally caught my attention. Others seemed to be animated by a sound not unlike eating lettuce.
  • Greenhouse, Music For Living Spaces– This, let it be known, is literally an album about plants. That being said, I was pulling for it, and it is very pleasant. But a little too low-key and instrumental in the end.
  • Iceage, Seek Shelter– The opening descent into vaguely sinister guitar warms my heart, as do the weary burned-out vocals. It’s pretty good down-tempo slightly sleazy rock, and has some fine anthemic moments, but keeps slowing down without warning, and doesn’t sound differentiated enough- the tracks blend into each other.
  • John Andrews & the Yawns, Cookbook– Jazz vibe, hints of Santana, a mellow California feel, musically and vocally like a hazy summer day. It’s very nice. For a track or two. I’ll avoid obvious jokes about the band name.
  • Jorja Smith, Be Right Back– Beautiful British soul, it’s never bad, but ultimately it never sparked up for me.
  • Lampchop, Showtunes– Slow piano chords, sonorous vocals, and philosophical lyrics create a melancholy feel. It all adds up to one downbeat tone, without enough variety or texture to rise above that.
  • Last Days of April, Even The Good Days Are Bad– Strong indie pop-rock with a classical feel. The tracks have a propulsive, independent sound, and vocal variability. And then it had the dreaded second half deflation, including literally ending on a downtempo song called “Downer”. Almost well done Swedes! I swear the people who seem to still be doing rock well these days are almost all Canadian or Scandinavian…
  • Lionel Boy, Lionel Boy– As auto-tuned slow-tempo well-produced contemporary R&B goes, this is fine.
  • Lisa Gerrard/Jules Maxwell, Burn– A collaboration by the vocalist and keyboard player from Dead Can Dance. This is the kind of orchestral ambient swirl of music you might expect from that. If it’s your thing, you might like it, but I don’t hear enough going on here, powerfully enough, to be a “best” album of the year.
  • Loscil, Clara– It is very ambient. The cover is a picture of melting ice. That seems appropriate.
  • Magic Castles, Sun Reign– A little 80s/90s alt a la Jesus and Mary Chain, a little paisley underground, but it kind of ended up all blurring together.
  • Marinero, Hella Love– Lush Latin music-themed romanticism. It’s largely a paen to San Francisco, which certainly tugs on my heartstrings, but, with exceptions, it’s mostly too low-key and all in one tone to really engage me.
  • Matt Berry, The Blue Elephant– I knew him as a British actor from the IT Crowd, but he’s a pretty fine musician too! Jazzy instrumental first track had me thrown off, but the psychedelic swirl and powerful instruments on the next track was great. Then another jazzy instrumental. And so on. This was half of an excellent album and half of a blah one.
  • Matt Kearney, January Flower– Upbeat indie rock leaning toward electric folk, but it was a little too poppy and prefab for me.
  • Mdou Moctar, Afrique Victime– A Tuareg singer-songwriter from Niger in the eclectic “Desert Blues” genre. It is musically muscular! I really like it, but in the end, the language barrier keeps me from connecting with it enough to rank it as a “year’s best” album.
  • Morcheeba, Blackest Blue– This is undoubtedly well-produced and high quality. Its particular brand of lush and easy just fades into the background for me, though, and I need a “best” album to stand out more than that!
  • Murcof, The Alias Sessions– This is a double album. It is also spare and minimalist, sometimes to the point of barely registering. I did not care for it.
  • New Order, Education Entertainment Recreation– When I was a lovelorn depressed teen, I was a big fan of New Order. I still like them, they certainly have their place. A live album by them is relatively unlikely to result in surprises, though. That being said, these are fine live versions , but two hours of live album practically identical to studio, well…
  • Olivia Rodrigo, Sour– The opening sounds like she really likes grunge, and has a pop sensibility too, and her lyrics have some real wit and personality. The subsequent tracks were much more Taylor Swiftian, but still with an almost operatic quality to the emotional drama. Often affecting, but also very young, and it has a few too many tear-stained ballads in a row. But so well rendered, and she’s only 18, there is big promise here.
  • Paula Cole, American Quilt– “Paula Cole covers American standards” doesn’t sound like a bad premise. The variety of styles is laudable, and all are really well-done. But I only like about half of them- more the blues, soul, and gospel side, less the extended jazzy and ethereal celtic ones. Which I guess means this would work for me as a selected EP?
  • Sarah Bareilles, Amidst the Chaos: Live From the Hollywood Bowl– Just because streaming technology makes it possible for one to have an almost two-hour long concert album does not mean one should. That being said, this is a really good live album- excellent sound quality, good versions, charming interaction with the crowd. It would need to be a little more streamlined to be in contention for year’s best, but I would certainly recommend it for fans.
  • Sons of Kemet, Black to the Future– Poetic ragged vocals, jazz backing, timely Afrocentric lyrics. There’s a lot to admire here, but it too often faded to background sound for me.
  • Squid, Bright Green Field– The sound collage opening was a minus, which is a shame because the off kilter vocals and music of the next track were interesting. Unfortunately it’s the kind of off-kilter that wears thin after several songs. And what is it with the recent shouted vocals trend with British bands?
  • Sunroof, Electronic Music Improvisations, Vol. 1– The album name made me think this might not be for me. The Beats, atmospheric sounds, and electronic boops and bops confirmed it.
  • The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, When God Was Great– Like the Offspring album we reviewed in April, this was mostly a case of a fine example of their sound, but kind of a victim of that very thing. What would raise it above that to the realm of great? There are some songs that I think are actually on track, doing a retrospective look at the history of the band and its scene, showing where it actually is in time and space. More of this, and maybe…in the meantime, there’s plenty here for a ska fan to like.
  • Trevor Powers, Capricorn– First impression: This sounds like discordant muzak. Those were actually the better parts, in other places it got very ethereal and sound samply.
  • Twenty One Pilots, Scaled and Icy– Starts off 70s sunny, then becomes kind of autotune, then kind of Weezery, then electronic influenced rock, a little discoy, a little hip hop, all clever, but rarely feels very genuine.
  • Will Stratton, The Changing Wilderness– There’s a richness to the lyrics and the vocals, and understated power to the low-key indie rock. It’s pretty, it’s well-done, but it’s kind of the same track to track.
  • Young Nudy, DR. EV4L– I was in just based on the cover alone, and it definitely has some material that dives deep into the horrorcore theme the cover indicates. Unfortunately, too much of the rest of it is full of bitch and pussy talk. It’s a shame- there could have been a great, or at least very interesting album here.

And there we have it. Next, on to June! Which, who knows, I may get done before the last day of the following month…

Music Appreciation: My All-Time Top Ten, Part 2

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After the recent loss of Prince, I noticed a friend’s post about expressing appreciation for music we love while the musicians are still around. It was somewhat jarring to realize how many of my all-time favorites are already gone, so I felt even more inspired to say something while I still could. Thus last month’s post about 1-5 of my all-time favorite top ten musical artists.

We had a few weeks of technical delays, but I’m back now with Part II, covering 6-9, and a sneaky tie for 10th place.

Johnny Cash Johnny Cash is a fascinating bundle of contrasts- social activist in a genre that was often less progressive, personification of Country who was also a Sun Records first generation Rocker, rebellious sinner who unashamedly preached the Gospel. One could go on, but the real thing that gets me about him every time I listen is the stripped down basic power of his music and the unmistakable sound of his voice. Is it Country? Rock? Heaven? Hell? All of those at once, in one unforgettable Man in Black.

 

Prince I could easily re-purpose a lot of the above to describe Prince as well. Today’s music scene is so segregated by genre that it’s even more amazing now than it was in the 80s how he straddled the divide between Soul and Rock like it was nothing. Not to mention that he was a genuine goddamn virtuoso- he liked to perform with big bands, but on his first two albums he not only wrote and produced the whole thing, he played every instrument himself. Buried at the heart of his music is a fusion of the sacred and the sexual that’s always uneasy and dynamic. How many people before, since, or ever, could make something with a funky beat, a guitar solo that Eric Clapton envied, a complex religious philosophy and hilarious sexual entendre all in the same album? Sometimes even in the same song… I was hooked when I first listened to 1999 at age 12, and I still am today.

 

Kristin Hersh You might think by the next two entries that I started off as a big Throwing Muses fan in the 80s. I was an 80s alt kid, so it would be reasonable to think that, but it’s not actually true. I ran in to Kristin Hersh’s solo work in the early 2000s, when her searing voice, surging chords, and willingness to not hold anything back got me through a lot of desolate-feeling post-divorce evenings. Then I back-filled to her 80s and 90s work with Throwing Muses (realizing along the way that I had favorite songs by them without knowing it was them), and forward filled to her mid-2000s band 50FOOTWAVE. Over three decades, in everything she’s done, she remains a powerhouse who can go acoustic or hard, throws out fiercely intelligent lyrics, and can sing the hell out of a song.

Tanya Donelly Pretty much everything I said above goes Ditto for Hersh’s step-sister and Throwing Muses co-founder Tanya Donelly. Her early 2000s solo albums were more like shimmering lullabies, but were similarly key to midwifing my emergence from a wrecked marriage and hollow way of life, toward reclaiming my true self. And damned if I didn’t then discover her Throwing Muses pedigree, and that she had been the driving force behind Belly, who I adored in the 90s. She tends to be both lusher and more subtle than Hersh, but is no less capable of rocking it out and producing haunting musical creations.

 

Bruce Springsteen When I was first putting together my top ten list, I hit a bit of a stumbling block. My 1-5 were clear as a bell to me. Without too much more thought, I came up with 6-9. But then I kept going back and forth on #10 between the Boss and the Clash. After a while, I realized they actually were flip sides of the same thing that was befuddling me, and decided to put them both in as tie for 10th. The issue was that I’m not always in a Clash mood, but when I am, I like almost everything they’ve done. On the other hand, I only like some of Springsteen, but I’m always in the mood for the version of Bruce that I like. For me, it’s his dark albums and songs that really get me. So, you can have your Born to Run, Born in the USA, and the Rising. Heck, you should have them. I like them too. Sometimes. But I’ll take Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska, Tunnel of Love, Ghost of Tom Joad, and Magic anytime. There’s something about the spooky underbelly of America that nobody gets like Springsteen does.

 

The Clash Which leaves us with the other side of my tie for 10th. I like some of Joe Strummer’s solo stuff, and Mick Jones has made a lot of interesting music post-Clash- Big Audio Dynamite’s first album was one of my favorite things in the 80s. But there was something about the synergy of them together that was on a whole other level. Political without being polemical, rocking as hard as anything that the first generation of Punk came out with, and yet bringing in ska and dub, they continue to do what art should do at its best- inspire, entertain, and disquiet at the same time.

 

Music Appreciation: My All-Time Top Ten, Part 1

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I can hardly even tell you what Prince means to me. Despite that, I will give it a try in part two of this post next week. For now, suffice it to say that 1999 was one of the first albums I owned that didn’t feature a Muppet or music from Star Wars. It was a revelation to a rural twelve year-old living in the days before the Internet let you know that there were other weirdos out there. I’ve followed the twists and turns of his musical evolution ever since, and his passing has hit me noticeably harder than most celebrity deaths.

Maybe that’s why it caught my attention when a friend posted an observation last week about how we express our appreciation when someone’s gone, but we ought to do it while they’re still around, and then proceeded to list some of the still-living musicians who’ve had an impact on his life. Reading his post, I reflected that four of my all-time top-ten are already gone. It’s high time to do some appreciating! Forthwith, here are my top five musicians. Presented in chronological order of their debut, because I don’t even know how to approach putting them in an actual 1-5 order. Next week we’ll cover 6-10.

Bob Dylan There have, of course, been many Dylans- earnest folk singer, surrealist 60s troubadour, heartland country poet, born again evangelist, wry and grizzled veteran- I could go on, but the point is I love them all. In every incarnation, his lyrical vision is as idiosyncratic as his voice, and uncompromisingly intelligent. Musically, he draws from the deep well springs of American music, blues, country, folk, with the same fusion of playfulness and mastery he brings to his songwriting.  It’s not easy to be simultaneously utterly earnest and also obviously slyly on the con, but Dylan does it. His creations often already seem timeless at the moment they come out, and the legacy only grows as time passes.

 

The Who/Pete Townshend You’ll notice there’s no Beatles or Stones in this list. Obviously, I’m not arguing that those bands are crap. I love them. We are all required by law to love them. But for me, every time I clear a classic Pete Townshend guitar riff on a Who song, or the plaintive keen of his voice on his solo work, I am instantly transported in a way I am not with those other bands. To a place where the music is it’s own justification. Where there is no history, no fear, no me, just Rock. Long live Rock!

 

Neil Young Again, a voice that instantly transports me, and a fiercely individual viewpoint and lyrical depth to back it up. Those would be mighty weapons were they all that he had in his arsenal, but then there’s the guitar. He can play a country song so straight up that there’s not a hint of irony in it and then (on the same album even) switch to a scorching shredded feedback so damn hard that Grunge immediately recognized him as a spiritual fore-bearer when it arrived on the scene.

 

The Pixies/Frank Black The legend is that Frank Black recruited Kim Deal to the Pixies with an add saying that he was looking for a bass player who liked Peter, Paul & Mary & Husker Du. Now, I like Kim Deal. A lot. So much so that I don’t even think they should call the current band the Pixies without her. But it’s Frank Black’s musical vision,  crystallized in the story above, that most catches my attention in their albums and his solo work since. His music is a place in which surf harmonies and noise pop live together in unquiet peace. Lyrically he’s frequently dark, sometimes hilarious, often both at once, but creates obsidian worlds that are wondrous and unmistakably unique.

 

Nirvana I am always aspiring to reach a place in my writing so authentic, so direct, that the effect is searing and impossible to turn away from. Nirvana, for me, has come to symbolize that place. There’s never a hint of falseness in what they do, and a fresh listen to Nevermind now still reminds you what an amazing thing it was when they burned down the pop charts in 1991. Kurt Cobain remains haunting because he also symbolizes the flip side of having a vision that unrelenting- it can consume itself on the way. For both the promise and the caution, and because they still sound incendiarily fresh twenty years later, I keep listening.

 

 

Revisiting the 2000s: 20 albums (final thoughts)

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Well, here we are! You read the intro, where I laid out the project of reviewing what a cross-section of critical opinion regards as twenty of the best albums of the decade that must not be named (or at least, never properly was), 2000-2009. You thrilled to the reviews of albums 1-5, 6-10, 11-15 and 16-20. Here, at the end of all things, what have we learned?

First off, having spent a lot of the decade distracted by other things and back-filling older artists and genres, it was a pleasant surprise to find some things I really liked. My “top” picks from among the albums I listened to were:

  • Arcade Fire, Funeral
  • Beck, Sea Change
  • Eminem, Marshall Mathers LP
  • Jay-Z, The Blueprint
  • Kayne West, Late Registration
  • Madvillian, Madvilliany
  • MIA, Arular
  • Outkast, Stankonia
  • Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
  • The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots 
  • Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Then there was another whole patch that, while I can’t think they’re the best albums of this last or any other decade, I would call “good”. They don’t reach “top” status for various reasons (musical or thematic inconsistency, lightness of lyrics or theme compared to the top albums, or just being a kind of good clean fun that doesn’t quite rise to greatness):

  • Daft Punk, Discovery
  • Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights
  • LCD Soundystem, Sound of Silver
  • MIA, Kala
  • Spoon, Kill the Moonlight
  • Sufjan Stevens, Illinois
  • TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain

And, then, well…I have to respectfully disagree with the critics on the following albums. The first I found too experimental and not enough listenable, and the second was just kind of derivative and blah:

  • Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavillion
  • D’Angelo, Voodoo

We’ll get back to this “good” and “great” question in a moment. First, a pair of further observations.

1. This was not Rock’s decade. Of the 20 albums in this list, more than half were hip-hop, soul or dance music. Not that I don’t have a lot of love for those genres, but I do hope that Rock makes a rebound sometime in the 2010-2019 decade. For which, we are currently accepting naming bids…

2. You could make a very decent case that many of the best albums of the decade were basically 90s-afterburn. I will illustrate with one of my favorite data formats, the histogram. In this case, of the year the albums came out in. As you can see, fully half come from the first three years of the decade.

Now, back to this best/great/good question. In my previous installment, I got into an interesting commentary stream with my friend Matt, who besides being generally a groovy guy and great writer is an audiophile and astute pop culture critic. One of his contentions was that I’d gone too easy on the decade by calling anything that came out of it good compared to albums of decades past. I’ll let him speak for himself on this point:

“Maybe you need to shift your categories downward some more. “Good” should mean “adequate” and “adequate” should mean “terrible” and “terrible” should mean “I feel sorry for this band, I really do.” 

To me, I think it comes down to this: if I met somebody who was more or less intelligent but had little familiarity with the popular music of the last 60 years, what music would I recommend to them? And what albums from the ’00s would I include in my recommendation? 

Rolling Stone just recently “updated” their 500 Greatest Albums list by adding several albums from the ’00s to it, which now makes me less inclined to recommend the list to people. It’s just so awkward seeing Vampire Weekend, M.I.A., and Arcade Fire right next to Roxy Music, Santana, and N.W.A. I just want to shout out to a potential reader, “No! This is not the right list!” To be fair, the highest an album from the ’00s ranks on the new list is at 118 (Late Registration?), but honestly, they should have just left the damn list alone.

Hey, if writers and musicians genuinely believe that LCD Soundsystem and Wilco deserve to be lumped together with Led Zeppelin and Stevie Wonder, then I guess I just have some lint stuck in my ears. But I really believe that recorded music in the album format simply will not have the cultural and emotional impact it did up until the ’00s.

All these people are in denial!”

He has a point about where the music on this list fits in the grand scheme. There are specific entries I might argue with him on, and time of course is the great arbiter. But none of these albums are epochal. I don’t think it was that kind of decade, I think it was largely a decade of reflection and remixing that lacked the galvanizing new musical movements of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 90s. I’m hopeful that it was one of those periods of consolidation and musical drift that have preceded a “next big thing” in the past. Then again, thanks to technological change, maybe pop culture is too atomized now to have a “next big thing”. I wouldn’t bet on it, but there is an interesting neo-Marxian argument to be had about how the technological shift in the means of production may preclude this. It may certainly, as Matt contends, diminish the importance of the album as a form. Music lived before the album as we currently know it arose in the 60s, though, and I think it will live just fine in its next phase as well.

In the meantime, I haven’t given up on the album as an art form. And while this project has given me some new albums to like, I happen to think there were plenty of great albums in the 2000s. My own personal list of the top 20 albums of the decade (only three of which appeared on the nine critics lists I perused, again proving that, if nothing else, this was a very idiosyncratic decade) is (in alphabetical order):  

Bangs  Call and Response  (2002)
There’s a kind of female-powered punky and yet poppy band that I really, really like, and hope will hit it big, but they break up and vanish after producing one or two great albums. The 2000s had a lot of bands like this, and there is another on this very same list. But my first sadly gone girl-group love of the decade was the Bangs. 10 years later, this still sounds fresh, fun and eminently listenable.  

Breeders  Title TK  (2002)
As documented above, there’s a good case to be made that some of the best music of the 2000s was actually 90s afterburn. This is true on my list as well, witness this fine outing by one of the best bands of the 90s, the Breeders, headed by one of the driving forces behind another of the best bands of the late 80s/early 90s (and, in my opinion, of the entire history of Rock) the Pixies. It’s dark moodiness was one of the things that carried me through post-divorce early 2000s, and I love it still today.

Bruce Springsteen  Magic  (2007)
While I like Bruce Springsteen a lot in general, I tend to like best the dark Springsteen albums that he comes out with every other album or so. Magic is that, and is also a kind of perfect distillation of the mid-decade despair of the Bush years, delivered by a Springsteen that has aged into the world-weariness and mythic presence that he sometimes had to pose at in younger days.   

Death Cab For Cutie  Narrow Stairs  (2008)
I’m not sure the last decade had a better lyricist than Ben Gibbard, the lead of Death Cab for Cutie. Structurally, the songs are often simplistic, but what I’ve observed about them is that they linger. And the mellow, seemingly straightforward package in this album delivers things like a haunting wrestle with Jack Kerouac’s legacy, seeing smoke from the grapevine turned into a timeless struggle against the elements, and one of the most chilling “love” songs ever recorded, laying bare yet again how many of our favorite “romantic” songs are actually creepy obsession when you think about them.     

Deerhoof   Reveille  (2002)
If somebody took perfect pop rock, exploded it, and reassembled the pieces out of sequence but in a way that strangely still works, it would sound like this album. I don’t just love Deerhoof because they’re a Bay Area band. I love them because (and particularly on this album) they show just how creatively lazy every other band this last decade was, and that surprising, idiosyncratically beautiful things can still be done in Rock.

Drive-By Truckers  Brighter Than Creation’s Dark  (2008)
I said in the intro piece to this series that nobody in any pop genre had really had a great decade in the 2000s. In fact, that isn’t entirely true, and this album would be one of my prime exhibits in the contention that some of the best music of the 2000s was in fact Country music. Granted, it wasn’t by people you were going to hear on any Country station, but that doesn’t make it any less true. This is an amazing band, and an amazing album by them. Whether they’re writing about the rise and fall of Grunge (yes, really), a lament to a friend’s downfall through crystal meth, a sympathetic portrait of a soldier’s regret at having to kill, or just good old fashioned country themes, they are superb throughout, and adept at mixing Country and Rock together in way that you can’t really say which is which.     

Gillian Welch   Time (the Revelator)  (2001)
Some of the best music of the 2000s was Country music, but you won’t hear it on any Country station Exhibit II. I guess technically she might be Bluegrass, but let’s not split hairs. The point is Gillian Welch is a living encyclopedia of American roots music, channeling decades of influences to make her own outstanding contribution on this album.  

Hank William III  Straight to Hell  (2006)
Some of the best music of the 2000s was Country music, but you won’t hear it on any Country station Exhibit III. They just happened to all end up in a row alphabetically, but it still makes for a nice exhibit. They didn’t quite make my top 20, but you could add the Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash and Lucinda Williams to the list as well. As for this album, the way Deerhoof should make everybody working in Rock ashamed of how little they’ve strived for, Hank III should make everybody working in Country ashamed of how lame they are.

Kristin Hersh  Sunny Border Blue  (2001)
And I suppose this might be Exhibit II in my “90s afterburn” theorem. Nee of Throwing Muses, Kristin Hersh is an amazing songwriter and a powerful musician. The songs here are spare, confessional and harrowing. This was another album that helped me burn through post-divorce darkness early in the decade, and it’s taken on whole new meaning to me as we both (the album and I) have aged.   

Martha Wainwright  Martha Wainwright  (2005)
Martha Wainwright is one of the lushest, most true to herself voices of the decade. Here is a woman not worried about being popular or likable, laying it all out, good, bad and ugly. Which, of course, ends up lending the proceedings a vulnerability that wins through the darkness. Loudon Wainwright is great, Rufus has his many fans, but give me Martha any day!    

Northern State   Dying in Stereo  (2003)
Hip hop can be great. Feminism too. Political records sometimes. Empowered women creating something, always. Put them all together, and you get one of the best albums of the past decade. 

Raveonettes  Whip It On  (2002)
Rock is dead, they say. Pretty regularly. And there are long stretches of certain decades (80s, 2000s) that you think they might have a point. Then something like this comes along, and you realize that there’s plenty of life left in the old beast. Not to mention all in Bminor! It took a Danish band to do it, which would make me sad as an American, except we had the White Stripes in the same decade. So go Danes, go!  

Red Hot Chilli Peppers  By The Way  (2002)
There’s something wise and melodically bittersweet about this album. Which makes sense, since it comes almost two decades in for the group, and after lead singer Anthony Kiedis got into recovery. Which maybe is part of the reason it works for me. I think it suits the decade too- a moment to pause and reflect in a rough era that’s seen a lot go by.   

Rilo Kiley  Under the Blacklight  (2007)
If there is anything to not like about this album (or indeed the band in general) I don’t know what it would be.  Between Jenny Lewis’ lush and precisely delivered vocals, the intelligent and more than occasionally emotionally chilling lyrics and the inventive and skillful musical craftsmanship on display here, this album is a delight.    

Sleater Kinney  One Beat  (2002)
I used to think of this album as a kind of predecessor to American Idiot, full of a similar disquiet over post-9/11 America that the later album delivered even more thunderously. As the years wear on, what impresses me is how Sleater Kinney’s effort is more perennial than Greenday’s, which started to sound dated to me a two or three years after it was released. I find it to be an excellent illustration of my general theory that to produce political art that lasts, you have to prioritize the personal over the polemical.    

Soviettes  LP III  (2005)
Remember in the opening entry above about the Bangs, how I described that certain kind of female-powered punky yet poppy band that I’m always hoping will make it big and instead collapses? Meet my mid-decade heartbreak, Minnesota’s the Soviettes, on the third and best of three excellent albums they put out before breaking up.  

Tanya Donelly  beautysleep  (2002)
Picture me in 2002, post-divorce, starting to re-connect to who I am as a person and artistically. I’m alone in the dark, sitting next to the stereo with the first new music I’ve bought in years. On comes Tanya Donelly, 80s co-founder of the Throwing Muses and 90s veteran of the Breeders and Belly. Through moody billowing music and shimmering vocals she’s celebrating the birth of her first child, and the renewal this represents after decades of wandering. And I’m right there with her… 

Tanya Donelly  Whiskey Tango Ghosts  (2004)
Or, you know, here with her two years later. She’s now in a more acoustic vein, looking back over the years and through the complexity and ambiguity of marriage with well-worn wisdom and tenderness. I lvoed it from first listen, but this album has played better and better for me as I’ve gone through the same journey myself.  

The White Stripes  De Stijl  (2000)
Other White Stripes albums made the best of the decade lists I compiled my twenty albums from, and indeed one of my sources, Paste, made the following pretty excellent case that Jack White owned the whole damn decade musically:
2000: The White Stripes, De Stijl 
2001: The White Stripes, White Blood Cells; White founds Third Man Records
2003: The White Stripes, Elephant; White contributes to Cold Mountain soundtrack and appears in the film
2004: White produces and performs on Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose
2005: The White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan
2006: The Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soldiers
2007: The White Stripes, _Icky Thump _
2008: The Raconteurs, Consolers of the Lonely; White records “Another Way to Die” with Alicia Keys for Bond flick Quantum of Solace
2009: The Dead Weather, Horehound; White Stripes tour film Under the Great White Northern Lightspremieres at Toronto Film Festival; White stars in guitar love-note doc It Might Get Loud with Jimmy Page and U2’s The Edge
While White Blood Cells and Elephant deservedly draw a lot of praise, De Stijl is my favorite. It starts rocking the second you put it on, and pretty much never stops. 

U2  All That You Can’t Leave Behind   (2000)

I recall reading some music critic (I’m sure someone can remind me who) describing the Clash’s London Calling as the album that perfectly personified the 70s collapsing into the 80s. I feel like this album is the same thing for the liminal knife-edge of the 90s becoming the 00s. Here are U2 as world weary veterans producing an album that almost crystallizes the transition from the hopefulness of 90s globalism to the post-9/11 global unease of the 00s. Yes, it was a little before that. But the artist as prophet can do that, call the coming zeitgeist before it comes.  

So there you go. We’ve seen me reviewing the critics call on the best albums of the last decade  and now you’ve seen my picks for the 20 best albums of the decade. What do you think? The next move is your’s…

Revisiting the 2000s: 20 albums (16-20)

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And here we are, the final five albums of my re-visitation of what was a musical lost decade for me, the 2000s (aka Naughts, aka 00s, aka we never came up with a good name for it). To quickly reintroduce you to the theme, despite being a huge audiophile, I spent most of the last decade vastly distracted by life and/or back-filling on older artists and genres. So I wondered what I had missed, and turned to a cross-section of critical evaluation to identify the top 20 albums of the decade that I hadn’t given a careful listen to yet.

You’ll find the intro to this project here, followed by albums 1-5, 6-10 and 11-15. In all those reviews, as in the ones you’re about to read, I wrote my reviews in real-time, as I listened to the album. What you see here are my immediate reactions, unedited except to correct gross spelling and grammar missteps.    

And so here we proceed with the final five, highlighted below in yellow:

Animal Collective, “Merriweather Post Pavillion” (3)
Arcade Fire, “Funeral” (7)
Beck, “Sea Change” (5)
Daft Punk, “Discovery” (4)
D’Angelo, “Voodoo” (3)
Eminem, “Marshall Mathers LP” (3)
Interpol, “Turn on the Bright Lights” (4)
Jay-Z, “The Blueprint” (6)
Kayne West, “Late Registration” (4)
LCD Soundystem, “Sound of Silver” (6)
Madvillian, “Madvilliany” (3)
MIA, “Arular” (3)
MIA, “Kala” (4)
Outkast, “Stankonia” (6)
Phoenix, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” (3)
Spoon, “Kill the Moonlight” (3)
Sufjan Stevens, “Illinois” (3)
The Flaming Lips, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” (3)
TV on the Radio, “Return to Cookie Mountain” (3)

Wilco, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (8)  

Spoon, “Kill the Moonlight” (2002, 3 votes)
Track one “Small Stakes” is a nice thumping way to start an album, and I like how there’s a slurred uneducated indifference to the vocal delivery that contrasts with the music’s head-bopping driving power. This really reminds me of the Jam, which is to say it’s immediately endearing itself to me. Makes me wonder, is this a British or an American band? Yes, that’s how little I knew about Spoon before starting this review. Only know the name, really. Oh, track two still has that Jam thing going on, only now a little more swinging, with a hint of, say mid-60s Kinks. This must be a Britpop group. And, heck, there’s no law against that. Especially since this one is more on the rock, and less on the 60s studio overproduction, side of that equation. Three tracks in now, and this one is having some Who-style power-pop coming through. I love it! So entranced by the music thus far that I’m not quite catching the lyrics. I have a feeling they hold some riches that will emerge from repeated listening. Oh, you know who else this is reminding me of? The Zutons. Which, again, endears it to me. I’ve got the feeling that this lacks the gravity of, say, Arcade Fire or Beck’s efforts from this list, but I would probably play it more- it’s hitting all my “British rock favorite” nerves in just the right way! Track 6 “Paper Tiger” is doing some interesting things with a kind of love song from a pub thug meets well-mannered pop-rock sound. You know what every song is about so far? Short catchy refrains. Again, puts me in mind of Jam/Buzzcocks. I would also like to give these guys a medal, maybe even kiss them, for the fact that the longest track on the album is 3:39. You don’t need more than that when you know what you’re doing! And track nine, “All the Pretty Girls Go to the City” knows what it’s doing. Weary, jaded lyrics, big beats and even a little piano, without ever forgetting to rock. Track 10 of 12, still loving it. It’s weird though- this could be almost an undiscovered 60s holdover, an alt-80s band, or a 90s Britpop album. It gives it a kind of timeless quality. And track 11 is- wait, what?!? Just permitted myself a little research now that I’m near the end- Texas based? From Austin? Is Austin producing bands that do classic timeless-sounding Britpop-inflected rock better than the Brits? I’m moving there immediately! USA-USA-USA!    
     
Sufjan Stevens, “Illinois” (2005, 3 votes)
When this first came out I remember hearing about his project to do an album based on every state in the Union and thinking both, “Damn that’s ambitious- admire!” and “He’ll never get around to it.” That second has turned out to be true, which makes this even more precious, so I’m glad to finally have a chance to listen to it. My impression so far? I love the opening track, an indie folk ballad about a UFO sighting. Second piece was instrumental. Third seems to have crossbred Muzak and polka. It’s all very poppy, and very, very indie- long titles that are a thesis unto themselves, clever lyrics, lackadaisical vocals, musically a variety pack that delights in its own quirkiness. You wouldn’t put this on if you wanted to rick, but you might put it on to clean the house on a Sunday afternoon. I’m finding myself in a war between finding it too cutesy for its own good and oddly catchy and compelling. Now a ballad on John Wayne Gacy which is appropriately unsettling. Ah, and there we go, the narrator identifying at the end with him, and the secrets we all keep. Track five, “Jacksonville” seems to be channeling a little Neil Young- crap, I think the album is winning me over despite its self-consciousness and way too much production with strings. Track seven “Decatur”- equally catchy, equally befuddling. I can’t decide whether it’s profound, or a cheesy farce. Which is, you know, kind of like life, and maybe true to his experience of Illinois. Now it’s getting more serious toward the middle with and “Chicago” and “Casimir Pulaski Day” the kind of earnest heartfelt lyrically dense songs that Deathcab for Cutie trades in. And now noticeably less “children’s album” than some of the earlier songs on the album with their lyrical and musical quirkiness. Figures that the Superman-related song “The Man of Steel Steals our Hearts” works for me, of course, and is (in parts) the most rocking thing on the album so far. Though it could do with being half as long. This whole thing strikes me as kind of what would happen if you had Michelangelo do a WPA art mural: a klunky collection of themes rendered with unwarranted extraordinary artistry. Now track 16, with a title much too long to actually write, but something to do with a wasp, is (not for the first time on this album) presenting some queer themes, which is always good news socially, though it can be more of a mixed bag musically. This is reminding me of “69 Love Songs” now, which also continually confronts one with the question, “Is this the greatest thing ever, or is it kind of silly and annoying?” There is something to be said for having the title of every track make you want to read a Wikipedia article to understand it, though. It has its charm. Not as much charm as a hard-rocking song that kicks your ass, but still. Now on my research break, I’m interested to see how several sources mention the Christian themes of the album. Which didn’t really make as distinct an impression on me, I suspect because I always see the mundane suffused with theological significance. It just seems normal to me. And now track 24 of 26 (granted, several of them are interludes). What to say to sum up? A+ for super-sized cajones of artistic ambition. A+ again for high musical and lyrical quality of such excellence. Now apply a preciousness deflator and indie over-cleverness penalty. It adds up to something superb, always listenable, and sometimes quite affecting, even if it’s not quite my cup of tea.

The Flaming Lips, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” (2002, 3 votes)
I have to admit I’ve always been well disposed toward this album, since Yoshimi and Pink Robots is clearly within my oeuvre. Without having more than a vague sense of its contents. I have to admit I didn’t expect it to sound like this! “Fight Test” is like burned out 70s rock fueled by a child’s synthesizer. Pretty groovy. Now the second track is more of the ambient electronic sound effect inflected piece I was expecting. But it’s got a beat, and it’s about a robot, so I have to be pretty happy with it. And I am, despite the swell of strings and electronic sound effects at the end of track two. Now three, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Part I)”, it’s like an acoustic ballad that swallowed and is digesting electronica. This is superb! Vocally so heartfelt, lyrically superb, and yet ridiculous. I’m moved to wonder why this is working for me, but “Illinois” didn’t? Stronger point of view? Less lyrical obliquity? Material I’m just more in tune with? Greater thematic and musical unity, certainly. And the electronic beat certainly makes it more uptempo, which I appreciate. At heart, I think just can’t help but love anybody capable of producing a yearning heartfelt ballad to a Japanese girl fighting giant robots. Now “In the Morning of the Magicians”, a title check to an occult conspiracy classic. Of course I love it! This track, by the way, is like a space age psychedlica. “Are You a Hypnotist?” asks track seven, and yes indeed this album does put one in a fine and mellow mood. It’s just the eight mix of ambient, strong beat and orchestral swell, and it doesn’t hurt that the lead vocalist could just as easily be singing a country song. I think this is the vocal tenor all those other droning bleary indie groups are going for, and missing. It is getting a little too late Beatles studio experimental for my taste as it goes on, but still quite charming. As, indeed, is late Beatles studio experimental if you can divorce it from its canonical standing. Oh, I didn’t realize “Do You Realize” was them. Very fine, very fine. Sad, heartfelt, space age, esoteric yet feeling real. Thumbs up all around! They even managed to pull off ending the album with an instrumental track. Well done, boys, well done.      

TV on the Radio, “Return to Cookie Mountain” (2006, 3 votes)
Oh to be on Cookie Mountain, with the barkers and the colored balloons… No, wait, other song. So, I have to admit to loving the title of this album, but not knowing what to expect from it. Based on track one, I have to say there’s more Lo-Fi and distortion and less blasé indie musical drift than I would have feared. To be sure, there is the overproduction and blending of electronica and rock that you do tend to get with a lot of indie. But it’s built here around rock structure and sensibility, and the lyrics feel like they have some bite to them. It is a little all in one tone so far (as of track three), but if you were in a mood for a certain kind of mellow tinged by bitterness, this would really hit that spot. Kind of reminds me of two of my 2000s favorites, No Age and Times New Viking, if they had a little tilt toward Daft Punk or LCD Soundsystem in them. So far, not as engaging as Kanye, Emminem or Jay-Z, not as fun as MIA or Phoenix, or as weirdly wonderful as Madvillain or Sufjan Stevens. But a solid good- I wouldn’t turn it off, and there are no tracks I want to skip past. Oh, in fact, track five “Wolf like me” is really kicking it up. Is it because it’s like electronica-enhanced Garage Rock? What can I say, I’m a rocker. Oh, and track six “A Method” is doing some interesting things with rhythm and hand claps. Maybe this is one of those albums that takes a while to hit its stride. Loving track seven “Let the Devil In”! Okay, TV on the Radio, you’re growing on me. Now, of all things, it’s reminding me of 80s era Peter Gabriel on track eight. Something about the poly-rhythmic  beats, intelligent lyrics and vocal pitch of the semi-chanted lyrics. The first four tracks were clearly some kind of muted mood-setter, and it really gets unleashed here in the middle. I wonder what’s coming next? What? Nine “Blues from Down Here” is like Bauhaus if they did a dance song. TV, who are you? Okay, this one (“Tonight”) is different yet again. It actually sounds like it may have been recorded to vinyl and then re-recorded from vinyl. Even if that’s not true I’d like to believe it is. Seemed to take a segue in the middle into an old-time croon, then at the end trails off into metallic scrapes and echoes. And now a big stomping beat on “Wash the Day Away” and the wave of distortion that’s more familiar from the first few tracks, but with a hint of psychedelic. Reminding me of, of all things, Prince. I would like to pause here and say that I cannot endorse the average 6-7 minute track length we’re getting here late in the album. This one, of all of them, I might delete because I’m not sure 8 minutes of rather repetitive sound does anything to improve my life. “Untitled seem to be a similarly audio tape loop sound effects “Day In The Life” kind of thing. Delete. Oh and then, fuck them, just as I was about to give up the next one “Snakes and Martyrs” is unique and interesting. I guess that’s how experimental works- sometimes you miss, and sometimes you hit big. So, what we have here is a good beginning, a great middle, a ponderous after, and then back to great at the end. Sounds to me not like a “great”, but a top tier of good. Best of the decade, as critics indicate? Not overall, but at its best moments, yes.


Wilco, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (2002, 8 votes)
This is a fitting album to end on, as I’d heard hype about it all decade long, both critically and from people I knew. I’ve even heard a lot of it, even though I never owned it, or listened to it all the way through. There definitely is something to this first track too. Not only is there the sonorous rhythm of the weary burned-out vocals and the weirdly disorienting beginning, but there are lyrical flashed of brilliance throughout including one of the all-time best lines, “I am trying to break your heart.” Every great song ever has been, but Jeff Tweedy actually figures that out and turns it into a manifesto. A little too Beatles sound-effecty clever tape loop at the end, but hey, they have the ambition to sell it. And then comes “Kamera” a nearly perfect pop-rock song something that sounds a little bit like it belongs to the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s simultaneously. “Radio Cure” seems like it might be a love song to Radiohead, or almost a sonic one-uppance of Thom Yorke. And of course kudos for just coming out lyrically with, “There is something wrong with me.” All these songs, too, are somehow undermined in a way that doesn’t actually undermine them, but instead disorients just the right amount, by what sounds like a toy synthesizer. And fuck, I mean come on, “War on War” is one of the most perfect songs I can imagine. My take so far is that this album is like a distillation, a nearly perfect distillation, of a certain vein of 80s college rock and 90s alternative. Something neo-singer/songwriter, alt country, ironic experimental a la Camper Van Beethoven, with the intense emotional nakedness that grunge had at its best, divorced of the bombast. And don’t get me wrong, I lovethat bombast, but this album has a stripped down straightforwardness that’s refreshing. And now “Heavy Metal Drummer”, a paen to “playing Kiss covers beautiful and stoned” as if to prove my point. But at the same time full of musical playfulness and some pure music geek experimentalism. Track eight “I’m the Man Who Loves You” plays almost like a thesis on 60s and 70s pop-rock, without forgetting to be fun. Now track nine with its tagline “every song is a comeback”, and darned if it doesn’t sound like it. In a way, I feel like this is the end product of the evolution of Big Star->a certain current of alt 80s->certain current of 90s alternative->Big Star of the 2000s that evokes it all. Wrapping up now, as we approach track 11 of 11. What to say? It’s pretty awesome. This is the kind of album you could finish and immediately start again. I could see it going in to heavy rotation thereafter. I have to think it is one of the best albums of the 00s, though in a way it seems odd to say it, since it feels so timeless. Got a little ambient at the end of the last track, which isn’t the note I would think you would want to end the album on. That’s the danger of going to 7 minutes- it’s hardly ever justified. Still, any way you slice it, it belongs near the top. A fitting way to end this review of the leading candidates for the best album of the 2000s.  

And there we are, my take on the critical world’s top 20 albums of the 2000s. In another week or two, I’ll do one last summary post looking back on the whole list, and suggesting my take on a dissident top 20. In the mean time, dear reader, I would love to hear your reactions…  

Revisiting the 2000s: 20 albums (11-15)

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For me the 2000s were a musical “lost decade”. And what does one do with what is lost? Find it! And so I set out to identify and review 20 of the top albums of the decade that I had heretofore missed. You can read the Intro to see how I compiled my list, and then my reviews of albums 1-5 and 6-10. And next up? Well, 11-15, of course! Highlighted in yellow below…

Animal Collective, “Merriweather Post Pavillion” (3)
Arcade Fire, “Funeral” (7)
Beck, “Sea Change” (5)
Daft Punk, “Discovery” (4)
D’Angelo, “Voodoo” (3)
Eminem, “Marshall Mathers LP” (3)
Interpol, “Turn on the Bright Lights” (4)
Jay-Z, “The Blueprint” (6)
Kayne West, “Late Registration” (4)
LCD Soundystem, “Sound of Silver” (6)
Madvillian, “Madvilliany” (3)
MIA, “Arular” (3)
MIA, “Kala” (4)
Outkast, “Stankonia” (6)
Phoenix, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” (3)
Spoon, “Kill the Moonlight” (3)
Sufjan Stevens, “Illinois” (3)
The Flaming Lips, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” (3)
TV on the Radio, “Return to Cookie Mountain” (3)

Wilco, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (8)   

Madvillain, “Madvillainy” (2004, 3 votes)
If you start off your album with a two minute collage of supervillains from movie serials, it’s pretty much like you’ve slipped me a twenty for the review. Track two, “Accordion”, seems to feature one. I’m also appreciating how they pronounced the “w” in “swords” to make a rhyme work, and justified the accordion. Next thing to love: average song length of two minutes! A good deal for anyone, and a miracle in a hip-hop album. I’m really liking this so far- spare beats, restrained sound effects, and the ongoing supervillain subplot. It reminds me, in a good way, of the conscious hip-hop of the 90s that gangster drove off the radio and practically out of existence. It’s a really clever use of some classic soul & jazz samples, sound effects and news and media clips to back lyrics that have something going on and aren’t wall-to-wall violence and misogyny. All of which, in track 6 “America’s Most Blunted” gets us an ode to how weed helps creativity. These guys are practically hippies! So far I’d have to say that this doesn’t aim as high, or get as dangerously personal, as the best albums from this list so far. But it’s more consistent, and fun to listen to, than almost any of them. This is the kind of album that would lend itself to heavy rotation. “Shadows of Tomorrow” track 12 is delivering a meditation on the relation of past & present & future. I think I’m getting this album- it’s like the musical equivalent of the conversation that follows getting stoned while watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Which explains why I like it so much! And track 15 “Hardcore Hustle” is turning into a manifesto on making music that’s not crap- take that 2000s! The next one gets political/philosophical about terrorists just being tools of those in power, part of the same old game, and the next track is a more personal post-breakup song. Like the whole thing is opening up thematically, even as it relaxes the supervillain theme. Man, these guys are pretty good. My esteem for it is growing by the track. Although I am sad that they have a song titled “Rhinestone Cowboy” that didn’t sample the original song. Stupid copyright laws… Still and all, if this isn’t one of the best things anyone turned out last decade, I don’t know what is.



M.I.A, “Arular” (2005, 3 votes)
First off, kudos to M.I.A., in fact, to anyone who would have the stones in the mid-2000s to begin an album with “In’shallah”. And then into the muscular metallic beats of the second track exhorting us to “pull up the people, pull up the poor.” This was like the 99% early, and with rap braggadocio spin and a reminder that she’s a soldier, a fighter, and has the bombs to make us blow. You really haven’t gotten much as self-consciously politically dangerous since Public Enemy, made even more edgy by its call-outs to the signs and symbols of the era of global terrorism. Which is great, but would get tiresome if it wasn’t working as music too. I’m really liking the spare production behind this, and the driving nature of her boom-boom delivery. I think it’s no accident that I mentioned Public Enemy a few lines back. Now track six “Amazon” is here, and has such layers of sound and dense lyrics while delivering a story about her being held for ransom with handclaps in the background. This is delightful! Nice laser sounds starting off track 7 too. I’m already mourning the fact that this is over in 6 more tracks. It’s getting more world beat in the middle, but I won’t hold that against it. And getting more personal, track eight “Hombre” is like a straight up sex you up number. Well, she’s thrown us enough substance at this point to earn it. In fact, on the comparative front, that’s what strikes me. This is as fun as Daft Punk or LCD Soundsystem, but with more substance, as tough as Jay-Z or Eminem, but with less bragging and beefs. Totally deserving to be near the top for the 2000s. I mean “Ten Dollar” seems to be about child prostitution, name checks “Lolita” and is delivered with a sound reminiscent of the best of mid-80s hip-hop. Come on! And it all comes together on the last track “MIA” into something like a manifesto. A manifesto you can dance to! Someone should give this woman (and this album) a medal.


M.I.A, “Kala” (2007, 4 votes)
Say what? “Bamboo Banga” is starting by lyric-checking “Roadrunner”. Not much music, as such, on this yet, almost more like performance poetry, ah and now we ease into it halfway through. A little more droney and repetitive than the last album. Also lighter, content-wise, as in empty of. Maybe I need to stop comparing and see if I can appreciate it for what it is. “Bird Flu” on track two is much more musically experimental than anything on “Arular”. And I don’t like it. (Yes, I’m failing at not comparing.) Allright, track three “Boyz” has some more dynamic beats and soul samples, but her lyrics are still a little chanty and monotonous. And the lyrics are also a little, “eh, so?” Track four “Jimmy” now has the music and the vocals going for it. Still a little content-lite compared to “Arular” (it’s just a song about a boy) but at least the lyrics are starting to fire. Ah, here we go, track five “Hussel”. It finally has all three going for it- dynamic vocal, lyrical content and musical engagement. Five tracks is a while to wait for it, though. “Mango Pickle Down” is a beautiful strange thing, though, and her early 80s style rap on it is as unguarded as I’ve heard her on either album now. Yeah, it’s definitely into a groove now (ha, and sampling from New Order and lyric-checking the Pixies) on track 7 “Twenty Dollar”, and slipping in the line “I put people on the map who’ve never even seen a map”. So really, I just think I’d drop the first three tracks, start with four, and all will be well. As for “Down River” she’s politically feisty again, and sampling gun and typewriter sounds. That I can get behind. Even more so on next track, which is quiet and disquieting, and possibly remixing polka music. Then “XR2” which is maybe channeling the spirit of global rave culture. And now “Paper Planes” is getting ethereal and floating, with some shots, cash registers and “Straight to Hell” sampling thrown in for effect. Doing my AMG & Wikipedia research at the end, and reading that it was made with multiple producers and all over the world, it doesn’t surprise me that it sounds more scattered, musically and thematically, than “Arular”. Folks seem to like it better, which I don’t agree with, but, well, I’m a sucker for narrative. Isn’t some kind of through line important for an album? Still 10 out of 13 great tracks in a variety of styles is nothing to sneeze at…

Outkast, “Stankonia” (2000, 6 votes)
Live from the Center of the Earth? Seven Light Years below the surface? Which reminds me of Parliament and then goes straight into a series of sexual slurping sounds that could be straight out of Prince. Then they’re straight into talking about burning the American Dream on “Gasoline”. You know, the second interlude is straight out of Prince too. Oh, but then we start to slow jam into “So Fresh, So Clean”. I’ve got to say that makes a nice contrast to the political rage of the first song. These guys have range! Then “Mrs. Jackson”, a seemingly heartfelt mea culpa to the baby mammas and their mammas. That’s their words, not mine. Hey, and I just spotted a Kanye West sample, which makes sense, because the lyrical strength and musical sophistication here remind me of him. I wonder if he had a part in production here, or just followed their lead? By track 6 “Snappin’ & Trappin’”, we’re down in some gangster material thick with paranoia and a weird warbling sound effect in the background. Got to say I really like these guys so far, a quarter of the way in. Oh, and a “My Adidas” call-out on the otherwise darkly-inflected “Spaghetti Junction”. The next interlude and track actually gives the female voice some equal time, a rarity in 2000s hip-hop for sure. (Though admittedly, with its October 2000 release date, this album is more like 90s afterburn.) After which “B.O.B” gets fast and furious and brings up the Gulf War before Iraq II started. The next track is on to talk of hand grenades and homemade bombs. Pretty interesting given that this is all pre 9/11. I do like my artist as prophet. Then on “We Luv Deez Hoez” we get the artist as womanizing misogynist. Oh, boys… Which gets fully redeemed on “Humble Mumble”, half social critique and half silly rhyme play. Like I said earlier, these guys have range. They also have a good sense of sequencing in terms of sounds and themes, aka this is a really honest-to-goodness album. I like to think the next track “Red Velvet” is actually about cake. Not sure if I’m able to follow enough to tell, but they did just name-check Bill Gates. The interlude that follows is probably the first time a rap song featured the shout “break” since 1987. So, wrapping up now (track 20 of 24), where are we? I feel like this is either a gangster rap album with some uncommon self-reflection and mirthful musical inventiveness, or a conscious hip-hop album gone gangster. Either way, it doesn’t sound like everything else and I really like it. Oh, even more now that “Toilet Tisha” has chilled me with its heartfelt anguished tale of suicide. Which they knew to follow with a slow jam, a skit, and a gospel finale. I’d definitely put this toward the top of what I’ve listed to so far. Which is nice to be able to do since it’s the last hip-hop album in the mix. Well done 2000s hip-hop, well done…


Phoenix, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” (2009, 3 votes)

Well, I have to say this is a pleasant surprise. Based on the knowledge that they’re an indie band, and the self-consciously smart title, I was expecting something that would be like a lot of 00s Indie Rock: droning and bleary, or experimentally over-arty. Whereas “Listzomania” actually made me happy and had my head bouncing from the first second. This was more of an instant “like” than anything I’ve heard so far on this list. Definitely New Wave influenced, as a lot of the 00s Indie scene is, but not in a way that sounds like a day-glo mausoleum of the 80s. There are lyrics. Fairly dense lyrics. I think they mean something. But I don’t care because the surging Neo-New Wave rock is so much fun to listen to! Four tracks in now to “Fences”, and this is something I could picture listening to a lot. It certainly reminds me of things- Tegan and Sara’s “So Jealous”, Pretty Girls Make Graves, the Postal Service. And those are all things I like too. So it does appear, after all, that the Indie scene has somethinggoing for it. I’m sending that this probably doesn’t get to the profundity of Arcade Fire or Beck, but I don’t care! Listening to it makes me feel like a teenager waiting for my favorite moment in my new favorite song. Whoa-whoa-whoa-what? They’re French? Mon dieu! Goes to show you how accurate my prejudices are. Well done, continentals, well done.   

Next stop-albums 16 through 20!

Revisiting the 2000s: 20 albums (6-10)

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Welcome to the next installment of my excavation of the 2000s, a musical “lost decade” for me. The Intro and Part I (with the first five albums) can be found here and here, but to briefly recap, I scrolled through a cross section of nine reputable and varied “best of the decade” lists, and compiled a list of those albums that got mentioned as “top 25” in at least three places. After eliminating ones I already had, or knew wouldn’t work for me (sorry, Radiohead, Strokes, Coldplay), I was left with 20 albums from 2000-2009 that I never got around to and (according to my sources) deserved a listen.

Part I covered the first five, highlighted in blue here. Today we’re doing the next five, in yellow. All reviews were written live upon listening to the album for the very first time. And with that, we’re off!  

Animal Collective, “Merriweather Post Pavillion” (3)

Arcade Fire, “Funeral” (7)

Beck, “Sea Change” (5)

Daft Punk, “Discovery” (4)

D’Angelo, “Voodoo” (3)
Eminem, “Marshall Mathers LP” (3)

Interpol, “Turn on the Bright Lights” (4)

Jay-Z, “The Blueprint” (6)

Kayne West, “Late Registration” (4)

LCD Soundystem, “Sound of Silver” (6)
Madvillian, “Madvilliany” (3)
MIA, “Arular” (3)
MIA, “Kala” (4)
Outkast, “Stankonia” (6)
Phoenix, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” (3)
Spoon, “Kill the Moonlight” (3)
Sufjan Stevens, “Illinois” (3)
The Flaming Lips, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” (3)
TV on the Radio, “Return to Cookie Mountain” (3)
Wilco, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (8)

Eminem, “The Marshall Mathers LP” (2000, 3 votes)
Eminem is one of those people who I always enjoy when I run across their work, but have never actually gone the next step to getting an album. Until now, I guess. And already, after the opening PSA informing me that Slim Shady does not give a fuck what I think, and the dense menacing kick-off of “Kill You” I’m glad I did. It’s pretty great, how this rant is simultaneously frightening and yet frightened, in the character of Slim Shady and yet questioning that character, and then ending with “I’m just kidding.” Then “Stan”, which I was already familiar with, and remains one of the most chilling things ever committed to record (yes, in my mind, music is still committed to record). I mean damn, an artist writing a song in the voice of an obsessed fan who takes that artist’s violent imagery seriously, over a remixed bed of Dido. Dude, doesn’t do black music, doesn’t do white music, does fight music! In fact, the whole thing is full of the braggadocio, swagger and threat of hip-hop at its best, but full of an anxiety about the effect of that projection that is half genuine and half self-justification. Which is track seven, “The Way I Am” to a T. “The Real Slim Shady”, track eight, is bringing back one of my favorite Grammy memories, when he performed this as like, a hundred Eminem look-a-likes with microphones flooded the auditorium. One of the best moments to every happen in that mausoleum of musical mediocrity. “Remember Me”, track nine, even seems to be sampling horror movie voices, as if there wasn’t enough menace in its rant already. And on track eleven, “Marshall Mathers”, is the mask slipping, revealing the real guy behind Slim Shady, with all his insecurities? Or is it in itself a construction, a put on? Something that can even bring up these questions makes me happy. And the reason this track works, the whole album works, in fact, is because there’s clever musical mixing and vocal delivery behind it all, giving us a layer of entertaining to go along with the heavy and occasionally vile contents. I’m digging on “Drug Ballad” too, which is equal parts celebratory and cautionary on drugs. In other words, what an actual addict’s mind sounds like once the doubt has begun to creep in. And how am I not going to love a horror rap whose tag line is “Mentally ill from Amityville”? Ah, and now “B**** Please II” gives us the two sons of Dre together, Snoop and Eminem. Nice. Then “Kim”, a fantasy of kidnapping his ex in front of his baby daughter and driving her off to kill her that may be one of the most frightening things I’ve ever heard in popular music. Okay, by track seventeen the “suck my dick if you don’t like it” is getting a bit old. But I think it’s a testament to artistry that an hour+ of resentment and boasting doesn’t wear thin sooner. And the last track, “Criminal” dives right in to the am I serious/am I not, I’m a criminal/I’m just kidding. Overall, definitely a keeper.               

Interpol, “Turn On The Bright Lights” (2002, 4 votes)
(Full disclosure: on review, my iPod seems to have put these tracks on shuffle rather than playing the album in order. My apologies to readers, and Interpol, if this affected my ability to discern artistic intent.)

While I’ve been painstaking in not reading about these albums beforehand so as not to prejudice my reviews, I was aware of Interpol by general reputation. You know, Second Coming of Joy Division and all that. Which immediately begs the question: isn’t the First Coming enough? Nevertheless, I’ll try to deliver a fair assessment here. First off: “untitled”. Actually kind of soft and gauzy, doesn’t remind me of Joy Division as much as soft-boiled Coldplay. “Obstacle 1” isn’t bad, with some driving rock sound, and vocals that remind me of, of all things, the Killers. Also not sure of the significance of this, but this song is talking about what “She” did, whereas I think JD is usually more personal, talking about what “You” did to “Me”. Track three has more of the shimmery Coldplay B.S., but with a driving beat and the vocals hitting a peak of bitterness and resignation that pulls it out. Apparently, as the song would have it, “Stella was a Diver and she was always down”, man I really am digging this one. “Roland” is much more in Joy Division mode, so I see what people mean. But it also has a strong layer of, well I don’t know what else to call it- 2000s indie rock in its New Wave infatuation subset- sound to it. I wonder if this album was more like chicken or egg to that phenomenon? Given the 2002 release date, I’m betting on its being causal rather than following, and that alone is noteworthy. “NYC” is a better post-9/11 New York elegy than the Strokes, I think. Ah, and this is where the album title comes from too. Well, so far I can say I don’t hate it. It won’t get you listening as closely as the Beck, the best Hip-hop albums from this list, etc. But it doesn’t grate in mediocrity either. I think it might be like Daft Punk’s album- a good fit for a mood, and going down smoothly when you’re in that mood. I do want to know more about the 200 couches where we can sleep tonight in “PDA”. Another thing about this album that’s coming out strongly in “Say Hello To The Angels” is that, in contrast to the studied grimness of the lyrics and vocals, the music can be rather poppy and is informed by some of the bounciness of New Wave. New tag line: at its finest, there are moments on this album, like Leif Erickson” that are wonderfully disquieting. For the most part, though, it feels more deliberately produced and less emotionally genuine, and ends up in a kind of “nice background music that nobody could object to” Coldplay territory. In my developing rating nomenclature, I would call this a Good/Good-. And the fact that so many critics thought this was a superb album? Well, compared to the masses of dreck that they have to listen to, it surely is. But compared to the truly sterling?             

Jay-Z, “The Blueprint” (2001, 6 votes)
Hip-hop is a particularly blank spot for me in the 2000s. I’m a big fan of the 1985-1995 “Golden Age”, but after that my knowledge drops off rapidly. And Jay-Z is a blank spot for me within 2000s hip-hop- I know the kids I was in rehab with at the end of 2006 loved him, but that’s about it. So I’m looking forward to this review increasing my knowledge, if nothing else. First impressions? You’ve gotta like an album that starts off thanking you for your purchase, which track one “The Ruler’s Back” does. Also nice use of musical sampling, what sounds like some soundtrack selections and a classic soul riff in there too. Seriously, track two “Takeover” is sampling the Doors? Love it! Nice strong beat too, almost reminds me of the metallic beats I so loved from 80s hip-hop a-la Run-DMC, Public Enemy, LL Cool J’s first album, etc. I can certainly hear Kanye West’s production influence here, and the things I really like about his first album I also like about this- clever use of sampling, variations of tempo and pacing that avoids the droning sound badly produced hip-hop can get in to, the braggadocio backed up by intelligent lyrics. “Girls, Girls, Girls” for example, is the kind of cock-boasting you might expect, but with such great soul-sampled hooks and funny twists of phrase that it gets away with it. This album definitely does the obsession with feuding with other big rap names and super-materialist trip that I don’t especially dig about East Coast rap, but it’s so far pretty free from gangster bullshit, which is nice. Oh, well it was until track six- “You Don’t Know”, which could be seen as critical commentary of inner city life, but is on the edge of celebrating it too. Damn do I love it musically, though! And Hola’ Hovito is getting points from me for the Hispanic call-outs. Track eight, “Heart of the City” is a beautiful thing to behold, too, at once existing in, and criticizing, the trash-talk between hip-hop artists. Track nine, “Never Change” is a nice mellow slow jam, and is also making realize that one thing I haven’t been for one second so far in this album is bored. Also, as I listen more closely, I’m realizing it’s a mellow slow groove about carrying guns and living a life of crime because, hey, I’ll never change. Hmmmm. Then “Song Cry” is a breakup song that understands how the woman wants out, while still calling her “the bitch”. Oh hip-hop… I don’t imagine he gets away with that with Beyonce these days. So far I’d say I’m 110% with this album in terms of music and production, and 75% with it in terms of lyrics and intention. That’s still 92.5% on average, so there you go. Certainly digging the Emminem guest appearance on “Renegade”. And then there’s the last track, “Blueprint”, where all the boasting and self-promotion just evaporates and is replaced by a heartfelt tribute to his family. Mighty fine way to finish.

Kanye West, “Late Registration” (2005, 4 votes)
Given how much I loved, loved, motherfuckin’ LOVED “The College Dropout”, I’m expecting to get along well with this album. And indeed, I’m loving the lead-in “Wake Up Mr. West” with the blow-hard Professor/Dean type from the skit going immediately into the explosive beat of “Heard ‘Em Say”, which then fades into a slow R&B grove with keyboard sounds tinkling in the background. Also nice to hear on “Touch The Sky” the standard hip-hop “I made it/I’m on top of the world” trope delivered with heavy helpings of gratitude and wonder. And a good time party vibe! And then “Gold Digger”, which I knew, but didn’t know was on this album. Nice little misogynist ditty. Or is it? That’s the beauty of delivering a criticism of women behaving badly- is that pro or anti-woman? Both at the same time? And if it comes with this groovy a beat, how can you not bop your head along to it? As with his last album, the mix of braggadocio and vulnerable self-revelation, smooth flow, unapologetically intelligent wordplay and clever musical remixing of everything in the soul tool-bag just works. Boy do I miss this Kanye, versus the arrogant braggart we have now. Damn, “Crack Music” is like gangster rap turned inside out, drawing all the connections between the street drugs and the social and political setting that puts them there, and touting music as the community’s counter-attack. Then “Roses”, a heartfelt song about his grandmother in the hospital that rolls up into a scathing attack of the social-economic setting of unequal healthcare, and comes back down into the personal pain again. Seriously, hardly anybody in the last decade in any musical genre was able to tell lyrical stories that tackle as many issues, personal and political, while still ringing true. I’m proud that he’s my cousin. I mean, we haven’t traced out the family tree yet, I’ve always just assumed based on the name. And “Addiction”, damn. He gets it, that pursuing money, girls and weed is all about the same thing. And then mixing “Diamonds Are Forever” into a song about Blood Diamonds from Sierra Leone and linking that back to urban bling and his own complicity. They should have just named the whole decade after him. Also, it’s kind of nice to see him take out a whole track “Hey Mama” to talk about how much he loves his mother. I mean, who gets away with that? Hip-hop and Country, those are the only genres you can do that in. I’m really liking the “broke Fraternity” skit running between tracks too. Okay, nearing the end now, track 19 of 21. About the only thing critical I can say about this album is that it lacks some of the truly soaring moments of his debut, like “Jesus Walks” and “Never Let Me Down”. But considering that it’s not uncommon for a sophomore album to suck ass, saying that this one isn’t quite as awesome as its predecessor, well, that still puts him ahead of, oh, I don’t know- MOST EVERYTHING ELSE THAT CAME OUT THAT DECADE.

LCD Soundsystem, “Sound of SIlver” (2007, 6 votes)
In my mind, one of the biggest sins any song can commit is a slow start. Sometimes, if you’re engaged in some very atmospheric arty Pink Floyd or Deathcab for Cutie type-shit, I’ll allow it. But otherwise no. For Electronica, which already threatens to be boring by its very nature, this is a double-sin. All of this is a roundabout way of saying that track one on this album, “Get Innocuous!” is off to a very fine start. Immediately set in with the beat, developed some Bowiesque vocals later on, and is ending with a background refrain and break that reminds me of early 80s hip-hop. And some honest to goodness laser sound effects toward the end. So far, these cats are earning their reputation as the Electronica outfit that a rock fan can still love. Track two, “Time to Get Away” is starting with some nice fat 80s beats, and is kind of reminding me of a lost Prince song circa “1999”. Now on to “North American Scum”, which wins my sympathies on title alone. Ha, the whole thing is them trying to convince us they’re North American, not English. Love it! Not least of which because, in form and refrain, this is a rock song, handclaps and all. They’ve got the early 80s synthesizers out for track four “Someone Great”, and bless their furry souls for it. This really could be something lost in time from the American half of synth-pop New Wave, say maybe Missing Persons. Made it to track five now, “All My Friends” which is, gosh darn it all, a rock song as well. With a beat you can dance to! Halfway in now, I’d have to say the big difference between this and our earlier Electronica entry from Daft Punk is that this is more emotionally affecting. There are songs, like this one, that really evoke a mood (nostalgic regret and longing for the pre-mistake phase of a relationship gone bad, in this case) and get you interested in them lyrically. Not all of them (track six, “Us Versus Them” for instance, is having fun experimenting with cross-breeding 60s psychedelic garage rock and New Wave alienation, but isn’t doing anything personal), but more than Daft Punk, which was really like feel good party music, with clever twists, but no real attempt at depth. Oh geez, and the next track, “Watch The Tapes” could be like an artifact from the era when punk collapsed into synthesizer New Wave, kind of Gang of Fouresque with a dash of Wire. “Sound of Silver” (track eight I mean, eponymous with the album), in between early 80s beats and metallic handclaps, seems to be encouraging us to remember how vivid our emotions were as teenagers. Interesting… Okay, final thoughts as we hit the last track. This is definitely a cut above Daft Punk in terms of substance (while being no less fun and inventive), but I feel it’s not going for something real and true often enough, or showing enough cohesiveness as an album, to quite get to the league of the Arcade Fires, Becks, Emminems, Jay-Zs, etc of the list so far. Got to say though, ending with “New York, I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down”, a downbeat, somehow earnest while being tongue in cheek, paen to a city not quite as dirty and interesting as it used to be, is pretty fucking awesome.       

Stay tuned for albums 11-16…      

Revisiting The 2000s: 20 Albums (First Five)

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If you’ve already read Part I where I explain my madcap project of searching for and reviewing the best 20 albums I may have missed in the first decade of the 2000s, then let’s get going! An explanation of how the reviews were written, and the first five albums, are below. 

If you missed the intro, go and read it, and then come back.  

Okay, ready now?


Part IV: Review Rules

My friend Matt thinks one of the best things I ever wrote was a 12-pack fueled 12-album review. That may be, or that may not be. It gets a little long, and is too gonzo for publication in the world as we know it, but you can judge its merits for yourself by reading it here. What I think he liked about it was its spontaneity and unpolished aspects. Which, when you think about it, fits music as a visceral, immediate medium. More than books, more than movies (which you often ponder afterwards), music is something we appreciate (or not) in the moment. So, while I’ll leave the beer out these days, I am going to write the reviews real-time as I listen to each album for the first time. Except for corrections of misspelling and gross grammatical error, everything you see is spontaneous first thought.   
Part V: The Albums (first five albums)

Animal Collective, “Merriweather Post Pavillion” (2009, 3 votes)
Hmmm. Don’t get me wrong, I do have anexperimental bone in my body. But I usually prefer my music to be a little less sound-effect produced and tape loopy. Which is not to say that I have no room for distortion- there are places where I really like it, but those places tend to be where the distortion is informed by an underlying sense of Rock song conventions (cf. the Raveonettes, Jesus and Mary Chain, Sonic Youth). So far this reminds me of the start of a Pink Floyd song that then doesn’t get past the start. Like being stuck in the first 10 seconds of “Us and Them”. Track two, “My Girls” is rather like track one “In The Flowers” in all the ways I didn’t totally care for track one. The weird thing is, I like some equally messy-sounding groups. No Age and Times New Viking come to mind. I think I like it better there because it’s produced by guitar over-drive, versus overlaid studio computer tricks. It comes by the noise more honestly. Track two is growing on me though… Oh, track three, “Also Frightened” is winning me over through jungle sounds in the background, despite the continued presence of annoying bell-ringing sounds. You do have to like a song where the refrain is “are you also frightened?”. See now, “Summertime Clothes” (track four) just teased me by starting off with a sound that almost was real crunching guitars, but devolved into a sample repeat loop. I actually like the lyrics, and don’t mind their obscurity and the difficulty of reaching them through the sound, or rather I wouldn’t, if the sound itself weren’t bugging me. What can I say? Less is more! In Beatles terms, I’m more of a “Helter Skelter” or “Yer Blues” than a “Revolution Number Nine” or “Day In the Life”. Whatcha gonna do? This reminds me of how much I loved the Shins on “Chutes Too Narrow” and how turned off I was when the next album got studio-experimental. I feel like these guys could put out a great album too with something less “cleverly” produced. Track Seven, “Guys Eyes” is making the best case so far for being worth a second listen, I think mostly because it’s added in a background beat that gives the whole collage something to hang on. Track eight “Taste” seems to be doing something similar, and with a Beach Boys twist, but it has a few too many distracting “airplane in takeoff” sound effects in the background. Is it a bad sign that my first thought on reaching track nine is, “Another fourteen minutes of this? Ugggh.”? P.S., that’s a bad sign in itself. Average track length of almost 5 minutes is rarely justified for anyone. Ah, reading about them now on AMG and Wikipedia, which I didn’t want to do beforehand to influence my review. And you know, if I had, I would have expected something like what I’m getting- a smart, not uninteresting, musical art project. Which certainly has its place, but is just not my cup of tea. Next!           
Arcade Fire, “Funeral” (2004, 7 votes)

“Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” started slower and more studioey than I usually care for (see the entire above entry, for example) but by the time it really kicks in, you realize that the slow start has been building up power. It earns the “woo oh hoo” chorus it ends up with. Nice kick-off of drums and guitars on track two “Neighborhood #2 (Laika), such that once the arty extra instruments arrive, they’re welcome. I’m also liking the “recorded in a steel drum” sound of the vocals. There’s something about the album so far that feels like struggling to remember a dream. It’s there, you know it’s full of power and meaning, but it’s just slightly out of reach. In a good way. Oh wow, loving how the otherwise suspiciously artily named “Une Annee Sans Lumiere” moves from a dreamy sound with nostalgic early 60s instrumental rock touches to a driving rock finish. And these guys know enough about sequencing to give the next song a driving rock start for the segue. My head is bobbing of its own accord, and that’s always a good sign. Whereas Animal Collective’s Indie Rock was the 95% indie, 5% rock version, this is a good solid 50-50. Or at least 60-40. Me likes! Ah, track five, “Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)” knows that after you’ve pumped it up two songs in a row, you need to slow it down. Which it’s doing with a song that feels like slow surges of emotion. And track six, “Crown of Love”, now takes that feeling and transmutes it into a more straightforwardly earnest, pleading song. You know what I’m realizing? This is an honest to God album! Like one where the songs belong together and belong in the order they’re in, building on each other and taking the listener somewhere. You know what else I’m realizing? It takes me far less space to talk about something I’m liking than something I’m hoping to like and failing. Here I’m approaching track 8 and thinking, “Oh no! Don’t end in three more songs.” Also nice to hear a female vocalist on some of these tracks. I’ve always felt that groups that have both male and female vocalists are worth their weight in iridium (and, my end of album reading reveals this is a husband and wife team, and an album inspired by the passing of important people in their lives- no wonder it surges with genuine emotionality!). This album is everything indie rock should be at its best- smart, arty, conversant with Rock’s ways and means, and not afraid to produce a song that gets your foot tapping. An immediate “yes” for going in to permanent rotation in my 2000s playlist!
Beck, “Sea Change” (2002, 5 votes)

Well, it’s starting off with something that sounds like a sad cowboy song, and that’s always good in my book. I’ve tried to avoid reading anything about these albums beforehand so as not to prejudice my reviews, but I did know that he wrote this while going through a breakup of a long-term relationship. That’s what this first song, “The Golden Age” sounds like, in a weary early 70s country rock kind of way. If I ran across this at random, it would not even cross my mind that it’s Beck, but then again being a musical chameleon is pretty much his stock in trade. And sure enough, the second song “Paper Tiger” has the same weary and worn feeling that I remember from my own divorce, but in a completely different musical setting. This one has a beat, Beatlesque string section effects, etc. In emotional tone though, it seems to hang together perfectly with the song before it, and that can be quite a fine way to build an album. Leastways, I’m still listening. Hmmm, and now track three “Guess I’m Doing Fine” is back to the country sound of the first. And really, even given a synthesizer effect here and there, so damn authentic sounding. Seriously, it brings to mind Gram Parsons, and “Wild Horses”. Track four is named “Lonesome Tears”, which certainly would have you expecting another country song, but this one is back to the Beatlesque instrument swirls. Also maybe a little Pink Floydy. And aching, tired and gorgeous. It sounds like lost love. Oh hey, track five, “Lost Cause” I know you! And had no idea you were by Beck. This one is kind of like synth-folk. I realized I’m writing a lot about the music here, but the lyrics are quite worth the time as well, straightforward without being trite, and sounding like they’ve earned their world-weariness. I also like how the music is getting more mixed up as we go along. Overall, strongly in an acoustic, country-tinged vein, but with classic rock studio production accents, and things that feel like 80s pop all dropped into some kind of wonderful blender and mixed together. You know how a lot of stuff on the radio sounds like it’s trying and has its heart in the right place, but ends up sounding like ass? If it succeeded at what it was trying to do and didn’t sound like ass, it might sound like this. Oh, I really like the way track ten, “Sunday Sun” falls apart into a harsh tangle of feedback at the end. And then song eleven “Little One” positively surges with emotion musically, which is an almost chilling counterpoint to the gruff exhausted vocals. Every song on here sounds like looking straight into someone’s naked heart. I’m fully on board with everyone who describes this as a masterpiece.
Daft Punk, “Discovery” (2001, 4 votes)

Electronica is, for the most part, not my bag. That being said, I do like the way track one, “One More Time” jumps into it full-speed ahead. No slow weird intros, bizarre sound effects, just beat, beat, beat- go! I do like some kinds of hip-hop and dance music, and this first song is clearly in that vein, rather than droning Rave sound, so maybe that’s it. It reminds me of the best of 90s and 2000s dance music, and, looking at the release date, probably heavily influenced the later. Ah see, track two, “Aerodynamic” did have the slow start and weird sound effect bell tolling. Fortunately, it doesn’t last long, and gets in to some pretty decent synthesizer faux guitar later in the song. I also like the fact that there are lyrics here in most songs, as in track three “Digital Love”. Are they the most profound lyrics ever? No, but they’re energetic and fun, and buoyed by a sound that often adopts the structure and pacing of rock music. I’m reminded of Fischerspooner and LCD Soundsystem, though of course I have my causality backwards in both cases in terms of whose sound influenced who. In track four, “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”, I’m again picking up on something I’ve heard throughout, a strong strain of 80s hip-hop and early 80s soul a-la Rick James, Earth, Wind & Fire, etc. Take that, mix with some of the sensibility of rock, and you’re going to get an Electronica I can stand behind. So much so, I’m almost willing to suspend my natural suspicion of their being French. Don’t get me wrong, they turn out fine literature and film, but their music is usually a little too cutesy for me. Although it’s returning with the slow chords and heartbeat sound effect on track five, “Nightvisions”. A little too ambient for me, I’ll probably drop it from my final iTunes mix for this album. Especially since, see how nicely it perks up again on the next track, “Superheroes”? You know, despite the dig I just couldn’t help above, one of the sad things about the 2000s in American music (and the 90s too, for that matter) is how black and white popular music were so separate. This album has a sound that brings elements of both together, and I wonder if it takes someone from the outside, like a European, to do that these days? Track 11, “Veridis Quo” may also be a little too long, low key and vocal-free for me, but otherwise I am quite enjoying this so far. Oh, especially the penultimate track, “Face to Face”. They even keep the last track, ten minute-long “Too Long” entertaining enough that I can forgive the joke. This kind of album is never going to get to me on the same level that Arcade Fire or Beck’s albums from this list do, but I wouldn’t kick it out of bed, either. Musically speaking. There’s a mood that it fits, and it really fits that mood well!  
D’Angelo, “Voodoo” (2000, 3 votes)

Track one “Playa Playa” starts off with some banging, mumbled voices and finger-snapping that feels like it goes on a little too long before finding a beat. When it does, there’s some nice funk guitar, and vocals that bring to mind the early 80s a-la Prince, Rick James, Earth Wind & Fire. Still a little wandery, though. Not sure if I’m buying it. It’s also going on way too long given that it’s basically a slow-jam with repetitive lyrics bordering on the nonexistent. Song two, “Devil’s Pie” starts off more hip-hop musically, and there are lyrics, even if they’re delivered is such a low-key monotone cadence that it’s kind of like the Hootie & the Blowfish of soul. There are some moments that lift above this, but not many. Track three, “Left and Right” I’d keep, it’s reminding me of the best of 70s and early 80s funk and soul, and has enough musical and vocal variability to save it from the vague blah fate of the other two. Track four “The Line” is back to the slow-jam blah, though. The next track, “Send It On” actually appears to be putting my cat to sleep. Oh, but I’m liking track six, “Chicken Grease” in a Moby sampling and remixing a funk classic kind of way. And then track seven, “One Mo’gin” puts it back to sleep. About halfway through now, and already waiting for this album to end. I’m having the opposite of my experience with Daft Punk- that was generally with the groove it was in, a few tracks I’d drop. This is generally not in the groove, a few tracks I’d keep. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not at all terrible in the way that a lot of 2000s radio is terrible. It’s just not my cup of tea. This is certainly something people of good will could disagree about. And I definitely hear, and appreciate, the influences- 70s funk, early Prince, early 80s slow jams, even the neo-psychedelic side of Motown. But that just makes me want to go listen to those sources, rather than this derivation.

Okay, that’s it for now. Tune in next time for albums 6-10…