1. [Tie] White Blood Cells — The White Stripes (Sympathy for the
Record Industry); Nuggets II: Original Psychedelic Artyfacts from the
British Empire and Beyond 1965-69 — Various Artists (Rhino):
Essential rock-and-roll comfort food from two unexpected sources. Nuggets
II is a plus-size, omnivorous sampler of garage-punk from around the world
that casually revises xenophobic rock theory about source validity; 30-odd
years later, the White Stripes create a Memphis-recorded miracle that embraces
all the right dualities — boy/girl, soft/loud, words/guitar. Together these
100 tunes across five discs constitute a quest for nirvana in the silent
seconds before the riff is reprised.
2. “Love and Theft” — Bob Dylan (Columbia):
Critics have argued that Dylan’s career has been revitalized in the last few
years, but nobody expected this: a raucous, raunchy, poker-faced laugh riot to
set alongside his milestones of 25, even 35 years ago. We don’t hear of any
princesses on steeples or postcards of a hanging anymore, just an old man
taking a page from Jay Gatsby’s book: “Can’t repeat the past?/What do you
mean you can’t?/Of course you can.”
3. Party Music — The Coup (75 Ark): Revival of the Year:
left-wing hip hop without too much bluster. Party Music, along with
Outkast’s Stankonia, is another bit of evidence furthering the
hypothesis that one ideal form of the quintessential hip-hop album is a P-Funk
album with more limber vocalists. Instructive where Chuck D was stentorian,
smooth where KRS-One was brutal, Boots Riley can make a lyric like “Even
renowned hack historians have found that/the people only bound back/when they
pound back” sound not only useful but vital in a time when institutional
criticism and dissent are seen as unpatriotic or even evil. Courageous.
4. Lucy Ford — Atmosphere (Rhymesayers): The Midwest has
always been fertile ground for dreamers, storytellers, and keen observers (see
no. 2) for good reason; it’s an excuse to be shy, and it’s either that or off
yourself inside of a grain elevator. So try and find this kooky hip-hop
collection from Minneapolis’ Slug, because the best song’s a dream, the
second-best song’s a story, and there are observations everywhere, with a
welcome emphasis on other people in a highly self-referential genre.
5. Satellite Rides — The Old 97’s (Elektra): This is rock-
and-roll for the whole family — high lonesome boys spooked by the ghost of
alt-country who play just fast and loud enough to sound generic and
untrustworthy. Then the lyrics set in, and not many folks can better their
confused, heartsick urges and girl problems: “I got a real bad feeling
that a book of poems ain’t enough” is a personal favorite; “I may be
a bird in a cage/But at least it’s your cage” explains a hell of a lot. –
– Addison Engelking
1. Innocence and Despair — The Langley Schools Music Project
(Bar None): In the mid-’70s — apparently when we had fewer compunctions
about letting teaheads cavort with our children — a long-haired music
teacher, Hans Fengler, recorded 60 miniature Canadians (ages 9-12) as they
stumbled sweetly through the golden-hued canon of FM hits of the day (i.e.,
Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” and a devastatingly beautiful take on the
Eagles’ “Desperado”). Somehow, this year, the recordings were
unearthed and disseminated. On the night of September 11th, after I had burned
out on Peter Jennings and CNN, I put this on and drank enough Cape Cods to
fill a Mr. Turtle pool. It was the only thing that made sense. When their
sweet little voices intoned, “The world could show nothing to me/So what
good would living do me” on their cover of the Beach Boys’ “God Only
Knows,” I shuddered, wept, and quietly crawled into my highball glass,
knowing for sure that it was a portal to a time and place (1977, rural British
Columbia) that knew nothing of the end of the world. Innocence and
Despair, indeed.
2. In Search Of — N.E.R.D. (Virgin, UK): This hip-hop
debut from hot-shit producers the Neptunes (Jay-Z, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Britney
Spears) ranks up there with Dr. Dre’s The Chronic and Outkast’s
Stankonia as a hall-of-fame party platter. Will cause your booty to
whine and paw at the inside of your britches — trying to get out like a dawg
that needs to “do its business.”
3. Is This It — The Strokes (RCA): So is it truly an
overhyped record from a group of bored, privileged chick magnets? Are the
songs sometimes listless and derivative? In spite of these qualities, is it
still on perpetual heavy rotation and do you involuntarily and adoringly coo
along with your special lady friend when she remarks on how
“fuckable” the little brats are? Well, sadly, the answer is
“Yes” cubed.
4. Even in Darkness — Dungeon Family (Arista): This album,
a collaboration between Outkast, Goodie Mob, Organized Noize, and assorted
Freaknik hangers-on miraculously sidesteps the side-project stigma — more fun
than it has a right to be.
5. Oh, Inverted World — The Shins (Sub Pop): The lyrics
are wistfully oblique and the arrangements veer dangerously close to
saccharinity, but the way they evoke the enchanting solitude of a thousand
latchkey afternoons on “New Slang” (prettiest song of the year!) and
other suburban odes earns ’em a spot in my year-end hot tub. — David
Dunlap Jr.
1. Isolation Drills — Guided by Voices (TVT): This year’s
All That You Can’t Leave Behind: a muscular return to form by a band
threatened with irrelevance and oblivion. But, while U2’s album is global in
scope, this Midwestern record is strictly personal: Robert Pollard bravely
examines his notorious alcoholism and his general indie-prolific
persnicketiness. Finally flirting with deeper meaning beyond the sound itself,
he finds that despite all the missed opportunities and fuck-ups, he is all
regrets but no regret. A hard-won, heartbreaking triumph.
2. Is This It — The Strokes (RCA): Is This It is
nothing less than a great New York City punk album, but there was no way it
could live up to the unfair context of its prerelease buzz. Still, away from
all the critical hubbub, the record bristles with more energy and excitement
than just about any other album this year.
3. Oh, Inverted World — The Shins (SubPop): As the video
for their shimmery “New Slang” suggests, the Shins are very ’80s
college music: could-have-been favorites of old-school 120 Minutes and
Postmodern MTV. Like early R.E.M., they wrap their lyrical obscurity
around themselves like a childhood blanket. But the lyrics make more sense
with each listen and the tunes become more hummable until their debut becomes
not just another indie-rock record but the culmination of the subgenre’s
recent fascination with pop hooks and song-over-sonics sensibility.
4. “Love and Theft” — Bob Dylan (Columbia): Of
the many recent releases by a slew of has-beens and over-the-hills,
“Love and Theft” is the only one that disproves Richard
Strausbaugh’s theory, as laid out in his book Rock ‘Til You Drop: The
Decline from Rebellion to Nostalgia, that aging rockers are embarrassing
themselves and ruining their legendary back catalogs for listeners everywhere.
Instead of resting on past successes, Dylan builds on his own canon with this
valentine to American traditional music, at once both jokey and gloomy.
5. Satellite Rides — The Old 97’s (Elektra): Others may
get all the press, but Rhett Miller was always alt-country’s best songwriter,
and today he’s post-alt-country-pop’s best songwriter, with intelligent lyrics
and supernaturally catchy hooks. He’s also one of rock’s most conflicted
Romeos (and therefore one of its most interesting frontmen). One minute he’s
sincerely proposing marriage, the next he’s trying hard not to tempt a woman
to break her vows. That we believe such contradictions is a testament to his
easy intimacy. That we still like him suggests an honesty many songwriters
can’t muster (ahem, Ryan Adams). — Stephen Deusner
1. Anthem Of The Moon — Oneida (Jagjaguwar): An organ-
heavy, psychedelic noise-pop record that has absolutely no counterparts
and very few sonic reference points over the past 40 years. 2.
Neu!/Neu! 2/Neu ’75 reissues — Neu! (Astralwerks):
The Neu! reissue project was personal justification for eight years of I-told-
you-so. Music is still catching up to these 30-year-old albums, just like
contemporaries Can and Faust were at the time.
3. Jackson C. Frank — Jackson C. Frank (Castle Music):
Jackson C. Frank’s story merits a book, but the painfully condensed
version goes like this: Badly scarred by childhood burns, an American
expatriot living on insurance money in the middle of Britain’s fertile mid-
’60s folk scene releases one album in 1965 (reissued here), dates Sandy Denny,
befriends and offers a young Al Stewart his first appearance on record, runs
out of insurance money, returns to America, and ends up mentally ill and
homeless by 1975. A folk obscurity that would be a massive influence on Nick
Drake, whose entire output is eclipsed by less than half of this album.
4. Endless Summer — Fennesz (Mego): What if the saddest
music this year had no words? Herein lies the best specimen of the poorly
named “folktronica” movement. But this Austrian sound-savant (born
Christian Fennesz) and former Jim O’Rourke collaborator has broken free of
genre boundaries to create something that I can’t properly fathom — but I
will attest to its beauty.
5. Dead Meadow — Dead Meadow (Tolotta): This debut is the
better of Dead Meadow’s two releases from 2001, and Dead Meadow is the best
band to ever attempt Blue Cheer/Sabbath/Led Zep post-boogie for the new
millennium. — Andrew Earles