(part five // 10-1)
and so we come to the end of this first major feature of 2005, my absolute top ten favorite albums since last century...
10. Manitoba – Up in Flames (Domino, 2003)
This is probably the perfect summer album for the current batch of indie kids. I mean, we just can’t connect with the Beach Boys anymore… but a dude with a laptop and a shitload of talent? Now that’s something we can understand. But, understanding or not, this is an unbelievable album. Though this is definitely influenced by My Bloody Valentine, but certainly no slave to a pre-established formula, Up in Flames combines the shoegazing aesthetic with modern technology to beautiful result. Dan Snaith, the man behind the laptop, is able to perfectly capture all of the laziness and giddiness of an entire summer day over the course of one album. Doubt me? Just pop this in next July when you have a lazy afternoon and the sun is shining and there’s a slight breeze blowing through your open window. You won’t after that.
9. Modest Mouse – The Moon and Antarctica (Epic, 2001)
Beloved indie band signs to a major label. That phrase alone can strike fear into the biggest fan of any indie band, justified or not. While some expected Isaac Brock to turn this into a bid for widespread commercial acceptance, he did the opposite and experimented by pulling the band in even more directions than before. You’ve got your noisy little two-minute rave-ups like “Wild Packs of Family Dogs” and you’ve got some of Brock’s moody, yet thought-provoking lyrical sense in “Dark Center of the Universe”. The songs that truly push this album dangerously close to the all-time classic zone, however, are the ethereal epics “The Cold Part” and “The Stars Are Projectors” both of which show a side of the band that was only hinted at in previous albums. This one didn’t get the mainstream success many were unjustly afraid of, but that doesn’t matter when you’ve created a timeless album that really matters.
8. The Shins – Oh, Inverted World (Sub Pop, 2001)
The first time I heard this album, I could have sworn it was a reissue of some long-forgotten psychedelic band from 1960’s London. I felt a little early Pink Floyd in there, but at the same time I felt something a little more poppy creeping underneath. I was definitely intrigued by the taste so I picked it up, put it on in the background a bunch of times, and promptly filed it away. End of story, right? Wrong. Turns out I had all these weird little melodies bouncing around in my head, but for the life of me I couldn’t place them. I frantically raced through my collection searching for the source, because it was obvious that they weren’t going to leave me alone. After days of fruitless searching I was about to give it up and resign myself to the onset of insanity. Luckily I randomly pulled this album off the shelf and brought it with me on a drive out to my parents. As each song slid by and connected with the synapses firing in my head, I fell hard for this album. And, as they say, the rest is history.
7. Radiohead – Kid A (Capitol, 2000)
Seriously, with the miles and miles of press written about this album I don’t think I could add much of anything more at this point. I’m not even going to try, I’m just going to say that yes this album was over-hyped – very much so in fact. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a damn amazing album. Sure, other producers and bands had done the laptop and other experiments before Yorke and crew took them on, but this album was able to combine a huge number of influences and combine them with the trademark Radiohead sound to create one of the best headphone masterpieces ever.
6. The Avalanches – Since I Left You (Modular, 2000)
This shit should have been advertised as the ultimate party in a box, all yours for less than twenty dollars. I’ve heard lots of DJ mixes in my life, but absolutely none have come even close to this one. The transitions are smooth, the samples are very well used, and the overall mood is one of complete and utter abandon. I’ve read that the guys used an insane number of albums to create this, and to be honest I don’t want to know anything else about how it was put together as it might spoil part of the mystique for me. You might remember the really cool single “Frontier Psychiatrist”, which was taken from this album. Understandable, because it was awesome. But that song is like my thirteenth favorite thing about this, that’s how damn good it is.
5. The Postal Service – Give Up (Sub Pop, 2003)
This was just one of those vanity side projects, you know that goes. Just a couple of dudes working on some cool jams when they had spare time, tossing ideas back and forth over mailed tapes. It’s not going to be anything special, just another creative outlet for a couple of talented guys. Little did anyone know that it would turn into the best thing that anyone involved had ever worked on. Jimmy Tamberello came up with some sublime beats that perfectly complimented some of the best lyrics that Ben Gibbard had ever committed to paper. This isn’t one of those albums that you kind of like, this is one of those albums that you fall in love with and fall in love to.
4. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Nonesuch, 2002)
We all know the back story on this one – band records supposedly amazing album, band gets fucked over by record label, fans salivate, band resigns, and the album finally hits the streets after and excruciating wait. It’s not a new story in rock and roll at all, except this time there was no “supposedly” about it. This is an amazing album, and anyone dumb enough to take a pass on it should have their head examined. This could have been a sprawling, experimental mess if it weren’t for the superb production help from Jim O’Rourke and Jeff Tweedy’s way with melody and a string of words. They can get a little obtuse at times, but his lyrics perfectly captured a wide variety of feelings on this album – from nostalgia to loss to confusion to desperation. It was written well before September of 2001, but somehow this album became the perfect antidote for those confusing times that followed.
3. Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun (Fatcat, 2000)
I really would just rather post a picture of a beautiful Icelandic landscape here, because that’s about as close as I could come to describing the perfection of this album. I’ve been staring at my screen for half an hour while this album has been playing, just trying to think of something to say about it but words continue to fail me. Let me try this – picture a delicate, pink rose floating on a serene lake as ice melts around the edges. A gentle, cold wind blows by but it somehow leaves the rose to peacefully float on. Overhead the clouds slowly drift to and fro as errant rays of sunshine strike the petals of the rose, just in time to refract on a drop of water. That’s about as close as I can get to describing how this album makes me feel, and I don’t think I’ve even done it an eighth of the justice it deserves.
2. Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP (Interscope, 2002)
This album broke Marshall into the mainstream big time, proving he went far beyond the funny singles “My Name Is” and “Guilty Conscience” from The Slim Shady LP. He kicked the hype off with a hot single that was about as catchy as a case of syphilis, but a lot better to dance with. Slowly though, another side of Em emerged, as this stunning tale of a deranged fan started to get rotation on the radio dial. Who would have ever expected a song sung with verses in written letter form about a psycho rap fan killing his girlfriend in the trunk of his car would be a radio smash? I don’t think anybody expected it to be as huge as it was, but it succeeded due to one simple fact – Eminem is a compelling storyteller with an amazing gift of flow and vocal skills. Very few rappers can work with words quite like him, and none of them have the engaging persona to pair it all with. From the psychotic (“Kill You”, “Kim”) to the pop culture bashing (“Marshall Mathers”) to the telling cultural critiques (“The Way I Am”, “Who Knew”), The Marshall Mathers LP showed off all sides of Em’s abilities and facets. It’s not just an amazing album, it’s the portrait of an artist who is one of the most enthralling entertainers of the last twenty years.
1. Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights (Matador, 2002)
How often do you come across an album that pretty much embodies everything you love about music? It’s not something that breaks tons of boundaries, or starts a revolution, or changes the musical landscape forever. No, it’s a little more simple than all of that – just something that you connect with on a personal level and engages you in every way that an album can. Lyrically, sonically, conceptually – everything just worked on this album for me, and quite a few other people judging by the rabid following the band now has. Interpol combined the best of dark guitar pop-rock from the past forty years into forty minutes of perfection. I can feel traces of everyone from Joy Division to The Cure to the Velvet Underground and to be honest, I don’t see a damn thing wrong with having obvious influences when something like this can come out of it. The band wasn’t just stealing bits and pieces of classic albums to create a modern-day Frankenstein on vinyl, instead they let an obvious love and passion for music pour through their fingers and mouths to create something wholly original and forward looking. It didn’t change the world by any means, but just changing mine was good enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment