An Ear For An Era: 2002

Your bitterness doesn't surprise me. A quote from 2001 but that was what 2002 was like. I remember blowing off a class because I was bitter about a relationship status. Feeling alone and not wanting to deal with macroeconomics or whatever it was. I think I ended up doing ok for the semester but taking like a week off from class.

It was a painful breakup and it was fueled by painful breakup music. It was perfecting loneliness. It was online friends because I'd alienated all my physical friends. Not discounting said online friends, and if any of you are reading this you were amazing at helping me fight my way through this. It got better. But 2002 was a tough year for me. Not that I should have let that get to me, I was in fact very lucky in all ways except that crucial one way.

Not that it was terrible the whole time. It was a turbulent year with ups and downs, just as the breakup I went through had its on and off points, and I still owe that girl a lot for what she did for me musically. In addition to getting me into some of the crucial emo-esque-whatever bands of the time, she insisted and fought me until I accepted the art of hip hop. So here in 2002 we have the first hip hop album I bought, my favorite hip hop album for the longest time, and even today it stands amongst my favorites.

It came about because I went with her to see Jurassic 5. They were pretty darn cool. Even in 2002 when they were collaborating with Nelly Furtado. Looking at the lineup, there were some cool looking openers and I was curious about this group called Blackalicious. I found my way upon this track they had done called "Chemical Calisthenics."

 

Blackalicious "Chemical Calisthenics"

This song right here was undeniable proof of the presence of talent in hip hop (yeah yeah, baby steps). Incredible talent. And braininess. Smarts. Cleverness. Uniqueness. Everything I thought I knew about this art form was turned on its head because of this song. A nerdy song about chemistry. With different movements and melodies incorporated. Eventually I picked up the album. Blazing Arrow. I still remember going to a record store somewhere in Boulder (I don't think it's there anymore, it was down 28th by where Barnes & Noble was somewhere I think) and picking it up. And listening to it in my car. And becoming obsessed. This was a hip hop album that was immersive and contained, a statement rather than a selection of songs, but something that flowed throughout, in a way I previously credited to the highest honored rock groups like Fugazi. This was an opus. It sampled Harry Nilsson! And had PASSION! And politics and brains and SO MUCH SOUL. And it introduced me to Saul Williams on the epic hip hop track (!!) called "Release." It not only became my immediate favorite hip hop album (not a challenge at the time since it was my only hip hop album, but it remained my favorite hip hop album for years and push come to shove it might still be) but one of my favorite albums of all time. I just can't get over it. It is everything.

So hip hop was entering my consciousness. The Streets were getting started with Original Pirate Material, full of great beats and an interesting perspective on the genre. The Roots took some interesting turns on Phrenology. And oh boy, Talib Kweli. Quality is the other indisputable classic hip hop album of 2002. The lyricism is dazzling, the way he weaves stories and social commentary through classic beats is phenomenal. To me, this is where it feels that Kanye West as a producer really established himself. Sure, that Jay-Z album sounds great. But the songs he does on this album are just unbeatable. "Get By" and "Gorilla Monsoon Rap" are earworms/bangers/everything. And Kweli just makes them so thoughtful and perfect.

Another of my favorite albums of all time doesn't particularly hold a resonance tying itself to my personal life (and I don't think I got into it until it was a couple years old), but nonetheless has been a personal favorite and something I can always rely on to lift my spirits and get my brain working is High Society by Enon. This album is all over the place, hitting so many sounds, but hitting them all right on the head. It feels smart to me but wholly entertaining. This song says it all: Less pop, more fizz.

Enon "Carbonation"

There was a good beat here though, which segues nicely into the other thing that was slowly developing for me. Dance music. Lots of bands I liked started taking this turn toward the dance floor and over the next 2 years I'd discover my own internal lord of the dance which would kind of change my life eventually. Q and Not U were one of these bands. Different Damage seemed like something entirely different and new for a math rock esque band to tackle and I loved it.

And lots of the greatest hits of Lipgloss (the premier indie dance night of Denver) of 2004-5 (when I would go) came out in '02, it turns out. The famous Junior Senior's D-D-Don't Stop the Beat was out and LCD Soundsystem's early single "Losing My Edge" took name dropping to a new, acceptable level. Ladytron was more electronic than most of what I'd listened to but were very catchy. Interpol...I used to think they were famous and crappy but I probably just had them mixed up with someone else. At Lipgloss I enjoyed them. And Hot Hot Heat! "Bandages" was definitely my jam to dance to.

The first new Elvis Costello album that came out when I was closely following him (i.e. getting all the deluxe reissues of all of his back catalog) was When I Was Cruel. Such a great breakup album, full of bold experiments in song structure. Such a perfect album for me to become obsessed with. It combined my budding love of his cynical lyrics and my interest in the abstract and the weird. I just loved that such a respectable artist, a good quarter century into his career, was doing such exciting and weird things while keeping with the spirit of his whole career.

One of my best memories of 2002 was April 20, 2002. The school put on a show to get us kids doing other stuff besides getting stoned because I went to CU Boulder and that was pretty much the thing to do on 4/20. I was not interested in any of that though, and it turned out to just be a great excuse to bring The Lawrence Arms to town! I had just gotten a video camera and my dorm was approximately a block away, so my friend Greg and I decided to go ask Brendan (of said Lawrence Arms) if it would be cool if I video taped their set. He said that would be fine. And I was going to get up to the front to get a good angle with my camera when he brought us back stage to talk to the band and then had us posted on the side of the stage for the duration of the show. It was hard not to dance around and scream along to all of of the words. Anyway, great time. It was right after Apathy & Exhaustion came out, which was kind of a pinnacle achievement for the band. They had just moved over to Fat Wreck Chords and I was worried the sound would be influenced by the label (I'd previously made fun of the fact that all Fat bands sounded just like NOFX, and similarly favorite band Alkaline Trio took a bit of a nosedive when they moved labels), but it was really just an extension of the sound they'd developed on "the splits" that I've mentioned in previous posts here. In fact, as much as they change from album to album, the smallest change they ever made between two albums was this one, the one time they moved record labels. As far as the songs themselves go, Brendan's got increasingly philosophical in their crass self deprecation, and Chris' just got more personal and closer and closer to my own heart. This was emphasized by the song "Brick Wall Views," which I took as my AIM screen name as I drifted away from my ex girlfriend and needed someone to understand. I felt like this song understood me. Which made it even more amazing on April 20 at that show, because Brendan dedicated that very song to "these guys over here, to Greg and Brandon."

The Lawrence Arms "Brick Wall Views"

Of all the shows I saw with Greg in these days, one local band seemed to open up every damn time. Laymen Terms. To where we learned the songs and became pretty big fans. Still not the best of that crop, but they had a few good jams that took me back when I heard them.

Brian Moss of The Wunder Years had a new band called The Ghost, and they released their debut album This Is A Hospital to much acclaim among me and a couple friends. It took the sound of The Wunder Years and put more heave behind it, oozing with passion and stuff.

What really defined me in these days, or maybe this was more 2003 and 2004 but the album came out in 2002, was Perfecting Loneliness by Jets to Brazil. This came out after all my friends talked about Orange Rhyming Dictionary being so great and Four Cornered Night being disappointing. It didn't seem like anyone was talking about Perfecting Loneliness. But what a title! I found the vinyl in some sort of clearance rack, I hadn't heard of a third Jets to Brazil album so I picked it up. And I put it on with much frequency. For the longest time I only had it on vinyl and I still listened to it more than most other music I had access to. Living in a small house by myself, putting this on lonely Friday nights when I had nothing to do but stay inside, this made it feel okay. "Thank God for no phone calls."

Jets to Brazil "Further North"

Other Things About Things:

• Early Iron & Wine was something special and intimate.
• For some reason even though I skipped an album by Reel Big Fish and was totally over them by now, I got Cheer Up! and it was the right thing to do at the time. Even though I did not want to cheer up, the album hit home in a surprisingly strong way. And the closing track "Drunk Again" has gone on to be one of my favorite self pity songs of all due to lyrics like "If I had a dollar bill for every time I've been wrong, I'd be a self-made millionaire and you'd still be gone..."
• Speaking of ska that still ska'd my world, MU330's Ultra Panic cemented the band as something beyond my 90s ska phase. The personal, thoughtful lyrics on "Speed Bump" and "Hey Now" still resonate.
• Similarly, Slow Gherkin's Run Screaming made them a ska band to grow on. "Baby Snakes" spoke to me pretty intimately.
• Desaparecidos were the only way I could handle Conor Oberst at the time. Overtly political and too loud to notice the whiny vocals? Yes please!
• I just recently got Title TK by The Breeders. Nice record!
• Stephin Merritt's Eban & Charley soundtrack was lovely enough, but it includes one of my (many I guess) favorite Merritt compositions, "This Little Ukulele." One of those simple songs that seemed like it should have been put together before 2002 A.D. but we finally got it and it's an instant classic.
• Dntel with Ben Gibbard = the beginnings of a certain Postal Service...oh boy!
• Jim O'Rourke did a lot of good for the music world in 2002. He brought Sonic Youth to sound a little bit more like Wilco on Murray Street, and he made Wilco sound a little bit like Sonic Youth on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Both of these albums are bonafide indie classics.
•  I went and saw Cursive this past month on their Ugly Organ tour. That album was from 2003 and I'll talk about it plenty in the next entry I'm sure. But on the way to the show, on shuffle for 2002, I was fortunate enough to have their split with Eastern Youth come on. One of their best uses of cello, the song "Excerpts from Various Notes Strewn Around the Bedroom of April Connolly Feb 24, 1997" came on and I remembered it being one of my favorite Cursive tunes. They played that one at the show and I was one of the few people rocking out to it, which was weird because it's one of their best but I guess that split is less well known than their full length albums.
• Some real indie stuff was getting started in 2002, bands that would hit their peak in popularity in the era of 2005-2007, when I was at my peak in listening to bands like that. Mirah, Deerhoof, Spoon (the official beginning of their Midas phase which is still going on??), some Neko Case, Decemberists, The Mountain Goats, and more!
• Flaming Lips. Yoshimi. Do you Realize?? Do I need to say anything more?
• Heiruspecs became a favorite hip hop live band that I happened to see a few times. Their next album was better though so I'll try to talk about them when that comes up.
• Beck on Sea Change was a new Beck but it really showcased that he was more than fun beats and fun tricks...
• For more mainstream hip hop, Missy Elliot nailed it on Under Construction.
• Johnny Cash's American Recordings comeback became very real to me (and probably many others) on American IV: The Man Comes Around. The first one I got personally, the one I probably listen to the most, is probably the most vital of the era, and of course it has his cover of "Hurt" which needs no other words.
• I had a recording of the CU Marching Band doing all the songs we did that previous fall. I think I could kind of hear that great trombone player known to readers as Quiet Brandon, but who knows because he was probably pretty quiet.

Next Time:
Alkaline Trio kind of redeem themselves to me! Beulah finishes up. Black Eyes are amazing. Classic Calexico! Deerhoof/Decemberists/Dirty Projectors for a trio of D. The Black Album!! Another great Lawrence Arms classic! I go pretentious with The Mars Volta & Radiohead! Speakerboxx/The Love Below! Another Polysics album to go down in history! Something called The Postal Service. Michigan. The debut EP from TV On The Radio!! Elephant is something classic I think! And another indisputable classic album by Weird Al.

An Ear For An Era: 2001

A Space Odyssey. Still the first thing I think of when I hear "2001." Even though experiencing it first hand it didn't feel like science fiction. It was an incredibly transformative year for me personally and for the country and the world, for better or worse. At the time it just felt like life was happening. The expected (going to college, hanging out with my same friends), the unexpected, I just took it as it came. Lived in the moment as I felt necessary.

I'm not sure what I'm getting at here. I just feel obligated to make this a pretty reflective piece for 2001.

It was so long ago when I listened to this stuff. Or about a month. I just took a long break before writing this. We'll see how it goes. It's really just guideposts for things that have always been in my head for years.

Like Radiohead's Amnesiac. Silly enough, this was my first Radiohead album. I think. If I remember correctly. Best Buy or someone had a deal that if you got Amnesiac you'd get half price on another Radiohead album or something, and I think I also got OK Computer.  But I liked Amnesiac quite a bit pretty quickly, particularly the driving beats on "I Might Be Wrong." The closest link to punk I could find, even though it was miles away from everything else I listened to at the time.

Electroclash was starting to gain steam in 2001, not that I would have known/cared about it at the time. A few years later I'd get way into it for about a year though. Miss Kittin & The Hacker's First Album was a great dance party with all the appropriate filthy/sexy songs that just turn the party up that much more. And "La La Land" by Green Velvet would be one of my favorite songs in 2005 dance mode. Finally (not really electroclash but dancy), the self-titled debut from !!! had "Intensify" which is still probably my favorite live song by them.


Remember those "The" bands? They were supposedly saving rock and roll or something? I saw it as a stupid thing at the time, they were not original, they were just playing garage rock. And rock and roll didn't need saving. I'd been listening to rock and roll for quite some time, punk rock for about 5 years at this point and it was doing just fine. So I saw through the BS that MTV was trying to feed me. The Strokes? You gotta be kidding me. The dude just got a record deal because he's related to someone important. I think. I eventually did cave, YEARS and YEARS later, and got Is This It. It's a decent record. Maybe above decent. The media just turned me off to them before I could have given them a chance at being relevant to me.

The same thing happened to me with The White Stripes. Another damn "The" band thinking they are so cool with their costumes! What about music? Focus on your music, not your image! Of course, the music on White Blood Cells is some of the greatest music created this century so I really must have given them no chance at all. I probably only heard "Fell in Love with a Girl" and assumed they were just another Strokes-type band. Oh, the years I wasted not listening to The White Stripes. This has since become one of my favorites if you can't tell.

Gorillaz got quite popular in their own way. I was dating a girl obsessed with Blur so she was also into Gorillaz. I couldn't really get the appeal, although it would be pretty soon after this that I'd discover how awesome Del the Funky Homosapien is. But that album, I like it quite a bit in retrospect.

What I was into was indie rock! Built to Spill, yo! I remember a bunch of hipsters (before those were a thing everybody hates) were in my dorm cafeteria sitting within earshot. They were talking about Modest Mouse and Built to Spill and I thought, "Wow! Somebody else knows about these bands!" I did not go talk to them because I still thought I was cooler than them and/or not cool enough for them. One of the dudes ended up being in a couple of my film classes though. Anyway, Ancient Melodies of the Future is a pretty good title for an album put out in 2001. Especially for something you're listening to in 2015. I don't know, my main memory of Built to Spill is putting this song on pretty much every mix CD I made for anyone from 2001-2005.

Built to Spill "The Weather"

Former (and current) Pixie Frank Black put out an album with The Catholics called Dog In The Sand. I remember seeing a postcard thing for the album at Albums on the Hill when I visited Boulder for some reason (before going to college). I eventually got the album but one song I heard early, I think from illegal downloading way back when, "If It Takes All Night" has stuck with me for the past 14 years as a favorite.

I remember the day Fugazi's last album The Argument came out. Because that was the day in college I went to Wax Trax after class to pick it up. And the accompanying Furniture EP, of course. You know, 2001 was also the year I saw Fugazi. I turned 18 in 2001 and they played in Denver the night before my birthday. So I hit midnight on my 18th birthday in the front row of the Ogden Theater listening to maybe the most legendary band of my youth. Unfortunately, the Fugazi Live Series has not posted that show yet. I was hoping it'd be up before I listened to 2001! Anyway, that was an amazing life experience. What to say about the album though? Who knew it would be their last? It is as epic as anything else they did, so it's a fitting farewell. I just want more, always.


The Hip Hop:
Word of Mouf was a great continuation of the fun and silly Ludacris I liked so much a little later. Jay-Z and Nas had quite the words for each other on their respective releases. I liked Jay-Z's better. The Blueprint is pretty classic and in addition to "The Takeover" it has my favorite Eminem song, his collaboration with Hova called "Renegade." But you probably already know that song. Oh, and Dilated Peoples' Expansion Team was fantastic. I only recently acquired that one so I'd only known "Worst Comes to Worst" before this.


Remember in the last entry when I explained my thoughts on Suicide Machines' self-titled album that angered me so? I think some of that anger pushed me to be overly judgmental of another of my favorite bands. Asian Man Records has always had a policy of supporting their artists as they get too big for such a tiny label and need to move on. But when Alkaline Trio moved to Vagrant Records, I was pretty furious. This was a band I took VERY personally, because they had spoken to me on such a personal level at a critical time in my development. So the idea of having to share them with people not cool enough to track them down on their own made me pretty sad. But I also like to think I gave them a chance. When the track listing for From Here to Infirmary came out, I remember just being so excited about the prospect of Dan singing a song called "Crawl" or Matt singing one called "You're Dead." But then the album came out. And I hated it. When, to be fair, I probably should have only liked it a little less than Maybe I'll Catch Fire. But "Stupid Kid" was all over MTV and some of those songs were just not up to par lyrically. When you have to have the lyrics "In case you're wondering we're singing about growing up..." then maybe you're either being too cryptic otherwise or you don't think too highly of your audience's ability to understand a song. Anyway, listening to the album in 2015 I realized it's pretty decent. It's got some good songs on it. They couldn't just keep making Goddamnit.

On the other hand, related band The Lawrence Arms continued their ascent into my heart with a split EP with The Chinkees called Present Day Memories. The four Lawrence Arms songs instantly became some of my favorites, so perfectly expressing the exasperation of loneliness and laziness and not finding your way out. Only The Lawrence Arms could speak so boldly with a sigh in a song...

The Lawrence Arms "Hey, What Time is 'Pensacola: Wings of Gold' on Anyway?"

And the triptych concludes with The Honor System. 100% Synthetic sees them moving a little away from the Broadways influence and rocking just a little bit harder without sacrificing any of the passion that made them great.

Cursive was in between their two great albums so of course they put out their great EP Burst and Bloom. "Sink to the Beat" is my go-to when I want to convert someone to the greatness that is Cursive. So I'll play it for you now in case you didn't know and feel the need to know.

 Cursive "Sink to the Beat"

The final album by The Wunder Years was an EP recorded in Fort Collins. I have to credit The Blasting Room for bringing so many great bands through our small city outside of Denver, providing many great memories and making so many records feel all that more personal, knowing they were recorded in my hometown. I think I saw The Wunder Years three times. One of the times was at The Back Alley, a tiny venue that didn't last long but was my favorite venue while it was around. Have I already told this story? I don't know. It looked like it was a 21+ show so I emailed the band asking about it because I was only 17 or 18 or so. He wrote back saying I should be able to get in. I went and I got in. And he found me and somehow knew I was the one that had written (maybe I was obviously the youngest person there?) and asked if I got in okay. What a guy! Anyway, Function Over Fashion is a great final word to go out on for The Wunder Years as well as a look into the future of Brian's next band The Ghost. Just a harder take on things with that much passion.

The Smoking Popes' final album was full of covers and pretty good. But my interest gravitated toward former Smoking Popes guitarist Tom Daily. First I heard him cover their rarity "First Time" and just destroyed it. Will never get over that version. Then I ran across his album The Burlington Northern, which quietly became one of my favorite albums. Something I can't really relate to with anyone, because I don't think any of my friends really listened to him. I got one friend to enjoy "What's It Like?" by putting it on a mix (and I think I also played "First Time" for him) but beyond that, this is my own personal treasure. It feels like a very personal record filtered through lots of digital effects that aren't meant to cover anything up, but rather bring you in. Pique your curiosity with some echoes here or there but bring you in with some straightforward melodies and lyrics. I guess it's my original, personal version of The Postal Service.

Another former Smoking Pope (and Alkaline Trio drummer at the time) Mike Felumlee took part in a message board I posted to and founded an awesome record label, and I became a fan. He put out an album called 64 Hours and it was a great collection of Smoking Popes-style pop with his own personal take.

I guess Beulah fits here because indie pop or whatever. The Coast Is Never Clear was their best album in my opinion, a great combination of cynical lyrics and Beach Boys-meets-90s-indie-pop music. References to Stephin Merritt. It's just so upbeat and good sounding to deliver such hatred, it's a wonderful thing. La la life sucks! Perfect for me in the early 2000s.

What can I say about Polysics? I have to say something about Polysics. When I first heard them it was on an Asian Man Records compilation and I didn't care for them. Too weird somehow for me in 2001. Even though I was way into weird in 2001. It didn't take me too long to get curious enough to listen some more though, because as "too weird" as it was it still had me curious. I think my friends learning and doing a goofy dance to it helped. So anyway, eventually I just went for it and got their first album (to be released in America) called Hey! Bob! My Friend! and I haven't looked back. They idolize Devo, they play a similar new wavy type music with a ton of energy. Perfect for freakin' out squares and going crazy over.

And I'll end it with some ska. Acoustic ska. Chris Murray from King Apparatus put out a simple solo album on Asian Man Records called 4-Trackaganza! I quite enjoyed it but it came to mean so much more to me. Early in the morning on September 11th, I was in my dorm when the phone rang. My roommate had gone to class but his sister called and I answered it. I don't remember the exact conversation, other than her telling me that we were "under attack" and to turn on the TV and that a plane had gone down near "the 'Burgh" (he was from Pittsburgh) but his family was okay. And I turned on the TV and it was on when he came back to the dorm. I gave him the message from his sister. I don't remember much else. I feel like we were more in disbelief than anything. Not visibly upset, but not knowing what to think or how to feel. It took me days to process what had happened and what was going on around me, all the hatred that was coming out, everyone saying to bomb Afghanistan, all the racist talk that became so rampant. We were inevitably headed for war and beyond my selfish concern about being of age for the draft and being sent there myself (obviously there was no draft), I was just concerned about the direction the world was heading. Then one day on shuffle this song came on and while it didn't make me feel better about anything, it helped articulate my concerns.

Grandma's sewing denim patches on the pants of destiny
at the dawning of an era, watching history repeat
it's lookin' like the easy answer is to blame society for the wars
they were swimming in the ocean 'til they crawled up from the sea
then one day they started dying, 'til the last one disappeared
no they never saw it coming, though the signs were there to see
            -Chris Murray, "Dinosaurs"

Other things:

• The final piece from The Impossibles. 2001 I was in the CU marching band and we went to Austin. We met up with the Texas trombone section and one suggestion was to go see The Impossibles. Unfortunately, us punk rock band geeks got outvoted and we ended up playing a drinking game at some house somewhere. I did not drink. The end of that story. Oh yeah, the piece. 4 Song Brick Bomb. An EP with...4 songs. Great stuff.
• The first Quasi album I got was The Sword of God. It has the song "It's Raining," which might be my favorite of theirs.
• "Crystal Frontier" may have been Calexico's finest achievement.
• I remember "Rockin' The Suburbs" by Ben Folds! That one amused me. Turns out that record has a few great songs on it.
• 2001 was when Adult Swim was getting started on Cartoon Network. My beloved Space Ghost Coast to Coast had an expanding universe with lots of great shows. One of these was The Brak Show (not to be confused with Brak Presents The Brak Show Starring Brak). In one episode, Zorak has something removed from his throat and he ends up having a singing voice not unlike the popular boy bands of the era. All of this is to say I still have the songs from that episode. Zorak singing about kicking your ass. Good stuff.
• Thelema is a nifty little EP by Murder City Devils.
• Amethyst Rock Star is a great intro to Saul Williams and he would turn out to have a big impact on me personally.
• That Pigeon John Is Clueless album is kind of funny in its very Christian messages on a couple songs. I'm glad he toned that down a little later on.
• Perennial favorites Enon put out a collection of loops called On Hold. It was pretty rare but I eventually picked it up at a show. It's pretty great for what it is. I used to think it needed some rappers to rap over some of the tracks on some sort of remix version to give it more exposure, but this last time listening to it I realize it is dynamic and interesting without the aid of others. Just a really cool album.
• Spoon was really finding themselves, but I didn't get into them quite yet. But Girls Can Tell is pretty great, a band that would end up being one of the most consistent in rock.
• The Ex was still amazing all these years later on Dizzy Spells.
• After hearing the song he was featured on on the 6ths album, I had to hear more from Momus. Eventually I tracked down his album Folktronic and paid a pretty penny for it. Must have been an import or something. Most of the album is silly and ephemeral and not really worth listening to much, but there are a couple songs that break through the silliness to reach something profound. "The Lady of Shallot" is a mixtape favorite.
• Rufus Wainwright's Poses is a great, personal, devastating album.

Next Time:
2002! The last palindrome year of our lives! Let's see...Trail of Dead! Early Amy Winehouse stuff! My first hip hop purchase (and favorite for a long long time), Blackalicious! A personal favorite Elvis Costello album! The greatest Enon album! Yoshimi! Perfecting Loneliness! The Lawrence Arms reaffirm my love yet again! Early LCD Soundsystem songs! Talib Kweli! Wilco! Lots of great personal stuff here.

An Ear For An Era: 2000

In the year 2000...

I remember when 2000 was far away. And then not so far away. And then the past. And Conan continuing the "In the year 2000" skits regardless. It's just a number. An idea. It used to be the idea of the future. So whatever the number is. It's just a number. When everybody was freaking out about Y2K and apocalypse and whatnot I just kind of laughed it off because of how arbitrary numbers are anyway.

2000 was the year I started my senior year in high school, it was a year I started off by being blown off by my friends but hanging out with my brother so it's fine, it was the year I got a serious girlfriend and went to school dances instead of making movies on school dance nights.

The future.

Now 15 years gone.

Music blog.

I'm going to start off the actual portion of this that is not a meaningless/meaningful introduction by talking about hip hop. 2000 was an insane year for great hip hop. I didn't know at the time because my mind was still closed, but there was a lot.

Soon to be one of my favorite MCs Del The Funky Homosapien had a very fantastic album Both Sides of the Brain that for a long time was the most recent Del solo album so it always felt like latter era Del. He's really upped his productivity in recent years, however, and now I guess I'd call it "mid period" because it is still pretty far removed from his early 90s repertoire. Same attitude, new production. But of course the big one was Deltron 3030, his project with Dan the Automator and Kid Koala. The future! Not sure how much I need to explain to this audience, but this concept sci-fi album is so much fun to listen to, as Del seems to bring out the best in Automator and vice versa (Koala's input is somewhat limited in comparison to his solo stuff...). It's just vivid, it's catchy, and impeccably done all around.

Deltron 3030 "Virus"

More hip hop, quick rundown style...
Ludacris, whom I would pretty soon discover for myself, has been historically viewed by me as just a fun, funny MC without too much to say. I think he's broken that stigma but he was very entertaining on Back for the First Time. De La Soul's Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump is a great showcase of a band still at the top of their game a decade in. Quality Control by Jurassic 5 is kind of a peak for the group creatively as a bunch of MCs that manage to find a level of harmony rarely heard in this century's hip hop, and also exemplified by the dual-DJ attack and "Swing Set," an awesome track of a couple DJs just showing off in a way that usually only MCs attempt. Speaking of DJs (producers?), Quasimoto is an interesting showcase of Madlib's behind-the-mic skills. I don't have the Wu-Tang Clan album The W, but I have "Gravel Pit" and yeah. You know that one is grand. Umm, Train of Thought by Reflection Eternal starring Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek is master class 2000 hip hop.

And of course Outkast. Stankonia was the last super collaborative album they put out together and pretty much the best. "Ms. Jackson" and "B.O.B." and other songs I haven't given their proper due. But "B.O.B." will always get me going nuts. I hated Eminem at the time but he's grown on me a little. The homophobia is pretty awful but he's not the only one with awful homophobia in his music from this time, so I guess he shouldn't have been singled out as much as he was...I know Common was guilty of some homophobia as well but Like Water For Chocolate is praised. And it should be for most reasons.

And now the stuff from the genres I really listened to back in 2000.

I hate being one of those guys that gets mad at a band for going in a new direction or whatever because you're the artist/follow your muse/etc, but The Suicide Machines really pissed me off when they put out their self-titled album in 2000. My saviors, a band that helped me understand this complicated world and work through it, put out some awful pop music and I was pissed. I took it personally. They kind of made up for it later, realizing their mistake and signing to an indie label and being punk again, but my relationship with what was once one of my favorite bands was never the same.

One of my oldest shirts is what I now kind of use to prove my punk rock credentials. It's from the CD release show for Problematic by All. You can barely read it, but it spells out the show date in 2000. At the time it seemed like I was late to the party on it, but at this point 15 years are a lot of years.  I don't listen to Problematic all that often but it does take me back. Not my favorite All record but still good.

The Impossibles got back together while I was still into their ska stuff. And became sort of power pop, in a way that outside observers said they sounded like Weezer (in a good way). I had not really listened to much Weezer, but you can give The Impossibles credit there, for directing me that way. Because Return is a fantastic pop album with great hooks and great heartbreak. "Never Say Goodbye" was my anthem when I was graduating high school. Not that I see any of those people anymore (with approximately 1 exception), so maybe I should have said goodbye?

I don't know how many friends I introduced to the brilliant Shellac when I discovered them, but people did not need to be post-rock/math-rock/experimental music followers to follow the message on "Prayer to God." Profane, hilarious, but so true to the raw emotions that people have, when I was faced with a similar situation the song just got stronger and stronger to me (but still funny, because I'm not a psychopath that takes it seriously). The rest of the album 1000 Hurts is part of what got me into the post-rock stuff later on, but it's easy if you've had a broken heart to latch right on to this song.

Shellac "Prayer to God"

I was always a few steps behind my friends on The Weakerthans. Not sure why. I love their music. Pretty astonishing that this was a guy from Propagandhi being poetic and not political. But John K. Samson is among the greatest lyricists not only in indie rock but in rock. "How I don't know what I should do with my hands when I talk to you, how you don't know where you should look...so you look at my hands." Oh yeah, the album is called Left & Leaving. Fantastic stuff.

Speaking of lyricists, Stephin Merritt. This is the right-after-69-Love-Songs Stephin Merritt and even though the 6ths album Hyacinths and Thistles was not as well received critically, I feel like he was still on a roll. There are plenty of songs on this album that could have been 69 Love Songs standouts, particularly "As You Turn to Go" and "You You You You You."

Cursive's Domestica was one of my favorites. An examination of a bitter divorce with nothing held back. A modern Here, My Dear. But emo or whatever. I just always loved how Tim Kasher seemed to know exactly what he did wrong and acknowledged his weaknesses on here, not really pointing the blame in any direction but exploring the roots of the problems. It's uncomfortable but everything from his wife's point of view is the most poignant and you can see that he understands it. This will always be my favorite Cursive album because it taught me to look at myself and examine my own flaws in this area, and hopefully avoid making some of the same mistakes. This song I take very personally because it echoed the mistakes that I would eventually learn from in my relationship at the time to be a better partner today.

Cursive "The Martyr"

When I introduced my friend to the music of The Broadways, he said they reminded him of this other band that I should check out. So I was really excited to hear this band that sounded like The Broadways. But then when I heard them I couldn't really figure out the similarities he'd drawn between the bands. But it didn't matter because this was one of the most intense, aggressive, energy creating bands I'd ever heard. I made an analogy a while back on this blog about a band creating all this potential energy and releasing it and I don't remember who I was talking about, but the same could be said for At The Drive-In. Then I saw them on Letterman and knew I HAD to see them live. Then they broke up.

At The Drive-In "One Armed Scissor" Live on Letterman

I saw a very early The Mars Volta show a little while later but it just was not the same.

In the summer of 2000, Asian Man Records put together the Plea for Peace tour featuring all of the great bands on its roster. Maybe the best lineup I have ever seen. And my family was going to fly out to Florida on vacation the day before the show got to Denver. Somehow I convinced my brother to wait back with me so I could go to this show and convinced a friend who wasn't really interested in that type of music to go with me so I wouldn't be driving to Denver alone. And I SOMEHOW convinced my parents to let me and my brother drive across the country to meet up with them in Florida. All of those pieces fit together and I got to go to this show. And I will never forget that experience. The skapunk of the past (MU330! Mike Park doing Skankin' Pickle songs with them!) met the melodic punk of the future (Alkaline Trio! The Honor System! The Lawrence Arms!) and it was an amazing experience.

Alkaline Trio quickly became one of my favorite bands when they put out Maybe I'll Catch Fire, an album I could get and not feel awkward about its title. While not as great of an album as Goddamnit, it was special and it showed me some dark visions and introduced me to their world. The Honor System was close enough to The Broadways that I was immediately hooked. Single File was their debut and really echoes "Dan songs" by The Broadways. The passion in the political. Similar guitar licks.

And of course The Lawrence Arms. Ghost Stories is still my favorite album of theirs. Walking out of the concert I saw Brendan talking to some dudes in the alley and I told him he'd played a great show. And that was the first time I addressed him at a Lawrence Arms show. This practice would lead to him recognizing me and remembering my name and having longer conversations as the years went on. Anyway, a few years later I was talking to Brendan in one of our longer conversations about Ghost Stories. How it was my favorite and people don't seem to get it. And it was so validating when he agreed with me and said that it's kind of the measure of the real fans, because it really takes time to get it but then it comes together. This is a cold and distant record. The production is "gritty," I guess you could say. I like the word cold for it though. You need to embrace it and warm it up and then it speaks to you. Personal stuff. Poetic stuff. I could pick any song to play for you here because they are all special to me. This was when I really got into Chris' songs in particular. I'd appreciated him in The Broadways but he sounded quite a bit like Dan. He was unique here. I could really feel that he meant what he was singing. I don't know man, what do I say about this album? Criminally underrated. They don't even play these songs anymore. That's fine, you move on. But it will always be my special gem. Due to a fluke on my ipod this played twice and for the first time in the project I did not skip the repeat because I just couldn't stop it. I just had to let it play, once I heard the opening chords, through the secret tracks without skipping past the silence. Because even the silence between "The Last One" and its bonus tracks is part of the experience to me.

The Lawrence Arms "Ghost Stories"

They also put out a split EP with Shady View Terrace in 2000. It was the first step in a brand new direction for the band that is considered the classic, favorite era. A little "better" produced but still amazing. Especially those damn Chris songs...

I remember when Elliott Smith died (I know, not way back in 2000 but this is apparently his last album). I hadn't been a huge fan but one of my friends had. We heard he'd stabbed himself in the heart! We listened to a lot of depressing music but that kind of sealed the deal as him being the pinnacle of that. And from there, it seemed too real for me to approach it without taking it seriously and with the highest amount of respect. This has always put a certain amount of elusiveness on his catalog for me.

Elliott Smith "Can't Make A Sound"

Also Noted.

• Planes Mistaken for Stars! I had the "Fucking Fight" 7" and its intensity was just ridiculous. I only saw the band live a handful of times despite them being all over the Denver indie/emo/whatever scene but every time was very memorable and intense and terrifying. Legends around these parts. The Knife in the Marathon EP was fantastic as well but didn't have the insane intensity of that 7".
• The Dandy Warhols' Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia is kind of a classic of urban Bohemia. That's pretty much what I'd call it.
• Hot Hot Heat certainly was different in these days.
• The first Jill Scott album is fabulous. I wouldn't discover her until around '07.
• I haven't listened too much to Sufjan Stevens' debut A Sun Came, but it's quite pleasant.
• Yeah White Stripes, thisclose to legendary status...
• The distant warmth of Kid A is a brilliant album that I couldn't think of what to write about, so it's just "noted" even though many would consider it the best album of 2000. Take that, expectations!
• Once all of Coldplay's albums were on Amazon for like 50 cents each or something so I got them, thinking "ha! Take that, Coldplay! That's what your catalog is worth!" But now I have to actually listen to them in this thing so who's laughing now? They have a couple decent songs though.
• I saw The New Pornographers last year for the first time in concert (I know!), and they neglected to play the standout track from their debut album Mass Romantic, "Letter From An Occupant." I know, right??
• And Neko Case solo. So country back then. But she's always had that voice!
• Flogging Molly is entertaining.
• Cat Power's deconstruction of a covers album is really cool and really frustrating. Just sing the chorus!
• Don Caballero, one last hurrah of the classic lineup.
• Add Float by Aesop Rock to that hip hop list above. Good year indeed.
• Enon was one of my favorite bands and I'm throwing their debut down here?? Believo! was awesomely diverse and catchy yet only hinted at their future prowess.
• The last Man or Astroman album for a while was A Spectrum of Infinite Scale and for a long time it was the only one I had of theirs on CD. Anyone who can make a compelling track by recording the sound of a printer printing something that they programmed is pretty brilliant in my book.
• There's too much to write about! Daisies of the Galaxy by Eels!
• American III by Johnny Cash!
• Avalanches! Since I Left You is a party!
• Ghostface Killah! Supreme Clientele! I told you it was a year of hip hop!
• I didn't listen to much Modest Mouse in 2000. I know my girlfriend liked their 90s stuff but I didn't get The Moon & Antarctica until later on. Kind of a new direction for them but a fascinating one.

Next Time...
2001 was a big year of changes in my life and in the world. But this is about music. 2001 had some good music by artists such as Beulah, Built to Spill, Dilated Peoples, Ee, the last Fugazi album, Gorillaz, Jay-Z taking over, The National, Polysics, Pulp, The Strokes, Tom Daily, and !!!, among other things. Happy new year!

An Ear For An Era: 1999

Let's close out this millennium with style! Swag! Something special! Exclamation points maybe!

1999 was the year I got my driver's license and then broke my leg three days later playing soccer. One thing I remember from that ordeal was that the TV was messed up in my hospital room and so I requested that my parents bring me my discman and the CDs that were in the 6 disc changer in the car. I'd put 6 of my favorites in because duh, I got to drive and I was excited. I know Chumps on Parade was on there, probably Suicide Machines and Skankin' Pickle as well. And probably some Less Than Jake. Etc. Another thing I remember about the ordeal was that I decorated my crutches and walking cast with band stickers. All of this is to emphasize how much skapunk defined this experience for me, music was my life. My own music.

1999 was also the year my brother went to college. We drove down to Arizona with him to help him move in. I don't remember much about that trip except that I must have just gotten the Dan Potthast album Eyeballs right before, because I listened to that CD repeatedly on that trip. I was obsessed with that album. It emphasized the lyrical skills he had, the stories he told with multiple meanings, the clever way he turned a simple story into an analogy about life. And cute love songs, there are plenty of those as well. With Rivers Cuomo/Brian Wilson levels of insecurity. I wrote him a fan letter by hand and sent it in the actual mail and he wrote me back by hand. Such a cool guy that Dan Potthast is! And he's still at it! His band MU330 also put out two albums in '99 because he was so damn prolific in these days. There was a Christmas album that I always put on around Christmas even 15 years later (that wasn't part of this project because I've excluded Christmas music, not wanting to listen to the stuff in January-November) and their self-titled album. I remember this one being new, getting the album at that show I spoke of in a previous entry. The production on it was a little odd, a little lo-fi for MU330, but yet another showcase of Dan P's increasingly personal lyricism.

The Hippos improved when they put out Heads Are Gonna Roll. They shed their Reel Big Fish copping style for a synthy 80s flavored skapunk. Like The Cars meet skapunk. This time I listened to it while running my first half marathon and still really like their cover of "Always Something There to Remind Me."

The next album that came up during the half marathon was Fun in the Dark by Groovie Ghoulies. I don't know why I never got more of their albums because this one has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I always bust it out around Halloween time. It's just perfect spooky-ish pop punk. Spooky in the 50s horror/sci-fi style and pop punk in the 70s Ramones style. I'm glad it came up during October because that was perfect, and I'm glad it came up during the race because it was quite motivating.

One album from this era that I loved at the time and hadn't revisited in a long time but it all came back when I did was Hopeless Romantic by The Bouncing Souls. In '99 I enjoyed the earlier Souls records but they were both from a million years ago (i.e. from before I knew about them) and Hopeless Romantic was the one that came out while I was into them. So to me it feels a bit more mature but not too mature. Some sentimental tracks and some fun tracks. "Bullying The Jukebox" takes me right back to the time I saw them with my brother. They were playing with Less Than Jake and we saw them in downtown Denver. My parents dropped us off there and picked us up at Hooters (the only place we could find with a pay phone...remember pay phones??). Anyway, I'm getting off topic. They played and the singer just bounced around stage and it was just so much fun.

Another one I listened to contemporarily was Weird Al's Running With Scissors. This was a weird one for me but also the perfect one for me at the time. I had just enough exposure to mainstream music at the time to know and understand what he was parodying, and enough hatred for mainstream music at the time to laugh at it. Maybe too much hatred and too much laughter. But I really did hate that Offspring song "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" so I doubly appreciated Weird Al mocking it. It was also funny when the Backstreet Boys were in the polka and my little sister's friend got mad about it, "he can't be allowed to do that!!" I think this was the one where he shaved his mustache too, so it kind of signifies the second era of Weird Al or something. Where he was contemporary to me, up to date, and relevant. Yes, those all kind of mean the same thing.

After The Broadways (about whom I wrote very lovingly if you will recall), The Lawrence Arms formed and put out their debut album A Guided Tour of Chicago, featuring two of the members of The Broadways. The Lawrence Arms would soon become my favorite band for several years and are still up there. The debut was a lot more lo-fi than anything else they would do, and that made it feel like a step back from The Broadways at first. Some political songs, some songs of self loathing, it's a decent collection but their second album (coming up in 2000!) is where it's at.

Their peers Alkaline Trio put out their most solid release of all in 1999, the I Lied My Face Off EP. Four songs, all four stars or more in my ratings. Two Matt songs, two Dan songs. They were just on the top of their game, with Matt getting more poetic and Dan reaching the pinnacle of his angry side.

Alkaline Trio "This Is Getting Over You"

It was my college days when I got knee-deep in this melodic punk/"emo" stuff and Piebald was one of my favorite groups in those days. If It Weren't For Venitian Blinds It'd Be Curtains For Us All is probably their best one. I remember seeing them live and how awesomely unkempt the singer's appearance was, all with a white t-shirt and messy hair and scruffy face, and thinking of how awesome that was. Such beautiful music coming from someone who looked like he just walked in off the street. Maybe that's why I always let myself go in the facial (and head) hair department(s). Look up the song "Fat and Skinny Asses" though, because that's the good stuff.

I lost track (and then re-gained very recently) of Brian Moss, the singer for many projects over the years, starting with The Wunder Years. They had a couple releases in 1999. One was a split CD with Sorry About The Fire called On Behalf of Rock n Roll. It's decent, and I love the first track "You Know Who You Are" but the other album is one of those all-time favorites, Pitstops on the Road Less Traveled. Just an album of motivational songs for a high school kid, delivered with high amounts of passion. I hadn't listened to this album in a long time and of course it was another one of those where it came on and I was immediately singing along, remembering those days.

The only cure for cynicism is optimism. Or something like that. In the early '00s I was all down because my girlfriend had broken up with me and I listened to lots of that pseudo-emo stuff (and some real emo stuff!). I went to a show at Tulagi's in Boulder and Dressy Bessy opened (or maybe who I was seeing opened for Dressy Bessy?) I went by myself and I don't even remember who I was there to see. Because the thing that turned me around, changed my life in a way because it was what told me it would all be okay, was this Dressy Bessy set. Just some pure pop sugar to turn me around and show me that it will be okay. Optimism without sounding like something trying to tell me to be happy when I was not happy. I must have just been ready for it. I bought their CD Pink Hearts Yellow Moons and it's always been there for me since then.

Dressy Bessy "If You Should Try to Kiss Her"

Jim O'Rourke put out two amazing releases in 1999. The first was Eureka, and I don't know how to explain how brilliant it is. I'm sure others have been successful at that. But I just think it makes me feel good. It's comforting and the right kind of sad at the right moments. I think "Movie On The Way Down" is what exemplifies it for me, as it reminds me of the scene in Love Liza that uses it. Just the composition and the words it uses. The drunkenness of the horns. How it stumbles around in sadness.

Jim O'Rourke "Movie on the Way Down"

Keep it Like a Secret is arguably the best Built to Spill album. I think I might prefer some of their others, but they scaled back on the jamminess of Perfect from Now On without losing its technical brilliance. Pop music with respectability. Very 90s indie rock. The end of 90s indie rock?

Where do I fit Tom Waits into here? Mule Variations is yet another brilliant work by him, maybe even more brilliant than most of his other work. It starts off lo-fi-ish and pushes out from there. His blues songs have always been on point and the chaos around him splashing around, not overtaking the power of his vocals. I kind of hope one day to have a child listen to this with me and sing along with "Cold Water."

I didn't get into the Flaming Lips until a bit later than '99, even though I know my friend was a fan. But in retrospect, yes, The Soft Bulletin is one of the greatest albums of 1999. Full of songs of hope and hopelessness but trying. Just doing our best and it not being enough. It's sad but from a perspective of persistence. And selflessness. It wasn't until around 2006 that I saw this video but it is just so touching and everything I love about this album contained in a clip.

The Flaming Lips "Waitin' for a Superman"

Notice I called The Soft Bulletin "one of the greatest albums of 1999." That's because, without question, the BEST album of 1999 was a three-CD collection of 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields. Sometimes an artist just has a time period where everything they do sounds just perfect, they're just tapped into this something. And Stephin Merritt took advantage of that by letting it all pour out over 69 damn songs. Sure there's filler, but it's barely any. Just a few silly songs like "Punk Rock Love," a repeating of the lyrics "Punk rock love punk love, punk love love..." Otherwise though, these are completely solid and overwhelming. Romantic, hopeful, sad, sadder, funny, and all very clever. Several perfect songs, as far as I'm concerned. My wife thought "Papa Was a Rodeo" was a cover of an old country song, and I have to think that's because it's so timeless now it's hard to imagine it being new ever. Like that line from Inside Llewyn Davis, that blues songs were "never new and never get old." My friend introduced me to the band with the song "The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side," which was funny and true and full of longing and sadness in a happy song. But the first song I actually ever heard by them was the result of grabbing a bunch of songs off a file sharing program in college. I didn't know what to think of it at the time, it wasn't really "rock" so why was it in the "indie rock" section? It sounded like an old song (as usual) and it stuck with me until I eventually figured out who this band was and put the song into context. And eventually, that was the song I danced with my wife to as our first dance at our wedding. No, not "The Book of Love," which everyone uses (even people who don't know who Stephin Merritt is!). This one. Simple but perfect, obvious but not too obvious. A song I love to associate with my marriage.

The Magnetic Fields "Nothing Matters When We're Dancing"

Other Stuff:

• Jay-Z's album Vol. 3...Life and Times of S. Carter is okay. It's got "Big Pimpin'" on it.
• The debut of !!! and sister group Out Hud was seen on their split EP Lab Remix Series Vol. 2. Very promising (and knowing history, both bands would turn out to be killer)
• Goodnight Pavement, Terror Twilight was their final album I believe.
• Fat Wreck put out a compilation of 101 30 second songs called Short Songs for Short People. I remember liking it for a few reasons. It introduced me to lots of bands. Blink-182 had a very profane song on it as did MTX. I don't know if anything else really stood out to me other than stuff like "hey cool a Rancid song!" and stuff like that.
• Eminem. The Slim Shady LP. I hated him at the time as a crusader against rap and as a budding crusader against homophobia. But why him specifically? Not sure. 
• Fifteen kind of entered that phase of their career of being super political and more about that than the music with Lucky. But it's heartfelt enough that I still find it somewhat endearing. And at the time I loved it because it was more lessons for me in leftist thought. 
• Beck's all super funky and such on Midnite Vultures.
• I only have a couple songs off The Faint's Blank-Wave Arcade but they are pretty great.
• AFI went all goth/dark/whatever on Black Sails in the Sunset, and at the time I dug it. Not super memorable though, 15 years later.
• The Roots were still awesome duh.
• Dr. Dooom killed Dr. Octagon. I like those Dr. Dooom records. No chorus. Really stupid album artwork. And rhymin' like only Keith can do.
• The first Hank Williams III album Risin' Outlaw is a great showcase of his vocals sounding just like his granddad's. Just a small hint of the way he would blow up the whole country music genre in a bit, it's pretty traditional but quite enjoyable.
• ODB! Got Your Money!
• The White Stripes' debut. I'll save my thoughts on them for a couple albums down the line. But it's good stuff.
• I liked a couple songs on the debut Common Rider album Last Wave Rockers. A different side of the OPIV singer, I kind of liked the songs he rapped on and remember thinking "this is the kind of rap I can appreciate." In retrospect, that was very silly of me.
• Sigur Ros, that stuff's pretty dreamy isn't it?
• More hip hop brilliance: Mos Def's debut album Black on Both Sides was quite the manifesto and a great start (not counting the already brilliant Black Star of course) and Handsome Boy Modeling School's debut So...How's Your Girl? was a nice collection of beats by two of the all-stars of hip hop at the time. With some fantastic guest spots from like likes of Del and El-P.
• Gah Les Savy Fav was great too!
• No Division was a Hot Water Music album I never got myself, but I always wanted to because I have two songs off it and they are probably my favorite HWM songs, "Free Radio Gainesville" and "Rooftops."
• And finally, the debut LP by Blackalicious Nia. Who knew that in a couple years I would discover this group and my entire perspective on hip hop would change? I probably would have actually liked this in '99 if I'd heard it. Very apparent skills on the mic, smart lyrics expressing the same thoughts I've always had, it's just a fantastic album.

Next Time: in the year 2000........(insert your favorite Conan joke here)

Aesop Rock, Alkaline Trio, At The Drive-In...and other letters besides A! Common and Cursive put out some of their best work, Deltron is appropriately futuristic, Enon, The Honor System are the flipside of that Broadways breakup, and my favorite Lawrence Arms album by the way, Ludacris, New Pornographers, Nina Nastasia, Reflection Eternal, Shellac, I get betrayed by The Suicide Machines, Weakerthans, other stuff. 

An Ear For An Era: 1998

Wow, 1998 was a good one! Maybe I can call it my personal 1997 (going by that oft discussed theory of the '7s). A great concentration of my favorite albums of the 90s occurred in 1998 so I'm going to focus on those. A banner year in music...for the underground at least. I'm pretty sure there were some pretty terrible things being done to music in the mainstream. In 1998 I was learning to ignore that and dove in to some great things that many people didn't know about.

We'll go by the general order in which I discovered things. Which means we'll start out with ska/punk. Battle Hymns by Suicide Machines was my first "punk" album when I actually knew what punk was (meaning not counting The Offspring or Green Day). I went from skapunk to wanting to get some "pure punk" and even though there is ska on Battle Hymns it seemed close enough at the time. The longest track on the album is 2:19. Just an album full of short bursts of energy. Politics and punk and a tiny bit of ska but not as much as their previous album. I remember seeing them on the Fourth of July 1998. It was high energy show and the singer handed me his Gatorade to pass around. Then we took the bus to City Park to watch fireworks. Good year, that.

The very first time I went to a record store the day an album came out was for Less Than Jake's Hello Rockview. I probably took the bus because there was a bus stop right by Rocks Off Records. Or maybe it was when Tribal Rites had a record store. That was on the same block. But buses were free for minors like myself so I loved taking that bus downtown. On a Tuesday I showed up after school. I had to ask about it because it wasn't on the shelf. The guy said they just got these boxes in. He opened one up and there it was! I was probably the first person in Fort Collins to buy Hello Rockview! Buying albums the day they came out became quite a hobby for me over the years that I still follow pretty regularly (the last year or two I've slowed down on that just because this project means I can't really listen to it for a week or two anyway). However, I remember the music being fairly disappointing. I liked the energy but the production just seemed like overkill to me. The horns seemed almost synthesized. I know I'm in the minority about this album and it's a fan favorite but it was really the beginning of the end for me and skapunk. It's funny that most of my favorite ska/punk albums are from the years leading up to me listening to it, and then when I was into it most of the stuff that came out was inferior to the glorious 1994-1996 stuff.

One major exception to this was Slow Gherkin. Shed Some Skin may have been the last great skapunk album. Not that that genre fits it particularly well. More like a mix of two-tone ska and Weezer-esque rock. Whatever you call it, I loved it and I still love it; it's much more consistent than their debut. They figured out their sound here and put so much passion into it. Later I wanted to use the title track as my "personal" high school graduation song because the class' song was something stupid. In retrospect, it'd serve better as a high school reunion song because it's about going away and growing up and coming back. Anyway, this album was also the general timeline of the most unbelievable memory of any show I've ever been to. I was at this one with my friends this time, and we spent some time haggling with the band on the price of the CDs at the show (which in retrospect was kind of mean of us, sure we could get them cheaper from Asian Man but the band needs help on the road NOW!) and then while they were playing the craziest thing EVER EVER EVER happened to me. It seems like a dream. We were on the right side of the stage, front row, right in front of the valve trombonist. I think his name was Matt. During an instrumental break he actually HANDED THE TROMBONE TO ME. I picked it up and I PLAYED WITH SLOW GHERKIN! I HAD A SOLO! WHAT?!?!?!?! Thinking back, I kind of wonder if that was on purpose or he was just putting it down and I took it from him. But how would I assume he was handing it to me unless he was being obvious about it? He had to have been. I don't remember if I'd talked to him about trombone before the show, but how else did this happen? How else would he know I kind of knew how to play? Was it a dream? I believe it really actually happened.

And back to punk rock. I know I'm not being fair but that first Dropkick Murphys album Do or Die holds a special place in my heart more than anything they've done since. I didn't even drink back then and I loved these drinking anthems! The deep appreciation to the hard working union man, fighting against oppression and incorrect assumptions, and just being rowdy. Here is my favorite drinking song.

The Dropkick Murphys "Barroom Hero"

Refused put out their final statement in The Shape of Punk to Come and lived up to the audacious title. The use of electronic beats, jazz, and a whole lot of other things serves well to further intensify the hardcore punk that screams out of the speakers from behind every corner. It's like a good horror movie where the moments of calm are there to build tension and make the jump scenes that much more effective. And the whole thing turns on a dime, shifting rhythms and hitting harder than anything.

Refused "The Deadly Rhythm"

Oh, what's that? My favorite album or at least nearly my favorite album of all time? Broken Star by The Broadways. No question about it. Now. How do I explain this? The Broadways took highly political subject matter and made it highly personal. Three distinctive voices with three perspectives, different styles of lyrics, brought together in such a cohesive, infectious way. The music itself was deep, complex, comforting, and aggravating all at the same time. Brendan's overtly political listen-to-what-I-just-read-about style, Dan's lamenting of a world that has gone the way of commercialism, and Chris' personal struggles to deal with such a place. It's an unspoken narrative. It's three overlapping parts that tell an overall story of this world and how we deal with it and where it's been and where it's going. Without trying. It's a bunch of punk rock songs. But it's bigger, so much bigger than all this...here's the one song that combines each vocalist/lyricist to hopefully kind of demonstrate what I'm talking about. But to really get it, you need to listen to this record. Over and over again.

The Broadways "I Hear Things Are Just as Bad Down in Lake Erie"

I admit that I didn't get Alkaline Trio's debut LP Goddamnit in 1998 when it came out. This was a time when mailorder from Asian Man Records was one of my favorite things in the world but the curse word in the title made it hard to navigate sneaking it by my parents. The funny thing now is that when the 10 year anniversary remaster came out they got it for me for my birthday without me even mentioning wanting it. But here's my history with Alkaline Trio way back then. They were on a tour with MU330 and stopped by Fort Collins. Even back then I was going to shows by myself because I didn't have any friends there and while I was waiting for the show to start some dudes invited me to play pool with them. I was pretty terrible but what do they expect, asking some kid? But it was fun. I ended up losing by scratching on an 8 ball shot. Anyway, while all that was going on apparently Alkaline Trio was playing and I totally missed it. I would soon regret that (but I was there to see MU330 anyway). When their second album came out I got that and then came back around to Goddamnit. And then that became one of my favorite albums ever. Heart-on-your-sleeve punk rock got me through some tough times and I go back every once in a while. I really love this early Alkaline Trio stuff for its insane drum fills, clever lyrics, repeating motifs, and extended codas. It's a good formula that served them well.

Alkaline Trio "San Francisco"

Jets to Brazil's debut album Orange Rhyming Dictionary kind of cleaned the slate of any sour impressions people had of the last Jawbreaker album because while it had some similarities (particularly Blake's cleaned up vocals), the passionate lyrics and just plain beautiful songs opened up a whole new world of possibilities. This is not Jawbreaker. This is nothing like Jawbreaker. This is a new project and it has pretty songs.

I think I discovered Neutral Milk Hotel in college when I pretty much discovered every indie rock band. Because of music downloading sites. I forget what the one was called that I used, but one night I just went through the first 20 pages or so of most popular "indie" bands and downloaded a song by each of them. "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" became a favorite. It took me a while to actually acquire the album (also called In the Aeroplane Over the Sea) but it was easy to listen to that one on repeat. Kind of a precursor to some other now very successful indie bands, particularly The Decemberists. Literary, passionate, easy, catchy.

I have no segue to switch over to hip hop.

I shamefully haven't listened to Aquemini by Outkast nearly enough to say much about it, but it is quite an incredible album. They pretty much could do no wrong. Moment of Truth is another great Gang Starr album and includes my introduction to them, "You Know My Steez." Thanks to my friend with a very extensive hip hop knowledge I discovered one of my favorite MCs. I remember Hello Nasty by The Beastie Boys had some fun videos and got a lot of praise. I didn't pay much attention to that at the time but it is yet another great one by them. One girl that liked the same ska bands as me insisted that Lauryn Hill was better than I was giving hip hop credit for. But I just would not listen, even though I think it contradicted every argument I had about hip hop being bad. But ok, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is a pretty great album, I'll give you that finally after all these years.

And one of my favorite hip hop albums of all time, probably my favorite hip hop album of the 90s, came out in 1998. It took me a while to come around to these guys but everything about Black Star is amazing. Hi-Tek's (and others') beats, Talib Kweli's and Mos Def's next-next-next-level flows and wordplay, the energy and the love, it all comes together in such a ridiculously good way.

Black Star "Definition"

Other things:

• Mutations by Beck was another good one by Beck.
• Massive Attack, Fatboy Slim, and Air were pretty good there too.
• The two songs I have off Deserter's Songs by Mercury Rev are fantastic and I wish I had the full album!
• It's a bit rough listening to a full 25 song album by Wesley Willis but I made it through! The highlight of course was "Cut The Mullet."
• Remember that video for "Rabbit In Your Headlights" by UNKLE featuring Thom Yorke?
• The soundtrack to Velvet Goldmine is pretty golden. Awesome throwback to the glam era featuring Shudder to Think and Thom Yorke and others!
• Empty Bottles Broken Hearts by Murder City Devils is very great, but maybe not quite up there with their self-titled album from '97.
• Featuring "Birds" by Quasi was on my radar to check out for a long time, and then I finally got it and have only listened to it a few times. Turns out I'm not as into them as I thought. Still good though.
• Jay-Z Vol. 2 ... Hard Knock Life.
• I used to think End Hits was the last Fugazi album and they had broken up. Or some sort of collection of songs from the end of their tenure and they had broken up. How exciting it was when they put out another album a couple years later! But that seems to have been it.
• Electro-Shock Blues may be Eels' best album. Very personal. I love that song "Climbing to the Moon."
• The Ex - Starters Alternators. Still pushing forward 20 years into their career (and this was 16 years ago!)
• Interesting to hear feuding tracks between Hepcat and Skinnerbox...
• The Boy With The Arab Strap is another great Belle & Sebastian album guys.
• Elliott Smith was still good. xo was very good.
• Early Calexico effort The Black Light has "Trigger" on it so you know they started strong.
• Pulp. This is Hardcore. I remember the album cover from way before I ever heard the album. Provocative! The album itself? Also provocative! I like Pitchfork's description of it as a "hangover" album after their last one.

Next Time:

We close out the 20th century so let's party! Sigur Ros, Alkaline Trio's amazing EP, Beck goes funky, Built to Spill's maybe best, Dr. Dooom, Slim Shady, The Soft Bulletin, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Hank III, 69 Love Songs, Mos Def solo, The Decline, Out Hud/!!!, Pavement bows out, The Roots, and another classic from "Weird Al" Yankovic.

An Ear For An Era: 1997

Happy 200th post on this log, log and log readers!

I made a mistake of not pre-writing any of this when it was still fresh. Recently I've taken to working on this here written essay portion of my assignment in pieces so fresh stuff will have fresh thoughts and opinions and writings representing it. But not this time. Most of the 1997 stuff is a nostalgia trip though and not really anything too fresh to add other than how I feel now about the old 1997 feelings.

I really just wanted to finish 1997 as quickly as I could so I could listen to this new Spoon album. And The New Pornographers. And some other 2014 hits I've acquired recently.

Okay, where was I? I hadn't started yet? Good. I'll start from the top then.

1997 is an enigma. It was the year when I switched, a huge year personally. Every once in a while I count back to 1997 to see how long I've been entrenched in underground/my-own-thing music. The very brief time I spent in the mid 90s listening to the radio and MTV and more or less identifying with it as "my music" ended and I finally found MY music. So now I've been intimately involved with music in this way for 17 years. This number used to give me pride; now it makes me feel old. But I have this working theory about the '7s being the peaks of the decade and I'm not sure if I can say that about '97 even though it was huge for me. I'll come back to that at the end.
It's also been weird hitting 1997 in this project because as I listen to the stuff I am having a hard time figuring out how music has evolved since then. I'm sure it has but since I've experienced it first hand from here on out it just feels like trends have come and gone but there hasn't been a lot of growth. I mean, where do you go from OK Computer and "Autumn Sweater?" I guess you go to Kid A and "Black Flowers" but even so, it's hard to trace actual evolution over the musical landscape as a whole. I guess we'll just see what we get.

Let's just start with that then, the big one. The one that could make a case for my theory of '7s being tops. OK Computer was world changing music from Radiohead. I don't really have much I can say about it that hasn't been said much more eloquently by the critical consensus. At the time I remember being merely intrigued by the band and its music videos but I actually didn't get OK Computer until Amnesiac came out a few years later. I think Best Buy had some sort of buy-one-get-one deal on Radiohead albums or something so I finally got into it. Talk about an album! Sure, the singles sound good on their own but this is something you just put on track one, do nothing but listen until it's done, and then reluctantly leave to do something else (or just repeat as needed).

Radiohead "Paranoid Android"

On the last day of classes in 1997 before summer vacation I went to a party thing at my friend's house. A boy-girl party and I think some spin-the-bottle happened and I ended up with my first girlfriend (which lasted maybe a week?). But for some reason my strongest memory was after the girls left and the dudes were hanging out watching MTV and this music video came on:

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones "The Impression That I Get"

I remember making declarations to my friends that this music was the best stuff because they used a trombone in such a cool way (I played trombone in concert band). I didn't know what ska was. I think I had heard the song/seen the video before maybe with my brother but watching it at this point switched something in my brain. I made some sort of conscious decision watching this video at this time that I had to have more. I needed more awesome rock music with trombones in it! Now, as previously mentioned, I didn't personally even get this CD. My brother did. So I only heard bits and pieces of it, mostly the singles. I remember VH1 would play the "Rascal King" video every night at midnight on the dot so I would tune in before bed (it was summer vacation!) and watch that video every night. This all led to Reel Big Fish obsession and new friends from band class once we started 9th grade in the fall.

One friend in particular, Paul, was the other trombone player and he seemed to have a head start on this whole ska thing. He introduced me to quite a few bands, most significantly I'd say being Mustard Plug. He had their album Evildoers Beware! which I ended up getting as one of my earliest "underground" purchases. Today it's an album I can't listen to objectively. It's just so damn catchy and it puts me in a good mood. Now I'll try to get through a quick summary of the other albums that do the same thing. Hang-Ups by Goldfinger surprised me because even though I loved it at the time I can admit they aren't the greatest. But the front half is so energetic and ska-centric that I can see why I loved it so much. The Hippos kind of sounded just like Reel Big Fish which was just fine for me. Buck-O-Nine reminds me of some other friends I kind of got into ska...there were some mild nostalgic feelings coming up when 28 Teeth came on. Link 80 was a little more hardcore than I preferred at the time, but 17 Reasons... was still a good transitional record into hardcore sounds. The EP they put out later in the year (and the last Link 80 album with Nick Traina as vocalist) entitled Killing Katie (get it? Kill Link 80?) I preferred because it was more varied and had lighter ska-flavored songs and a cover of "For What It's Worth." Sad story, that of Nick Traina. I read the book his mom (Danielle Steele of all people) wrote about him. Labelmates and still one of my favorite of the ska bunch MU330 started maturing with Crab Rangoon, which involved some very serious topics such as molestation in the Catholic church and cancer, which I didn't particularly like at the time but I would later realize was maybe my favorite album by them.  I dug Bruce Lee Band pretty much immediately because they were Mike Park's band and I loved Skankin' Pickle and Asian Man Records pretty deeply. And he was playing with Less Than Jake as his backing band at the time! And finally, a good band that transitioned me into other things (and was the main remaining "ska" band I listened to after moving on), The Impossibles had a good combo of ska/punk energy and Weezer-esque earnestness. The lyrics were very clever and while the majority of the songs had ska guitar I could almost exclude them from the skapunk category of the rest of these bands. Kind of a growing up kind of band.

When I got more deep into the ska-punk thing I started realizing I should listen to punk too if I could only find a band that stuck with me and didn't have a ska element. Ironically, I had already gotten into something that was sort of punk-related in The Offspring's Ixnay on the Hombre. I must have gotten it right before the ska switch because I liked that song "All I Want" and I just associated the album with the whole "alternative" thing. I actually got quite into this album briefly and then kind of dropped it. Years later I would realize that Jello Biafra does the opening "disclaimer" track. Which gave me a little bit more respect for The Offspring and a little less respect for Jello Biafra.

Beyond the punk rock already covered (apparently I liked old punk from the start!) we sure liked local heroes Pinhead Circus. The songs "Detailed Instructions for the Self Involved" and "Carefree Metal Days" were our anthems. We also saw the band Bigwig opening for someone (or someone opening for them) and liked them mostly on the strength of their cover of the theme from Cheers. My friends may not have particularly gotten into the Mr. T Experience but I sure did. Revenge is Sweet, And So Are You is one of my favorite pop punk albums because of its great wordplay and earnestness in a combination that not many can accomplish. Also I remember watching this music video on Punk TV, a TV show on public access I was obsessed with around this time (mostly because they also played ska but MTX was a good first step into the punk world).

The Mr. T Experience "And I Will Be With You"

I remember being a rebel but still watching MTV (slowly weaning myself off!) and there was a show where a panel of random dumb people rated music videos, giving the winner some sort of heavy rotation on the network. I think it was down to The Toasters' "Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down" and Daft Punk's "Around the World." I had mixed feelings, because I wanted The Toasters to win because they were awesome but the dumb people didn't know anything about ska and I didn't think they deserved it. I was very judgy. Anyway, Daft Punk won (probably) because that "Around the World" video is quite the video and it's quite the song. But at the time I did not care for Daft Punk. I was not there when James Murphy played Daft Punk for the rock kids.

Daft Punk "Around the World"

Techno or whatever you would call it was getting pretty big at the same time as ska. So it was automatically the enemy of course. They don't use real instruments and ska uses MORE instruments! So much more real! I had some friends that weren't so closed minded; I remember listening to a friend's tape that he was somehow involved in (I don't know what he did, some sort of remixing or something?) so he was into it. And now I can appreciate these artists but I still have a hard time differentiating the different genres of electronic music. But Daft Punk was great. And so were The Chemical Brothers. The beats on Dig Your Own Hole are pretty undeniable.

After the punk stuff I got into the melodic almost-emo sounds of bands like Hot Water Music. Fuel for the Hate Game was their first full length and my introduction to them (even though I didn't get it until probably around 2000). There's just so much bearded passion going on, it is a strange experience to listen to Hot Water Music. So rough around the edges, such a bumpy ride with the vocals yet comforting as an overall experience. Similarly, Tuesday just takes me back. The first post-Slapstick band to put out material, their only full length was Freewheelin' and it's all they needed to do to solidify themselves in the cannon of great melodic pop punk bands of the era. Of course, bandleader Dan Andriano would soon join Alkaline Trio. And of course the early Alkaline Trio releases (the "Sundials" 7" and the song "97") just showed the brilliance they would further develop for a few more years before I would disown them once they left Asian Man Records. But those early years, oh man!

But of all the earnest/melodic pop-punk that got lumped in with emo of 1998, The Smoking Popes absolutely nailed it with their final album (before reuniting years later) Destination Failure. Anyone that is ever going through a painful breakup, has ever felt the doubt deep inside needs to listen to this album. Anyone that has held out hope needs to listen to "Megan." Anyone that has lost that hope needs to listen to "I Was Right." Any anyone who is anyone needs to listen to this song to experience the gamut of emotions from loss to betrayal to hope to self doubt to a little bit more hope.

The Smoking Popes "Pretty Pathetic"

I Can Feel The Heart Beating As One is one of those albums of a now-veteran indie rock band settling into its groove. Confidence abounds. At this point they know who they are but still aren't afraid to experiment with different sounds (as they still demonstrate on every new album they put out to this day), vary wildly from track to track without losing a cohesive sound, and just sound like comfort in their longer, jammier songs, building a setting, a place that you just want to hang out in for a while. And then "Autumn Sweater" comes on. That's just one of those songs, you know?

Yo La Tengo "Autumn Sweater"

Another "indie" band that just hit its groove in this time was Built to Spill. Perfect From Now On is a perfect title for the album that saw them confidently move on from the poppier tracks of their previous material and into an artsy, longer-song, "perfect" sound that now really defines the band. It was never my favorite BTS album but that's probably just because I haven't spent more time with it. There's really nothing wrong with this album, it's just slightly more difficult. 

Electro-Shock For President was the last we would ever hear from the brilliant Brainiac. All the ideas going into an EP just concentrated the creativity onto 6 tracks, making it unbelievably brilliant. And all the more tragic that Tim Taylor left us in 1997. I can only imagine where they would have gone from here. 

Brainiac "Fresh New Eyes"

Modest Mouse was on top of the indie world (nearing breakthrough status they'd hit very soon) in 1997. I don't actually own the album The Lonesome Crowded West but the few songs I have from that one are among my favorites. I absolutely need to get that record! Plus the 7" songs from that year from the same compilation I've referenced before are more of my favorites. "Baby Blue Sedan" was one of my ex-girlfriend's favorite songs and "Other People's Lives" spoke to the world of the Internet that we would all soon experience first hand. 

Pavement was still a great band as demonstrated by Brighten The Corners, an album that includes my introduction to the band, a song called "Stereo." I liked the ironic detachment of it all. In around 2000 my brother was getting into this band because he'd just gone off to college and introduced me to them. I was still pretty punk rock but could dig what they were doing. But actually, my actual introduction to Pavement was when they were on a show I loved in 1997 or so, Space Ghost Coast to Coast. I still love that show. The precursor to all the Adult Swim shows of varying quality, SGC2C spoke to me like nothing else. And the fact that years later I discovered that the random band that played on an episode, introduced as The Beatles and played a noisy, somewhat off-putting set turned out to be super hip indie band Pavement, my appreciation for the show just multiplied. Great stuff!

Pavement "Land of the Hot Knives" and the Space Ghost theme

Speaking of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, its spinoff program Cartoon Planet was another thing that defined me in these days. My screen name for many things, skankinwithbrak, says it all. Ska and Brak. Brak from Cartoon Planet. I know it was a more kid friendly version of Space Ghost but as a 14-year-old I just embraced it. The first of two albums, Musical Bar-B-Que was an album I remember singing (particularly the Brak songs of course) with my friends, and that was also an early version of being completely myself without caring what people thought and people embracing that about me. We made friends with some girls for the first time and as much as it would seem to make sense to hide this immaturity we embraced it and they seemed to love that about us. It was a great time in my life. And then my slightly-ironic love of those songs kind of got confused when my family got into it. I think I had hoped they would find it obnoxious and they totally called my bluff by getting into it themselves. When it stopped being rebellious and different it got annoying and I couldn't listen to it with my family anymore. But now it's cool. If I have a child someday I'll probably try to get them into it. Here's a song from the happy times, one that I remember singing for our female friends and them loving it (it didn't get me a girlfriend though, if you can imagine that!)

Cartoon Planet "Crazy Lovesick Fool"

So. Aside from all the silly jokester music and ska and punk, does '97 qualify as one of the "7s" I have a working theory about? The best year of the decade? "Indie" rock may be able to make a case for itself with Radiohead, Built to Spill, Yo La Tengo, Brainiac, Blonde Redhead, and others putting out arguably their best material. Ben Folds Five and Cornershop also broke through with some genius albums as well. Hip hop was following a different trajectory and starting to get crappy but Notorioius B.I.G., Wu-Tang, Del, and Jurassic Five represented a great development in the genre. But aside from a few choice records, it might not be on the level of a '92 in hip hop.

What an odd year.

Other Comments:

• Oddly I didn't even know about Del The Funky Homosapien's album Future Development for quite some time. I thought there was a big gap between No Need for Alarm and Both Sides of the Brain. Eventually I discovered its existence and couldn't find it anywhere. Now I have it and it's as good as I hoped, a good bridge between those two albums.
• Early Beulah is quite good but I'll have more to say about them in upcoming entries.
• Early Cursive is a whole different band. Very emo or something.
• Early Piebald is decent too.
• Other "alternative rock" at the time: The Foo Fighters! There were some great singles off that The Colour and the Shape album, particularly "Everlong."
• Time Out of Mind by Bob Dylan is one of the best late-period albums by someone like that.
• Still dig the Man or Astro-Man with Made From Technetium.
• Les Savy Fav was starting out promisingly.
• Rest in peace Notorious B.I.G.! I dug the album Life After Death but Puffy/Puff Daddy/P Diddy/Diddy/whatever-he-is-now handled it very awkwardly and was a big reason I didn't like rap music at the time. 
• I remember liking the Smashing Pumpkins song "The End is the Beginning is the End" from whatever Batman soundtrack that was. Must have been my waning days of MTV and that stuff.
• Same with The Verve and the song "Bittersweet Symphony." Particularly the video!
• of Montreal had some early music in 1997. They were only 10 years from their masterpiece. I'll see how that evolution moves along with music itself!
• I need to listen to the self-titled album by OOIOO more because that's the kind of weirdness I can get behind.
• I should have more to say about Elliott Smith's Either/Or. It's just a beautiful record that I haven't listened to enough. But "Say Yes" is a song I cannot get enough of.
• Early Jim O'Rourke is great! Bad Timing is an album I got a while ago and couldn't really get behind at first. More or less a bunch of 10 minute acoustic guitar solos, but in the right frame of mind you can hear the innovation happening and the future of his contributions to the musical landscape.
• Samiam might have been my bridge into "melodic punk rock with heart" that I used to confuse with emo. But "She Found You" is still a song I love.
• Stephin Merritt's side projects reigned supreme in 1997. The Gothic Archies and Future Bible Heroes both put out albums. They are decent but not quite on the level of the great Magnetic Fields material.
• I should get that Jurassic 5 EP they put out in 1997 because the three songs I have are stone cold classics.
• Cornershop was gold beyond their big hit "Brimful of Asha." When I Was Born for the 7th Time is a great album up and down.
• That Murder City Devils album (self-titled) is fantastic too!
• And Sleater-Kinney! Dig Me Out might be one of their best.
• Wu-Tang Forever! I agree with ODB, they should have won the Grammy because Wu-Tang is for the children.
• Ben Folds Five! Too much to talk about, right?? "Brick" was the breakout sad song hit and they kept me around with goofier upbeat songs like "Kate" and "Song for the Dumped."
• Self-titled Blur? Woohoo!
• I need to give Blonde Redhead's Fake Can Be Just as Good more spins. A great transitional record from one of my all-time favorites.

Next Time!

Air! Alkaline Trio for real this time! A left turn from the Beastie Boys! Beck, yo! BLACK STAR ONE OF THE GREATEST ALBUMS IN HIP HOP! The Broadways were one of my favorites though! Fatboy Slim! More Fugazi! Jets to Brazil at last! Lauryn Hill! Neutral Milk Hotel! Outkast still rules the world! Pulp! Refused with one of the greatest albums ever! Slow Gherkin! Suicide Machines! And more!