Best of the decade

My list:

1. Radiohead, Kid A (2000)
2. Spoon, Kill the Moonlight (2002)
3. M.I.A., Arular (2005)
4. Arcade Fire, Funeral (2004)
5. 50 Cent, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2003)
6. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
7. Nick Lowe, The Convincer (2001)
8. The Shins, Oh, Inverted World (2001)
9. Kanye West, The College Dropout (2004)
10. Cat Power, The Greatest (2006)

(Average is 2002.8, slightly on the fogy side.)

The next 10:

11. Webb Brothers, Maroon (2000)
12. Salif Keita, Moffou (2002)
13. Feist, The Reminder (2007)
14. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca (2009)
15. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand (2007)
16. Teenage Fanclub, Howdy! (2000)
17. White Stripes, White Blood Cells (2001)
18. Beyoncé, Dangerously in Love (2003)
19. Grandaddy, Sumday (2003)
20. Camille, Le Fil (2006)

Decade postmortem: 2000 and 2001

UPDATES: I tweaked the 2000 list a bit and added an addendum to 2001.

Now is the time when the music critics of the world compile their lists of the best releases of the year, and, even more agonizing, of the decade. Actually, for most writers that time was a month ago. I always get to these late, cuz (1) I don’t usually have a pressing early deadline, and (2) I find it psychically impossible to look back on a year until at least the second week of December.

I’ll be posting my 2009 list soon. But while scanning through the best-of-the-decade cloud, I’ve also been reflecting on my own past choices. Every critic should be held up to the lasting wisdom of his or her old year-end lists. Anybody can pick 10 faves, but a good critic is supposed to have the insight to find quality amid the mediocrity, and to explain and contextualize it. The problem is that aside from a few obvious mega-masterpieces (Thriller, Nevermind, William Shatner’s The Transformed Man) no one knows what will stand the test of time, which is the only test that matters. As a result, the art of the year-end top 10 includes an embarrassing amount of guesswork, fanboy advocacy and consensus groupthink gone stupidly wrong.

In 2007 the Village Voice ran a brutal but very funny reckoning about its Pazz and Jop poll, which covers hundreds of critics each year. (New Times had recently bought the Voice and begun booting its staff, so the motivation might not have been purely journalistic.) Reviewing decades of old Pazz and Jop tallies, the new Voice found a lot of howlers. Our nation’s rock critics got Thriller and Nevermind right (phew), but otherwise came out looking only slightly smarter than Grammy voters. For instance, in 1991 P.M. Dawn was laughably overestimated at No. 5, while My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless only made No. 14 and Dinosaur Jr’s Green Mind No. 37. Those are two of the most important alt-rock albums of the ’90s, and it was pretty obvious at the time how big a deal they were. In 1995 Elastica was No. 5 but Ready to Die was shunted all the way down to No. 38. I think we know who killed Biggie Smalls!

Over the next week or so I’ll be reviewing my past lists to see how well they hold up, and revising them as needed. Feel free to take me to task, shout in solidarity, call bullshit. It can be tricky to define exactly what we’re saying with these rankings. The big question is whether they represent only personal affinity or are larger statements about artistic or cultural importance. I lean toward the former, although I think a critic isn’t doing his job unless the latter plays a significant part.

❧

First up: 2000. I can’t find a list for that year; if I made one at all, it was informal. But with the benefit of hindsight, here’s the one I would (or should) have made:

1. Radiohead, Kid A
2. Webb Brothers, Maroon
3. High on Fire, The Art of Self Defense
4. White Stripes, De Stijl
5. Grandaddy, The Sophtware Slump
6. Sigur Ros, Agaetis Byrjun
7. Bebel Gilberto, Tanto Tempo
8. Outkast, Stankonia
9. Coldplay, Parachutes
10. Dead Prez, Let’s Get Free

I can’t deny Kid A, which stunned me when it came out. It was amazing that something so bizarrely beautiful went to No. 1. It’s a milestone in the history of weird music. It wasn’t a breakthrough exactly: it wasn’t the first “post-rock” album, nor was it really a major reboot for Radiohead (that was OK Computer). But Kid A continued and surpassed all the post-rock/electronica that had been bubbling up through the ’90s, when those sounds were new and revolutionary. And after a decade it still hasn’t been surpassed. Why? Because Radiohead made it look too easy. In the same way that 1,000 shitty lo-fi bands tried to fake being Pavement in the 1990s, 1,000 shitty post-rock bands tried to fake being Radiohead in the 2000s. It’s still happening, and that’s why Radiohead are still giants.

I also love the Webb Brothers, who reside in a different and less futuristic musical continent. These young sons of Jimmy Webb (“Wichita Lineman”) absorbed their father’s songwriting classicism and applied it to the druggy, debauched fast life in an epic concept album dripping with melody. (I originally had this in my 2001 list, but I believe the album came out in 2000. I can’t remember anymore.)

Following that, High on Fire’s debut was an instant classic of stoner metal, and De Stijl was the album that got the buzz going on the White Stripes. (I bought it at Midnight Records on 23rd Street; I hadn’t heard of them before, but it had one of those covers that guarantees something interesting.) Otherwise, I don’t have much to say about this list, other than that I remember being very struck by Dead Prez at the time, and that it took some time for me to make sense of Grandaddy; I probably would not have included them on this list if I had written it in December 2000, but now it seems essential to me. The Sigur Ros album had a complicated release history but it basically broke in 2000. (First major press mention on Nexis: announcement of NME Premier Awards nominees, Jan. 21, 2000.)

❧

And now, 2001. Here’s the list I made at the time:

1. Spoon, Girls Can Tell
2. White Stripes, White Blood Cells
3. Lightning Bolt, Ride the Skies
4. Manu Chao, Proxima Estación: Esperanza
5. Radiohead, Amnesiac
6. Low, Things We Lost in the Fire
7. Moldy Peaches, Moldy Peaches
8. Webb Brothers, Maroon
9. Fugu, Fugu 1
10. Tortoise, Standards

I think I’m right about a lot of this. But there are two big, big albums I would need to add: Nick Lowe’s The Convincer and the Shins’ Oh, Inverted World. The Convincer has become a real favorite of mine; discussing it with Claudia Marshall on WFUV recently, I called it “the most tasteful album of the 2000s,” and I stick by that. It’s magnificently elegant and eloquent, the perfect sound for Lowe’s wry but still warm-hearted reflections on the follies of life and love. The Shins I don’t need to explain; it’s fabulous, and it gets me right there. What I will say in defense of this revision is that that both albums reached me too late because of 9/11, when my life shifted to constant fifth-gear mode for several months. (Lowe’s album was released on that day; the Shins came out earlier, but I don’t think I heard it until early 2002.)

Otherwise, it’s a fairly easy decision to remove Manu Chao and Tortoise, neither of which has held up terribly well for me, and as noted above Marooned is reassigned to 2000. More difficult to lose is the lovely and playful Fugu. It charmed me eight years ago and is still nice, but here in 2009 it don’t sound like such great shakes.

That leaves room to add two titles, and there are some prominent candidates: Bob Dylan’s Love and Theft, the Strokes’ Is This It, and Jay-Z’s The Blueprint. In terms of who made the best album, I think Dylan wins out, and as much as I might loathe the Strokes, I have to admit that Is This It holds up really, really well. It was also the year of Miss E ... So Addictive, but my frustration with Missy albums is that aside from two or three brilliant tracks they tend to get pretty boring.

So here’s my revised list for 2001:

1. Nick Lowe, The Convincer
2. Spoon, Girls Can Tell
3. The Shins, Oh, Inverted World
4. White Stripes, White Blood Cells
5. Lightning Bolt, Ride the Skies
6. Radiohead, Amnesiac
7. Bob Dylan, Love and Theft
8. Moldy Peaches, Moldy Peaches
9. The Strokes, Is This It
10. Low, Things We Lost in the Fire

Addendum: Teenage Fanclub’s Howdy, released in the UK in 2000, came out in the US in 2001. It’s gorgeously pastoral, and asks simple, honest and poignant questions about life and love. (Here is my review at the time.) If I were to put it in this list it would be between Nos. 3 and 4, but I don’t want to mess with it at this point.

❧

Next up ... 2002!

2008: The year in live music

I saw slightly fewer concerts in 2008 than usual — about 90 shows, not counting theater and some other things. Here are some of the more notable events, with favorites in bold itals.

Best were Nick Lowe, Leonard Cohen, the Vaselines and My Bloody Valentine. (Am I getting old, or what?) Most surprsing: Information (opening for Teenage Jesus, who were great too), “From Beyond” (conflict of interest alert), Philip Glass’s “Satyagraha” at the Met, Jamey Johnson, and the Korean avant/traditional fusion of the Tori Ensemble. Most disappointing was probably everything about Oneida’s show at the Kitchen except “Sheet of Easter,” as much as I do love them.

1/10: Lou Reed and John Zorn (with Laurie Anderson) @ The Stone
1/19: Blonde Redhead, Raveonettes, School of Seven Bells @ Terminal 5
1/29: Vampire Weekend, Beat the Devil @ Bowery Ballroom
2/1: Joanna Newsom w/ Brooklyn Philharmonic @ BAM
2/6: Cat Power @ Terminal 5
2/13: Jason and Lucas Ajemian’s “From Beyond” @ 436 West 15th Street (behind Passerby bar)
2/13: MGMT, Yeasayer, Violens @ Bowery Ballroom
2/14: Yeasayer, MGMT, Chairlift @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
2/23: The National, My Brightest Diamond @ BAM
3/7: “Peter Grimes” @ Metropolitan Opera
3/10: Vinicio Capossela @ Joe’s Pub
3/13-15: SXSW (highlights: Motörhead, Holy Fuck, My Morning Jacket, Liam Finn, Bon Iver, Atlas Sound, Wye Oak, Pissed Jeans, Handsome Furs, Health, 2 Live Crew, White Shoes and the Couples Company, the Pillows)
3/30: Boredoms @ Terminal 5
4/2: Beach House, Papercuts, Luke Temple @ Bowery Ballroom
4/4: Shelby Lynne @ Ethical Culture Society
4/6: Simone Dinnerstein @ Town Hall
4/9: Nick Lowe w/ Robyn Hitchcock (and Elvis Costello!) @ Grand Ballroom, Manhattan Center
4/16: Joe Jackson @ Town Hall
4/17: Opening party @ John Varvatos store, 315 Bowery (former CBGB): Wayne Kramer, Handsome Dick Manitoba, Tom Morello, Jerry Cantrell, Slash, Joan Jett, Ian Hunter, Ronnie Spector, others.
4/19: “Satyagraha” @ Metropolitan Opera
4/30: Madonna @ Roseland
5/4: Tashi (Wuorinen, Takemitsu, Messiaen) @ Town Hall
5/19: The Swell Season, Interference @ Radio City Music Hall
5/24: Rosa Passos @ Allen Room
6/6: MIA, Rye Rye, Holy Fuck @ McCarren Pool
6/11: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss @ WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden
6/13: Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (Lydia Lunch, Jim Sclavunos, Thurston Moore), Information @ Knitting Factory
6/14: Oneida (“The Wedding”) @ The Kitchen
6/20: My Morning Jacket @ Radio City Music Hall
6/23: Coldplay @ Madison Square Garden
6/25: Leonard Cohen @ Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Place des Arts, Montreal (pre-festival)
6/26-28: Montreal International Jazz Festival (highlights: Dee Dee Bridgewater, Vieux Farka Touré, Return to Forever, John Jorgenson, Al Green, Hank Jones duos with Joe Lovano and Brad Mehldau; Mehldau solo; Saxophone Summit w/ Lovano, Dave Liebman and Ravi Coltrane)
7/5: Rush @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
7/9: Vaselines, Indelicates @ Maxwell’s
7/12: Beth Orton, Matt Munisteri @ Celebrate Brooklyn
7/13: Breeders, Matt & Kim, the Whip @ McCarren Pool
7/18: Billy Joel @ Shea Stadium
7/19: Matmos, Leprechaun Catering @ Le Poisson Rouge
7/20: Liars @ McCarren Pool
7/25: Black Kids, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, Zambri @ Santos Party House
8/7: Neil Diamond @ XL Center, Hartford
8/9: All Points West: Radiohead, the Roots, Kings of Leon, Black Angels @ Liberty State Park, NJ
8/17: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Menahan Street Band @ Central Park Summerstage
8/20: The Ex with Gétatchèw Mèkurya; Mahmoud Ahmed and Alèmayèhu Eshèté with Either/Orchestra; Extra Golden @ Damrosch Park Bandshell, Lincoln Center Plaza
9/10: Bill Frisell, Paul Motian, Joe Lovano @ Village Vanguard
9/17: Lee Ann Womack, Jamey Johnson @ Allen Room
9/23: My Bloody Valentine @ Roseland
10/11: Haroon Bacha @ Forest Hills Jewish Center
10/16: TV on the Radio, Dragons of Zynth @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple
10/17: “Baltimore Round Robin” w/ Beach House, Jana Hunter, Santa Dads, Lexie Mountain, Lesser, Teeth Mountain, Nautical Almaniac, Lizz King, Creepers, WZT Hearts, Ed Schrader, Sand Cats, Thank You @ Le Poisson Rouge
10/21-25: CMJ (highlights: Shugo Tokumaru, Jay Reatard, the King Khan & BBQ Show, Growing, Psychic Ills, Sian Alice Group, Mission of Burma, the Muslims, School of Seven Bells)
11/7: Rosanne Cash, Joe Henry @ Rubin Museum
12/5: “Red Hot + Rio 2”: CéU, Curumin, Bebel Gilberto, José González, Otto and João Parahyba, w/ Kassin, Moreno Veloso, Domenico Lancellotti, Money Mark, Janja Gomes, Jorge Continentino, Carlos Darci and Zé Luis @ BAM
12/6: Tori Ensemble (Yoon Jeong Heo, Erik Friedlander, Kwon Soon Kang, Young Chi Min, Ned Rothenberg, Satoshi Takeishi) @ Asia Society
12/10: Bon Iver, the Tallest Man on Earth @ Town Hall
12/18: “La Bohème” @ Metropolitan Opera (with Ramón Vargas)
12/31: Joan Osborne @ City Winery
12/31: Akron/Family, Deerhoof, Megafaun, etc. @ Knitting Factory

(Top photo credit.)

Scrapbook

Found while purging huge amounts of crap from my now-slightly-less-cluttered apartment: my earliest “professional” clips, from when I began contributing to New York Press in 1998.

They had run a solicitation on their front page bulletin-board column, which said something like: “Even though we know we’re going to be flooded with hundreds of pages on ‘heaven rock,’ we are hereby looking for music writers; send in a sampling of what you can do.” I went out and reviewed an Oblivians show at Maxwell’s, and faxed it in. John Strausbaugh, still one of the best editors I’ve had, told me to keep them coming, and the first one they printed was on You Am I.

Also accomplished on last week’s much-enjoyed staycation: finally figured out how get my printer to scan. So one plus one here equals a bunch of non-Googlable 10-year-old clips scanned and uploaded for your enjoyment, Kind Reader.

Included: that You Am I review, which appropriately enough begins with talk about temp jobs; more “Live Dates” on Daniel Johnston, Michael Hurley, Brad Mehldau, Pharoah Sanders, and the reopening of Maxwell’s with Neutral Milk Hotel and Fugazi; an early review of Fantômas, accompanied by a brilliant Mike Wartella illustration; a review of an S.O.D. reunion show, with wonderful art by Roy Tompkins, which I later bought from him and has hung on my wall ever since; an angry CD review of my beloved Pastels (Illuminati, their remix album); and a Q&A with Nick Lowe.

There’s plenty more, from both New York Press and the defunct New Times L.A., which I contributed to for a couple of years (here’s a Freedy Johnston CD review); I’ll post more when I can.

All Men Are Liars

Jesus of Cool

Best of 2001

ALBUMS

1. Spoon, Girls Can Tell
2. White Stripes, White Blood Cells
3. Lightning Bolt, Ride the Skies
4. Manu Chao, Proxima Estación: Esperanza
5. Radiohead, Amnesiac
6. Low, Things We Lost in the Fire
7. Moldy Peaches, Moldy Peaches
8. Webb Brothers, Maroon
9. Fugu, Fugu 1
10. Tortoise, Standards

EX POST FACTO

Nick Lowe, The Convincer
The Shins, Oh, Inverted World

SINGLES

1. Bob Dylan, “Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum”
2. Webb Brothers, “I Can’t Believe You’re Gone”
3. Daryll-Ann, “Surely Justice”
4. White Stripes, “Hotel Yorba”
5. Rapture, “Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks”
6. Pink, “Get the Party Started”
7. Teenage Fanclub, “Dumb Dumb Dumb”
8. Daniel Johnston, “Funeral Girl”
9. Neil Young, “Imagine”
10. Peaches, “Fuck the Pain Away”