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12.27.2001 13:56
Sincerity and eclecticism distinguished the year's best disks
BY VAUGHN WATSON
Journal Pop Music Writer
Popular music in '01 pummeled us with its split personalities of triviality and potential.
Images (not messages) shaped Britney Spears and Destiny's Child
Bootylicious
pop. But Destiny's Child's
Survivor
also carried an empowering, do-something spirit.
Jay-Z's
The
Blueprint made a persuasive case for new portrayals of black men in popular culture, for realistic depictions with triumphs and flaws. But
The Blueprint's
radio single didn't extend the same respect to women.
The brashest statements from the top acts -- Jay-Z makes the list; Spears and Destiny's Child don't -- were sincerity and eclecticism. Eclecticism fits a young, diverse, post-Napster Generation Y, music buyers who this year hunted down music beyond record-shop categories. Their musicians adore electronic music -- Aphex Twin, Groove Armada, Everything But The Girl, and are the new anonymous rock stars.
Meanwhile sincerity and anonymity fit for all of us, especially after Sept. 11. Uncertainty makes a desperate case for acknowledging the outspoken voices of The Coup and System Of A Down, bands who heralded the ascension of the oppressed, and Duncan Sheik and Miranda Lee Richards; they portray eager and satisfied lives, joyless and joy-filled.
The 30 best:
1.
Spiritualized
,
Let It Come Down
(BMG/Arista): Songwriter J Spaceman makes those that built rock smile. As frontman for the band, Spaceman played live shows with a 13-piece orchestra -- piano rock with a praise-worthy gospel choir. He recorded
Let It Come Down
with a 30-piece string section, 8-piece horn section and full choir, unleashing the intensity of rock's forgotten barroom-blues daddy, Wynonie Harris and his 1949 jump blues. An alternative to art rock, pop and mod rock, Spaceman gives popular music a new-old kick, spiritual rock, splendid because it is down-home, anti-pop spiritual rock.
2.
The Strokes
,
Is This It
(BMG/RCA): It's the last Monday in February at Boston's Paradise Rock Club. We've come early to hear the Doves, walk down that semi-long corridor, turn left into the main room and get smacked with a pogo-jumping crowd and a roar from the opening act on stage. It's a gorgeous mess of song stuffed with intentional feedback, relentless rhythmic drumming and raw, emotional lyrics: "New York City cops, New York City cops, they ain't too smart -- " The place erupts like a tsunami hit and I'm asking, 'Who the heck was that?'
It's the Strokes, man, the glorious, hard-chargin', overhyped but nonetheless rock-reviving Strokes. The New York quintet fronted by Julian Casablancas, son of the modeling tycoon, was set to release
Is This It,
their astounding debut that nails the mayhem of the live sound, on Sept. 25. The date was bumped after Sept. 11, while the Strokes recorded a new song to replace
New York City Cops
and its ill-timed hook. The song had nothing to do with terrorist attacks, and
Is This It
has everything to do with loving life, late late-night party music and the power of the best blues-punk-soul since another generation's hedonistic, idealistic glory days.
3.
The Word
,
The Word featuring John Medeski, North Mississippi Allstars, Robert Randolph
(Wea/Atlantic/Rope-a-dope): The Word is a gospel-style instrumental by a power group, in the old-school sense of that phrase. Keyboardist Medeski is an omnipresent jazz-jam star. He released alt-jazz's best release of 2000 with his main band, Medeski, Martin & Wood. Also this year he sat in with Sex Mob for a set of James Bond-inspired songs (No. 8 on this list). The Allstars -- Tennessee-born brothers Luther and Dickinson and Chris Chew -- are underground blues jam-band stars. And we're just getting to the stealth star of The Word: Randolph's is a growing master of "sacred steel," as pedal-steel guitar music is called in the Pentecostal church. Randolph grew up there, playing the instrument that replaces the church organ. The Word soars when Medeski and Randolph, still playing, start the slow rise out of their seats, we can't see it but know it happens -- majestic church-revival style, restoring faith, for starters, in music.
4.
Radiohead
,
Amnesiac
(EMD/Capitol): Cherish the excess. Radiohead's follow-up to the Grammy-nominated Kid A featured songs recording during the Kid A sessions, a soundtrack to anything-but-shallow pensiveness. "I'm a reasonable man get off my case," go the lyrics to
Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box,
'01's anthem -- and every year's got one -- to an appreciated populist trait: self-depreciation. The message in the Brit band's intellectualized, atmospheric electronic-rock -- along with Radiohead's second-in-a-row sidestep of mod-rock guitar ballads -- was of a now-mainstream band setting out to abandon rock stardom, to return to an anonymous underground. Too late for that.
5.
Bilal
,
1st Born Second
(Moyo/Interscope)
6.
Jay-Z
,
The Blueprint
(Uni/Def Jam): D'Angelo gave us the template, R&B with a rhythm section of African percussion and warm jazz horns instead of studio beats. Now comes Bilal -- whose first professional gig was in D'Angelo's backing band. The Philly native's
1st Born Second
features an ode to Sly Stone and conscious rap's most pertinent voices: guest appearances by Mos Def and Common. Bilal is neo-soul's strongest songwriter, with Prince's soul-survivor attitude, and he is a rhythm-and-blues articulator of the curious slip-ups that add up to, "you make me a better man."
Jay-Z's
The Blueprint
held more high-points than its web of flaws. The Brooklyn rapper needs to push past the beefs with Nas and Mobb Deep, and he's more creative than the unchecked misogyny he tosses around. Still, in
The Blueprint
Jay-Z -- as did Bilal -- created a cast of characters that challenged a cacophony of black-male stereotypes, the deadbeat dad, the gang-land menace, to a stimulating, nostalgic soundtrack of '70s soul.
7.
Groove Armada
,
Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)
(BMG/Jive/Silvertone)
8.
Sex Mob
,
Sex Mob Does Bond
(Wea/Atlantic ): Message-less music says plenty. DJ troupe Groove Armada and Sex Mob, a New York alt-jazz quintet, sent popular music on cinematic journeys. Just sit back and get a kick out of the ride. Groove Armada's
Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)
made us want to dance, chill, find old friends, dance more.
In
Sex Mob Does Bond
frontman Steve Bernstein reinterpreted classic James Bond soundtracks to create music for the ultimate 007 flick.
9.
System Of A Down
,
Toxicity
(Sony/Columbia): System Of A Down is Rage Against The Machine for a new era that -- and here's a point a lot of us have forgotten -- needs dissenting voices to speak out, not zone out. The off-tune, odd timing arrangements make a challenging listen, but that only adds to the disk's relevance.
10.
Built To Spill
,
Ancient Melodies of the Future,
(WEA/Warner Bros.)
11.
Modest Mouse
,
Everywhere And His Nasty Parlour Tricks
(Sony/Epic): Built To Spill and Modest Mouse ushered in an art pop new-alternative music. New alt embraced the heartbeat of grunge, barrenness of the worst kind -- the unmovable inertia that occupies one's idle mind. But Built To Spill and Modest Mouse play bold music, arranged with ample room for delicate strings. These songs, ultimately, are uplifting because the musicians are too ambitious to render aggression through rap-rock's hard guitar riffs and angry lyrics.
12.
Duncan Sheik
,
Phantom Moon
(Wea/Atlantic/Nonesuch): This album is Brown University graduate Duncan Sheik's curiously moving ode to Brit singer-songwriter Nick Drake. The lyrics come from New York playwright Steven Sater, who wrote them after listening to Drake's music. Sheik's eclectic arrangements run from a full string orchestra to acoustic guitar in an album that is a passionate, personal tribute to Drake's signature theme, unearthing the beauty of life and nature. They aim to bring exposure to Drake, Sheik says, who in his lifetime never found a big audience for his music and was found dead of an overdose of antidepressants at age 25.
13.
Tori Amos
,
Strange Little Girls
(WEA/Atlantic)
14.
Macy Gray
,
The Id
(Sony/Epic): The characters in Amos and Gray's transformative pop and R&B find the meaning of soul in an unusual place: others' identities. Amos's cover of Eminem's
'97 Bonnie & Clyde
is a creepy rock retelling of the draw of lust. It's cheerless except that Amos, unlike Eminem, never loses control. Same goes for Gray, her
My Nutmeg Phantasy
finds contentment in herself, with Gray grinning the whole time.
15.
Gillian Welch
,
Time (The Revelator)
(Acony Records): Welch's disk gained a few listeners after the success of the
O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
Time
stands on its own as a literate compelling collection of bluegrass and traditional alt-country.
The rest:
16. Avalanches,
Since I Left You
(WEA/London/Sire)
17. New Order,
Get Ready
(Wea/Warner Bros.)
18. Aphex Twin,
drukqs (Warp/Sire)
19. Bjork,
Vespertine
(Wea/Elektra Entertainment)
20. Lucinda Williams,
Essence
(Uni/Lost Highway)
21. Bob Dylan,
Love And Theft
(Sony/Columbia)
22. Everything But The Girl,
Back To Mine
(Ultra)
23. Ron Sexsmith,
Blue Boy
(Spin Art/Cooking Vinyl)
24. Hanuman,
Pedalhorse
(Omnivine Records)
25. David Garza,
Overdub
(Wea/Atlantic)
26. Tool,
Lateralus
(Bmg/Volcano/Pavement/Cz)
27. The Coup,
Party Music
(75 Ark);
28. Gorillaz,
Gorillaz
(EMD/Virgin)
29. Miranda Lee Richards,
The Herethereafter
(Virgin Records America)
30. Atombombpocketknife,
God Save the ABPK
(Southern Records)
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