Hello f(r)iends,
This list was compiled rather quickly, simply because out of the piles and
piles of music I bought, downloaded, or received, it was easy to remember
the ten records that I listened to the most. 2002 was a very good year for
music...but then again, EVERY year is a good year for music in my book! :-)
1) Deerhoof "Reveille" - No Wave played with Merseybeat melody, childlike
abandon, and a serious found-sound fetish...and even THAT description sells
its short, so I urge those interested to read the review I wrote at Mundane
Sounds. This album was as noisy, unpredictable, and FUN as rock music could
possibly get last year.
2) The Notwist "Neon Golden" - The best fusion of IDM and rock I've heard
since Dntel's "Life is Full of Possibilities." An impeccably arranged
headphone listen, with wistful melodies and lyrics that remain poignant even
through its ESL handicap. What's so great about a record like this was that
it wasn't the result of some radical stylistic shift; it was merely the
culmination of three previous albums' worth of progress. Anyone who's kept
up with the Notwist since "12" should have seen this album coming.
3) Sonic Youth "Murray Street" - It doesn't even matter that the first five
songs on the record are all in the same key (a pet peeve of mine); for
arguably the first time since "Daydream Nation," SY finally got the album
thing completely and totally RIGHT. "Rain on Tin" ALONE would have made
this album *at least* number ten.
4) Jason Loewenstein "At Sixes and Sevens" - A one-man tour de force
recorded on eight-track that sounds like a professional recording from a
power trio at the peak of its powers. Jason finally gets over his musical
inferiority complex with this album, and it CRAPS on everything Lou Barlow's
put his name on after "Bakesale."
5) Young People (self-titled) - in which the most dirge-like and
backbeat-shunning moments of the Velvet Underground's third album are
filtered through the innocence and sincerity of Beat Happening...or as one
of my friends in Austin put it, "the best album Cat Power never made."
"Stay Sweet" has moved me to tears NUMEROUS times.
6) The Books "Thought for Food" - an album that even harder to pin down than
Deerhoof's, in which a guitar, a cello, and a computer form a love triangle
to spew out the most random and beautiful sounds possible for thirty-eight
minutes. I also wrote a review of this record at Mundane Sounds.
7) Sleater-Kinney "One Beat" - THESE ROCK GODDESSES JUST KEEP GETTING BETTER
AND BETTER WITH EVERY ALBUM. YOU CANNOT DENY THEM. ANYONE WHO HAS NOT
SUBMITTED TO THEM BY THIS POINT IS A TONE-DEAF PLAYER-HATER. :-P
8) Max Tundra "Mastered by the Guy at the Exchange" - the best fusion of IDM
and rock I've heard since the Notwist's "Neon Golden." Contains what could
possibly be the funkiest song EVER about the chemical makeup of margarine
("Lysine").
9) Mclusky "Mclusky Do Dallas" - if the Pixies were fronted by Jello Biafra
and had only one guitarist, they would sound like this. It also helps that
every song on this record has at least one hilarious and utterly quotable
couplet. They take more drugs than a touring funk band!
10) Xiu Xiu "Knife Play" - this album is so histrionic and depressing that
when I first heard it during my Spring semester finals, I became nauseous by
the fourth song (you know, the one where he sings about catching AIDS). One
of the few albums that I have to psychologically prepare myself for before I
press "play," the ONLY reason why I actually have the cojones to recommend
it to other people is because of the sheer creativity of the arrangements
(baroque gothic noise techno, anyone?) and the compassion injected into even
the most morbid of character sketches.
NOTE: The only reason why Guided by Voices, my favorite band of all time,
didn't make it into this year's top ten is because I think some of the
weaker songs on the otherwise stellar "Universal Truths and Cycles" should
have been replaced by the better songs from their "Pipe Dreams of Instant
Prince Whippet" EP. If the mix CDR that I made of my favorite songs from
both releases was an official release, it would have beat Deerhoof as my top
pick of 2002. Bob Pollard is still, like, the best songwriter ever, but he
shouldn't be allowed to sequence his own records. :-)
Yr. f(r)iend Sean P.
http://www.mundanesounds.com
np: Jazzanova "In Between"
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