Skip past the blathering pseudo-intellectual societal musing and show me the best albums of the year already
Before we get down to business, I need to blast away the cobwebs. 1999 was a year of o'erweening hype in mainstream music, and I can't help setting up the pulpit to berate some odd developments. First up. There were three main trends that characterized our American airwaves this annum, summed up in three words: Ricky, Britney, and Nookie. This was the year that Lopez's, Anthony's and Martin's already falling stars swamped us with pale Latino pop, and while it's interesting that so many women are swooning over a guy who by virtue of his clear skin, translucent spandex shirts and graphite-dusted swivel hips can't possibly be interested in their advances, I find the Britney/Nookie dichotomy much more disturbing. Sure, I celebrated Spears's 18th birthday with as much enthusiasm as every other red-blooded American male and (off the record) was known to croon mindlessly along with the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way" in the car when none of my hipster friends were looking, a goofy grin plastered across my face, but here's the danger no one has seemed to notice: The cool kids have taken over.
Those of us who suffered through high school in the 80's looked up at the face of Pop Culture and saw ourselves reflected in the Bewildered Outsiders that we threw our money at and made stars. The sexually ambiguous, painfully earnest, curly-headed Michael Stipe. The ridiculous garb and she-boppin' of Cyndi Lauper. The intense, lusty confusion of the Violent Femmes. On the silver screen too - can you say John Hughes? It was the perennially dorky Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall, or the sweetly goofy Lloyd Dobler. Ferris Bueller and John Bender were the only ones who had any sort of populist charisma, but it was OK because the former was funny as hell and the latter was dreamy and tortured. The heroes were the quirky, the strange, the kids who huddled in the corner and threw spitballs and sarcasm at the Beautiful People.
But now, the Beautiful People are in charge. When did Britney Spears ever have trouble finding a date? And that Christina Aguilera is pretty bitchy for a Mickey Mouse Club alum. Freshly scrubbed and armored in the latest expensive fashions, any one of the interchangeable Backstreet-Sync-Degrees-Boys would be the first frat guy at the kegger to maul your daughter after showing off the lowered suspension on his mint Camaro. And other than American Pie, the latest wave of teen flicks largely show the lives of the Clique Elite struggling with the social burdens of being fit, gorgeous and urbane.
So while we are deluged on the one hand with parades of the rich and famous spewing twee-R&B (making Boys II Men - incredibly - ahead of their time), we hear roaring up from the back of the school where the kids go to smoke, not outright dismissal or snide derision, but utter self-loathing masked as outward aggression - the rap-metal hybrid of Limp Bizket and Korn are full of sturm und clang, but it's only to air their Issues, hardly enough to challenge the Establishment. Gordon Gano may have felt "like a chump/hey", but he sure as hell wouldn't have let the J.Crew squad know about it, instead telling them to "Kiss Off". I suppose right now there's a 16 year old with a guitar in his garage or a turntable in his bedroom who will flip the script a la Nevermind or "Anarchy in the UK", giving voice to the disaffected and clearing the decks of all the Student Council members and prom queens in a burst of passionate noise and vitriol: it's a rock and roll tradition. Until then, I'll be livin la vida frustrada.
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Now, onto the fun part.
Movie critics have it easy; with a little effort, it's possible to see nearly every film of note released during a year. If one did nothing but sit in a room and listen to new album releases, it would probably take until 2002 to hear every slab of circular aluminum that was pumped out this year. While I spend more time and cash money than most on pursuing my Muse, take this list with a heap o' salt - I'm sure there are tons of great records I haven't yet heard or even heard of yet. (If you know of some, please tell me.) As a self-selected sample of such a deluge, these lists thus often say more about the people who make them than any empirical statement on the music, but what the hell.
My take on the top 10 albums of the year is based primarily on spin time - while my own tastes run toward the experimental, passionate and groundbreaking, it basically comes down to what degree I was compelled to return to the album again and again and again to the exclusion of having a social life. I therefore don't mean to imply that these are necessarily the year's best albums (though I'm arrogant enough to believe that most are just that) - they're simply the ten that I most enjoyed. After fierce internal debate I've ranked them in order of ascending love, although depending on emotional state, angle of the sun and number of gin and tonics the order could shift a bit. I humbly give you:
10) Built To Spill - KEEP IT LIKE A SECRET
Boise's native sons may never make another album as perfect as There's Nothing Wrong With Love, but even their second best is a primer of indie rock's periodic table of elements: Doug Martch's helium (He) voice, titanium (Ti) strong songwriting, and axe-work that is explosive as pure sodium (Na) in water and blindingly bright as burning magnesium (Mg). And if "You Were Right" is laced with more than a touch of arsenic (As), the celestial, parabolic guitar lines and melody of "Else" are pure melancholy gold (Au).
9) Caetano Veloso – LIVROCaetano Veloso could sing his bank statement and make it sound seductive. Brazil's master of smooth Tropicalia combines the political and the personal in a way that echoes Dylan in intent if not form - O, those sultry bossa nova rhythms! Veloso kills with tenderness when he plucks his intimate nylon-stringed guitar and scorches when he grabs the electric; his band is more compellingly percussive than the cast of Stomp! throwing a silverware set off the top of the Giza Pyramid. Though it means "Piss Off" when translated, "Nao Enche" is the happiest breakup song ever written. She must have been a bitch.
8) Mos Def - BLACK ON BOTH SIDESAny man who can call himself one of "the two hottest negroes/ in Los Estados Unitos" and make it sound beyond debate has my vote for President. Less stridently political but no less intelligent than Public Enemy, as warmly spiritual and positive as A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def is one of hip-hop's most fascinating young lions. Idealism and lyrical skill are evident in heaping measures, but all this would be moot were it not for wildly addictive soul-rhythm tracks sprinkled with languid vibes worthy of the Blue Note catalog. And the man plays a mean bass guitar.
7) The Magnetic Fields - 69 LOVE SONGSAs sappy as Vermont in October and with more hooks than a strip of Velcro, this 3-disc set is just what it says it is - loads of love (and lust both implied and explicit) songs in virtually every style you could imagine. Country, jazz, folk, arena rock and pop pop pop, elegant and bawdy by turns, delivered in Stephen Merritt's basso profundo voice and laced with his trademark Casio squirts and oscillations. Frequently hilarious and often genuinely moving, Merritt's incurable misanthropy, biting wit and cynicism smack up against his romantic longing to provide endlessly fascinating and mature variations on the greatest human theme. Available as a set or singly, spring for Vol. 1 if the length daunts you - you'll be back for the other two within a week. There's about 300 lines as fun as "I'm the luckiest guy/on the Lower East Side/'Cause I've got wheels/And you want to go for a ride."
6) The Dismemberment Plan - EMERGENCY & IThe second coming of the Talking Heads? The third coming of New Wave? Or just the first sign of the Future of Pop? On a scale from interesting to groundbreaking, The Plan goes to 11 with a "What the hell is THIS?" Loads of atonal synthesizers squeak and blurt over fractured post-punk guitars, leavened with tall scoops of irresistible melody and Travis Morrison's striking metaphors and penetrating voice. But their secret weapon may be a rhythm section which pulls off the nigh-impossible feat of being deeply funky without the obvious aural clues. No slap bass or funky drummer fills - just pure sublime groove. The smartest, most imaginative rump-shakin album of the year, and if the poignant heart of "The City" doesn't move you, if "Back and Forth" doesn't make you throw your hands in the air and wave 'em like you just don't care, then you got a hole in yer soul.
5) The Flaming Lips - THE SOFT BULLETINMy shredded-wheat side loves the undercurrent of sophisticated experimental sounds and otherwordly bass and synth textures. My sugar-frosted side loves Wayne Coyne's earnest, quirky voice and the unabashedly gorgeous, lush orchestration. The most nakedly Pretty album of the year, and while I can't quite shake an ingrained uneasiness with concept albums, "Buggin" gives me a chill in the same part of my spine that the Beach Boys’ "Barbara Ann" tickles - Brian Wilson better watch his back. My Bloody Valentine's Loveless might be the Pet Sounds of this decade, but no album I heard this year made me Smiley Smile as much as this one.
4) Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I SEE A DARKNESSI haven't heard such darkly terrifying but musically compelling music since Robert Johnson's "Hellhound on my Trail." This album scares the hell out of me with its stark, ancient-feeling parables, oceanic bass tones and Will Oldham's cracked-voice, intimate declarations rolling through songs built like wind-whistled ghost towns. I had forgotten that folk music can rock you back on your heels and steal your breath. Not that it's folk, exactly. I don't know what it is, other than a mainline into Oldham's Pentacostal soul, where angels and devils are engaged in epic battle, spinning off dread and poetry. Quietly - but absolutely - devastating.
3) Latin Playboys – DOSEWhen I'm in charge, Ricky Martin and the rest of the dim south-of-the-border poseurs will be lashed to a bed of nails and forced to listen to Dose until they realize what incredible passion Latin music is truly capable of. Beyond pigeonholing, this bold and adventurous album takes traditional Latin music screaming down twisted sonic trails. Ancient fiddles, tropical rhythms, blistering rock n' roll, distorted blues and sunny Mexican folk - Latin Playboys play it all with such palpable joy that it sounds as natural and refreshing as lemon ice on a scorching summer day. Know this: the tumbling percussion and screaming guitar of "Locoman" is my idea of cool.
2) Tom Waits - MULE VARIATIONSThe only album in this list to bring me to tears. After a 6 year absence, my favorite human returns to the studio and not only doesn't disappoint, but unleashes the finest original retrospective of his humane, innovative 30 year career that I couldn't have dared ask for but ever so gratefully receive. This guy ages like a single-malt Scotch: his whiskey-marinated, tobacco-stained voice, irascible experimentalism, gruff storytelling and heartbreaking romanticism keep getting better. "Cold Water" is the best blues tune of the year, "Big In Japan" the most comically fucked-up, and "Picture in a Frame" the most sweetly sentimental.
1) The Roots - THINGS FALL APARTBeats that are hard, beats that are funky, they can get you hooked like a crackhead junkie. Hip-hop is this era's rock and roll, and The Roots are The Rolling Stones - second-generation masters who encapsulate the genre's history so completely that they don't just play hip-hop, they ARE hip-hop. Their early albums showed staggering promise, but here they deliver like Fed Ex on Christmas Eve. They've always been the baaaadest bona fide band in hip-hop, but they've matured into one that goes beyond genre with remarkable focus and impact. The jazzy guitar of "Dynamite!", lyrical labyrinth and gritty drumming of "Double Trouble", languid vibes of "The Spark" - hip-hop has rarely sounded this deeply mature before. And just because the record can exude a midnight jazzy vibe with tinkling xylophone and pensive piano in "Step into the Relm" and "You Got Me", that doesn't preclude it from blowing your doors off with something as visceral and strange as "100% Dundee". Malik B explains at one point: "I used to live life like there was no mañana/now I'm treating every breath like it was an honor". Pure class.
- Jared O’Connor