My
first impression of 1999 was that it was another year where all the action was
in hip-hop, and indeed there is a lot of good hip-hop this year. But upon further reflection, there are a lot
of solid rock albums this year, just not forming a cohesive movement (unlike in
hip-hop, where there’s a fairly close community of producers
& rappers who go so far as to show up on each others’ albums). But the really good rock albums this year
tend to be singular entities within genres that are otherwise really treading
water. There are some commonalities in
those gems, though; chiefly in their willingness to break up their formulas and
experiment with more unconventional song structures.
But
like I said, a lot of the action in 1999 is in hip-hop, and specifically in the
indie hip-hop world. In the mainstream,
Dr. Dre returns with The Chronic 2001,
and has updated his sonics, which in practice means more trebly synths and
fewer P-Funk samples. Like with the RZA
from the first to second Wu-Tang albums, Dre’s move away from sampling and toward
more original composition doesn’t play to his strengths. In both sampling and original beats, though,
the RZA did it better. Also in the rapping. Dre remains a downright poor MC. Lyically, the cartoon gangsta sentiments
remain, and once again the only worthy rappers are a couple of guests (Snoop
& Eminem). Progress of a sort, but
mainstream hip-hop virtually drops out of my collection after this, a few big
singles here and there excepted.
Fortunately,
the indie scene continues to be remarkably strong. Another early 90s producer returns to much
greater effect than Dre. Sadly, my copy
of Prince Paul’s A Prince Among Thieves
is unplayably scratched by now, but I remember it fondly. Paul’s other great record this year, in
co-production with Automator, follows a similar pattern of common production
supported by a roster of indie hip-hop’s greatest. Handsome
Boy Modeling School is goofy, but pretty much the cutting edge of hip-hop
this year, with inventive beats & sampling covering an impressive
range. Also, “The Truth”
really sets the template of torch singer + hip-hop that’ll produce
great songs in both the mainstream (Eminem’s “Stan”) and indie (Deltron’s
“Madness”). In
general, both Automator and Prince Paul show real branching away from
their initial styles to great effect. A
record that really captures the diversity of sounds captured under the rubric
of hip-hop in 1999.
It’s not all
producer-driven, though. The other half
of the Dr. Octagon project, Kool Keith, proves less willing to abandon that
record’s space-rap synth-funk formula, although without Automator,
his beats are a bit more sparse and minimalist.
Meanwhile, while Latyrx are done and DJ Shadow is quiet, the remaining
duo in Soulsides put out yet another Blackalicious EP, making us wait a long
time for a proper Blackalicious LP.
Still pretty solid, with a similar retro-futurist old-school vibe as
Black Star last year (though with more synth/organ sounds). Speaking of Black Star, Mos Def is very much
in the same vein as well on his solo debut (basically stripped beats, but with
a full, organ-driven sound), though with the beginnings of his fascination with
rock & roll that’ll lead him to record his next album
with an actual band.
Of course, 1999 is also
the year that the Roots establish themselves definitively as hip-hop’s
greatest band (in the live-band sense
as opposed to the Wu-Tang/Blackalicious posse sense). Things Fall
Apart is their commercial breakthrough, though while it’s
probably their best record to date, it’s not a case of the band revising their
formula, as Illadelph Halflife
boasted essentially the same sonic template.
Timing, I guess; the guests including Black Star and others show how the
Roots’ sound has become the sound of contemporary hip-hop. The Roots also establish their live-band cred
with their live album. It feels like a
long time since we’ve seen such a 70s-throwback classic
live double-LP. Most of what we’ve
had in way of live albums have either been Unplugged rearrangements or post-breakup
retrospective, but if any band in 1999 was going to buck that trend, the Roots
are a good one, being both phenomenal live and fairly 70s-based in their
funk-soul sound.
The other beat-driven
musical scene in the late ‘90s, electronica, continues to inch its
way into the mainstream (though largely separate from hip-hop still). (now’s a good a time as any to mention that I’m
calling this stuff “elecronica” because I vaguely remember that the 80s
stuff is “techno,” and of course the actual fans of the
genre rather uselessly refuse to accept that it’s more than a collection of microgenres;
I welcome any advice on what else to call beat-driven electronic dance music). The Basement Jaxx follow on the basic path
blazed by Fatboy Slim, of big, almost stadium-rock beats, though their songs
have a lot more going on than the deliberately simplistic big-beat of Fatboy
Slim. Still, above all the beat is
foregrounded, even if the textures underneath are richer. But the biggest electronica album of the year
is without a doubt Moby’s Play. (and, indeed, apart from Santana’s
compromised and shamelessly radio-play-seeking Supernatural, probably the biggest record of 1999). Moby is sort of a natural fit to be the
electronica artist to break into modern rock radio. First, he’s got some punk-rock pedigree (having
earlier covered Mission of Burma for a minor hit). Second, he’s manipulating familiar sounds (blues,
gospel, etc.) but in new configurations.
And third, and most important, he really fit the post-Vedder/Cobain
alt-rock-star mode – the sensitive intelligent young man –
of which there were precious few to take that title after Cobain’s
suicide and Vedder’s deliberate retreat.
On the more rock side of
things, both Cornershop side-project Clinton and Beck are going still deeper
into electronic sounds as a way to follow up their big breakthrough records,
though in both cases, it’s in a way that recalls hip-hop and 80s
synth-funk more than contemporary electronica.
Clinton practically screams “side-project,” with its
sketches of songs over a bed of spartan synth-funk, but at times it can be a
whole lot of fun, and good way I suppose to sidestep the pressure to follow up
as mammoth a record as When I Was Born
for the 7th Time. Beck
also is in the process of following up a (even bigger) monster hit record, and
somewhat split the difference. In
retrospect, Mutations was probably the
real follow-up, the one that pointed
toward Beck’s future development, and Midnite
Vultures the slight party-record. Not
that Midnite Vultures isn’t
a fantastically dense, meticulously-crafted party record (splitting the
difference between P-Funk and Prince), though.
It just somehow feels less ambitious than either Odelay or Mutations, in
that it doesn’t really press musical frontiers either for Beck personally or
music generally. Still a great party record,
though; think of it as Beck’s version of a Black Grape record.
Outside of the more
beat-driven scene, rock music, especially in the mainstream, is downright grey
in its conservatism. My mainstream rock
this year is mostly grunge leftovers, all of which are pretty good, but few of
which really get me all that excited. The
Foo Fighters put out another solid but not particularly ambitious record,
turning more and more into the alt-rock version of Tom Petty, consistent &
catchy, but not particularly boundary-pushing.
Also like Tom Petty, there’s a great Foo Fighters greatest hits to
be assembled from their excellent singles, but only the die-hards probably need
the albums. Tom Petty himself actually
moves closer to sounding like the Foo Fighters (or alt-rock more generally),
abandoning the folk-rock of Wildflowers
and the Fleetwood Mac-style power pop of She’s The One for a more stripped and
raw (for Petty) sound; remarkably similar to where the Foos end up by polishing
their sound.
Elsewhere among the grunge
survivors, Chris Cornell’s solo record continues on the
trajectory Soundgarden had been on since Badmotorfinger,
stripping out the metal and playing up the classic rock influences. So his solo debut, far from being a singer-songwriter
record or radical departure, sounds like the follow-up to Down On The Upside that Soundgarden never made themselves; even
more like a 70s-era hard rock band in a Led Zeppelin mode. Cornell is good at this stuff, though, so
that’s fine by me if not as novel as what Soundgarden were
doing. Meanwhile, Pearl Jam reach even
further back than the 70s for their last fluke-y radio hit, a cover of pre-Beatles
early-60s weeper “Last Kiss.”
I love it as a one-off (Vedder, like Cornell, has a voice that can lift
even substandard material if he puts an effort in), though I understand that some
people loathe it.
Among the other
grunge-era survivors, the Stone Temple Pilots have shifted into being a quite
worthy neo-psychedelic hard-pop band.
Not sure why I’d given up on them by 1999, but they’re
the rare band that only got better the later they got into their career, at
least at single-length. Rage Against the
Machine, meanwhile, continue to amaze me insofar as they can sound so innovative
on a song-by-song basis, but taken as a whole their albums are incredibly
interchangeable and sonically predictable.
Like the Foo Fighters, a band where all most people probably need is a
good singles comp, as the albums are all just more of the same variation on the
same formula (and the singles are usually the best tracks).
In the UK, the mainstream
is caught in a late-Brit-pop recursive loop.
Kula Shaker update their sound by stretching their influences all the
way from early Deep Purple to early Yes; fun but nowhere close to
original. The Charlatans similarly continue
to ride a late-60s organ-heavy vibe; less deliberately retro than Kula Shaker
(no sitars, for instance), but also less catchy. And Travis emerge as the first contender to
fill a Bends-shaped hole in the UK
mainstream. They’ll lose out to
Coldplay, of course, but also really set the template, smoothing off the
experimental edges in favor of a moody, languid, guitar-based style that’ll
be the dominant form for UK pop in the next decade.
On the slightly more
ambitious edge of things, there are some bands adding electronic touches to
their otherwise straightahead rock songs.
Gomez, for instance, are basically a roots-rock band with just a light
electronic glaze making them sound more contemporary. This works well for roots-rock, a genre that’s
not know for bold innovation, and gives them a way to tweak the formula just
enough to stand out; also making Liquid
Skin an excellent hangover record, being moody & downtempo, with just a
slightly off feel. Also basically making
roots-rock with electronics added on is Joe Strummer, returning from seemingly
out of nowhere with his first record in a decade. And honestly, he hasn’t changed his mellow
folk-pop sound much from Earthquake
Weather, albeit with some new electronica elements. Not coincidentally, the songs with those
elements most prominent (esp. “Tony Adams” and “Techno D-Day”) are the
best, and also the ones that most recall his old Clash-mate’s
Big Audio Dynamite. BAD, though, was
always more interested in hip-hop than techno, and also more than a little more
daring compositionally. Of course, they sound
incredibly dated today, but so too does Strummer’s record (though less so, being of more
recent vintage).
The best record that you
might still call Brit-pop, though, is the Super Furry Animals’. Guerilla
is probably the zenith of their early pop period, incorporating not only the psych-pop
of their earlier stuff but a much more wide-ranging collection of sounds. At times they show off how they could be a
real electronica band if they wanted to be, at times they dabble in Tropicaliá
or other of-the-moment sounds, and overall sound like an omnivorous pop
beast. It’s all in keeping with my thesis that the
great bands (Beatles, Beasties, Zeppelin, Stones, etc.) are the ones that are
able to be inspired by their contemporaries but incorporate those sounds into
their own without sounding like shameless fad chasers (which, for instance,
Bowie could sound like). Of course, the
band that the SFA most resemble is probably Blur in their Brit-pop days (though
more forward thinking than Blur, who always kept one eye firmly on the mid-60s
past). Blur in their modern incarnation however,
are an entirely different beast altogether, continuing down the path of their
last record into increasingly abstracted and experimental song forms, sounding
more like a modern prog rock band in the
mod of the Beta Band or what Radiohead will become than the Kinks. Recognizable song forms emerge (gospel here,
Brit-pop there, acoustic balladry over here), only to fade back into a sonic stew
including elements of electronica, prog-rock, noise rock, and the like. At times they sound almost in over their
heads (i.e. “Swamp Song”) but at their best they take that sense
of dislocation and turn it into an asset, deliberately creating an atmosphere
of confusion and melancholy that makes 13 remarkably emotionally-driven for
such an experimental record. Better
than, but similar to, the Beta Band’s first long-player, which manages to
sound less coherent than the compilation of their early EPs. There’s a lot going on here, but ultimately,
as they themselves would demonstrate on their later albums, some bands benefit
from being able to engage in long-form songwriting (Yes, Pink Floyd), but some
really need the discipline imposed by pop-song length to compel them to boil
down their ideas to the most essential.
One style isn’t necessarily better than the other, but
the Betas sound a bit adrift at times given a whole LP to work with, and they’ll
be much better once they recognized the constraints that produce their best work.
Interesting,
then, to segue to the American quasi-prog/neo-grunge of Built to Spill and
Modest Mouse, both of whom are moving out of long-form construction and into
more concise song forms. Built to Spill
make this move earlier (at least on record), condensing their ranging epics
down to generally single-length tracks.
Not obviously an improvement (as it will be for the Betas), but an
evolution; certainly more immediately accessible. Also makes them sound even more like a
smoother Dinosaur Jr. Modest Mouse aren’t
so far along on their own similar journey, and don’t have a new
album this year, though their BBC Sessions show that they’re
starting to condense what were side-long multi-song epics on The Lonesome Crowded West into
considerably shorter packages.
Elsewhere
in the indie-pop scene, the orchestrated folk-pop sound continues to dominate
on both sides of the Atlantic. In the
US, the Magnetic Fields lean especially heavily on Loaded-era Velvet Underground in a deep but not exactly broad
survey of folk-pop circa 1966-1972. In
the UK, another Ffa Coffi Pawb spin-off, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci unsurprisingly recall
the early Super Furry Animals, albeit in a more mellow, acoustic mood, again leaning
heavily on the folk-pop of ’66-’72 (albeit with a touch of actual
folk-rock of the Pentangle variety); pretty but unsubstantial. Much better, but in the same general vein, is
the new album from the Flaming Lips.
Continuing the shift begun on the (largely unheard) Zaireeka, the Lips move into a softer, more orchestrated sound that’ll
set the tone for their ‘00s work. They do this much better than most of the Pet Sounds-worshiping crowd, though,
through a willingness to move beyond simple homage, incorporating both more
modern production flourishes (down to R&B producer remixes of two songs)
and a big drum sound that recalls John Bonham’s, though in no other way does The Soft Bulletin sound at all like
Zeppelin.
It’s
almost perverse but logical that Matthew Sweet will respond to all these
attempts to remake Pet Sounds by
attempting to remake Buffalo Springfield Again. He’d always had a Neil Young influence,
albeit more 70s Neil, but here Sweet really sounds like he’s
attempting to make post-Brian Wilson pop in a vein very similar to Young. What I mean by this, I suppose, is that the
strings and found sounds are incorporated into a more sturdy power-pop base
(Beatles-recalling at times as well, just as the Springfield recalled the
Beatles), and that his epics are driven much more by solo singing and more
aggressive and foregrounded playing than the Beach Boys’ harmonies. Nice to hear Sweet again pressing his
power-pop in new directions after two consecutive attempts to remake Girlfriend threatened to box him in a
corner.
The
last of the ambitious rock albums I have to talk about this year is Wilco’s
Summerteeth. Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot gets all the press, of course, but Summerteeth is really the moment Wilco decisively abandon
alt-country. Like the Flaming Lips, they’re
firmly grounded in the pop sounds of the late ‘60s but more wide-ranging in their
sounds than the more strictly-revivalist indie-poppers. So there are flourishes of soul, jazzy piano,
song suites, and, of course, some moody alt-country. Too ambitious to just be called “Americana,”
but still firmly grounded in American music; given the album’s
relatively unpretentious and unselfconscious ambition, it may be Wilco’s
best. Of course, elsewhere, alt-country
is continuing to go strong in a more traditional mode. Chief on this front are the Old 97s, who even
manage to get some modern-rock radioplay this year with a really strong set of
roots-rockin’ tunes. Also in
alt-country, the band that’ll be the major carrier of the
alt-country flame into the ‘00s, My Morning Jacket get their
start. At the beginning, it’s
mostly straightahead alt-country, a bit sluggish maybe but lifted by strong
vocals, though even at this point there are hints that My Morning Jacket will
end up moving in a more arty/Wilco-y direction.
Finally,
out of sight of the mainstream, we do get some hints at the upcoming “garage-rock
revival.” To a degree, this
makes sense; 1999 is the latest in a series of years weak on straightahead rock
music. This year there’s
the Foo Fighters, the tired trad Britpop bands, and not much else to just kick
out the jams without getting into prog-rock or folk-rock or country-rock or electronica-rock
or whatever. So out on the margins, we
see these bands starting to form. The
White Stripes, unfortunately, have their vices in place earlier than their
virtues. They’re already
self-consciously arty and minimalist, but by a good margin the best songs on
their debut are the covers. Also, as an
aside, I’ve always found the minimalism of the likes of the White
Stripes and Rage Against the Machine a little ridiculous: the White Stripes won’t add a bass
and Rage are always just bass-guitar-drums, but what’s the point if
that just means you add effect pedals to make your guitar sound like a bass or
harmonica or whatever? No one but you
cares; just pick up a bass and a harmonica (the latter, especially, are pretty
cheap!). But anyway, far less
pretentious garage-rock is out there to be found, albeit not anywhere near the
mainstream. Lowell, MA’s
the Shods, for instance, are an excellent garage-punk band who got zero airplay
even in the Boston area, as far as I know, but are the first (and not the last)
band where I bought their CD immediately after being impressed by them as an opening
band. Don’t miss the opening bands, people! You can find some really excellent bands that
way! And if they’re
ridiculously terrible, then at least you’ve got a good story….
Song of the
Year: The Flaming Lips –
“Waiting
For A Superman.” Really sets the
template for the soft-rock Lips of the ‘00s, and shows all the indie-poppers how
to make 60s folk-pop more than just empty revivalism.
Album of
the Year: Blur –
13.
See above. Also, it shows
that Blur (along with the Beta Band and arguably R.E.M. circa. New Adventures in Hi-Fi) beat Radiohead
to the punch, making Kid A sound less
like bold innovation and more like Radiohead playing catch-up. I’d also argue that 13 trumps Kid A as a
listening experience, offering a richer palette both musically and
emotionally. Also, if I’m
going to pick a runner-up, it’ll be Handsome Boy Modeling School’s
So, How’s Your Girl?, which was really the state-of-the-art in
hip-hop circa 1999.
Artist Most
Benefiting from Reevaluation: Probably
the Stone Temple Pilots. I’d
dismissed them along with the rest of rock radio at the time, but they’d
actually become a really solid singles act.
I found myself looking forward to the new Stone Temple Pilots (meaning
what they’d put out in ’99, not the reunited band) in doing this
project more than I ever did at the time.
Artist Most
Diminished in Reevaluation: Joe
Strummer. It saddens me to say this, as
I do love me some Joe Strummer, but really the difference between Rock Art & The X-Ray Style and Earthquake Weather (a record I find a
bit dull) is in the production, not the songwriting. Now, I like the production style of the late ‘90s,
but in retrospect, Strummer’s a bit insubstantial this year. He’ll get better later, though.
Album List
Backstreet Boys - Millennium
Basement Jaxx - Remedy
Beck - Midnite Vultures
Beck - Misc.
Blackalicious - A2G
Blur - 13
Blur - 13 B-Sides
Blur - Coffee & TV [Single]
Blur - The Best Of
Blur - Wedding Songs
Bob Dylan - Million Miles: Live Recordings,
1997-1999
Bob Dylan - The Lonely Graveyard of My Mind - RPI
2 Feb 1999
Boozoo Chavis - Who Stole My Monkey?
Bruce Springsteen - 18 Tracks
Built To Spill - Keep It Like A Secret
Charlatans UK - Us And Us Only
Cheap Trick - The Authorized Greatest Hits
Chris Cornell - Euphoria Morning
Clifton Chenier - Clifton Chenier And His Red Hot
Louisiana Band In New Orlean
Clinton - Disco and the Halfway To Discontent
David Bowie - Best Of Bowie
Destiny's Child - The Writing's On The Wall
Dr. Dre - 2001
Dropkick Murphys - The Singles Collection, Vol. 2
Elliott Smith - Misc.
Foo Fighters - There Is Nothing Left To Lose
Gomez - Liquid Skin
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Spanish Dance Troupe
Handsome Boy Modeling School - So How's Your Girl...
Joe Strummer - Rock Art & The X-Ray Style
Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash - 16 Biggest Hits
Kool Keith - Black Elvis/ Lost In Space
Kula Shaker - Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts
Manic Street Preachers - Forever Delayed
Matthew Sweet - In Reverse
Megadeth - Greatest Hits: Back To The Start
(Digital Only)
Moby - Play
Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica [Bonus
Tracks]
Mos Def - Black On Both Sides
My Morning Jacket - The Tennessee Fire
Old 97's - Hit By A Train: The Best Of Old 97's
Out Hud - Misc.
Pearl Jam - Christmas Singles
Pearl Jam - Lost Dogs
Rage Against The Machine - The Battle Of Los
Angeles
Richard Thompson - Action Packed: The Best Of The
Capitol Years
Richard Thompson - Misc.
Santana - Supernatural
Social Distortion - Misc.
Stereolab - Serene Velocity - A Stereolab
Anthology
Stone Temple Pilots - Thank You
Super Furry Animals - Guerrilla
Super Furry Animals - Super Furry Animals Songbook
The Apples (In Stereo) - Misc.
The Beastie Boys - The Sounds Of Science
The Beta Band - The Beta Band
The Cranberries - The Best Of The Cranberries 20th
Century Masters The Millennium Collection
The Fall - 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong: 39
Golden Greats
The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin Companion
The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs, Vol. 1
The Mekons - I Have Been to Heaven and Back...,
Vol. 1
The Mekons - Where Were You?
The Mountain Goats - Misc.
The New Minstrels Of The Rhine - American Branches
- German Roots
The Notorious B.I.G. - Notorious
The Roots - The Roots Come Alive
The Roots - Things Fall Apart
The Roots - Things Fall Apart [Explicit]
The Shods - Thanks For Nuthin'
The White Stripes - The White Stripes
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Echo
Travis - The Man Who
V/A - Snatch
Wilco - Summerteeth
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