2000

                Much to my surprise, after years of hip-hop being the most exciting thing out there, and rock being increasingly tired, rock comes back in a big way in 2000.  And not just the fractured art-rock that populated the margins of 1999, but more-or-less straightahead focused-on-the-gut rock.  Now, this isn’t entirely a good thing; a lot of this is clichéd or not particularly original, but it is a notable change in the focus of activity.  And, for what it’s worth, it’s virtually all better than the forgettable likes of Matchbox 20 or the disposable likes of the boy bands; and it’s not all in the underground either.  U2 and the garage-rockers especially make a bit of a dent in the mainstream; it’s not 1991 all over again (or even close – either in impact or originality), but it does put rock performed with a bit of energy back into the popular consciousness for a bit.

                This return to straightforward rocking is mostly a negative for some of the biggest bands in the world.  U2, Oasis, and Pearl Jam are all back this year, and all playing it safe, sticking to their core sonic template.  For both U2 and Oasis, this follows the biggest flop record of their careers.  In a sense, U2 and Oasis are now following the Pearl Jam template: retreating from their period of experimentation and refocusing on the sound of their “classic” period, settling into a new role as craftsmen rather than boundary-pushers.  Oasis fit this pattern even more closely than U2: the same year as they release their first “craftsman” record (Yield for Pearl Jam, Standing On The Shoulder of Giants for Oasis), they also release their first (for Oasis only to date) live album.  I suspect this is not coincidental; as bands retreat from the Beatles model of relentless experimentation to a model based on perfecting a craft, the live show probably becomes an increasingly important component.  Also like Pearl Jam, Oasis haven’t entirely retreated from experimentation, dabbling with little touches here and there, most notably on the surprisingly successful big-beat attempt “Fucking In The Bushes”, following on Noel’s repeated evidence of fascination with electronica sounds (Chemical Bros. collaborations, his solo X-Files track, etc.).   So all three of these records sound fine while playing them, but none are particularly encouraging going forward.  U2 probably have the most memorable songs, but are the biggest disappointment, as this marks the end of two decades of relentless boundary-pushing: this is the end for me & U2.  Pearl Jam & Oasis, though, I’ll continue to keep tabs on to the present day, as they, like New Order before them, retain just enough flashes of the exciting band they were in their youth to keep me listening.

                Moving away from the big bands, there’s a mini-alt/indie resurgence in the US.  Phish continue their trajectory of steadily sounding more and more like they care about their albums, from the jam-session of Junta to the downright concise Farmhouse.  Rootsy, but too bouncy & rhythmically playful to get grouped with the alt-country folks, who Phish really recall here are a rootsier Cake, or a less lyrically-focused Camper Van Beethoven.  Also tightening up their structures are both Spoon and the Dandy Warhols.  The Warhols’ album this year also tossed out a minor hit, and is a one-lp dictionary of alt-rock styles, from Beck-like pounders to shoegaze drones to 70s-rock revivalism to alt-country roots; much more eclectic and with much better songwriting than their debut, certainly.  Spoon are less eclectic, but also tighten up their songwriting, moving to tight soul-pop groove.

                Elsewhere in US indie-rock, the 60s pop-rock influences remain strong.  Both the New Pornographers and the Apples In Stereo work very hard to keep the spirit of ’66 alive with their tight pop-rock.  The New Pornos sound a bit more contemporary, unlike the retro-obsessed (and more orchestrated) Apples.  Also from the Elephant-6 collective (which includes the Apples and Neutral Milk Hotel) is an album from Elf Power, who sound a lot like the Apples but with more of an interest in orchestrated arrangements and less interest in big pop hooks. 

                Not too far off, I suppose, from the psych-pop of the Super Furry Animals, who push the dense arrangements but tone up the rock and down the techno influences on their Welsh-language Mwng.  If the Super Furries are toning down the electronic elements, though, Gomez are turning them up, increasingly sounding like they’re a more moderate group of Primal Scream followers (in their melding of classic rock sounds with contemporary beat).  Gomez are more the Band to Primal Scream’s Rolling Stones, though; more roots-conscious and not as rhythmically adventurous.  The third big Brit-pop record this year is Supergrass’s third, which melds the Buzzcocksy rush of their debut with the more experimental tendencies of their second.  This led a lot of people to mistake Supergrass for a garage-rock revival band, not least because they scored their first significant US airplay this year, but it’s really just a continuation of the psych-pop-punk sound they’d been working since the peak of Brit-pop. 
                The garage-rock revival proper, meanwhile, begins in earnest this year.  Last year’s White Stripes debut was arguably the first record in this mini-boom, but the White Stripes are not yet at the forefront in the public eye.  Their second record, though, is a decided improvement over the rather aimless debut, with songwriting tightening but without the eclecticism that’ll make their later records worth noticing.  The face of garage-rock revival this year, though, is the Strokes, a band I have decidedly mixed feelings about.  On the one hand, they offend my punk-rock side, as they clearly captured the public eye through a combination of their fashion-model looks and fashion-industry connections.  They’re worthy, with good songs, but so are (for instance) the Shod up in Boston and a hundred other bands that you & I have never heard of because they didn’t have the connections.  They’re also a bit too mannered to really capture the energy of true garage rock, and there’s just a bit too much poise and calculation.  I don’t want to trash them too much, though: Is This It? is a solid little record, with solid tunes; I just think it’s a bit overhyped.  Much better, to my ears, are the Hives: they’ve got the image-conscious pose of the Strokes & White Stripes (and the class of ’77 Brit-punks for that matter), but also really bring the garage-rock proper: high-energy pop-rock torn through with punk speed if not punk aggression.  Not a whole lot of stylistic variety, but you don’t really notice because the energy/fun is high (and they do have slight electronic flourishes which mark them as not so slavishly retro).

                Also from Sweden, and splitting the difference between fellow Swedes Refused and the Hives, are the (International) Noise Conspiracy, who mix the progressive hardcore of Refused with the more straightforward rocking of the Hives.  This year they fit in well with the garage-revivalists, standing out not so much sonically as because, with a clear left political agenda (also borrowing from Refused) they actually seem to offer substance in constrast to garage-rock’s almost glam-rock-worthy triumph of style over substance.  By next year they’ll fit more solidly exclusively in the hardcore/post-hardcore world, which is also quite active this year.  Among the more straight hardcore are the Dropkicks, who downplay both the Celtic and Clash-heavy elements of their sound, recalling the Bosstones when they drop the ska out of their sound: hardcore with some metallic elements.  Rancid take a similar path; in a radical about face from their last LP’s sonic adventurousness, Rancid strip out not only the ska, but also the Clash elements of their sound, leaving them an instrumentally tight but minimalist hardcore group.  Better than, say, Minor Threat (influence/lyrics not counting), but not nearly as exciting as either the pinnacle of 80s hardcore (the Minutemen & Black Flag) or what they were up to on their last outing.  Speaking of 80s hardcore, Bad Religion are back again, with their most dramatic expansion of their sound since their long-suppressed prog-rock 2^nd album.  Ironically, their gradual evolution has brought them to a point not too far removed from that album.  Though they’re still recognizably Bad Religion, they’ve also shown an impressive willingness to open up their sonic textures to include almost-pop elements.

                Not hardcore, but clearly indebted to it (esp. the Refused-model post-hardcore) are a clutch of new noise-rock bands.  Somewhat surprisingly, Blur guitarist Graham Coxon fits in here, with his (perhaps trying too hard) second solo LP; churning post-punk guitar (2 Mission of Burma covers) that sometimes makes it sound like he’s substituting guitar skronk for actual punk cred.  Fun, though.  Also fits well next to a couple of more explicitly leftie and agro bands that borrow heavily from Refused.  McLusky, despite being also part of the Welsh scene, sound very little like any other bands I’ve covered (the most like Manic Street Preachers, but only insofar as they sound nothing like the Super Furries).  Aggressive, angry rock; like Coxon, it sometimes sounds like they’re trying a bit too hard to be abrasive, though.  Better are the American At The Drive-In, who mix Refused and Rage Against The Machine into their pummeling assault.  This kind of intensity-for-intensity’s sake isn’t really my cup of tea, but they do it well, being technically proficient enough to show that, while intensity is a goal in itself, they’re not using noise to cover a lack of talent.  Rage themselves, by the way, end their run with covers-album; perhaps unsurprisingly, covering other peoples’ songs produces the greatest stylistic variance of any Rage album.  It all still unmistakably sounds like Rage, but there are still differences between, say, the hip-hop songs and the psych/garage-rock songs.  Somewhat surprisingly, the hip-hop songs do much better in Rage’s hands than the psych-rock; Rage can do hard-hitting well, but they can’t capture the sloppiness of the Stooges or MC5.  Quite surprisingly, the best song of them all is their Springsteen cover.  (and between Rage’s “Tom Joad” cover and Springsteen’s own “41 Shots,” a good year for Springsteen’s image as populist rabble-rouser).

                Also fitting generally in with the post-hardcore noise-rockers are Primal Scream, who undergo yet another radical makeover, shifting from the dubby trip-hop vibe of Vanishing Point to a much more aggressive techno-punk style.  They go much deeper down the techno path than, say, Refused, recalling at times the likes of the Chemical Bros. (who do some remixing) or an updated version of the old industrial bands (i.e. Ministry).  Who they probably owe the most to, however, are the Fall in their own beat-heavy incarnation (esp. “Free Range,” which the Primals re-write as their own song this year).  Also, somewhat surprisingly, both Mani of the Stone Roses and Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine show up on the album, making Primal Scream something of an old-folks-home for late-80s early-90s British indie; though they sound nothing like the mellower sounds that dominated in that period.

                Also getting an electronic makeover, though in a much less aggressive vein, are Radiohead.  As I mentioned last year, the likes of R.E.M.’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi and (especially) Blur’s 13 approached this sound earlier, though neither was as radical a shift (R.E.M. because they didn’t go all-in, Blur because Blur served as a bridge between Brit-pop and moody neo-prog).  Still, two things I don’t want to miss in raising that point.  One, it’s a radical shift for Radiohead, who, when we last heard from them, sounded mostly like a 70s prog band that wandered into the alt-rock era.  In fact, they probably go further than even Blur, since there’s virtually nothing that sounds like their old sound, and 13 at least had “Coffee & TV.”  Secondly, it’s a very good album.  If anything, it’s been so overshadowed by being an “important” album, that it’s easy to forget how well it sets its tone and how good some of the individual songs are (others do, admittedly, wander into Eno-esque pretty-but-boring ambient territory). 

                Radiohead are far from the only band continuing down this electronica-rock fusion path, of course.  Blur continue to mine the sound of 13, even if the tone of their non-album single “Music Is My Radar,” is considerably more upbeat than the moody despair of both 13 and Kid A.  The Smashing Pumpkins also continue to fade into obscurity by pressing their own electronica-enhanced sound.  Unlike Pearl Jam, though, I’m not sure this was a deliberate retreat from the spotlight.  It’s also interesting to note just how much the Pumpkins make more sense in a UK context than in the US, where they were always (incorrectly) treated as a grunge band.

                Within the realm of actual electronica, Air’s influence remains strong, as the likes of St. Germain and (DC’s own) Thievery Corporation continue on to follow Air’s model of mellow exotica with electronic beats.  This stuff is pleasant enough while it’s playing, but a lot of time it sounds like production without a song underneath. 

                On the other hand, while there’s lite-electronica without prog, there’s also grungy prog without electronica (and the likes of Radiohead & Blur in the middle).  But Modest Mouse, while they borrow Krautrock rhythms on one track (“Tiny Cities Made of Ashes”), otherwise are painting with the same grunge palette they’ve been using.  The Moon & Antarctica isn’t the shift to shorter, single-length forms that Built to Spill’s Keep It like A Secret was; rather, it’s a refinement of The Lonesome Crowded West’s grunge-prog.  Smoothing out the rough edges, while making it more palatable for the indie kids, though, loses a little of the ragged manic energy of their last one.  But still they’re writing in long-form, so there’s that.

                Within the realm of roots-rock, it seems we’ve reached the end of alt-country.  The Jayhawks continue the shift to less country-based Americana pop that they began on their last one, moving in parallel with Wilco’s similar move last year.  The other alt-country bands are mostly silent this year.   In their place, however, is a resurgence in the older singer-songwriter tradition.  This obviously overlaps somewhat with alt-country, as demonstrated by ex-Whiskeytown frontman Ryan Adams recasting himself in a very early-Dylan mode (think Another Side of Bob Dylan – bare-bones guitar & vocal arrangements, personal rather than political lyrics).  Even when he rocks up his sound on two tracks, he owes a lot to Bringing It All Back Home/Highway 61 Revisited Dylan (and fits in well with the garage-revivalists).  A lot of these singer-songwriters are far less roots-focused, though.  Both Elliott Smith and Aimee Mann are much more piano-based, and interested in more 70s-style full-band soft-rock styles (by no means am I using “soft-rock” pejoratively here; it’s just that you wouldn’t call either of them folk-rock, and neither really “rock”). 

Even further away from folk-rock are the Eeels.  They’ve been around since ’96 or so, but on this year’s Daisies of the Galaxy, really stake their claim as both a fine part of the singer-songwriter tradition and the best of the Beck followers (not counting Cornershop, who are more Beck fellow-travelers).  I suppose I should say “his claim,” as the Eels are basically the one-man band of E, who does an excellent job of mixing the outré sonics of Beck (esp. circa Mutations) with the moody singer-songwriter tone of Elliott Smith; also, he gets a well-deserved minor hit with “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues,” one of the last radio singles to really capture the anything-goes spirit of early 90s alt-rock radio. 

                Of course, there’s also folk-rock singer-songwriter stuff going on as well.  A good sampler of the new-school singer-songwriters can be found on Sub-Pop’s Badlands, one of the more worthy of tribute album fad of the late ‘90s, a song-by-song cover of Springsteen’s Nebraska (and a few other songs) featuring a lot of the leading lights of the new singer-songwriter wave, as well as a few oldsters, most notably Johnny Cash, who absolutely makes “I’m On Fire” his own (if not to the degree that he took ownership of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”).  Cash, of course, has been deep into his covers-heavy American Music project for awhile now, and keeps going this year.  This puts him in good company with a clutch of older singer-songwriters, both country (Willie Nelson) and folk-rock (Neil Young) who put out quality records this year.  Young, it’s worth noting, is on a deep nostalgia trip, both recalling the sound of Harvest Moon and eulogizing the Buffalo Springfield.  An abrupt shift from his grunge trilogy, but not unexpected from our man Young.  Among the slightly younger (but still veteran) singer-songwriters, Patti Smith and Billy Bragg are both back, though Bragg is continuing (with Wilco) on the Mermaid Avenue series of Woody Guthrie covers.  Good stuff, if not exactly stretching Bragg’s sonic template.                  Also, it’s worth noting, the godhead of the modern-singer-songwriter tradition, Bob Dylan, has another single this year.  “Things Have Changed” in retrospect is a bit of a fake-out, as it suggests that Dylan’s likely to continue down the darker, atmospheric path of Time Out Of Mind (on which album this track would fit like a glove).

                Within proper folk, this is the year where young America discovers bluegrass in a big way, thanks to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, a mix of bluegrass & folk songs both old and new, and thoroughly enjoyable.  It’s also the recorded debut of Rutland, Vermont contra band the Saltash Serenaders, familiarity with whom meant that this blogger got to be all snobby about the bluegrass revival, as I’d been listening to this kind of music since I was a child (this, in no small part, is of course because this is band of the father of both me and (by a reasonably estimate) 40% of my readership).

                Adjacent to old-school folk (at least in America) is, of course, the blues.  And this year the mini-hill-country blues revival continues apace.  Last year I talked about how the likes of Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside played this music with the authority that came from living with it for decades.  This year a group of youngsters (including Burnside’s son) show that younger bands can play this music well also.  The North Mississippi All-Stars sound positively out of time in 2000, fitting in no particular scene except that of old men half a century their seniors.  They’ll eventually find a home with the jam-bands, and shift their sound accordingly, but here on their debut they’re just straight up hill-blues, with perhaps just a sight hint of jammier tendencies.  Like Cream, if Cream a) actually were blues purists and b) had actual blues credibility. 

                Of course, being young and playing roots-rock puts you in an interesting position.  You can play it straight like the Allstars do, which can be compelling but also forces you to place limits on the sounds you’re willing to experiment with.  Alternately, you can take the Gomez route, mixing contemporary sounds but at the cost of an air of authenticity.  And there’s not really a middle ground.  If, however, your authenticity/credibility is unimpeachable, you have a lot more room to maneuver.  It’s why the Clash could mutate into a dub band and still be beloved by the punks, and it’s why (this year) R.L. Burnside can continue to experiment with modern beat-making grafted onto his sound without sacrificing an air of authenticity.  Last time out, he was playing with techno/electronica beats, while this year he’s moved on to more hip-hop beats.  This probably works even better, hip-hop obviously owing more of a sonic debt to the blues than the highly European roots (and deliberate lack of swing) of electronica. 

                Of course, hip-hop and electronica aren’t impossibly far apart, and one of the (many) exciting things about Outkast’s Stankonia is the way that André 3000 bridges those two worlds, most notably on “Bombs Over Baghdad.”  Outkast pull off a pretty remarkable trick on Stankonia, not only building on but surpassing Aquemeni¸ and bridging all kinds of hip-hop worlds, from the political to the party-rap, and from the underground to the more mainstream (and you didn’t get much more mainstream than the inescapable “Ms. Jackson”).  It’s always impressive when a band can pull off the trick of surpassing their career-breakthrough record by deepening & expanding.  At their peak Outkast was not only one of the most popular acts out there, but one of the best as well, as sonically daring as any of the more outré rock acts and effortlessly accessible besides. 

Elsewhere, another pretty solid year in hip-hop as well.  New albums from Blackalicious and Talib Kweli build on their earlier successes.  Blackalicous’s debut album, like Daft Punk’s a couple of years ago, was preceded by years of EPs and singles, but proved worth the wait.  It’s unmistakably a Solesides/Quanuum production, all laid-back organ funk and old-school grooves, but with some really remarkable flow and lyrical content.  Talib Kweli’s solo debut, meanwhile, sounds even closer to Black Star than Mos. Def’s; unsurprisingly so, since Kweli keeps Black Star’s producer (Hi-Tek), and since Black Star got started as a Kweli solo album that evolved into a duo once he started partnering with Def.  So decidedly old-school beats with excellent flow; the formula worked like gangbusters on Black Star, and it works almost as well here (demerits only because I miss Mos. Def…).       

                But the most remarkable album in hip-hop this year (and indeed, in music more generally) is Del tha Funkee Hompsapian and Dan the Automator’s collaborative hip-hopera, Deltron 3030.  To a degree a sequel to Dr. Octogon, though much more successful than Kook Keith’s own attempt (Black Elvis/Lost In Space).  To a degree also a prelude of Gorillaz, esp. on those tracks where Damon Albarn provides his haunted backing vocals.  But most of all, a fantastic world to live inside.  Automator’s classical training really shows off here, esp. on the epic title track, but also in a really solid structure throughout, including old-school boom-bap, hockey-rink-organ rockers, and more.  And an almost coherent story besides.    

Song of the Year:  Deltron – “3030.”  Hip-hop is many things, but it rarely sounds epic.  This pulls off that trick, though, without sounding ponderous or pretentious.  And it shows that Automator can be at least as cinematic as DJ Shadow was on Psyence Fiction. 

Album of the Year:  Deltron – 3030.  In case the Song of the Year pick and the last paragraph above weren’t clues, I pretty unreservedly love Deltron.  This album is not just Automator’s peak (my favorite hip-hop producer), not just the peak of the space-rap mini-genre, but to my mind the single greatest hip-hop full-length album of them all.    

Artist Most Benefiting from Reevaluation:  Elf Power.  They’re not Apples In Stereo, which is I think what I was hoping they would be when I first encountered them, but they’re quite good in their own right, and much better than, say, Neutral Milk Hotel.  It makes me think I should check out more of the E-6 bands…

Artist Most Diminished in Reevaluation:  Graham Coxon, possibly?  It just seems like he’s trying a bit too hard to recast himself as a punk & noise-rocker.  Still, he’s pretty good at it, so this is another year where I don’t have a really strong contender for this category.

Album List

AC/DC - AC/DC

Aimee Mann - Bachelor No. 2

Al Green - The Absolute Best

At The Drive-In - Relationship of Command

Automator - A Much Better Tomorrow

Bad Religion - New America

Belle & Sebastian - Misc.

Billy Bragg - Must I Paint You A Picture?: The Essential Billy Bragg

Blackalicious - Nia

Blur - Music Is My Radar

Blur - The Best Of

Bob Dylan - Live 1961-2000: Thirty-Nine Years of Great Concert Performances

Bob Dylan - Time Out Of Mind

Brian Wilson - Brian Wilson

Bruce Springsteen - The Essential Bruce Springsteen

Built to Spill - Misc.

Daft Punk - Musique Vol 1

Damien Jurado & Rose Thomas - Badlands: A Tribute To Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska

Deltron  - 3030
Devo - Pioneers Who Got Scalped: The Anthology

Dropkick Murphys - The Singles Collection, Vol. 2

Eels - Daisies Of The Galaxy

Elf Power - The Winter Is Coming

Elliott Smith - Figure 8

Gomez - Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline

Gomez - Machismo EP

Graham Coxon - The Golden D

Jill Scott - Who Is Jill Scott? (Words And Sounds Vol. 1)

Johnny Cash - American III: Solitary Man

King Crimson - Live 1994-2003

Manic Street Preachers - Forever Delayed

Matchbox Twenty - Mad Season

Matthew Sweet - Misc.

Mclusky - Mcluskyism

Megadeth - Greatest Hits: Back To The Start (Digital Only)

Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica [Bonus Tracks]

'N Sync - No Strings Attached

Neil Young - Silver & Gold

New Order - Retro

North Mississippi Allstars - Shake Hands With Shorty

Oasis - B-Sides

Oasis - Familiar To Millions

Oasis - Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants

Outkast - Stankonia

Patti Smith - Outside Society

Pearl Jam - Binaural

Pearl Jam - Christmas Singles

Pearl Jam - Lost Dogs

Phish - Farmhouse

Pogues - Misc.

Primal Scream - Shoot Speed (More Dirty Hits)

Primal Scream - XTRMNTR

Pulp - Pulpintro: The Gift Recordings

R.L. Burnside - Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down

Radiohead - Kid A

Rage Against The Machine - Renegades

Rancid - Rancid [2000]

Richard Thompson - Misc.

Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers - Liz's Best of Compliation for Her Wonderful Husband

Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker

Smashing Pumpkins - Rotten Apples: Greatest Hits

Spoon - Girls Can Tell

St. Germain - Tourist

Super Furry Animals - Mwng

Super Furry Animals - Super Furry Animals Songbook

Supergrass - Supergrass

Talib Kweli - Reflection Eternal

The (International) Noise Conspiracy - Misc.

The Apples (In Stereo) - The Discovery Of A World Inside The Moone

The Coup - Steal This Album

The Dandy Warhols - 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia

The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin Companion

The Hives - Veni Vidi Vicious

The Jayhawks - Music From The North Country: The Jayhawks Anthology

The Jayhawks - Smile

The Mekons - Misc.

The Mountain Goats - Misc.

The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic

The Saltash Serenaders - Songs From The Next County

The Solesides Crew - Solesides Rarest Bumps

The Specials - Skinhead Girl

The Strokes - Is This It?

The White Stripes - De Stijl

The Who - Pete Townshend - Lifehouse Elements

Thievery Corporation - The Mirror Conspiracy

U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind

U2 - B-Sides 1990-2000

U2 - The Best Of 1990-2000

V/A - 12 Classic 45s

V/A - O Brother, Where Art Thou?

V/A - Snatch

Willie Nelson - Me And The Drummer

Wu-Tang Clan - Wu: The Story Of The Wu-Tang Clan

Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out

Yo La Tengo - Prisoners Of Love