“You should have shot yourself in the foot when it was in your mouth.” – My
favorite line from “Freeze,” the closest thing to a marketable single on this album.
I’m not
the only person I know who likes this album (far from it, actually), but I’m the only person I’ve met who loves
this album. Considering how it was my first real exposure to the “backpacker” subculture, that isn’t too
much of a surprise. What isn’t there to love about troubled, mysterious MCs who rap about cultural minutia over unconventional
beats?
There’s a lot not to love, considering how much “indie” hip-hop splintered this decade. I don’t know
how the hell Epitaph, one of my favorite 90’s punk labels (I didn’t really know better back then… they
had Rancid! Eh? Eh?), became a hip-hop powerhouse. My other favorite white MC, Sage Francis, helmed that flagship. Meanwhile,
Jaime Meline and Ian Bavitz built an empire of nerdy white thug hip-hop (with a Can-Ox or Murs thrown in for good afro-measure).
Bavitz himself went through a ton of psychological shit after his 2001 breakthrough Labor Days. So much, that Bazooka
Tooth would go down as his “angry,” “inaccessible,” or “murky” album. Honestly, declaring
“cameras or guns, one of y’alls gonna shoot me to death” at the top of “Easy” is arrogant, but
you can see where he’s coming from after 5 minutes of questionably produced beats and rhymes about tearing the beating
hearts out of paper dolls labeled with the names of shitty rap artists.
Yes, Bazooka Tooth left a lot
of his “long-time” (read: college kids whose friends emailed them an mp3 of “Daylight” or “No
Regrets” in 2001) fans scratching their heads, but to someone like me who was too busy listening to Radiohead and the
Smiths around that time, it was fascinating. I didn’t feel any kinship with Bavitz, and I still don’t. Hell, I
didn’t even know he was white until a few months after I first heard this. The dark, twisted world that Aesop’s
alter ego Bazooka Tooth inhabits makes perfect sense when folded between these strange beats, electronic noises, and off-signature
rhymes. His subject matter is more obscure than on his previous work, and his references are certainly nerdier, but he seems
to be coming to terms with this downward spiral. The unconventional production style he brings threw some people off, but
it doesn’t mean it was any less quality or less interesting when it came out in ‘03. Just don’t put this
on in mixed company. “Omigod did he just make a ‘Weakest Link’ reference?”
Ben Foster, despite doing everything possible to alienate people who grew up listening religiously to
his music with Screeching Weasel and the Riverdales, still has a decent ear. I think that part of it still stems from his
hatred of hippies and Obama supporters. Not that his angry defense of Sarah Palin or other ignorant right-wing talking points
are really worth getting up in arms over, but if there’s one thing I agree with the man about, it’s that The Leftovers
may be one of the greatest bands in the world.
I saw drummer Adam Woronoff on tour with the Queers in early 2007, but I didn’t remember the name of the other band
he told me he played in. It wasn’t until I was surfing Ben Weasel’s blog for more stuff to get angry about that
I found a testimonial to the underrated quality of Portland, Maine, and this phenomenal young band from that cozy New England
city. I checked out this album, and to my amazement and continued astonishment, the trio of 20-year-olds at the time did everything
right. The production is oustanding, the vocals are excellent, and even the least hooky songs (“Please Tell Me”
and “Lose Your Head”) are hookier than most pop-punk bands’ hookiest piece of hookery. Singer/bassist Kurt
Baker has a remarkably good grip on completely goofy charm, cementing their pop-punk cred. He’s also got some kind of
white boy ‘fro.
An interesting thing about the Leftovers is how old-fashioned they
are. The would-be power pop smash hits (if there were any goddamn justice in this world) “Pick and Choose” and
“Dance With Me” are two great examples of this. There are very few songs on here that wouldn't have made sense
in some 1950’s sock-hop, so it’s fitting that the Leftovers occasionally do oldies-cover nights up in Maine and
Massachusetts.
So, what else can you say about a near-perfect power pop album? The hooks hook mercilessly, the
guitars crunch, and the drums pound, and what rolls out is one of the very best pure pop albums produced by anyone this decade.
It's probably the best album to ever come out of Maine...? Probably? I wouldn't bet against it.
Oppenheimer, a Mutt & Jeff-type synth’d duo from Belfast, provide the focal point of one
of my favorite feel-good, get-your-ass-off-the-couch stories of the decade. In the fall of 2006, I was disappointed that I
hadn’t made it out to see any shows at Galaxy Hut, one of my favorite Arlington bars. I looked on their website to see who was playing, and all I saw was this group from Northern
Ireland called Oppenheimer, and some band from Jersey whose name eludes me. I forced myself to leave the house to walk about
15 minutes in the cold to see the band, and I’ve been thanking myself for it ever since.
Rocky O’Reilly is one of the biggest electronic music nerds I’ve ever met. He keeps himself flush
with engineering gigs back home in Belfast. He dumps his "fortune" on expensive synths and fancy, ornate guitars.
The second time I saw them come through DC, Rocky showed me his brand new Moog tattoo on his left shoulder, which he passed
out while obtaining (don’t let him try to convince you otherwise). Shaun Robinson, the voice and the beat, is older
than Rocky, and is a good, methodical drummer prone to some Spinal Tap moments (especially since he wears radio headphones
to hear the band’s samples while he’s drumming…). He brings years of indiexperience from his days in Torgas Valley Reds. Together, they make pretty much perfect pop music, as the writing on the (facebook) wall says.
Their self-titled debut is exactly that. It’s the kind of CD that
stays in your car’s rotation for months, full of gems of synth-soaked and vocoder-drenched indie rock. A lot of the
songs, most of which are in the neighborhood of 2 minutes long, are would-be-classic singles. “My Son the Astronaut”
and “Allen Died April 5” are both gorgeous, perfectly measured out, and believe it or not, just as great live
as on the album. “Nine Words” is catchy enough to be featured in a number of commercials, "Breakfast in NYC"
(listen above) landed on the Gossip Girl soundtrack, “Orchid” reeled in a guest appearance from North Irish popsmith
Tim Wheeler (of Ash), and “This is Not a Test” made a memorable appearance on Ugly Betty.
I think I like Oppenheimer so much because it reminds me how
success isn’t measured in record sales or big-time airplay. All you have to do it trust yourself to do what you know
you do best, and just effin' do it, maaan. AIR HORN!
It’s really interesting, when reexamining a decade of anything, be it music, movies, books,
or anything artistic, how much of a disconnect there is between what you enjoyed at the time and what you learned to enjoy
over the course of the decade. Including a band as mediocre as The Explosion on my list of favorite albums is a testament
to the enduring influence a band’s work can have on you at one stage of your life. This became, for a stretch of time
around the end of high school, my favorite album. In my too-young-to-drink opinion at the time, the album’s only slight
misstep was the good but not great leadoff track “No Revolution.” Upon reinspection, I still feel the same way
about it as I did nearly ten years ago (holy crap I’m old), which in the case of any album some lazy critics from Rolling
Stone derided as “punk by numbers,” is pretty impressive.
"Terrorist"
I finally saw the Explosion perform when I moved to DC in 2005, and
they weren’t anything special. Singer Matt Hock seemed pretty self-indulgent and a couple of the members seemed pretty
bro-ish, even. But watching the crowd perk up the second David Walsh started hammering out power chords from Flashx3
tracks like “God Bless the SOS” and “Terrorist” made me smile, and in a way, validated my layover
goodwill towards the band.
"If You Don't Know"
Despite their internal squabbles and apparent egos, at their creative
and energetic peak early on, they pumped out an immediate and unyielding set of great songs. Who knew that street-punk could
be simultaneously catchy AND encapsulating of enough blanket political statements to make an average 17-year-old happy? This
was enough proof for me, and even nearly a decade later when most of my beliefs and practices have been altered, I can’t
shake the impression that this crappy band made on me at that one point in my life with a surprisingly great album.
I counted them out. I never for a fleeting moment didn’t think that Belle & Sebastian weren’t
one of the best bands in the world, but I wasn’t holding out for another great album, at least nothing as good as If
You’re Feeling Sinister.
I was wrong. The vibe-poison that cellist/harpy Isobel Campbell left on the
band took them five years to completely clear from their collective system, and they’d moved beyond the good (but not
for them) producer Trevor Horn they’d contracted for Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003). Obviously, the songs
of Stuart Murdoch, Stevie Jackson, et al. are what makes this album great, but Tony Hoffer’s British-via-L.A. squeaky-clean,
sunny pop style (the punch he employed to Beck, Air, and Fischerspooner, among many others) is exactly what this band needed
to get back on track.
Murdoch decided to take his band and shake them up, comb their hair, shine their shoes a bit after their 1999-2000
gauntlet of Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant, and the soundtrack to Todd Solondz’ Storytelling.
Both of those albums are, naturally, beloved by hipster douchebags, but nothing more than decent compared to some of this
band’s other work. By ‘other work,’ I mean If You’re Feeling Sinister, and The Life Pursuit.
It sounds like the band completely firing on all cylinders again after taking about a decade to realize its potential again
on a full-length record.
"We are the Sleepyheads"
"Dress Up in You"
The palpable French-pop influence comes through on songs like the psychedelic
“We are the Sleepyheads” and bossa-nova “Act of the Apostle,” piloted by Chris Geddes’ always-solid
keyboard work. They prove they can still slow down and capture your imagination with the gorgeous Stuart Murdoch/Sarah “Secret
Weapon” Martin harmony of “Dress Up In You,” as well as “Mornington Crescent,” which sounds
like Jackson Browne wrote an elegy to a tube station in Camden Town. And of course, the pop singles, namely “Funny Little
Frog,” and “The Blues Are Still Blue,” are nothing short of excellent.
In a lot of ways, Stuart Murdoch and co. aren’t ever going to
shake their fans’ romanticized notion wherein If You’re Feeling Sinister will always follow them around.
And why shouldn’t any album that’s that good, and released during such a period of indie upheaval as it was (mid-90’s),
thereby becoming that iconic? But in the Pursuit liner notes, Murdoch makes the point to shut up all the haters,
asking if anyone stuck on the 1996 B&S truly thinks the same way now that THEY did ten years ago? Checkmate. To quote
fellow Scottish indie poppers Orange Juice, whose jangly, jumpy influence Murdoch has piped onto The Life Pursuit
more than any other release, his band have moved “upwards and onwards.” They’re big-time pros. Suck it.
9/11 sucked in so many more ways than the obvious. Even those that put no faith in our leadership at the time were willing
to make a couple of little sacrifices to help ease the underlying national pain. Boots Riley had to make a big one. He needed
to completely scrap the cover art of his latest (and possibly best) LP to that point. Apparently, if you put out a record
with a cover depicting you and your DJ blowing up the World Trade Center less than one month prior to a group of terrorists
destroying the World Trade Center, people get kind of touchy. The Coup’s luck was never overwhelmingly good, and Boots
(picture a grown-up Huey from “The Boondocks,”) has had little to offer in way of apology to “the man.”
Jimmy Eat World dropped their title Bleed American, even though it had nothing to do with terrorism, and went on
their way. Boots Riley kept on fighting the power after Chuck D dropped the ball on it, and it’s a damn shame that The
Coup doesn’t sell as well, or get as good press, as Public Enemy did. (At least we can count on Pam the Funktress not
to get her own ridiculous reality show when a bunch of crackers fight for her affection. Not that you could blame them, since
she’s such a good DJ).
You don’t hear Boots pulling any punches either, with titles like
“5 Millions Ways to Kill a CEO” and “Ghetto Manifesto.” He does soften things a bit, with a female-empowerment
sing-along for his baby daughter (“Wear Clean Draws”) that even borders on precious.
Like Dr. Octagon did for Kool Keith, Party Music skyrocketed
the Coup’s white audience, which at first seemed counterproductive, but it made sense since Riley’s unrepentant
anger against the excess of white-bread society finally found a home in the minds of many “Lazymuthafucka”s.
“You… look like me! What the hell!?” – Comic Andy Kindler, meeting Craig Finn on the Tonight
Show and being amazed at his frumpy appearance.
Craig Finn began the decade approaching the age of 30 and
known to some in intense indie circles as the nasal voice and guitar behind the Twin Cities’ Lifter Puller. One slight
lineup shift and move to Brooklyn later, he became the nasal sing-speaky voice and guitar behind the Hold Steady, who somehow
would become the great American rock n’ roll band.
The most remarkable thing about Craig Finn is that he writes some of the greatest “youth” anthems
ever penned, and he’s nearly 40 fucking years old. If nobody knew who he was, you would do a double-take if you saw
him standing at a college bar and then quietly make fun of him with all of your friends. But then, you’d feel like the
world’s biggest asshole when he came walking over, took off his Cosby sweater, sat down, and explained to each one of
you why you’re disillusioned and how to get out of it.
The album that broke the Hold Steady through to
the masses for all intents and purposes was 2005’s Separation Sunday, a southern-rock, working-class operetta
about a few different lowlife types. And then they hit a home run a couple of years later with Boys and Girls in America,
another outstanding, not condescending look at “the kids,” that wasn’t as intertwined as their previous
effort, but still seemed like a sequel.
I can’t decide which album I like better, so I’m counting
them as one indestructible double-album on this countdown. If you think you like one album more than the other, go back and
listen to them again. Separation Sunday has “Your Little Hoodrat Friend,” but then again, Boys and
Girls has “You Can Make Him Like You.” Sunday has “Multitude of Casualties,” but Boys
and Girls counters with “Chips Ahoy!” the closest thing to what could be considered a hit single from either
of these albums. And somehow, we still have music industry “experts” claiming that the album is dead. Albums aren’t
dead, it’s just that most of them suck and people can easily opt out of buying them now. But who would want to hear
about “Charlemagne in Sweatpants” without hearing equally entertaining song-stories about this burnout pimp Charlemagne?
Even if Stay Positive was a fairly big disappointment after Boys and Girls catapulted the Hold
Steady into the indie-rock Ivory Tower, we still have to respect this band for sticking with the shit they knew for so long,
and not letting age and killer trends get to them. Bonus points for pianist Franz Nicolay’s punk-as-fuck wardrobe and
facial hair choices. And their guitarist is named Tad! TAD!
Inclusion of this one may be cheating, but there are no rules. Other than the obvious ones. The aggressive (some might say
“ballsy”) DC math-rock trio finished recording this, their final(?) full-length in 1999, and had dissolved under
a completely bizarre coincidence of circumstances shortly after that. It took two years of bungled business affairs (not really
the fault of the band) for the fledgling label Fueled by Ramen to release it. Regardless, it’s still smarter, sharper,
and more forward-thinking than most post-hardcore-esque albums being released today, almost/more than a full decade later.
Let’s go to the evidence file.
Yeller/guitarist Shelby Cinca takes a step up from the band’s previous
work, including the outstanding Conglomerate International, practicing more restraint here. The musical performance
is perfectly modulated throughout, especially on the instrumentals like “Belgian Congo” and the drum machine-thumping
“Hull Crush Depth,” which owes a lot to the merciless drummer Jason Hamacher (let’s forgive the bicycle
gloves he wears to drum). Cinca even takes a serious stab here at bringing more emotion to his singing on tracks like "6/99"
and “The Earth isn’t Humming.” The result was so good that Thrice saw fit to cover the crap out of it later
in the decade. Of course, Thrice’s nod resulted in millions of 14-year-olds throwing their allowance money at Frodus,
right?
Anyway, Shelby’s formidable pipes also get plenty of play here, particularly on the riot-worthy “The
Awesome Machine,” where his unparalleled screaming of “We will be vindicated” is among the most intense
moments of any album I’ve heard since the late 90’s. Okay, ever. Think Prince at the end of “The Beautiful
Ones” and take it down a notch. Yes, I just compared Cinca directly to Prince. Would that make Hamacher Dr. Fink? I
think Jellybean Johnson would be more appropriate for some reason.
According to Shelby, who is currently taking residence over in Sweden (a country whose hardcore bands had an
indelible effect on Frodus), the trio, including their 453rd bassist, Jake Brown, have pumped out a new 7” and may play
select shows when they damn well feel like it. I say, bring it on. The world needs you, Frodus!
At the risk of including any spoilers about my music lists, my top 100 songs of the decade includes some love
for Mike Skinner. At the risk of including any spoilers about this electro-rap-whatever opera, it has a happy ending after
a tragic one. Actually, the protagonist (who bears an awfully pertinent resemblance to Mike “The Streets” Skinner)
is a pretty big twat, but we grow to love him pretty quickly.
Thinking about Skinner in the context of A Grand, I’m loathe to even refer to him as a rapper. His flow, at
least on record, isn’t particularly dexterous, his caricature cockney voice doesn’t lend itself well to top 40
radio, and his rhymes aren’t particularly clever. Skinner may be the only rapper who can get away with the line, “this
night’s not yet begun, yes yes, oh yay.” Then again, he kicks off the same song “Fit But You Know It”
with one of the best lines of the decade: “I reckon you about an 8 or a 9, maybe even 9 ½ in four beer’s
time.” Simply charm or simply genius? I’m leaning towards the latter, considering the amount of thought that it
took to craft a legitimate pop single out of an album with an overall narrative arc and little attention to crafting dance
floor fillers.
If there’s one thing that Skinner could be classified as, it’s an outstanding storyteller. The
amount of little details that pop up in his narratives that most songwriters don’t even consider is impressive. At the
beginning of the story “It was Supposed to be so Easy,” we meet the protagonist, who just sounds like a guy who
keeps talking to himself as his day fails to go to plan. Next, on “Could Well Be In,” the hero meets the girl,
whose “last relationship fucked her up, got hurt real bad, finds it hard to trust.” Over the course of 9 more
tracks, we follow him through trying to recover a lost £1000, straighten things out with his girlfriend Simone, and
a bunch of other incredibly well-narrated events (including one of this decade's best break-up songs, click to play below)
you should really hear, even if Skinner's not for you.
In short, Skinner’s ambling narrative unfolds like a great short film
about a London misfit who can’t quite get anything right. At times, you’re not even necessarily rooting for him,
but there isn’t a moment here where his exploits aren’t interesting and completely human. Yes, yes, oh yay.
If any of my top twenty-one albums of the decade are arguably out of place on this list, this is it. Actually,
it’s the reason I bumped it up to 21 (and then to 25, eventually). I decided to include it after some deliberation.
Speaking personally, a lot of standup comics do have a burning desire to be rock stars (or at least integral members of respected
bands), and vice versa. That doesn’t mean it always works out, even if they’re the best of friends and reflexively
inspirational. Take a look at Will Oldham and his buddies Gregg “Neil Hamburger” Turkington and Zach Galifianakis.
Zach and Turkington don’t need instruments to make a viable artistic statement (even if Turkington’s, Neil Hamburger,
is unflinchingly post-modern and most people don’t get it...or sometimes it's just not funny), and Will Oldham has proven
himself as one of the most enduring American folk musicians for the past two decades. Some of the best bands have truly cringe-worthy
between-song banter (see: Jawbreaker), so good public speaking comes at a premium.
Crafting a solid set of jokes that bring an entire mainstream comedy club to its knees is a Herculean task. Doing it for
more than 7 minutes is exceedingly difficult, doing it for more than 15 is nearly impossible without years of work and concentration,
and creating the funniest, most enduring album of standup comedy in the span of one decade is an accomplishment reserved for
the top 1% of the top 1%. On top of all that, the few who do reach this milestone, especially long after the 1980’s
standup comedy boom has disintegrated, do so after soldiering through years of shitty audiences who, for some reason, think
“pssshh, I could do that!”
In 2003, the two greatest comics on the planet were Dave Attell and Mitch
Hedberg. Their paths took radically different directions as the decade progressed. Hedberg accidentally killed himself with
drugs in 2005 at age 37, and Attell, whose entire image had been forged from an unapologetic embrace of sleaze and the hard-living
lifestyle, remained successful but spiraled a bit. That isn’t to say that he’s lost the joke-writing talent that
he had in 2003, but every time I’ve seen him, it’s been akin to a disappointing follow-up album. Skanks for
the Memories, pieced together from a couple of nights in Denver in early 2003, is undeniably Attell’s greatest
hits collection, including all of the jokes he’s best known for, and with good reason. I find myself quoting “You
should have hung out, maaaaan…” all the time, off-handedly remarking “steady…googly,” and
at various times throughout my time doing standup, have made pointed attempts to replicate the punchline-punchline-punchline-PUNCHLINE
quality of his jokes (particularly the one about women who yell out other men’s’ names in the height of passion)
with jokes of my own, and failing.
Despite a cavalcade of outstandingcomedyrecordings to emerge in the past few years, Skanks remains my favorite. It has one foot in the classic straightforward joke-telling
tradition of the pre-internet era, while fully embracing the mainstreaming of “alt” comedy with heroes like Patton
Oswalt and the aforementioned Galifianakis. Apparently, Attell became increasingly bitter towards the end of the 90’s
since he’d already had an hour-long special but nobody knew who he was. One show about him drinking and hanging out
with people all night and one untouchable comedy record later, his legacy in intact, whether or not it’s the way he
planned it. All I know is that I’ll never hear the phrase, “Nobody has freckles on their ass, use a condom [BRAAAAAP]”
without at least cracking a smile.
Over the rivers and through the woods, floating like clouds over the mountains, down the road and knocking
on your front door, it’s the beckoned call of THAT BAND. The band that can do no wrong. The band whose bad songs and
records are very tolerable. The band that have a perfect grasp of what they are, what their fans expect, and why so many bands
try to rip them off and fail.
Some wonder if bands like that exist anymore. I, however, say, yes, yes to the
fleeting notion of a band that can do no wrong! To that, I say, I see, and RAISE THEE, the Dillinger Four! I will now end
the part of this essay that’s meant to be read in the style of an overacted Jacob Marley from A Christmas Carol.
I’ve gone on the record before, on both this site and this music list, about D4’s greatness. Oddly, they dissolved
after they put out this, their best end-on-end album, and returned to their day jobs for about five years before regrouping
and unleashing the excellent CIVIL WAR. But when it comes to D4 at their finest, considering how their worst is still
relatively fine, I point directly to the cover with the monkey mask and American flag.
For longer-time fans than
me, the clip of some guy freaking out in Japanese that opens the record on “Noble Stabbings!!” was like a warm
embrace. Now that they were recording for Fat Mike (NOFX)’s label, they reveled in the slightly cleaner production but
didn’t let it take the bite out of their snarky, crunching, symbol-crushing Minneapolis rodent-infested wall of sound.
And of course, there’s the genuine sense of humor that, to quote Ben “Weasel” Foster, “comes from
living in a place that’s frozen nine months out of the year.” (He said that about Chinese Telephones and Milwaukee,
but it’s just as applicable to Dillinger Four). Their song titles, still the funniest of any band in history, are about
as good as any full-length here (see: “A Floater Left with Pleasure in the Executive Washroom,” “All Rise
for the Rational Anthem,” and my favorite track on here, the cutting, hooky crash of “sellthehousesellthecarsellthekidsfindsomeoneelse-forgetitimnevercomingback.”
Some people say these titles are unwieldy. I tell them to shut the fuck up and go back to listening to whatever band of the
moment, with whom D4 could easily wipe their asses. And given the band’s spontaneity and the amount of goodwill they’ve
earned in the punk and slight crossover community, I would count out such a ridiculous thing actually happening. Even the
Japanese movie sample transmissions feel like at home on this collection of straight-up rippers.
Are you an alcoholic millionaire countess who has grown paranoid over the years that your lover may be involved
with an international money-laundering cartel? Do you smoke cigarettes in those long holder things like Ava Gardner or some
50’s starlet? Do you often ash out said cigarette in the empty martini glass, which you are constantly holding? Is a
suspicious amount of your mansion covered in red carpet? Do you often find yourself having your wrist grabbed by a loved one,
the martini glass falling out and shattering, in slow motion, on the red carpet? Upon this happening, do you turn, tears welling
up in your eyes, at the person holding onto your wrist as the gradually let go, and something overwrought, like “Your
passion cannot stand with me. I am me and you are you, and love can never destroy us?”
If the answer to any of those questions is “yes,” then you are one weird-ass socialite. But, if you are looking
for an indie rock album that sounds exactly like the stereotype that you are, look no further than Amore del Tropico
by these five scruffy dudes from San Diego. It fascinates me when the least sexy-looking people create a piece of music so
sexy. Unlike leader Pall Jenkins’ former group Three Mile Pilot (both unsexy names, his and the band’s), the BHP's
not as much about mathy expansion and musical interplay as much as it is straight-up atmospherics and noir. Sometimes, as
on tracks like “The Invitation,” the music is so enrapturing, lyrics aren’t even necessary. Either way that
BHP serves it up, it all paints a beautiful, charismatic picture of the tragic lifestyle that the monocle-clad lead when the
Three Stooges aren’t turning their social galas into pie fights.
You’re probably thinking of asking
me if this album is good background music for sex. Psssh. If you want good background music for sex, put on Dru Hill. You
don’t have sex to The Black Heart Procession, friends, you make sweet, sweet loooove. There’s a difference, you
horny bastards.
Above is a clip from "The Tropics of Love" a full-length feature
the band directed and produced in San Diego as a companion to the album. Bonus points.
The man behind the magic of the 90s’ greatest band took his first big stab of chilled-out indie rock goodness and hit me directly in my college-bound
brain in 2001. Critics were calling Pavement’s swan song Terror Twilight a de facto solo album for Malkmus,
but I didn’t really hear it. Malkmus was both an anomaly and a standard bearer for “indie” as it came to
be known in the post-Nirvana “slacker-as-norm” culture. He looked to the untrained eye like he didn’t care,
but there were always a ton of gears rotating in that stoner brain of his.
Sadly, I haven’t been able
to take as much of his post-Pavement Jicks work as seriously as I probably should. What I love about his self-titled album
was that he was so unabashed about taking a step back from any sort of arty noise or cryptic lyricism that defined a lot of
Pavement’s mid-90’s output. “Jenny and the Ess-Dog” is a very precious, poppy piece of non-didactic
storytelling, which is to say, very unlike Pavement-isms like “I put a spycam in a sorority” and “I saw
your girlfriend and she was eating her fingers like they’re just another meal."
Also, a first-person account of Captain Hook’s pre-Peter Pan
years (I think) on “The Hook” made for a great summer anthem, along with the steel-drum laced “Vague Space”
and the beautiful “Church on White.” And I’ve never fallen asleep on a cliff next to the ocean in Northern
California, but I’m pretty sure that “Trojan Curfew” sounds a lot like that.
I remember finding
it striking when I saw that SM turned 40. It was like the 90’s had officially come of age at that moment, which is a
big testament to what Malkmus meant. Even his demi-mullet on the cover was notable enough for my friend Keith to mention before
he sold me this album the week it came out. Righteous.
[tws]
There’s a lot not to love, considering how much “indie” hip-hop splintered this decade. I don’t know
how the hell Epitaph, one of my favorite 90’s punk labels (I didn’t really know better back then… they
had Rancid! Eh? Eh?), became a hip-hop powerhouse. My other favorite white MC, Sage Francis, helmed that flagship. Meanwhile,
Jaime Meline and Ian Bavitz built an empire of nerdy white thug hip-hop (with a Can-Ox or Murs thrown in for good afro-measure).
Bavitz himself went through a ton of psychological shit after his 2001 breakthrough Labor Days. So much, that Bazooka
Tooth would go down as his “angry,” “inaccessible,” or “murky” album. Honestly, declaring
“cameras or guns, one of y’alls gonna shoot me to death” at the top of “Easy” is arrogant, but
you can see where he’s coming from after 5 minutes of questionably produced beats and rhymes about tearing the beating
hearts out of paper dolls labeled with the names of shitty rap artists.
[tws]
I saw drummer Adam Woronoff on tour with the Queers in early 2007, but I didn’t remember the name of the other band
he told me he played in. It wasn’t until I was surfing Ben Weasel’s blog for more stuff to get angry about that
I found a testimonial to the underrated quality of Portland, Maine, and this phenomenal young band from that cozy New England
city. I checked out this album, and to my amazement and continued astonishment, the trio of 20-year-olds at the time did everything
right. The production is oustanding, the vocals are excellent, and even the least hooky songs (“Please Tell Me”
and “Lose Your Head”) are hookier than most pop-punk bands’ hookiest piece of hookery. Singer/bassist Kurt
Baker has a remarkably good grip on completely goofy charm, cementing their pop-punk cred. He’s also got some kind of
white boy ‘fro.
[tws]
[tws]
[tws]
[tws]
9/11 sucked in so many more ways than the obvious. Even those that put no faith in our leadership at the time were willing
to make a couple of little sacrifices to help ease the underlying national pain. Boots Riley had to make a big one. He needed
to completely scrap the cover art of his latest (and possibly best) LP to that point. Apparently, if you put out a record
with a cover depicting you and your DJ blowing up the World Trade Center less than one month prior to a group of terrorists
destroying the World Trade Center, people get kind of touchy. The Coup’s luck was never overwhelmingly good, and Boots
(picture a grown-up Huey from “The Boondocks,”) has had little to offer in way of apology to “the man.”
Jimmy Eat World dropped their title Bleed American, even though it had nothing to do with terrorism, and went on
their way. Boots Riley kept on fighting the power after Chuck D dropped the ball on it, and it’s a damn shame that The
Coup doesn’t sell as well, or get as good press, as Public Enemy did. (At least we can count on Pam the Funktress not
to get her own ridiculous reality show when a bunch of crackers fight for her affection. Not that you could blame them, since
she’s such a good DJ).
[tws]
“You… look like me! What the hell!?” – Comic Andy Kindler, meeting Craig Finn on the Tonight
Show and being amazed at his frumpy appearance.
[tws]
Inclusion of this one may be cheating, but there are no rules. Other than the obvious ones. The aggressive (some might say
“ballsy”) DC math-rock trio finished recording this, their final(?) full-length in 1999, and had dissolved under
a completely bizarre coincidence of circumstances shortly after that. It took two years of bungled business affairs (not really
the fault of the band) for the fledgling label Fueled by Ramen to release it. Regardless, it’s still smarter, sharper,
and more forward-thinking than most post-hardcore-esque albums being released today, almost/more than a full decade later.
Let’s go to the evidence file.
[tws]
Thinking about Skinner in the context of A Grand, I’m loathe to even refer to him as a rapper. His flow, at
least on record, isn’t particularly dexterous, his caricature cockney voice doesn’t lend itself well to top 40
radio, and his rhymes aren’t particularly clever. Skinner may be the only rapper who can get away with the line, “this
night’s not yet begun, yes yes, oh yay.” Then again, he kicks off the same song “Fit But You Know It”
with one of the best lines of the decade: “I reckon you about an 8 or a 9, maybe even 9 ½ in four beer’s
time.” Simply charm or simply genius? I’m leaning towards the latter, considering the amount of thought that it
took to craft a legitimate pop single out of an album with an overall narrative arc and little attention to crafting dance
floor fillers.
[tws]
Crafting a solid set of jokes that bring an entire mainstream comedy club to its knees is a Herculean task. Doing it for
more than 7 minutes is exceedingly difficult, doing it for more than 15 is nearly impossible without years of work and concentration,
and creating the funniest, most enduring album of standup comedy in the span of one decade is an accomplishment reserved for
the top 1% of the top 1%. On top of all that, the few who do reach this milestone, especially long after the 1980’s
standup comedy boom has disintegrated, do so after soldiering through years of shitty audiences who, for some reason, think
“pssshh, I could do that!” 
[tws]
I’ve gone on the record before, on both this site and this music list, about D4’s greatness. Oddly, they dissolved
after they put out this, their best end-on-end album, and returned to their day jobs for about five years before regrouping
and unleashing the excellent CIVIL WAR. But when it comes to D4 at their finest, considering how their worst is still
relatively fine, I point directly to the cover with the monkey mask and American flag.
[tws]
If the answer to any of those questions is “yes,” then you are one weird-ass socialite. But, if you are looking
for an indie rock album that sounds exactly like the stereotype that you are, look no further than Amore del Tropico
by these five scruffy dudes from San Diego. It fascinates me when the least sexy-looking people create a piece of music so
sexy. Unlike leader Pall Jenkins’ former group Three Mile Pilot (both unsexy names, his and the band’s), the BHP's
not as much about mathy expansion and musical interplay as much as it is straight-up atmospherics and noir. Sometimes, as
on tracks like “The Invitation,” the music is so enrapturing, lyrics aren’t even necessary. Either way that
BHP serves it up, it all paints a beautiful, charismatic picture of the tragic lifestyle that the monocle-clad lead when the
Three Stooges aren’t turning their social galas into pie fights.
[tws]
