Sort of a weird year for me. All year, I felt as if I've been swamped by music - and a lot of it has been pretty good music, too. And yet, when I went through my list of 2001 titles, it seemed sort of...missing. This was literally true for three or four titles I'd miscategorized as 2000 releases (I've gotta stop looking at copyright dates...), but I realized that, as I hinted the other day, with so many titles coming in, it takes me a long time to get to know records...and so, some of my favorite, most-listened to titles in 2001 were from previous years. Anyway, this is sort of an approximation, doubtless to be different later on. 1. The Caribbean Verse by Verse: One of the most consistently intriguing soundworlds of last year - combined with songwriting that's catchy musically and cryptically interesting lyrically, and you have one of my favorite and most-listened-to titles of this year. 2. The New Pornographers Mass Romantic: This one just spent a lengthy residency in the car, and every time I found myself thinking, "change the CD - we've heard this one enough," the next track would start, and I'd think, "nah - this is a great song - I'll keep it on." More hooks than [contest! be a critic, and come up with a witty comparison here, and win an enormous prize - like the envy of all your peers]. 3. Neilson Hubbard Why Men Fail: Again, ace songwriting, endlessly inventive arrangements, plus he's got a great, quavery voice to give the material that extra dimension. 4. Radiohead Amnesiac: words, words, words, words. I've committed plenty of them, too. 5. Kristin Hersh Sunny Border Blue: Finally, Hersh achieves an effective blend of the intimacy of her acoustic albums and the spiky quirkiness of her early Throwing Muses material - mostly by not boxing herself into any arrangement cages. Harrowing songs, too - way too many feature creepy addiction & dysfunctional relationship images - that's the musician's cross, I guess. 6. Spoon Girls Can Tell: Keeping the Amerindie dream alive. I hear a great admixture of spare, late-seventies, soul-inflected Brit new wave as well - early Jackson, Costello, Parker - plus a few moments that hearken back to four guys from Liverpool circa '64 or so. 7. Stereolab Sound-Dust: I know, I know - but really, this thing keeps improving for me. The sonic surface is dazzlingly impressive - but sometimes that wears off. The songs seem more solid than they have for a while, and they're a bit more willing to put more energy and momentum into their loungier tendencies. 8. Joe Henry Scar: I haven't heard this one very many times - but so far I'm enormously impressed. Repeat what I said above re Neilson Hubbard...but add that Henry throws in a sort of downtown jazz touch, without it seeming at all superfluous to his essential singer-songwriter tendencies. Not sure how he does it...but he does. 9. Paula Carino Aquacade: I tried to persuade myself that this was a sort of personal choice that didn't really earn its place here, Paula being a semi-regular e-mail correspondent of mine. But then I listened to it a few more times, and realized that I had no need to do so. 10. Unwound Leaves Turn Inside You: Still haven't completely got a handle on this one - I kind of imagine what would happen if the Page and Plant reunion were motivated by sheer musical hunger, and the promise of enormous paychecks had nothing to do with it, and they'd been on a steady diet of acts like Jawbox, The Dismemberment Plan, plus the best tendencies of Nirvana... See, every time I try to describe these folks, I think of forty-nine bands that don't seem to have anything to do with one another. Oh - and I haven't even mentioned the brilliant use of mellotron and other keys all over these CDs (it's a short 2-CD set - a good idea, so long as they're sold at 1-CD price - mimics the effect of the LP, providing a break for listeners, w/o the LP's drawbacks.) Next batch - roughly equal to one another: John Vanderslice Time Travel Is Lonely
These are all very enjoyable but don't really do much more than one would expect - i.e., the Familiar Style Done Well Category: The Fletcher Pratt Nine by Nine
These are three that might well place at least in the top 20, maybe the top 10 - but I've heard them only a handful of times yet: Bows Cassidy
Best EPs: Rebecca Gates Ruby Series
Obvious but missing titles are probably albums I just haven't heard. I can't think of anything everyone else is mentioning that I think sucks. |
December 22, 2001