If you can look past all the 2nd-wave nu metal and bubblegum pop from Mickey Mouse Club alumni, 1999 produced a wealth of boundary-pushing music across hip hop, rock and metal.
Against my better judgment, I’m undertaking a project to determine my top 10 albums of every year since 1960. Instead of just picking my favorite stuff out of my collection, I intend to explore, re-visit and discover. While I can’t promise to leave no stone un-turned, I am going to go deeper than I ever have before. Why would I partake in a journey that will inevitably take many years and that I ultimately may never finish? Most importantly, to uncover great music that I’ve never heard before. Second, to boost my knowledge of music history and get a sense of what was happening at a macro scale in a snapshot of time. Finally, I want to share my passion for music with you and, fingers crossed, generate a dialogue down in the comments. So without further ado, here is #27 in the series. My random number generator says that our next year to tackle will be 2005.
Check out my previous entries here.
The Greatest Albums of 1999
As we approached the new millennium (not to be confused with the Willenium), there was a pretty significant divide between what was commercially successful and what was creatively successful. That hasn’t always been the case – the British invasion, 70’s soul, grunge, thrash metal and 80’s Def Jam are all examples where the most innovative music in the marketplace was among the most embraced by fans. If I think about the defining genres of 1999 however, I think of the nu-metal of Limp Bizkit and Lincoln Park and the new breed of tween-targeted pop ushered in by Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. All of that is fine if you dig it, but none of that music is represented on my list and I’m not sure even those genres’ most ardent supporters could claim they left an artistic high-water mark. That divide was playing out in hip hop as well, which was barreling down two diverging paths while it struggled to fill the vacuum left by the murders of Biggie Smalls and 2Pac Shakur. The early 2000s would be dominated commercially by the artistically void stylings of Lil’ Bow Wow, Nelly, and the No Limit Soldiers. Concurrently, some of the genre’s most creative and substantive work would come from independent artists like Madlib, Jay Dee and MF Doom, as well as so-called backpack rappers like Talib Kweli, Mos Def and the Roots. Awkwardly straddling both sides were credible artists and lyricists that were capable of great creativity, but tempered their own work with plenty of commercial concessions (Jay Z, Nas, Eminem).
The other thing that 1999 brings immediately to mind for me was that year’s calamitous Woodstock festival. As an attendee, I can declare that the musical highs (the Roots, Rage Against the Machine, Metallica, Willie Nelson, RHCP) were, for me, worth enduring the apocalyptic conditions that the festival’s promoters subjected us to. The burnin’ and lootin’ that closed the festival out felt like an inevitability as hundreds of thousands of concert goers had finally had enough of buying $7 bottles of water to stay hydrated in near 100 degree heat with no shade for three days. In an abject lesson in supply and demand, I recall paying $15 ($23 in today’s money) for a bag of ice. Despite the extortion, it remains one of my shrewdest investments, as my friends and I fashioned our sleeping bags into a cooler and enjoyed the luxury of frozen water for half of the festival. That’s probably the best analogy I can come up with – conditions at Woodstock ’99 more closely resembled the cinematic universes of Solar Babies or The Ice Pirates than Coachella or other contemporary festivals. So, when I got home and saw the promoters on MTV crying about the injustice perpetrated on them, it was one of the healthier eye rolls I’ve ever experienced. It wasn’t until much later that I learned about the horrific string of sexual assaults that occurred on site, which is the real indictment of that much-maligned crowd of festival-goers, not setting uncollected trash on fire and stealing frozen pizzas from vendor booths. But enough about that unsavory business, lets get to the topic at hand: 1999’s greatest albums.
Things Fall Apart – The Roots
Finally, we get to talk about the Roots. Due to the fact that I randomly select what year to cover for each post, I am approaching the halfway point of this project without yet touching on Bob Dylan, Elton John, Run DMC or Willie Nelson – titans of popular music, one and all, but also personal favorites of mine. That’s the category that the legendary Roots crew falls into. If I were pressed on it, I imagine that I would declare the Roots my favorite hip hop act of all time. So it’s fitting, I suppose, that my first foray into discussing them coincides with the album that served as my introduction to their music. I was a college student in 1999, and as I’ve mentioned before, I actually spent more time exploring the classics of the fifties, sixties and seventies during that time in my life than paying attention to the current scene. I couldn’t help but start to recognize the emergence of a new type of hip hop, though, one that didn’t rely on the guns and drugs fodder that had been the foundation of 90’s hip hop regardless of what coast it originated from. More importantly, it operated on a frequency that accentuated soul and jazz rather than the funk and dance music that fueled mainstream rap at the time. I can now recognize that Black Star, Common and the Roots are the natural extension of A Tribe Called Quest and their ilk, but I was too young to understand that paradigm shift as it was happening at the turn of the prior decade. The Roots, et al, were my Native Tongues movement.
I thought the Roots were going to start a revolution. The fact that a hip hop group playing all live instruments still seems so novel indicates that revolution never occurred. Indeed, the impact of the band is hard to quantify at best, utterly baffling at worst. I keep up with my share of articles, documentaries, podcasts, etc. on the topic of hip hop, and it’s like there are two versions of hip hop history. One version, subscribed to by a portion of the people who hold the pen on such things, rightly identifies the Roots career for what it is – the most consistently great live show in hip hop, coupled with a string of classic albums spanning three decades, fronted by a genius drummer and bandleader and one of the few truly elite emcees. The other version, propagated by an even larger contingent, doesn’t so much consider the Roots overrated or offer a contrarian position on their merits as it fails to consider them at all. To some so-called experts, as unconscionable as it seems to me, the Roots are akin to the Beatnuts or Jurassic 5, mere footnotes in the grand scheme of the genre’s evolution. For the believers, though, they are the truth, and Things Fall Apart is the first real indication that they were destined for greatness.
My attitude’s a product of society So sometimes for gratitude, you know you can’t rely on me N****s eyeing me, with looks of their anxiety Wondering what’s in my heart, velocity or piety
By serendipitous yet somber twist, I happen to be typing this the day after Malik B passed away. Malik was a preternaturally gifted emcee whose personal demons prevented from having a larger impact on the music world. Combining a Kool G Rap flow with the militancy of Chuck D, he offered an incendiary counterpoint to the more measured delivery of his partner-in-rhyme. The group missed that element of danger and immediacy through his frequent absences, and his presence on this album is one of the reasons that it sits among the Roots’ best. Even when Malik B was a full-time contributor, however, there was never any question that founding member Black Thought was the lead emcee. Incredibly prolific, BT performs multiple verses on most tracks, pairs off with guest emcees like Dice Raw and Mos Def for electrifying displays of one-upsmanship, and holds himself to a standard of quality that few rappers have ever matched. Biggie Smalls is my all-time favorite emcee, but even he took a verse off now and then. Black Thought, by my estimation the greatest living emcee, continues to quietly build his case for GOAT through rhyme after rhyme of real substance, delivered via brilliant wordplay. I wanted to pull a couple of quotes for this review, but there are so many that it became impossible to choose. Bear with me as I share his entire first verse from “100% Dundee”:
Yo, on these seventy-three keys, of ivory and ebony I swear solemnly that I’ll forever rock steadily People wanna know where Malik, he right next to me The weaponry, the secret recipe Hard to peep this, deep shit, shows I eat with Contaminated thoughts I walk the street with I bayonet cassettes and chop beats with This Olympic lyricism you can’t compete with Globe traveling, throwing your verse like a javelin Things fall apart and emcees unraveling Backstage whispering to management like ‘Change the order, it’s no way that we can rock after them!’ My man sport the ‘fro like What’s Happenin’ From the latest hiatus, The Roots back again Your crew practicing to catch this natural blend They packages read, care when handling It’s all soft shit, batteries not included with Matter of fact, your whole front’s a re-enactment I blow your blasé ass into fragments, P-5-D The new testament, mic specialist, what
Black Thought doesn’t have the charisma of a Jay Z or Method Man, but, and I don’t say this lightly, he buries them in terms of content. The weird gaslighting that allows experts to ignore the Roots body of work is even more confounding when it comes to Black Thought and the conversation about the greatest emcees of all time. You either have him in the top 3, or you forgot he exists. His performance on Things Fall Apart is masterful, and marks a distinct maturation from their prior album. On Illadelph Halflife his rhymes were characteristically dope, but his delivery was relatively unremarkable. He leveled up in the intervening years, and in 1999, Black Thought was in full command of the microphone.
Musically, the band would go on to be more adventurous in later releases and take advantage of the live instruments to expand the type of tracks that were acceptable in hip hop. At this point in their career, they were more interested in proving that they could approximate classic hip hop in that medium. With Questlove’s metronome drumming and Kamal essentially playing loops on his keyboard, plus erstwhile beatboxer Scratch, they succeed in making tracks that sound mostly like hip hop made with samplers and DJ equipment. However, the music they produce has noticeably more warmth and depth than their peers. Most rap music features rhymes over beats, but that paradigm is upended somewhat with the approach on this album. Everything feels organic, like there is no separation between the individual elements of each song. Even individual tracks flow together, particularly on the first half of the album, which, coupled with the lack of big recognizable hooks from popular songs, has the effect of putting you in a zone as a listener. You might look up thirty minutes into the album and realize you are six tracks in without really knowing how you got there. The band’s enveloping sound and the unstoppable parade of ill verses create a bit of spell. If nothing else, it’s the rare rap album of the era that doesn’t invite skipping to your favorite tracks.
As you can no doubt tell from the length of this review, I really couldn’t wait to write about a band that is both a personal favorite and criminally under-served by hip hop journalists. Trust me, I could keep going. Recognizing that this will not be my last opportunity to sing the praises of the Roots, however, I’ll cut myself off here. If you are uninitiated to the genius of the group, Things Fall Apart might be the perfect entry point. It was mine, and I never stopped listening to them over the next twenty years.
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Summerteeth – Wilco
There is nothing flashy about Wilco. For a relatively big rock band*, they are surprisingly light on bombast and pyrotechnics, and no individual performer particularly stands out. Don’t get me wrong, they are all great musicians and there are a handful of tasty guitar solos in their catalog, but they are hardly “rock star” rock stars. As befitting a group that has their origins in Americana and alt-country, their career has been built almost exclusively on melody and lyrics. As you would expect, that’s where Summerteeth, one of their very best albums, shines. They were still relatively close to those roots in 1999, but while the soul of the album is akin to Uncle Tupelo or A.M., their sound had evolved to become pure pop/rock. The song structures and details are sophisticated without distracting from the hooks. It’s a breezy listen, unencumbered with the experimentation the band would incorporate into later work, and while there is plenty of down-tempo material here, it fulfills its titular promise of being a great summertime listen. Even the break-up tunes, of which there are plenty, are buoyed by Beach Boys harmonies and strings and horns that add to the depth of the song without overwhelming (a tough trick to pull off). The whole thing is as enchanting as XTC’s Skylarking while still pitching right down the middle in terms of being an accessible pop record.
I’ll admit that Summerteeth can be a bit of a grower, an album that sounds solid and pleasant upon your first cursory listen, but perhaps not much more. Over subsequent spins, it is destined to reveal the tremendous depth of the songwriting. I am on-record as ambivalent to lousy rock lyrics, an inevitable hazard of liking rock music, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate great writing. Lyrics are not poems, and so they will never have the same impact in printed form, but even with that in mind I think its clear that Jeff Tweedy has a little more going on than Anthony Kiedis or Axl Rose:
She’s a jar With a heavy lid My pop quiz kid A sleepy kisser A pretty war With feelings hid She begs me not to miss her
Or…
I dreamed about killing you again last night And it felt alright to me Dying on the banks of Embarcadero skies I sat and watched you bleed Buried you alive in a fireworks display Raining down on me Your cold, hot blood ran away from me To the sea
Beyond the lyrical acuity, the album features wonderful composition, and tracks that seem simple at first reveal their complexity the more you pay attention. Again, its just not constructed to draw attention to itself in that way. Summerteeth is unrushed, never in a hurry to get where it wants to take you, which is why it makes such a lovely porch swing album. Most importantly though, after you run through it the third or fourth time you simply begin to appreciate what a great song cycle it is. Wilco seemed to learn all the right lessons from their indie rock forbears, and none of the wrong ones, and by the way learned some pretty good lessons from the Beatles and the Byrds while they were at it. I like it more after my fifteenth listen than I did at fourteen, and I expect that trajectory to continue.
*I’m not sure there has been such a thing as a major rock act in the past twenty years, at least not in both the critical and commercial sense. A group like Imagine Dragons is certainly a big seller, but they aren’t going to have any kind of cultural impact beyond the album charts. The White Stripes probably come the closest in that time frame and at least they went platinum a couple times, something that Wilco has never done.
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Black on Both Sides – Mos Def
Music nerds love to debate arbitrary, esoteric (and of course entirely subjective) topics regarding the best artists, albums and songs of all time. A personal favorite of mine, for whatever reason, has always been “What is the best three-song stretch on any album?” Not only is it a topic that hasn’t been run into the ground (unlike *ahem* the top ten albums of a year) but it forces us to consider how albums have been sequenced, something that doesn’t get much attention in the world of streaming playlists. There is a stretch on Black on Both Sides that I’ve always considered a strong contender for that accolade. Tracks 4-6 exemplify the versatility of Mos Def by showcasing three different hip hop skills executed to perfection. “Ms. Fat Booty” is not just exemplary story-rap, it is basically an updated version of Prince’s classic, “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker”. Like that track, it paints a character portrait of a sexy, free-spirited love interest that has our protagonist on the ropes from their first interaction. It’s anchored by the silkiest Aretha Franklin sample imaginable, and Mos deftly weaves the tale by setting up individual scenes and playing both lead parts. Despite the subject matter, the track has a distinct lack of misogyny which highlights Mos’ intentions to break from hip hop tradition with a more high-minded world view. Having dazzled with his storytelling abilities and conversational flow, the next track, “Speed Law” finds him in pure rhyme superhero mode. Simply a straight battle rap, Mos spits bars with nothing on his mind except showing off.
They cry John-Blazing, but step on the pavement And get violated like a plaintiff I ain’t shit to play with I give a Goddamn what your name is Delete it and make it so it never gets repeated Believe it Tell the feds, tell your girl, tell your mother Conference call your whack crew and tell each other That they just ain’t holding me I’m Mos Def, you hopefully Mush on or get bust on like an ovary
It’s a song that confirms that, for all of his sonic experimentation and treatises on things like racial appropriation and global water shortages, he is first and foremost an emcee, and woe to those who would seek to challenge that. The final track of this tryptic (which is not really a tryptic at all, rather than three songs in the middle of an album) is “Do It Now”, where Mos shows his skills on a classic hip hop collaboration with a never-better Busta Rhymes. As you want from any collabo, these two feed off each other’s energy to tremendous effect, a far cry from the mailed-in verses you might see from a less invested pairing. That’s truly one of Mos Def’s keys to success on this album – his passion and commitment shine through at every turn. He has a purpose behind his music, at least in 1999 (I’m not sure about True Magic), and it is something beyond sales charts or critical acclaim. Multiple times on the album he lets it be known that this is music for black people, and he was clearly trying to counter the negativity and exploitation that tends to infiltrate “black” music, particularly hip hop. It’s a noble effort, if one that comes across a little heavy-handed when taken out of context, particularly if you don’t resemble the people that Mos has expressly crafted his music for. At its heart, this is positive music (“We live the now for the promise of the infinite…”), and it can be enjoyed by anyone. That inclusivity is illustrated by the variety of styles that are employed on the record. Mos sounds at home on bizarre, non-rap ballads like “Climb”, hard-edged thrash metal like the second half of “Rock & Roll”, or glorious drum-n-bass/jazz/r&b/psychedelic music like “Umi Says”. Regardless of what it’s labeled, it’s all hip-hop. And with this album, Mos Def helped expand what that term means today.
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When the Pawn… – Fiona Apple
Relationships are such common fodder for popular music that its hardly worth discussing when an artist releases an album on the topic. Fiona Apple’s When the Pawn… has such strong central conceit, however, that it is practically a concept album about what a disaster she is in her personal life. For all the vitriol she has for her former lovers, which is a considerable amount, she seems to reserve most of the blame to lay at her own feet. In essence, the album serves as a warning of sorts – if you find yourself entangled with Apple after this, she insinuates, you deserve what you get. It is an endlessly engaging listen, brought to life by Jon Brion’s swoony, baroque production. The drama and perplexity of the music matches the turmoil described in the lyrics and the manic coo of Apple herself. She has a throwback of a voice, more Etta James or Dusty Springfield than the new crop of pop stars that were coming up at the time (Christina, Britney, et al). She is a spritely little wisp of a human being, but her instrument is big, deep and rich, and she wields that powerful tool in a way that is wholly her own. She can veer from delicate, vulnerable pathos to bitter, petty intensity and make both sound completely authentic. Apple probably could have built a much more commercially successful career if she used that voice to emulate classic soul and jazz. She’s a better singer than Norah Jones by a decent margin, but Come Away With Me is still the best selling album of this century (which is crazy, right?). Then again, if you are aiming for commercial success you don’t title your album When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘fore He Enters the Ring There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right, I guess.
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Still Life – Opeth
Still Life, like most Opeth albums, strikes a balance between melodic prog with clean vocals and pure death metal. While some of their work suffers, in my opinion, from leaning too hard on the former at the expense of the latter, they really get the ratio right on this one. I also appreciate that those two components sit next to each other in harmony. The soft/heavy dynamic is one that is frequently exploited in metal, and while it can be rewarding when bands emphasize the contrast (Deafheaven, White Ward), I love that Opeth avoids any whiplash-inducing tempo changes or shock-value juxtaposition of styles. The beauty of the slower, folk-like elements bleed into the death metal segments, making them less abrasive. Meanwhile, the ever-present menace of the heaviness adds something sinister to the outwardly beautiful sections. The dynamics serve a story purpose, as well, in what is ostensibly a rock (metal) opera about a banished villager returning home to reconnect with a lost love. The love story is served by the slower, quiet elements, while the inevitable violence and tragedy are perfectly underscored by the heavy parts. To be honest, I’m not sure how much story you’ll be able to pick up. I do consider Mikael Akerfeldt’s death metal growl to be among the more melodic and listenable in the genre, but I won’t pretend that it has the clarity to be intelligible to any but the most ardent metal fans. Akerfeldt’s normal singing voice, which gets about 50% of the workload here, is also among the better in metal, making him a top tier dual threat. Often, metal singers that utilize the sing/growl dynamic get by on the inherent novelty of that contrast rather than their own skill, so it’s nice to hear real talent on display in that role. I wish I had known about Opeth in ’99, they may have prevented my years-long sabbatical from exploring new metal in my twenties.
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Blackout! – Redman & Method Man
Hip hop has seen its share of great emcee duos: Prodigy and Havoc, Killer Mike and El-P, Reverend Run and DMC of course. The list goes on. You would be hard pressed, though, to come up with a more charismatic pair than Method Man and Redman. They have fully developed and distinct flows, but their energy and sense of humor are virtually identical, and their comradery is palpable. Despite making names for themselves in high profile partnerships with other cohorts of rappers*, they have never sounded as comfortable as they do trading verses with each other on Blackout!. They are clearly having a ball trying to one-up each other with battle rhymes over infectiously bouncy beats. Lyrically, they don’t have much in mind beyond spitting dope bars, and that’s completely fine. These are two of the preeminent rappers of the 90’s, so any vehicle that lets them loose on their own terms doesn’t need a guiding concept to be successful. To be fair, the consistent production style and unrelenting party vibe do make the album a bit one-note, but on a song-by-song basis there isn’t a weak spot to be found. Plus, moments like the title track and “Da Rockwilder” (named after the track’s producer) are so lively and infectious that they would stand out in any context. They are bops, as the kids might say, or alternately they slap. Real slap-bops, those two. What makes the whole endeavor so easy to listen to is how, despite delivering on the rhyme quality you would expect from two hall of famers (and their hall of fame friends like LL Cool J and Ghostface), is how effortless it all comes off. Nothing feels strained or forced, whether it’s a punchline, a beat, or least of all, the chemistry between the two marquee artists. That’s the type of thing you couldn’t fake if you tried, and the reason I keep returning to Blackout! so many years later.
*Wu Tang proved in 1999 that even the mightiest empires fall. Other than Blackout! (which is not technically a Wu joint) they cluttered up the calendar with uninspired releases by Inspectah Deck, GZA, U-God and Raekwon, and a tragically scattershot effort from ODB that could only be saved by a superheroic production effort from the Neptunes.
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Agaetis Byrjun – Sigur Ros
I don’t tend to have issues listening to music in a foreign language, although I do find myself drawn primarily to Africa and Brazil when it comes to non-English-speaking artists. Particularly with afro-beat, the chants and shouts function as another instrument in the polyrhythmic stew, and understanding the lyrical content is pretty much ancillary. Sigur Ros’ Icelandic dream pop couldn’t be farther from the work of Cal Tjader or Fela Kuti, but a similar sentiment holds for their music as well. Knowing what they are saying might enhance the listening experience, but not knowing doesn’t take anything away. I could actually argue that the disorientation of having Icelandic singing only augments the alien soundscape that the band produces, and they seem to agree since a couple of tracks are actually sung in a made-up gibberish language. It’s indiscernible to me which is which, but native Icelanders were apparently also intended to disconnect from the meaning of the words on part of the album. I’ve never been to Iceland, but I’ve seen countless pictures on social media now that is has become the vacation destination du jour among people my age. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard an album that so closely evokes the region in which it was birthed. When you listen to it, can’t you just see the tourism video? Sweeping helicopter shots over moon-like rock formations, slow pans across luminescent tidal pools shrouded in mist, panoramas with ancient glaciers jutting into a cerulean skyline. I’m sure the real Iceland has bars and airports and plenty of domestic normalcy, as well, but all of that is strikingly absent from Agaetis Byrjun. None of this music is intended to sound human, whether it’s the ethereal strings and keyboard, or the primordial basslines, or the drum patterns so sparse that they barely register. I have a pretty narrow degree of interest in shoegaze acts like Yo La Tengo, and even more narrow is my tolerance of ambient music, so this type of album would have to be nearly perfect to garner repeat listens from me. Agaetis Byrjun basically is perfect, considering what it is intended to be. I think the key is that it endeavors to be dynamic despite its ambient nature. You get moments like the earworm hook to “Svefn-G-Englar”, the Radiohead chord progressions of the title track, and the bright crescendo of “Olsen Olsen”. This may be an album that you won’t play often (your summer cookout will be just fine without it), but it will be the perfect fit for the times you do.
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Soundpieces: Da Antidote! – Lootpack
Madlib is steadily becoming my favorite hip hop producer. Given that production is perhaps more important to hip hop than any other form of music, it stands that he is becoming my favorite producer, full stop. I have already extolled the virtues of his high-water marks Madvillainy and Bandana, but this time I’m travelling back to his roots as an emcee/producer double threat. If the Roots and Mos Def are too mainstream for you, Lootpack are the epitome of underground hip hop. It’s the type of music that has limited appeal, simply because it was created as an explicit alternative (or antidote, natch) to Bad Boy, Death Row and No Limit, aka the most popular rap labels in the world at the time. If you aren’t into abstruse beats featuring unrecognizable samples or the types of rhymes that repeatedly name-drop the slightly more recognized underground hip hop group the Alkoholiks and reference sixty-year-old Charles Mingus tunes, then you won’t really dig this. I do happen to be the target audience for those types of lyrics, and the three emcees (Wildchild, Madlib, DJ Romes) handle their business with consistently solid, if workmanlike, rhymes. I keep coming back to those Madlib beats, though. This is the era of long hip hop albums, and so Da Antidote! offers a menu of 24 bite-sized samples of the young prodigy’s bizarre approach to production. That’s a veritable treasure trove of raw gems, and it must have sounded even fresher in a time when the radio was full of Puff Daddy shiny suit production, or even the enjoyable but outmoded work of elder statesman Dr. Dre. In fact, these beats are left field enough that they still hit today, although the man behind them would go on to take even bigger, more successful risks throughout his career.
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Californication – Red Hot Chili Peppers
Anthony Kiedis is like Jim Morrison, partly because his voice and lyrical ability don’t seem to merit the massive success that he has enjoyed, and partly because his outsized charisma and bravado make it so that you never question his worthiness of such success. In rock music, with blues as its most basic foundation, confidence conquers all. It also helps that Kiedis (again like Morrison) is surrounded by musicians that are excellent at their craft and, importantly, don’t sound like any of their contemporaries. Everybody knows that Flea is a monster on bass, with Les Claypool dexterity and the aggressive funk sound of Larry Graham that allowed him to basically play lead on Blood Sugar Sex Magik. On Californication, he cedes lead duties almost fully to John Frusciante. Frusciante is a name that probably ranks higher on my personal hierarchy than that of our collective, canonical “top shredders” list. I am in love with his guitar tone, as exhibited on tracks like “Scar Tissue” and “Otherside”. It has the warmth and clarity of a cloudless summer afternoon, but also a melancholy timbre that gives it emotional weight. Chad Smith, despite being the archetypal frat dad, deserves his share of credit for anchoring RHPC throughout their career while his more famous and idiosyncratic band mates flex their unique styles. This crew was a well-oiled machine by the time Californication rolled around, and it features some of their best, most reflective, songwriting. There is the filler (Doors parallel rearing its head again), and something like “I Like Dirt” should have been destined for the cutting room floor, but most everything works on some level and the highs are career highlights for the band. I was almost taken off guard how much I enjoyed this album after it lay dormant in my collection for many, many years.
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The Gathering – Testament
I hope thrash never goes out of style. Over the years, heavy metal has evolved from a single band in the early seventies, to a handful of sub-genres in the eighties, to an ever splintering and combining legion of micro-genres today. Despite my affinity for NWOBHM, groove metal and progressive metal, thrash has remained my most consistently played genre of heavy music. From my earliest exposure to Metallica and Megadeth more than thirty years ago, it has been the default version of metal in my mind, and everything else I listen to is absorbed in some part with an ear for how it deviates or conforms to that template. Part of the reason is that it just won’t die. Every year since 1983 or so, artists have been releasing straight thrash metal in significant volumes, despite how the broader genre has evolved around them. It is truly the Galapagos islands of heavy metal categories. Testament is a band that had its inception when thrash was a novel sound, and you don’t always expect a group’s eighth consecutive release to be a winner when they are still essentially doing what they were doing when they first started out. Sometimes you just need some brutal riffs, though, y’know? I really don’t know how to describe something that is such an archetypical example of what it is. Sure, I get a touch of Motorhead here, a dash of Machine Head there*, but you really don’t need me to explain what this album sounds like. You already know if you are going to like it or not. For all my fellow thrash metal enthusiasts out there, if you haven’t heard The Gathering then I highly suggest you check it out. For everyone else, this isn’t going to be the album that converts you. For anyone who doesn’t know if they like thrash or not… go listen to Master of Puppets. If it sticks, you’ll make your way here eventually, anyway.
*No audible influence by Radiohead, Portishead or the Talking Heads, sadly.
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Honorable Mentions
Rock/Pop: Keep It Like a Secret – Built to Spill; Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One – The Olivia Tremor Control; Midnite Vultures – Beck; Stupid Dream – Porcupine Tree; The Soft Bulletin – The Flaming Lips
Metal: Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory – Dream Theater; Dreaming Neon Black – Nevermore; The Battle for Los Angeles – Rage Against the Machine
Hip Hop: Soundbombing II – Various; Nia – Blackalicious; World Party – Goodie Mob; A Prince Among Thieves – Prince Paul; A2G – Blackalicious; Black Elvis/Lost in Space – Kool Keith; Ki-Oku – DJ Krush & Toshinori Kondo; N**** Please – Ol’ Dirty Bastard; Operation Doomsday – MF Doom; So, How’s Your Girl? – Handsome Boy Modeling School; The Roots Come Alive – The Roots
Jazz: Elegiac Cycle – Brad Mehldau; From Gagarin’s Point of View – Esbjorn Svensson Trio; Motion – The Cinematic Orchestra
Country: Trio II – Harris, Parton & Ronstadt
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