Found Or Forgotten; 60 Years Of Great Music
2003 was a very solid year for music; from rock, to hip hop, to soul to metal. There were no instant classics, but there were absolutely plenty of great tunes to be had.
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 #7 in the series. My random number generator tells me that our next year to explore is 1960!
The Greatest Albums of 2003
It’s tough to pin down a general trend in music for any year past 2000 or so. I’ve talked before about the democratization of music distribution due to the proliferation of the internet, and the fact remains that we may never see another Nirvana or Michael Jackson again, much less an Elvis or Beatles. The world just doesn’t move that closely in lock-step anymore; there are too many choices. There are some artists that manage to steal more than their share of the limelight, however, and if my memory serves me, those artists were Outkast and the White Stripes in 2003. Outkast dominated the music scene with their insanely ambitious double album and massive singles, “I Like the Way You Move” and “Hey Ya!”. More on them below. The White Stripes had been rock music’s supposed saviors for a couple years by this point, and their album Elephant only amped up the hype. For the record, I like the band, and the album, but I never quite understood the critical fawning. I suspect it had as much to do with Jack and Meg’s coy treatment of the nature of their relationship as it did with their music. Were they a couple? Brother and sister? Both!?! It was a bit of marketing genius to give rock critics such a fun hook to write about, and it paid off.
Barring that, my recollection of 2003 is pretty hazy. I changed jobs, moved and got married that year, so keeping up with current music wasn’t exactly my top priority. Four of the albums in my top ten I would have bought that year, or at least in early 2004. Four of them I discovered in subsequent years, and two I uncovered while researching this blog post. The one surprising thing that I’m discovering, which echoes my sentiments in the 2004 entry, is that rock and roll was actually thriving during this period. It wasn’t at the top of the national consciousness, necessarily, but there were definitely some great albums being produced. That trend is represented in my top ten, so let’s dive into it.
It Still Moves – My Morning Jacket
It Still Moves was a massive break-through for My Morning Jacket. If it’s not their best album (it’s not, we’ll see that in 2005), it’s the one that is the most unabashedly “Southern Rock”. Previously, the band had a much more folk-influenced sound, psychedelic and sleepy. Here, they have released a robust punch of guitar-forward rock that is the spiritual successor to the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd, not Bright Eyes. It plays like a summer road trip through the Midwest: It’s all wide open spaces, and no matter how fast you go, it takes a long time to get anywhere. Ten of the twelve tracks clock in at more than five minutes in length, and a few edge closer to the ten-minute mark. The important thing for epics like “Run Thru” and “Steam Engine” however, is that they build to something, not just repeating themselves throughout their extended run time.
What distinguishes MMJ from other rock acts with a similar bent towards excess, is that the atmosphere they create is unmistakably warm and inclusive. Many capital “R” rock acts are either bombastic and technique-focused, or snarky and ironically-distant. Jim James sums up the My Morning Jacket ambiance succinctly with the first line off of the album’s first track: “Sittin’ here with me and mine, all wrapped up in a bottle of wine…” That just about covers it. Whether it’s the straight-forward and invigorating “One Big Holiday” or the nostalgic and delicate “I Will Sing You Songs”, the band envelops you good vibes. That sure as hell seems valuable as I write this in November of 2016, and I bet it will apply whenever you are reading it, as well.
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The Diary of Alicia Keys – Alicia Keys
When Alicia Keys hit the scene with “Fallin’” back in 2001, I was absolutely taken with the song. It wasn’t quite the neo-soul of Erykah Badu or Jill Scott that I enjoyed without reservation (thanks to its bountiful hip hop cred), but it also wasn’t the slick 90’s R&B of Mary J. Blige or Toni Braxton that I had never been able to connect with. It was simple, soulful pop music that had a killer hook and super-pretty, clean vocals. Unfortunately, the rest of her debut album was mostly forgettable and undercooked. With the release of The Diary of Alicia Keys, two years later, Keys finally put together a full record that fulfilled on the promise of that first wonderful single.
The most impressive thing about Diary, if you set aside the slew of great songs, is that it maintains a cohesive sound, delicately balanced between classic and contemporary, despite a fragmented production by committee approach. You have Keys and two other people sharing executive production duties, traditional R&B producers involved (Tony! Toni! Tone!’s D’wayne Wiggins), hip hop producers (Kanye, Easy Mo Bee), and more. Somehow, the album flows marvelously as if it were the product of one person’s unwavering vision. If I’m really honest, it’s a bit front-loaded, with “Karma”, “If I Was Your Woman”, “You Don’t Know My Name” and “If I Ain’t Got You” all showing up by track six. That’s convenient if you want just a taste of Keys’ brand of pristine soul music, but you will also be rewarded by letting the album play out (something my new wife and I did dozens and dozens of times in the months following its release.)
When I mentioned that Keys’ music doesn’t quite fit the neo-soul or contemporary R&B categories, it really does have a feeling all of its own. Her music is certainly not as sophisticated, lyrically or thematically, as the best of the neo-soul squad, settling for a more universal simplicity. Likewise, she doesn’t traffic in sex appeal the way much of the R&B world does. She’s certainly attractive enough to go down that path if she had chosen to (let’s face it, she’s drop dead gorgeous), but instead she creates an air of charming conservatism where flirtation is the most risqué thing going on. I think that’s why I gravitate towards her music: It recalls the uncomplicated, well-written and ultimately innocent soul music of the sixties, in tone if not in form, and that is some of the most enjoyable music that has ever been released.
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Decoration Day – Drive-By Truckers
The flip side of It Still Moves‘ soulful and expansive Southern rock, Decoration Day’s taut rockabilly showcases the less romantic side of the rural South. The Truckers, whose key members all hail from Alabama, pull no punches in their depiction of the struggles and shortcomings of the characters that populate the album. Every track is presented in first-person, which contributes to the immediacy of tunes about hasty marriages, the crumbling families that result from them, and the blue collar work that may or may not sustain them. And that’s the light stuff. Jason Isbell joins the band for the first time on this album, and contributes a couple of great songs (including the stunning title track). While he’s the best singer they have, I find that Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley’s rough-edged, scrappy vocals actually fit the subject matter better. Regardless of the vocalist, you can feel the edge, the disillusionment, the bitterness and even the sentimentality of each song’s protagonist. That helps dark tracks about incest and violence avoid becoming sensationalistic or mean-spirited.
The album’s centerpiece is the title track, a harrowing account of multi-generational violence between two families. It is a blast of hard rock that matches the intensity of the subject matter perfectly, as Isbell sings as a man who sounds less heartbroken over his father’s murder than contemplative about the futility of revenge:
“I never knew how it all got started A problem with Holland before we were born And I don’t know the name of that boy we tied down And beat till he just couldn’t walk anymore.”
Decoration Day is a brutally honest look at the South (and maybe it is actually a touch sensationalistic), but it is also wonderfully crafted and kind of beautiful. While it doesn’t flinch away from any of its broken characters, it also empathizes with them, and that makes even the most dire of stories palatable. The energy the band brings is positively crackling, and it doesn’t surprise me to learn that much of the album was recorded in a single take. It won’t be for everyone, but this is a truly original and frank take on Southern rock.
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Speakerboxx/The Love Below – Outkast
I still remember exactly where I was the first time I heard “Hey Ya!”. No shit, it made that much of an impression, just like my first kiss or finding out the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center. I was in my car, weirdly listening to the radio (something I do <1% of the time), and it came on a local rock station. I pulled into my apartment complex when it was half over and sat in the parking lot until it ended. And then after it ended for probably another minute or so, wondering what the hell it was that I had just listened to. Look, it may sound strange now that we’ve all heard the song approximately six million times, but I was staggered by how unconventional and bizarre it was. If you really think about it, has there even been anything since then that sounds like that? Anyway, that was my introduction to The Love Below, Andre 3000’s half of the experimental double-album by Outkast that took the world by storm in 2003, and I’m not sure that a song has captured my imagination in the same way since.
Since I’ve already kicked things off with The Love Below, let’s examine the rest of that offering. Andre has created a concept album about relationships that is decidedly hip hop, although could not be considered rap music in even the most generous of terms. The story follows Andre (auto-biographical? unclear) as he hooks up with a young woman at a club, kicking off a lustful, but ultimately unfulfilling relationship that ends in a rough break-up (memorialized by the wonderful couplet “I know you like to think that your shit don’t stank, but lean a little bit closer, see, roses really smell like boo-boo.”) He then falls for an older woman, but the idea of a more adult, committed relationship scares the crap out of him (illustrated helpfully in “Dracula’s Wedding”, where a lifetime commitment is extended to an eternal one through subjects that claim immortality.) Throughout, he struggles with his protective emotional distance (“Ice Cold!”) before throwing up his hands and coming to the conclusion that masturbation is the only viable path to happiness. Andre grinds up funk, electro-pop, rap and even an acoustic number featuring Nora Jones into a truly unique amalgam of musical influences. There are some real standouts in the funkier front half (“Happy Valentine’s Day”, “Prototype”, “She Lives in My Lap”) before losing some steam in the latter portion of the album.
Big Boi’s Speakerboxxx is neither as experimental or as conceptually high-minded as his partner’s offering, but it is still far from cookie-cutter hip hop. “I Like the Way You Move” remains as joyfully catchy and playful today as it was back then, and could have been the single of the year if not for the “Hey Ya!” juggernaut. The title track is a schizophrenic blast of hip hop that sees Big Boi ably stepping in to the role of master emcee in order to compensate for Andre’s transformation into weirdo funk peddler. There is a lot going on all over the album, and it doesn’t really hang together the way that The Love Below does. Still, you can point to several tracks that stand alone as top-notch rap music (“Bowtie”, “Bust”, “Reset”), and that probably sound a lot what we expected Outkast’s next album to be after Stankonia.
While Speakerboxxx/The Love Below might be the decade’s most ambitious outing from a major act in any genre, it does groan a bit under the weight of that very ambition. If you stack up all the best tracks from every release in 2003, this album goes right to the top. However, it suffers from some unnecessary bloat (I love hearing Andre’s electro-jazz version of “My Favorite Things” play on bumpers for PBS, but it doesn’t add a hell of a lot of value to the story he is trying to tell), and it is fair to say that the duo lost something magical by dividing their efforts up instead of working together more closely. Still, it’s easy to think back and recall the sheer awe that I experienced those first few weeks after the album’s release.
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Absolution – Muse
I’ve missed the boat on Muse, it seems, and I’m not sure exactly what circumstances conspired to cause that. Absolution is the first album of theirs that I’ve listened to, and it’s great. I give it my unreserved recommendation. It combines the otherworldliness of Radiohead’s post-Bends career, with the heavy prog rock of Porcupine Tree. The album is thematically focused on theology and the apocalypse, I think – I’m terrible at internalizing song lyrics except for hip hop and country. It has an appropriately epic sound, assuming that is the thematic slant, and a very dynamic and varied sonic palette full of moody organs, sharp guitars and Matt Bellamy’s versatile vocals. Seemingly every year I come across a new album that I really enjoy, but struggle to articulate why. I’ve had a relationship with much of this music for thirteen years at this point, so it’s no surprise that I have a lot to say about it. Catch me back in 2029, when I will inevitably still be working on this project, to get a more nuanced take on Absolution.
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De-Loused in the Comatorium – The Mars Volta
Similar in a lot of ways to Absolution, except that it feels slightly more metal and less rock. Supposedly a concept album about some short story, I can make even less out of singer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s lyrics than usual. It’s all “exoskeletal” something-or-other, and “carpal jet” whatever-the-hell. It doesn’t really matter though, because despite having no idea what the songs are about, the creativity behind each one is intoxicatingly evident. The band’s playing strikes an interesting tension between math-y prog rock control and the threat of wildly careening off the rails. While most metal is powered through aggression, Mars Volta seems to feed mostly off of anxiety. Rodriguez-Lopez’s voice is pretty much the polar opposite of most of the genre’s growlers; nasal, high-pitched and full of nervous energy. All of that angst propels the material forward and prevents the listener from losing interest, even as it starts to run together a bit by the end. If you’ve never given them a try before, this is the perfect jumping on point. By 2008’s The Bedlam in Goliath, they are so punchy that you might need a Xanax to make it through that one.
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Worldwide Underground – Erykah Badu
Erykah had her artistic peak in the year 2000 with the brilliant Mama’s Gun. In many people’s minds, she wouldn’t properly follow that up for eight years, despite the fact she released this lovely little album in 2003. Critical reception was pretty weak for Worldwide Underground, comparing it unfavorably to the career high-water mark that preceded it. Clearly, this collection of songs is not on the same level as the genius Mama’s Gun, but that hardly disqualifies if from being a great bit of fun. The first few tracks (following the intro), are as good as anything Ms. Badu has ever done, with two long-form jams that never cease to shift in unusual directions (“Bump It”, “I Want You”) sandwiching the classic “Back in the Day”, a nostalgic soul tribute to sneaking out and smoking weed with sketchy dudes from the neighborhood. This stretch foreshadows the wild experimentation on 2008’s New Amerykah, Part 1, and the ending of “I Want You” may just be the coolest two minutes committed to record in 2003.
The second half of the album is much looser, sounding more like series of sketches instead of fully formed pieces of art. The sole exception is “Danger”, a masterful, studio-perfected banger that has us rooting for the complicit wife of a working class coke dealer. The under-construction vibe of the other tracks is actually remarkably charming, and I find that their mixtape vibe makes Worldwide Underground far more listenable than the conceptually difficult and intricate New Amerykah. You could find many worse ways to burn an hour. (“Yeah, like reading 4000 words on a bunch of old music, more than a decade after I’ve already made up my mind what I think about it” – everybody).
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Ruckus – Galactic
One thing that should become pretty apparent as this series goes on is that I am a big fan of funk music. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a proper funk band in decades. Not really, anyway. Not like Parliament and Kool & the Gang and Rick James and the Gap Band… Galactic comes pretty close, though, particularly on Ruckus. The album is a delightful collision of soulful funk, hard rock and old school break beats. Kind of like if you broke down Funkadelic into its most basic elements and repurposed them to construct something entirely different. It’s also the band’s most consistent album, owed in large part to the tremendous vocals of Theryl DeClouet (who would depart the band in 2004 and never be replaced) and the production of a personal favorite, Dan the Automator. I tend to get self-conscious about playing music for friends or at gatherings (even though I am paradoxically arrogant enough to feel most qualified to do the same), just because it’s hard to make everyone happy, and I often have a difficult time registering what the more universally appealing albums in my collection are. Ruckus is one of the few “sure things” that I own, because it’s just so cool I can’t imagine anyone not digging it. And if I’m honest, the fact that the band is relatively unheralded gives me that sweet little endorphin kick from being more well-informed than everyone else, that also happens to be the cornerstone of hipster culture (along with mustache wax and unnecessary eyewear.)
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Get Born – Jet
Prior to researching this post, I was already familiar with Jet’s big single, “Are You Going to Be My Girl”. So was everybody else in America in 2003, as the song’s jaunty, “Lust for Life” baseline wormed its way into our subconscious that year. What I wasn’t familiar with, however, was how it combines with the rest of Jet’s debut album to form a timeless, classic rock pastiche. Some people may balk at this album making the top 10 over releases from the White Stripes and Radiohead, and you could certainly call the projects from those artists more ambitious. While I love some of the music on Elephant and Hail to the Thief, however, just as many of the songs leave me flat. That’s the bitch about ambition, the success rate tends to reflect the level of risk you take. Not to mention, it is just as hard to do simplicity really well. You’d better have some great hooks if you aren’t going to try and push boundaries. Your lyrics need to be universal, but not facile. When you don’t have any bells and whistles to hide behind, your song-writing has to stand on its own. What I’m saying is it takes pretty big balls to put out an album this straight-forward, particularly if you are going to riff so shamelessly on the Beatles (“Look What You’ve Done”, “Timothy”) and the Stones (“Move On”, “Cold Hard Bitch”). Amazingly, Jet pulls it off.
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Hard Groove – The RH Factor
There have been hundreds of attempts at marrying jazz and hip hop throughout the years. Some have been successful (A Tribe Called Quest, early Roots), but most endeavors have come across stilted and awkward, sacrificing some essential element on the hip hop side. That didn’t stop Arrested Development, US3, the Jazzyfatnastees and countless other acts from running the concept into the ground in the 90’s. Despite that spotty track record, Roy Hargrove is able to produce the most successful union of the styles that I’ve yet come across, while also incorporating funk and soul in equal measures. So, how does he do it?
It probably helps that he is foremost a jazz musician, while all other attempts have generated with hip hop artists. Coming from that angle, and understanding his strengths, he is able to tap into his extremely talented bench of hip hop and neo-soul buddies (Q-Tip, Common, Erykah Badu, D’Angelo) in order to provide the credibility necessary from that side of the aisle. The freestyles and verses are deliberately loose and informal, matching Hargrove’s laid back and improvisational horn playing. The music is bright and airy, but contains considerable depth. My favorite track has to be a cover of Funkadelic’s “I’ll Stay”, that manages to slow the potent jam down to molasses while also throttling on the intoxicating sexiness that made the original so great.
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Honorable Mentions
Rock: Elephant – The White Stripes; Young Liars – TV on the Radio; Fever to Tell – Yeah Yeah Yeahs; Damnation – Opeth; Hail to the Thief – Radiohead; Chutes Too Narrow – The Shins; Unclassified – Robert Randolph & the Family Band
Hip Hop: Ghetto Pop Life – DJ Danger Mouse & Gemeni; The Listening – Little Brother; Trap Muzik – T.I.; Shades of Blue – Madlib; Wooden Leather – Nappy Roots; Vaudeville Villain – Viktor Vaughn
Metal: Through the Ashes of Empires – Machine Head; Below the Lights – Enslaved; Hate Crew Deathroll – Children of Bodom
Country/Bluegrass/Folk: Where Shall You take Me? – Damien Jurado; World Without Tears – Lucinda Williams; Carolina Jubilee – The Avett Brothers; Rainy Day Music – The Jayhawks
Soul: You Are Free – Cat Power; Comfort Woman – Meshell N’Degeocello
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