Tonight We’re Going to Party Like It’s the Winter of 2003-2004
Top-ten lists are due when editors ask for them—usually in November or December of a given year—but I think that editors ask for them months, maybe years, too soon. Sometimes all you can do is guess at a record’s impact. For example, in 2006, one of the metal magazines to which I contribute asked for a year-end list several days before the release of Mastodon’s Blood Mountain, a major-label record that was both highly anticipated and hard to come by. A friend burned me an unmastered, unsequenced leak and I spun it only once or twice before putting it at number one.
By the time the issue hit the newsstands I doubt it would’ve made my top five. But, hey, so it goes. A fellow music critic even admitted as much when a mutual friend solicited our favorite records of recent years (he’s been busy raising a kid). “These are the ones that I still listen to,” the fellow music critic wrote. Which gave me the idea of revisiting an old list. For no good reason, I chose 2003 and set about making a top 10, based on records that I still listen to and own. I didn’t look at the old list or check any year-end summaries until I was done.
Here’s my new list in alphabetical order:
Cult of Luna The Beyond (Earache)
Down in the Basement: Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s, 1926-1937 (Old Hat)
Killing Joke Killing Joke (Red Ink)
Lungfish Love is Love (Dischord)
Mogwai Happy Songs for Happy People (Matador)
Pelican Australasia (Hydra Head)
Supersilent 6 (Rune Grammofon)
David Sylvian Blemish (Samadhi Sound)
Viktor Vaughn Vaudeville Villain (Sound-Ink)
Miroslav Vitous Universal Syncopations (ECM)
And here’s the list I sent to Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll in 2003.
Two CDs on my original list (Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below and Dizzee Rascal’s Boy in Da Corner) made it into the Pazz & Jop Top 10. But neither has really stood the test of time, which suggests that maybe folks aren’t pulling out those Basement Jaxx and Fountains of Wayne records either.
Or maybe it’s just that the hippest of hip hop is only good for a quick fix. Though Ta-Nehisi Coates was on the Viktor Vaughn record right away, it only charted at 141 on the P&J list.
For those who’ve heard both, who thinks that Speakerboxxx/The Love Below holds up better than Vaudeville Villain? I doubt it’s few—if any.
2:17 pm
Dude:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/special/arts2003/hiphop.html
2:27 pm
OK, I should've said that Coates AND WARMINSKY were on this record right away.
Better?
2:46 pm
Nah, T-Coates is probably the reason I heard the album in the first place. I don't remember for sure. That album has one of my favorite stoopid lines of all time: "The way he rep on the mic/It's like the weapon from Krull."
3:42 pm
"Killing Joke" (2003) is probably one of the best non metal, metal albums of many, many years. When I'm pissed off on the way home, which happens with increasing frequency, "Asteroid" gets the ol' heart rate up to the appropriate level: Code Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhh.
4:20 pm
That "Killing Joke" is a real grower.
I didn't like it much when I picked it:
https://secure.washingtoncitypaper.com/cgi-bin/Archive/abridged2.bat?path=q:\DocRoot/2003/031017/pix17h&search=&SearchString=&AuthorLastName=burton&IssueDate=mm%2Fdd%2Fyyyy&SelectYear=All&next.x=-1&next.y=-1
(How's that for a passive lede?)
But I kept coming back to it from 2004-2007.
It's my favorite after the first two.
4:22 pm
That link didn't come out, so here it is pasted...
It was the EG Records logo on the spine that drew me to that used Killing Joke cassette all those years ago. It was 1987, and I was already the proud owner of several Brian Eno and King Crimson tapes on the same label. Should sound just like 'em, right? Well, not really. Nevertheless, I ended up becoming a fan of the first two albums despite the fact that there was really nothing progressive about the British band at all. There wasn't anything regressive, either. The band just seemed to exist in its own hermetically sealed world, where metal sounded like punk and punk was pissed off at something so nonspecific as to be all-inclusive. Fast-forward to 2003: Killing Joke seems to be slouching towards nü-metal (chugging a lot) and has gotten way too lyrically obvious (railing against Bush, banks, and pumpkin pie), but at least that tribal throb is still intact. Killing Joke plays with Amen at 8:30 p.m. on the Black Cat's Mainstage, 1811 14th St. NW. $15. (202) 667-7960. (Brent Burton)
4:31 pm
Matt Damon:
"The only way to judge a movie is 10 years down the line. I think they should do the Oscars that way. I wish this year we were voting on 1997."
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20049809,00.html
3:33 pm
I'm way more into the King Gheedorah record that MF Doom released in 2003, but Vaudeville Villain is pretty dope. Why did so many critics vote for that Outkast double record? Warm feelings left over from Stankonia? 'Cuz I listened to it the other day and it's pretty inconsistent/forgettable.