See “Best of 2008” for a general introduction.
If you read my “Best of 2000” entry, you’ll see that as I
move backward in time I am starting to run out of a good stock of records from
these years that I have memories and opinions and any sort of knowledge or
interest in. Now while I have a much larger pool of 1999 releases than I did
for 2000, it will only be a couple more years before I run out of experience. I
probably have an album that I love from every year after a certain point (it
might be fun, for me at least/most, to test this theory) and I could perhaps do
top ten jazz albums of the year for some time period like 1955-1965 but we’ll
see about those.
A good and knowledgeable friend of mine once suggested in
the pub that the late 90s was a bit of a nothing time for music. What with the
New York City cool bands like The Strokes and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and LCD
Soundsystem and Interpol (see Lizzy Goodman’s 2017 book “Meet me in the
Bathroom” for the lowdown on these) still a year or few away, and Oasis and
Blur’s Britpop and mainstream Grunge’s heydays were pretty much over. At the
time I eventually came up with Refused’s The Shape of Punk to Come from 1998 as
a counterexample, but what he meant was music that captured the public’s imagination
/ altered the zeitgeist / shifted the paradigm / more than twelve people
listened to. While that means little to me, I have often been, rightly but not
unashamedly, accused of music snobbery, but as we’re about to see the late 90s
was certainly a marvellous time for “alternative” music. 1999 wasn’t at all bad
for hip hop either, seeing the release of Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides, Roots
Manuva’s debut, a contender for The Roots’ magnum opus, Dr Dre’s 2001, Eminem’s
Slim Shady LP and no doubt countless others that I don’t know or haven’t
realised about.
It was tough to narrow it down to a top number. Honourable
mentions / some records that didn’t make the cut include:
- American Football’s debut LP. If you like post/math-rock and/or the myriad works of the Kinsella brothers (Cap’n Jazz, Joan of Arc, Owls, Owen, etc) then you’d love what turned out to be the first of three self-titled LPs. Just Mike Kinsella rather than Tim as well, but still.
- Blink 182’s Enema of the State. I enjoyed this at the time and there some classics of the genre here, but it’s not something that’s stayed with me ever since. I think I ended up swapping my copy for a Machine Head, The Burning Red CD.
- Speaking of which, 1999 is when Machine Head went nu-metal for the first time! While purists hate TBR, I have a lot of love of it…even the Message in a Bottle cover. Once again it gets Jimmy points because it was my initiation into the band, but there are plenty of tracks on there neither the band nor the fans are ashamed of today.
- Foo Fighter’s third record, There is Nothing Left to Lose, featuring such choice cuts as Breakout and Learn to Fly. I think after this they became patchy and middle-of-the-road. And much like with Red Hot Chili Peppers, while I like them, I resent them a little as bands whose records you can put on in order to please (or at least not alienate) everyone around you.
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s masterful Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada, if only it weren’t an EP. It is all of 22 seconds shorter than Reign in Blood.
- Jamiroquai’s Synkronized. Responsible for the singles Canned Heat and Supersonic, and the Godzilla-film-featured Deeper Underground. Many of the non-single tracks aren’t quite up there with the earlier albums, though.
- Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other. Not as childish as Hot Dog and a lot of it has dated more or less OK. I can even still listen to Break Stuff quite happily. Many good illustrations of the band being better than Fred Durst can be found throughout.
- Metallica’s grand orchestral experiment S&M. Worth it for the existence of No Leaf Clover and the arrangement of Outlaw Torn alone.
- Moby’s world-conquering Play. A bit too chilled and subtle for me at the time, but I have since come to recognise it as a classic piece of work.
- The Cinematic Orchestra’s Motion. I can’t include a TCO record every year they release one, so given it’s still a wonderful record but a bit of an early draft of what came later, Jason Swinscoe and Co’s debut can stay out of the top few this time around.
- The Flaming Lips’s The Soft Bulletin. I think this is generally considered their best album, but I confess I don’t know it well enough to opine.
- The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs (a title that should be taken literally across the album's three CDs). A big deal in some quarters. Including Neil Gaiman’s while he was writing American Gods.
- Chris Cornell’s solo debut record Euphoria Morning, released halfway between the last Soundgarden album until 2012 and Audioslave’s debut, was well received.
- Metalcore innovators Botch’s second and final record, We are the Romans. As great as Botch’s own music was, they are almost as well remembered for the bands its members formed after – Minus the Bear, Russian Circles, These Arms are Snakes, plus some others.
- Sick of It All’s solid Call to Arms. The AC/DC of New York hardcore.
- DJ, tea-lover, and weirdly fish-obsessed Mr Scruff’s eclectic Keep It Unreal.
- Skunk Anansie’s Post Orgasmic Chill. Notable for many things, including a heavier sound and Skin continuing to have one of the most distinct, and, more importantly, also lovely voices in, well, any musical genre.
- Travis’ The Man Who. I couldn’t stand this. I seem to recall the secret track was OK and I didn’t hate a song they did years later. A perfect example of an album I thought maybe the Punks and Metalheads could have united against (remember that people, particularly the English on a platform when the trains are delayed, are united by what they hate and not by what they love), at least until Coldplay’s Parachutes came out the year after, but it was not to be.
Plenty of nuggets there, and now an even better 14 for y’all
to wade through my extended thoughts
about. You lucky, lucky things.
AFI – Black Sails in
the Sunset
I can’t decide whether this or 2000’s The Art of Drowning is
my favourite AFI record. While TAoD evokes particular memories of a childhood
winter, BSITS is less specific for me. BSITS is perhaps a purer record, with
TAoD having a few bumps on the way, but then arguably its goth/horror punk sheen
makes it in turn less pure than its predecessors. I think with AFI you either
pick the era you like best or go with whatever got you into them in the first
place. Same thing, perhaps. Note also that BSITS was the first record with
guitarist Jade Puget as a full member.
While I have a lot of affection for the band’s pop-rock era
(not least in a sense that AFI doing their pop-rock is better than other
pop-rock bands doing pop-rock) it often suffers from a cheesiness that I don’t
hear in the earlier stuff when the music and especially the lyrics were less
compromised. While the longer tracks are perhaps a little laboured, the album otherwise
personifies all the best parts of AFI: beloved opener Strength Through Wounding
is a fully realised fist-pumping anthem not just a throwaway intro, God
Called In Sick Today is a closing ballad to die for, Baudelaire-quoting secret
track Midnight Sun is well worth the wait, Davey Havok’s oblique lyrics are pure
poetry (not that you can make them out) and his often cleverly phrased shouty
delivery is on point, the backing vocals add so much, the melodies are infectious, the artwork is striking (it
was later referenced in the Sing the Sorrow artwork), Havok’s hair/look and
tattoos were on their way to iconic (I don’t think he’d finished his Nightmare
Before Christmas sleeves at this point),…I could go on and on. And probably
will, another time. 1999 is also notable for seeing the release of AFI’s All
Hallows EP, as important a bridge between albums as At the Drive-In’s Vaya EP
(also released in this year) was between In/Casino/Out and Relationship of
Command.
Dream Theater –
Metropolis Pt.2: Scenes from a Memory
A concept album where the concept is good and well executed
yet the music still comes first. A real DT fan favourite. It features some of
the prog-rock/metal band’s best song-writing and most astonishing playing.
Incubus – Make
Yourself
An important gateway record for me into alternative music
but a fantastic record in its own right, this is probably my (and a lot of
people’s) favourite Incubus record. I was due to see it performed in full at
the Royal Albert Hall earlier this year but, y’know, lockdown. I like the
heaviness, the scratch track, the balladry (Drive!), the singles, the album
cuts. And I appreciate the lack of funk, if I’m honest.
Korn – Issues
Unlike the seminal third album Follow the Leader, and to a
lesser extent the first two records, the Bakersfield nu-metal quintet’s fourth
album has dated extremely well, I’d say. It still has plenty of Korn-staple
rage and depressing cathartic lyricism but there is no guest rapping and no
ill-advised attempt at humour or nasty sex stuff. There are interludes to make
Tool proud, the bagpipes are subtle, the album sequencing is right on the money,
it has an “art” ending of 4 minutes of static, and it has this sad-sounding,
claustrophobic (I might be overdoing it), production that I always try to call
out when I hear it because it suits me down to the ground (see: Roots Manuva
albums I like). Falling Away From Me and Make Me Bad are two of the greatest
songs they ever released.
Mogwai – Come On Die
Young
1997’s Young Team is generally considered the Scottish
post-rock chaps’ best work, but I find that record not fully realised and so
don’t agree. In any case I think that does a disservice to the rest of Mogwai’s
huge body of work and their well-deserved longevity. Now CODY, on the other
hand, well that’s a strong contender. Slick and consistent but also chock full
of highlights (The Iggy Pop sampling Punk Rock (most spoken word intros or
samples I want to skip after the first listen or two – Daft Punk’s Giorgio Moroder,
Puscifer’s Simultaneous, every other track on Soweto Kinch albums – but never
this nor Godspeed’s) Christmas Steps, May Nothing But Happiness Come Through
Your Door), it isn’t bombastic like Young Team but it is more subtle, better
produced, and dare I say it…more arty?
Nine Inch Nails – The
Fragile
The follow-up to Trent Reznor’s everything-changing The
Downward Spiral, this had a lot riding on it. Not least with a 5 year gap while
Reznor struggled with addiction and the pressures of fame. Given I started with
2005’s With Teeth and worked backwards, I wonder if The Fragile isn’t my
favourite of the classic NIN era. Fans and critics were divided by its length
(it’s a double – the discs are “Left” and “Right”) and lack of directness (‘Starfuckers,
Inc.’ aside, although that’s ‘buried’ halfway through the 2nd disc)
and classical music influences (recurring themes in general and track ‘La Mer’
in particular), but I wouldn’t have it any other way. The Great Below is for me
the superior album-ending (well, disc 1 anyway) ballad compared to Hurt (I also
rate ‘Right Where It Belongs’ higher). While there were 5 year gaps between the
first 3 albums (1992’s Broken EP, notwithstanding), it would be 6 years until the fourth. After which
Reznor’s prolific-ness exploded (we’ve had albums and EPs and soundtracks and
side-projects coming out of his ears. It seems sobriety and stability suit
him). This is especially interesting for being the other way ‘round to how most
bands seem to do it.
Opeth – Still Life
A record I forget to listen to often, unlike everything from
Blackwater Park through to Ghost Reveries, but that I always enjoy a lot when I
do remember to. Not that lo-fi is anything to sniff at when it comes to Scandi
death or black metal, but I gotta say this is the first record where they
started to sound really good. Given Opeth’s intricacy and penchant for drawing
in from multiple genres, I think a more professional sound suits them.
Rage Against the
Machine – The Battle of Los Angeles
Perhaps a little less fresh or shocking than the self-titled
debut, but otherwise I find it comparable with that album, in a way that Evil
Empire isn’t quite, not just for having grey artwork but for high quality and even
consistency. It’s probably worth noting that I initially hated RATM, mostly for the high-pitched rapped vocals, but as with
a lot of bands and musical styles I got over myself and came to enjoy those
vocals (and the lyrics and politics they espouse) and Tom Morello’s unique
guitar sound(s). I have since been lucky enough to see them live twice, and
while I understand criticism of their shows sounding just like the record, I’m
going to assign that to professionalism and declare them one of the best live
bands I’ve ever seen. I tried to learn the bass intro at the start of Calm Like
a Bomb, with mixed results. They would often write in their album liner notes
that “all sounds made with vocals, guitar, bass, and drums”. I’ll admit I’m not
totally sure of the motivations there, other than the fact that Morello makes
such weird noises with his guitar people might think they were from something
else, but as it is I’ll lump them in with the Melvins as prime examples of how
creative you can still be with just the basic instrumentation and no bells and
whistles.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
– Californication
I am happy to laugh at all the RHCP jokes as much as the
next person, but this album is a lot more than a socks-on-cocks party record.
Once again I appreciated the lack of funk compared to their sound up to this
point (note that that was in retrospect, this being the first RHCP record I’d
heard. On my school’s German exchange, in fact); apparently Jamiroquai is a far
as I’m willing to go there :s. Anyway, it is perhaps telling that other than
beautiful closing ballad Road Trippin’, the 5 singles are all from the first
half of the record. After track 7, Easily, and again other than Road Trippin, I
only really like This Velvet Glove (but boy do I love that song!). That said, the plodding Porcelain is probably the
only track I would actually ditch. Other than that I think we have the perfect
mix of quick and upbeat with Anthony Kiedis’ more introspective demon-airing
side, and it was a triumphant return for guitarist John Frusciante. While I
don’t think Flea deserves all the flack he gets (apparently his parts are quick
but not difficult or musically interesting. I’m not sure about that. And he did play bass on The Mars Volta’s
Deloused in the Comatorium and it sounded nothing like RHCP. And he can jam.
Which is what I guess “proper musicians” do, no?), Anthony probably does, but
Frusciante, and drummer Chad Smith, certainly deserve all the praise. Perhaps
the pop side of the pop rockiness of this album is why I don’t listen to it
much these days, This Velvet Glove aside, but it was another gateway/guitar
music initiation for me (on the same trip to Germany I bought Garbage’s s/t and
Stereophonics’ Word Gets Around on CD from a shop in Cologne) so it will always
be special to me because of that. I quite like the blue/orange reversed
sky/swimming pool artwork too.
Roots Manuva – Brand
New Second Hand
This might be the last time I say this, but this is the record with this beautiful
bleak (claustrophobic!) production which both perfectly suits Rodney Smith’s
laid-back mumbly dreamy rapping style and sound and delivery, and appeals to my
limited hip-hop sensibilities. A lot of the lyrics are eminently quotable too,
in his very British way.
Sigur Ros - Ágætis
Byrjun
While I favour ( ) ever so slightly, this is another
quintessential album from the Icelandic post-rock second-coming pioneers.
Clichéd adjectives that are nevertheless absolutely perfect to describe the
sound Sigur Ros make: mercurial, ethereal, other-worldly. Arguably the catchier
and more accessible record compared to ( ).
Slipknot – s/t
A teenager-friendly album of its time that I am not going to dismiss retrospectively
(like the masked Iowan nonet’s sophomore record, previously derided), here the
Slipknot staples that would later grate (cheesy raps, saccharine choruses) do not. I think that could be down to several things. Originality (relatively,
compared to themselves at least) perhaps, passion and earnestness definitely,
and nu-metal pie-fingerer Ross Robinson’s rawer and slightly underdone
production certainly helps. There is a little more filler than there maybe
could be, but the Charles Manson-referring intro track is perfect in a way that
failed attempts to repeat it on albums 2, 4, and 6 are not, and (sic) is the
opening track to end all opening tracks, introducing to the world as it did
Slipknot’s trademark multi-percussion attack. Then you have DJ Sid Wilson’s
finest moment with the scratchy intro to Eyeless, hit single Wait and Bleed,
mediocre but heavily promoted and seemingly beloved band anthem Surfacing,
live-show-jumping single Spit It Out, and on we go. Scissors is arguably their
best epic track (although I have a lot of love for the track Iowa in this
regard) and the bonus tracks were all quite welcome – Eeyore even gets played
live, like a proper song!
The Dillinger Escape
Plan – Calculating Infinity
I have written that nothing sounds too heavy to me anymore.
This brutal mathcore record is perhaps the closest I can still get. While plenty
aggressive, sure, there are still plenty of signs of the intelligent and
experimental side to the band, not least their signature stop/start jerky tempo
changes. Greg Puciato did not vocalise on a TDEP record until 2004’s
Miss Machine, so this featured original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis. While Puciato is next level and probably more
versatile, I think the band would have done just fine had Minakakis stayed.
The Roots – Things
Fall Apart
My favourite The Roots album, I think. I suspect largely because of the tunes Dynamite and You Got Me in particular. While I certainly do like Tariq Trotter and friends' rapping, including the words and the politics, it's the other aspects of the band and their sound that really draws me to them - the hooks, Questlove's direction and super tight-pocket drumming, the beats and production and their involving live/acoustic instrumentation. This record in particular also features a whole roster of hip-hop and R&B royalty - Mos Def, D'Angelo, Common, Erykah Badu and Eve. I also liked the book the album title comes from.
A playlist
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2d5krj1s80cXIrDKWBoNgi?si=_kDcDnNiQuWszJ5a37CWBA
- AFI – Narrative of Soul Against Soul
- AFI – Total Immortal
- American Football – You Know I Should be Leaving Soon
- Aphex Twin – Windowlicker
- At the Drive-In – Rascuache
- Blink-182 – Adam’s Song
- Botch – To Our Friends in the Great White North
- Chris Cornell – Can’t Change Me
- Dr Dre – Still D.R.E
- Dream Theater – The Dance of Eternity
- Eminem – My Fault
- Foo Fighters – Breakout
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Moya
- In Flames – Colony
- Incubus – Pardon Me
- Jamiroquai – Deeper Underground
- Korn – Make Me Bad
- Limp Bizkit feat.Method Man – N 2 Gether Now
- Machine Head – I Defy
- Melvins – Toy
- Metallica – No Leaf Clover
- Moby – Guitar Flute & String
- Mogwai – May Nothing but Happiness Come Through Your Door
- Mos Def – Ms. Fat Booty
- Mr. Scruff – Fish
- Muse – Cave
- Nine Inch Nails – Starfuckers, Inc.
- Opeth – Face of Melinda
- Rage Against the Machine – Calm Like a Bomb
- Red Hot Chili Peppers – This Velvet Glove
- Roots Manuva – Movements
- Sick of it All – Let Go
- Sigur Ros – Svefn-g-englar
- Skunk Anansie – Cheap Honesty
- Slipknot – Wait and Bleed
- Stereophonics – Rise Up and Shine
- The Cinematic Orchestra – Channel 1 Suite
- The Dillinger Escape Plan – 43% Burnt
- The Flaming Lips – Race for the Prize
- The Magnetic Fields – The Book of Love
- The Roots – You Got Me
- Will Haven – If She Could Speak
- Will Smith – Will 2K
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