Ranking music often involves tough decisions. Luckily, my decisions about music don’t really matter all that much—whether an Outkast album makes my Top 6 or Top 12 or only Top 20 makes little difference in the world. But still, I tend to dwell when it comes to making these decisions. And while 2000 only had five albums I felt deserved the top tier nod, there are over ten that feel like next-6 material.
Do you go with the album that’s a consistently solid listen all the way through (as in, say, Queens of the Stone Age’s tons-of-sleazy-fun Rated-R), or the one that has a few moments of gut-wrenching brilliance that overshadow much of the album (as in, say, Deftones’ White Pony)? As a whole, I’ve tended to go with the less-consistent-but-with-higher-peaks crowd here, placing albums by Grandaddy, Goldfrapp, and Blonde Redhead, and more in my top 12, which I mostly remember for the better handful of tracks on each.
Seven more albums, for
my Top 12 Albums of 2000
As always, you can jump to the playlist at the bottom of each post to listen while you read.
Within each tier (Top 6, Next 6, etc.), all albums are listed roughly chronologically (all release dates from Wikipedia, unless otherwise noted).
Sleater-Kinney
All Hands on the Bad One
Released 2000/05/02
It may not have been the revelation of Call the Doctor (1996) or the fulfilled potential of Dig Me Out (1997). But All Hands on the Bad One was in many ways Sleater-Kinney’s most consistently accomplished and accessible album to date, chock-full of the edgy-yet-melodic riot-grrrl punk rock they’d become known for.
The tag-team vocals between Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein pack as much a punch as ever, whether they are angry and defiant or exuberant and joyful. And if “You’re No Rock n’ Roll Fun” isn’t quite the classic that “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone” was, it’s still a great punk-pop shoulda-been-a-hit. “Youth Decay” is a fiery, catchy punk thrill; when the lyrics sink in, you realize it’s about eating disorders. “Male Model” insightfully describes what it’s like being an all-female band in a male-dominated medium. “Milkshake n’ Honey” is an amusingly pathetic plea from a jilted lover for the ex to return. And I don’t exactly know what the title track is about (something about calling out overly critical people on their hypocrisies, maybe?) but I know it kicks butt, as do “Ironclad” and “Pompeii.” And the hushed, fragile “The Swimmer” closes the album beautifully.
I saw Sleater-Kinney live at least three times back in the day, and they were terrific each time, both indoors and out. (One of the times I saw them was at an outdoor music festival in Western Massachusetts—I forget the details, but it must have been in support of this album, because I remember Sonic Youth played songs from their 2000 release. And at least one of the other times they had Helium opening for them. Great shows, all.)
I think it’s telling that I consider Sleater-Kinney to be one of the greatest, most significant alt-rock bands of the late ‘90s and into this century—yet according to Wikipedia, none of their albums has sold more than 130,000 copies. Whether that tells more about me or them is debatable, I suppose.
Grandaddy
The Sophtware Slump
Released 2000/05/29
On Grandaddy’s The Sophtware Slump, Flaming Lips alt-rock guitars and amateur vocal style meet Kid A electronics in a melancholy near-masterpiece. I find about half the tracks on the album somewhat forgettable, but the other half are entirely captivating, some of the most emotionally resonant music of the decade.
in particular, I find the two songs about Jed the Humanoid strangely compelling, telling the tale of a neglected robot in his last hours, drunk and alone in a barren motel room. The catchy “The Crystal Lake” reflects on the loss of innocence that comes with casting off the natural world for the trappings of contemporary life. Album opener “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot” harkens back to the Stones’ “2000 Man” to write an ending to Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in which the lost astronaut returns to earth to find himself equally adrift.
Throughout, the fusion of alt-rock dissonance and synthesizers creates a rich, sorrowful, thoroughly engrossing tapestry of sound. And taken together, these songs paint a compelling picture of technological-age alienation and societal decay. In its greatest moments, The Sophtware Slump settles in nicely alongside OK Computer and Kid A as one of the classics of electronica-infused rock that uses technology to describe its alienating effects.
Blonde Redhead
Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons
Released 2000/06/06
Blonde Redhead started out as an art-punk, alt-rock band very much indebted to early Sonic Youth in their sound and musical vision. They had some good stuff in that vein, but they really came into their own with Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons, in which they moved beyond their influences to create something truly theirs.
Here, they deemphasize the guitar noise in favor of melody and add some keyboards to the mix. And the songs seem to form a back-and-forth, female-male dialogue between singers Kazu Makino and Amedeo Pace. Indeed, the songs build upon each other thematically, exploring the ins and outs of a relationship, of the damages that each person brings into the fold.
I’m not about to pronounce this a concept album or song cycle, but I guess it moves in that direction. The song titles also play thematic connect-the-dots, with “Hated Because of Great Qualities” leading nicely into album highlight “Loved Despite of Great Faults.” (Forgive the bad grammar of the “of” after “Despite”—they’re not native speakers, after all.)
With her high-pitched, airy voice, Makino is the better singer, for sure, although neither could claim to have a professionally competent voice. But both vocalists channel just the right emotion into their delivery. Makino would take on an even larger percentage of the vocal duties with later albums, making her an exception in the male-centric rock world. (I still recall my disappointment when Kim Deal’s presence in the Pixies was slowly pared back. Ditto for Björk’s turn with the Sugarcubes.)
Deftones
White Pony
Released 2000/06/20
The Deftones’ brand of alternative metal (with some rap/DJ influence) is not the kind of thing I like every time out, but the best handful of songs from White Pony absolutely possessed me back in the day, and it only takes a brief listen to suck me back into their sway again.
Vocalist Chino Moreno and crew churn out an experimental, abrasive set of songs, weaving a complex emotional web of tortured self-hatred and the lashing out at the world that comes from it. The album stands as one of the most rich and eviscerating explorations of male physical and sexual aggression I’ve ever heard. Listening to its most powerful moments can really put you in a dark place, but in a good way.
Back in 1988, on Nothing’s Shocking, fellow L.A. rocker Perry Farrell claimed that “Sex is violence.” He wasn’t the first person to say this, of course. (Seems like there was some guy named de Sade centuries earlier who might have had some similar ideas.) But in the schema of rock and roll, Farrell seems the most pertinent precursor. I can’t say that that’s the way I experience sex at all, but there are a not a few works of rock and roll art that explore the connection some people experience between the sex and violence (including the work of Farrell’s own band Jane’s Addiction), and White Pony is perhaps the most convincing, most emotionally powerful.
“Change (In the House of Flies),” the song everyone knows, provides a perfect example. In somewhat convoluted imagery, the song explores the harmful co-dependencies and destructive impulses within a relationship, the instinct to corrupt and cripple and confine others, and the guilt and self-contempt that follows. The singer imagines his lover transforming, as if into a fly, and then imagines himself plucking the wings from their sockets. In the end, he begs for her to kill him for what he’s done, in a catharsis that feels both terrifying and joyfully triumphant.
Throughout the album, the music is equally tortured, underpinned by walls of metal noise and twisting upon itself in hazes of distortion, accentuated at times by the click and switch of sampled sounds. In “Knife Party,” they turn a beautiful vocal turn from guest singer Rodleen Getsic reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky” and turn it into a horrorshow. Somehow they work some Nirvana-style teen angst in there as well, with “Teenager” and “Back to School.” The Pink Floyd musical references return with the heartbeat that lingers at the end of “Pink Maggit.”
My version of the album contains the added track “Back to School (Mini-Maggit)” to open the album, and it is this version of the album I prefer. (I think it’s some kind of promo, which I must have bought used somewhere.) The band has stated they prefer the original version of the album, which did not include this song, which they were pushed into recording and adding to the tracklist by the record company. But I think they’re wrong on this one. The track adds a great bookended frame to the album, which makes the climactic “Pink Maggit” even more powerful.
Goldfrapp
Felt Mountain
Released 2000/09/11
There’s a clear trip-hop influence in Goldfrapp’s Felt Mountain—all you’d need is a few well-placed scratches and sampled beats and this could almost pass for Portishead. But it’s far more electronic in nature, with more of an emphasis on synthesized sounds to create its eerie atmospherics. (Come to think of it, in that sense, Felt Mountain makes for a nice transition point between Portishead’s two pinnacles of greatness, their first and third albums). And like most trip-hop, it has an element of cheesy lounge music, which it mostly overcomes through casual dissonance and intriguing electronic sounds.
The opening synth warble and Alison Goldfrapp’s piercing whistle set the tone to open the warm-with-a-touch-of-chill “Lovely Head.” There are moments in which I don’t know if I’m hearing a human voice altered to sound like a synthesizer, or a synthesizer itself sounding bewitchingly human. [I checked—It’s Goldfrapp’s modified voice.] In “Human,” piercing, weepy strings are thrust aside by a Latin beat with string flourishes; the occasional synthesized skronk or squeak is never far away. The hushed “Deer Stop” balances gentle piano chords with romantic strings; by the song’s end, the vocals have become progressively more distorted and disfigured; the song briefly crescendos before tapering off into haunting, sorrowful nothingness.
There are times when the creepiness feels a bit staged, like an exercise in lounge-noir. But mostly, I’m along for the ride, down whatever darkly romantic road Goldfrapp takes me.
OutKast
Stankonia
Released 2000/10/31
The greatness of OutKast’s Stankonia is indisputable. It’s quite possibly the best radio-friendly (if unconventional) rap album in years. It’s got great musical variety, with the rap balanced with R&B here and there, the best psychedelic funk guitar since Prince’s heyday, and amusing skits interlaced between the songs. Since I’m already short an album for my Top 6, the obvious politically correct choice would be to slip Stankonia into that last slot. It’s that good.
But I just can’t bring myself to do it. My biggest OutKast-listening days were a year or so earlier, with 1998’s Aquemini. (I most likely didn’t get Aquemini until 1999, after seeing it on a year-end list. I had heard nothing about OutKast before that, although Wikipedia tells me their previous album, ATLiens, was a big hit, which shows you how little I know about what is popular.) Anyway, even though Stankonia broadened their musical palette extensively, it wasn’t as big a revelation for me as it was for many other folks. And somehow, even though I can see that Stankonia is track per track probably a better album, I still find myself going back more often to Aquemini. Sometimes the first album by an artist always remains your favorite, no matter what you discover next.
Of course, Stankonia has some real gems, most notably the apology and promise of devotion in “Ms. Jackson,” sung by André 3000 to the mother of Erykah Badu, about their child together. The rapid-fire raps and electro pulse of “B.O.B.” isn’t so much a diatribe on Baghdad as an urban state of the nation, with enough cultural references to warrant an extensive line-by-line analysis. And “So Fresh, So Clean” is cool and catchy as hell—impossible not to fall for.
My Prince reference earlier seems fitting—back in the ‘80s, Prince fused R&B, funk, and psychedelic rock in a vibrant sound and flamboyant image; and with Stankonia, André 3000 and Big Boi have done the same, using their Southern-fried rap as the starting point. It’s one of the most inventive and satisfying albums of its time.
The Avalanches
Since I Left You
Released 2000/11/27
With Since I Left You, the Avalanches deliver a fascinating and endlessly fun DJ dance mix. Samples and beats ease in and out of the music in a series of interconnected songs. It’s very impressive as a technical feat—amazing, really. One can’t help but marvel at the intricacy of it all.
As with many a virtuoso tour-de-force, as a listener I find myself a little more wowed by the mastery of the performance than profoundly affected emotionally. But that’s not to say the album is devoid of feeling. Certainly “Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life” achieves a sense of fragile, hypnotic beauty, and I can pleasantly zone out to the wavering, discordant drone of “Extra Kings.” “Two Hearts In 3/4 Time” is a warm bubble bath of a song, worth a long soak through several listens. The opening title track feels like an instant classic, and “Frontier Psychiatrist” absolutely cracks me up.
So while I can’t say the music overwhelms me with profound emotion, it cannot be denied that Since I Left You conjures up a cornucopia of aural pleasures and genuine amazement, a whole world poured forth for your ears. As the title track suggests, once you’ve experienced Since I Left You, you leave with a new perspective on what music can be.
Here’s the 2000: The Year in Review playlist for you—three tracks per album.
I’ll be building the playlist as I go, adding to it as I complete different tiers of commentary. By the time I finish all Year in Review posts for 2000, the playlist will be complete!
Enjoy!
More 2000, The Year in Review
More Years in Review of the 2000s…
Cover Art Citations:
- All Hands on the Bad One: By The cover art can be obtained from Kill Rock Stars., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3401596
- The Sophtware Slump: By The cover art can be obtained from V2 Records., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1889907
- Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons: By Derived from a scan of the album cover (creator of this digital version is irrelevant as the copyright in all equivalent images is still held by the same party) Copyright held by the record company or the artist. Claimed as fair use regardless., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8932844
- White Pony: By The cover art can be obtained from Maverick Records., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20895553
- Felt Mountain: By The cover art can be obtained from Mute, EMI, Everlasting., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4198812
- Stankonia: By The cover art can be obtained from LaFace/Arista., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22342483
- Since I Left You: By The cover art can be obtained from Modular Recordings., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2318136
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