2000, The Year in Review, P3

The year 2000 had a lot of great albums. Plenty of my remaining Top 20 here would make a top 12 in a typical year. Great stuff. Check in out.

Eight more albums, for my Top 20 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).

Ghostface Killah
Supreme Clientele

Released 2000/02/08

With Wu-Tang member Ghostface Killah headlining, Wu producer RZA at the helm for the bulk of production, and guest appearances from many other Wu-Tang members, Supreme Clientele marks yet another excellent collaborative effort from the Wu-Tang Clan. I can’t think of a single musical group who has so readily shared the limelight and given support in the name of releasing quality group and individual efforts.

Supreme Clientele has the expected Iron Man cartoon snippets and rapid-fire, high-pitched, stream-of-consciousness rapping from Ghostface, plus a typically masterful aural backdrop from RZA. It’s all routine brilliance here. “Nutmeg” and “Apollo Kids” come across as instant Ghostface classics; “We Made It” and “One” are just about as good. Madam Majestic takes a terrific vocal turn on “Cherchez LaGhost,” a modern-day take on Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band. And on “Malcolm,” accompanied by a haunting piano trill sample and clips from Malcolm X’s speeches, Ghostface delivers a dark message to the streets he grew up in: “Too many hustlers, too many thieves… / Too much TV, guns and robberies / Lust and greed and hate [and] jealousy.”  He asks, “Who’s willin’ to fight and teach the seeds?”

One of the highlights of Ghostface Killah’s career, Supreme Clientele delivers the goods.

Third Eye Foundation
Little Lost Soul

Released 2000/02/08

The electronic instrumentals of Third Eye Foundation’s Little Lost Soul have some of the stutter and skip of jungle, but in my opinion head knob-twiddler Matt Elliott does far more interesting things with those beats than the most acclaimed jungle artists ever accomplished (Goldie and Roni Size/Reprazent, for example). In particular, Elliott’s use of the sampled (and digitally manipulated) human voice to achieve a certain aching melancholy gives the pieces here a spectral, cosmic beauty. Good stuff.

The Handsome Family
In the Air

Released 2000/02 (source:Google.com)

The gloomy alt-country of husband-and-wife duo Brett and Rennie Sparks, a.k.a the Handsome Family, is unlike anything else in country music I’ve heard, harboring a brooding obsession with death and decay and doomed loves. Each song on In the Air unfolds like a dark, Gothic romance—newlywed murder ballads, fair maidens carried off by crows, drunken rages on Christmas day, and clam diggers drawn by sirens to the bottom of the sea.

Rennie writes the lyrics, and Brett writes the music and sings in soothing lullaby baritone that briefly disguises the morbidity and desperation of the songs. Wonderfully creepy.

Queens of the Stone Age
Rated R

Released 2000/06/06

They call Queens of the Stone Age “Stoner Rock,” and I suppose there’s something to that: I mean, “Stone” is in the name of the band, most likely for a reason. And I can certainly picture a bunch of dudes hanging out in a shabby living room somewhere, toking it up, munching on Cool Ranch Doritos, and rolling their happy-faced heads to the slick, eerie guitar throb of “Better Living Through Chemistry.”

But I think this music just rules, and I haven’t touched a joint in well over twenty years (nor did I partake often before that). I’m pretty damned squeaky clean. So being stoned is hardly a requirement. In fact, I think you’d pretty much have to hate rock and roll entirely to dislike Rated R. Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri, formerly of little-known SoCal desert rockers Kyuss, crank out a non-stop parade of great, grinding guitar riffs and catchy vocal hooks.

The album’s most famous song, the opening drug shout-out “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” is not one of the album’s strongest songs, although it’s a fun, provocative listen, at least for one time through. “The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret,” on the other hand, feels like an instant classic; it hooks you with a spritely beat through the verse, only to plow you under with a roar of guitar for the addictive chorus of “Whatever you do / Don’t tell anyone,” which Homme sings as if he knows you will. Follow that with the captivating squeal and churn of “Leg of Lamb” and the head-swaying groove of “Auto-Pilot,” and the album kicks off with style. Future band member (and former Screaming Tree) Mark Lanegan makes an appearance on the somewhat Alice-in-Chains-y “In the Fade.” The apocalyptic grind of “I Think I Lost My Headache” disintegrates wonderfully into a chaos of jazz bleat and skronk.

Rated R provides non-stop hypnotic, sleazy fun from start to finish. Don’t miss it.

The Glands
The Glands

Released 2000

I bought the Glands’ self-titled 2000 album after seeing it on SPIN’s year-end list, and I don’t believe I’ve ever heard it mentioned since. Which is a shame, because it’s a terrific album, a fantastic set of catchy indie-rock gems.

Lead singer Ross Shapiro comes across like a shabby, slacker Tom Petty, shrouding his tuneful melodies in a thin veil of crud which fails to disguise in any way how delightful these songs are. “When I Laugh” chugs along gleefully, “Swim” rides a Sesame Street bounce toward oblivion, and I love the way “Lovetown” shifts from churning sleaze to spritely coos and back again. “Straight Down” and “Work It Out” show the band can rock out, too.

Virtually every song works, with whatever it tries to do, whether it aims to get your feet moving or mellow you out. The album is gritty enough to satisfy any indie-rocker, accessible enough for mainstream listeners, and deliciously addictive for both.

It’s an absolute mystery to me why some albums are ever forgotten. I’m not saying I would expect The Glands to have been a smash hit, but I would think the indie-rock kids would worship it as a lost classic, at the very least.

Maybe, in fact, they do: I’ve been living out of the country for about a decade, and I’m an over-the-hill crank to boot, so I’m out of touch with what the indie-kids are talking about these days. I hope somewhere some of them are talking about this record, and listening to it non-stop.

Trans Am
Red Line

Released 2000/09/05

I made my first concentrated venture into Krautrock territory around the same time Trans Am’s Red Line came out—I’m not sure of the timeline, exactly, so I can’t tell you for sure which I got first. And I’m not sure I even made the connection at the time, to be honest. It was all just music I liked, to me.

But the comparison seems fitting. There’s the angular propulsion of Can in Trans Am’s extended rhythmic riffing, and also the sustained synthesizer whine of Kraftwerk. And I much prefer Trans Am’s brand of mostly instrumental rock to that of Tortoise, who I had discovered a couple years earlier, and many of the other so-called “post-rock” bands.

“I Want it All” features digitally manipulated vocals over Gary Numan synths and a dynamic, drum-kit beat that just won’t quit. (Unlike many electronic-inspired bands, they use real drums, not a drum machine—and drummer Sebastian Thompson is just killer.)  “Play in the Summer,” another of their rare vocal numbers, drives relentlessly with a churning drums-and-guitar throb. “I’m Coming Down” slows the proceedings down to a dark, monolithic crawl. The ominous “Where do You Want to Fuck Today?” and edgy “Mr. Simmons” cut-and paste the vocals and other sounds into mismatched, scarred collages. “For Now and Forever” pulses with some sort of backwards or phased sounds. “Don’t Bundle Me” rides a herky-jerky beat over faint, eerie tones; and free jazz saxophone echoes through the back half of “Shady Grove.” Great stuff.

Jedi Mind Tricks
Violent By Design

Released 2000/10/03

From the Vietnam War cover photo and opening monologue of “Intro”—a diatribe on the inherent violence of man, lifted from the Planet of the Apes—you know you’re in for a harrowing experience with Jedi Mind Tricks’ Violent by Design.

The most obvious antecedent to Violent by Design would have to be the elaborate productions of the Wu-Tang Clan, but Jedi Mind Tricks take things a step further. If Wu offshoot Gravediggaz was a schlock-horror-flick send-up, Violent by Design is a genuinely chilling thriller. The source of its sampled film dialogue—from the war epic Apocalypse Now to the exploration of mathematical madness π—tells you the mood it’s aiming for.

The greatest strength of the album comes from the masterful production of Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind, who uses a wide variety of samples—from film scores, classical music, and more—to create a rich, haunting musical tapestry beneath the rapping. In the album’s most frenzied moments, rapper Vinnie Paz and unofficial third member Jus Allah trade lines back and forth like lyrical swashbucklers.

A recent discovery for me, Violent by Design stands as one of the greats of underground hip-hop. Essential.

Placebo
Black Market Music

Released 2000/10/09

I am well aware that Placebo’s counter-culture stance is pre-packaged; you can feel the shrink-wrap sheen on every song. Lead singer Brian Molko’s nasally croon and gender-ambiguity is borrowed from David Bowie; his alt-rock comes directly from the Nevermind playbook, his makeup from Robert Smith. It all feels manufactured here.

But I’ll be damned if it isn’t fabulous. Placebo sell themselves so well, I just love it. (Bowie himself seems to appreciate it, too. He makes an appearance on an excellent bonus track remix of “Without You I’m Nothing.“)

It helps that Molko’s wit can be sharp and he can turn a phrase with clever (maybe too-clever) precision. “Can you find me space inside your bleeding heart,” he pleads in “Passive Aggressive.” To criticize his strict Christian upbringing, he sings, “I wrote this novel just for Mom / For all the mommy things she’s done.”

For years, bands have disguised songs about drugs as love longs—the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” could either be about a girl or about cocaine, for example—but on “Special K” Molko flips the script: rather than using romance as drug use innuendo, he uses a drug metaphor to describe the rush and crash of sexual attraction and obsession. Elsewhere, in “Commercial for Levi” and “Narcoleptic,” Molko is forthcoming about his self-destructive dependence on drug use. Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that he speaks of drugs directly but only touches on love elliptically—for him, perhaps, sincere emotional commitment is more to be feared that immersion in hedonistic pleasures.

Above all, Placebo’s appropriation of alt-rock musical gestures is so skillful and Molko’s nasal pleading so mesmerizing that I like the songs even when the lyrics stumble. “Slave to the Wage” panders a tired rat race metaphor, and its Dylan reference is more crass than insightful. (“I’m sick and tired of Maggie’s Farm / She’s a bitch with broken arms.” Ugh.) But the guitar whine and wall-of-sound roar of the song carry me away every time, nonetheless.

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:

• Supreme Clientele: By Derived from a digital capture (photo/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=211099
• Little Lost Soul: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6952180
• In the Air: By The cover art can be obtained from Carrot Top Records., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28211835
• Rated R: By The cover art can be obtained from Interscope., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38386028
• The Glands: Source; Discogs.com, Fair Use
  
• Red Line: 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=18509850
• Violent By Design: By May be found at the following website: http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drg300/g342/g34218b4cv8.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4939224
• Black Market Music: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11717609