To these ears, at least, the best album of 2001 is the best album of 2000: U2’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind, released on Halloween last year though every song sounds as though it were written and recorded on September 12 of this one. The album that set out…
A year ago I didn’t know Napster from Quicken. Today, with Napster kaput, I don’t know LimeWire from Morpheus from AIMster. The Web’s flush with Napster replacements, and though I can’t really figure out any of them, I’ve tried out a lot of them and even made a few work…
This isn’t as easy as it should be–as it would have been, say, four months ago. I listen to records for a living–that’s how my folks see it, anyway–so ticking off a list of the music that moved me in 2001 shouldn’t be a big deal. Piece of cake, could…
1. Explosions in the Sky, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever (Temporary Residence): This young Austin quartet finally cracked the code. They managed to inject so much life and melody into the epic instrumental drama of Mogwai and Godspeed You Black…
Centro-matic, Distance and Clime (Idol): A year with only one album release from Centro-matic may not sound like a good year at all, unless that album is Distance and Clime. And it’s more than enough to tide us over until someone can find a way to keep up Will Johnson…
1. I made a tape of Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott’s …So Addictive and Peaches’ The Teaches of Peaches and measured the entire summer by it. (I coaxed myself onto a plane at Christmas with this tape in my Walkman.) There’s something confident, coy and real–almost grade-school–in the rapping-about-your-tits genre, and it…
Best live album by a band you didn’t expect to be good live anymore: Radiohead, I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings (Capitol): An essential reinterpretation of Kid A and Amnesiac’s best songs, featuring the most unlikely singalong in music history, “Idioteque.” Best album by a band you didn’t know still…
1. Lambchop, Tools in the Dryer (Merge): A meaty cross section of B-sides, singles, alternate or live takes, demos and suchlike, spanning the life of one of Nashville’s most progressive musical collectives. Since a great deal of Lambchop’s work is scattered over singles, contributions to one-off projects and cassette-only releases,…
In a perfect world, the club would have been full of fans. There would have been a line out the door, snaking into the street. The first notes of each song would have been greeted with enthusiastic, knowing applause, each chorus met with a sea of closed eyes and a…
The front man and songwriter for a popular West Coast pop-punk band is asked whether his group has considered releasing a single-disc collection of career highlights. (In 15 years, the band in question has released about 10 albums and EPs with several different lineups.) His face clouds, as if the…
Well, this is disappointing. There are better synth-pop songwriters than Richard James. (Stage name: Aphex Twin.) There are better electronic-music composers, better drum ‘n’ bass programmers, better ambient musicians, better found-sound collectors. But none has combined these elements as well as Aphex Twin did on 1997’s Richard D. James Album…
Recently, there have been scattered reports that the Old 97’s were splitting up, after an eight-year run of fight songs and satellite rides. Some say the truth is this: The Old 97’s have been dropped from the Elektra Records roster, even though it was reported as recently as a couple…
What makes the Wu-Tang Clan so distinctive is that it embraces confusion in a genre that normally ducks it like the reefer-mad Method Man ducks urine tests. After all, hip-hop has long taken pride in being direct. “I don’t rhyme for the sake of riddlin’,” Public Enemy’s Chuck D spat…
When the Velvet Underground toured the West Coast with Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable back in 1966, the response was underwhelming, to say the least. LSD was still legal in California, and peace, love and tripping were the watchwords of the day. During the shows, the hippie hordes greeted the…
Each of Dan the Automator’s high-profile concept albums has been a palimpsest, a new work with remnants of his earlier records shining through. Even a cursory listen to Dan’s get-together with Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and Kid Koala in Deltron 3030 reveals concepts from his Kool Keith-abetted Dr. Octagon project…
“I’m in the mud, and the mud’s in me.” So sings North Mississippi Allstars front man Luther Dickinson near the end of the Allstars’ sophomore album, 51 Phantom. On the one hand, it’s a declaration of loyalty to the band’s Mississippi Hill Country roots, but it’s also an explanation of…
High is high, low is low/Everybody wants to get to heaven/but nobody wants to die/Nobody wants to die/Nobody wants to do the don’ts/Don’t the dids/Color outside the lines/Nobody wants to try. Ignore the probability that the above paean to transcendence was written under the influence of amphetamines, hallucinogens or some…
It was likely the best three-band bill downtown has hosted in ages, in an unlikely spot. Fury III, Sorta and the Sparrows at the Liquid Lounge felt like an accidental jackpot or a secret club, and the bulk of the Thursday-night audience was other Dallas musicians. Everyone knew everyone, so…
The sound comes popping and stuttering out of tinny-tiny speakers from all around and underfoot. Glitchy, itchy beats blare from little HitClips micro boom boxes key-chained to bicycle handlebars and school backpacks. Chunky guitar rhythms and airy, kittenish vocal harmonies ring out on bright translucent pocket CD players, scooter radios…
It’s the holiday season (Christmas, Hanukkah, Festivus, what have you), so things are starting to slow down a bit in the D-D-FW area. We’ve been slowing down lately, too, though to be honest, that has less to do with the holidays and more to do with the massive holes in…
Once more, for the back row: Miranda Lee Richards is not, legally speaking, the godchild of R. Crumb, the famed and once-underground artist responsible for Fritz the Cat, “Keep On Truckin’,” Mr. Natural, Flakey Foont and Eggs Ackley, among other seminal artifacts of the hung-up generation. She’s not the godchild…
The album isn’t quite finished. A few tracks are still being recorded; the whole thing needs to be mastered. Then there’s artwork, CD pressing, booklet printing and the video files that might be included. Nevertheless, The Adventures of Jet are ready to move on, anxious to hit the road, play…
