PSA's 2001... 

Continuted

1. Tool (Lateralus)
    The best musical moment of 2001 came at the 3:55 mark of Tools first song, "The Grudge." It is there, right at the moment where the priceless Maynard James Keenan elevates this ode to prog-rock above anything I've heard on the radio or seen on MTV all year. That song, with a running time of over eight minutes is not afraid to explore lengthy atmospheric moodiness (the last few minutes contains a deep instrumental riff) but what's amazing is that no single rock song since the industrial band NIN's "Into the Void" has been this effective and moving. But "The Grudge" is only the beginning, and the visceral thrill of that perfect song only acts as an accessible threshold into what is going to be a tense 80 minute journey
   Deciding between the best album of the year has never been harder for me. Now, I know shit about this art form, but feel that the quality of the music of 2001 far outpaced the quality of the films in that year. And as far as real music goes, 2001 was Tool's year, end of discussion. This album, while void of any clear-cut radio sing-alongs (these guys would instead throw out a challenging album of complex sounds), works best as a whole, cohesive effort and I have got to say that this may be Tools best and most unassuming record (Aenima was good an all, but also pretentious as holy hell). 
       It has been a long standing wish to see the band live, so I made it a point to check out these guys when they were nice enough to tour the states. I reluctantly say that it was disappointing experience because I expected the same catharsis that I got after hearing this album for the first time. The show was meandering and unsure of itself but my respect for the band has not been tarnished. What the concert made clear was that this kind of introspection doesn't lend itself to putting up with, ug, Tool's fang toothed fans. Instead, the music of Tool represents an experience that must be taken alone. 

2. Tenacious D (Tenacious D)
    65+ listens and I'm still wondering if I'll ever get sick of Tenacious D's first (and hopefully not last) album. One would think that would happen soon, but with each new day I find a new reason and new song to obsess over on TD's self titled album. It's because of TD that I had such a hard time deciding the very best album of the year. These guys, while nowhere near as musically competent and established as a band like Tool or Radiohead, yet the D provided me with my clear cut favorite album of the year... even if its not the best. I know the words by heart (people have been wondering why the hell I have been blurting out things like "Climb upon my faithful steed, then were going to ride, going to smoke some weed.") Oh, and is there a better song to sing in the shower than Fuck Her Gently? While you forget that last part, I mean to say that I ritualistically listen to this album, and like the "Fight Club" soundtrack, it is always in the background and at this desperate point, even my media player Winamp is getting sick of hearing the duo talk about "cock pushups." 
   TD is part tongue and cheek joke and part really solid Bare Naked Ladies-esq folk tunes (Dave Groll and the Dust Brothers collaborated so this is REAL music not just some armatures in their basement) but these two ego rockers: Kyle Gass and Jack Black are definitely an acquired taste. I have some friends that hate these guys more than Creed. But to me, when these boys arrogantly (yet jokingly) reefer to themselves as "the best band in the world" they may not mean it, but I sure do. 

3. Gorillaz (Gorillaz)
    I have a feeling that this odd and wondrous album will grow and grow. As an ardent fan of Blur, nothing could be better than finding out that Damon Alburn would be lending his prolific/ alt rock aloofness to this experimental blend of soulfully energetic mixes and hip dance beats. Although this is an example of a pitch perfect artistic collaboration (bands like the awesome Cibo Matto and a bunch of DJs I've never heard of, help out) it's Alburn sense of humor and frivolous vocal stylings that give the album both gravity and levity. After hearing the break-out happy hip-hop "Clint Estwood," you may think this is a Dr. Dre produced project, but the soul is just one small ingredient. This is basically a really solid, and even more diverse version of Blur's Parklife or 13. This new band is a sublime novelty because of the odd music, yes, but also because of their attitude, and of course that boy band gone evil look. Comic book artist Jamie Hewlett (who did Tank Girl) had created the band head to toe and this is the first time that I know of that a band this good has been one big self aware joke. I cant wait till Noodle, 2D, Russell, and Murdoc release their next electric opus.

4. Dave Matthews Band Everyday, Live in Chicago, and the unreleased Lilywhite Sessions. 
   I'm white, I'm in college, and I like DMB; going against the grain I am not. But DMB has just hit the ultimate trifecta and this has got to be the bands best year ever. Sure, many feel they sold out by releasing a radio friendly, short on the sax improv album called "Everyday."  As best selling albums go (these guys made the 8th most successful album of the year, so take that Mandy Moore) a band could do worse to its fans. If anything, give these guys props for releasing the single best track of the year. Everyday's I Did It is insanely, for lack of a better word, fun. The song, and the band, proudly proclaim that they make no apologies, "for such a lovely crime I'll do the crime, you better lock me up I'll do it again," and this song represents the lighter side of the band that should come out every once in a while. So "I did it" may rock, but, hey, you still got another eleven concisely produced tracks to dig on. And no other band on earth could make me listen to the line, "all you need is, all you want is, all you need is LOVE...: without wanting to vomit.  
   Then there's those live albums this band is so well known for. For me, I've been searching the internet for the my favorite DMB song (surely there must be a live version of The Last Stop?) and come up empty handed; that is, until this spectacular two disc live album included it, and as a bonus, threw in Rapunzel and most the other songs from the bands best album to date, "Before These Crowded Streets." Most figure these guys are best when live, and with almost twenty, thirteen minute tracks, (who do they think they are, Tool?) its hard to argue that DMB, like Phish are great in the studio and in front of a large crowd.
   And finally there's a little something called The Lillywhte Sessions; the best (and only) unreleased album from a major band I've ever heard (although I'm still looking for NIN pre Pretty hate machine album called Industrial Nation). Its easy to see why Lillywhite (named after the DMB's debunked producer Steve Lillywhite) wasn't exactly favored by the band--they wanted a new sound and this half finished album was a bit derivative. But, still, did they have to drop it all together? Well, thank you Morpheus music "sharing" program, you gave me some solid DMB songs, and if your going to download, pardon, share five songs from the elusive ghost album, my choices have gotsa be:  1) Big Eyed Fish, 2) Captain, 3) Jay Tree 4) Bartender, and 5) Sweet Up and Down. If you have a computer, and appreciate the music of DMB, there's no excuse not to be familiar with the Lillywhite Sessions.

5. Radiohead (Amnesiac) 
   When put next to Kid A, this album sounds like, well, exactly what it is: leftovers from the greatness that was their last project. But this creepy mellow and lightly moody effort from Radiohead, still represents, in any sane world, one of the best albums of the year. Amnesiac is spooky and memorable in undeniable classic tracks such as Pyramid Song or Packt Like Sardines In a Crushed Tin Box; funny in the weirdly aggressive You and Whose Army, and incomprehensible in Like Spinning Plates and Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors. As with Kid A, this album is daunting and not something you pop in the player on a Friday after a long week at school (or work) but when you feel like shit, only this album will do. Not the bands best (that predictably goes to the best album of the 90's, Ok Computer) and not the bands worst (Pablo Honey, you suck) Amnesiac is an obscure treat for die hard fans. If these guys give me one of these every year, I'll live to be a hundred. 

6. Depeche Mode (Exciter)  
   Besides a kick ass concert (I wear that stinky DM shirt every day) the Mode's latest album basically slipped through he cracks. Sure there's a half dozen generic yet pleasing songs having to do with love (I Feel Loved, Freelove, The Love Theme, Goodnight Lover...) and a few nifty dance tracks (Dream On), but this album stuck with me due to the darkly grungy song styling the band sometimes leans towards, as in their underrated Ultra. The song "Dead of Night" is still one of the best singles of the year, and could have very will been written by an industrial type band ("we are the dead of night, were in the zombie room/ with self inflicted wounds...). Considering these chaps made it with big with the pop platitude "Just Can't Get Enough," the versatility of this album means a lot to me. Depeche Mode has been through a lot, and like their very similar and over hyped counterparts, U2, DM also continues go grow. Exploration for this band doesn't involve something as trivial as wearing even less clothes and throwing a snake on your shoulders (again, I'm not complaining; Britney's costume designer should get the Nobel piece prize for making a country full of men... nevermind). So with a lot of hope, a little bit of love, and a no more accessible alcohol, pills, handguns or nooses, this band, whether you like it or not, will be around as long as U2 is trendy enough to be playing at the super bowl. Take that Ireland.

7. The Strokes (Is This It)
   Weezer (Weezer aka The Green Album)
   Sure every song sounds alike, and that is quite annoying, but unlike Creed or Blink 182, at least ever similar song is fucking great. Since my command of musical lingo is short, all I can say about this album is that it sounds like a throwback to a time when gay (by that of course I mean happy) girly boy music didn't reign supreme. Is this It sounds like Velvet Underground some tell me, a happy version of The Kinks others say, but tracing who these guys ripped off is futile because even Mozart built on those before him; and what do you expect from an era when Weezer names two of their albums: fucking, "Weezer."  Listening to songs like "Is This It" and of course "Last Night" I realized that a well stated album that knows the meaning of brevity and leaving you wanting more can be a good thing every once in a while... which also leads me to... Weezer. Everything I said about the Strokes new album can apply here too. The latest Weezer album is also quite memorable, but goddamn, The Green Album seem as short as those two second video clips seen on TRL. Look at the band at the top of my list, that's an 80 minute album; in that time you could play Weezer, the Stokes, and still have time to stop off at Subway and get a six foot turkey with extra cheese and FOUR, count em, FOUR chicken nuggets. This is indeed a memorable (I plan to listen to the Pinkertons real soon) album with such killer tracks as Photograph, the albums best and most at ease song that is better than anything about lesbians, sweaters, or Buddy Holly. In short, Weezer is a great band, but I cant respect them after this piece of lazy genus. If they had just tried a little harder... 

8. No Doubt (Rock Steady)  
   Last year I was floored at how good No Doubt's album was--next to Robbie Williams' Sing When Your Winning or Manson's Holly Wood,  it was easily the years best album. Prior to Saturn, I had figured them to be a flash in the ska pan with annoying hits like "Just A Girl," where the Gwen overkill gave a bad first impression: It's now clear that this band may exist to do more than show off Gwen's flat belly. 
   With Return to Saturn, this group established themselves as reluctant pop stars with the song a should have been their first single, "Simple kind of Life." Many didn't like how Gwen, in that album was constantly yapping about impending things like her biological clock, but at least they broke away from the notion that they were just a fad (i.e. anything but god damn swing music and Gap commercials) and apparently to do that, the group had to also break a way from their origins. Sure I miss the trumpets, but I'm not complaining because I prefer the new No Doubt.
      So once the band established themselves as serious musicians, they took the polar Radiohead track and said fuck you to the critics by hamming up their next kick back album. Note: this decent album was made in just weeks; imagine what Rock Steady could have been if they really tried? What reminds me here of the No Doubt of yore, is the fact that Rock Steady is unpretentious and at its core, simple. Its fun (is fun the best word I can come up with in this section?) and easy to dance to (well, if you like dancing alone) but not terribly challenging and introspective (read: whiney) as the underrated Return to Saturn. I like the serious No Doubt a little better, but thanks to this kinetically game effort (Hella Good and the hip hop inspired Hey Baby are No Doubt classics) this album is as serious and fun as-- as Cameron Diaz puts it-- "a fuck buddy."

9. System of a Down (Toxicity)
   The bad: When the band tries to be like Oingo Boingo by carelessly singing about overcrowded prisons and annoying girlfriends. The even worse: when the band makes all but three songs sound like someone relentlessly screaming in the shower with stop and go guitar riffs in the background. The good: when the band sounds like Live only better (cuz Live sucks); the awesome song Atwa (download that, now!) represents the albums best balance of tenderness and that harsh rock sound. The even better: that middle eastern thing singer does with his voice when crooning things like "fall into your hands I command my spirit..." in the song Chop Suey! Lead singer Daron Malakian could one day be a legend if he just gets rid of the rest of the band.

10. Garbage (Beautiful Garbage)  
    To quote someone smarter than me, "The first six tracks of Beautiful Garbage are great. The rest, I can't even remember." Had this been a complete record, the placement of Garbage's latest would have been much higher. As is, the last half trails off with forgettable songs such as "Untouchable" or "Drive You Home" but if you bail after the classic tune "Silence is Golden" this the perfect Garbage album.  
    I'm not sure what prompted me to pick up this album; a good guess is that since their last two albums, especially Version 2.0, redefined the state of women in rock in the 90's by out classing most poser male rock groups (Limp Bizkit, FU). I hold a special place in my heart for Mrs. Manson and co. This band is growing and provided they don't put any more cutesy roses on the album cover, I will be a fan for life. Like Tool, this album contains no radio friendly singles (well, to me, the first track "Shut your Mouth" is not only catchy as hell but also represents the best of what old school Garbage is capable of), little advertising, and few radio stations knew how to categorize the album (is it R&B, is it rock, is it new wave?) so it came as no surprise that Beautiful Garbage had such a brief staying power. So what if Shirley Manson didn't give Carson Daily a blow job? And more to the point, who needs MTV when you've got a song as trippy as "Androgyny?" 

Worst Album of the Year: 
1. Creed (Withered)
Never have I hated a band so much that I have felt compelled to download all their songs-- for free-- just to stew in my seething hatred for a band's unoriginal, unwilling to grow, sound. And what the fuck is with that ugly ass CD cover? It's about as creepy as the band's plastic morality.  

Creed, by simply existing, by simply releasing one copy of one album, has achieved worst album of the year status in my book. To me, what's worse than a band getting on their pulpits (lord knows a good band like U2 preaches their share or crap), is a band that not only jumps on their pulpits, but expels piss poor and derivative rock hymns that would make even Van Halien embarrassed. This kind of pretentious group noise is worst then the consumer Barbie doll that is Britney Spears because at least Britney and her boobs have no delusions; she is flaunting that naive school girl slut thing and doing a fine job at it too. She's letting us in on the joke. But these guys thing their doing a paid public service! A more truly delusional I have not seen--In their video, with that one innocent, Fabio-flowing hair look, lead singer Jesus Stapp might as well be singing "back away you water soaked temptress with giant breasts. I'm on a holy mandated mission." By truly thinking there helping people by preaching rather than producing worth while music-- save that for the Bad Religions of the world-- this band will never be more than a joke to me. I'd prefer being distinct and original to being conventionally pure; don't these Mormons feel bad about blatantly stealing Eddie Vedder's voice? To quote a friend again (who, I think may have been paraphrasing George Carlin), "Fuck Creed, fuck them in the ass with a big shiny crucifix." What an awful remark, I don't condone that. I guess that crude "friend" of mine needs a divine band like Creed to point the way to salvation... which, I'm sure, starts with buying their new CD. 

#2 Travis 
This band may not be as musically inept as a Creed or N'sync type of band, but a few factors make this the second worst genre  of music in 2001. First of all, right off the bat I'm annoyed by the Radiohead posing touchy feely euro babble sound these guys have. Second, you may be able to hum along, but have you actually listened to the lyrics? Now, I'm rarely dissect lyrics because if the music is competent, there's no need to, but after hearing the the band sing "just sing, sing, sing... sing sing sing" in that femm alien voice of lead singer Francis Healy, I can honestly say that, as brilliant as Radiohead is, it might have been better had they never existed because that would mean bands like Travis and Coldplay wouldn't be annoying the hell out of me in my car. Catchy, but sometimes music should aspire to be a little bit more than that. 

#3 Blink 182
Again I feel the need to bring out that great Gorillaz quote: "They're a boy band with tattoos. Fuck off!" And I just can get past that either. Here's a test for all you Blink fans out there: you say you love them, fine, what I'm going to do is record the first five seconds of ten Blink 182 songs and ask you to tell me the name of the track. Or I don't know, maybe all their tired songs don't sound alike if your a fan. I respect Blink 182 fans (I've never meet someone who hated these tattooed homo's as much as myself) but I sure don't see what's so special about ten thousand similar sounding two minute songs about "yeah my girlfriend..."
 
I know this band is as innocuous as watching the hair raisingly awful "Seventh Heaven," but my beef with them, and the reason I can't just dismiss them, is that there mislabeled as a punk/rock band. Sure I should put O-Town or Backstreet Boys higher on the list, but there not really considered in the same category of music. Blink 182 is a boy band with a slightly elevated bass section. But alas, in the end, I don't even like Blink 182 enough to care if they sold out, or have always been this bad. 

4, 5, 6, 7... 
Did Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore come out with an album in 2001? They did. Well that's more than enough to take all the rest of the ten spots on the list. What's that you say, Britney Spears had one too, well that's on the list as well. Oh, and N'Sync, cool slap it on. Umm lets see who else... 

The Good Stuff

Best Rock album: Tool 

Best Rap: DMX's The Great Depression  

Best Country: HA HA HA

1. Robbie Williams (Sing when you’re Winning)  
2. No Doubt (Return to Saturn)
3. Marilyn Manson (Holly Wood)
4. Radiohead (Kid A)
5. Perfect Circle (Mer De Noms)
6. Eminem (Marshal...)
7. U2 (All that you Can’t...)
8. NIN (Things Falling Apart)
9. Busta Rhimes
10. Godsmack (Awake)

Note: Blur's best of collection would be number one but it not new material.

Worst Rock: Creed

Worst Rap:

Worst Vocalist: Britney Spears/ Jessica Simpson

Worst Band: Creed

Worst Hit: Creed

Why do they call it rock award: 
Blink 182, Sum 41, Linkin Park. To quote the Gorillaz: "They're a boy band with tattoos. Fuck off!" 

Worst Maynard poser: 
Staind.  

Worst Radiohead poser: Travis and Coldplay