2002: Albums 21-32

Single Frame Wetheads Come Running (Already Gone; January 1, 2002)
Voted by: Aaron
Ah, youth. On this self-released debut, Single Frame take keys and guitars and drums and unscrew the scenes that surround them with the jubilant energy of impressionable minds finding their own axes to grind. Smashing punk, rock, new wave, hip-hop, pop and all things indie into vibrant Pollock splatters, these kids manage to sound like a dozen great bands while sounding like one fresh new band. The shifting tempos and telegraphic drumming put the intuitive intercourse of the keys and guitars at impulse speed, causing the vocals to quickly vary from sing-along to shout-along. A circumstantial appearance of frenzy in the music merely adds a frayed edge to Single Frame�s tightly tailored instrumentation and song structures, and it�s aided by the band�s stylistic hop-scotch. Wetheads Come Running ends up a charmingly sincere and informed undergrad interpretation of adolescent music throes, and it jumps about as one of this millennium�s prime examples of post-punk synergy. –Chet Betz

Notwist Neon Golden (Morr Music; February 4, 2002)
Voted by: Dom, Amir
The Notwist’s first album to see release in the U.S. is an unassuming masterpiece, a simple pop gem made out of a train-operator’s existential crisis. It’s so clean, so refined, so ineffably serene, that it coasts by like a pastoral background made of blacks, purples, and blues. “Pilot,” with its steady rhythm, sinuous bass line, and gentle guitar ache, is probably the album’s defining statement — an unaffected swoon of beautiful instrumentation and slow-building hope. The song, like so much of Neon Golden, is pop at its best: using sweet melody and arrangement to make its atom bomb of an emotional effect seem like a flower blooming. –Amir Karim Nezar

Sage Francis Personal Journals (Anticon; April 23, 2002)
Voted by: Aaron, Dom
Meanwhile, somewhere in Rhode Island, Paul XXXX aka Xaul Xan aka Strange Famous aka Sage Frenchkiss aka Sage Francis is wringing his hands plotting the defeat of you, his arch-nemesis, Mr./Ms. Everyperson. When I incoherently ranted about the general lack of “personality” in 2004’s crop of hip hop music it was because Sage didn’t release a full-length that year. Personal Journals is painful for the listener as a reminder that most of the stuff we feed our ears daily isn’t nearly as smart as it could be. It’s painful for Sage as he recounts tales about his broken home, friends lost, and his sister’s self-mutilation. It’s painful for its producers because even though Jel, Sixtoo, Alias, and Scott Matelic (WHERE ARE YOU SCOTT MATELIC??) drop some of the best beats they’ve done they’re all outshined by Sage’s fantastic wordplay (see “Smoke and Mirrors,” where intense cries for trust slowly turn into apathy: “Please believe me, believe me, please, leave me be, leave me be…”). Francis’ unsung talent comes is his meaningful word association (“step father figure eights…”) and his almost ahead-of-the-beat delivery. Plus, unlike most of the early Anticon crop, he rhymes. Best Moment: “Broken Wings.” –Aaron Newell

Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Nonesuch; April 23, 2002)
Voted by: Matt, Peter, David, Bryan, Aaron, Dom
By now, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot�s myth has usurped its music: the David and Goliath tale that saw Wilco fighting AOL subsidiary Reprise for the right to release the album they wanted has become forever tattooed on the conscience of independent music. The tragedy (beyond the oversimplification of that battle in the first place) is that YHF�s music has gotten lost in the shuffle. It is quite simply Wilco�s best album, a schizoid, inward-looking take on America and Jeff Tweedy�s struggles to cope with it. The way the band and producer Jim O�Rourke marry the lyrics� themes of existensial disenchantment and general restlessness with warped, almost nauseating musical tapestries is nothing short of genius, and the album�s chilling 9/11 prophecies cement its place at the vanguard of rock albums, in this decade or any other. –Matt Stephens

El-P Fantastic Damage (Def Jux; May 14, 2002)
Voted by: Sean, Chet, Aaron
One of the more confrontational rap albums I�ve ever heard, and definitely one of the more timely. El Producto�s obsession with the United States political machine and its impact on his life never sounded fiercer or more paranoid, and his lyrics were never more biting. El-P also fleshed out and dramatically expanded his aural vocabulary from his Company Flow days. Left to handle all the production himself, the album screams in dissonant squalls and horror beats to match his substantial beat chomping prowess. Songs like �Stepfather Factory� and �Deep Space 9mm� are innovative both in terms of production, flow and ridiculously confrontational political imagery. Fantastic Dam is still one of the most cohesive, impressive albums of the decade for the somewhat stagnant world of underground hip-hop.. –Sean Ford

RJD2 Deadringer (Def Jux; July 23, 2002)
Voted by: Peter, Chet, Amir
RJD2’s Def Jux debut showed that the long-dormant DJ Shadow had competition in the realm of instrumental hip-hop. Coincidentally, it was also released the same year that Shadow would return from his six-year hiatus with the comparatively disappointing Private Press. But Jon Krohn was more than up to the challenge of taking on the well-seasoned Davis; true, Deadringer isn’t his first time around the producing block (he played a Kanye-like role behind-the-scenes for some time), but I doubt few thought he’d deliver a full length as confident and surprising without stepping extensively on any single producer’s heels (not an easy task in the genre). Tracks like “Good Times Roll pt.2” and “Silver Fox” throw down hard, and when MCs hit the mix, like on “Final Frontier” and “June,” it’s a mix-taper’s dream come true. -Peter Hepburn

Spoon Kill the Moonlight (Merge; August 20, 2002)
Voted by: Matt, Chet, Aaron, Dom, Amir
Fuck the Strokes; anyone who�s heard Kill the Moonlight (or, for that matter, Girls Can Tell) knows exactly who the coolest band on the planet is. In less than 35 minutes, the album bounces, swaggers, thrashes and contemplates with a facility only a band as comfortable in their own skin as Spoon was could ever hope for. Britt Daniel�s lyrics are uniformly sharp, going from outlaw ballads (�Paper Tiger�) to this-town-ain�t-big-enough-for-the-both-of-us taunts (�Back to the Life�) to mindless dance numbers (�You Gotta Feel It�), but most of us were probably having way too much fun to notice. The real winner here is the production — the band leaves a great deal of space in these songs, making the album occasionally feel like a Britt Daniel solo effort, especially on the jaw-dropping �Stay Don�t Go,� which utilizes nothing more than a human beatbox, careful syncopated guitar, and occasional synthesizers and makes them into something not only brilliant but danceable. If you haven�t heard Kill the Moonlight yet, the last two and a half years of your life have been a complete waste of time. –Matt Stephens

Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights (Matador; August 20, 2002)
Voted by: Candice, Matt, Sean, Peter, David, Bryan, Aaron, Amir, Chet
Why Interpol’s debut has spoken to so many people after they’ve listened to it several times is something of a speculative matter; but it seems a likely possibility that it has something to do with a collective dark angst, a search for beauty in a mire of confused paths. In the post-modern atmosphere, meaning has become something of an anachronism, and Turn on the Bright Lights — with its beautiful claustrophobia and stunning songs — made it seem that, despite the end of meaning or truth, our experience was still worth it. Songs like the devastating “Leif Erikson,” with its slow-burning desperation, or “PDA,” with its lyrical mutilation and aching coda, reflected Paul Banks’s oblique hurt and spiraling desire in haunting guitar layers and dense feeling — making for a striking articulation of the need that knifes us all in the neck. –Amir Karim Nezar

Sleater-Kinney One Beat (Kill Rock Stars; August 20, 2002)
Voted by: Peter, David
Oh Sleater-Kinney, how I do love thee. How ever do you rock so hard? How is it that no other bands on the planet feature a lead vocalist with as much ear shattering passion and lung power as Corin Tucker? Why are electronic metronomes inferior time keepers in comparison to Janet Weiss? And why hasn’t any band in the past fifty years managed to scrounge up one member as frighteningly charismatic as the gorgeous, Pete Townsend-windmilling, Gibson SG-thrashing, secular Jew feminist godspeed that is Carrie Brownstein? Because one doesn’t exist. You may think that your band sounds like Sleater-Kinney, but you’d be wrong. Fiery enough to make this critic think that most other bands should simply give up and resign themselves to a life of desk work; Sleater-Kinney could very well be the greatest rock band in America, and One Beat is, in many ways, their best record. –David M. Goldstein

Neko Case Blacklisted (Mint/Bloodshot; August 20, 2002)
Voted by: Scott, Candice, Peter
To be blacklisted means to be exiled and erased from sight, but with this album, Neko Case has little hope of impressing this upon her audience; she commands you to listen, wrapping her highly intimate songs around you, powerfully singing of things you never knew you would love to hear (with a voice sometimes too intimidating to sing such plaintive lyrics).

Stunning and hurtful, shy and brutal, Neko Case writes words for red wine nights, yet sings for devils and wolves. Blacklisted, her third straight fantastic album (not including this year’s equally captivating live recording, The Tigers Have Spoken), is a brilliant combination of blues, folk, country and rock sensuality, and a near-to-perfect album that new material like “If You Knew” proves her willing, and capable, of topping. -Candice Osmond

Iron & Wine The Creek Drank the Cradle (Sub Pop; September 24, 2002)
Voted by: Aaron, Dom

Creek is the point where I started influencing my father�s collection of music in return for his education on The Beatles, Paul Simon, and Cat Stevens. I once bumped into Sam Beam outside a pub in Sydney and we both were equally surprised that I recognized him. After fumbling with a few odd words about Florida (home to half of the population of Newfoundland on any given day) I said: �I love your writing, and I grew up on hip hop music, I don�t even really go for southern twangy folky country stuff.� Mr. Beam tolerantly laughed and said �Me neither.� And that�s the thing with Creek, this collection of bedroom-recorded tangentially-religious (in that eerie Christianity-as-folkloric-bayou-voodoo religious way) transcends �taste�; these are new-found classic songs that have been have been floating in the swamp mist since the early 1900s, waiting for the appropriate channel to present them. Beam�s harmonies are perfect, going exactly where you want them exactly when you hope they do, his banjo and guitars are delicate and tactful, and his lyrics conjure romantic country images to convey touching tales of love lost, found, and hoped for. Best Moment: the only indie pop song I�ve heard that�s perfect for Mother�s Day, �Upwards Over the Mountain.�
–Aaron Newell

Streets Original Pirate Material (Vice; October 22, 2002)
Voted by: Matt, David
People didn�t start comparing Mike Skinner to Ray Davies until this year�s A Grand Don�t Come for Free, but the judgement seems far more fitting hearing The Streets� debut, Original Pirate Material. Skinner�s stories and observations are startling, both in their scope and their effortlessness; he brings you into the life of British youth as well as any lyricist in pop, but in a way that makes him sound like a barfly spinning a yarn or offering a piece of inebriated wisdom. As a result, Skinner just ends up sounding like an old friend, whether he�s boastful, contemplative, or sulky. A classic debut from someone who�s sure to become a lasting icon in British pop culture, Original Pirate Material is undoubtedly one of this young century�s best rap albums. –Matt Stephens