Honourable Mentions: Albums 51-60

Clinic Internal Wranger (Domino; May 2, 2000)
An album that truly did, despite the absurdity of the phrase, “get lost in the math.” Basically, everyone assumed Wrangler was great enough to just make the list without needing any one person to push it with points — and despite how it screwed itself out of a place on the main list, Clinic’s debut is held in such high esteem for good reason. Sure, the band’s sound wasn’t exactly “new” in 2000, and has coasted with varied results since, but Wrangler hits us with one abnormally melodic VU-mutation after another, throwing in enough left-field additions like the nearly perfect “Distortions” (truly one of the millenium’s best single album cuts) to create a formula so effective they’ve rarely had to tinker with it since. I can hardly blame them, but the criticisms are equally easy to understand; after all, who thought a band this good would peak so early and so strongly? –Scott Reid

Deep Puddle Dynamics Taste of Rain. . . Why Kneel? (Anticon; June 20, 2000)
The combo effort featuring the antihero group of Sole, Slug (Atmosphere), Alias, and Dose-One (cLOUDDEAD, Subtle) was probably the official �we�re here� release for the now-overblown art-hop movement. Because of the developed riff between Sole and El-P (spurned over Sole�s accusations of El-P�s blackballing Live Poets releases from Fat Beats distribution) Rain was a monumental effort never to be reproduced: Slug wouldn�t commit to Anticon�s overtly anti-thug mentality, and was the foursome�s only true geographic or idealistic link to anything East of the Oakland avant-garde. It was great while it lasted, however, as each MC involved arguably turned out his career-best traditional-hip hop-styled vocal performances. The production lags at times (no one�s ever really loved a DJ Abilities beat), but Moodswing9�s �Candle� and Jel�s �I Am Hip Hop� rank among the best pieces to come out of indie-hop in general, and the writing is nothing short of amazing in its culture of theme, creativity, and topicality. Recorded over one week of maddened, collaborative brainstorming by four of the most creative writers in hip hop today, this is the most important release for cLOUDDEAD, Sole, and Atmosphere historians alike. –Aaron Newell

The Dandy Warhols 13 Tales from Urban Bohemia (Capitol; August 1, 2000)
The company line on the Dandy Warhols has always been that they�re more of a concept than an actual band; obsessed with their own notions of hipsterdom to the point where their music becomes secondary to fashion spreads or navel gazing short films masquerading as “enhanced material” on their CDs. But such notions are most often held by individuals who�ve never actually bothered to listen to Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, the band�s extremely eclectic, and criminally underrated, third album. Here�s where you can find �Bohemian Like You,� the Dandies� fiendishly catchy �Brown Sugar� rip that�s been used over the trailer for nearly every teen movie in the past five years, but Thirteen Tales also manages to touch on nearly every genre of ’90s indie imaginable; it�s variety only rivaled by the band�s notoriously loose (e.g; a 20-minute cover of The Smiths� �Hand in Glove�) live show. The first three songs comprise a shoegazer suite that�s pure 4AD, there�s plenty of Camper Van Beethoven-esque scenester dis tracks (�Country Leaver”; �Solid�; �Horse Pills�), a six-minute centerpiece focusing entirely on the band�s often overlooked harmonies (�Sleep�), and plenty of the ’60s flower child ambience that the band originally made their name on. There�s remarkably little filler, and as is their wont, incredible singles (�Bohemian Like You”; �Godless�). The Dandy Warhols are enormous in Europe; meanwhile, their U.S. label treats them like second class citizens, and their third album deserves to be heard by as many people, and with as many open minds, as possible. –David M. Goldstein

New Pornographers Mass Romantic (Mint; November 21, 2000)
So the world didn’t end at the turn of the millennium, but pop music died and was reborn stronger than ever with the brilliant, mind-blowing perfection of the New Pornographer’s Mass Romantic. That this album didn’t make the real list is a travesty: no pop album of the decade so far can come close to this one. “The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism,” the fantastic Bejar-penned “Execution Day,” and then the wailing Neko Case bombshell of “Letter From an Occupant.” This album sounds just as good as it did the day it was released (if anything better). Perhaps 2005 will hold the news NPs album, and if it manages to capture even half the pop glory of Mass Romantic it’ll be at the top of a lot of critic’s lists. –Peter Hepburn

Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire The Swimming Hour (Rykodisc; April 3, 2001)
The Swimming Hour is everything that could be hoped for from the swagger of Chicago�s favorite hothouse honey — an impossibly beautiful album so effortless it practically squeezes your fingers together, poising them to wring his mighty pretty neck. Hour is caked in the dust of a century of style and wit but thoroughly crystalline. Bird and Nora O�Connor cover the Mississippi Sheiks�s �Too Long� with a funk that betrays its fancy tuba bounce, reverent but cocky. �Satisfied� rocks to a rockabilly wave, begging and winking at the sweeties to come a�runnin� and a�droolin�, but Bird�s lyrics drown in lonely paroxysms of spiritual and emotional helplessness. �11:11� is a wishful ballroom gown of precise strings and shuffling snare, but Bird attacks his arrangements with sinister violence.

Simply, we need this man�s asexual, hypersexual, purely sexual master stroke. We need �fingerlings� to be a sexy addendum to the sexy word canon. It may be infuriating, how such a scattershot sense of influence coagulates so thickly in a tiny package as unassuming as a tube sock, but this slick lullaby cannot be denied. This artist�s aesthetic appeal screams through his work, and God bless’em for that. Come and dance with me, Michael. –Dom Sinacola

Cannibal Ox The Cold Vein (Def Jux; May 15, 2001)
Sure, Fantastic Damage is great, but everything that’s great about it is even greater on The Cold Vein, which also happens to have better rapping to boot. The star of the album is El-P�s production, though, and it�s a dark, dense star that traps the past twenty years of hip-hop in its gravity, destroys the light and spews out erratic pulses of static and radiation that some may call �beats.� I thought these �beats� nothing less than signals from a new form of music life; The Cold Vein was a revelatory listen, a peep show through a looking glass into a parallel universe where our rules and conventions didn�t seem to apply, yet everything still made its own twisted sense. Vordul was a rabbit, Vast Aire a Cheshire cat and El-P a mad hatter, and their wonderland was a NYC dystopia of Philip K. Dick proportions. Now that Def Jux seem to be slowly slumping their way towards slightly more classy takes on �Let�s Go,� I wonder if The Cold Vein is doomed to become a singular footnote rather than the evolutionary leap for hip-hop that I once thought it. Whatever the case, one listen to the extraterrestial jamming of �Pigeon� or the Popol Vuh distorting of �Scream Phoenix,� and I�m transported back to that world where endless possibility is no longer the alternative reality. –Chet Betz

Bob Dylan Love and Theft (Columbia; September 11, 2001)
Even when he was in his twenties, Bob Dylan wrote songs like he was an old man, so it seems appropriate that the albums he makes as an old man be the most comfortable and organic of his career. The second and most recent album of his late-period renaissance, Love and Theft is perhaps the funniest album Mr. Zimmerman has ever made, mixing wacky, impenetrable surrealism with some cutting insights on art and celebrity (in “Summer Days”: “She says ‘you can’t repeat the past’ / I say ‘what do you mean you can’t? Of course you can.’”). No, this certainly isn’t Blonde on Blonde, but why should it be? Here, Dylan sounds as wise, vibrant, and secure in himself and his art as he ever has — no songwriter has ever aged this well. –Matt Stephens

Mountain Goats We Shall All Be Healed (4AD; Feburary 22, 2004)
John Darnielle’s second major-label effort for 4AD was my first attempt at listening to the Goats — and with roughly twelve albums (on various labels, many on cassette) in the past nine years, it can be hard to know where to start; one might even be tempted to label the Goats as the second coming of Guided By Voices. Yet, unlike GbV, major label interest did not make Darnielle abandon his lo-fi aestetic. Instead, We Shall All Be Healed remains an intimate affair, much like his previous work, but with an anti-drug thematic overtone that makes even Tallahassee seem like a collection of silver linings. Most of the songs are John and an acoustic guitar with little or no ancillary music, but he rarely needs it; the literary waves that Darnielle creates are supportive enough, and although there isn’t much of a sonic attack on your ears, he forces you to enter his fictional (and many non-fictional) worlds. It’s a tough call between this and Tallahassee, but both prove Darnielle as compelling a songwriter in the ’00s as he’s even been. –Bryan Rowsell

Fennesz Venice (Touch; March 22, 2004)
Fennesz is an artist eternally doomed to be underappreciated; the difficulty of a first approach to his works is potentially exhausting, and likely off-putting. Few listeners are willing to stand subtly intertwined lines of crackling feedback, woven into songs. Like so many brilliant lap-toppers, Fennesz’s sounds are carefully chosen and unfamiliar in their composition – despite the fact that their slowly revealed internal structures are those of a kind of surreal pop. It seems that the under-appreciation of Fennesz is a classic example (and not the only one) of the artist that so many pop fans clamor for, but then ignore. You want something new? Someone who hasn’t ripped off Brian Wilson or ’80s pop/mod/chic or ’70s glam or ’60s drugs? Then summon some patience, and listen — carefully — to Fennesz. When “Circassian” crushes your heart with its feedback-muscled arms of melody and sonic power, you’ll realize that all the “new” you ever needed is in one man: Christian Fennesz. Outlasting so many contemporaries who didn’t make it past the 2000-2001 IDM craze, Fennesz continues to change his compositional style, while keeping it handily in the realm of the unique. And as Venice attests, he can’t stop making masterpieces. –Amir Karim Nezar

Mclusky The Difference Between Me and You Is That I’m Not On Fire (Too Pure; May 18, 2004)
Darkly sarcastic, Mclusky seemed the perfect listen for a year chock full of ghastly global politics. Their bitter anger and biting wit made The Difference a dark and filthy brew, as the Scottish trio stirred up an incredibly huge sound reminiscent of vintage Albini sounds (not coincidentally, Mr. Albini is a huge fan and “records” Mclusky). Initially, the songs appear too harsh, much harsher than the band’s catchy, hook-ridden classic Do Dallas. But after peeling back the various layers of darkness in The Difference, it becomes apparent that the thing that bites hardest in these songs are the same gigantic hooks Mclusky has always thrived on. It’s just that their understanding of how and when to use those hooks has changed; their songwriting skills have grown from an obvious indebtedness to the Pixies, Jesus Lizard and Shellac to outright furthering that particular sound. Keep it up, Mclusky. –Sean Ford