Hey. All in all, I'd say that 2000 was a great year for music lovers. Inevitably, there were some misses mixed in with the hits. So here's my list for the year.
Best Of 2000
15) The Twilight Singers- Twilight As Played By The Twilight Singers- Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs sings about love in his own unique way.
14) Galactic- Late For The Future- Good, New Orleans-style funk. Unfortunately, Stanton Moore's awesome drumming takes a bit of a back seat to the guitars, but that's a minor point.
13) Jill Scott- Who Is Jill Scott- I found this one a little cliched, but still good. It's been a good year for R&B, and I liked Jill Scott's disc more than most.
12) Talvin Singh with The Master Musicians of Jajouka, featuring Bachir Attar- Talvin Singh did a GREAT job of fusing modern electronic music and production with traditional Moroccan music.
11) Tabla Beat Science- Tala Matrix- I absolutely love this Bill Laswell project! Again, a standup job of fusing some of the world's greatest tabla players and traditional Indian music with modern electronica. Talvin Singh pitches in on this one as well. If you're the least bit curious, GET IT!! You won't be disappointed.
10) Thievery Corporation- The Mirror Conspiracy. What can I say, besides that it's perfect? Every conceivable musical style is represented here, flawlessly performed and seamlessly produced. Too bad they weren't able to recreate that magic live
9) The Herbaliser Band- Session One- funk, Funk, FUNK!!!! Fans of blaxploitation flicks will love this record!
8) Erik Truffaz- Bending New Corners- This is probably gonna be the next big thing in Jazz. The record's just amazing, a little funky, and all good. Erik Truffaz tears a page from the Miles Davis school of trumpet playing, but presents it in a way that's all his own.
7) St. Germain- Tourist- I'm sure that this one's gonna be on everyone's best of list for the year, and it's pretty obvious why. This is the best Jazzy house or Housey Jazz record I've ever bought.
6) PJ Harvey- Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea- AWESOME!!!! This is ballsy, GRRRRL rock at its absolute best. Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde have gotta be proud, cos PJ Harvey has taken what they've done and kicked it into overdrive. I can't remember the last time a rock or alternative record blew me away as much as this one.
5) John Zorn- The Big Gundown- This record's actually about 20 years old, but this remastered version is just so much clearer than the original that I'd count it as an altogether new release. This Ennio Morricone tribute would please any fan of the great master of film music, while remaining a prototypical Zorn record. The original release was a perennial favorite of mine, so this one's just adding to an already great thing. 6 additional songs makes this one a must have for any fan of Zorn, Morricone, or great film/avant-garde music in general. If you aren't blown away by what's going on here, it ain't the record's fault.
4) Erykah Badu- Mama's Gun- Another must-have R&B classic. Funky as all hell, and just plain deep. The woman can do no wrong.
3) Goldfrapp- Felt Mountain- This takes trip-hop far beyond what I thought possible. It's by far, the most lushly orchestrated trip hop record I've ever heard, and it'll easily appeal to both the young cats looking for something downtempo, and the older crowd who dig very fine Morricone or James Bond-style pieces accompanied by the most haunting voice this side of Shirley Bassey. Fans of Cinematic orchestra will be completely blown away by Goldfrapp. Check it out, you won't be disappointed.
2)Sigur Ros- Agaetis Byrjun- I bought this cd only about 2 weeks ago, but I haven't gone a day without listening to it at least five times since. At times, it reminds me of Animals/Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd, but with string arrangements and orchestrations that David Gilmour and Roger Waters could only dream of. And, it's all sung in Icelandic!! I know why fellow listmembers were raving about this band, and I'm glad I listened to y'all and bought the album. Killer.
1) John Zorn's Masada- Live in Sevilla 2000- It's simply the best new jazz record I've bought in five years or more, and bound to become a classic. Masada will go down as one of the greatest jazz acts of all time, right up there with the Miles, Coltranes, Ornettes, Bird's, and Dizzy Gillespie's of the world. Zorn manages to take traditional Jewish music and fuse it with classic, modern, and avant-garde jazz. The result is the most exciting music I've heard all year. Forget trends, cos' this one's gonna be talked about for years to come- it already is by anyone who digs jazz in any kind of non-casual way. If Masada comes to your city, do yourself a huge favor and go see them, no matter what the cost of the tickets. Buy your tickets fast, cos they usually sell out within the first few hours. One day, you'll be telling someone younger than you that you saw Masada perform live and they'll look at you like you're the luckiest guy in the world. Kinda like I do when I speak to people who have seen Coltrane, Bird, or Miles live. Yeah, they're that good.
I won't get into the worst of the year, as I generally tend to forget stuff that didn't impress me. Two records that stand out in this category, simply because they were both so heavily hyped on both these lists are the new releases of Godspeed You Black Emperor and that new-jack poseur, D'Angelo. The D'Angelo record was particularly offensive because people have tried to place him in the same company as Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Sly and other greats. That's the most offensive thing I've heard all year, next to the music itself, but hype will sell anything, as the top 20 clearly illustrates at any given time. Chicken Grease ranks as one of my all time most hated R&B tunes of all time.
Anyway, that's my bit for the year. I hope that 2001 will be as good as the last year was. Thanx to all of you for your informative interesting posts and for your great suggestions. Special shout-outs to those who went thru the trouble of trading cd's/cdr's with me; I haven't received a bad disc all year!!
Stimp
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