969. The Thrills - So Much For The City (2003)

Track Listing

1. Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)
2. Big Sur
3. Don't Steal Our Sun
4. Deckchairs And Cigarettes
5. One Horse Town
6. Old Friends, New Lovers
7. Say It Ain't So
8. Hollywood Kids
9. Just Travelling Through
10. Your Love Is Like Las Vegas
11. 'Til The Tide Creeps In/Plans

Review

Awwww, sunny fakyfornian music for the hispter masses. Much too derivative to be of any great substance this is easy to like music for those who populate their iPod with bands which start with "The".

This is not to say the album is terrible or even bad, but it is just too easy to digest. Like Chinese food it leaves you hungry for more substance a couple of hours after you eat it and it goes through you like a Shinkansen (yes I am purposefully mixing metaphors, although China is building the fastest bullet train in the world... I read somewhere).

So yeah it is all very pleasant and nice, too nice. So nice it gets annoying. So you've been to California and you make an album about it... and it is of course a heavily edited version of California, sunshine and surf. Oh well.

Track Highlights

1. Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)
2. Big Sur
3. Don't Steal Our Sun
4. Hollywood Kids

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In an interview, lead singer Conor Deasy explained the band's inspiration for the song material:

Those songs are our ways of picking us up because we were kind of miserable. We were dropped by our label. And the towns are put [in the songs] as a way of escapism, as opposed to documenting little tales about what happened when we went there. When we put in a title like "Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)," it would literally pick us up a bit.

Big Sur:

968. Kings of Leon - Youth and Young Manhood (2003)

Track Listing

1. Red Morning Light
2. Happy Alone
3. Wasted Time
4. Joe’s Head
5. Tranny
6. California Waiting
7. Spiral Suitcase
8. Molly’s Chambers
9. Genuis
10. O Dusty
11. Holy Roller Novocaine

Review

There was a time in 2003 when a bunch of new bands just popped up in the collective conscious. This and the next two albums are a representation of that and while at the time they might all have seemed to have come from the same barrel, the truth is some distance really lets you appreciate them independently...

Kings of Leon are one of the good bands from that period,heavily retro and drawing very much from the early Rolling Stones and the Strokes. There is, of course a lot of Southern rock mixed in here as well.

The album is a pretty superficially fun one, even if closer scrutiny brings out murkier depths. But it is ultimately an enjoyable listen. A pretty nifty début which has a lot of space to develop and we will see what fruits it bears later on the list.

Track Highlights

1. Trani
2. Joe's Head
3. Holly Roller Novocaine
4. Molly's Chambers

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The title appears to be taken from Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, his novel of poverty in 1920s Paris: "I had already seen the end of fall come through boyhood, youth and young manhood, and in one place you could write about it better than in another."

Holy Roller Novocaine:

967. Dizzee Rascal - Boy in da Corner (2003)

Track Listing

1. Sittin' Here
2. Stop Dat
3. I Luv U
4. Brand New Day
5. 2 Far
6. Fix Up, Look Sharp
7. Cut 'em Off
8. Hold Ya Mouf (Feat. God's Gift)
9. Round We Go (Ain't No Love)
10. Jus' A Rascal
11. Wot U On?
12. Jezebel
13. Seems 2 Be
14. Live O
15. Do It!

Review

A really good and hard to categorise album by Dizzee Rascal here. If there is anything wrong with it, it is the fact that it is a really dark album. At times the whole thing is almost oppressive. But the music's mix of UK Garage, Hip-hop, Electronica, rock and jungle make it all too interesting to dislike.

The music is appropriately aggressive and dark, almost assaulting you with its beats, the lyrics are pretty interesting as well, even with the traditional hip-hop posturing in them they end up often being pretty sensitive pieces.

The whole thing sounds primal and fascinating and innovative and smart. It received the very deserved Mercury Award for this year and it is a truly fascinating album, highly recommended.

Track Highlights

1. Wot U On?
2. Fix Up, Look Sharp
3. I Luv U
4. Jezebel

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Boy in da Corner won Dizzee Rascal the 2003 Mercury Prize, becoming the first rapper to win the award. On Metacritic, the album received an aggregate score of 92/100, indicating "universal acclaim". In 2009, it was voted the sixth greatest album of all time by MTV Base. The record peaked at number twenty-three on the UK Albums Chart. It has sold over 58,000 units in the U.S.and over 250,000 copies worldwide.

Fix Up Look Look Sharp:

966. The White Stripes - Elephant (2003)

Track Listing

1. Seven Nation Army
2. Black Math
3. There's No Home For You Here
4. I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself
5. In The Cold Cold Night
6. I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother's Heart
7. You've Got Her In Your Pocket
8. Ball And Biscuit
9. Hardest Button To Button
10. Little Acorns
11. Hypnotise
12. Air Near My Fingers
13. Girl You Have No Faith In Medicine
14. Well It's True That We Love One Another

Review

Another great album by The White Stripes, and possibly my favourite one... despite not giving much attention to the ones that followed this, I listened to a bit of Get Behind Me Satan but then I started this list and my musical knowledge stops in 2005. I hope to remedy that soon.

This is another album of great music and variety, with a resolutely analogic sound it is one of those album which is best listened to in very loud vinyl, which I fortunately have. The resolution not to use any tools past the 1970s really pays of in the organic and rich sound.

Then you have some great moments, like the wordless chorus in the first track or the sonic assault of Ball and Biscuit or even a Burt Bacharach cover. It all ends in a light mood with the last track, fun, light but pretty cool. The album is just great fun to listen to and if you add to this the considerations taken into account while making it it makes for a really great thing.

Track Highlights

1. Seven Nation Army
2. The Hardest Button to Button
3. Ball and Biscuit
4. Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Upon its release, critical response to this album was overwhelmingly positive, and many critics hailed it as the one of the defining events of the 2000s garage rock revival. Uncut magazine remarked that "Elephant is where the tabloid phenomenon of summer 2001 prove they are no flash in the pan by making a truly phenomenal record." David Fricke (with Rolling Stone) called it "a work of pulverizing perfection," adding, "It will be one of the best things you hear all year." and Allmusic said the album "overflows with quality".

The Hypnotic video for Seven Nation Army:

965. The Darkness - Permission to Land (2003)

Track Listing

1. Black Shuck
2. Get Your Hands Off My Woman
3. Growing On Me
4. I Believe In A Thing Called Love
5. Love Is Only A Feeling
6. Givin' Up
7. Stuck In A Rut
8. Friday Night
9. Love On The Rocks With No Ice
10. Holding My Own
11. Makin' Out

Review

Sometimes the choices on this list confuse me. Why have what really is little more than a novelty comedy album here? Particularly if you are missing This Is Spinal Tap, which did The Darkness before and better?

Well some would argue that The Darkness is more than that, to which I would argue "No it isn't". They might be musically competent but so are Tenacious D for fuck's sake, you don't see them here.

So one of the strangest choices on this list and an album which is mildly fun and retro but which for it's novelty value brings nothing truly new or sustainable to the music scene. So... oh well.

Track Highlights

1. I Believe In A Thing Called Love
2. Growing on Me
3. Get Your Hands Off My Woman
4. Love On The Rocks With No Ice

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In addition to its chart success, Permission to Land also provided The Darkness with two high-profile music awards – Best Rock Album at the 2003 Kerrang! Awards[3] and Best British Album at the 2004 BRIT Awards (at which they also won the awards for Best British Group and Best British Rock Act). Permission to Land was voted 49th in the 50 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century in Kerrang!

Oh Kerrang...

I Believe in a Thing Called Love:

964. Calexico - Feast of Wire (2003)

Track Listing

1. Sunken Waltz
2. Quattro (World Drifts In)
3. Stucco
4. Black Heart
5. Pepito
6. Not Even Stevie Nicks
7. Close Behind
8. Woven Birds
9. The Book And The Canal
10. Attack El Robot! Attack!
11. Across The Wire (Widescreen)
12. Dub Latina
13. Guero Canelo
14. Whipping The Horses Eye
15. Crumble
16. No Doze

Review

Calexico has got a really attractive mix of sounds, and that is particularly true of this album. There is still all the mariachi stuff but with that there is the Portishead style of Black Heart of the great jazzy stuff of Crumble.

In fact the album's sound is so varied that it could be seen as unfocused, but it never is. Calexico maintain a constant mood throughout, slightly dark and nostalgic it is also very beautiful stuff.

So this is a really worthy album of pop-folk-country-world-rock-jazz-trip-hop-stuff. It manages to be innovative without ever being unpleasant, it manages to invoke stuff like Tim Buckley without being derivative and it is a thoroughly enjoyable album.

Track Highlights

1. Black Heart
2. Crumble
3. Sunken Waltz
4. Across The Wire

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

A hidden instrumental track--"Untitled" -- 2:16--is in the album's pregap.

Black Heart:

963. Amy Winehouse - Frank (2003)

Track Listing

1. Intro / Stronger Than Me
2. You Sent Me Flying / Cherry
3. Know You Now
4. Fuck Me Pumps
5. I Heard Love Is Blind
6. Moody's Mood For Love / Teo Licks
7. (There Is) No Greater Love
8. In My Bed
9. Take The Box
10. October Song
11. What Is It About Men
12. Help Yourself
13. Amy Amy Amy / Outro

Review

Amy Winehouse is looking decidedly healthier and less beehivey in this album cover, this was slightly before the train-wreck that she has now become. But for all that she is the more interesting of these jazzy female singers of the last few years, including Norah Jones, Katie Melua or Duffy. At least Amy has balls.

Amy has a great voice which she uses in an attractively effortless way with that you have some pretty good and cutting lyrics. I canºt see Melua writing any of the tracks in this album, much less "Fuck Me Pumps".

Despite all of these plus points the music is still essentially unoriginal stuff. It is all pretty unexciting, there is little attempt at innovation or creative creation of any kind. Just a good singer with good lyrics but not enough to be a great album.

Track Highlights

1. Fuck Me Pumps
2. Intro / Stronger Than Me
3. October Song
4. In My Bed

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 60 before climbing to number thirteen in January 2004. It has since been certified double platinum for shipment of more than 600,000 copies. During the chart run of Winehouse's second album, 2006's Back to Black, Frank re-entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 22 in February 2007, as well as at No. 40 on two separate occasions in May 2007, becoming a mainstay of the UK album chart throughout 2007. As of November 2007 it had sold a total of 495,891 copies in the UK. As of mid-March 2008, it had sold 675,000 copies in the UK, and had sold 362,700 since February 2007, making it 2007's 37th biggest-selling album, despite its original release four years earlier. It sold a further 228,000 copies in 2008, five years after its release.

Fuck Me Pumps:

962. Radiohead - Hail To The Thief (2003)

Track Listing

1. 2 + 2 =5
2. Sit Down. Stand Up
3. Sail to the Moon
4. Backdrifts
5. Go to Sleep
6. Where I End and You Begin
7. We Suck Young Blood
8. The Gloaming
9. There There
10. I Will
11. A Punch-up at a Wedding
12. Myxamatosis
13. Scatterbrain
14. A Wolf at the Door

Review

Radiohead are back for the last time in this list. So it is a sad goodbye here, because they bring us another perfectly crafted album which is fully representative of their career progression.

After the birth pangs of the sub-standard Pablo Honey and the two experimental po-rock albums of The Bends and OK Computer they took the only logical course of exploring full experimentalism with Kid A and Amnesiac. Now they take the again logical step back.

Taking this step back they link together the Bends/OK Computer pop sensibilities with the sounds developed in Kid A and Amnesiac bringing us a synthetic and accessible album in Hail to the Thief. This album taken as a corollary of their 4 grown up albums takes a whole new level of meaning. Great stuff yet again with some of their scariest and most attractive tracks.

Track Highlights

1. There There
2. We Suck Young Blood
3. A Wolf at the Door
4. The Gloaming

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Hail to the Thief featured more conventional use of guitar than the band's previous two albums, and more piano than any Radiohead album to date, but also continued to make use of electronic beats and samples. Band members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, in addition to guitar and vocals, are both credited with playing "laptop" on the album, a reference to their sonic manipulations with software programs such as Cubase, Max/MSP, and Pro Tools. In addition, Greenwood continued to employ the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument he first used on Kid A and Amnesiac.

Great Video for There, There:

961. The Hives - Your New Favourite Band (2002)

Track Listing

1. Hate To Say I Told You So
2. Main Offender
3. Supply And Demand
4. Die, All Right!
5. Untutored Youth
6. Outsmarted
7. Mad Man
8. Here We Go Again
9. A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T
10. Automatic Schmuck
11. Hail Hail Spit N' Drool
12. The Hives Are The Law, You Are Crime

Reviews

Sometimes bands are not particularly original, but they are anachronistic enough to actually sound original at their particular time and place. This was the case with The Hives, and fortunately they did their Swedish Ramones for the 21st century act so well that the album ends up being really enjoyable.

The bursts of angry sounding and fun filled short tracks that compose this album are really memorable stuff. Each track depends on a single hook, and one that often seems to be repeated on several tracks, this gives you an almost instant familiarity with the tracks, which makes it very easy to like, if you are open to a bit of noise in your life.

This album really lives on those musical hooks, the lyrics are often semi-literate, and we are constantly reminded of the fact that they are not writing in their first-language, but this just ends up adding to the charm of the whole thing. A great fun, fast and furious album which doesn't take itself seriously, and is, therefore, unpretentious.

Track Highlights

1. Main Offender
2. Hate To Say I Told You So
3. The Hives Are The Law, You Are Crime
4. Die, All Right!

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Your New Favourite Band is a collection by The Hives, featuring tracks from their first two albums and the A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T EP. The decision to release such a compilation after only two albums was made with the intention of achieving mainstream success in the UK and the U.S.

Main Offender:

960. The Vines - Highly Evolved (2002)

Track Listing

1. Highly Evolved
2. Autumn Shade
3. Outtathaway
4. Sunshinin
5. Homesick
6. Get Free
7. Country Yard
8. Factory
9. In The Jungle
10. Mary Jane
11. Ain't No Room
12. 1969

Review

A really nice and varied album of alt-rock here. This is always a good thing to have, The Vines are clearly defined by their influences particularly in the Beatlesque The Factory, but this is done in such a blatant way that it never feels like stealing, only as a heartfelt homage.

The album is mainly fun, the whole thing is really enjoyable even when the lyrics are screeched they are backed by hard-pounding rock which really makes it work. I probably wouldn't call this album a great work of art, but it is fun enough to really deserve a place in my iPod.

The album consists of one great hooky song after another, and it slowly gets into your head and he way they keep changing up styles makes it all the less boring. So yeah, if you are looking for light enjoyable and kind of noisy fun rock you could do much worse than this!

Track Highlights

1. Get Free
2. Outtathaway
3. Factory
4. Autumn Shade

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The debut single, "Highly Evolved", was chosen as Single of the Week by influential British music magazine New Musical Express. They also voted it the 2nd best album of the year in 2002.

I want some of what he's having:

959. Justin Timberlake - Justified (2002)

Track Listing

1. Senorita
2. Like I Love You
3. (Oh No) What You Got
4. Take It From Here
5. Cry Me A River
6. Rock Your Body
7. Nothin’ Else
8. Last Night
9. Still On my Brain
10. (And She Said) Take Me Now
11. Right For Me
12. Let’s Take A Ride
13. Never Again

Review

A thing that profoundly annoys me about mainstream pop-albums is just how front-loaded most of them are. After track 6 nothing is of real interest in this album. However it is still a pretty good Michael Jackson album.

Not as good as Off The Wall but better than Thriller or Bad. However just as it is hard to take MJ as a sexual being so it is with JT, he is not only much to young but much too goofy to ever be sexy. But he tries. So it ends up being funny, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Pharell does a great job at production but again the whole thing can be turned off after track 6 and you won't lose much. Making the album much more bearable. Still, this is good pop, but nothing I particularly want to listen to again.

Track Highlights

1. Like I Love You
2. Señorita
3. Rock Your Body
4. Cry Me a River

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikpedia:

The album features guest performances by Timbaland, Clipse, Bubba Sparxxx, and Janet Jackson. The final song, "Never Again", featured Brian McKnight on nearly all of the instruments. Justified was honored with two Grammy Awards at the 2004 Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

Señorita:

958. Beck - Sea Change (2002)

Track Listing

1. The Golden Age
2. Paper Tiger
3. Guess I'm Doing Fine
4. Lonesome Tears
5. Lost Cause
6. End Of The Day
7. It's All In Your Mind
8. Round The Bend
9. Already Dead
10. Sunday Sun
11. Little One
12. Side Of The Road

Review

I have pretty mixed feelings about this album. Beck's shift from sampler extrordinarie to ballady acoustic man is not a terrible shift. He is quite competent at doing this stuff. However I get annoyed at the terminal derivativeness of the thing.

OK, he is derivative of good things, like Serge Gainsbourg or Nick Drake, but it goes to a point, particularly on the second track, Paper Tiger, where I was in doubt if this was a sample from Melody, the first track of L'Histoire de Melody Nelson. Then in Round the Bend he heavily borrows strings from Drake's River Man. Well this might all be nice and intentional and "tributey" but if so he should give credit for it.

So that is why I am conflicted here, I like the album at a basic level, but the more I think about bits of it the more it annoys me. Because then I don't know if I like Beck's music or just the music he steals from. Should I like this guy because he steals form people I actually like, hence sounding a bit like them? Truth is I still like the way it sounds. Oh the existential dilemmas!

Track Highlights

1. Lost Cause
2. The Golden Age
3. Paper Tiger
4. Guess I'm Doing Fine

Final Grade

I'm so conflicted!

9/10 (grumble grumble)

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Much of Beck's trademark recondite, ironic lyrics are replaced by more sincere, simpler lyrical content. On Sea Change, Beck eschews the heavy sampling of his previous albums for real, live instrumentation. In interviews, Beck cited the breakup with his longtime girlfriend as the major influence on the album.

Lost Cause:

957. The Roots - Phrenology (2002)

Track Listing

1. Phrentrow
2. Rock You
3. !!!!!!!
4. Sacrifice
5. Rolling With Heat
6. Waok (Ay) Rollcall
7. Thought @ Work
8. The Seed (2.0)
9. Break You Off
10. Water The First Movement/ Water The Abyss/ Water The Drowning
11. Quills
12. Pussy Galore
13. Complexity
14. Something In The Way Of Things (In Town)

Review

I am always glad to have some alternative hip-hop on the list, this album is no exception, if anything it is too alternative... not because it is weird or hard to listen to, but because they try their hands at too many things, not always completely successfully.

Where the album is particularly successful is when they try to bring in Rock elements to hip-hop. This works really well in a handful of songs like The Seed or Rock You, however some more ambitious experiments like the hip-hop/ambient Water end up not being great hip-hop or ambient songs.

The album ends up being hit and miss, but you do have to respect the ambition behind it, the attempt to try new and different things, not to play it safe. It takes balls. In that sense it is a great album, but unfortunately it is not always great music.

Track Highlights

1. The Seed (2.0)
2. Rock You
3. Rolling With Heat
4. Quills

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It was named for the discredited pseudoscience of phrenology, the study of head shapes to determine intelligence and character. Phrenology was sometimes used to justify racism in the past. The album cover artwork was created by artist/printmaker Tom Huck, who is known for his large scale satirical woodcuts.

The Seed (2.0):

956. Christina Aguilera - Stripped (2002)

Track Listing

1. Stripped Intro
2. Can't Hold Us Down (featuring Lil' Kim)
3. Walk Away
4. Fighter
5. Primer Amor Interlude
6. Infatuation
7. Loves Embrace Interlude
8. Loving Me 4 Me
9. Impossible
10. Underappreciated
11. Beautiful
12. Make Over
13. Cruz
14. Soar
15. Get Mine, Get Yours
16. Dirrty
17. Stripped Pt. 2
18. The Voice Within
19. I'm OK
20. Keep On Singin' My Song

Review

I'm going to be controversial here: I kind of like Christina Aguilera. By kind of like I mean when judging her against her teeny-bopper or ex-teeny-bopper, R&B influenced commercial stuff.

Christina seems like the only one who in a post-Genie in the Bottle phase seemed to have an actual "artistic" vision to her albums. The vision here is slightly misguided, over-compensating the virginal image of her previous career with what is a bit too brash of an album. That being said it feels like an album instead of a collection of singles, which is the problem with so many of her peers.

Aguilera's singing is more subdued here, in comparison to her previous histrionics and some tracks are quite good. However, it is much too long an album and really not interesting enough to keep your attention throughout. Great within its style a bit crappy if we are taking Music as the universe.

Track Highlights

1. Make Over
2. Walk Away
3. Beautiful
4. Dirrty

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

With this album, Aguilera took creative control over a project for the first time, being influenced by many different subjects and music styles, including rhythm and blues, gospel, soul, pop rock, and hip hop. She co-wrote fourteen songs was involved in the production of the record, which was mainly produced by Scott Storch and Linda Perry.

Elvis Costello covers Beautiful:

955. Bruce Springsteen - The Rising (2002)

Track Listing

1. Lonesome Day
2. Into the Fire
3. Waitin' on a Sunny Day
4. Nothing Man
5. Countin' on a Miracle
6. Empty Sky
7. Worlds Apart
8. Let's Be Friends (Skin to Skin)
9. Further On (Up the Road)
10. Fuse
11. Mary's Place
12. You're Missing
13. Rising
14. Paradise
15. My City of Ruins

Review

The Boss is back... maybe not to top form but to pretty good form anyway. This is an album about 9/11 and as such it has its fair share of emotional moments, some of which work out better than others. However this is probably the best work to be directly involved with the attacks... I'd even risk saying in any art form.

If there is one thing about Bruce Springsteen that makes this work for him in a way it might not work for others is the fact that he is a very no-nonsense lyricist and one with his heart firmly in the right place. In that way this ends up being a work about understanding and hope rather than vengeance and braggadocio.

Bruce's perspective includes songs from the point of view of a suicide bomber in Paradise, which is a really touching song recognising the common humanity of all parties involved. In this way he even makes use of Qawwalli choirs in Worlds Apart, Bruce comes across as a thoroughly humane songwriter, some might call it naive but I like to think of it as one of the few examples of true humanism in song-writing. The album is only let down due to the specificity of it, many of the tracks here have a kind of up-beat "rise up from the ashes" feel that is very chronologically specific. And no it is not his best album.

Track Highlights

1. Paradise
2. The Rising
3. Lonesome Day
4. My City of Ruins

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

For the year 2002, The Rising was one of only two albums to receive Rolling Stone's highest rating – five stars – the other being Beck's Sea Change.

Paradise:

954. Missy Elliott - Under Construction (2002)

Track Listing

1. Intro/Go To The Floor
2. Bring The Pain
3. Gossip Folks
4. Work It
5. Back In The Day
6. Funky Fresh Dressed
7. P***ycat
8. Nothing Out There For Me
9. Slide
10. Play That Beat
11. Ain't That Funny
12. Hot
13. Can You Hear Me
14. Work It

Review

As mainstream hip-hoppers go Missy Elliott has always been one of the most interesting ones. Interesting not just because she is weird, which she is, but because she focuses on subjects which are largely absent from the male dominated musical genre.

Missy explores female concerns and perspectives on the whole hip-hop culture, and she does it very well, never preachy, full of humour and very smart. It is not every rapper who has got a song addressing her own vagina (P***ycat).

Then the sampling is pretty great as well, hard hitting, with hard beats and a slightly old school feel. Another great thing about the album is the way in which it is actually quite confessional, in a couple of tracks, bookending the album Missy explains her vision and her feeling about her work, making the whole thing more personal. Good stuff.

Track Highlights

1. Work It
2. P***ycat
3. Slide
4. Play That Beat

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It was primarily produced by Timbaland, with additional production from Craig Brockman, Nisan Stewart, Errol "Poppi" McCalla and Elliott herself.

The album peaked at number 3 on the U.S. Billboard 200 albums chart and sold more than 2.1 million copies domestically, eventually becoming Elliott's highest selling album to date.

Work It:

953. Doves - The Last Broadcast (2002)

Track Listing

1. Intro
2. There Goes The Fear
3. M62 Song
4. Where We’re Calling From
5. New York
6. Satellites
7. Friday’s Dust
8. Pounding
9. Last Broadcast
10. The Sulpher Man
11. Caught By The River


Review

The Doves are another one of those arena-filling rock bands that were so popular in the UK in the early 00's. This all started with U2 of course and went on to the Coldplays of this world.

However the Doves are slightly more interesting than most, comparisons to Coldplay are justified here but they are not nearly as annoying or commercial as Rush of Blood to the Head Coldplay, this feels a lot more honest, while still relying on big guitar hooks and a full sound.

That being said the album isn't spectacular, there are a couple of very good songs and a lot of dross. They are however perfectly respectable to listen to, it probably won't annoy many people in the same room, so kudos.

Track Highlights

1. There Goes The Fear
2. Words
3. M62 Song
4. Caught By The River

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album was produced by Doves themselves, with additional production from Max Heyes. Steve Osborne produced "Satellites" and co-produced "Caught by the River" with the band. Guest musician Sean O'Hagan also arranged the strings, brass and woodwind instruments for "Friday's Dust" and "The Sulphur Man." The first single from the album, "There Goes the Fear," entered the UK Singles Chart at #3.

WTF (Radio Edit of There Goes The Fear):

952. The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)

Track Listing

1. Fight Test
2. One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21
3. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 1
4. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 2
5. In The Morning Of The Magicians
6. Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell
7. Are You A Hypnotist??
8. It's Summertime
9. Do You Realize??
10. All We Have Is Now
11. Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)

Review

Faux-depth and a superficial appreciation for the kitschier elements of science fiction and Japanese culture make for a great album to sell to hipsters everywhere. And so The Flaming Lips hit the big time with an album that sounds a bit too calculating to be a great work.

I don't really dislike the music here, it annoys me more than anything, this soooo original concept/electronic/rock album which sounds so fresh to so many who have been born after 1975 is actually little more than re-hashing Genesis style prog-rock. But that is uncool.

Really if I want to listen to this I'd much rather get out The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, which is much more ambitious and less calculating... and yes, more ridiculous making it much more fun. So blah.

Track Highlights

1. Do You Realize??
2. Are You a Hypnotist??
3. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 1
4. One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The vocal melody of track one, "Fight Test", echoes Cat Stevens's "Father and Son". Stevens, now Yusuf Islam, is receiving royalties following a relatively uncontentious settlement. The band's frontman, Wayne Coyne, claims that he was unaware of the songs' similarities until producer Dave Fridmann pointed them out. This claim however is contradicted by his statement to Rolling Stone magazine: 'I know "Father and Son" and I knew there would be a little bit of comparison. "Fight Test" is not a reference necessarily to the ideas of "Father and Son", but definitely a reference to the cadence, the melody, and chord progression. I think it's such a great arrangement of chords and melody.

Do You Realize??:

951. Johnny Cash - American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002)

Track Listing

1. The Man Comes Around
2. Hurt
3. Give My Love To Rose
4. Bridge Over Troubled Water
5. I Hung My Head
6. First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
7. Personal Jesus
8. In My Life
9. Sam Hall
10. Danny Boy
11. Desperado
12. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
13. Tear Stained Letter
14. Streets Of Laredo
15. We'll Meet Again

Review

Johnny Cash comes back into the list decades after his last appearance. This is actually pretty unfair as this is the fourth album in the American series, and actually it is not nearly the best one. However all of the albums are very much worthy of inclusion in any library.

Cash resurrected himself to a whole new audience in these American recordings and even if this album is a bit too obvious in its choice of covers in comparison to the previous albums of the series it is still a pretty striking album.

Cash is intensely aware of his mortality all the way through the album and it is hard listening to it after his death without it taking a sheen of prophecy. This is indeed what makes the album so powerful, even more than the songs themselves. Sometimes the covers are a bit too maudlin' such as in the case of Bridge over Troubled Water or Danny Boy, but at other times they make up for it in spades as is the case of Hurt or Personal Jesus. A great goodbye from one of the greatest.

Track Highlights

1. Hurt
2. The Man Comes Around
3. Personal Jesus
4. We'll Meet Again

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The video for "Hurt", a song written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails in 1994, was nominated in seven categories at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards and won the award for Best Cinematography. In February 2003, mere days before his 71st birthday, Cash won another Grammy Award for Best Country Male Vocal Performance for "Give My Love To Rose," a song Cash had originally recorded in the late 1950s. The music video for "Hurt" also won a Grammy for Best Short Form Video at the 2004 Awards. This album won "Album of the year" award at the 2003 CMA awards.

Hurt, the only video to which a grown man is allowed to cry: