ILM Top 100 2000-2004: ALBUMS

Points: 311
No. of votes: 15
No. of #1 votes: 0

Artist: FELIX DA HOUSECAT
Title: KITTENZ AND THEE GLITZ
Label: City Rockers
Year: 2002

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/kittenzandtheeglitz.jpg

i hadnt kept tabs on what had been up to for a while and when 'Kittenz And Thee Glitz' came out i found it something of a revelation, that this guy had seemingly made a record that wore a broader range of influences on its sleeve than anything before it from the interloping spheres of house and techno. as soon as i heard 'Silver Screen Shower Scene' i felt like it was heralding something and its message seemed to be 'turn around and walk backwards' fixating on the past but still moving forward. It comprises elements of punk (What Does It Feel Like?), disco (Glitz Rock), techno (Harlot and the Detroit stylings of Analog City) and soul (Pray For A Star) amonst other things in a way I had not heard before. I think it's ambition surpasses it's realisation but what it suggests and the ideas floating around within it are for me the stuff of real dance music love.

Recommended tracks: Silver Screen Shower Scene, Pray For A Star, Happy Hour

No. 58

Points: 275
No. of votes: 18
No. of #1 votes: 0

Artist: AALIYAH
Title: AALIYAH
Label: Virgin America
Year: 2001

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/aaliyah.jpg

Comments: n/a (anyone?)

Recommended tracks: Try Again, We Need A Resolution, It's Whatever

(no its not on the album i think it came out the year before)

Points: 321
No. of votes: 15
No. of #1 votes: 1

Artist: LIFE WITHOUT BUILDINGS
Title: ANY OTHER CITY
Label: Tugboat
Year: 2001

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/anyothercity.jpg

Comments: Any Other City has made a deep impression on me, deeper than anything since I was a teenager. I almost wish I was seriously depressed again, so that I could use this record to pull me out of it. Mitch Granat

Recommended tracks: Let's Get Out, The Leanover, Sorrow

Points: 326
No. of votes: 21
No. of #1 votes: 1

Artist: LADYTRON
Title: LIGHT AND MAGIC
Label: Telstar
Year: 2002

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/lightandmagic.jpg

Comments: It's sharper and perhaps more varied and even experimental than 604, but not entirely at the expense of the pop hooks. Naturally some tracks are stronger than others but the most impressive is perhaps the tactics and techniques the gang employ throughout, several tracks featuring what's becoming a trademark penetrating blast of synth noise, blinded by the lights indeed (Seventeen, Nuhorizons, The Reason Why and so on...). On both the vocal and lyrical side Helen and Mira seem to improve and gain confidence too.

Recommended tracks: Flicking Your Switch, Seventeen, Blue Jeans

I'm in Ghana, doofusWho said it was a good thing?

Points: 327
No. of votes: 17
No. of #1 votes: 0

Artist: LUOMO
Title: VOCALCITY
Label: Forced Tracks
Year: 2000

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/vocalcity.jpg

Comments: the vocal science (not the 2step kind) is astounding. on Vocalcity he takes what sound like normal-enough house a cappella soundbites and flits and filters them through the mix so they impact the way you hear them on a club system; it's the closest I've ever heard a record come to the effect of hearing that kind of live DJ set. and the words are contrary: they double back on themselves, there's an uncertainty at the heart of them and the music both that seems to question the physical pleasure that the music'n'textures provide. that sense of doubt is subtle but all-pervasive--it's a lot of why I keep comparing it to Metal Box and There's a Riot Goin' On and Maxinquaye. M Matos

Recommended tracks: Synkro, Right Wing, Tessio

Points: 335
No. of votes: 20
No. of #1 votes: 0

Artist: BUBBA SPARXXX
Title: DELIVERANCE
Label: Interscope
Year: 2002

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/deliverance.jpg

Comments: In which the best known of Timbaland's roster of underrated proteges hits back against the haters, the shamers and those who'd rather forget he ever existed. The essence of the album is Bubba's on-record character, more roundly developed and emotionally invested in than the previous record, with music and beats to match from Tim (with a little bit of Organized Noize to garnish). Importantly, Bubba's way with a rhyme and a microphone carry equal weight with Tim's suprising yet totally sensible bluegrass funk, country crunk, chase scene torch songs and ever excellent ass-shakers (Tim's diminished presence on the second half prevents this from being 2003's
perfect hip hop album, but when on point, he's ever the hard act to follow - how the hell is 'Warrant' so confidently funky, mysterious and addictive when it's got barely no beats to speak of?). He's got a convincingly guilty conscience on 'She Tried', acts the good time party boy fool on 'Hootenanny' and the ultra-catchy top 10 single that never was, 'Comin' Round' (fiddles! synths! squealing tyres!), and he is straight up convincing about the New South signifier. I believe in Bubba when he's evoking a hard past that may or may not have been on 'Nowhere', because he's mastered the art of convincing soul-bearing on record. And when 'Nowhere', with it's last line of 'If I'm nowhere/let that nowhere/be nowhere near a worry' and the equally underrated Kiley Dean leading a lovely chorus of 'Cry Me A River' (what's done is done, eh, Bubba?), concludes its 5 mins plus of pure symphonic hip hop beauty, Bubba tells us there's nothing he can't Overcome and I hope he's right. Sooner or later, he deserves to have his Deliverance. Barima

Recommended tracks: Comin' Round, Nowhere, Warrant

Points: 337
No. of votes: 19
No. of #1 votes: 1

Artist: RICHARD X
Title: ...PRESENTS HIS X-FACTOR VOLUME 1
Label: EMI
Year: 2003

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/xfactor1.jpg

Oh Richard, you came and you gave without taking, and I did not send you away. Well alright you did take - a hell of a lot of hits from the 80s. He loves them as if that was not painfully obvious. And anyone who thinks it's done with a cynical sneer just has wrong ears. Richard clearly enjoys his puppeteer and curatorial role here, not that Liberty X needed his help in turning their fortunes around. Nor Javine. The Sugababes? Maybe, yet they all shine brighter here than on their own records, and that's the power of X. The great moments are here in abundance. First he somehow manages to make the idea of covering 'Being Nobody' STILL interesting (and these title jokes just never get tired), then there's the fabulous curtain drop for Spandau Ballet's 'Chant No. 1' on 'Rock Jacket', Kelis (well she's been everywhere else, the bankable whore), a good solid reworking of 'You Used To Hold Me', Deborah Strickland-Evans, 'Drums!', Jarvis AND Hope, and an exit theme to rival anything off 'Music Has The Right To Children' for sheer melancholic beauty, all suggesting the man always had a plan that extended beyond the irresistable mash-ups of 'I Wanna Dance With Numbers' and 'Being Scrubbed'. It's an album that fits perfectly with the times as people revive ideas from 20 years ago across the board, having perhaps not quite been explored and developed enough the first time - but at the top of the agenda remains the directive to keep it poptastic right through to the end.

Recommended tracks: Being Nobody, Lemon Lime, You'd Better Let Me Love You

Sarcasm?

Oh, and please take my surname off my comments.

Anyway, 2 of my top 5 records come in together - thought they'd be higher, but this makes it all more interesting for a while. The comments about Lib X and Javine were in reference to the relative lack of commercial clout they have now, tho' I hear Javine's big in Japan.

And Lemon/Lime is as nothing next to Finest Dreams, surely...

Points: 337
No. of votes: 19
No. of #1 votes: 0

Artist: GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR
Title: LIFT YOUR SKINNY FISTS LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN
Label: Kranky
Year: 2000

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/liftyourskinnyfists.jpg

Comments: n/a (anybody?)

Recommended tracks: Sleep

Points: 352
No. of votes: 18
No. of #1 votes: 1

Artist: LOW
Title: THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE
Label: Tugboat
Year: 2001

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/thingswelostinthefire.jpg

Comments: n/a (anybody?)

Recommended tracks: Sunflower, July, In Metal

Points: 322
No. of votes: 13
No. of #1 votes: 4

Artist: THE CLIENTELE
Title: SUBURBAN LIGHT
Label: Pointy
Year: 2000

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/suburbanlight.jpg

Comments: I love the Clientele's songs because they're like
looking at faded photos or grainy film stock, emerging
into the daylight following a matinee, trying to peer
through the fog or the rain, or walking into dusk
after a day inside artificial light. I love the
Clientele's songs because they're evocative and
drenched in reverb, they mark slight shifts in mood,
in time, in atmosphere, capturing moments of
transition or hope, lamenting loss, longing for that
which is just out of grasp, and cherishing flutters of
the heart. I love the Clientele's songs because they
ignore life's grand gestures; instead, they collect
ephemera and extract something unique, nourishing, and
lovely out of the everyday. Most importantly to me, I
love the Clientele's songs because they soundtracked
my falling in love. As I sat atop a Chicago roof
watching night get the better of day they coaxed me
into getting the nerve to phone long distance to a
woman I'd met only once, they held my hand on the
airplane when she wasn't there to do it, they were
among my first gifts to her, and they've made us both
smile, weep, and sigh ever since. Scott Pl

Recommended: Saturday, We Could Walk Together, Rain