ILM Top 100 2000-2004: ALBUMS

Points: 466
No. of votes: 32 (!)
No. of #1 votes: 0 (!)

Artist: THE YEAH YEAH YEAHS
Title: FEVER TO TELL
Label: Polydor
Year: 2003

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

Highest number of votes so far, but no top scores for Karen and co.

Comments: The praise heaped on "maps" is deserving. its a good song, and a believable lyric, too. beyond that, though, and when i can push past my paranoia that not having a bass AND moving quickly to a major label automatically means HOLLOW, i am delighted with the myriad pleasures to be had on fever to tell. "date with the night", "man", "tick", and especially "pin" and "y control" are convincing and finished, even while retaining the broken-pink-and black-plastic sound that the YYY's seemed interested in pursuing. Pete S

Recommended tracks: Maps, Pin, Y Control

Points: 469
No. of votes: 17
No. of #1 votes: 5

Artist: BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE
Title: YOU FORGOT IT IN PEOPLE
Label: Mercury
Year: 2003

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

Comments: Amazing song 'kc accidental'. On first listening, this Broken Spcial Scene song, just these fucking aggravated drums drumming with pure melodic guitar noise.. sensational song and album. Not the U2 of indie rock as some would say but a fresh sounding crafted pop surprise from noise appreciators, cascading brilliantly at once with energetic rhthyms, aching meoldy and exploding guitars. piers

Recommended tracks: Cause=Time, KC Accidental, Stars And Sons, Almost Crimes

Points: 479
No. of votes: 20
No. of #1 votes: 1

Artist: THE NOTWIST
Title: NEON GOLDEN
Label: City Slang
Year: 2002

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

Comments: "Neon Golden" is brilliant, blending (horrible word, sorry) old, acoustic instruments with bleeps and stuff from instruments I can't make out, but hell, it does the job for me. People who liked "Shrink" will love this one, as it is better, the ingredients are now put together in the right proportion (not being English, I have my doubts about that last sentence...) Listen to it, enjoy it! Willem

Recommended tracks: Pilot, Pick Up The Phone, Neon Golden, Off The Rail

Points: 486
No. of votes: 26
No. of #1 votes: 4

Artist: N.E.R.D.
Title: IN SEARCH OF...
Label: Virgin America
Year: 2002

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

Comments: Obviously we\'re all sick of Pharrell\'s falsetto now, but then...

I guess there are reference points for something like Bobby James, but I felt like it was totally unprecedented, so fresh. The whole album really collapses all those soft/hard male/female things both lyrically (dreamy hippy bullshit intertwined around playa fantasy porn/violent scenarios) and sonically. Beautiful record.

(btw I mean the programmed version, not the one with Spymob)
Jamie

Recommended tracks: Lapdance, Bobby James, Provider, Stay Together

Points: 494
No. of votes: 26
No. of #1 votes: 1

Artist: GHOSTFACE KILLAH
Title: SUPREME CLIENTELE
Label: Epic
Year: 2000

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/supremeclientele.gif

Comments: Judging Ghostface by normal human standards is a mug's game. He's garrulously prolific (there's probably more bootleg b-sides comps than real albums at this point.) He's also generally a law and a world unto himself: hip-hop is the framework on which he hangs his weepy narratives, pop-cult cut-ups, dada delight in the sheer sound of words, the act of forcing breath across the lips. (He's also capable of straightforward reporting and maybe even a hook when he wants to be, proving thankfully that he's not just some
orange rhyming dictionary in a purple suede robe.) Like any new language, at first it all sounds "the same." But immerse yourself, and suddenly it's like the inner workings of "hip-hop" are being laid bare for you: dense internal rhymes, sometimes collapsing or twisting several times over a bar, rock solid beats, and old format soul jewels that still shine like they day they were first loaded into the tomb at the dawn of the 70s. Does it mean anything? Does "Surfin Bird"? Supreme Clientele is so far and away the best Wu solo joint its not even funny. What else are you going to stack against it? Tical? Nigga Please? The only things that come close are Cuban Linx, Liquid Swords, and the first ODB. (Okay the ODB cheapie best-of kills all comers, but I'm trying to be fair here.) What other album would make Jack Kirby and Spike Lee equally happy? Jess

Recommended tracks: Nutmeg, One, Apollo Kids, Malcolm

From the Neptunes productions I'd heard at that point, it was such a surprise to hear Bobby James. It was 'wuh?'.

I thought NERD might place lower due to the godawful 'She wants to move' and general Pharrell overexposure so 26 ain't bad.

Ghostface invoked brilliantly by Jess there, although I actually prefer Ironman. What about all the bootleg mixtapes out there- what's good?

Points: 513
No. of votes: 27
No. of #1 votes: 2

Artist: SIGUR ROS
Title: AGAETIS BYRJUN
Label: Fat Cat
Year: 2000

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

Comments: They're one of my favorite bands, not cause of some trendy shit or whatever...cause their music makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I'm floating on a comet at light-speed through the vacuum of space. It makes me feel like I was having sex and the orgasm decided to continue on indefinitely. It makes me feel in touch with The Universe in ways going to church never did. Nickalicious

Recommended tracks: Svefn-g-englar, Staralfur, Ny Batteri

x-post - Eeeek, underwhelming again...

When is #1 scheduled to be unveiled then?

Yeah, this is the first time I've felt outraged by anything in these results. Coulda been worse, coulda been the Sigur Ros album that's named after some dumb ass brackets...

In about thirty seconds if I have my evil way...

Points: 517
No. of votes: 32
No. of #1 votes: 1

Artist: THE WHITE STRIPES
Title: ELEPHANT
Label: XL
Year: 2003

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

Comments: The sound of a band turning its image into a mythology, and its gimmick into an arsenal. Gardner Linn

Recommended tracks: Seven Nation Army, The Hardest Button To Button, Little Acorns, Well It's True That We Love One Another

Points: 529
No. of votes: 29
No. of #1 votes: 2

Artist: EMINEM
Title: THE MARSHALL MATHERS LP
Label: Interscope
Year: 2000

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

Comments: I think Eminem is some sort of idiot savant, a fool and a fucking genius at the same time, writing the most interesting lyrics since Dylan's prime - you could pen a whole thesis from the one line "I am whatever you say I am," bringing in the way celebrity is constructed, and of course Jesus and Popeye (not an order of preference) and a thousand other things. He's also as good a rhymer as rap has ever produced, with complex and seemingly instinctual internal rhyming and chiming that he delivers beautifully. A colossal talent. (And obviously working with one of the great producers of the last decade-plus helps too.) Martin Skidmore

Recommended tracks: The Real Slim Shady, The Way I Am, Stan, Bitch Please (Part 2)

Points: 529
No. of votes: 29
No. of #1 votes: 1

Artist: THE JUNIOR BOYS
Title: LAST EXIT
Label: KIN
Year: 2004

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

Comments: Call The Junior Boys blue-eyed garage or swingbeatclash; Last Exit is a tantalizing introduction to the JBeez aesthetic. "High Come Down" is the not-at-all-impossible meeting place between Hall & Oates and Timbaland. "Birthday" rigs up a rainy day 2-step pattern and chills it the most with nuvo wavo romanticism. "Last Exit" bristles with thickets of beats as spiny and spare as those of recent garage, but the bruised fruit vocal hiding within couldn't be less grimy. But it's reductive to call the Junior Boys the alternative to Dizzee/Wiley/et al. They simultaneously invoke a half-dozen other genres (heroin house, synth pop, electro, modern US R&B), and grime's ruffneck soldiers are very much slaves to the vibe of London town. But the Boys seem to have soaked up all the nimble fluency and sheer beauty garage sloughed off escaping the pleasure principle. Like AR Kane in the late 80s, who smeared their post-Mary Chain guitar spuzz over then-current house pianos and hip-hop breaks, the Boys' combo of neutered soulboyisms and jiggy electronics give the impression they could be the start of something new for indie rock. Or the public could settle for another wave of emotionally constipated electroclash crypt robbing. In which case, fuck you all, I'm moving to Neptune. Jess

Recommended tracks: High Come Down, Birthday, Last Exit, Bellona

Stevem why is Eminem #22 and JBeez #21 if they got the same points and number of votes, is it a 'listmakers decision is final' thing? ;)

They might not overlap fully, but the two aren't mutually exclusive either. There's a bit of a tricky relationship there.