ILM Top 100 2000-2004: ALBUMS

Points: 681
No. of votes: 24
No. of #1 votes: 2

Artist: BOREDOMS
Title: VISION CREATION NEWSUN
Label: Birdman
Year: 2001

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

Vision Creation Newsun offers what it's title suggests: it creates a universe of its own, inviting the listener to step inside and enjoy the view on this spaced-out trip along its infinite borders and into its billowing core. Willem

Recommended tracks: 1, 3, 7, 9

Points: 682
No. of votes: 31
No. of #1 votes: 2

Artist: WILCO
Title: YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT
Label: WEA
Year: 2002

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

All right, let's get it out of the way. This album is not a
masterpiece. And it's not nearly as avant-garde as the record-label-got-scared hype would have you believe. But it's still Wilco's best record, because for the first time they managed to break out of the boring Midwestern songs-to-drink-microbrews-to formula, which never once did it for me. (Okay, once: I liked the twangy "Box Full of Letters," from "A.M.") Above all, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" knows how to use space and breath, with songs that start all open-skied and lonely and devolve into ramshackle pots-and-pans percussion (courtesy of new drummer Glenn Kotche) and shortwave static. But it's also got great tunes, from the plaintive violin-and-whiskey-tinged "Jesus, Etc." to the jangly, upbeat "Heavy Metal Drummer." It may not be canon-worthy just yet, but I'd say it's a winner. jaymc

Recommended tracks: Jesus Etc., Heavy Metal Drummer, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, Pot Kettle Black

x-post

considering at one early point, YHF was about 5th

It hasn't shown up yet on the list, so it must be in the top ten.

I'm a fan of them when the result was something actually different. Which I believe was also your point. ;-)

The more both lists go on the more I openly cackle at all the various cherished assumptions being dashed.

Don't a lot of people feel this way about their own lives? Hence stuff like this making more 'sense' in that respect? Not that I've even heard this album!

i think track 6 off VCN is my favourite. if i'm remembering which one it is right.

Ha! Emma Bunton and Junior Senior top late-career snooze-inducer by legend.

(xpost)

Points: 703
No. of votes: 31
No. of #1 votes: 2

Artist: KANYE WEST
Title: THE COLLEGE DROPOUT
Label: Roc-A-Fella
Year: 2004

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

Comments: n/a (seems to have passed people by, heh heh...)

Recommended tracks: Jesus Walks, Through The Wire, We Don't Care, Slow Jamz

Given the amount of Big Love shown for them around here, I'll dig them both out and give them another chance.

(As for Music Has The Right and Summer Teeth... NOW we're talking.)

The College Dropout was the first album I bought on the strength of Big Love @ ILM - for which I shall be eternally grateful.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

but only cos i can holler 'IIIIFFFFFF YA LIKE MAH BOOOODDDDYYY ANNNNND YAH THIIINK AHM SEEEXXXXXYYY...' over it
-- the neurotic awakening of s (stevem7...), August 26th, 2004.

Steve's next hair idol is uncovered.

Points: 751
No. of votes: 34
No. of #1 votes: 1

Artist: RADIOHEAD
Title: HAIL TO THE THIEF
Label: Parlophone
Year: 2003

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

50 words on Hail to the Thief (THANK YOU ILM IF ONLY THERE WAS A THREAD LIKE THIS FOR EVERY ALBUM NOMINATED)

Recommended tracks: There There, Sail To The Moon, Myxamatosis, I Will

Indie is like metal: attractive people can't do it properly.

Points: 804
No. of votes: 39
No. of #1 votes: 2

Artist: RADIOHEAD
Title: AMNESIAC
Label: Parlophone
Year: 2001

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

You can call it scattered, or a glorified b-side collection, or what have you, but it's precisely that quality that makes it work for me. I don't think the band would be able to put together a completely non-rock Warpish record that had the dynamics to make it interesting -- I think if they tried, they'd come up with static, 4-minute snippets like "Everything...," laid end to end until they seemed meaningless. The beauty of Amnesiac is not only that it wins on the song front -- even though the songs here really are less plodding, more clever, more memorable -- but that the song selections and the sequencing create dynamics between the songs, so that "I Might be Wrong" suddenly firms up into the clear arpeggios of "Knives Out," which shatters into the fragments of "Morning Bell." This is no bog -- this is like stepping out of the bog into a city and being overwhelmed by the sheer stimulus of it, walking from corner to corner and seeing something new at each one. (Forgive me for just turning the two records into some sort of science-fiction epic, in which our heroes travel across the bog to the cathedral and the crystal city beyond. But these are my gut reactions, really: Kid A = mud, Amnesiac = crystal.) nitsuh

Recommended tracks: Pyramid Song, I Might Be Wrong, Pull/Pulk Revolving Doors, Life In A Glasshouse

Tool - Lateralus - would have been in the TOP 10 if it were on the nominations list.