ILM Top 100 2000-2004: ALBUMS

So I guess the typical person voting for Interpol thought it was about the 7th best record?

The okay-but-not-quite-yer-fave records will inherit the earth. :)

Points: 948
No. of votes: 40
No. of #1 votes: 3

Artist: JAY-Z
Title: THE BLUEPRINT
Label: Mercury
Year: 2002

http://base58.com/ilx/ilm/top100/20002004/albums/theblueprint1.jpg

Jay-Z is like the rap Winston Churchill. I would\'ve died for him after The Blueprint came out. I just thought "this guy has it all". I don't listen to albums, and if I own an album I always skip. But not The Blueprint. It's actually the perfect thing to take with you on holiday in a rental car with only a tapedeck. Jacob

Recommended tracks: Girls Girls Girls, In The Heart Of The City, Renegade, Izzo (H.O.V.A.)

Points: 983
No. of votes: 38
No. of #1 votes: 0 (the highest ranked album to not score a #1 vote from anyone)

Artist: THE STREETS
Title: A GRAND DON'T COME FOR FREE
Label: 679
Year: 2004

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

I have to confess not buying many artist albums, besides mixes, in the last 2 years or so. But this really is the most affecting album I've heard since Discovery or some of the 2002 classics. I think the production is far better than on OPM, it's smoother and smarter, and more varied. The piano driven tracks and the sentimental tracks seem to work fantastically well.

Basically Skinner seems to have mastered a sort of show don't tell style, so much of the album just highlights the glory of half-thought, and rubbishes the idea of distilling experiences and emotions into lyrics which fit a beat or which rhyme or can be used in a chorus. There are parts of the album where he reaches a total vernacular beauty, at the most emotional part, the climax perhaps, "Empty Cans", he says something like "My jeans felt too tight". This theme seems to go through the whole album, on "Could Well Be In" the chorus is "I saw this thing on ITV the other week, that says, if she plays with her hair I could well be in"!!!

It's a sort of slow burner this, but god it's worth it. "Empty Cans" is the most unpretentious yet effective assessment of life I've heard in any record, for a long time. Ronan

Recommended tracks: Blinded By The Light, Get Out Of My House, Dry Your Eyes, Empty Cans

Points: 1008
No. of votes: 43
No. of #1 votes: 3

Artist: BASEMENT JAXX
Title: KISH KASH
Label: XL
Year: 2003

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

Kish Kash didn't take much deliberation to make my number one, for it
is everything Basement Jaxx is, everything that makes them compelling, surprising, frenetic, starry-eyed, intuitive and above all, just themselves. This is particularly apparent when you've come to terms with the consistency in the album's running order and the way it bursts not only with sounds but with life. Like Cornelius and The Avalanches (my no's 3 and 2, respectively), there's so much going on that if you don't take time to listen around, you might miss it (but thank God for the RWD button). Not only the sounds of the 3-parties-in-one that are 'Right Here's The Spot', 'Plug It In', 'Cish Cash' and 'Lucky Star' and the Jaxx's all-out Voltron-assembly of pop songs, Prince-outs and mismatched but purposeful sonic chaos, but the things they do to their special guests. In-between spitting catchphrases on every verse, Dizzee Rascal sounds like the electrodes attached to his secret places are working overtime, Me'shell flirts with a gender identity crisis that she can't conceal her enjoyment over, Totlyn deploys a winning bid for Queen (or King) Scatter of 2003, JC further hints at his growing case of Schizophrenia, his emergent tender sleaziness and his desire to be the most Purple teen idol ever, and erotic pleasure belies Siouxsie's dominatrix cries of "YOU'RE INSATIABLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEE!" And I'll be damned if I'm not. I don't want to miss a thing. Barima

Recommended tracks: Good Luck, Plug It In, Lucky Star, Cish Cash

There was so much on Original Pirate Material which thrilled and moved me... and yet I simply cannot wring even an ounce of pleasure from the crashing disappointment of A Grand Don't Come For Free - an album which does nothing except evoke unwelcome memories of Sham 69's "masterpiece" That's Life. While the tiresome "story" flails aimlessly all over the place, the thin, half-baked, demo-quality stodge behind it offers nothing in the way of musical support.

I look at it in the shoebox on the floor, and it feels like homework. So I stick Phoenix on AGAIN.

(OK, so I'll grant you "Blinded By The Light", but no more.)

I would've voted #1 for it!!! Cripes!!

Steve, try MTV's Shaggy/Vallance mash-up instead.