SPIN Top 40 Of 2003

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

For those interested in lists:

40 Electric Six "Fire"
39 The Jealous Sound "Kill Them With Kindness"
38 Basement Jaxx "Kish Kash"
37 The Raveonettes "Chain Gang Of Love"
36 The Thrills "So Much For The City"
35 Brand New "Deja Entendu"
34 My Morning Jacket "It Still Moves"
33 Lucinda Williams "World Without Tears"
32 Kings Of Leon "Youth And Young Manhood"
31 Spiritualized "Amazing Grace"
30 Cat Power "You Are Free"
29 Joe Budden "Joe Budden"
28 Drive By Truckers "Decoration Day"
27 Bubba Sparxx "Deliverance"
26 The Postal Service "Give Up"
25 The Darkness "Permission To Land"
24 The Rapture "Echoes"
22 Ms Dynamite "A Little Deeper"
22 Pretty Girls Make Graves "The New Romance"
21 The Mars Volta "Deloused in the Crematorium"
20 The Libertines "Up The Bracket"
19 Atmosphere "Seven's Travels"
18 Ryan Adams "Rock and Roll"
17 Dashboard Confessional "A Mark, blah blah blah..."
16 Blur "Think Tank"
15 AFI "Sing The Sorrow"
14 Ted Leo and the Pharmacists "Hearts of Oak"
13 Belle & Sebastian "Dear Catastrophe Waitress"
12 Dizzee Rascal "Boy In Da Corner"
11 Metallica "St. Anger"
10 Radiohead "Hail to the Thief"
09 Missy Elliott "This Is Not A Test"
08 The New Pornographers "Electric Version"
07 Thursday "War All The Time"
06 Jay-Z "The Black Album"
05 Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Fever To Tell"
04 50 Cent "Get Rich or Die Trying"
03 The Strokes "Room On Fire"
02 Outkast "Speakerboxx/The Love Below"
01 The White Stripes "Elephant"

20 Best Singles of 2003 (by Charles Aaron)

20 Beyonce/Jay-Z "Crazy In Love"
Jane's Addiction "Just Because"
19 T Rumschmiere "Monstertruckdriver"
18 !!! "Me and Guiliani..."
17 Electric Six "Danger! High Voltage"
16 The Darkness "Growing On Me"
15 Joe Budden "Pump It Up"
14 AFI "The Leaving Song Part II"
13 Wayne Wonder "No Letting Go"
12 The Donnas "Take It Off"
11 Dizzee Rascal "I Luv U"
10 The Strokes "12:51"
09 Nas "Made You Look"
08 Queens of the Stone Age "No One Knows"
07 Panjabi MC "Beware of the Boys"
06 Justin Timberlake "Cry Me A River"
05 R Kelly "Ignition (Remix)"
04 Outkast "Hey Ya"
03 The White Stripes "Seven Nation Army"
02 Eminem "Lose Yourself"
01 50 Cent "In Da Club"

I find the albums list in particular very mystifying. I had a very different year, to say the least.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:22 (twenty years ago) link

Thing I'm amazed by #1: How the hell did that Metallica record rank so highly? That record had terrible reviews, it had no hits, and as far as I can tell, most of Metallica's fans didn't really care about it.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:25 (twenty years ago) link

i could care less about the content of the lists themselves, but i'll register my annual complaint. i got this in my mailbox in late november, which means they probably had to close the issue in early october at the latest. and presumably they had to have a working list in place sometime before that. and at that point: HOW COULD THEY POSSIBLY KNOW?

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:26 (twenty years ago) link

Haha I think the entire editorial staff of Spin lurks on ILM!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:27 (twenty years ago) link

Such as?

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:29 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, exactly. That makes the top ten rankings of Missy and Jay-Z particularly suspect - they could not have possibly spent that much time with those records.

I hate list making as a rule. I think the thing about SPIN's list this year is how I really couldn't have predicted a lot of this stuff - it doesn't make much sense to me, and it makes me feel very out of touch with their target demo (which is fine, but it does feel weird cos there was a time when I was 16/17/18/19 and their year end list made total sense to me).

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:30 (twenty years ago) link

08 Queens of the Stone Age "No One Knows"

WTF, this is a 2002 release -- and not even late 2002, it was popular in the summer.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:32 (twenty years ago) link

Charles Aaron is high or something.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:34 (twenty years ago) link

Matthew, I'm love and hate w/r/t listmaking. I love dissecting lists like this, and I love thinking about what would be on my own lists, but when it comes down to actually making my list, I'm riddled with self-consciousness and doubt, plagued by apples-and-oranges problems, and can't get over the whole arbitrariness of the endeavor.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:36 (twenty years ago) link

Such as?

Just look at the albums on the list! White Stripes, Radiohead, Dizzee Rascal, Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Outkast, Missy Elliott, The Strokes, The Rapture, Spiritualized, Bubba Sparxx, Basement Jaxx, Electric Six, Joe Budden, Ms Dynamite... The only thing missing is Sean Paul.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:36 (twenty years ago) link

how are those records "exclusive" to ILx?

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:37 (twenty years ago) link

waitaminit - is that new Missy album even out yet???

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:37 (twenty years ago) link

Why did I think that Charles Aaron was black until I saw a picture of him last week? (Oh right, probably because when I read SPIN in high school and college, I couldn't imagine that a white person would champion so many hip-hop singles. Jeez, what does that say about me...)

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:37 (twenty years ago) link

I think they're ILX memes

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:38 (twenty years ago) link

how are those records "exclusive" to ILx?
we called dibs.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:39 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, Dan, I'm not sure that it's a total ILM list. If it were, Ned Raggett Reads the Almanac would at least be in the top 20.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:39 (twenty years ago) link

oh please.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:40 (twenty years ago) link

:-P

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:40 (twenty years ago) link

(and yes I know you're all kidding.)

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:41 (twenty years ago) link

Are people really listening to these records? Who? I have no idea. I'm not being snotty about this. I really don't know. I've never heard about these people in any context other than lame culture-mag coverage.

39 The Jealous Sound
36 The Thrills
35 Brand New
34 My Morning Jacket
32 Kings Of Leon
23 Ms Dynamite
19 Atmosphere
15 AFI

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:41 (twenty years ago) link

Those lists are pretty decent, methinks. Metallica is a head-scratcher though. Obviously, I'd pick some different things, but it's not horrible as far as these things go.

― Matt Helgeson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:43 (twenty years ago) link

My point was not that those records are exclusive to ILM. My point was that ILM is very scornful of most music mags out right now (ESPECIALLY Rolling Stone and Spin) and therefore the strong overlap between Spin's editorial staff and how I perceive the ILM hivemind amused me.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:43 (twenty years ago) link

The Jealous Sound is Blake from Knapsack's new band (sounded good live, their EP was extremely limp and watered-down).

AFI is a nu-punk band.

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:44 (twenty years ago) link

36 The Thrills

This is my friend Brian's #1 of the year. That said, I hadn't even heard of them until he told me that a few weeks ago.

34 My Morning Jacket

I think I've heard our friends in Lexington talk about them, maybe? Emily, at least.

23 Ms Dynamite

The United Kingdom to thread.

19 Atmosphere

Of those eight that you mention, Atmosphere probably gets the most ILM love. See: Nate Patrin.

15 AFI

Yeah, okay, good point. But I think the kids know them. I was driving past the Riviera (the biggest non-arena venue in Chicago) a month or two ago and got stuck in traffic as this show was letting out. I looked up at the marqee and said WHO THE FUCK?

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:45 (twenty years ago) link

Alot of kiddy-punk types I know listen to AFI. They're OK. The other bands I'm not sure about.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:46 (twenty years ago) link

This will probably be the least offensive best of 2003 list I'll see. I have a lot of the albums, and ten of my favorite singles of the year are on the singles list. They give more props to pop-punk than an ILM list would.

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:46 (twenty years ago) link

Why did I think that Charles Aaron was black until I saw a picture of him last week?

Really? I've been reading Charles Aaron's writing in SPIN since I was a young teen, and I always thought of him as being a super-white guy. I'm not even sure why - something about his writing makes me think of nerdy white grad students.

I always thought that Sasha Frere-Jones was a woman up until fairly recently.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:47 (twenty years ago) link

My Morning Jacket is good, probably not Matthew's cup of tea though. Too many classic rawk influences (Young, Pink Floyd)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:47 (twenty years ago) link

Oh. Uh.. Is Spin still a magazine?

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:48 (twenty years ago) link

Just for clarity - I've heard My Morning Jacket, Atmosphere, and Ms Dynamite (she was on SNL with Queen Latifah). I'm just a) totally underwhelmed by them and b) unaware that they have any real following outside of media/writer types.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:50 (twenty years ago) link

Re Charles Aaron, I just thought he was a super-nerdy black guy.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:50 (twenty years ago) link

I'm not sure, but aren't The Thrills that band from the UK who are like some kind of bastard child of The Eagles and the Beach Boys? I think they were on Conan a month or so back, and I was really bored by them.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:51 (twenty years ago) link

Atmosphere and AFI were packing out shows long before anyone wrote about them nationally

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:51 (twenty years ago) link

The Thrills are Irish, I believe.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:52 (twenty years ago) link

Brand New and the Jealous sound ditto. they're all, whaddaya know, internet bands, more or less.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:52 (twenty years ago) link

intie rock

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:54 (twenty years ago) link

Are Brand New emo, Matos?

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:55 (twenty years ago) link

Thursday? Yeah Yeah Yeahs?

Ouch.

― Baked Bean Teeth (Baked Bean Teeth), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:55 (twenty years ago) link

I've only heard five albums on this list (in order: Outkast, Radiohead, Metallica, The Mars Volta, The Rapture). Of those, I like three and hated two.

― Phil Freeman (Phil Freeman), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:55 (twenty years ago) link

yeah, so are the Jealous Sound. AFI are gothy and Atmosphere are hip-hop.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:56 (twenty years ago) link

Spin was bought out as a front for the CIA's covert psychic spy program about 10 years ago. SPIN = Subversive Psychic Intelligence Network.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:56 (twenty years ago) link

um, no offense, Phil, but your tastes are, how we say, *specialized*

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:56 (twenty years ago) link

I have yet to hear Atmosphere but my brother wants to have about 5,000,000 of their babies. AFI is kind of fantastic.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:57 (twenty years ago) link

Atmosphere are fucking great, you should really hear them.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:58 (twenty years ago) link

Matos, Mr. #1 ListMan, I'm interested in your general thoughts. (Not kidding at all.) I've always really really enjoyed Charles Aaron's writing, but lists in general are wonky.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:58 (twenty years ago) link

haha Jeanne it'll have to wait because I'm editing you right now!

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:58 (twenty years ago) link

As a sometimes defender of Ryan Adams, I have to say that album is atrocious.

― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 20:58 (twenty years ago) link

The Dizzee Rascal pick is actually pretty interesting, considering the album won't be released in the U.S. until 2004.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 21:01 (twenty years ago) link

I'm interested, Matos, because, seriously, this year didn't excite me much, and the list above re-assures me in my "eh"-ness. Christ, what the f* is up with rock? Don't get me started on punk. Okay, now go back to editing me.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 21:04 (twenty years ago) link

As a psychic intelligence network, SPIN can look into the future to gather information. Look at Chuck Klosterman's predictions for 2004 to see what I'm talking about. I believe he is one of their most talented operatives.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 2 December 2003 21:04 (twenty years ago) link

Skipping 198 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

thanks scott very much
I'm okay but no "genius"
(as you've been lauded)

I will keep writing
but will stop being obsessed,
SPENDING ALL MY CASH

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:46 (twenty years ago) link

MAURA I KISS YOU

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:46 (twenty years ago) link

haha 7 of these albums are in my provisional top 10!!

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:48 (twenty years ago) link

i am so "spin"

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:48 (twenty years ago) link

"Spin" is so YOU

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:50 (twenty years ago) link

re: Melissa's 2003 top 50 - will this be published on Quicksilver Shapeshifter? [PS Melissa, don't forget about J.Greenwood Mixing It special on Friday - with replay online for 7 days]

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:50 (twenty years ago) link

trife and i argued for like TWO HOURS over this list last night, and now i cant even remember why.

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:51 (twenty years ago) link

re: Melissa's 2003 top 50 - will this be published on Quicksilver Shapeshifter? [PS Melissa, don't forget about J.Greenwood Mixing It special on Friday - with replay online for 7 days]

Yeah, I'll publish it fairly soon. I'm just a bit lazy about rounding up all the album covers and such.

(And of course I'll be listening to Radio 3 on Friday.)

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:55 (twenty years ago) link

everyone needs
a trife to argue this list
about! but I don't.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:58 (twenty years ago) link

I agree that 50 Cent is tremendously overrated. The only time I like "In Da Club" is when Beyonce does it, and the only time I like 50 Cent's vocals is on that one bootleg mix with "Wanktsa" vocals over Devo's "Whip It." It's amazing how he sounds kinda sharp and lively with the Devo music, and on the original he sounds as though he's a narcoleptic.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 22:36 (twenty years ago) link

Oddly enough I like "In Da Club" more every time that I hear it. Though "Step In The Name Of Love" is way, way, way better. I'm trying to get my band to cover it.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 4 December 2003 02:03 (twenty years ago) link

and though yeah 50 Cent is overrated every song I hear has at least one line that makes me glad it exists. Particularly "I love you like a fat kid loves cake."

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 4 December 2003 02:05 (twenty years ago) link

I like "In Da Club" just fine, but where the hell did he steal that "Go shorty, it's yer birthday" bit? It's been nagging me ever since I first heard the song. I KNOW I've heard it somewhere else, like several years ago.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Thursday, 4 December 2003 04:47 (twenty years ago) link

i can't imagine this is what you're thinking of, snrub, but it's kinda vaguely like this novelty 45-rpm record my parents bought me for a birthday a long time ago in which someone who lived on the moon and was named zoom or something like that sang, "hey [my name], it's your birthday, it's your big day today!" and since my name is two syllables like shorty, the coincidence is that much more stunning!

― fact checking cuz, Thursday, 4 December 2003 05:16 (twenty years ago) link

I just have to make one quick post and then we can put this puppy to sleep...again. I finally got my SPIN last night and I read Charles Aaron's piece on the ladies rockin' the stage, and I reiterate that the man is an excellent writer. His critique on Brody Dalle at the end of the story was spot-effing-on. So please ignore my ire way up on this post.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Thursday, 4 December 2003 15:27 (twenty years ago) link

I think 4 of my top 10 are on this but I don't know what my top 10 is yet.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Thursday, 4 December 2003 15:29 (twenty years ago) link

HAHAHA!!! Don't you folx remember? The guy from Blink 182 goes "go trig boy, it's your birthday!" in American Pie while Jason Biggs dances in front of the webcam.

Ok, maybe they both reference something else, but that's where I first heard the phrase at least.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:42 (twenty years ago) link

Did it have to come from something? I feel like I've heard people use the "Go _____, it's your birthday" since high school, maybe, and figured it was derived organically.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 4 December 2003 16:51 (twenty years ago) link

I thought it was a 2 Live Crew song.

― bnw (bnw), Thursday, 4 December 2003 17:12 (twenty years ago) link

I'm pretty sure that bnw is OTM as far as widespread cultural disemination is concerned. I'm convinced I heard it before the 2 Live Crew explosion in an old-school hip-hop track but I can't remember what it would have been.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 4 December 2003 17:16 (twenty years ago) link

I refuse to believe it wasn't invented by Mark Hoppus when improvising for the film American Pie. Sorry you're all just wrong.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 4 December 2003 17:22 (twenty years ago) link

anthony you are like an archetype.

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 4 December 2003 17:26 (twenty years ago) link

actually i'm amazed you and trife didnt get along better when he was posting.

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 4 December 2003 17:27 (twenty years ago) link

>>It sounds like a ravey Paul's Boutique" and "they used 1000 samples" doesn't exactly scream "crap big beat" to me.<<

Nah, it screams "what a big lie" -- and it was, since the Avalanches album sounded way more like run-of-the-mill humorless diva house than *Paul's Boutique," no matter how many records it subtly sampled.

― chuck, Thursday, 4 December 2003 18:24 (twenty years ago) link

"diva house"? Are we talking about the same Avalanches or have I just never really paid attention to them? (The stuff I remember was dense sample-happy big beat that seemed to viscerally connect with everyone who heard it except me.)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 4 December 2003 18:38 (twenty years ago) link

It FELT more like diva house than big beat (which can really rock). People made a big deal about all the samples, as if the samples (most of which weren't recognizable anyway) made the music FEEL any different (which samples often do). It's like they took a thousand samples and used them in the most uninteresting way possible! (Then again, I haven't played the damn thing in two years, so maybe I'm confused, or I'd think differently if I heard it now. But I doubt it).

― chuck, Thursday, 4 December 2003 18:57 (twenty years ago) link

i just heard the avalanches album for the first time a couple weeks ago! i bought it used. it was okay, but it already sounds old. as in dated. but even when it came out it must have sounded a tad too little to late, no? mebbe there was a 1 or 2 week window when it sounded sorta fresh. or maybe the people who really loved it had never heard the decade and a half worth of stuff that sounds similar? but somehow i doubt it. fatboy and chem bros fans musta been jonesing for something similar is my guess.

― scott seward, Thursday, 4 December 2003 19:00 (twenty years ago) link

It's funny, I was just checking that Avalanches record for the first time in a loooong time a day ago, and it struck me as sounding weirdly dated already too. It doesn't sound bad - a few of those tracks are pretty great - but yeah, it feels very stale.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Thursday, 4 December 2003 19:02 (twenty years ago) link

Compared to, I dunno, M/A/R/R/S or *Paul's Boutique* or "Adventures of Grandmaster Flash" or S-Express or KLF or Coldcut or Double Dee & Steinski or Todd Terry or DJ Shadow or Edelweiss on Kon Kan, the record just sounded so fucking SERIOUS. And people acted like Using A Whole Bunch of Samples was a new thing, which it wasn't. At. All. (Well, maybe the QUANTITY was. But then again, I don't like Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, either, you know? Lots of notes as such: who cares?)

― chuck, Thursday, 4 December 2003 19:04 (twenty years ago) link

I thought me and Trife got along fine Jess!

I just bought this issue cuz of the John Mayer/David Cross singles review thing and SPIN is so all over ILX's jock. They even did the Year In Fred Durst Craziness!

And Chuck is OTM re: The Avalanches. I found it incredibly hard to give a shit about any track for more than 10 seconds.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 4 December 2003 19:06 (twenty years ago) link

hee-hee, i was gonna mention everything you just listed, chuck. even edelweiss. people who really love the avalanches will no doubt tell us why all that stuff is beside the point or something. it's really not bad. just lacklustre in parts. i'll take any one song off of my major force box-set over that whole album though.

― scott seward, Thursday, 4 December 2003 19:10 (twenty years ago) link

Some bits from the Avalanches record would sound good if they were less busy, and had some good MCs rhyming over them. "Two Hearts In 3/4 Time," for example.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Thursday, 4 December 2003 19:12 (twenty years ago) link

I am not going to try to figure out my personal top 10 of the year until I actually get to the end of the year, but the ones from that list I have heard more than once are

33 Lucinda Williams "World Without Tears"
30 Cat Power "You Are Free"
21 The Mars Volta "Deloused in the Crematorium"
16 Blur "Think Tank"
10 Radiohead "Hail to the Thief"
05 Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Fever To Tell"
01 The White Stripes "Elephant"

Cat's a little laconic for me, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs could have stood to wait until some more early-EP-quality material came along, but I like the others fine. I would love to hear the Spiritualized and the Outkast, but not too concerned about missing all the rest of it.

― Dave Vinson (Gaughin), Thursday, 4 December 2003 19:32 (twenty years ago) link

Actually, I recall liking some bootleg thing I heard where Avalanches used "Like a Rolling Stone" better than anything on their album.

(As for being "dated," though, I dunno, I tend not to acknowledge that adjective. If music is good, it stays good. If it sucks, ditto.)

In related news: Hey, what ABOUT that "bootleg" fad, huh? Where the hell did THAT go??? (No worries; in seven years it'll be back again, and people will claim like always that it never happened before.)

― chuck, Thursday, 4 December 2003 19:36 (twenty years ago) link

Apparently it still exists, it's just mostly a continuous mix/live club thing.

The Avalanches' appeal to me isn't the "wow lookit all the samples" approach as it is the general "every genre can be pop" feel to it. It's just a great-flowing album where so many disparate pieces just seem to fit perfectly. And "serious" is the last word I would ever, ever consider when thinking about "Frontier Psychiatrist" or "Two Hearts in 3/4 Time".

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Thursday, 4 December 2003 19:52 (twenty years ago) link

The Avalanches completely turned me off with "Frontier Psychiatrist". It just didn't appeal to me AT ALL (which is odd because you'd think that track in particular was tailor-made for me).

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 4 December 2003 19:55 (twenty years ago) link

I know that "everything fits together all neat" sounds kinda like a lazy way to put things but Since I Left You is probably my #1 example of "how to create a cohesive album-as-entity"

Dan, "Frontier Psychiatrist" is like the everything-goes-haywire moment where every convention of the album gets ratcheted up to obsessively bombastic levels -- Since I Left You's "House of Blue Leaves" sequence. The rest of it's a lot subtler.

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Thursday, 4 December 2003 19:57 (twenty years ago) link

(Funny thing: a stand-alone version of "Electricity" was released as a 12" single about a year before the rest of the album was released. Makes me wonder if they ever extracted or constructed single versions of any other tracks; even the "Frontier Psychiatrist" single sounds like it's about to switch into "Etoh".)

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Thursday, 4 December 2003 20:00 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, one of the interesting things to me about Since I Left You is that, yes, they used over 900 samples or whatever and so it feels so dense -- but some of the same samples (the whinnying horse or the "since I left you" vocal) recur throughout the album, which to me makes it feel a lot more centered and soulful than if every track was throwing 20 different genres into a stew (although that would probably be an interesting album in its own right).

I totally adore "Two Hearts in 3/4 Time."

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 4 December 2003 20:06 (twenty years ago) link

Y'all some PROG mutherfuckers lemme tell ya

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 4 December 2003 20:09 (twenty years ago) link

Also, whereas a lot of sample-filled music feels like a visual collage, with wacky juxtapositions of various media, the Avalanches (with the exception of "Frontier Psychiatrist," probably) feel more like a bright, messy painting: big streaks of different colors that are distinct from each other but also just look like a huge, multihued splash on the canvas.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 4 December 2003 20:12 (twenty years ago) link

(Anthony, I've been worrying about my prog tendencies lately! I was trying to make a mix CD along the lines of Nate's Challenge, and I kept getting drawn to like 12-minute tracks and justifying them for their "mastery"!)

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 4 December 2003 20:14 (twenty years ago) link

(I don't think that post about painting is going to help me, either!)

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 4 December 2003 20:15 (twenty years ago) link

Obv focusing on the amount of samples used is missing the point whether you like *or* hate The Avalanches! The point is the sonix! And the "diva house" parts are the best parts!

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 4 December 2003 22:12 (twenty years ago) link

I like the Spin list more when there were only 20 albums. These big lists seem to just pick every decent album released that year.

― Shmuel (shmuel), Friday, 5 December 2003 08:52 (twenty years ago) link

four months pass...

07 Thursday "War All The Time" In my opinion this was the best album of 2003 and so far 2004, who cares if it was released last year.

― Xeropunk4life, Friday, 23 April 2004 21:54 (nineteen years ago) link

Way to tell 'em.

― sLeeeter kinney (Leee), Friday, 23 April 2004 21:58 (nineteen years ago) link

I agree! That's why Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has been my #1 album each year since 1967!

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 23 April 2004 21:59 (nineteen years ago) link

one year passes...

you suck

― tegan, Tuesday, 22 November 2005 00:28 (eighteen years ago) link

tegan i luv u girl, hear good things about pirates, email me back plz!

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 01:14 (eighteen years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.