List some of your favorite records that turn 20 this year

Yeah, this is probably one of my least favourite pop years ever. I like "What's My Age Again?", though.

dEUS 'The Ideal Crash' deserves a mention

Arvo Part - Alina
Brendan Perry - Eye Of The Hunter
D. Haines - Blither
David Sylvian - Dead Bees On A Cake
Hood - The Cycle Of Days and Seasons
Jim O'Rourke - Eureka
Rowland S Howard - Teenage Snuff Film
Tim Bowness & Samuel Smiles - World Of Bright Futures
Tram - Heavy Black Frame

Immortal - At the Heart of Winter

dEUS 'The Ideal Crash' deserves a mention

a number of 1999 listicles are out lately. i know this is total pedantry but producers of such #content need to try to adhere to consistent rules as to what actually counts as being from the year they are supposedly covering. one list includes "hard knock life", which was released AND at its peak of exposure in winter '98, while another lists "big pimpin'", which was released as a single and at peak exposure in spring 2000. (apparently its parent album being commercially available for a grand total of FOUR DAYS during 1999 qualifies it as a 1999 single.)

same with, like, "thong song" and "maria maria". hardly anyone was listening to either of those songs until 2000. i understand the eagerness to write about some of these songs but really, it's okay to wait one more year, no need to pretend these were in any way part of the '99 zeitgeist.

luckily Enema of the State came out smack dab in the middle of the year so let's pay respect to the true goats

My list of favorite stuff from 2000:
New Model Army - Eight
The The - Nakedself
Radiohead - Kid A
Doves - Lost Souls
Seafood - Surviving The Quiet
Unbelievable Truth - Sorrythankyou
Blue Aeroplanes - Cavaliers & Roundheads
Clinic - Internal Wrangler
The In Out - A Living Memorial In Deutschland
Shriekback - Naked Apes & Pond Life

Will rep for all of those today though Doves is a bit played out.

Tell me about this Radiohead album

2000 was a great year for reissues and compilations. In terms of new music from that year, a great thrash album which I only recently discovered is Hypnosia's Extreme Hatred.

Pitchfork’s contemporaneous Top 20 list. I was pretty plugged in that year, but don’t recall most of these: https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/5816-top-20-albums-of-2000/

... and Rolling Stone’s highest-rated albums of that year: https://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/35-rolling-stone-highest-rated/2000/1

Not a year in which I can claim any “favorites,” I think!

(Kind of shocked the Death Cab and New Pornos albums didn’t make the Pitchfork list... I guess Pfork’s tastes were more “niche indie” in that time?)

Wow, no sign of D'angelo's Voodoo on any of these lists so far. Broadcast's Noise Made By People either (although maybe that one is less surprising on Rolling Stone's list). Easily my two favourites of that year.

It seems almost too convenient for a year ending in “–0” to be a “transitional year,” but 2000 really does feel that way in retrospect.

Fwiw Pfork didn’t review Mass Romantic until March ‘01. It made their 2001 top ten

Ah, thx

Internal Wrangler by Clinic is still way up there for me

boredoms - vision creation newsun
d'angelo - voodoo
deftones - white pony
eminem - the marshall mathers lp
gas - pop
isolée - rest
otomo yoshihide - cathode
outkast - stankonia
luomo - vocalcity
pj harvey - stories from the city, stories from the sea
sade - lovers rock
smashing pumpkins - machina I & II
smog - dongs of sevotion

Just going off Wikipedia's release dates:

Sleater-Kinney - All Hands on the Bad One
Aimee Mann - Bachelor No. 2
The Weakerthans - Left and Leaving
Sarah Harmer - You Were Here
Emmylou Harris - Red Dirt Girl
Radiohead - Kid A
OutKast - Stankonia
The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
Dar Williams - The Green World
Loud Family - Attractive Nuisance

Turns out most of the albums I was thinking of for Y2K actually came out in 1999 or 2001, but Internal Wrangler was easily the disappointment of that year for me. Clinic were one of my favorite bands in 1999. As a 15 year old in America I didn't know anyone else who listened to that stuff. I'd heard somewhere that it was going to be a lot like their previous releases, but with more of a disco influence(!!)

The stylistic similarity was undeniable, but the disco was missing. Unfortunately, so was the effervescence and ghostly aura that made their early singles so appealing. Compared to Porno, Cement Mixer and Kimberly it was like a Coke can left out on the nightstand, basically the same substance but warm and flat. The 'Ornette!' cover art mirrors this flatness perfectly, just like the Xeroxes on their first three singles spoke to the way they'd appropriated influences: missing information, all the more stark and mysterious. I'd enjoyed The Second Line as a single (it's hard not to like a song whose chorus goes "diggy diggy tomommanaut"), but in the context of the album it lost dimensionality.

Of the bands I was into then, Clinic were probably the last one I exprected to release 10 albums over a 20 year career. They really seemed like a band that would do one or 2 albums then split.

I have some friends who were -- and remain -- fans of Clinic and I got the impression that said friends thought they were due a big breakout album and it was disappointing when 2000 wasn't their year. I like them, though!

And their visual aesthetic is very on point for 2020

Since I Left You
Mama's Gun
Mwng
The Sophtware Slump
Vocalcity
Tourist
The Mirror Conspiracy

Clinic remain a fucking great live band. Saw them out latest a few years ago and they sounded great with VU + organ remaining central in my memory

Amon Tobin – Supermodified
Anouar Brahem Trio – Astrakan Café
Arovane – Tides
D'Angelo – Voodoo
Derek Bailey, Jamaaladeen Tacuma & Calvin Weston – Mirakle
The For Carnation – The For Carnation
Godspeed You Black Emperor! – Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven!
Jackie-O Motherfucker – Fig. 5
Luomo – Vocalcity
Negură Bunget – Măiastru sfetnic
Primal Scream – XTRMNTR
Radiohead – Kid A
raison d'être – The Empty Hollow Unfolds
Vladislav Delay – Entain
Weakling – Dead as Dreams

The Clientele - A Fading Summer EP
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - The Blue Trees
The O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack

Dymaxion X 4 + 3 if it counts (compiles 7" singles released over the previous few years)

Can't believe I forgot

Boards of Canada – In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country
Masada – Live in Sevilla 2000
Robert Rich – Humidity

.boredoms - vision creation newsun

This is one of the albums I had in mind that was actually released in 99?

Surprising omissions so far (not necessarily personal favorites) are Supreme Clientele and 69 Love Songs.

a few others

Neko Case - Furnace Room Lullaby
Low - Christmas
Laura Cantrell - Not The Trembling Kind

xp 69 Love Songs was '99.

Peter Hammill – What Now
Tindersticks – Can Our Love
Cowboy Junkies – Open
Gillian Welch – Time (The Revelator)
Lucinda Williams – Essence
Radiohead – Amnesiac
Spiritualized – Let It Come Down
Leonard Cohen – Ten New Songs
Nick Cave – No More Shall We Part

Fennesz Endless Summer
Marmoset Record in Red

Absu – Tara
Anaal Nathrakh – The Codex Necro
Autechre – Confield
Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein
Daniel Bélanger – Rêver mieux
Gorguts – From Wisdom to Hate
Jan Jelinek – Loop-finding-jazz-records
Masada – Live at Tonic 2001
The Necks – Aether
Noir Désir – Des visages des figures
Radiohead – Amnesiac
Robert Rich – Somnium
Stars of the Lid – The Tired Sounds of…
Unwound – Leaves Turn Inside You

Bob Dylan — Love and Theft
White Stripes — White Blood Cells
The Strokes — Is This It
The Moldy Peaches — s/t
Yeah Yeah Yeahs — s/t
Drive-by Truckers — Southern Rock Opera
Old 97's — Satellite Rides
The Hives — Your New Favourite Band
Nick Lowe — The Convincer
Ivy — Long Distance

Lots of overlap with the preceding lists for 2001 so will just add

Hood - Home Is Where It Hurts + Cold House
No-Man - Returning Jesus

Discovery
Rings Around The World
Quiet is the New Loud
Hot Shots 2
Since I Left You

It's been 20 years since the Strokes and YYYs saved rock 'n roll.

Favorites from 2001 (as per my end-of-year list at the time):
Snow Patrol - When It's All Over We Still Have To Clear Up
Animals That Swim - Happiness From A Distant Star
Gerard Langley - Record Player
Grant-Lee Phillips - Mobilize
B.R.M.C. - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Pooka - Fools Give Birth To Angels
Whiskeytown - Pneumonia
The Damned - Grave Disorder
Seafood - When Do We Start Fighting
Cloudboy - Down At The End Of The Garden
Clearlake - Lido

Honorable Mention:
Radiohead - Amnesiac
I Am Kloot - Natural History
Life Without Buildings - Any Other City
Ryan Adams - Gold
Chameleons - Why Call It Anything
Kid Loco - Kill Your Darlings
The Real Tuesday Weld - When Cupid Meets Psyche
They Might Be Giants - Mink Car

Also married Mrs. McBB 20 years ago, so that's the best of 2001 for sure!

Looking at it now 2001 was a phenomenal year as far as my tastes go, most these are stupidly obscure though

At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command (prob would have been one of my all-time faves if I actually heard it at the time)
BOaT - RoRo
Bob Drake - The Skull Mailbox and Other Horrors
Coaltar of the Deepers - No Thank You
Cornelius - Point
Dilute - Grape Blueprints Pour Spinach Olive Grape
Fugazi - The Argument
Gorguts - From Wisdom to Hate
Juno - A Future Lived in Past Tense
Maudlin of the Well - Bath/Leaving Your Body Map/The Secret Song
Shiner - The Egg
Susumu Yokota - Grinning Cat
Volta do Mar - At the Speed of Light or Day

(Fuck ranking this stuff)

I listened to Relationship of Command again the other week for the first time since like 2003, it rules!!!!!

Blew my mind the other day to find out that Point by Cornelius is nearly 20 years old. Always thought it sounded like the future. But I relisten now and it's clearly a Y2K album.

I Get Wet is gonna be 20 this year. God damn.

drukqs, Confield, and Double Figure, three albums I distinctly remember there being many conversations about

Vision Creation Newsun! Fuck!!

Hah, I’d completely forgotten about Bob Drake. Good record, yeah.

Point does sound of its time but I think it's aged pretty well, more than Phantasma at least, which I like but is definitely something of a time capsule.

I wasn't listening to these at the time, but glad I belatedly discovered them:

Destroyer - Streethawk: A Seduction
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Ellen Allien - Flieg Mit Ellen Allien
Mihaly Dresch - Quiet As It Is

Three of my all time favorites were released in 2001

Low - Things We Lost In The Fire
The Clientele - Suburban Light
Gillian Welch - Time (The Revelator) (mentioned above)

Point does sound of its time but I think it's aged pretty well, more than Phantasma at least, which I like but is definitely something of a time capsule.

well I think Fantasma was definitely intended to sound that was, felt like the last "Shibuya-kei" album anyone ever needed to make

Pärson Sound - Pärson Sound

This was also the high P2P era when vast tracts of previously innacessible music became explorable.

Kylie Minogue - Fever
Aaliyah - Aaliyah
Björk - Vespertine

... now feels like some kind of untouchable trifecta of vocalmachinepop? I think I basically measure everything that's come since against these three. I struggle to think of any album that's grown more in my esteem since release than Fever

ADULT. - Resuscitation
Felix da Housecat - Kittenz and thee Glitz
Ladytron - 604
The Human League - Secrets

ELECTROCLASH etc. I was completely obsessed with Ladytron at the time as my (then) New Perfect Favourite Band; their subsequent records sounded cleaner and sharper but they were more fun here and just slightly too blank to be twee. Resuscitation IS cleaner and sharper though and sounds all the better for it now. Secrets got a bit buried but is bubbly luxury and comfortably one of the... 3? best HL albums

Also:

The Other People Place - Lifestyles of the Laptop Café
Jim O'Rourke - Insignificance
Stina Nordenstam - This is Stina Nordenstam
Stereolab - Sound-Dust
Kelis - Wanderland

... all still sound glorious