ILM Top 100 2000-2004: ALBUMS

Points: 1056
No. of votes: 50
No. of #1 votes: 3

Artist: DIZZEE RASCAL
Title: BOY IN DA CORNER
Label: XL
Year: 2003

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

This was only the most written about record in the blogosphere/ILM boards ever and I\'m under no illusion that I\'ve got anything meaningful to add after all of that other than it's my number one choice because I was genuinely, metaphorically knocked over by Dizzee's sound in a way I hadn't been since I just started getting into music as a youngster. JoB

Recommended tracks: I Luv U, Stop Dat, Brand New Day, Hold Ya Mouf

Perhaps, but Rooty meant / means way more to me.

No, very very true.
-- Ned Raggett (ne...), August 27th, 2004.

Where else can you find this level of music debate on the web?

Points: 1287
No. of votes: 56
No. of #1 votes: 3

Artist: THE STREETS
Title: ORIGINAL PIRATE MATERIAL
Label: Locked On
Year: 2002

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

Original Pirate Material is as much England's first great hip-hop album as it is its last great music hall album. It's also the best 2-tone album since the Beat went bad, and Ian Dury via Rhythm Division. It's every cliché you've heard so far, and then a few more piled on top. The fact that it survives this blitz at all is testament to Mike Skinners' very real skillz: language, delivery, rhythm, inflection. If it seems slight now compared to its superior sequel, that's a bit like comparing an author's (for he is) collection of early short stories to the novel. The fourteen slices of life on OPM are still very rich places to revisit. And compared to the ultra-spare backings of the new album, the music has far more depth than I remember: the slurping, harumphing beats of "Sharp Darts," the weird ambient rustles at the beginning of "It's Too Late," the gnarled as old shoe leather orchestral loops in "Geezer's Need Excitement", the cheesy incidental garridge of "Who Got The Funk?", the "Fit But You Know It" prototype Madness/Jam chug of "Don't Mug Yourself", the Disco Inferno-ish feel of "Has It Come To This?". As for the words, if I started quoting, I'd be here all night, but special shout out to "we first me through a shared view/she loved me and I did too", a bit of amazingly subtle self-absorption that never really draws attention to itself even though it's the lynchpin on which "It's Too Late" (and maybe the album itself) spins on. Mike Skinner wasn't writing about the everyman. It's just fourteen versions of himself. He just happens to live like common people, doing whatever common people do. Jess

Recommended tracks: Turn The Page, Has It Come To This, It's Too Late, Weak Become Heroes

The minimal is maximal.

(BTW "overall" is a copout that means "okay, of the songs on the two albums maybe my two favorites are on _Rooty_ but the next 6 are on _Kish Kash_".)

(xxpost NOW TALK ABOUT OVERRATED GAAAAAAH)

Well, I said that they had even odds, so it's a coin toss--the personification of the "ILM taste" vs. the personification of the critical hivemind. Will good triumph over evil? Does it matter which album is better? Can I say here that Kid A was my #1?

(xpost at this point I hope _Kid A_ wins because it is hands down a better album than _Discovery_, which is yet another example of ILM taking a decent album and elevating it to undeserved godhood)

I can understand people respecting it but liking it? Eh. LOVING it? Double eh.

(I SLAY ME)

I do take Jamie's point though, I'm not an 'albums person' and maybe thats why I put Discovery as my #1.