Friday, August 26, 2005

The Top 15 Albums Of The 2000s...So Far (Part 1)

And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out

Who: Yo La Tengo
What: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
When: February 22, 2000
Why: Yo La Tengo has always held a tension between their mellow ballad-y side and their trippy, drone-y psychedelic side. On And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out the two are fused more directly than on any record in the band’s long and illustrious career. “Everyday” sets the tone as the album opens. Ira and Georgia’s voices blend over an organ drone and an insistent drumbeat, around a delicately picked set of guitar figures, and eventually under some spacey sound effects. Tender and haunting all at once, this album is the apotheosis of the Yo La Tengo ethos.

Lateralus

Who: Tool
What: Lateralus
When: May 15, 2001
Why: Is Tool prog-rock? Metal? Sui generis? Who the hell knows. What is clear to me is that Lateralus is a great rock record. It’s full of fat guitar chords, double kick-drum polyrhythms, six-string bass leads, and Maynard’s wailing, screaming vocals – and all are good. “Schism” defines the band’s sound in all these respects. The constantly shifting rhythmic structure requires the head to bob and then eventually forces it to bang as the song reaches a crescendo. If this is prog-rock, then I love prog-rock.

Tenacious D

Who: Tenacious D
What: Tenacious D
When: September 25, 2001
Why: The D rocks. They’re clever, of course, funny, of course, but above all they write and play a mean rock lick. Acoustically, of course. The topics range from bawdy (“Cock Pushups”) to downright nasty (“Hard Fucking/Fuck Her Gently”). Of course, not all the songs are quite so sexy (is “Fuck Her Gently” sexy? anyway...). Many other songs concern themselves with hard rocking (“Rock Your Socks”), rocking hard (“The Road”), or old dudes who used to rock hard (“Dio”). Rock on, Kyle. Rock on, Jack.

The Top 26 Albums Of The 1990s (Last Part)
The Top 26 Albums Of The 1990s (Part 8)
The Top 26 Albums Of The 1990s (Part 7)
The Top 26 Albums Of The 1990s (Part 6)
The Top 26 Albums Of The 1990s (Part 5)
The Top 26 Albums Of The 1990s (Part 4)
The Top 26 Albums Of The 1990s (Part 3)
The Top 26 Albums Of The 1990s (Part 2)
The Top 26 Albums Of The 1990s (Part 1)
The Top 19 Albums Of The 1980s
The Top 16 Albums Of The 1970s

posted by dgags @ 7:34 PM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home