1997

So yeah, it took me a week to finally do this.  Oh, behave!  It's been nice because this was actually a really fantastic year for music.  Unfortunately I was unaware of most of these releases at the time.  One I remember well, though, one that many will feel is far too low on the list.  Yeah, baby!

10.  Ween - The Mollusk
This couple of weirdos from gay village New Hope, Pennsylvania headed to the Jersey shore to create one of the few successful neo-prog releases.  The initial session was plagued with disaster but led them to a country experiment that was also aided by their sense of humor.  Sea monsters, extended solos, fantastical lyrics, and big synths make this album a sincere tribute to some of the goofier aspects of the seventies few would dare to try.  Luckily the songs are some of Ween's best and they are not too married to any single idea with "Ocean Man" being one of their best stabs at pop and "I'm Dancing in the Show Tonight" making the future South Park collaboration inevitable after the show debuted two months later.  The nautical prog themes are still greatest such as the title track and "The Blarney Stone," but the punk of "I'll Be Your johnny On The Spot," proves this to be a very eclectic album.

9.  Radiohead - OK Computer
Right, this one.  I'll admit, and most people will already know I am not the biggest Radiohead fan, but still this album is too good to deny.  It's probably worthy of a higher spot, anyway, but I'd rather talk about artists I like more.  Though the video for "Paranoid Android" made a gigantic impact on me as a kid, making me lucky enough to have this historic album upon release the best-known singles on this are really not the best ones.  The energy here is Radiohead's best, with all the rock of their early period with plenty of the creativity that would take them in to spacey new territory in the new millennium.  All the years they had spent together as a band really pay off and they really end this phase of their career on the highest note possible.  While I would usually listen to something else now, there is no flaw on this album, even if you have an aversion to darker stuff.

8.  Guided by Voices - Mag Earwhig!
This one maybe should be also be higher, but there you go, 1997 was pretty amazing!  At this point GbV was releasing one transition album after the other, but here it might have been the biggest change and really asserts the tall tale of Robert Pollard.  During the recording he sacked the classic lineup and filled them in with the members of fellow Dayton rockers Cobra Verde in what has been dubbed "Guided by Verde."  Both forms of the band excel with the former on "Jane of the Waking Universe" and the latter with "I Am A Tree," written by the one Verde member who would remain (to the very end), Doug Gillard.  "Bulldog Skin" might be the first attempt at something commercial (other than Sandbox), but others like "Little Lines," "Learning to Hunt," and opener "Can't Hear The Revolution" make it another classic album from the decade's greatest band.

7.  Built to Spill - Perfect From Now On
After their poppiest record and the move to a major label Built to Spill move far away from the commercial and oddly predict the success of many, often foreign, bands in their wake with this album.  This one shows them as basically a jam band, if that term did not imply a whole bunch of inaccurate and negative ideas.  The songs are long and the instruments do most of the speaking, even as the dark and heady lyrics are inescapable.  For those who missed the debut this was a real change of pace, and the mood is a change for even the most knowledgeable fans, but this is where Built to Spill really became the band they have been ever since.  It is the first with the classic trio and also features guest guitarist/future returning member Brett Netson.  One of the finest old-fashioned rock and roll albums of the 90s, ideal for stoners with long hair, with standouts like "I would Hurt a Fly," "Stop The Show" and "Made-Up Dreams."

6.  Cornelius - Fantasma
Named after the Planet of the Apes character, Cornelius is sometimes considered the Japanese Beck  and this album, more than his later work substantiates that claim.  He incorporates electronics, samples, and traditional arrangements in a creative new way that separates him from any pack.  He eschews the kitsch of other Japanese crossovers like Pizzicato 5, yet has enough of a grounding in J-Pop to maintain success in his homeland.  However, his music is much less limited and uses his bevvy of influences in ways seldom heard such as in the funky opening hip-hop of "Mic Check," and the gorgeous anchor "Star Fruits Surf Rider."  Still above all it is a rock album and songs like "New Music Machine" are some of the best, along with his collaboration with the next band on this list on "Chapter 8 - Seashore and Horizon-."  This is Japan's first contribution on the list and I am glad it is one so distinctly from the country's modern pop culture, proving that it's more than just a bunch of kuwaii perversions with this album as fun as it is cerebral.

5.  The Apples in Stereo - Tone Soul Evolution
The Apples' second LP is a big step up in production value as it gets cleaner and bigger in sound than ever before.  After working with the Olivia Tremor Control Robert Schneider appears to understand the studio better than ever and he effectively uses as it as an instrument adding a lot of texture and mood to this set of guitar pop.  With the classic lineup firmly in place, they structure an album that with songs like "Seems So" and their best-known track "Shine a Light" actually has a dark and mysterious core with "Get There Fine" and "The Silvery Light of a Dream."  Though arrangements and songs would get bigger these songs have a well-calculated simple beauty with hypnotic layers that capture the same kind of brilliance as influences like the Beatles and Beach Boys.  "You Said that Last Night" and "The Silvery Light of a Dream (Part II)" are all one needs to know that Robert Schneider is the heir to the psych-pop throne of his time, though wife Hilarie Sidney as usual has plenty to offer on "Silver Chain."

4.  Pavement - Brighten the Corners
Sometimes if forced to pick a least-favorite Pavement record I go with this one, but man is it still amazing!  In fact, this almost seems like a low placing for it!  Perhaps this is because I think the popular favorite "Stereo" is actually kind of annoying, but "Shady Lane" more than makes up for it.  Even MTV wanted the band to succeed with the way that video was plugged, but oh my God, it didn't happen.  Hard to believe when you also have songs like "Starlings of the Slipsteam" and Kanneberg's greatest moment "Date w/ IKEA."  With the smoke form the last album cleared, Pavement proves themselves to be a classic pop band in a time when classic pop is horribly understood and to be amazingly cohesive in that sloppiness which people would unfortunately use to define them.  Another successful direction for the versatile quintet, and of course, underused.

3.  Jonathan Fire*Eater - Wolf Songs For Lambs
I really wish I had been aware of this band.  Seemingly written out of history, the hip Virginians by way of New York that would go on to become the Walkmen were set to be the original Strokes.  Perhaps it was mismanagement, over-promotion, or heroin, but it definitely was not the music that prevented this band from being legends today.  Spine-cracking drums and vintage organ build the backbone for this high-energy quintet with unpredictable front man Stewart Lupton.  This is rich kid punk at its best, especially on "Bipolar Summer" with its screaming trebly guitar and lines like, "and I fly first class on a 747, oh I got magazines and gin," with its lust for life and thoughtful observation enough to overturn any unrelatability.  The punk energy is turned up even higher on "These Little Monkeys" and the band creates a dark and foreboding mood far  beyond what could be expected at their age on "A Night in The Nursery."  A flawless and secretly influential album that outdoes anything  its creators would do later in the Walkmen, in my opinion.

2.  Björk - Homogenic
Following a very disturbing stalker experience the singer returns to Iceland and makes a tribute to her home country resulting in her finest work to date.  The darkness and actions taken in her life come out immediately on opener "Hunter" and this album has the most focused sound with its electronic beats, classical arrangements and abundance of often treated vocal tracks.  It is an otherworldly and majestic record that sounds like it could have been recorded in a glacier.  It is sparse and repetitive as the vocals take over, allowing for infinite depth in the simple arrangements.  Even when the arrangements get as big and cinematic as "Bachelorette" Björk's personality steals the show, turning these songs  into an opera in themselves with only one character, making her move into film soon after a natural choice.  They say that this kind of descent into personal darkness is what creates the finest art, and this album proves that, bringing forth the artist's greatest talents at their strongest and most personal of all.  Wisely, it still concludes on a positive note with the Moondog-ispired "All Is Full Of Love."

1.  Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One
Somehow in a career of making similar albums YLT hit it best on this double LP.  With its eclectic tracks and extended instrumentals, this may be because it captures their live set best.  Not only are songs like "Sugarcube" balanced with krautrock jams like "Spec Bebop," but their choice of fun proto-sincere wave covers like "Little Honda" and closer "My Little Corner of the  World" is as definitive Yo La Tengo as "Autumn Sweater."  James McNew's folk rock in "Stockhom Syndrome" is likewise complimented with the avant-garde groove of "Moby Octopad," making all of the band's many talents heard in this long, yet concise record.  It is perfection in the loud and the soft, with the trio's incomparable dynamic filling in all the space that captures all the beauty of modern indie Jersey rock.  Regardless of what John Ennis may say, no need to go back to school.

Tired.  See you soon.