2002

Now, I don't know what's harder to believe, that I'm up to 2002, even though it has been  two very long months, or that this year was over a decade ago now.  It's all so vivid, most of these albums still sound so fresh, and man, it was such a great year and somehow it did  not even feel like it.  Yes, 2002 was indeed very strong, and perhaps the 00s actually was a strong decade overall.  I am beginning to realize that.  These albums provide a whole lot of proof.

Well, shit.  Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - B.R.M.C. was apparently released in 2001.  That was going to make the list, but things have changed.  Not sure if that would have made  it for that year, so no loss, I suppose.

10.  ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - Source Tags and Codes
The Texas group hones in what Sonic Youth and many of the other best noisy rockers before them did best on this breakthrough.  The arrangements are flawless and single "Another Morning Stoner" is one of the best of its type with all its perfect changes.  What really distinguishes this album is its energy and urgency that managed to make it cross over a bit more into the emo-obsessed teen market.  It is a solid set of angsty rock, one of the last to really fit the "alternative" bill with great songs like "Relative Ways" and "Baudelaire."  They achieve it with strong production values and the incorporation of strings, horns, and other instruments typically not heard in this style.  For a minute it seemed like they would be another one of rock's saviors, but it turned out to Jet instead.

9.  Sigur Rós - ( )
As the art and lack of song titles explicitly state, Sigur Rós gives what was to be expected after their international breakthrough:  Speechlessness.  The title implies space, and that is here too.  It is generally more quiet and slow than its predecessor, but the dynamics are even stronger.  The songs are even longer and with less footing in the pop/rock background, allowing the Icelandic quartet to really make the music float in the air.  Still all their viking force is in full effect, but way of building, climaxing, and pummeling the listener is extended, and more dominant throughout, rather than surprising or teasing.  They build anticipation like a slow brew.  It is like a whiteout of sound, all the beauty and melancholy of the winter slowly setting in, and a worthy follow-up to their previous Earth-shattering effort.

8.  The Apples In Stereo - Velocity of Sound
The most underrated Apples album.  It is there punk album, and I think that's what left a few people cold.  Also, the vocals are even higher  than before, almost approaching Chipmunk territory, but in some ways this makes their youthful energy even more of a revelation.  To balance it out, bassist Eric Allen finally begins submitting songs and his "Yore Days," is as great as any other on the album.  That says a lot with the likes of "Please," "Mystery," and "Ranfall."  While the band's sound has never been so focused on this loud, fast fuzz attack, they still demonstrate their open-mindedness and 60s pop tradition with the magnificent "Baroque," with some of the best-arranged, um, baroque-style, harmonies of the last 40+ years.  Even if this is their weakest, it is still the Apples in Stereo.

7.  Beck - Sea Change
A lot of people did not know what to make of this one either.  This album concludes Beck's peak era of getting absorbed into one idea on each album.  It could not be any more different from Midnite Vultures, but it lives up to this unique artist's high standards.  It is a real downer most famously due to his break-up at the time, but also rumored to have be affected by an attempted more away from the Church of Scientology.  The music speaks for itself more, though as he embraces both the lush arrangements of French pop and the American West.  This country influence is the perfect compliment to these heartbroken  lyrics, particularly on songs like "Lost Cause" and the mesmerizing opener "The Golden Age."  The title is dramatically relevant to not only the artist's personal life, but to his career, as his subsequent albums would be a little more similar and typically "Beck" (whatever that means) than in the era this concludes.  His taste for psychedelia, makes this emotionally trying album even more absorbing, and shows that Beck is capable of not just making anything, but making it great.

6.  múm - Finally We Are No One
Like the other Icelandic contribution to this list, there is a lot of atmosphere here.  However, múm is floating in the space between dream and reality with their primarily electronic arrangements having more os a hypnotic pull than brute force.  Perhaps it is that feminine element the twins bring.  Twins are always weird, but in this case it adds a lot to the already mythical feeling.  Their high voices and the icy synthesizers make this a set of otherworldly beauty that can seem so alien, the titles have to show that you are still being guided in "We Have a Map of Piano" and "Don't be Afraid, You Just Have Got Your Eyes Closed."  All the titles have similarly surreal imagery and the music more than lives up to them, particularly on "Green Grass of Tunnel," one of the most gorgeous songs ever recorded.  Perhaps this is electronica, but the true band dynamics give it a rare warmth seldom heard in any genre.

5.  Liars - They Threw Us All In A Trench and Stuck a Monument On Top
This is when people started to really talk about Brooklyn, and what a perfect way to show off what that borough could put together.  While this is not the "real" Liars, it is still one of the band's best works and showed them to already be far better than the "dance-punk" label entails.  The post-punk energy is still one of the album's greatest strengths on songs like the one-two punch of "Grown Men Don't Fall In The River, Just Like That" and the synthesized hand-claps of "Mr. Your On Fire Mr."  They make that aspect of their sound as obvious as they can on "Tumbling Walls Buried Me In The Debris with ESG," probably the closest thing to a cover on any of the albums the remainder of these lists, sadly.  The band implies their skill at creating a concept album with the themes in the titles, although that did put a few people off two years later, their intellectualism is in as high effect here as ever.  In concluding the quasi-concept there is the droning bottomless pit of a song "This Dirt Makes That  Mud," probably the best song on the album and something of a window into the Liars' future along with the short "Why Midnight Walked But Didn't Ring Her Bell."

4.  Sonic Youth - Murray Street
Everyone's favorite band made a real comeback when they added Jim O'Rourke.  Certainly no surprise for anyone who had heard his last two albums, but for the people who were wasting time trying to convince themselves NYC Ghosts and Flowers was great (that included me at the time, iycbt) it was a welcome surprise.  O'Rourke adds a kind of traditional musicianship never heard in the band before, and fits better with their amazingly tight dynamic than Steve Shelley!  Still, he supposedly had nothing to do with the song writing which is the best in years, on "Disconnection Notice" in particular.  However, his engineering skills go even further with this album having the same kind of lush depth as his solo albums and the whole band benefits from a producer who clearly understands  their artistic vision on the deepest level.  As new of a band as they may seem their roots are embraced as much as the new post-9/11 future with the tense rage of "Plastic Sun" and the extended "Karen Revisited" which anchors one of the band's absolute best works.  If you have this on vinyl I recommend playing it at 45 for some of the best prog you will ever hear, even if the track order is different.

3.  Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
I am sure you've all seen the movie, so I won't provide much of the background, though I think a lot of that stuff is a bit overblown.  Either way the best roots band in the world becomes full-blown avant-rockers and Jay Bennett is kicked out, but not before possibly usurping Tweedy on musical influence.  Of course Jim O'Rourke was involved too.  This album is full of layers, but as proven immediately on the drums of "I Am Trying  To Break Your Heart," there is plenty of space in the mix and like a few other albums on this list, there is a truly wintry atmosphere.  The eclecticism is what everyone discusses and for good reason.  There are the moody atmospheric tracks like "Ashes of American Flags" and "Radio Cure" while the American roots come out on both ends of the spectrum on "Jesus, Etc" and "I'm the Man Who Loves You."  True pop like "Heavy Metal Drummer" and "Pot Kettle Black" do not even prove to be the catchiest songs on the album, though they are some of the more joyous moments on this sometimes bleak landscape.  The peak of Wilco's artistic ambition begins here in no small part due to the addition of Glen Kotche on drums.  Whatever you think of the label "alt-country" it's vocabulary is expanded to infinity here.

2.  Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
Perhaps taking a cue from their West Coast countrymen, eleven of the greatest musicians in Toronto get together and take the plunge from ambient instrumentals into some of the best rock of the decade.  All the  band's earlier tendencies are still there and it makes this dense album coalesce into big deep perfection rather than an overwhelming mess.  This also makes the album have an almost operatic structure as it opens with "Capture the Flag" before kicking into full effect with "KC Accidental."  It alternates  between those kind of fast rockers and gentle grooves, with the latter blending with dreamy pop on the legendary "Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl."  My favorite has always been the unrelenting energy of "Almost Crimes," even as "Pacific Theme" may have single-handedly begun the slow-burning return of smooth.  This would be the real peak of Canada's dominance of "indie rock," but this big collaborative album is truly in a category of its own in its seamless blend of rock, pop, and ambient music with a kind of studio wizardry only possessed by few.  In many ways, a game changer, that set the ambitions of many perhaps a bit too high.

1.  The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips are one of those few bands whose most popular album is probably their best.  We have Dell computers to thank for that, and the Lips to thank for them ditching Steve.  This is the last album with the classic core trio unaccompanied and it could only be the product of those three minds after their years of living, playing, and  suffering together and letting their imagination run free.  While the concept about The Boredoms' drummer Yoshimi P-We does capture the album's essence, it more or less is moved to the side after the instrumental second part of the title track.  From here on, the band tackles things even bigger than human-eating pink robots.  That is not to say there  is anything light and easy about "Fight Test," but tackling time on "All We Have Is Now" and mortality on "Do You Realize??" Wayne Coyne in his new beard and three-piece suit makes himself into the humble prophet that had changed countless lives on the last album, and saved many more with this one.  As much wisdom has there is in his voice on "In The Morning of The Magicians" the rest of the band deserves no less credit for this masterpiece.  Stephen Drozd, in addition to being the heart of the Lips ever since his entry is a drummer without peer (until he moved to keyboards and Kliph Scurlock took over) and his crashing toms define this album.  Bassist and lifetime member Michael Ivins is also at his best on funky tracks like "Ego Tripping  At The Gates Of Hell" and "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, part 2."  This album managed to strike a chord with America despite being a transcendent, heart-breaking masterpiece and has led the Lips to their place as one of the most enduring and popular bands of their time.  Not bad for a bunch of acid-friend weirdos from Oklahima.

Wow.  What an incredible year.  Next year, pretty great, but no 2002.