360 records from the year 2000: 270 - 226 round-up

Thanks for hanging in there. I’m sure you’ve noticed – these are the records I can’t muster much interest in either way. Can’t hate ‘em, certainly can’t love ’em. With a lot of these records – the big ones, the ones you couldn’t miss, you were supposed to like as a music fan – it’s not that they’re worthless. I couldn’t honestly place them any lower. I see there’s something there. Something that consensus picked up on. But it’s just not enough. And you develop this grudge from continually being told this is as good as it gets, and you’re thinking ‘no, that can’t be. If this is as good as it gets these days, I just don’t want to hear it’. Then the hate starts…
But be forewarned, the change comes at 199. See you there!

Third week’s roundup (270-226): 7 songs that stick out of the mud, 7 songs I proudly proclaim my picks of the week.

1. Pat Metheny: Travels

A folk / gospel chord progression which sounds as old as the hills, an evocative melody. That’s all Metheny needs on this equally sad and uplifting track. Just some subtle drums and bass, and his acoustic guitar. He’s not so much soloing, as examining the different links in the melody line one by one. Tells you a lot of what you really need to know about life.

2. The Hives: Main offender

Funny to think, two (the two?) of the most snarling and plain entertaining slabs of garage rock in the garage rock revival which started from about 2001, had to be reissued from a Hives record released the year earlier. There wasn’t any scene to welcome these nuggets in 2000. In the grand garage rock tradition, the band had nothing further to add, but that didn’t stop them from milking it for all it was worth. In case you’re wondering, the cartoon quality adds to its appeal.

3. Mark Knopfler: One more matinee

See, this is what craft can do. You need to know a whole lot about chords to write a song like this. And it’s worth it. On a record mired in boredom, Knopfler takes time out to reflect on aging cabaret singers still hoping there’s a silver lining coming. The heart is that wonderful moment when the melody opens up into that ‘Something’s going to happen to make your whole life better’ part.

4. Cristina Branco: Ausente

Gaze into this abyss of human sorrow and you can be forgiven for jumping in. I know I’m picking a lot of these slow and sad songs as highlights – don’t know if it’s coincidence or if it says something about me. This has beautiful, florid piano playing supporting a defining diva (in the good sense) performance from Branco. The twists and turns give me shivers.

5. Slumber Party: Sooner or later

Wonderfully groovy and insouciant VU-pop. It certainly makes the most of those strummed chords, but with a winning chorus melody (I sing along!) and some deft Sterling Morrison soloing, I’d forgive them most things (releasing a sorry record on the back of this single for instance). It’s not given to anyone to build something so coolly naïve and straightforwardly rocking.

6. The Hives: Hate to say I told you so

See 2.

7. Keith Caputo: Just Be

If even white men can get the blues, then Life of Agony-singers can get the melody. All the things I wrote about the record this comes from are true, but I can’t deny the carefree frolicking piano, the heavenly banks of strings (so syrupy) and backing vocals, and the singing (that falsetto in the bridge!). Maybe this is what guilty pleasures are made of. A twee delight.

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Cue Lou Reed:
Well hey(man), that's just a lie,
It's a lie she tells her friends.
'cause the real song, the real song
Where she won't even admit to herself

OK, OK, that’s not the whole story. I also made myself a Whitney Houston Sings Her Greatest Ballads – compilation:
1. Saving all my love for you
2. Greatest love of all
3. One moment in time
4. I have nothing
5. I will always love you
6. Run to you
7. All at once
8. Where do broken hearts go
9. Didn’t we almost have it all
10. My love is your love

It’s just to pass those lonely winter nights.

360 albums from the year 2000: 240 - 231

240. Lou Barlow / Rudy Trouvé: Subsonic 6

Instrumental home recorded tomfoolery, one half by Lou Barlow, one by ex-dEUS Rudy Trouvé. Of course there’s nothing really memorable here. I’ll never miss this record, but it’s a surprisingly easy listen. It just kinda floats by, inconsequential but somehow not objectionable.

239. Doves: Lost souls

This record must sound great on headphones making your way through the morning commute. It has that alone in a crowd feeling that’s probably one of the West’s most shared feelings of the 21th century. But it’s too depressing to even contemplate this as some kind of accomplishment. Now more than ever, artists should work against the tide, not describe it. Actually this gets better as it goes along, but I don’t know if it rises out of mediocrity or if I’m giving in.

At its best: Catch the sun, The cedar room

238. Ghostface killah: Supreme clientele

Each and every one of these tracks starts off amazing – funky, full of impact, hard hitting. Then… nothing much happens. The record is just not happening for me, I regret to say. And anyway, I’m really tired of casual misogynism in rap in 2000 (though I prefer it to Common). I’m not shocked, I’m just so tired of it. Even something like ‘Child’s play’ which could have been a highlight about kids and looking back to childhood, is spoiled by girls who got his dingaling hard and keep Vaseline handy… Tired of it.

237. Michael Chapman: The twisted road

Solid workmanship, dependable singer-songwriter fair. There’s nothing wrong with this record, but it will probably appeal mostly to people who know Michael Chapman from other records. I don’t, and I wouldn’t miss this record. Still, the man obviously has something, and I hope he’s managed to hit the sweet spot of inspiration at some points in his career – that would be good.

236. Cascabulho: Hunger gives you a headache

Brazilian percussion/vocals/samples/accordion-band. It’s great to hear that 70s Brazilian sound (recalling mostly Tom Zé on this album) hasn’t died out. On ‘Quando sonhei que era santo’, the modern sound of the band goes well with a classic song – is it a cover? I could swear I’ve heard it somewhere. Unfortunately, most of this coasts on beats rather than songs – making for something which in the end lies uncomfortably close to 2000s pervading world-unity-flavorless discourse (it was the time of Manu Chao after all).Nice sound, and a couple of moments where it works, but sorry.

At its best: Venderdor de amendoim, Quando sonhei que era santo, Prosa de Rio e oferenda de siri

235. Hives: Veni vidi vicious

Best appreciated live, the Hives put up an amusing front and occasionally back it up with a great track. It sure plays like a train, nobody’s asking for their 28 minutes back, but I find it hard to believe anyone will end up fulfilled. And when they try to slow down, as on Mayfield cover ‘Find another girl’, they show themselves to be the one-dimensional prank we all suspected.

At its best: Main offender, Hate to say I told you so, Inspection wise 1999

234. PJ Harvey: Stories from the city, stories from the sea

There is something to the adage that simplicity of form makes a good home for truthful expression, but let’s be honest, simplicity is often nothing more than lack of imagination. I’m willing to give Harvey the benefit of the doubt in a couple of pop-blues songs at the start of the record like ‘Big exit’ and ‘Good fortune’, and in a couple of moving slow songs at the end, ‘Horses in my dreams’ and ‘We float’. But most songs in between are just paper bags that she and Thom Yorke can’t sing their way out of. Kudos for aptly summarizing a whole school of ‘rock’n’roll’ attitude that should have been left in the 20th century in the ridiculous ‘The whores hustle and the hustlers whore’: ‘Speak to me of heroin and speed/ Of genocide and suicide, of syphilis and greed’ and most pointedly ‘Speak to me the language of violence, the language of the heart’. Quite.

At its best: Big exit, Good fortune, We float.

233. Roy Harper: The green man

The good news is: it’s still Harper as we’ve always known him, fiercely individual, poetic, great guitarist, unusual tunings. It’s all here. But, it may be a little too pure. The idea was for Harper to go into the studio alone to get in touch with his inspiration – but what I love about those 70s albums are the ideas about arrangements, the musical ambitions, the way it sounds like not much else. All of that is only present on one track, ‘The monster’. The rest are unadorned solo performances, Harper in digestible portions. The talent, but not the daring, not the ambition of his former years. Objectively still good, but compared to before, I can’t help but be disappointed.

At its best: The monster

232. Mark Knopfler: Sailing to Philadelphia

Among the things I can admit to enjoying now that I’m sufficiently grown up, is Mark Knopfler’s guitar. I loved the Dire Straits in my very early teens. It was one of those things I purged when I got really into music. I thought I knew better. When I started out playing guitar in local bands I got Knopfler jibes (where’s your sweatband? Etc) – it was an influence I tried to grow away from fast. I regret that now. Still haven’t re-purchased any of those Straits-records though.
I was looking forward to seeing what Mark got up to solo. ‘What it is’, the opener, isn’t up there with his best band work, but it’s still a fine, distinctive track. The second track is ok. After that it’s a long drive through dullsville until ‘One more matinee’, the final track, opens up into a captivating, winning melody. Finally.

At its best: What it is, One more matinee
At its worst: Who’s your baby now (goes to show just how little you can do with three chords and an autopilot)

231. Ruben Gonzalez: Chanchullo

Gonzalez is an amazing piano player. And he’s got an individual sound. There’s only one guy that sounds like that. Plus he’s got this amazing band and the record’s got that great Buena Vista production. But…
To be honest, I always felt Cuban music (which I never heard before Buena Vista) is a bit boring. They’ve got the arrangements, they’ve got some great jazz players, but I don’t think they have the songs. These tracks (and those on similar records from the franchise) just don’t have the melodies that I expect from standards. A number of them sound like long intro’s that never turn into songs (try ‘La lluvia’). The second half of this album gets wearying.
And Gonzalez has all the great side-effects of a gimmick – instantly recognizable, fun to listen to, makes your ears twitch -, but also the bad side-effects. He’s painted himself into a corner – there’s no developing his cartoon trademark sound, and it’s hard to find an emotional core in there.

At its best: Chanchullo, Quizas, Quizas