Dream of the Crop: The Best of the 2000s

When Cam and I were figuring out what feature should kick off a music blog that happens to coincide with the beginning of a new decade, it only seemed natural to recant the best of the old. We may not be among the clergy of the Church of Indie Music at Pitchfork or Spin, but we've got a right to our layman's opinion, right? So this is more of a smattering of my tops from the aughts, the records that saw me through all of high school and college, through Laguna Beach and the War on Terror, through break-ups and teen angst. I guess it's pretty reflective of those times, but they're indelible now.

Elephant - The White Stripes (2003)

Nothing sounds angrier than two detroit kids locked in daddy's basement with a four track. Elephant proved that irony, folk and feedback were a deadly combination. Only Jack White could induce anxiety with a Burt Bacharach cover. After recovering from a decade of 9th generation grunge and boy bands, the world of music needed to get its ass kicked with just a guitar and a drumkit.

Frances The Mute - The Mars Volta (2005)

I'll never forget the first time I heard this. I was already hooked with De-loused in the Comatorium, so I remember being really excited when this leaked in late '04. It was captivating; the raw melancholy of Cedric's vocals, the shifting instrumental intensity complimented by oceanic jams and ambient white noise. My brooding high school self connected to the narrative of a lost soul searching for his familial roots. Cassandra Gemini was worth the price of admission alone.

The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me - Brand New (2006)

I don't know if anybody else noticed, but pop-punk died this decade. It was slurped into the even more vacuous void of MOR and radio-friendly music pop-rock, and Brand New arrived just a little too late to ride on its coattails. They instead resurrected the ghosts of Kurt Cobain and Morrissey (ok, so he's not dead, but his career is) and produced a work of lyrical beauty. Too tortured to be pop, too bombastic to be punk, it falls into the 2000s decade as a masterwork of the catch-all "alternative" genre.

There's No 666 In Outter Space - Hella (2007)

AKA There's No Way To Make Math Rock Accessible. Throwing jarring vocals over threatening-to-erupt drumming and some sick guitar and bass interplay didn't even bring this band close to the mainstream, although it did draw a lot of (some unfair) Volta comparisons. It remains one of the greatest experimental albums of the decade.

Relationship of Command - At the Drive-In (2001)

This album spelled the end of the so-called post-hardcore genre, but remains its finest example. The production is the perfect balance between sleak and raw, and the group somehow managed to mesh balls-to-the-wall slam anthems with tripped-out experimentation. Too bad it was their last release -- this band had so much character and energy that (its spawn) The Mars Volta lack and Sparta desperately tries to re-ignite. Even die-hard Volta fans can't deny that it'd be awesome to see one of the greatest live acts ever perform these songs once more.

Hail to the Thief - Radiohead (2005)

I'm allowed to have a Radiohead album on my list, right? Where other RH albums lull, this one rocks out or baffles. This is one of the greatest headphone albums ever made. Why it's not more well-liked, I don't know. No other album since OK Computer combines killer guitar licks with sonic experimentation to this magnitude.

Light Grenades - Incubus (2006)

I guess I'm a tool for liking Incubus, but to be fair, this is the highlight of their career. The surfer dudes from Calabasas retained enough of the nu-metal/punk funk of the previous decade to keep old fans on board while appealing to a new generation with a more timeless appeal.

Origin of Symmetry - Muse (2002)

Even if its follow-up flowed a bit better as an album, this is Muse's most aggressive and musically complex album. Radiohead-ish jams like 'Space Dementia'; prog rockers like 'Butterflies and Hurricanes'; and an amazing cover of Nina Simone's 'Feeling Good' all make this my favorite record from one of my favorite groups. It's too bad that Black Holes and Revelations is a total cash-in. I think this incredible era for this band is over. They're still a great live act, though, and these songs translate on stage amazingly.

Digital Ash in a Digital Urn - Bright Eyes (2005)

I don't get people's obsession with I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. The simultaneous release of Digital Ash got completely eclipsed by the boring acoustic poetry reading. Consequently, people missed the true genius -- a dark electronic twist on Oberst's punk-folk experimentation. This album almost gives off Radiohead vibe (although the music industry certainly doesn't lack Radiohead clones), but the experimental nature doesn't detract from the poetry. I'd go so far as to call it the new Dark Side of the Moon.

Silent Alarm - Bloc Party (2004)

Bloc Party ran for Senate and called us up to let us know it was sexy dance time. Silly Bloc Party, everyone knows you can't dance to guitar rock. But if you could, it would totally be this album.

Sleeping With Ghosts - Placebo (2003)

There's a special place in my heart for Without You I'm Nothing, but this was Placebo's most impressive album as a whole. This was my high school soundtrack -- angry, sad, sexually confused and frustrated, this album spoke to me and all kids who were too stoic to be emo. It opens angry, builds anxiously and concludes wistfully, just like... life?

Album Review: Octahedron | The Mars Volta

After last year's audio assault 'The Bedlam in Goliath,' fans and detractors were more polarized about this band than ever. Whether you loved it or hated it, one thing you couldn't call it was boring. The same cannot be said, however, for The Mars Volta's latest effort to bridge the gap, 'Octahedron.'

'Octahedron' is 2003's Deloused in the Comatorium on ice -- breezy, pretty, at times epic but far from adventurous. An electric guitar decorates acoustic arpeggios as they crescendo into piano crashes and thunderous drums in opener 'Since We've Been Wrong,' which proves the band can capably handle balladry. It gives a faint glimmer of hope being that this is the band's self-professed "acoustic" album, but the rest of the mellow entries fail to pay off.

The ambiance gives way to the chugging electronic groove of 'Teflon,' whose vaguely menacing chorus leads complements Cedric Bixler-Zavala's emotive histrionics but fails to progress. In an attempt to ditch the post-singing insectoid snarl of Bedlam, Bixler here sounds a hair's-breadth from Geddy Lee -- take it or leave it. That said, the glistening production is a relieving improvement from the last album, even trumping 2005's 'Frances the Mute.'

Where composer/guitarist/producer/chief ego Omar Rodriguez-Lopez has outdone himself in production he has undersold himself in songwriting. 'Halo of Nembutals' chugs unremarkably from sing-songy chorus to bridge, fading tonally into the campfire eeriness of 'With Twilight as My Guide' which strangely has no chorus OR bridge.

'Cotopaxi' serves as an unintentional climax -- an energetic standout that would be audacious for anyone but this band. Instead, it sounds like a concise but vanilla homage to everything they've done before. 'Desperate Graves' stands out with its high-drama staccato chorus and strangely Tori Amos-like breakdown.

While "I'm the matchstick that you'll never lose," sounds vaguely cohesive, when Bixler sings about ringworms hanging themselves, magnifying holes and bodies stacked in tires, it only vaguely passes for imagery over sheer weirdness. Although 14-year-old fanboys will probably go apeshit trying to interpret and add meaning to the tacked-on story about a pair of missing friends, the truth is that there is just as much cohesion in the lyricism as there ever has been; that is to say, none. Only it's painfully more apparent now that the impressionism schtick is getting old than it was when Cedric first wowed us with the sci-fi word scramble of De-loused.

The unremarkable 'Copernicus' mixes emo longing with a brief smattering of, of all things, drum machines; a remarkable decision given that drumming prodigy Thomas Pridgen is more subtle, dynamic and on his game than ever. 'Luciforms' kind of averages the album's overall intensity and combines some 60s Floyd psychedelia with fiery prog-rock guitars and spastic pianos, but still recalls a less interesting version of Bedlam's closer 'Conjugal Burns.'

The Bedlam comparisons aren't unwarranted -- 'Octahedron' serves as a direct counterpoint to that album, and as a slap in the face to naysayers who (rightfully) bitched about that album's total lack of subtlety. It's structurally concise and atmospherically consistent. It may even be a critical or commercial success. It definitely doesn't push any boundaries, though, and that's what I love most about this band. Maybe this review is just a fan's disappointment, but Octahedron comes across as a pretty, and pretty unimpressive, record from a band that is capable of so much more.

2.5 / 5

*Reposted from another blog.

Michael Jackson is Not Dead, But.....

Well, Trip, I think you’re on the right path here, but I think this is even shadier than a simple faux death. I remember watching the news several years ago when I noticed something odd…several of the news anchors looked fake. I know what you’re thinking, “Sure they look fake – they are airbrushed and edited for color.” But the aberrance of these Technicolor news anchors went beyond a Britney Spears makeover – these certain anchors, whose names I mysteriously cannot remember, looked FAKE – as in NOT REAL. Sure, you had your Wolf Blitzers and your Barbara Walters – who were clearly real, but heavily made up. But every so often, I noticed, a news anchor for a major news organization just didn’t look right. And one day in the early 2000’s, it dawned on me – they are Artificial Intelligence.


This revelation came to me during the hubbub of Michael Jackson’s child molestation trial. Suddenly, all the puzzle pieces just fell into place – the emergence of A.I. beings into our general society began with MJ. Again, I know what you’re thinking – you’re thinking either a) I’m crazy because Michael Jackson was obviously a person suffering at the hands of a merciless public or b) I’m crazy because Michael Jackson was clearly an alien. But stick with me for a minute. Back in the late 1980’s, when Michael Jackson began his apparent descent into white madness, controversy surrounded his rapidly changing appearance and his eccentric behavior. For a few years, his only emergence into the public eye came in the form of National Enquirer stories. One of the most famous stories from this period detailed Jackson’s purchase of a hyberbaric chamber that he was reportedly using to “extend the span of his natural life.”

Now, for those of you that weren’t paying attention or are too young to remember – there were few, if any, public sightings of MJ at this time. There were a few videos of him hurrying from one place to another, heavily cloaked in a hat & sunglasses and surrounded by security guards; there were blurry pictures with questionable legitimacy; but there were no new videos or albums – nothing to substantiate that Michael Jackson was still a viable contributor to pop culture. Soon after, his face radically altered, MJ only appeared in public wearing a surgical mask.

Now, getting back to the alleged death of Michael Jackson, I agree with Trip- the Michael Jackson we have come to know is not dead. Instead – the REAL Michael Jackson was killed (or hidden), unbeknownst to society, years ago by the powers that be. When Michael all but disappeared from the media spotlight, I believe that the government took the most famous face of our current world and used it to create and implement Artificial Intelligence. The hyperbaric chamber, the plastic surgery, the Caucasian children – these were all carefully orchestrated media moments used to dupe the general public.

We all know by now that civilian knowledge of scientific and technological advances is at least a couple of decades behind reality. If we already know that Honda has produced a helmet that a person can use to control a robot via thought, then the likelihood of the existence of human-like A.I. Robots is not a stretch. What better way for the government to introduce such a concept to the public without their awareness? Michael Jackson was, as I said, the most recognizable face on the planet. He was also the most untouchable. Who was able to walk up to Michael Jackson and have a conversation with him? Pinch his skin? Shake his hand? No one did- or at least not normal, everyday folks.

After they successfully turned Michael Jackson into A.I., the next step was to move to news anchors. This is another one of those areas that people don’t pay much attention to. I suggest you start- notice the anchors that don’t look ‘right.’ Who are they? Where do they come from and where to they go? Does anyone actually KNOW these people?

Michael Jackson didn’t just die – it’s just that his time as a technological experiment came to an end. They have no use for him anymore, so they’re moving on. What the purpose of this experiment is – well that is another conversation. But beware – Big Brother is alive and well!

Michael Jackson Is Not Dead

Michael Jackson is NOT dead. Michael Jackson even said he was going to live to 150 years old. Is he 150 years old yet? I don't think so. Michael Jackson faked his own death because he knew it would sell more records. He didn't want to go on tour again, and he was tired of living under public scrutiny, so he pretended to die. He's freaking MICHAEL JACKSON. If he can transform from a black man into a white woman and convince people that he had white children from his own non-functioning loins, and make Elvis his father-in-law years after his death, I think maybe, just maybe, he can live as long as he wants to.

I mean, it's not a shock that he died, but honestly -- would it be that shocking that he faked his own death?

Long live the King of Pop. Probably the weirdest person to exist in the last 100 years. Godspeed wherever you are, Michael Jackson.

*Reposted from another blog.