#100
Figure 8
Elliott Smith
2000
Pardon me if I don't blow Elliott Smith's dead cock all that much. I'm not ready to anoint him some spot in the pantheon of great, dead before their time artists. Don't get me wrong, though, this is a great album. 'X/O' was better, IMO, but that was in the 90's. The Everything Reminds Me of Her into Everything Means Nothing to Me segue remains one of the best 'related, but unrelated' song coupling on an album that I have ever heard. If this album suffers, it's that it's maybe a little too long. Son of Sam was supposed to make him a superstar, but it just didn't happen. In the Lost and Found (Honky Bach)/The Roost, and it's Western saloon piano parts is just amazing. Wish he wouldn't of killed himself, but his music was pain, and that's what you get sometimes, I guess.
#99
One Bedroom
Sea and Cake
2003
This is about as Sunshine Pop as I get. It's also one of the more electronic albums on this list. These guys had a sound that was about 10 years too early. If they debuted now, they would be huge. Shoulder Length is one of my favorites, but Interiors, and little loopy guitar riff, tops it. Great cover of Bowie's Sound and Vision (I swear I hear this song on that commercial where the people are floating around in bubbles, listening to music). If that song could be any gayer, Sea and Cake took the bar and set it really high. Music for a good mood. Hard to beat your wife to this one...pretty much the polar opposite of that Elliott Smith album!
#98
White Blood Cells
The White Stripes
2001
I read a blurb about their live show, back in 2000/2001, and kazaa'd 'De Stijl' (which I think is their best record). I didn't even really listen to it at the time. Then I saw Hotel Yorba late night on MTV, and had to go get the (by this point) much hyped 'White Blood Cells' album. Fuck man, these guys were amazing, when there wasn't anything else like it. Raw riffage, sloppy drums, and a fuck-all attitude. This was back before we knew these two crazies used to be married, and everyone thought they were brother and sister. Before 'Cold Mountain', the supergroup fad, and overexposure. The Same Boy You've Always Known seems so different from something like Ball and a Biscuit, it's like they were a different band. What surprises me, going back, is how much acoustic guitar there is on this album. It's not all power chords and yelping lyrics. Jack White had the world on his platter, but this band was/is too one-dimensional to be groundbreaking, anymore.
#97
You In Reverse
Built to Spill
2006
Just listen to Conventional Wisdom...that's the essence of indie rock, right there. These guys do it better than just about anyone. I have long thought they peaked in the late 90's, and that their watershed moment was an album that will be coming up later, but I'm really reassessing their legacy. These guys are still making great music, it's just coming from a different place. It's grown up, I guess. Or maybe I've grown up, and finally caught up with where they are moving to. I could listen to those clean guitar licks in Goin' Against Your Mind all day.
#96
Wild Mountain Nation
Blitzen Trapper
2007
The title track is one of the best one of the catchiest riffs that have ever come out of rock n roll. It's got some Zep drums, too (sound-wise, not talent-wise)...that tinny, echo-y, bombastic, spacious sound. They were lauded as psychedelic-rock's new face, and I can see where they get some Grateful Dead/New Riders of the Purple Sage influences, on this album...but they are a little deeper than just a ripoff of stoner bands from the 70's. I'd say a song like Murder Babe is almost more Big Star, than Jerry Garcia. Shit does make you want to grow a beard, and start a rock band, though. They make it sound so easy.
#95
Rejoicing in the Hands
Devandra Banhart
2004
This is the first of two albums in 2004 from Banhart, and the one I like the most of the pair...they were recorded together. Beautiful guitar work, great lyrics (they even sound great when he goes Spanish on our asses, like on Todo los Dolores). My favorite, and one of his best songs, is The Body Breaks. Where Sam Beam is unpretentious and earnest, Banhart is the polar opposite. He yearns to be earnest, but it all just comes out a little uppity. That's ok, by me, because it's part of what makes him great. I'm not sure who's more eccentric...Devendra or Destroyer. I am super pissed that he beat me to the song title Tit Smoking in the Temple of Artesan Mimicry, though. That was going to be my #1 jam.
#94
We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes
Deathcab for Cutie
2000
This is back when DCfC was a little less cohesive, and a little more experimental. You can almost say they sold out a bit. I used to mock them as a rich man's Jimmy Eat World, but then I figured out just how bad Jimmy Eat World was, and stopped using that joke. It's taken a while to grow on me, but this album, now almost 10 years old, is creeping into my subconscious more and more. Company Calls/Company Calls Epilogue spark some of what was to come, I think. That AMG review makes it seem like they'd arrived, but I don't think they really had. Gibbard and company were clearly still finding their feet.
#93
One Beat
Sleater-Kinney
2002
This one hits you like a banshee, right out the gate, and doesn't let up until it's done. One Beat -> Faraway will take the breath away. This is an album meant to be played at '11', which is rare for a female group. This shit makes Lita Ford and Joan Jett blush. The drumming, which I think is S-K's strong suit, is at it's most 'robotic' on this one. If you want to run my wife off, crank up Oh!. She hates S-K's vocals, and this one hits her the hardest. She'd probably leave me, if these guys were the soundtrack of my entire life.
#92
In the Future
Black Mountain
2008
Another great Jagjaguwar release...love that label, these days. I think this one is leaps and bounds over their first full length album, and I find myself listening to this one (on vinyl, of course, thanks Ryan) frequently these days. I love the 70's metal/psychedelic feel of these guys. You could totally do lines of coke off of this album cover. For me, it starts with a bang, with Stormy High, and doesn't really let up. It's a thinking man's 70's metal homage, if you will.
#91
Wilco (The Album)
Wilco
2009
Let me get this out of the way: this is a solid album, with no real holes. Bull Black Nova is dominant. Wilco (The Song) is catchy, with a great rolling drum piece. A song like I'll Fight almost sounds like it could have been on 'Being There'. It's not a bad disc, at all. But it lacks a certain something. I just can't get into it...it doesn't engage, like other Wilco material. It doesn't make me want to play it 30 times in a row. They didn't exactly mail it in...I think the performances are solid. If anything they are just in a slight creative rut...maybe touring too much, or in need of some personnel upheaval. One thing that did surprise me was that Nels Cline seemed to almost be muzzled. His freakouts, which made the last couple of albums special, were very few and far between here. It's the atonal Bull Black Nova where he shines the best, IMO. I hate to say it, but a lot of this album screams 'we're getting old'. The Adult Contemporary Grammy could be on it's way!
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