The 30th P&J Albums Poll!

Oh god.

Yep...it's time for that one alright.

This isn't a very fun list. I voted for Murray Street, which is my favorite Sonic Youth record, but I don't listen to many of these anymore. I liked a lot of these dour albums at the time but I think it was post 9/11 gloom that gave them what appeal they had.

"Yoshimi" wins narrowly ahead of "Sea Change".

Ha! I was gonna go with either Shadow or the mekons (most likely Shadow, though), but decided to vote for The Best Bootlegs in the World Ever instead. What can I say; it's fun...still.

Yeah I really think this might be the worst P&J top 40 ever. Murray Street easy, with The Fix a close second.

Shocking, Geir!

xp

the Mekons made my list that year; The Private Press and One Beat get the most play now. Voted for Shadow.

lol i just voted for Interpol.

I own TWO other albums here in their entirety, one of which is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The other is an EP.

That vote for Radio Soulwax was pretty easy.

Got quite a few tracks from the QOTSA, Bright Eyes, Sonic Youth, Hives, DBT (if my best-of SRO CD-R was nominated I might have voted for it) and Clinic. Really wanna hear Scarface, and I love every other Hives album (even Barely Legal) enough that I want to re-check out the songs I didn't keep from that. But then White Blood Cells is my second least favorite Stripes album so maybe my taste just don't click with Rock Is Back breakthroughs.

No love for AWK, Anthony?

I always petered out by the end, "Party Hard" was enough for me.

this was my big pop-punk P'n' ballot year

1 Desaparecidos Read Music / Speak Spanish Saddle Creek 15
2 Good Charlotte The Young And The Hopeless Epic 14
3 The Distillers Sing Sing Death House Hellcat 12
4 Donnas Spend The Night Atlantic 11
5 Weezer Maladroit Geffen 11
6 Rocket From the Crypt Live From Camp X-Ray Vagrant 10
7 Kelly Osbourne Shut Up Epic 9
8 Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Nonesuch 8
9 All-American Rejects All-American Rejects Doghouse 5
10 Local H Here Comes the Zoo Palm 5

The order's changed but the only one I wouldn't vote for now is Local H. Replace them with...Interpol! I also hadn't heard Bowling For Soup's Too Drunk To Dance, which is another great pop-punk album. I kinda wanna pretend I'm Chuck and put McLusky in my pop-punk invasion too.

even tho it's probably only my 3rd or 4th favorite spoon album, i'm voting for KTM.

KTM's another "side 2 is worthless why do people go nuts for that album" deal for me. Spoon got EPs I'd take over it.

i don't nec go nuts for it, but idk this is a pretty awful list. i considered voting for interpol, n.e.r.d. and maybe the hives, but idk none of those really excite me at all (not that KTM does that much either).

actually there is some real good stuff buried in this list (yeah yeah yeahs, sigur ros, scarface) it's just the top that's really dispiriting. i can't think of a more bland top three than wilco, beck and flaming lips.

I wasn't accusing you, Jordan. You probably qualified your praise. I like "Brain" and the singles from NERD.

PROPERLY qualified, sorry.

Desaparecidos and GC made me think pop-punk was really coming into its own, but then phhhhhbbbbbt emo-metal uggggghhh. One reason I can't expect to much will come from Against Me breaking through.

The Flaming Lips album is so ridiculously overrated ("the greatest album of Uncut's lifetime" etc) - it's only got four or five good songs. SFA get my vote but I don't even care for that much.

Went with Orchestra Baobab.

I just realized When I Was Cruel actually made the top 20! yow. i bet more critics still listen to that fuckin Norah Jones than the EC disc now.

CUM ON UP FOR DA RIZANG!

thanks to his new wife, EC probably listens to fuckin Norah Jones instead of Cruel.

christ RFTC got ROBBED when it came to post-9/11 boohoo albums.

This isn't a very fun list.

Are you kidding? This year was fantastic...

Best-of-career albums: Wilco, The Streets, Sleater-Kinney, The Roots, QOTSA, Spoon (arguably), Interpol, Neko Case.

Really good albums: Beck (who I otherwise can't stand), Flaming Lips, Costello, Super Furries, Common, Clinic, Mekons.

...and that's just from the P&J list, and within my tastes. Supposedly the Missy Elliott is great, and maybe the Bright Eyes, but I'm not about to find out.

Only one of those I'd call a best-of-career album is Interpol and Bright Eyes, but those fresh-faced poonhounds may still have some glory left in 'em!

ones of those

Off the top of my head, a bunch of great albums not on P&J this year, alphabetically:

...Trail of Dead - Source Tags and Codes
Boards of Canada - Geogaddi
Cinerama - Torino
Comets on Fire - Field Recordings from the Sun
The Delgados - Hate
Guided by Voices - Universal Truths and Cycles
Low - Trust
Mclusky - Mclusky Do Dallas
The Mountain Goats - Tallahassee
Primal Scream - Evil Heat
Secret Machines - September 000
Smog - Accumulation: None (b-sides compilation)
Tom Waits - Alice
Tom Waits - Blood Money
The Walkmen - Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone

One Beat

But The Mendoza Line Lost In Revelry is the best record that came out that year.

KtM over One Beat, narrowly, but yeah, if Alice had made the list, it would have been a no-brainer for me.

Yeah I don't think there's a single best-of-career album on this list by an artist who's made more than 3 albums.

Drive-By Truckers, easy (their best album, and they've made way more than three), though I'm pretty sure I voted for them the year before this poll.

Probably wouldn't hate the Streets, 2 Many DJs, Queens of the Stone Age, Soundtrack of Our Lives, the Hives, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Spoon, Andrew WK, Missy, or Cee-Lo if I went back to listen to them, but I don't know that I ever will again, at least for most of them. (New Hives album is really good!) Not sure if I ever heard Best Bootlegs. Probably some other okay stuff up there too. (I dunno...Solomon Burke, maybe? Shadow? Clinic?? I liked their first one at the time; which one was this? I liked a track or two on that Roots album, too, I guess.) So yeah, not the best list, though I'm not convinced it's the worst ever either. Probably in the bottom 50 %.

What I actually voted for (including Drive By Truckers, it turns out -- I assume it got a couple carryover votes from the year before, though):

1 Rocket from the Tombs The Day the Earth Met The Rocket from the Tombs Smog Veil 15
2 Drive-By Truckers Southern Rock Opera Lost Highway 14
3 Lifter Puller Soft Rock Self-Starter Foundation 13
4 Styrenes It's Still Artastic ROIR 10
5 Epop Version_01: Point of View Epic 10
6 Northern State Dying In Stereo Northern State 9
7 Field Mob From tha Roota to tha Toota MCA 8
8 Gore Gore Girls Up All Night Get Hip 8
9 Toby Keith Unleashed DreamWorks 7
10 The Streets Original Pirate Material Locked On/Vice 6

ROIR were still putting out new(?) stuff as late as 2002?

I think they were, actually, but that may well have been an expanded reissue on CD of a previous reissue that had only come out on cassette at first, or something. Still the best Styrenes album I own (and I think the Mirrors just missed making my ballot.)

Yeah, what do ya know; they're still around:

http://www.roir-usa.com/

I remember in 2002 deciding that I wanted to keep up with albums that were critically acclaimed but not necessarily within my comfort zone. I'd sort of dismissed Wilco in the past but found myself listening to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot a lot. I thought I should get into Sleater-Kinney, and I did. And Interpol wasn't really my style, either (despite being on Matador), but man oh man, Turn on the Bright Lights really left a mark. It was my #1 then, and it's my #1 now.

For the record, I also heard a lot of this list just because it was in my comfort zone: as a teenager in the '90s, I was a fan of Beck, the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, and DJ Shadow -- although none of their 2002 releases I found to be their best work. (I find Murray Street just a tad overrated -- critics wanted to proclaim "Sonic Youth is back!" and managed to overlook how the last third of the album kind of collapses. Sonic Nurse struck me as a superior refinement of the sound they developed on Murray Street.)

2002 also is probably the first Pazz & Jop list I really paid much attention to: I discovered ILX by googling for discussion about the P&J results.

My top 10 at the time, as posted on this thread:

1. Interpol - "Turn on the Bright Lights"
2. Do Make Say Think - "& Yet & Yet"
3. ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - "Source Tags & Codes"
4. Wilco - "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"
5. Mum - "Finally We Are No One"
6. Archer Prewitt - "Three"
7. Pretty Girls Make Graves - "Good Health"
8. Notwist - "Neon Golden"
9. Flaming Lips - "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots"
10. Enon - "High Society"

Understand, I probably only heard about twice that. Maybe 25, but that's a stretch.

I'll go with Orchestra Baobab (though more the Pirate's Choice reissue than Specialist In All Styles).

Sonic Nurse struck me as a superior refinement of the sound they developed on Murray Street.

^^^

I like Murray Street now more than I did then for that reason.

I should perhaps go back to it. I haven't heard it in a long time.

I don't think there's a single best-of-career album on this list by an artist who's made more than 3 albums.

I actually think Yeah Yeah Yeahs peaked with (or were at least most entertaining on) their debut EP, too, though I doubt anybody agrees with me. (By the way, is this the only time an EP ever placed in the actual P&J album top 40? Or am I forgetting one?)

And how many albums does Andrew WK have? (I stopped paying attention after his boring second one.)

I said "3 albums," and I'm pretty sure the Yeah Yeah Yeahs haven't gotten to that many full-lengths yet. Didn't know the size of Drive By Truckers' catalog, nor what their best is, so I'll concede being wrong on that. My point still stands though that most of the albums on here are like the 3rd of 5th or 10th best album by the artist, and most of the exceptions are artists that haven't been around for too long yet.

Yeah, I don't disagree with your basic theory, actually.

And I guess Yeah Yeah Yeahs only have three (or four) albums if you count their EPs, so they're a tossup.

AMG is listing Andrew WK as having five actual albums (says I Get Wet was his third -- were those first two Wolf Eyes collaborations or something?) But I'm skeptical.

Yeah I don't think there's a single best-of-career album on this list by an artist who's made more than 3 albums.

I probably wouldn't be alone in arguing that the Wilco is a best-of-career album.

I think Murray Street holds up well. The last third has got "Sympathy for the Strawberry", which I love. I find myself wanting to listen to Murray Street more than Sonic Nurse.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has got some good songs on it, but I think it's hard to listen to it straight-through - the first song drags a little bit and their are some other boring stretches. It would probably make a very good 30 minute album if edited right.

Under Construction is not one of my favorite Missy albums - though it has one of her best singles on it. As albums, I like the next two much better: This is Not a Test and Cookbook (when is she coming out with something new, btw?).

Other very good albums not on this list: Astrobotnia, FM Knives, Ellen Allien, Archie Shepp & Mihaly Dresch, Opeth.

i like nerd, the fix, qotsa and awk

I really liked that N.E.R.D. a lot, both versions. Haven't listened to it forever, will dig it out and see how it holds up.

More:
Amon Tobin * Out From Out Where (Ninja Tune)
Nina Nastasia * The Blackened Air (Touch and Go)
My Computer * Vulnerabilia (13 Amp UK)
Rob * Satyred Love (Source/Virgin Fr)
Plush * Fed (After Hours Jpn)
Arto Lindsay * Invoke (Righteous Babe)
Tom Waits * Alice (Anti/Epitaph)
Nação Zumbí (Trama)
Out Hud * S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D. (Kranky)
Schneider TM * Zoomer (City Slang)
Domenico +2 * Sincerely Hot (Nippon Crown)
Mastodon * Remission (Relapse)
Rjd2 * Deadringer (Def Jux)
DJ /rupture * Minesweeper Suite (Tigerbeat6)
Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man * Out Of Season (Go Beat UK)
The Libertines * Up The Bracket (Rough Trade)
Ampop * Made For Market (TMT/Thule Musik Iceland)

Streets for me, followed by Scarface, Sleater-Kinney, 2 Many DJ's, Best Bootlegs, Missy Elliott, Sonic Youth, Orchestra Baobab, DJ Shadow.

m.i.a.: Clipse, Lord Willin'

70 good albums as yet unmentioned:

(Various) – Global Hits 2002 (Universal)
Kenny Chesney – No Shoes No Shirt No Problems (BNA)
Montgomery Gentry – My Town (Columbia)
(Various) – Crews Control: MCs Inside The Ride (Warners Strategic Marketing UK)
Copperhead – Live & Lost (Eastwinds)
Dixie Chicks – Home (Open Wide/Sony)
Brazen Hussies – Brazen Hussies (peoplesound.com/artist/brazenhussies EP)***
Electric Wizard – Let Us Prey (The Music Cartel)
(Various) – Blip Hop (Luaka Bop)
(Various) – Garage Rap Vol. 2 (East Side UK)
Rebecca Lynn Howard – Forgive (MCA Nashville)
Hurricane Mason – Cast Iron Constitution (DitchBoy)
Daniel Bedingfield – Gotta Get Thru This (Polydor)
Bad Company UK – Shot Down On Safari (BC Recordings/Human Imprint Recordings)
Mushroom With Gary Floyd – Mad Dogs & San Franciscans (Black Beauty)
Lil’ Wayne – 500 Degreez (Cash Money/Universal)
McEnroe – Disenfranchized (Peanuts & Corn)
Ms. Jade – Girl Interrupted (Beat Club/Interscope)
Clipse – Lord Willin’ (Star Trak/Arista)*
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.- In C (Squealer)
Jessica Lurie Ensemble - !Zipa Buka! (Zipa! Music)
Tim McGraw – Tim McGraw (Curb)
Morel – Queen Of The Highway (Yoshitoshi Recordings)
Mindy McCready - Mindy McCready (Capitol)
Roscoe Mitchell & The Note Factory – Song For My Sister (Pi Recordings)
Allison Moorer – Miss Fortune (Universal South)
Cordelia’s Dad – What It Is (Kimchee)
Faith Hill – Cry (Warner Bros.)
The Charms – Charmed I’m Sure (Red Car)
Last Days Of May – Inner System Blues (Squealer)
Groovski – Groovski (groovski.com)
Nada Surf – Let Go (Barsuk)
Grandpa’s Ghost – (The Tumble/Love Version): Hear Past The Static (Upland)
Dalek – From Filthy Tongue Of Gods And Griots (Ipecac)
The Color Guard – Speech For Heated Hearts (Suziblade)**
Babasonicos – Jessico (Delanuco)
Boulder – Reaped In Half (Tee Pee)
Les Baton Rouge – Women Non-Stop (Elevator)
The Donnas – Spend The Night (Atlantic)
M2M – The Big Room (Atlantic)
Andy Griggs – Freedom (RCA)
The Distillers – Sing Sing Death House (Hellcat)
Cyclefly – Crave (Radioactive)
Sam D’Angelo – Nothing Left But Hope (Sad)
El Stew – El Stew (Om)
(Various) – Extra Yard (Big Dada)
Las Ketchup – Hijas Del Tomate (Sony Discos)
The Caesars - Album Sampler (Virgin promo EP)
Hella – Hold Your Horse Is (5RC)
Sofia Loell – Right Up Your Face (Curb)
Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz – Kings Of Crunk (TVT)
B Rich – 80 Dimes (Atlantic)
Neon Venus – Slip Into Rhythm/Cae En El Ritmo (Gato)
Mastodon – Remission (Relapse)
Fieldwork – Your Life Flashes (Pi Recordings)
Immortal – Sons Of Northern Darkness (Nuclear Blast)
Circle – Raunio (Squealer)
Gogol Bordello – Voi-La Intruder (Rubric)
Entropic Advance – Red Yellow Noise (Symbolic Insight)
The Duhks – Your Daughters And Your Sons (Duhks)
Apex Theory – Topsy-Turvy (Dreamworks)
Little Axe – Hard Grind (Fat Possum)
Android Lust – The Dividing (Projekt)
Lana Lane – Project Shangri-La (SPV)
John Wilkes Booze – Five Pillars of Soul Vol. 2: Tania Hearst (johnwilkesbooze.com EP)
Jim Black – Splay (Winter & Winter)
Akufen – My Way (Force Inc.)
Apoptygma Berzerk – Harmonizer (Metropolis)
Lo Fidelity All Stars – Don’t Be Afraid Of Love (Columbia)
Isis – Oceanic (Ipecac)

* - Okay, Matos just mentioned this one.
** - Conflict of interest alert
*** - Ditto, but only because Dave Queen used to write for me

40 more reissues:

Gordon Lightfoot – Complete Greatest Hits (Warner Bros./Rhino reissue)
Atomic Rooster – Heavy Soul (Castle reissue)
Fairport Convention – The Best Of: The Millenium Collection (A&M reissue)
Butthole Surfers - Butthole Surfers + PCPEP (Latino Bugger Veil reissue)
(Various) – BaadAsssss Cinema: The Sounds Of Blaxploitation (TVT reissue)
The Jimmy Castor Bunch – 16 Slabs Of Funk (RCA/BMG Heritage reissue)
(Various) – Smooth Grooves: Cruisin’ Classics (Rhino reissue)
John Anderson – Country Legends (BNA/BMG Heritage reissue)
New Order – Back To Mine (DMC mix album)
(Various) – Down In The Basement (Old Hat reissue)
DJ Ayers & Cosmo Baker – Hip House (djayers.com mix album)
MX-80 Sound – 1977 Live At The Library 1978 (Gulcher reissue)
Charlie Daniels Band – The Ultimate (Epic/Legacy reissue)
The Blasters – Testament: The Complete Slash Recordings (Slash/Rhino reissue)
The Flaming Lips – The Shambolic Birth And Early Life Of: 1983-1991 (Rykodisc promo reissue)
Nilsson – Greatest Hits (RCA/BMG Heritage reissue)
Ashford & Simpson – The Very Best of Ashford & Simpson (Warner Bros./Rhino reissue)
Drunk Injuns – From Where The Sun Now Stands I Will Fight No More, Forever (Alternative Tentacles reissue)
Oh-OK – The Complete Recordings (Collectors Choice reissue)
Cheech & Chong – Where There’s Smoke (Warner Bros./Odes Sounds & Visuals/Rhino reissue)
The Dancing Cigarettes – 1980-1981: The Gulcher Recordings (Gulcher reissue)
The Girls – Live At The Rathskeller 5.27.79 (Abaton Book Company reissue)
Richard Hell – Time (Matador reissue)
Cabaret Voltaire – The Original Sound of Sheffield: ‘78/’82: Best Of (Mute reissue)
The Chieftans – The Wide World Over: A 40 Year Celebration (RCA/BMG reissue)
Antiseen – Drastic/E.P. Royalty (TKO reissue)
Henry Flynt – C Tune (Locust reissue)
The Dubliners – The Best Of (Epic/Legacy reissue)
Fuzzbox – The BBC Sessions (Cherry Red reissue)
Any Trouble – Girls Are Always Right: The Stiff Years (Stiff/Cherry Red reissue)
Mud – Dyna-Mite (Pure Gold/Disky Communications reissue)
Tony Conrad With Faust – Outside The Dream Syndicate: 30th Anniversary Edition (Table Of The Elements reissue)
Rhys Chatham – An Angel Moves Too Fast To See: Selected Works: 1971-1989 (Table Of The Elements reissue)
Mammoth Volume – The Early Years (Music Cartel reissue)
Lorrie Morgan – Country Legends (BMG Heritage reissue)
Bruce Cockburn – Anything Anytime Anywhere: Singles 1979-2002 (Rounder reissue)
Ty Herndon – This Is Ty Herndon: Advance Music (Epic promo reissue)
Adam Sandler – The Thanksgiving Song/The Chanukah Song/The Chanukah Song Part II (Warner Bros. promo reissue EP)
A Certain Ratio – Early (Soul Jazz reissue)

I voted for Northern State and t.A.T.u in the 2003 poll, but officially I guess they were 02.

I kinda liked the first Northern State EP a lot more than the second one at the time myself. But, yeah, they're both pretty great.

2002 Albums 134 Northern State Hip Hop You Haven't Heard Northern State 90(11)
2002 Albums 733 Northern State Dying In Stereo Northern State 14(2)

went with Murray Street, one of their best ever, imo. not too excited by much else on this list.

I didn't notice the SFA one (that one is a top 3 item in my 2001 list), but Flaming Lips are still slightly better.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I vote for Missy, who I'm surprised hasn't been getting more love out of this dire list.

Under Construction might actually be my least favorite of her albums, that or This Is Not A Test.

admittedly that's a "least favorite" rather than a "worst"

Best Costello in 15 20 years.

Eh, I'd say whichever one of Under Construction, So Addictive, or Da Real World I've listened to most recently is my favorite Missy. The Cookbook is by far her worst.

Lotsa over-rated "compelling backstory" albums on the list, including, I would argue, #s 1 and 2.

I miss articles telling us what "geezer" meant.

The word "Eminem" has yet to appear in the thread.

THE worst Pazz 1-2-3 EVER! Not so much awful albums as just boooooooooring. And Coldplay in the top ten - a band so boring no one could love them. Or hate them. Which makes them paradoxically all the more hateable.

Surprised to see Orchestra Baobab up there. Was this the only Afropop that made the cut since Indestructible Beat? Odd list. What happened? Alternafolks hitting 30?

I LOVE Matos' albums list for this year! In that spirit, I went for The Best Bootlegs in the World Ever which I've misplaced...again! Grrrrrrr.

Turn On the Bright Lights: most disproportionate musical quality/lyrical quality evah. Got my vote, only narrowly passing Original Pirate Material.

m.i.a. People Under the Stairs - O.S.T.

m.i.a. People Under the Stairs - O.S.T.

-- talrose, Monday, November 5, 2007 6:53 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

fuck yeah

The Cookbook is by far her worst.

Agreed. I haven't listened to Under Construction in years, but it's probably at least as good as ...So Addictive.

To be fair, The Cookbook has a few good songs on it, but that's...it.

The album has her best pussy pleasurin' moment ever.

haha, I should pull it out. I haven't listened since it came out, really. Maybe it's time for reevaluation.

Cookbook is pretty great! Not sure why people are hating on it.

Because about half of it is awful or boring or both.

..and even then it doesn't reach the heights of her earlier albums.

<i>The Cookbook</i> isn't great, but it's definitely better than her last 2 Timbaland-heavy albums before that, kind of a good palette cleanser for those. <i>Under Construction</i> doesn't have shit on <i>So Addictive</i>.

damn you html tags

RONG

I love Under Construction because instead of taking the more obvious retro-futurist route and asking "what did futuristic sound like in the past", it kind of inverts that idea and asks "what is retroist music going to sound like in the future"?

I'm in the ...So Addictive and This Is Not A Test camp.

I don't think that Coldplay album is boring. It's not usually what I want to hear, and when I do it's just the big singles. But those singles ("Clocks", "The Scientist", "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face") are really great.

I'm in the "still waiting for Missy's Greatest Hits album" camp. (I've liked pretty much every album I've heard by her, but I've never loved one.)

I'll take The Cookbook and This Is Not A Test over Under Construction, personally, but I'm definitely on the "...So Addictive is her best" bandwagon.

(But I actually prefer this year's album winner to pretty much any of the other 2000 winners excepting Stankonia, so I'm clearly not to be trusted.)

Surprised to see Orchestra Baobab up there. Was this the only Afropop that made the cut since Indestructible Beat? Odd list. What happened? Alternafolks hitting 30?

First album by them in 20 years, plus Nonesuch publicity, same as Wilco.

Missy already did her greatest hits album, it was supposed to come out in the U.S. but ended up being released almost everywhere but here.

I'm in the "still waiting for Missy's Greatest Hits album" camp. (I've liked pretty much every album I've heard by her, but I've never loved one.)

-- xhuxk, Monday, November 5, 2007 10:05 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://www.amazon.com/Respect-M-E-Missy-Elliott/dp/B000H3092O/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5848050-6028639?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1194322887&sr=8-1

damn you alex.

First album by them in 20 years, plus Nonesuch publicity, same as Wilco.

I doubt the first album in 20 years thang made much of a difference. But I never made that Wilco connection. Perhaps Nonesuch threw in an Orchestra Baobab along with each Wilco?

First performances ever in the U.S. as well, and the publicity (from the very critics who vote in the P&J poll) accompanying that as well, plus the reissue of Pirate's Choice, which had been a prime Afropop bootleg for decades.

I mean, it's not a great surprise that music conniseurs (critics) are into it.

To whoever mentioned S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D., good call. Undoubtedly my favorite of all the "dancepunk" albums that everyone was getting hot n' bothered for at the time.

Also missing:

Agalloch - The Mantle (I don't really listen to metal, but this album fucking rules)
The Books - Thought for Food (still their best, and still classic)
David Cross - Shut Up, You Fucking Baby (top 10 comedy albums)
NaS - The Lost Tapes (Nas' third best album!)
Black Dice - Beaches & Canyons
Boris - Heavy Rocks
Six Organs of Admittance - Dark Noontide

and, yeah, whoever mentioned Comets of Fire's absence, fucking bullseye.

Probably at the time my favorite album was Nas' God's Son. I was such a sadsack back then.

i like god's son a lot.

It's an alright album, but I used to listen to it and mope about how much life sucks and I really don't want to revisit that part of my life.

you can be whatever you wanna be as long as you work hard at it.

It seems I had a bit of a taste-shift somewhere during that year, because earlier in the year I was obsessed with "experimental" nerd-freaks like Cee-Lo & Blackalicious and ended it listening to mainstream lyric-focused romantic-poet types like Nas & Kweli.

norah jones inclusion baffles me fwiw.

The VH1 block never fails to strike. That said, Norah Jones is pretty damn good as far as coffee house drivel goes.

is it really? ill take your word for it, but i'd have imagined that the hives would be bigger w/ the vh1 set than norah jones.

cuz wasn't vh1 still on that indie tip in 2002 compared to the trad singer-songwriter thing they do now?

I dunno, I can't ever recall them being on that indie tip. I've always associated them with trad AC stuff.

I haven't heard her albums, but "Don't Know Why" and "Sunrise" are good singles.

ok maybe i'm just conflating them w/ mtv in my head. i didn't pay that much attention when i was 14, but i just figured they had gradually glided into this belinda carlisle pimping type shit.

All I know is in 96-97 they were playing Sheryl Crow, while MTV was playing Ma$e or whatever.

hm ok.

easy. NERD - In Search Of...

(before they re-recorded it with real instruments)

and, yeah, whoever mentioned Comets of Fire's absence, fucking bullseye.

glad you agree. that six organs record is great too!

M.I.A.: Amerie, All I Have

It looks like the tracks on that Missy best-of are pretty evenly spread out over her career, with perhaps a bit more emphasis on the early albums. By my count:

Supa Dupa Fly - 4
Da Real World - 3
So Addictive - 3
Under Construction - 2
This is Not a Test - 2
Cookbook - 3

I think their choices are pretty defensible, though I haven't heard the remixes they chose.

Ha! The split between albums basically matches my opinion of those albums!

Knock each one up a notch and that would be my "star" rating for them.

I basically agree with that, except that what that doesn't show is that Missy's rapping has also improved steadily with time - so if you factor in her improved mic skills, I tend to notch the last couple albums a bit higher.

the running order of that comp is kinda weird to me, newer stuff so frontloaded that there's nothing before 2001 until track 10. I'd have to listen to it or shuffle it around to be sure, but I think Missy's the kind of artist that would benefit from the chronological approach.

missy best of is zzz

Absolutely! Also, I think I'd take This is Not a Test over Da Real World (which is probably my least favorite of her albums), but the above rankings are otherwise OTM.

xp

the first three records i still listen to sometimes. kind of overplayed miss e though.

the songs im most likely to want to hear are the ones that weren't hits at this point. the singles are kind of like the rap equivalent of classic rock radio to me at this pt.

Da Real World = underrated Missy, it's so fucking dark/heavy in a way that none of her others are.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

As far as Norah Jones doing well in P&J, it seemed at the time like a lot of roots/alt-country writers/fans were into her that year, especially at SXSW.

Wow! The Streets barely squeak into the top ten? This is ILM? Really???

1. I knew I should have voted for Shadow dammit!
2. Bet I can guess who voted for Common.
3. Rawk iz bach (2002 stylee)!

The fuck what? Lurkers, out yourselves.

Common = Cibula?

Does anyone (other than Matos, I guess) still rate the Streets?

the only streets song i like is the one from the first album that is like :37 seconds long. that's about the max length i can stand dude for.

Yeah, that's my guess.

xp

Sure, lot's of people do. OPM would probably still make my top ten, easy.

this is a pretty reasonable outcome nonetheless.

Well, the top four are at least amusing. Also, I do love that the original top three received only one vote each.

this have be the fewest no-voted-for albums of any year yet

Queens of the Stone Age: Songs for the Deaf (Interscope)

great record, awful production ^^

I love the production on it. It's the 2nd best Qotsa album after the 1st.

The middle drags enough for long enough that it's my least favorite (excepting the first album, which I haven't heard much and can't find a copy of in town), but omg so many good songs. Never understood the production complaints, its obv a conceptual choice and I totally don't think it gets in the way of the rock.

It's a terrific album. Complaints are usually about the mock radio things. I definitely think it's better than rated r.

Also forgot to mention Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Ensemble - another good one from '02.

It's kinda funny that the chat on these threads die when the poll results are in. No one likes discussing results?

Those who would be most apt to do end-zone dances over the poll winners are invariably ILM lurkers.

I think there's a general sense that the results aren't necessarily very truthful/representative of the general feeling of the board, since they're skewed by the polling system and the short timespan in which people are able to vote. So the results are more interesting to debate in theory, when arguing for or against certain options can at least possibly influence votes, than after they roll in and there's a couple "oh, that's a surprise" comments and not much else to say (and this is one of the more surprising poll results). But I became a zing target for talking about polls with any degree of interest or seriousness the other day, so I'll stop now.

Imagine if we were all drinking.

Yeah, but the results are never the most interesting aspect of these (or most?) polls really. Plus we never really get enough votes to justify a more detailed analysis of said results.

And I do agree with you, Alex, more options would make for better, or at least more interesting, polls.

Also: I would really like it if we could somehow see who voted for what by simply clicking on each item to receive a vote. Therefore, hopefully mitigating any chance of ballot stuffing and/or voter fraud, ya know.

xp

You mean we're not?!?!

would really like it if we could somehow see who voted for what by simply clicking on each item to receive a vote.

That way we could heckle them.

yeah i don't really see the point of seeing who voted for what. probably half the people say what they're voting for in a post anyway, and the other half would probably be lurkers whose names we'd barely recognize. and in the past when people speculated about ballot stuffing/voter fraud in polls mods have posted to note that they'd notice if there were suddenly a bunch of new dummy accounts just to vote in that one poll, so i'm assuming they know how to prevent that.

http://www.atlasblogged.com/archives/voter.bmp

Damn straight, Ace! Heck, how many of us were traumatized by those "I don't happen to care for..." (or however in hell they were worded) votes on the favorite Sabbath/Zeppelin album polls? Oh the humanity of it all!!!

xxp

Not necessarily. One could just delete one's ILX cookies in order to vote repeatedly.

I think the "none of the above"/"these all suck" option should be mandatory in all polls, to provide proper perspective if nothing else.

Oh I generally agree with you there, but that option wouldn't really make much sense on these particular polls.

I just don't find the results as interesting as the discussion or the opportunity to revisit records....for instance, a little something I like to call BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB!!!

there's already a thread for discussing them, Kevin: OPO: artist not canonized/liked/taken remotely seriously by ILM that you love