Knives Out: It's Spin's Top 40 Albums of 2002

I'd like to hear this.

except, yeah, the #1 choice seems weird. though SPIN did call the WSs "the best band on the planet" in their cover story on them a few months ago, which was even weirder.

but you'd think that they'd have found a way to at least squeeze axl rose or joey ramone in there somehow (it's their list, they can make and bend the rules) -- it could have been another excuse to try and inflate sales by putting a defunct band on the cover.

also re that road rules comp: yipes.

I thought #s 3,4,5,6,8,13,29 were the conventional wisdom 'year's biggest disappointments'

(currently #1 on the billboard top independent albums chart!)

Yeah, this looks like a list of the major "alternative" releases of the year/records Spin was supposed to like, ranked without much thought as to whether they were actually any good or not.

That said, I have a decent amount of them and my three favorite records of the year—and a couple others that will probably be in the top 10—are on the list.

Because loads of them aren't actually very good? ;)

But this comp's place on the list is mostly a tokenist hat-tip to emo and that, right?

Then they should have put the Jimmy Eat World record up there. It came out in 2002 the same way that White Blood Cells did.

if that really is the top 40, it was a sad year.
m.

ps (alex in manhattan.... how is that Montgolfier Brothers record?)

IIRC, that single was in their top five, so there's the mention of them and they can move on and please as many pr people and labels and advertisors as possible.

01 - Eminem - "Cleanin' Out My Closet"
02 - Avril Lavigne - "Complicated"
03 - Clipse - "Grindin'"
04 - Jimmy Eat World - "The Middle"
05 - Nirvana - "You Know You're Right"
06 - Missy Elliot - "Work It"
07 - The White Stripes - "Fell In Love With a Girl"
08 - Nelly - "Hot in Herre"
09 - The Rapture - "House of Jealous Lovers"
10 - Nappy Roots - "Awnaw"
11 - Angie Stone - "Wish I Didn't Miss You"
12 - Felix Da Housecat - "Silver Screen Shower Scene"
13 - The Strokes - "Someday"
14 - The Hives - "Hate to Say I Told You So"
15 - The Chemical Brothers - "Star Guitar"
16 - N.E.R.D. - "Rock Star"
17 - Oasis - "Stop Crying Your Heart Out"
18 - LCD Soundsystem - "Losing My Edge"
19 - Red Hot Chili Peppers - "By the Way"
20 - The Vines - "Get Free"

I thought that the Bright Eyes album is the tokenist hat-tip to emo.

Ah, right. I didn't see that. Good year for emo then, I guess. ;)

Do you really want to know how the Montgolfiers record is, msp? There seem to be only two people in the world who like it: doomie and me. Actually "like" is not the word. I wanted to say "are totally enthralled and love it more than anything in the world".

that song sucks. nirvana's great, but that tune is second rate shit. it's not surprising that it wasn't released before.

12 - Felix Da Housecat - "Silver Screen Shower Scene"

madame hollywood off of "Kittenz and Thee Glitz" blows that song outta the water...but that's a 2001 release...oh, but the top 40 albums includes it... perhaps history is wrong because spin has made it so?

alex in man., i'll have to check it out... thanks for the heads up. in their previous release, the track "even if my mind can't tell you" made up for any other bland moments.
m.

Here's Spin's end-of-year lists from 1990 to 2001 for purposes of comparison.

Right, so the record for the worst top 20 of the year starts off with only two listenable singles. Any advance over two?

This is true of a bunch of records on the list. It's as if they realized they neglected the artist's better album years ago and are now trying to make up for it.

Who decides this shit anyway? The Road Rules Comp? Who can actually listen to that without hurling?

Conclusion: I am boring. Also I may have forgotten a number.

Not necessarily. The list is definitely frontloaded with A-list names, but nearly half the list are relatively new artists that have not appeared on Spin's year-end list before (not counting the Road Rules comp).

Ryan Adams' appearance is probably payback for Spin missing Heartbreaker and Gold in years past.

"Yeah, this looks like a list of the major "alternative" releases of the year/records Spin was supposed to like,"

Exactly.

"ranked without much thought as to whether they were actually any good or not."

I dunno about that. Maybe it just panned out that all the major releases of the year lived up to Spin's expectations, and they overshadowed the debut releases.

I don't think the Earle alb is sub-par, tho'.

as for that missy record, a good 50 % at least
is crummy filler rubbish.

as for that missy record, a good 50 % at least is crummy filler rubbish

The Work It remix, I'll give you that, but otherwise... Hip-hop album of the year!

My irrelevant personal and subjective view: I like the album and think it belongs into the top 40 of this year more than 90% of the items on the list above. But for Sonic Youth standards it is only just above average. Too much Grateful Deadish noodling on there. But it is quite varied and more tuneful than most SY albums. It is also rather atmospheric and textural. Sorry only generic stuff as I don't remember details. Should listen to it again.

Definitely not tuneful! I hate Sonic Youth's pop moments. They are best when they make abrasive, probing slabs of ART WANK! Like Murray Street! That's why it's so great. The songs meander and occasionally EXPLODE! They don't just chug along inoccuously like some of the tosh on "Dirty". And there's a real confident swagger back in SY. The songs I heard off the last two were dreary, indeed. "Murray Street" is a swaggering, meandering, tantalising BEAST of an album! GRRRRRRR!

Sorry, I'm getting this thread sidetracked. Continue!

Clearly:

Free from confusion, doubt, or ambiguity; made plain or intelligible.

Objectively:

Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices; based on observable phenomena; presented factually.

I hope this makes my question clear. Please feel free to make further queries if you continue to have problems understanding the above.

You have in any case failed to convince me, as you fell at the first hurdle. You only compare it to other Sonic Youth albums. What I want you to tell me is why this album, as an individual record IN AND OF ITSELF, is worth spending £15 on. I trust that is sufficiently clear.

Not sure its the Rolling Stone so much as one of their staff.

marcello - your tautological use of the adjectives "personal" and "subjective."
i did that on purpose to stress that i only speak for myself. there is a word for that stylistic device but you are right marcello, my english is indeed very poor and i don't remember that word. can you help me?

i didn't want to attack you personally marcello, it is just that the words "objectively and clearly" don't make sense to me concerning the music i like. a record i like is a record i feel towards, a record which sets up emotions in me. therefore sorry that i can't help you. actually i thought your attitude to music was quite similar. i am a little baffled here. i assumed you knew the record and you didn't like it and you wanted to discuss on it on a rational base.

the price is 15 quid in england? i knew england was expensive but that is outrageous.

Or am i misreading your post again? What does what I have obviously missed mean if not that you missed it when listening to the record? Is my English so bad or is your usage of the English language so ambiguous?

If you don't know the record and you find Sonic Youth albums mostly unremarkable then I really advise you not to buy Murray Street. I compared it to Dirty in the car hifi on a trip to Cologne and I came to the conclusion that the punky, varied Dirty is highly superior. Murray Street is a little bit of a bore in comparison.

Right can anyone else APART FROM ALEX tell me what's so good about Murray Street by Sonic Youth without resorting to cliches or comparisons with other Sonic Youth records?

1) Timing: I feel ready to listen to Sonic Youth again. I've lost the fetish for experimentalism that made me disdain them as insufficiently avant-garde for the past several years. It seemed like they were trying too hard to run away from the guitar-based model of indie rock that they had spawned, and as a result dabbling in various "experimental" directions that always had a whiff of dilettantism about them. I could never really take them seriously as high-art modernists. On "Murray Street", it feels like they're not afraid to be Sonic Youth again.

2) Good songs: I like the songs on "Murray Street". For me, stand-outs in particular are "Rain on Tin", "Karen Revisited", and "Sympathy for the Strawberry". I know I should provide more detail here, but I'd have to listen through each song and take notes, I think. I don't have the patience to do it right this second.

3) Feeling: I feel more emotion in this record than I have in a Sonic Youth album for a long time. I like the way Thurston sings on this record - he sounds like a rock singer, like Tom Petty or Neil Young - there is weariness and warmth in his voice. Lee's voice is urgent and biting. Kim's is tough and wistful. All three vocalists turn in first-rate performances.

Anyway, hopefully that's a start.

And what is this thing of not comparing it to other SY records? In your second last post you did it yourself:
why the prospective Sonic Youth fan should buy this instead of "Sister" or "Daydream Nation."

I feel that you want the absolute answer on this. I don't think you will find it here at ILM. Good luck anyways.

A "Road Rules" comp comes in at #35, and Blazing Arrow didn't even break the top 50?

The #1 album of 2002 is an album that came out in 2001? (In fact, at least 4 of those albums have been out since 2001.)

How many of those bands are Swedish? How many of those bands are we gonna actually remember this time next year?

And "Cleaning Out My Closet"!??! Puh-leeze.

So, when does the train for Earth depart?

Is there anyone who is actually a fan of this song? Stupidest choice for a follow-up single in moons...

and while Murray St. still has very long songs, it's a short enough album that you can actually savor each one, and they're mostly worth it. in a way it has a lot of what i like about ATL, without all the fat, or at least with a different kind of flab and less of it. "Rain On Tin" is the best example because it feels kind of like a retread of "Wildflower Soul" but less treacly, and Thurston has the good judgement to stop singing after only a few bars, which somehow renders it not oh-no-a-long-SY-instrumental while bringing some great Sonic jams in there. i mean the 7+ minutes without vocals are more tightly constructed and well-written than most of the songs they've written with singing throughout, and it works great (ESPECIALLY live...i didn't really care for "Rain" at all til the tour came around).

in the end it's still about as hit'n'miss as any other SY album (although the margin between the good and bad isn't as thick as it often is...not wild about the Kim songs, but after i got over the horrible Britney pun, i started to enjoy them), but it's still pretty strong and holds together all the way through way better than almost any of their albums, even if most of them are overall superior (but usually more fractured and ineffective as 'albums'...i mean, Dirty definitely has a handful of their greatest moments ever, but buried among 15 poorly sequenced tracks). so i wouldn't rate it up there with their very very best, but it would probably be somewhere near my top 5 SY albums, if not in it, and i'd say it's a worthwhile point of re-entry for those who dropped out circa Washing Machine or even Goo.

The bandwagon has effectively killed the swan song.

Hype = 1
Music = 0

I absolutely agree. "Po Folks" seems to completely outshine it to me, although "Awnaw" is still great.

I think there were either 4 or 5 better Eminem songs played on the radio than "Cleanin Out My Closet".

i don't know who mentioned that spin always gives the obvious album of the year the second slot, but i've notice that specifically with radiohead. Spin has yet to give them the album of the year nod. In '97, OK Computer was second to Cornershop's When I Born for the 7th Time. In 2000, album of the year was "Your Hard Drive," with Kid in second. And Toxicity beat out Amnesiac last year. It's interesting.

Anyway, I'm baffled by all the 2001 inclusions on there (White Stripes, Felix da Housecat, SFA and the YYY's EP), whatever the excuse. Were their fact-checkers asleep? Is it a veiled commentary that in their eyes '02 was a bad year for music? Or a less-veiled admission that they've given up on keeping track?

Also the breathless/drooling profile on the Strokes is hard to take, even though I guess I like those kids OK.

i don't know why he would say that. i don't understand. the world isn't fair, i guess. it really isn't. it's a big, depressing joke.