The New Yorker's favorite records of 2002

But that Annie Proulx story in last week's issue kicked my ass.

Again this is not a knock on you -- I'm the guy who's always defending NPR's safe-as-milk music choices, remember. It's just that the New Yorker's readership wasn't always perceived as a demographic so timid that the most challenging music they'd be thought capable of digesting would be Missy Elliot. At the very least I'd expect them not to call Sea Change good.

(in the final analysis this is mainly just leftover anti-Tina Brown rage, prob'ly)

Yeah, but Remnick kicks ass!

I think these choices are safe but not awful (though I don't like the Beck). Again, their audience probably has adventurous literary tastes but musically, goes for the Nonesuch-style of stuff (coffee-table releases, elaborate packaging, nice, digestable recordings of exotica/well-produced rock and pop).

To turn it around, I'm sure there are a lot of stonecold music snobs out there who haven't read anything other than A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius or Fast Food Nation in the past few months ...

Wha?

/suzy

http://hem.bredband.net/vonaxe/images/01_jpg.jpg

Yet another stoner rock band. I first heard them on a mix tape a friend made me. Loud, raw, brutal, etc.

http://hem.bredband.net/vonaxe/

minus the "x" of course so as not to give the game away

I haven't actually heard the album, so I'm not disagreeing with you at all Jody, however my suspicion is that the reason Orchestre Baobab's NEW album (Specialist In All Styles) has been appearing on so many of these lists is because Pirate's Choice IS good (or at least superior) but is a re-release; so people couldn't vote for that one as a "Best Of 2002" but still wanted to include (as a you say) a token World Music album....

"Willfully against the grain as ever, the Queens of the Stone Age titled this loose concept album SONGS FOR THE DEAF as an ironic mission statement, for who was really going to hear it in a world ruled by homogenized teen pop and gormless rap-metal? Once lazily tagged the leaders of "stoner rock," this irreverent guitar-wielding collective shake off the tag on their third album, seamlessly fusing the brute force of heavy metal with the adrenalized velocity of Punk Rock via more hook-laden riffs than you can shake a fist at. While still centered around core duo of guitarist Josh Homme (ex-Kyuss) and bassist Nick Oliveri (ex-Dwarves), this incarnation of the Queens recruits ex-Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan and boasts a secret weapon in powerhouse drummer and erstwhile Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, reprising that role from his days in Nirvana. Between snippets of radio gibberish lampooning the staid state of today's top 40, SONGS FOR THE DEAF fluctuates between pummeling rock'n'roll wallop and sprawling narcotic psychedelia, yet never loses its melodic accessibility and stubborn pop undertow. Smart, seductive and subversive, SONGS FOR THE DEAF is inarguably the finest recorded document this year to legitimately dub itself a ROCK record."

10) Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen

9) Chaiyya Chaiyya, A. R. Rahman

8) Believe, Cher

7) Reetu Haruma Timi, Arun Thapa

6) Ana wa Laila, Kazem al-Saher

5) Pooyum Nadakkuthu Pinchum Nadakkuthu, Thirumalai Chandran

4) Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu, Ilayaraja

3) Dil Dil Pakistan, Vital Signs

2) Vande Mataram, various artists

1) A Nation Once Again, The Wolfe Tones