make predictions about what will be in/win magazines' end of year polls - 2003...

usual suspects.

And the OutKast record. That'll probably win the album of the year Grammy.

Crooked Fingers * Red Devil Dawn (Merge)
John Cale * Hobosapiens (EMI)
The Dears * No Cities Left (Grenadine)
Death Cab For Cutie * Transalanticism (Barsuk)
Neil Michael Hagerty * The Hex (Drag City)
Erase Errata * At Crystal Palace (Blast First)
Goldfrapp * Black Cherry (Mute)
Ex Models * Zoo Psychology (Frenchkiss)
Natacha Atlas * Something Dangerous (Mantra)
Amy Rigby * Til The Wheels Fall Off (Signature)
David Sylvian * Blemish (Samadhisound)
Athlete * Vehicles & Animals (EMI)
Prince Paul * Politics of the Business (Razor & Tie)
The Kills * Keep On Your Mean Side (Rough Trade)
Atmosphere * Seven's Travels (Epitaph)
Clearlake * Cedars (Domino)
Chris Lee * Cool Rock (Misra)
The Gossip * Movement (Kill Rock Stars)
The Watchers * To The Rooftops (Gern Blandsten)
The Go Betweens * Bright Yellow, Bright Orange (Circus)
Massive Attack * 100th Window (Virgin)
The Sea And Cake * One Bedroom (Thrill Jockey)
Entombed * Inferno (Koch)
Susheela Raman * Love Trap (Narada)]
Subarachnoid Space * Also Rising (Strange Attractors)
Karsh Kale * Liberation (Six Degrees)
Deerhoof * Apple O' (Kill Rock Stars)
Mariza * Fado Curvo (Times Square)
Killing Joke (Pilot)
Tomahawk * Mit Gas (Ipecac)
Dinky * Black Cabaret (Carpark)
Richard Hawley * Lowedges (Setanta)
Mr. Quintron * Are You Ready For An Organ Solo (Three-One-G)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds * Nocturama (Mute)
Califone * Quicksand/Cradlesnakes (Thrill Jockey)
Mojave 3 * Spoon And Rafter (4AD)
Iggy Pop * Skull Ring (Virgin)
Whirlwind Heat * Do Rabbits Wonder (V2)
Turnerjoy * Transplant (Mohofusu)
My Morning Jacket * It Still Moves (ATO/RCA)
Black Box Recorder * Passionoia (One Little Indian)
Spiritualized * Amazing Grace (Sanctuary Records)
The Party Of Helicopters * Please Believe It (Velocette)
Thea Gilmore * Avalanche (Compass)
Saturday Looks Good To Me * All Your Summer Songs (Polyvinyl)
Tokyo Sex Destruction * Le Red Soul Comunnitte (10 Points Program) (Dim Mak)
Nataraj XT * Ocean Birds (Nu Tone)
Fruit Bats * Mouthfuls (Sub Pop)
Angels of Light * Everything Is Good Here/Please Come (Young God)
Minus 5 * Down with Wilco (Yep Roc)
Grandaddy * Sumday (V2)
The Decemberists * Her Majesty, The Decemberists (Kill Rock Stars)
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks * Pig Lib (Matador)
Andrew Bird * Weather Systems EP (Grimsey)
Azita * Enantiodromia (Drag City)
Gang Starr * Ownerz (Virgin)
Buzzcocks (Merge)
Kings Of Leon * Youth And Young Manhood (RCA)
A.R.E. Weapons (Rough Trade)
Smog * Dinner (Drag City)
Drive-By Truckers * Decoration Day (Lost Highway)
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club * Take Them On, On Your Own (Virgin)
Matt Eliott * The Mess We Made (Merge)
Momus * Oskar Tennis Champion (American Patchwork)
Adult. * Anxiety Always (Ersatz Audio)
Throwing Muses (4AD)
Rainer Maria * Long Knives Drawn (Polyvinyl)
Bonnie Prince Billie * Master And Everyone (Palace)
Black Eyes (Dischord)
Cul de Sac * Death To The Sun (Strange Attractors Audio House)
Loose Fur (Drag City)
Audio Bullys * Ego War (Astralwerks)
The Blood Brothers * Burn, Piano Island, Burn (ArtistDirect)
The American Analog Set * Promise of Love (Tiger Style)
The Aislers Set * How I Learned To Write Backwards (Suicide)
Cave In * Antenna (RCA)
Kinski * Airs Above Your Station (Strange Attractors Audio House/Sub Pop)
Evan Dando * Baby I'm Bored (Bar None)
DJ Tiga * DJ Kicks (!K7)
Shipping News * Three-Four (Touch & Go)
Maria McKee * High Dive (Viewfinder)
Blur * Think Tank (Virgin)
Vue * Down For Whatever (RCA)
Sloan * Action Pact (Vik)
Frankie Sparo * Welcome Crummy Mystics (Constellation)
Kristin Hersh * The Grotto (4ad)
Caitlin Cary * I'm Staying Out (Yep Roc)
The Lonesome Organist * Forms & Follies (Thrill Jockey)
Deftones (Maverick)
South * With The Tides (Kinetic)
Jayhawks * Rainy Day Music (Lost Highway)
Ween * Quebec (Sanctuary)
The People Involved (People Involved)
The Cramps * Fiends Of Dope Island (Vengeance)
A.F.I. * Sing The Sorrow (DreamWorks)

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf900/f955/f95558bm0s5.jpg

...which I think is a surprise of the most pleasant variety. Also in the Top 10 is Cat Power - again, goodstuff.

ha, I assume this isn't coincidental. ;)

Outkast
Basement Jaxx
that Led Zep live album
Radiohead
The New Pornographers
White Stripes
Beyonce

Geir has another avatar far more worthy of that distinction.

I'd like to see a lot more raving press about Aesop Rock's record, but it seems too angular to be singularly praised.

ps. yo matos!

Woohoo! Japanese secret bonus track required!

Actually, the real sticking point is the whole "no no, El only produced one track, I did the first six, and it is just a coincidence that I, too, chose the path of drunken horns and Vangelis Blade Runner synths" sound. I mean, when the beats work, then great, and I like how all the Jukies hang out in the same brownstone indie-rap bunker and learn from each other and swap ideas and shit, but if this is the first sign of a "signature label sound" that will eventually become Neptunian in its exhaustion then oh no oh shit.

Geeta, how do you feel about banning the terms "chamber-pop" and "Beach Boys" for a year?

Ha ha Mitch I was thinking of bringing up Since I Left You too (especially the bit with the bassline from "Holiday") but I pheared that it would be a huge invitation for Chris and Rollie to miss the point again.

Rollie's position wrt to sampling is the very essence of Mark S's reformulation of "rockism" - wherein the problem with such a position is that it ultimately undermines the fundamental elements of the style it seeks to defend. Just as rockist approach wrt rock music impliedly casts rock as inferior to classical/jazz etc, Rollie's demand for new/obscure samples adopts the same line of thinking which considers the act of sampling itself to be inherently uncreative; after all, the act of sampling is fundamentally about using bits of music that already exist, both materially and in the memory of music listeners.

As ddrake points out, Timbaland/Missy's new-found love of sampling is a direct corollary to their emphasis on unusual production approaches. Like the other factors which tend to induce a return to sampling (new genre, new technology, new performance style), their old skoolism is all about recontextualising the old within the context of the new. I don't think it's really feasible to maintain that tracks like "Gossip Folks" or "Play That Beat" or even "Bring The Pain" sound the same as the tracks they're referencing.

Obv. we can boil this whole argument down to whether you choose to care about which samples are being used or what's being done with (and against, and around, and alongside) them. In my opinion, discussing Missy entirely in terms of which samples she uses is the equivalent of pointing at someone in the street and saying "Oh my God, did you realise that underneath your clothes you're entirely naked!?!"

"Still, I see what you say about the purpose of Under Construction. But what's the point of her seemingly taking the same approach with this new album? Or Timbaland with his and Magoo's Under Construction 2 album?"

The tracks I've heard from Under Construction 2 seem to run the gamut of Timbaland's styles - Indian, electro-bass etc. Retro is just another style he can throw into the ring. Meanwhile the tracks I've heard from This is not a Test (which is not many, and then only once) don't seem explicitly old-skool so much as deliberately raw and unpolished: lots of enormous farting bass and really chunky beats, it's actually kinda unplaceable, like EPMD meets Public Enemy meets current crunk (and this is ignoring the obvious example of "Pass That Dutch", which stills more from the Diwali riddim than anything else)*. I'm not sure if the point is really "retro" anymore so much as loud, obnoxious club music. I suspect that Missy wants to downplay the production skillzor side of the equation in order to focus attention on her (increasingly surrealistic/silly) MCing, ie. continuing the process that began with "Work It". Certainly she seems to be moving away from the R&B side of things; whereas before she pitched herself between Lil Kim and Aaliyah now she seems to be pitching herself between Fatman Scoop and Busta Rhymes.

* I have to assume that you guys would absolutely detest Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Welcome Home" - that's like fifth-hand pillaging going on!

So how about, say, Soho's "Hippy Chick" or Credit To The Nation's "Call It What You Want" then? Smacks of lazy bandwagon-jumping tokenism from where I'm sat.

Uh, quite.

I love "Hippy Chick"! Top tune!

Picking up from what Tim was saying, has Missy become a much better MC since 'Miss E', or is it me? The rhymes on 'Work It' and 'Pass That Dutch' are more interesting than 'Get Ur Freak On' by a long shot.

Probably yes - but I agree with Matos that this doesn't necessarily make the records better. Perhaps "Get Ur Freak On" and "Lick Shots" work as great pop records because Missy knew she wasn't a brilliant MC and realised she had to compensate for that in other ways. Like, the problem with "Pass That Dutch" is that Missy evidently thinks she's good enough to get away with releasing a first single without a chorus.

I'll also be really sad if she does abandon R&B, as I possibly prefer her in R&B mode - "Sock It 2 Me", "Sticking Chickens", "We Did It", "One Minute Man", "Play That Beat" etc. etc.

I agree, but the fact that there's no chorus *and* the groove is so tuneless (I don't mean that negatively) mean that it doesn't really stick in the head the way "Work It" or "Get Ur Freak On" did.

I suspect that This Is Not A Test might be the Da Real World to Under Construction's Supa Dupa Fly.

Tim, I thought ODB's 'Welcome Home' track was kind of uninspired. An obvious rush job, nothing really notable about it. I remember being glad that he still had the delivery going, but that's about it.

g--ff, there's a difference between a rock song being loose and unrestricted and a rap song being sloppily produced. This isn't my main argument.

I'm saying, why can't artists evoke previous musics while still utilizing their own outlets? This is why I feel like Under Construction is a boring nod to the past and something like Paul's Boutique winks at it's forefathers while still remaining almost fully forward-thinking and original.

Saying "Bring The Pain" on Under Construction isn't simply a rehash is strange to me. New lyrics, yes, different mood, yes, but how is it such a forward step? What influence is this giving? As long as I have the original artist on the track, it's cool for me to take the frame of a song. Excuse me while I call Sadat X about jumping punks and beatdowns. We have a hit to make.

Your choice of sampling is just a personal preference thing anyway: I prefer El-P freaking "Mexican Radio" by Wall of Voodoo for Cannibal Ox over someone building on top of "Paul Revere", regardless of how funky it is or what nostalgia is promotes. I'm not saying such uncreativity is wholly unenjoyable, I'm saying I like other methods more.

Fine, you like other methods more, but your subjective preference doesn't make El-P objectively creative and Timbaland/Missy objectively uncreative.

needless to say, the Sterling-Tim-Geeta front is OTM throughout this thread.

*sniff*

Radiohead has never been "African" in any way. But they, like all other bands, are best when they create melodies with verse and chorus, not just a phrase or two that are repeated endlessly. Repetition and minimalism always bores the listener.

Geir, this is really, really, really untrue if the listener is me.
Thus, it is untrue.

i'm really stumbling tho with the 'with you in that dress/my thoughts i confess/verge on dirty' bit

Miles Davis & Beethoven both strongly disagree with this statement.

Dorinne Muraille Mani (Fat Cat)
The Books The Lemon of Pink (Tomlab)
Matmos The Civil War (Matador)
Nathan Michel Dear Bicycle (Tigerbeat 6)
Colleen Everyone alive wants answers (Leaf)
Gal Hinaus:: In den, Wald. (CD-R / radio))
Lullatone Computer Recital (Audio Dregs)
Anne Laplantine Hambourg
Robert Wyatt Cuckooland (Hannibal)
David Sylvian Blemish (Samadhisound)

Can someone please tell me some more about this band? The internet doesn't know shit, but "Motherless Bastard" (I think it's called) is fab.