Best Albums 2001 (16-20)

20. Clinic — Internal Wrangler Never quite got the love for these icy Liverpudlians–from their surgical masks’ imposed anonymity to Ade Blackburn’s impenetrable bray, their sub-Brechtian barriers to emotional identification worked all too well with me. No mystery to their appeal, though. Just as the Ramones stripped rock ‘n’ roll of a couple decades’ cumulative [...]

one last thing

While I’m gone, feel free to introduce urselves in the comments.

oh, hey . . .

MN Bar Exam is tomorrow and Wednesday, so no posts this week. More 2001 albums over the weekend, and then back to 2001 singles on 3/1.

Best Albums 2001 (21-25)

25. Jay-Z — The Blueprint “If I ain’t better than B.I.G./ I’m the closest one”–uh, if heads insist, though notice he didn’t drop that line on the Eminem track. But really, doesn’t anyone else wish the greatest MC of our time was a little more, I don’t know, engaging? Biggie covered more emotional ground in [...]

Jay-Z – “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”

Released: 6.22.01 Peak: #8 Few pop stars grow more likeable with fame–typically their aggregation of arrogance undercuts their appeal. But arrogance was integral to Jay-Z’s appeal from the jump, and his aesthetic project has been to endear a wider audience to that ego, even as his noblesse distaste with drug-game grubbiness solidified his thug cred. [...]

The Shins – “New Slang”

Released: 6.9.01 Peak: Did not chart How cloying, we clucked, how earnest, for Natalie Portman to claim that a silly little indie-pop tune could “change your life.” By which we meant, of course, how unenlightened of that elfin naïf to suggest that a band as ordinary as the Shins could do that. Maybe if her [...]

Petey Pablo – “Raise Up”

Released: 5.22.01 Peak: #25 When it comes to hometown pride, hip-hop’s always talked a good game, even if plenty of MCs’ local chauvinism seemed an excuse to slug it out over turf with some equally provincial rivals. Petey Pablo doesn’t drop a lot of local color into his rhymes, aside from a prodigious list of [...]

City High – “What Would You Do?”

Released: 5.1.01 Peak: #8 City High could have been custom-designed for me. I’ve always gone on about the idea of pop as conversation, of disparate voices–male and female, black and white, young and younger–articulating their prerogatives wrt sex and money and personal identity. And these three Wyclef-shepherded teens vented, ever so slightly, the judgmental morality-play [...]

Blu Cantrell – “Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops)”

Released: 4.24.01 Peak: #2 If nothing else, I hope this list proves what an incredible moment for female R&B the earliest sliver of the decade was. From sassy kiss-offs like Sunshine Anderson’s “Heard It All Before” and Olivia’s “Bizounce,” to all-purpose assertions of simulated self like Mya’s “Free,” Lil Mo’s “Superwoman,” or Nivea’s “Don’t Touch [...]

Babyface – “There She Goes”

Released: 4.17.01 Peak: #31 When it comes to the Neptunes, I’m agnostic if not apostate. Something in the snide assurance of their mastery rankles–when they team with Jay-Z on a track like “I Just Wanna Luv U (Give It 2 Me),” the ‘Tunes’ tunes come off as shiny and cold and well-designed as the fender [...]