prev | list | next
Sean Carruthers's Chugchanga-L Poll 2001 Entry
Sorry this is so last minute. Most of it will be useless for the rankings, I'd imagine, but it was a phenomenal year for reissues and compilations of older material....almost better than most of the new material, sadly. Maybe that's a sign that I'm ready to be put out to pasture, but man were some of the reissues well-done (the Rhino ones especially). The new stuff is in order of my taste, but the reissues and compilations are just in the order I typed them. I know you only asked for 20, but I had 30 that I thought deserved ranking...just lop off 21-30 if you need to, for the official rankings.
2001 new releases:
1. Fugazi The Argument/Furniture EP (Dischord)
Hardcore's heroes tried something different this time out...singing, and it turns out to be one of the best albums they've done, and the companion EP is a good old-skool blasteroo.
2. The Constantines The Constantines (Three Gut)
Great power, great guitar crunch, great lyrics.--what Fugazi might sound like if they were Canadian...so help me, I was in a Fugazi mood this year.
3. Gorky's Zygotic Mynci How I Long to Feel That Summer In My Heart (Mantra)
Welsh weirdos grow up and single lovely love songs glorious pop music, and what of it?
4. Ryan Adams Gold (Lost Highway/Universal)
Initially disappointing, this one was a major grower, especially the bonus disc; so he's not the reincarnation of Gram...so what? It's just a good solid rock and roll record.
5. Mogwai Rock Action/My Father My King EP (Matador)
Another LP/EP tag-team entry into my top 30, Mogwai also tries something different this time out...singing, and though they brought in other people to do that for them, it still works out. The EP is a good fix for those who loved the classick instrumental guitar-swell symphony style Mogwai
6. Super Furry Animals Rings Around the World (Epic/Sony)
Another grower, this one took a while to work its charms...chuck out the single "Juxtapoze" and you've got a great album that's nearly perfect....keep it in, and it's still a solid #6.
7. The Chickens Prepare to Plug In (Eggs-cellent)
SURPRISE LEFT-FIELD SMASH! Punk rock energy whacks you upside the head with raw rock and roll tunes, and not even one of them thar tunes is weak! Wowzers!
8. Rheostatics Night of the Shooting Stars (Perimeter/Universal)
Canada's best band turn in a very goodeffort, though maybe a bit too polished and conservative this time out, and it wanders a bit in the middle; still, the great songs here are super-great, like "Mumbletypeg".
9. Weezer Weezer 2001 (Geffen)
Short, sweet, and full of great power pop tunes, just like it was Weezer 1994 all over again.
10. Kurt Swinghammer Black-Eyed Sue (Cultural Engineering)
Kurt plays it mostly straight throughout this song cycle of a long-gone relationship, and it plays beautifully, with a lot of poignant numbers cut with great pop songs, all with a good sense of humour.
11. The Strokes Is This It (RCA/BMG)
Don't let the hype fool you, and ignore all of the rabid panting about how the band is just like Television, or what have you...it's just a good solid rock album, no matter what year or era it's reminiscent of.
12. Laurie Anderson Life on a String (Nonesuch/Warner)
Maybe it's not as good as I think, but I have personal reasons for thinking so highly of this album; mind you, the songs still sound great out of the original context that made me like them, and the musicians with her this time out are all top-notch, so I won't rethink this too much.
13. Matmos A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure (Matador)
How can you NOT like an album with a song based around the absolutely disgusting suction and bone-breaking noises taken from plastic surgery sessions?
14. Luke Doucet Aloha, Manitoba (Six-Shooter)
Another surprise left-fielder, great songs and a great voice, and I'm not letting the fact that I'm from Manitoba push this one up the rankings...well, not much.
15. Old 97s Satellite Rides (Elektra)
So they ditched the country and opted for a good pop sound instead, and it works wayyyy more often than not. A friend whose musical tastes I usually trust absolutely loathes this record, but I just chalk it up to him being a poopyhead this time.
16. Jim O'Rourke Insignificance (Drag City)
Who knew the big-ass RIFFORAMA could be such fun?
17. Superchunk Here's to Shutting Up (Merge)
The edges here sound a bit sanded off, and they try something a bit different this time out...singing; only thing is, singing doesn't work so well for Superchunk. Still a very good outing, though.
18. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds No More Shall we Part (Mute)
Not the stunning disappointment that a lot of people claim it to be, this album holds a really perverse fascination for me just for the inclusion of the McGarrigles on backup vocals; still, it isn't up to his usual standards, and when I bought it I was virtually certain it would be in the top 5 for the year...alas.
19. Tortoise Standards (Thrill Jockey)
Speaking of standards...it's a good album. Again, previous years may have shown them further up the list, like Cave, but it's not an embarrassment.
20. Barry Adamson + Pan Sonic Motorlab #3 (Kitchen Motors)
Too slight to be higher on the list, this collaboration is interesting, complete with choir and Hafler Trio remix...a much longer work would probably have been more satisfying.
21. Labradford Fixed::Content (Kranky)
My introduction to the band, and enough to make me go searching for the back catalogue; this one would have been higher except for the fact that the ear-piercing noises found in parts of this album bug me.
22. Papa M Whatever, Mortal (Drag City)
Since Nick Cave has eased off on the literary menace, someone has to pick up the slack, and Johnny Dowd's album this year just didn't fit the bill.
23. Stars of the Lid The Tired Sounds of... (Kranky)
I love drone-based music, and this one really fits the bill, and gives you a LOT of it. It doesn't draw me in the way I wish it would, though, which leaves it a bit further down the list.
24. Unwound Leaves Turn Inside You (Kill Rock Stars)
When everything is said and done, this may be a lot closer to the top of the list, but based on a few listens, this one is a keeper, and probably a grower. I wish I'd heard it more before having to slot it in here, but I just got it last week.
25. Ladytron 604 (Emperor Norton)
Yeah, so it's kind of dumb, and yeah, they really rip off Kraftwerk a lot, but you know what? I don't care. It's fun, and we all needed a bit more fun this past year than we ended up getting, all things considered.
26. Orbital The Altogether (FFRR)
Not the greatest Orbital album to come down the chute, and you could probably nail them for yet another cover of an old TV series, if it wasn't for the fact that it was pretty darned good.
27. Gillian Welch Time (the Revelator) (Acony)
I don't know what a revelator is either, but Welch's first album after being busted back down to the indies is quite good, if not quite as harrowing as the ones she put out on the majors...weird, that.
28. Joel Plaskett Emergency Down at the Khyber (Brobdingnagian)
Essentially a solo album from the former Thrush Hermit, it's a fairly straight-forward crunchy rock album soaked through with worship of Ardent bands.
29. Flashing Lights Sweet Release (Flashing Lights Company/Outside)
Though people often point to Sloan as one of Canada's great pop lights, it's really the Flashing Lights who are holding the torch, if you'll excuse the mixed-up analogy.
30. Raising the Fawn Raising the Fawn (Fawn)
Lo-fi, but intimate and bittersweet. Best four-track recording I've heard in a long time.
Hovering under:
A Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upwards (Constellation)
Fun to listen to, but I don't know what kind of staying power it'll have in my rotation.
Beachwood Sparks Once We Were Trees (Sub Pop)
It sounded great at the store, but it just doesn't grab me as much at home, sounded just a bit too ragged, and not in a charming way.
Pernice Brothers The World Won't End (Ashmont)
It also sounded great at the store, and the first few tracks are exceptional...but they all start to blend into each other by the end, and it's not ragged enough. A bit too slick, overall.
Cowboy Junkies Open (Latent/Rounder)
Could have been a bit higher if I was in a different mood this year, but it just comes off a bit too cold for my taste this time around.
Great Big Stinky Disappointments:
Spiritualized Let it Come Down (Arista)
Don't get me wrong, the great moments here are truly amazing, but there's just too much over-the-top bombast that this turns into a huge self-parody. "Do It All Over Again" goes on far too long, to name just one unforgivable offense.
Jay Farrar Sebastopol (Artemis)
Not actively BAD, but just extremely disappointing, because Jay's capable of so much more. I found the eastern-sounding stuff a bit embarrassing, too.
Tricky Woo Les Sables Magiques (Sonic Unyon)
These guys have put out more than one EXCEPTIONALLY ROCKING album, whereas parts of this sound like the Partridge Family. It's well-played, but it dips a bit too deeply into the early 70s worship to rank with their best.
Copyright The Hidden World (ViK/BMG)
Parts of the album are quite good and quite rocking, but I have to admit that lines like "like a careless faggot, I don't care where I eat" don't really impress me all that much, and tend to distract from the whole.
New Order Get Ready (London)
Return to form my ass. It's an okay album, sure, but okay only goes so far for a band with New Order's legacy to live up to. It's good to hear Hooky a bit higher in the mix again, but c'mon...let's have some tunes next time.
Lucinda Williams Essence (Lost Highway/Universal)
Coming off an album as great as Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, almost anything would have come across as a disappointment. I respect her intent to release the album that she wanted to, to please herself, and not to try to intentionally top the last one. But I don't really want to listen to this one as much, either.
Hawksley Workman - (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves (Isadora/Universal)
Hawksley's independent debut was really impressive, with great lyrics, a twisted sensibility, and an amazing voice that soared in and out of falsetto as easily as other people can speak. This one, though, starts with a great big stinky turd called "Striptease", which strips away virtually everything that made Hawksley likable in the first place, and follows it with the amazingly unsubtle "Jealous of Your Cigarette". It's a devastating one-two punch that makes it tough for the rest of the album to recover, even with amazing tracks like "Your Beauty Must Be Rubbing Off" in the mix. Ouch.
The Goddamn Music Industry and their Copy Protection Schemes (all the majors)
So I'm an MP3 fan...when I get new music, I tend to burn it straight to MP3 and upload it to my Nomad Jukebox, because my apartment is so small I need to keep the CDs filed and as tidy as possible. The idea that the record labels, who have already forced us to pay a levy on all blank media no matter what we're using it for, are now trying to tell us that we can't even make MP3 files for our own use on our own players, by completely disabling the ability of these corrupted CDs to even be recognized by most PC CD drives...well, that's just arrogant. What if my only CD player was the one on my PC? What if I don't have a full stereo setup at work, but I want to listen to my CDs there? It's an ugly trend, and goddamn Einsturzende Neubauten for picking up on it with the release of Berlin Babylon (and goddamn them for "joking" about it on the back cover of the Strategies III release).
Reissues (the ones I have, not necessarily the whole series):
Firesign Theatre Waiting for the Electrician..., Don't Crush That Dwarf Hand Me the Pliers, I Think We're All Bozos on this Bus (Sony/Legacy)
Ramones Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket to Russia, Road to Ruin
Blondie Blondie, Parallel Lines, Eat to the Beat
X Los Angeles, Wild Gift, Under the Big Black Sun
T. Rex Electric Warrior
Stranglers No More Heroes
Soft Boys Underwater Moonlight
Marvin Gaye What's Going On (deluxe)
Love and Rockets Seventh Dream of Teenage Heave, Express
Neu! Neu!, Neu ! 2, Neu! 75
Shuggie Otis Inspiration Information
Dream Syndicate Days of Wine and Roses
Abba The Visitors, Super Trouper, Voulez Vous, Abba, Arrival, etc
Bob Marley Catch a Fire (deluxe), Exodus (deluxe)
Miles Davis At Newport 1958, Round About Midnight, The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions
XTC White Music, Go 2, Drums and Wires, Black Sea, English Settlement, Mummer, The Big Express, Skylarking, Oranges and Lemons, Nonesuch (paper sleeves, Japanese imports)
King Crimson Discipline, Beat, Three of a Perfect Pair (paper sleeves, limited edition)
George Harrison All Things Must Pass
Compilations:
Plunderphonics 69 Plunderphonics 96 (box)
Various Nuggets vol II (box)
Echo and the Bunnymen Crystal Days (box)
Various 25 Years of Rough Trade Shops (box)
Negativland These Guys are from England and Who Gives a Shit
Einstuerzende Neubauten Strategies III
Cabaret Voltaire The Original Sound of Sheffield, Conform to Deform (box)
Jane Siberry - City
Colourbox Best of 82/87
Cure Greatest Hits (if only for the acoustic disc)
Gram Parsons Sacred Hears and Fallen Angels
Tim Buckley Morning Glory
Emmylou Harris The Warner / Reprise Years
prev | list | next