VALEDICTORIAN
OutKast
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
(LaFace)
Ambitious double-albums have become commonplace
in hip-hop, but Speakerboxxx/The Love Below shares a lot more
with post-masterpiece, go-for-broke experimental overloads
like The White Album (which is much harder to dance to), Songs
in the Key of Life (which is much harder to make love to),
Sandinista! (which has far fewer hooks) and Sign ‘O’
the Times (which The Love Below practically is). Which means
that even while the filler is at least inspired and listenable
(and the best, Andre 3000’s prayer, “God,”
is the first LOL album skit in recent memory), you probably
won’t sit all the way through it more than once or twice
in your lifetime. |
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But you can still upload the good
stuff onto your iPod and have 20 of the 40 best hip-hop tracks of
the year, with a handful of masterpieces to booty. “Ghetto
Musick,” regrettably the only Big Boi/Dre tag team match,
makes the Pixies seem lethargic with a seamless clash of Baghdad
bombing and ATL cruising; and everyone from Thom Yorke to my best
friend’s podiatrist seems to agree that “Hey Ya!”
is the song of the year- though I would add that it belongs on the
Lessons in Perfect 3-Minute Pop mixtape between “(Sittin’
on) The Dock of the Bay” and “Blitzkrieg Bop.”
Yet for all the 808 techno, mariachi horns and P-Funk freak-outs,
these two solo records are best summed up on Andre’s performance
in the slow love jam “Pink and Blue.” Like Stankonia’s
wiser older brother with little brother’s boyish charm, he
seduces Claire Huxtable’s doppelganger by asking “Why
don’t you show me something new?/We’re all just babies
in my view,” then ga-ga-goo-goos the sexiest baby talk ever
recorded. Both Speakerboxxx and The Love Below possess this blend
of extra-terrestrial philosophy and infantile (I mean that as a
compliment) sense of curiosity, two things mainstream hip-hop (well,
music in general, but especially hip-hop) avoids like the plague.
An astonishing artistic trial separation for Dre and Big Boi, but
let’s just hope it ends in reconciliation.
SAULTATORIAN
The
White Stripes
Elephant
(V2)
The “Popular” kids finally
appreciated how cool Jack n’ Meg were and elected them
King n’ Queen of this year’s Rock n’ Roll
High School Prom, while cred-cravin’ hipster geeks applauded
half-heartedly from the back of the cafeteria and snickered,
“They were way better on De Stijl.” Of course
this only proves that indie rock’s player-haters are
even more fickle than hip-hop’s, and that they’re
just as susceptible to hype-a-ganda as teenyboppers, trained
to respond with nitpicky backlash instead of excessive adoration.
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With Elephant, Platinum-Selling/Grammy®-Nominated/Corporate-Music-Rag-Hags
The White Stripes painted big red bull’s-eyes on their vintage
white indie-cred T-shirts and still made the classic rock album
of the year. Enchantingly wicked as ever, they’ve simply Technicolored
their Grimm Fairy Tale world of innocence, peppermints, black hearts
and blood-stained butcher knives without Disney-fying it, which
is all fans of White Blood Cells could ask for. Who needs grandiose
innovation when Jack can still pyrolyze his axe when he chooses
to (even if he’s far from the 17th best guitarist of all time),
he can still sing lyrics like “Girl, you have no faith in
medicine!” with eerie conviction, and Meg can still crush
skyscrapers like a Motor City She-Hulk?
HONOR
ROLL
The
Unicorns
Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? (Alien8 Recordings)
Like their spiritual brethren Ween and The Flaming Lips, The
Unicorns have a gift for surreal humor, playful experimentation
and otherworldly melody that borders on divine intervention.
Yet as this Montreal trio spit out great hook after great
hook, they rarely need to repeat themselves; nearly each section
of these 13 tracks segues/swerves into a new mini-psychedelic-pop
epiphany. And even with the Tenaciously ironic mythologizing
and cosmic joking, a genuine vulnerability shines through
to humanize it all.
The
New Pornographers
Electric Version (Matador)
Carl Newman and Daniel Bejar’s scholarly songwriting,
Kurt Dahle’s commanding rhythms, and Neko Case’s
incandescently sexy harmonies put the POW! in modern power
pop. After The New Pornographers, The Unicorns, and Godspeed
You! Black Emperor, Canadian rock is officially forgiven for
Rush.
Jay-Z
The Black Album (Roc-A-Fella)
Just as brilliant, yet simultaneously more concise and self-indulgent
than Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is Jay-Z’s This is
My Life, Now Enjoy Every Minute of It ‘Cause Y’all
Gonna Miss Me After This Publicity Stunt. I still break my
neck to The Black Album at least once a day, but Jay, how
can we even start to miss you when you promise to “come
back wearin’ the 4-5” by track 3?
The
Coral
“The Coral” (Deltasonic)
Most of them couldn’t legally buy booze in the States,
but these kids sound like they recorded this album after sailing
and slumming around the British Isles since the 18th century.
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