The No Ripcord Years: 2001-2002 (NR10)
As part of our tenth birthday celebrations, I asked the current crop of No Ripcord writers to contribute a few words on some of their favourite records of the last ten years. This is not intended to be a definitive look at the last decade; think of it instead as a space for all of us to remember some of the great music of the period and to promote a few unfairly neglected efforts. Perhaps at some point down the line we’ll do a best of decade feature – this is not it.
Please use the comments space to discuss some of the music you remember from 2001 and 2002. Reflections on overlooked gems and undisputed classics are equally welcome.
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2001
Radiohead continue to amaze and a bunch of posh New Yorkers take over the world for a few crazy months.
Fugazi: The Argument
The perfect end to a perfect discography, Fugazi’s last album, The Argument, probably doesn’t receive as much attention as it should. While it maintains the funk and sincerity of their previous work, The Argument is a confident effort, taking no real noticeable leaps forward in terms of experimentation or evolution but remarkably assured of its decisions. It’s a solid and flawless album, happy to cross the finish line and look back with no regrets, same as the band whose hands brought The Argument to life. (Sean Caldwell)
Bob Dylan: Love and Theft
You’ve got to love it when the greatest spokesman in modern music history (he might disagree that he’s a spokesman, but he is, whether he likes it or not) decides to just throw his problems to the wind and have some good old fashioned fun for a change. Love and Theft is a classic fun record. Po’ Boy is also one of Dylan’s most overlooked masterpieces. (Andy Pareti)
The Strokes: Is This It
It’s fair to say that The Strokes’ debut album benefited from an almost embarrassing level of support from the British music press. Whatever you think of the band’s subsequent output, however, it would be unfair to suggest that Is This It didn’t deserve the acclaim that greeted its 2001 release. It remains the band’s undisputed highpoint, and nearly eight years on, it’s difficult to not get excited when that iconic bassline enters the mix 53 seconds into the title track. (David Coleman)
Bjork: Vespertine
As one reviewer famously quipped, Bjork became a true diva on Vespertine, a deceptively quiet album built on sweeping chorales and organic percussion. Shedding the more electronic elements of Homogenic and Post, Vespertine is a throbbing, writhing animal, and as shimmering and icy as Bjork's Icelandic homeland. Undo and Pagan Poetry are near-glacial in their beauty, reaching Zhivago-like proportions as cold strings skitter, slide, and trickle. Rarely has an album sounded this alive or this glorious. (Kevin Liedel)
Radiohead: I Might Be Wrong (Live Recordings)
With the exception of maybe Pablo Honey, this live record is by far the least prestigious Yorke and company release. But looking back, is that really fair? Believe it or not, I Might Be Wrong was the first Radiohead record I ever owned (I was a Freshman in high school, so sue me) – and it was good enough for me to go out and spend every ounce of my allowance to pick up the band’s whole catalogue. Maybe it’s due to some sense of nostalgia, but to this day I still prefer this brooding live set over Amnesiac, the studio album with the most musical overlap. There’s also something special about the live reproduction of music so expertly produced, so painstakingly recorded to achieve the band’s unbelievably high standard. (Conor McKay)
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: B.R.M.C.
Nowadays, they’re seen as a bit of a joke outfit after an ill-advised move in ‘rock’ seemingly inspired by Primal Scream circa 1993. Yet, I remember buying the single of Whatever Happened To My Rock and Roll? and being suitably thrilled. It was noisy as hell in the best possible well and kept me satisfied during years of dreary English guitar rock that has plagued the decade. Some great bass sounds, as well. (Peter Mattinson)
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2002
Was there really a better record than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot released in 2002? Back in December 2002 the No Ripcord staffers certainly thought so, as we voted it #9 in our end of year poll. Now that the dust has settled, I’m not so sure. Yoshimi is good, and Interpol’s debut showed promise, but, for me, Wilco’s masterpiece is on another level entirely. In thirty years YHF is what people will talk about when they talk about rock music in the Noughties (or whatever we’re calling this decade of ours).
Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Picking a favourite record of the past decade was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, especially with albums like The Soft Bulletin, Kid A, and the Arcade Fire records in the mix. But one stands out for me not only because it is a near flawless collection of songs, but because of the delicate mood it evokes and the way it seems to best reflect the times it was made in – that record is Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. It was originally slated for release on September 11, 2001, a factoid made eerie by the front cover (Marina City’s twin towers in Chicago), certain lyrics (Ashes of American Flags, “tall buildings shake…”) and the Yeatsian sense of doom and disarray that pervades the soundscapes and the songs themselves.
Things do indeed seem to be falling apart in the leadoff track, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. In fact, it never really comes together, as if the band members were playing different songs at the same time. All throughout, the beautiful melodies and perfect pop structures lull you into a false sense of security and order until the chaos seeps in and takes over again. Everything is just a little off kilter; Camera is spelled Kamera in a Kafkaesque twist, acoustic guitars are tuned to impossibly low keys, instruments drop out of songs for no apparent reason, (Jesus) etc.
The neurotic issues Jeff Tweedy struggled with during the making of YHF are well documented, but stacking it up against Thom Yorke’s paranoia and Wayne Coyne’s irrepressible optimism, I find his vision on this record truer and sadder. There are ecstatic moments, but few moments of pure, unencumbered joy. Pot Kettle Black, practically Springsteen-ian in its rabble-rousing potential, is subtly undermined by half whispered vocals and some tortured, though perfectly arpeggiated feedback. Even Heavy Metal Drummer is so laden with wistful nostalgia it renders its anthemic appeal totally moot. The band rocks, but the smiles fade quickly, as if to say that youthful enthusiasm comes at a price. This is a grown up rock record, made in an age when art and commerce could not be more at odds. Here, the use of noise and found sounds is completely appropriate, in fact necessary, rather than boring and pretentious. We are “turning and turning in the widening gyre”, right from the opening seconds to the deconstructed piano coda to Reservations. And it would all be a pretty grim affair if it wasn’t so beautiful at the same time. This is why it will remain one of the great records of the rock era, even though the rock era may be long gone, and Wilco are like those Japanese soldiers fighting on the islands who never heard the war was over and they’d lost. But not really, because Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is fully aware of its own anachronism. Hell, the whole story of making and releasing this record is a parable of being in the right place at the wrong time. It’s fantastic in spite of this awareness, which makes it a masterpiece. (Alan Shulman)
Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
In their 26-year career, the Flaming Lips have been very prolific. But it wasn’t until 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots that the Lips got much notice outside of indie circles. Of course it helped that Yoshimi was the band’s poppiest release yet; it’s hard to argue with the mass appeal of the title track or Do You Realize?? But more than the catchy sunshine pop hooks, the album benefits from the band’s focus. Yoshimi seems the band’s most obvious concept album, and as such, weird, meandering tracks like In the Morning of the Musicians, Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell, and Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon, nearly impossible to listen to on their own, make eerie sense. A lot of people prefer The Soft Bulletin, and its psychedelic beauty is certainly noteworthy, but I’ve always felt Yoshimi is more accessible. (Conor McKay)
Broken Social Scene: You Forgot It In People
Ten Toronto art-house music scene vets (fifteen if you count the guests) together on one album writing four-minute pop songs? An improbable formula, until the time-honoured instrumental opener coalesces into the guitar hooks and galloping drums of KC Accidental. Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl shows off Emily Haines’ heart-thawing voice over a soft waterfall of toms and plucked banjo, and I’m Still Your Fag is a pitter-patter of punchy rim shots behind Kevin Drew’s thin tone. Behind the effortless pop, there are layers of shoegaze guitar noodling, cacophonous horns and bubbling keyboards: the band hasn’t abandoned creativity, but rather reinforces it by setting it against Top-40 riffs. It’s true that the album features a full cast of strings, organs, brass, saxophones and harmonicas, but the guitar-bass-drums are always at the front of the production. For all the guitar noise and dissonant sax solos on Almost Crimes, it’s one of the most perfect pop songs of the last decade: endlessly replayable, hooks huge enough to be cathartic. (Michael Skinnider)
Queens of the Stone Age: Songs For The Deaf
A conceptually strong and pulverizing rock album, Queens of the Stone Age took not a single prisoner with 2002’s Songs For The Deaf, an unstoppable mix of 70s arena rock mixed with a high dosage of 90s alterna-bliss. Think Sabbath meets Helmet, or The Stooges meets Alice In Chains; a three-tier vocal collective (Josh Homme, Nick Oliveri and Mark Lanegan) harmonizing atop blazing guitars and Dave Grohl’s percussive assault. Rock albums need to be this good all the time. (Sean Caldwell)
What a punch in the face! Songs for the Deaf is the best album by a band that doesn’t get enough credit for making consistently great albums. From the tongue-in-cheek metal (like Tenacious D without the slapstick) to the major league riffs, QotSA give us every reason to want to break something with these songs. (Andy Pareti)
Interpol: Turn On The Bright Lights
As urban as their New York City abode, Interpol's 2002 debut is a growling retake of Joy Division, hammering those just-dirty guitars over and over until audiences fall into hypnotic submission. As the dark, moody, and sardonic gait of Obstacle 1 came thundering over the airwaves, the glory of minimalist rock came to fruition, followed by gems like the slow NYC and racing PDA. Yet the quirky, self-deprecating lyrics of Paul Banks are why many stayed for the ride, never better realized or employed than on Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down.
Sonic Youth: Murray Street
Murray Street was such a stunning return to form for Sonic Youth after the widely criticised NYC Ghosts & Flowers. The first album to feature Jim O’Rourke as a full-time member, it featured (relatively) clean, melodic guitar workouts (The Empty Page, Disconnection Notice) alongside noisier, dissonant blasts of experimentalism (Plastic Sun, Sympathy for the Strawberry). The blend was right on Murray Street and Sonic Youth have looked rejuvenated ever since. (David Coleman)
The Lollies: Taste
To this day, I remain convinced of some huge cosmic miscarriage of justice that this band didn’t go on to do more. Killer melodies, witty lyrics and buckets of charm, they should have gone further than a handful of dates supporting the Bangles. Still, as I noted at the time, those of us who knew about them at the time can take solace in the album and the Channel Heaven single and remember the gigs. The Lollies: you are not forgotten. (Peter Mattinson)
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