Top Ten Albums Of 1999 (NR10)

Ah, how times change.  It’s a good thing No Ripcord wasn’t an impressionable child in its first year, or it may have been irreparably tainted for life, what with Britney wanting us to hit her one more time for the first time, the Backstreet Boys celebrating the millennium a few months too soon and Fred Durst being the same old Yankee-capped ass hat that he is.  It wasn’t all bad, though – 1999 proved that there were a few 20^th century foxes left in the field of music just in time for No Ripcord to open its big green eyes for the first time.

10. Pavement
“Terror Twilight”

The lo-fi masterminds’ weakest album is still a top ten-worthy effort, a testament to Stephen Malkmus and co.’s long legacy.  Carrot Rope, Spit on a Stranger and Major Leagues are some of the most straightforward and crisp songs of the band’s repertoire, and while the clean production may sound a bit off to hardcore fans, it’s the sign of a mature wisdom flaring up inside Malkmus that would follow him through his solo career and recent work with the Jicks.

9. Sigur Rós
“Ágætis Byrjun” 

The album’s name, which roughly translates to “Good Start” for our non-Icelandic readers, is a prophetic title.  It may not have been a debut, per se, but it was a benchmark album for the band and the first major leap in defining their transcendent, gravity-defying sound.  This is your spacious, boundless Sigur Rós in all their wintry glory.

8. Magnetic Fields
“69 Love Songs”

Rarely can such a sprawling effort sound so effortless.  69 Love Songs is a massive success in tiny things – tiny songs, tiny ideas, tiny romances – which makes the triple-disc a bitterless pill to swallow for the lovestruck, lovesick, and just-plain-sick listeners altogether.  As much a demonstration of love itself as a statement, the album is sporadic, confusing and intoxicating – you will wonder how you got yourself into this while you reach to turn the volume up.

7. Wilco
“Summerteeth”

Their best ever? Probably, though 2007’s Sky Blue Sky gives it some fair competition.  On Summerteeth, Jeff Tweedy shows off his Paul McCartney (We’re Just Friends) and Alex Chilton (I’m Always In Love) influences and crafts something that is an unexpected surprise and yet pleasantly familiar, the true sign of a classic in waiting.

6. The White Stripes
“The White Stripes”

If you want to know why the king and queen of garage rock, the White Stripes (who are now anything but garage rock) are so entitled to the throne, you can start here.  From fiery originals like Jimmy the Exploder and Screwdriver to choice covers like Bob Dylan’s One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below) and Robert Johnson’s Stop Breaking Down, the Stripes’ first lap around the mystical one-two punch circuit is a blues-punk Molotov cocktail.

5. Tom Waits
“Mule Variations”

Ho-hum. Another Tom Waits album, another top ten list.  Seriously, though, Mule Variations progresses on Waits’ tremendously succinct and yet unpredictable style that has been brewing in the junkyard bulldog’s cranium since Swordfishtrombones.  There are instruments you can’t define and detours you won’t expect.  It’s another ride on Waits’ wild merry-go-mindfuck, and it’s great.

4. Original Soundtrack
“Magnolia”

The best film of 1999 deserves nothing less than the grace and brainpower of Aimee Mann.  Part compilation, part new material, Magnolia’s soundtrack is all poignancy, perfectly adept as a standalone album and enhanced that much more by the weight the songs carry in Paul Thomas Anderson’s film.  Momentum and Save Me are priceless, and there’s no rule that you have to actually listen to the Supertramp songs that appear at the end.

3. Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Californication”

Say what you want about the album’s overexposure or penchant for frat part soundtracks, Californication is an authoritative comeback album by a band on the verge of being a casualty to celebrity excess.  John Frusciante returns here after a drug-laden hiatus to give the band a funky jolt of summery riffs, and RHCP responds with the most cohesive and memorable set of songs of their post-Blood Sugar Sex Magik era.

2. The Flaming Lips
“The Soft Bulletin”

 Somewhere along Wayne Coyne’s lifelong goal to write music that makes people literally float in space, he may have had his “Eureka!” moment with The Soft Bulletin, which is a culmination of all the best ideas the band has ever had.  It’s a shape-shifting, aqueous mass that is sweet, fluffy, ethereal, sinister, benign, and beautiful.

1. Eminem
“The Slim Shady LP”

The yellow-headed Missourian goofball created one of the single-most important rap albums in history in 1999 with The Slim Shady LP. Breaking barriers, crossing lines and raising eyebrows, Slim Shady is a modern burlesque show that declares Eminem the best character actor in the music biz.  What’s remarkable in retrospect is how utterly simple and pedestrian the backing beat is for the smash hit My Name Is.  The song’s allure is completely and utterly in Em’s twisted words.  That’s something that doesn’t happen often (ever?) in pop music.