Albums of the Year
A Silver Mt. Zion - He Has Left Us Alone... Stripped of their Godspeed... band mates, and also their perilous self-indulgence. Apocalyptic rants were replaced by ballads for a dead dog, the sound becoming even more desolate. Johnny Cash - Americana III: Solitary Man There's nothing worse than fogey musicians. Or cover albums. Yet somehow Cash's millionth album manages to make even U2's One sound cool. Priceless.
PJ Harvey - Tales From The City, Tales From The Sea The album we always dreamt she'd make, but began to fear she never would. No wonder she's sounding so much happier. Patti who?
Radiohead - Kid A A serious commitment to the avant-garde, or just Kidding Around? Who knows. And now we've had a few months to actually find, and grow to love, the songs, who cares?
Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast Damon Gough finally stopped pissing about (he saved that for his live show) and gave us something to cherish. A deserving Mercury prize-winner.
Dead Prez - Let's Get Free The most politicized rap group since Public Enemy, Dead Prez instructed us to "Be Healthy", not to trust "They Schools" and to beware the "Animal in Man". It's bigger than hip hop, don't you know? Tim Hutton - Everything As the bitterly honest opener admits, Tim Hutton has "Been a Fool", but he's still got a past Thom Yorke would kill for. As for the present...
Jill Scott - Who is Jill Scott? In the continuing absence of Erykah Badu, Jill Scott stepped in to become funk soul sister no.1. Gettin' in the Way and A Long Walk were true modern R&B classics. A masterful debut.
Black Heart Procession - Three Coming to these shores in the middle of August, these near perfect dirges offer barely anything to be happy about. A perfect Summer soundtrack, then.
Doves - Lost Souls As the album cover suggests, Manchester's Doves are fighters. Overcoming the demise of Sub Sub and the fiery end of their recording studio, they returned with a collection of truly great pop songs.
Kelis - Kaleidoscope "I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!" Kelis' mature vocals, added to the note- (and beat-) perfect production of the Neptunes, made this the year's most profoundly joyous album.
Smog - Dongs of Sevotion Bill Callahan left his acoustic shell and developed into a guitar driven beast, relying on more than his seductive sudden drawl. His wildly misogynistic anecdotes became not just believable, but terrifying.
Brave Captain - Go With Yourself At last-a solo project that's not just self-indulgent wankery. Moreover, Go With Yourself includes some of ex- Boo Radley Martin Carr's best ever material.
Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP Despite what he claims, Eminem raps about things you wouldn't even dream, let alone joke, about. At last here was not just a credible, but a formidable, white hip-hop star.
Lambchop - Nixon ...in which Kurt Wagner made the classic album he'd been threatening for years. Luscious orchestration meant that Nixon contained some of the most beautiful music made in 2000.
Super Furry Animals - Mwng Alan McGee insisted SFA would be better if they abandoned the Welsh language. The gleeful pop here atones for the excesses of Guerilla to show the man's a twat. But we knew that anyway.
Calexico - Hot Rail Alienating at first, Calexico's third album gradually won you over with its hypnotic mix of mariarchi brass, mad drumming and menacing vocals. All together now, "Hot rail! Hot rail!"
Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump A concept album for those left disillusioned by the anti-climax of the millennium bug. Or even just the anti-climax of the millennium.
The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs 'Less is more'? Stephin Merritt certainly doesn't think so. It could have been monumental folly, but wooed us with tales of good love, bad love, dirty love and errant poodles.
Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out The quietest Yo La Tengo album yet, but all the better for it. First single Saturday proved that soft can be just as powerful as loud.
23rd Nov 2000