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Post by Stacy Heydon on Aug 11, 2023 13:35:59 GMT
2000
My favourite album of this year was the Goldfrapp debut 'Felt Mountain' which married Alison Goldfrapp's extraordinary voice to beautiful and sophisticated arrangements. There was something of Portishead's lush soundscapes about them, but with a distinctly European and classical feel to the arrangements. There were a number of tracks I considered, but in the end I went with the lead single "Utopia" which announced them to me. It's icy grandeur was both very beautiful and slightly unnerving. Just the intro alone was spellbinding, like being invited into a magical, but rather dark, fairytale.
And just in case you suspected her incredible soprano was the result of all sorts of studio malarkey, here she is hitting all the high notes live from around the same time.
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Post by fearlessfreap on Aug 11, 2023 14:12:24 GMT
2000
Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist
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loveless
god
Bringing ballet to the masses. Sticking to the funk.
Posts: 2,808
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Post by loveless on Aug 11, 2023 14:35:42 GMT
2000
Everyone's got a song or a handful of songs that they can point to and say "THIS is my kinda shit."
This is one of those songs. Evergreen for me. I loved them dearly before they put this single out. I loved them infinitely more once they released this magical track.
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Post by DayoRemix on Aug 11, 2023 15:28:00 GMT
Wow..Two in a row that would be in contention for me (Broadcast, Avalanches)..shocking..
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toomanyhatz
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I've met him/her. He/she's great!!
Posts: 3,243
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Post by toomanyhatz on Aug 11, 2023 16:55:47 GMT
I could go on and on about this (and I'm sure I have). Absolutely my favorite thing one of my favorite musical artists ever has touched. Not even sure I can successfully express how much joy this song has given me. A joyful song about trying (and failing) to fall asleep? Only ol' weedy voice could have pulled that off successfully, and you get those playful synths, those Eno backing vocals (I swear that's his finest skill), that primitive piano, that abrupt ending. All, for lack of a better way to put it, expressed with humor, joy, absolute love for music making, and experimentation designed to capture that subliminal moment of half-sleep (or Shleep, if you will) rather than impress with its 'artiness.' It's hard to call it anything but prog, yet it's loaded with joy, humor, and humanity. And yet I almost forgot about it, mainly because we had to wait until 1999 to hear it in the states. What a tragedy that was!
In my alternate universe it was a #1 hit, and stayed atop the charts for most of the year.
1997:
Robert Wyatt - Heaps of Sheeps
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toomanyhatz
god
I've met him/her. He/she's great!!
Posts: 3,243
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Post by toomanyhatz on Aug 11, 2023 17:01:03 GMT
I heartily endorse Loveless's pick for 1998, btw. I don't have another. (Though it's tempting to pick "Waltz #2" or something else from the same album. I just can't deny that the best one's already been taken.)
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toomanyhatz
god
I've met him/her. He/she's great!!
Posts: 3,243
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Post by toomanyhatz on Aug 11, 2023 17:11:42 GMT
By god, I will never understand what Andy Partridge did to piss off BCB and Preludin. I hear so much joy and wonder and inventiveness in this. I'll take this a million times over whatever dancepopethnoelectrofusion thing was the flavor of the moment.
1999:
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rayge
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Post by rayge on Aug 11, 2023 21:44:28 GMT
2000 Genius - I brook no countervolley
Eminem - Stan
And while I'm here
1998
Not perhaps the best track on the album, but the first single off it, with one of the greatest similies I ever heard tucked away in the chorus
Mercury Rev - Goddess on a Highway
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Post by osgood on Aug 12, 2023 12:09:46 GMT
2000 As we move through the years, when I check the lists of albums released, I see more and more acts I haven't heard of. Anyway, there are a few, not many, that I did like. With Avalanches and Goldfrapp already picked, I'll leave Queens of the Stone Age to fonz or Dayo, and me old fart will go for
Johnny Cash - The Mercy Seat
I do love the album series he did with Rick Rubin, and for me, this track is the absolute peak. And since my first pick for this exercise was Folsom Prison Blues, this seems an appropriate bookend for the 20th Century Canon.
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Post by Stacy Heydon on Aug 12, 2023 15:28:42 GMT
The Cave original is much stronger imo. That has a real intensity that's lacking in the slightly tired Cash version.
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Post by DayoRemix on Aug 12, 2023 15:38:48 GMT
HA..you will definitely not be seeing Queens of the Stone Age coming from me, but I will have an interesting list on the contender thread..And "discovery" should be what the contender thread is all about! (Wish people would start interacting with it in this fashion)
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Post by osgood on Aug 12, 2023 16:21:09 GMT
HA..you will definitely not be seeing Queens of the Stone Age coming from me, but I will have an interesting list on the contender thread..And "discovery" should be what the contender thread is all about! (Wish people would start interacting with it in this fashion) Yep I'm guilty of not posting there lately, will correct that.
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Post by osgood on Aug 12, 2023 16:23:20 GMT
The Cave original is much stronger imo. That has a real intensity that's lacking in the slightly tired Cash version. I think each has its merits. I love the way Cash brings the melody to the front, and the piano and organ sounds. Rubin's less-is-more approach works nicely here.
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Post by davey on Aug 13, 2023 3:59:26 GMT
2000
There are tracks I like left. But nothing much I love. So I’ll go with this one. Merle Haggard had seemed like kind of a spent force for a while in 2000. But then he pulled it together for his best album in years, “If I Could Only Fly.”
I could have picked 4 or 5 different ones from it, but this might be my favorite:
Wishing All These Old Things Were New - Merle Haggard
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Post by DarknessFish on Aug 13, 2023 16:02:30 GMT
2000 Movietone - Hydra
There are so many absolutely top-notch contenders for 2000 but I've plumped for Movietone, who have been unlucky not to have featured before now. Hydra is really an exemplar of their sound at this point, that languid, gloriously warm fluidity, taking its time to build up and wrap itself around you. Kate Wright's typically mumbled lyrics are so beautifully descriptive and cinematic, just beautiful poetry of the mundane, capturing the scene of a specific spot on Brighton beach with efficiency and finesse. Gorgeous.
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