Mt. Rushmores: 1999 Albums

      Between the birth of my second daughter in the spring of 1998 and discovering Catch the Sun by Doves in 2000, I listened to virtually no rock music, except The Beatles. I was focused on parenting and my boredom with rock lead me on a deep dive into jazz and new age music. So, I never listened to any of the albums under consideration for my Mt. Rushmore of 1999 when they came out. Turns out there is a common thread between the four albums I eventually chose; no guitars. Now when I say "no guitars", I don't mean that literally, but two of them are piano centric and two were created in the studio with very little guitar. All of my honorable mention albums had guitars a-plenty; Built to Spill, Foo Fighters, Pavement, The White Stripes, Centro-matic, Tobin Sprout and Robert Pollard/Doug Gillard, but none of them could overtake my final four. 

The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin

     When guitar wizard Ronald Jones left the band after 1995's Clouds Taste Metallic, The Flaming Lips decided not to replace him and became an experimental studio band for their next couple releases. The roots of The Soft Bulletin were the Parking Lot Experiments. They recorded multiple tracks on cassettes, assembled several cars in a parking garage and played the tracks simultaneously. This in turn lead to 1997's Zaireeka, which was a four disc album which was engineered so you had to play all four discs simultaneously. It was during these sessions that the concept of The Soft Bulletin began to develop. When the crutches of guitars and fuzz were removed they discovered Wayne Coyne's fragile vocals and vulnerable lyrics and Steven Drozd's genius as a multi-instrumental composer. Despite The Soft Bulletin being a studio creation, it is one of the most human albums of all time. It's a celebration of life, love, stuggle and loss. The highlight of the album is on "Waitin' For a Superman" when Wayne sings "Tell everybody waiting for Superman that they should try to hold on best they can. He hasn't dropped them, forgot them, or anything. It's just too heavy for Superman to lift". The 90's was arguably the best decade for albums and The Soft Bulletin was the best albums of the 90's. Sorry O.K. Computer.

Wilco - Summerteeth

     A decade ago, I was very dismissive of Wilco and Jeff Tweedy. This was mostly out of my love of Jay Farrar and Uncle Tupelo. Since then, I have deliberately listened to the early Wilco albums and read Tweedy's biography to develop a more educated opinion. Once I accepted Tweedy growing beyond alt-country and knew more of his story, Summerteeth became a beautiful studio album by two damaged humans. At the time, Tweedy was going through marital problems and he and Jay Bennett were addicted to painkillers. Many of the lyrics took me back 1999 when I was also going through marital problems as well. "We fell in love in the key of C" but "you've changed" and "Daddy's payday is not enough". Summerteeth is a raw and painfully honest album, but never loses hope for a better future. "Summerteeth" is also an old dad joke about someone with bad teeth; some are here, some are there, so that's fun.

Ben Folds Five - Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner

     Here's a spoiler for my Mt. Rushmore of piano players; dude is on it. I love Ben Folds playing and I love his band. Reinhold Messner is a departure from his upbeat snark. It's lush and introspective. Check out the lyrics to "Don't Change Yours Plans", they are heartbreaking. If you miss upbeat Ben Folds Five, there's "Army" which is a great track. There's also a two minute answering machine message from his dad called "Your Most Valuable Possession" where he's concerned about Ben's most valuable possession; his mind. It took me awhile to get around to this album because I was put off by the title and cover, but it's great.

Fiona Apple - When the Pawn...

     Before this week, I had never heard this album and had no idea that I like Fiona Apple. I intended to put Keep it Like a Secret by Built to Spill in this spot, but I had to change The Plan. Sorry, dad joke. Female artists are a blind spot for me for some reason. I kind of wrote Fiona Apple off as another Tori Amos when "Criminal" was a hit. Turns out I really like her voice, lyrics and delivery. The singles from When the Pawn are great and I also love the track "Get Gone" which has a powerful vocal performance. Now I have to go back and check out her first album. When I began this exercise, I thought 1999 was a weak year for albums, but I was pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, 1998 is weak with the exception of the second best album of the 90's. Stay tuned. Peace.

Mt. Rushmores: 2000's

      Recently, I have fallen down the music list rabbit hole. It began with making best album lists for every year since I was born and has expanded to various niche lists, such as best lo-fi album and goosebump albums. A few days ago, the idea came to me of compiling music related Mt. Rushmore lists which are obviously Top 4 lists. These are popular with sports fans, but I haven't seen them much with music fans who lean toward Top 10 lists. This also seemed like an excellent opportunity to resume writing on my Sound Mind blog, so here we are. After some thought, I have settled on a few arbitrary parameters that maintain the spirit of Sound Mind. The main guidance is the continued recognition of Beatles Exceptionalism. None of my Mt. Rushmores will include The Beatles, because they would be the entirety of many of the lists. This does not extend to their individual projects and solo careers, however, so good news for All Things Must Pass. This does not exclude Mt. Rushmores specific to just The Beatles. The other parameter involves the 2000's, which is today's topic. 

     After attempting to make favorite album lists for the 2000's, I came to the conculsion that not enough time has passed for most of this music to be at a Mt. Rushmore level. And full disclosure, I realized I am not familiar with the vast majority of the music that has been released in the past two decades. My interests have been exclusively indie pop and college rock, which is a very narrow focus. It would be ridiculous for me to list albums from every year of the 2000's when I have listened to nothing from the Top 40 or hip hop. I do know what I like though, so I will share a couple 2000's Mt. Rushmores today. Going forward, I will probably work backwards through time and sprinkle in the occasional random music topic list, like favorite drummers. 

     The first three choices for my 2000's Mt. Rushmore bands were quite easy; The White Stripes, Doves and Kasabian. Before anyone quibbles about The White Stripes, their first album was released in June of 1999, so I am counting them as a 2000's band. The eccentric Jack White is a charismatic frontman, incendiary guitarist and a great sonwriter, as evidenced by his lyrics on songs such as, Fell in Love With a Girl, The Hardest Button to Button and Icky Thump. And Meg White's drumming is as fun as it is divisive. Doves are probably my favorite band of the 2000's. Their debut, Lost Souls, is a masterpiece and the rest of their catlog is outstanding. After an eleven year hiatus, they returned in 2020 with The Universal Want. Kasabian are possibly the last remaining relevent rock band in the world. The best concert I have ever attended was their show at the House of Blues in Chicago. The band suffered a recent setback when their lead singer Tom Meighan was kicked out of the group because of domestic violence charges, but they have a new album coming out this summer with principal songwriter Sergio Pizzorno on vocals. The fourth artist on the 2000's Mt. Rushmore came down to Interpol and Courtney Barnett. While Courtney Barnett is my favorite songwriter of the 2000's and is in my Top 5 of live shows, Interpol gets the nod for fourth place on the strength of Turn on the Bright Lights, Antics and Our Love to Admire. My Mt. Rushmore of 2000's albums is, not surprisingly, Lost Souls, Turn on the Bright Lights, White Blood Cells and Kasabian's self-titled debut. 

     Even though I don't think the 2000's warrant extensive historical examination at this time, there are a couple new bands that I'm very excited about; Yard Act and Wet Leg. In the near future I will post about each of them at greater length, but they are fantastic. As I said before, I will be doing Mt. Rushmore albums for each year working backwards. I will start with 1999. The last couple years of the 90's were pretty weak, but the mid-90's is loaded. I might have to do quarterly lists for 1995-7 because those years are so stacked with brilliant albums. Peace.