From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V1 #352 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Sunday, December 23 2001 Volume 01 : Number 352 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] Tenacious D ["Andrew Hamlin" ] [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative [Aaron Mandel ] Re: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative ["Joseph M. Mallon" ] RE: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative ["glenn mcdonald" ] Re: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative [Dana L Paoli ] RE: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative [Bill Silvers ] Re: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative [Bill Silvers ] [loud-fans] six for the road [Miles Goosens ] RE: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Tenacious D >Heard it four times, on repeat, during their in-store appearance at my CD >shop. It's annoying, and smirky, and all that you might associate with >Jack Black in the first place. I'm somewhat surprised it's so popular, to >be honest, since it's a novelty record and those don't often have a very >good track record. As a Devil's (Dio's?) advocate for a moment, I heard this for the first time last night, cruising for burgers in a friend's Cadillac, and had one hell (ark ark) of a time. Novelty record? Maybe so, but I'm hearing a lot of Ween, and while that'll scare many folk out of the pool, it's an approach I respond to. Also, powerful singing (yes, Black can sing--y'all did see HIGH FIDELITY, right?), consummate riffage, the lush and intricate backing of a full band (Dave Grohl dropped by to pound skins), and a deliciously rich sound. Also, call me oblivious, but I find all that stuff about Dio, and D&D, not-so-secretly serious. Affectionate, even. Back to their roots, if you will. Anybody catch Kyle Gass in CRADLE WILL ROCK? Andy "I am, to put it as bitterly as possible, a romantic. I know a windmill when I see one, by God, and I sneer at my white horse." - --John D. MacDonald, from his novel THE QUICK RED FOX ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 16:48:06 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative Sort of a weird year for me. All year, I felt as if I've been swamped by music - and a lot of it has been pretty good music, too. And yet, when I went through my list of 2001 titles, it seemed sort of...missing. This was literally true for three or four titles I'd miscategorized as 2000 releases (I've gotta stop looking at copyright dates...), but I realized that, as I hinted the other day, with so many titles coming in, it takes me a *long* time to get to know records...and so, some of my favorite, most-listened to titles in 2001 were from previous years. Anyway, this is sort of an approximation, doubtless to be different later on. Titles with asterisks have full-dress reviews at my website. 1. The Caribbean _Verse by Verse_*: One of the most consistently intriguing soundworlds of last year - combined with songwriting that's catchy musically and cryptically interesting lyrically, and you have one of my favorite and most-listened-to titles of this year. 2. The New Pornographers _Mass Romantic_*: This one just spent a lengthy residency in the car, and every time I found myself thinking, "change the CD - we've heard this one enough," the next track would start, and I'd think, "nah - this is a great song - I'll keep it on." More hooks than [contest! be a critic, and come up with a witty comparison here, and win an enormous prize - like the envy of all your peers]. 3. Neilson Hubbard _Why Men Fail_*: Again, ace songwriting, endlessly inventive arrangements, plus he's got a great, quavery voice to give the material that extra dimension. 4. Radiohead _Amnesiac_*: words, words, words, words. I've committed plenty of them, too. 5. Kristin Hersh _Sunny Border Blue_: Finally, Hersh achieves an effective blend of the intimacy of her acoustic albums and the spiky quirkiness of her early Throwing Muses material - mostly by not boxing herself into any arrangement cages. Harrowing songs, too - way too many feature creepy addiction & dysfunctional relationship images - that's the musician's cross, I guess. 6. Spoon _Girls Can Tell_: Keeping the Amerindie dream alive. I hear a great admixture of spare, late-seventies, soul-inflected Brit new wave as well - early Jackson, Costello, Parker - plus a few moments that hearken back to four guys from Liverpool circa '64 or so. 7. Stereolab _Sound-Dust_*: I know, I know - but really, this thing keeps improving for me. The sonic surface is dazzlingly impressive - but sometimes that wears off. The songs seem more solid than they have for a while, and they're a bit more willing to put more energy and momentum into their loungier tendencies. 8 Joe Henry _Scar_: I haven't heard this one very many times - but so far I'm enormously impressed. Repeat what I said above re Neilson Hubbard...but add that Henry throws in a sort of downtown jazz touch, without it seeming at all superfluous to his essential singer-songwriter tendencies. Not sure how he does it...but he does. 9. Paula Carino _Aquacade_*: I tried to persuade myself that this was a sort of personal choice that didn't really earn its place here, Paula being a once and future Loudfan and a semi-regular e-mail correspondent of mine. But then I listened to it a few more times, and realized that I had no need to do so. 10. Unwound _Leaves Turn Inside You_: Dana will be pleased (that's my goal in life now: pleasing Dana). Still haven't completely got a handle on this one - I kind of imagine what would happen if the Page and Plant reunion were motivated by sheer musical hunger, and the promise of enormous paychecks had nothing to do with it, and they'd been on a steady diet of acts like Jawbox, The Dismemberment Plan, plus the best tendencies of Nirvana... See, every time I try to describe these folks, I think of forty-nine bands that don't seem to have anything to do with one another. Oh - and I haven't even mentioned the brilliant use of mellotron and other keys all over these CDs (it's a short 2-CD set - a good idea, so long as they're sold at 1-CD price - mimics the effect of the LP, providing a break for listeners, w/o the LP's drawbacks. Now be quiet, Aaron Milenski!) Next batch - roughly equal to one another: John Vanderslice _Time Travel Is Lonely_ *Low _Things We Lost in the Fire_ Scott Miller & the Commonwealth _Thus Always to Tyrants_ Belle da Gama _Garden Abstract_ Bjork _Vespertine_ Jon Brion _Meaningless_ Destroyer _Streethawk: A Seduction_ Mark Eitzel _The Invisible Man_ Sam Phillips _Fan Dance_ Julian Cope _An Audience with the Cope 2001_ *would probably place higher but, again, haven't had much chance to listen to it yet. These are all very enjoyable but don't really do much more than one would expect - i.e., the Familiar Style Done Well Category: The Fletcher Pratt _Nine by Nine_ The Go-Go's _God Bless the Go-Go's_ Guided by Voices _Isolation Drills_ Idlewild _100 Broken Windows_ These are three that might well place at least in the top 20, maybe the top 10 - but I've heard them only a handful of times yet: Bows _Cassidy_ Sparklehorse _It's a Wonderful Life_ The Dismemberment Plan _Change_ Best EPs: Rebecca Gates _Ruby Series_ Rock*a*Teens _Noon Under the Trees_ The Black Watch _The Christopher Smart EP_ Obvious but missing titles are probably albums I just haven't heard. I can't think of anything everyone else is mentioning that I think sucks. - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::Californians invented the concept of the life-style. ::This alone warrants their doom. __Don DeLillo, WHITE NOISE__ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 16:10:06 -0800 From: Steve Holtebeck Subject: Re: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > 2. The New Pornographers _Mass Romantic_*: This one just spent a lengthy > residency in the car, and every time I found myself thinking, "change the > CD - we've heard this one enough," the next track would start, and I'd > think, "nah - this is a great song - I'll keep it on." More hooks than > [contest! be a critic, and come up with a witty comparison here, and win > an enormous prize - like the envy of all your peers]. Thank you for not saying "more hooks than a tackle box", an analogy I've heard in more than one review for this album. There's no need to make fishing references just because the NPs are from B.C.! Regarding MASS ROMANTIC being ineligible for 2001 album polls -- the album came out late in 2000, but I don't think was available below the 49th parallel until this year, so it should be eligible. It'll definitely be on my list, whether eligible or not. I'm having trouble compiling a list, because I didn't buy that many albums and can't think of a contender for number one. It must be one of the 29,970 albums made this year that didn't hear, but which one? I'm guessing that Bob Dylan is going to win most of the critics polls this year. I like most of what I've heard from LOVE & THEFT, but what does it say about the state of current music when the consensus "best" album of the year is by a 60 year old guy who made his first record 40+ years ago? Someone should've taken the jester's thorny crown by now. Steve ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 19:30:52 -0500 From: "glenn mcdonald" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative > what does it say about the state of current music when the consensus > "best" album of the year is by a 60 year old guy who made his first > record 40+ years ago? I don't think it says much about the state of current music, but it certainly says something about the "consensus". ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 19:57:08 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, Steve Holtebeck wrote: > Regarding MASS ROMANTIC being ineligible for 2001 album polls -- the > album came out late in 2000, but I don't think was available below the > 49th parallel until this year, so it should be eligible. I don't think this is true. I saw it in a Madison record store last December, and, more to the point, Mint has pretty decent distribution. It just took a few months for everyone (including me) to pick it up and start loving it. Three loud-fans even voted for it last year, of whom only one is Canadian. It came out in 2000. Now, whether that should make it ineligible, I don't know. Maybe I'll put an asterisk after it if people vote it into the top whatever. a ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 17:30:52 -0800 (PST) From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, Steve Holtebeck wrote: > Regarding MASS ROMANTIC being ineligible for 2001 album polls -- the > album came out late in 2000, but I don't think was available below the > 49th parallel until this year, so it should be eligible. It'll > definitely be on my list, whether eligible or not. I'm having trouble > compiling a list, because I didn't buy that many albums and can't think > of a contender for number one. It must be one of the 29,970 albums made > this year that didn't hear, but which one? I think it's a good a candidate for me, since I didn't even know about it until early 2001. Plus it kicks plenty ass. > I'm guessing that Bob Dylan is going to win most of the critics polls > this year. I like most of what I've heard from LOVE & THEFT, but what > does it say about the state of current music when the consensus "best" > album of the year is by a 60 year old guy who made his first record 40+ > years ago? Someone should've taken the jester's thorny crown by now. I think The Strokes will give Bob a run for his money. Everybody loves hype. J. Mallon ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 18:56:00 -0700 From: Stewart Mason Subject: Re: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative At 05:30 PM 12/22/01 -0800, Joseph M. Mallon wrote: >> I'm guessing that Bob Dylan is going to win most of the critics polls >> this year. I like most of what I've heard from LOVE & THEFT, but what >> does it say about the state of current music when the consensus "best" >> album of the year is by a 60 year old guy who made his first record 40+ >> years ago? Someone should've taken the jester's thorny crown by now. > >I think The Strokes will give Bob a run for his money. Everybody loves >hype. I think the Strokes backlash happened too quickly for the record to top too many critic polls. (As I've probably said, I thought the Strokes record was neither good enough to merit the hype nor bad enough to merit the backlash, and personally, I think that if it gets some high school kids to go check out LOADED, NEW YORK DOLLS and MARQUEE MOON, the albums it's genetically engineered to sound like, I fail to see how that's a bad thing. I'm sure I would have checked out the Velvet Underground without the Dream Syndicate's DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, but that album made me check them out well before I might have otherwise gotten around to it.) And actually, I've heard the Dylan record a couple of times now, and frankly, I dig it. It's probably the most flat out *fun* record he's made since BLONDE ON BLONDE, and it's certainly way better than the McCartney and Jagger records. So the consensus critical best-of is a lifetime achievement award this year, so what? The Best Picture Oscar never goes to the best picture of the year. As of about 10 minutes ago, the top ten for the Alibi readers poll is currently running: 1. Shins 2. Sigur Ros 3. Radiohead 4. Bob Dylan 5. Pernice Brothers 6. Ryan Adams 7. Strokes 8. Alejandro Escovedo 9. Guided By Voices 10. Rufus Wainwright Discounting the fact that being local boys, of *course* the Shins will top a local readers poll (although that album happens to be at the top of my own list as well) and ignoring the bloated Ziploc bag of steaming baboon puke that is Radiohead, I think that's a pretty solid list! Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 21:04:33 -0500 From: "glenn mcdonald" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative _Mass Romantic_ definitely came out in 2000 in the US, too, but I expect it'll make a good showing on 2001 polls anyway. The Pazz & Jop, at least, encourages people to vote for things whose "impact" happened this year, whether their release did or not. I think it's lazy. glenn ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 22:47:38 -0500 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: Re: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative I think the Strokes backlash happened too quickly for the record to top too many critic polls. >>>>>>>>>>>>> I'm slightly uncomfortable with the term "backlash" for what happened with the Strokes. If I may relate my own personal experience....I started noticing this band playing around NYC, and everyone said they put on a pretty good show. They had a cheap looking CD single in some of the local record shops. Mind you, no one had really heard of them at this point. So I bought it, thinking that I'd be the first on my block, and that in years to come it would be a collector's item. Got it home, and realized within ten seconds that it was a piece of crap. Gave it a few obligatory plays to be sure, and then filed it away. And then, months later, I started reading about the band in NME online. The whole thing seemed so surreal. I thought that maybe they'd undergone some astonishing transformation, but then I finally heard the album and no, they still stink, whith an honorable mention for crappy sounding vocals. So, IMHO, to call this "backlash" is somewhat misleading. My take is that the English went bonkers over this, as they have over so many lousy English bands, because it fills some psychic void that currently exists in that country-with-the-short-musical-attention-span. And that now, the Strokes are doing well in America because of some racial memory of the Beatles, and a resulting conviction that anyone who's *that* big in England must be good. Plus there's the matter of the lead singer's father, but that gets into the realm of conspiracy theories, so I'll leave it at that. But anyway, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the "backlash" actually consists of people, like myself, who disliked the Strokes when they were unknown, are completely bemused by their ascendancy, and continue to dislike them. Also, we seem to be in a very directionless musical time. I was asking the local record store guy what the big xmas title is this year, and he said that there isn't one, for the first time in recent memory. I think that in times like this, music critics get a little bit panicky, and start latching onto unlikely choices for adulation. I can't think of any other explanation for Robert Christgau's decision to do a full page article on the Moldy Peaches recently. Finally, if Stewart's allowed to express his hatred for Radiohead, I'll make a brief mention of my total lack of amorous feelings toward the New Pornographers. I initially thought that JRT was just being a poop when he slagged this release, but aside from the first track, I couldn't find a single reason to justify holding onto my copy. I dig Zumpano a lot (well, the second album anyway) but New Pornographers leave me cold. I'll happily admit, though, that the statistical evidence seems to indicate that everyone else on this list will enjoy it, so don't pay me no mind. - --dana np: Royal Trux/"Veterans of Disorder" which is kind of nice, but no "Cats and Dogs," "Thank You," or "Twin Infinitives" ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 22:48:54 -0600 From: Bill Silvers Subject: RE: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative Glenn Mcdonald wrote: >_Mass Romantic_ definitely came out in 2000 in the US, too, but I expect >it'll make a good showing on 2001 polls anyway. The Pazz & Jop, at >least, encourages people to vote for things whose "impact" happened this >year, whether their release did or not. I think it's lazy. For what it's worth, the All Music Guide lists November 21, 2000 as the release date for MASS ROMANTIC. I've seen it listed on many lists on the disparate listservs I read. One of those, the alt.country list Postcard 2, lists records strictly as they're voted on, with a notation as to the release year if not the current one. I find that more sensible than telling partisans of a record that wasn't on their radar that their vote for a record they feel strongly about shouldn't count. YMMV. b.s. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 22:52:04 -0600 From: Bill Silvers Subject: Re: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative Stewart Mason wrote: >(As I've probably said, I thought the Strokes record >was neither good enough to merit the hype nor bad enough to merit the >backlash, and personally, I think that if it gets some high school kids to >go check out LOADED, NEW YORK DOLLS and MARQUEE MOON, the albums it's >genetically engineered to sound like, I fail to see how that's a bad thing. That's about the most balanced, fair-minded description I've seen of the record's relative merits and antecedents. b.s. I've been greedy for some destination I can't get to where are you? - -Sam Phillips "Five Colors" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 23:01:59 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: [loud-fans] six for the road Howdy Disco Citizens! Today Melissa and I drove to WV to spend Christmas with our families. We took separate vehicles since Melissa can stay much longer than I can because her employer has a generous holiday schedule. However, this was a good thing music-wise! Well, not because Melissa isn't fond of my music -- she loves most of the same artists that I do, and the only things I can think of that she's ever asked me to stop playing during our fifteen-year relationship have been jazz albums, King Crimson's THE GREAT DECEIVER, and R. Stevie Moore tapes back when he used TDK-Ds (think about it: tape hissy master recordings on an incredibly hissy tape. She's had no problem since Stevie switched to TDK SA and Maxell XL-II, and now CD-Rs). Rather, it meant that I could spend the seven and a half hour drive listening to music, period end. The last two trips to WV, we've taken Melissa's 1993 Nissan pickup truck, which has an incredible amount of road noise in the cab and cardboard speakers, meaning that taking in some tunes is next to impossible. The '98 Sunfire, however, has a very decent stereo and a CD player, so I relished the opportunity to give some heretofore neglected-by-me 2001 releases some quality listening time. Coincidinkily, Jeff Norman mentioned a few of these today in his best of 2001 missive. Truly, it was an extraordinary day for driving and listening: bright, clear weather; aside from the usual combination of inopportune construction hazards and insane volume delays in Knoxville, traffic was light-to-medium; and perhaps most importantly, a pent-up desire for just this kind of listening experience, the long drive with nothing to think about but speed traps and good tunes. And I haven't had a listening day like this in ages. Here's what I played, in the order I played it. 1) Los Straitjackets, SING ALONG WITH LOS STRAITJACKETS In the mood for them from their Conan appearance on Monday, and a great peppy song for getting out of town and onto the open highway. Incredibly rockin', with a love of the material (all covers) and a relish for the "novelty" of the project (slew of guest vocalists instead of the usual all-instrumental format) that lends a pervasive sense of fun to the proceedings. 2) Paula Carino, AQUACADE I took too long to place my 125 Records order (everything at once, of course), and then I got the CDs in the midst of a very busy period, full of planned and unplanned events that consumed thought and time like you wouldn't believe, so I'd only listened to this once before today. And that was on the computer CD-ROM player late at night when I was tired and busy multi-tasking. Well, I was a big darn idiot. Not that I expected anything less, but this thing just flat-out kicks ass. And that doesn't begin to cover how great this album is. It not only lives up to my expectations (which were extremely high), it surpasses them in ways that delight me to no end. AQUACADE is incredibly freaking smart, sports riffs that stick in your mind and won't let go, and every song seems to come up with a cool sonic texture -- an effect, an instrument, a phrasing -- that explicates and enhances It has songs about biology and architecture and things in the ocean and sex and finding that overlooked treasure in the record store and wondering what to do with your life and being consumed with uncontrollable purpose. And sometimes it does all of this in the space of three lines and a chord. It's got great cover art. It's everything I've ever wanted in an album. 2X2) Paula Carino, AQUACADE Do you know how seldom I play the same album twice in a row? Of course you don't, but the correct answer is just this side of "never." But when the CD cycled around to track 1 again, I had no choice. Did I mention how Paula's voice is front and center, commanding, coaxing, compelling? Or how "Guru Glut" leads off with this riff that Pete Buck would give an eyetooth and a BA pastry cart to have written? Everything clicks again, even more this time. Are people on the list reluctant to sing its praises because Paula is a personal friend of so many of us Loud-folk? They shouldn't be; this is as good as albums get. If Scott Miller & the Commonwealth's THUS ALWAYS TO TYRANTS is my #1 album of 2001, this is 1A. Jeezus, this is great. Then I stopped in Knoxville and picked up a few items at the mighty Disc Exchange, where I found a lot of odds and ends. I put one of the new purchases on immediately... 3) Unwound, LEAVES TURN INSIDE YOU After Dana's repeated raves (and our agreement about Luna, Blur's _13_, Flying Saucer Attack, and other noisy things), I thought I'd take a flyer on this, especially since I'm trying to get listens to the most promising 2001 recommendations before the end of January. I only made it through five songs. I just wasn't in the mood for what this was turning out to be, especially as a first listen. The cursory first impressions were of Sonic Youth and the Dirty Three (the latter in the way the emotion of the songs are contained in the dynamics of the music). They include lyrics, which is a good thing since I didn't understand a single word. As a fan of the Cocteau Twins, that's not necessarily an obstacle. It just didn't hit me right, and I'll revisit it in some near future. 4) Garbage, BEAUTIFUL GARBAGE I have high expectations for this one because the mixed reviews complain that the album's trying to do too much at once. As a fan of insane variety and as a person who thought GARBAGE 2.0 was too monochromatic for its own good, this comes as good news indeed. However, after Paula Carino's AQUACADE, even Shirley Manson seemed small and uninteresting by comparison. I'll give it a more fair shot later, after I play AQUACADE seventeen more times. 5) Bob Dylan, LOVE AND THEFT If this wins #1 in mainstream and music mag polls, even if it's based on some sort of sheep-like consensus and Sept. 11th being the release date and whatever else the more indie-than-thou may bitch about, well, once in every umpteen years the consensus could be right. I thought the previous Dylan album was quite excellent, as were the two covers albums that proceeded it, but this one is a five-star classic. Several other list members have described it more aptly than I ever will, but it's as smart and weird and playful and foreboding and fun as you'd want a Dylan album to be. Incidentally, I don't think Bob has ever enunciated this clearly before on an album! I saw him live nearly two months ago, and he wasn't getting every syllable out so clearly then (though the show was great), so it's not a sea change in vocal style. Speaking so clearly gives this album even more immediacy and purpose, with no barriers between Dylan's voice and understanding. Well, understanding of what the words themselves are; there's still enough room between the lines for you to do the work to locate meanings. Anyway, it's great and I have no quibbles with this leading anyone's 2001 list. 6) Buddy and Julie Miller, BUDDY AND JULIE MILLER And here we have the third worthy contender in this batch for #1 of 2001 -- Julie's impossibly high, emotionally potent voice and Buddy's more earthy, careworn one intertwine as lovers, friends, rivals, partners, taking eleven songs (three well-chosen covers and eight originals that manage the near-impossible feat of surpassing Richard Thompson, Bob Dylan, and Utah Phillips) and cutting them to their emotional core. The playing and harmonies resonate with the basic goodness of hardcore country and the Dylanish forms of '60s folk rock, yet it somehow sounds perfectly modern. Like the titular couple themselves, BUDDY AND JULIE MILLER is more than the sum of its parts. It seemed the perfect compliment to driving through the East River Mountain tunnel in the early dark of a December evening, and taking that right turn towards Bluefield and home. happy holidays to all, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 00:50:21 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: RE: [loud-fans] 2001 top tentative On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, Bill Silvers wrote: > Glenn Mcdonald wrote: > > >_Mass Romantic_ definitely came out in 2000 in the US, too, but I expect > >it'll make a good showing on 2001 polls anyway. The Pazz & Jop, at > >least, encourages people to vote for things whose "impact" happened this > >year, whether their release did or not. I think it's lazy. > > For what it's worth, the All Music Guide lists November 21, 2000 as the > release date for MASS ROMANTIC. And this is why - "lazy" or not - it makes sense to me for MR to qualify for 2001 best-ofs. Assuming that a record takes several listens to gel or get into (and for me, this is almost always the case), and assuming that the more records you have, the longer time it takes to get to those several listens (also true for me - and for most serious music fans), and finally assuming that not everyone gets their records on or before the release date (esp. true when lists aren't only from professional critics but also from the general public), any album that, like this one, has only forty days to get judged is inevitably going to fare more poorly than one that's been out longer. And if the idea is "best release of the year," either wait a year (or at least a month or two) into the next year to allow for such things, or establish (as I do, informally) a sort of cut-off date, whereby anything released before November is part of the year, and anything released after November can count for the next year...sine everyone seems to want best-of lists not in February of the following year, but in December of the year in question or January of the new year at latest. That being the case, doing otherwise inevitably knocks late-year releases unfairly out of contention. So I'm with the P&J poll in asking participants to assess albums' "impact" during the year. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::the popularity of the gruesome FACES OF DEATH video series is ::apparently so great that a children's version is in production, ::to be called FACES OF OWIES. ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V1 #352 *******************************