From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V3 #366 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 Thursday, December 18 2003 Volume 03 : Number 366 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [loud-fans] Amazon's top 100 of 2003 [Miles Goosens ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 12:20:54 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: [loud-fans] Amazon's top 100 of 2003 Amazon music editors' picks of the top albums of 2003. Since it mixes pop, jazz, and classical, I've tried (probably unsuccessfully) to render the classical titles in the standard pop "performer - title" format, noting the composer in the title. 1) Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below 2) Shins - Chutes Too Narrow 3) White Stripes - Elephant 4) Postal Service - Give Up 5) New Pornographers - Electric Version 6) Damien Rice - Oh 7) Thrills - So Much for the City 8) Rufus Wainwright - Want One 9) Visqueen - King Me 10) Drive-By Truckers - Decoration Day 11) Michael Franti/Spearhead - Everyone Deserves Music 12) Delgados - Hate 13) Kings of Leon - Youth and Young Manhood 14) My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves 15) Strokes - Room on Fire 16) Vic Chesnutt - Silver Lake 17) Gillian Welch - Soul Journey 18) Jayhawks - Rainy Day Music 19) Josh Rouse - 1972 20) Decemberists - Her Majesty the Decemberists 21) June Carter Cash - Wildwood Flower 22) Radiohead - Hail To the Thief 23) Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power 24) Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress 25) Ted Leo/Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak 26) Jet - Get Born 27) Kathleen Edwards - Failer 28) Beulah - Yoko 29) Sleepy Jackson - Lovers 30) Chieftains - Further Down the Old Plank Road 31) Stellastarr - Stellastarr 32) Grandaddy - Sumday 33) Long Winters - When I Pretend To Fall 34) Libertines - Up the Bracket 35) Cat Power - You Are Free 36) Go-Betweens - Bright Yellow Bright Orange 37) Metric - Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? 38) Roswell Rudd and Toumani Diabate - Malicool 39) Cafe Tacuba - Cuatro Caminos 40) Richard Thompson - The Old Kit Bag 41) Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers 42) Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros - Streetcore 43) Paul Westerberg - Come Feel Me Tremble 44) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell 45) Dandy Warhols - Welcome To the Monkey House 46) Minus 5 - Down With Wilco 47) Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium 48) Godsmack - Faceless 49) Murray Perahia - Schubert: Piano Sonatas, D958, 959, 960 50) Thermals - More Parts Per Million 51) Caesars - 39 Minutes of Bliss (In an Otherwise Meaningless World) 52) The Be Good Tanyas - Chinatown 53) Okkervil River - Down the River of Golden Dreams 54) Divorce - There Will Be Blood Tonight 55) Ballboy - Guide for the Daylight Hours 56) Pretty Girls Make Graves - New Romance 57) Cecila Bartoli - The Salieri Album 58) A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step 59) Staind - 14 Shades of Gray 60) Dar Williams - the Beauty of the Rain 61) Decemberists - Castaways and Cutouts 62) Jenufa: Complete Opera 63) Bob Marley & the Wailers - Live at the Roxy 64) Idlewild - Remote Part 65) Otis Taylor - Truth Is Not Fiction 66) Hilary Hahn et al - Bach Concertos 67) Krishna Das - Door of Faith 68) 50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin' 69) Juan Molina - Segundo 70) Shelby Lynne - Identity Crisis 71) The Bad Plus - These Are the Vistas 72) Lucinda Williams - World Without Tears 73) Jane's Addiction - Strays 74) A Mighty Wind (soundtrack) 75) Kinky - Atlas 76) DMX - Grand Champ 77) Kid Koala - Some of My Best Friends Are DJs 78) Brad Paisley - Mud on the Tires 79) Cody Chesnutt - The Headphone Masterpiece 80) Jesse Malin - Fine Art of Self-Destruction 81) Jonny Lang - Long Time Coming 82) Robert MacDonald, Mark Anderson et al - Arvo Part: Passio 83) Joss Stone - Soul Sessions 84) Nappy Roots - Wooden Leather 85) Dashboard Confessional - A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar 86) Bembeya Jazz National - Bembeya 87) Buddy Guy - Blues Singer 88) Caitlin Cary - I'm Staying Out 89) Matt Munisteri & Brock Mumford - Love Story 90) Warren Zevon - The Wind 91) Evan Dando - Baby I'm Bored 92) Rene Jacobs et al - Handel: Rinaldo 93) Emmylou Harris - Stumble Into Grace 94) Fire Theft - Fire Theft 95) David Dondero - Transient 96) Al Green - I Can't Stop 97) Dan Zanes & Friends - House Party 98) Consonant - Love & Affliction 99) Pernice Brothers - Yours, Mine & Ours 100) Gotan Project - La Revancha del Tango ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:02:11 -0800 (PST) From: me@justanotherfuckin.com Subject: [loud-fans] LotR music ok, so i'm one of those idiots who was sitting in a theatre from midnight to 3:20am this morning. yes, it was totally worth it, if only to now be able to say i did it. minimal (mostly musical) spoilers.... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * but the point here is that in all three movies, i've been hugely impressed with the music. the underscoring is consistantly just about perfect (although it seems to be missing in a few places) the 'songs' - like the hobbits' drinking songs - are well done and make sense musically, etc., c. BUT the credits song at the end of the third movie is HORRENDOUS. and add to that the instance of Aragorn singing at his coronation, but not really singing... argh. what was THAT about? i get the point jackson was trying to make, but still... yeesh. other than that, it was an awesome 3 hours and 20 minutes. brianna - -- What's the point of wearing your favorite rocketship underpants if nobody ever asks to see 'em? - Calvin - -- recent adventures in tech support at http://www.pirate.org/people/hello/cat_techterror.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 14:04:13 -0500 From: glenn mcdonald Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Amazon's top 100 of 2003 I never expect to agree with more than a couple things on a list like this, but I'll admit that I'm really pleased to see Ballboy on this one. I'm just now listening to my just-arrived copy of their newest one, The Sash My Father Wore, which is mostly acoustic. They're the band I wanted Belle and Sebastian to be. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 14:14:10 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Amazon's top 100 of 2003 On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Miles Goosens wrote: > 1) Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below I was excited, when it came out, that Outkast hadn't compromised their peculiarities, but after several listens, I strongly feel this is the most overrated record to come out this year. As in, not just that a lot of people seem to like it more than me -- that happens a lot -- but that it's gotten the biggest boost from non-musical factors (critical herd mentality, tokenism, etc.) of all the records I see dominating lists this year. (Re: tokenism, maybe I'm not being fair, but the number of lists I see where Outkast are the only hip-hop artists...) > 4) Postal Service - Give Up > 5) New Pornographers - Electric Version The lockstep profile of the rest of that list makes me a little embarrassed to have these as my personal top two, but such is life. a ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 14:58:52 -0500 From: Stewart Mason Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Amazon's top 100 of 2003 At 02:14 PM 12/17/2003 -0500, Aaron Mandel wrote: >On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Miles Goosens wrote: > >> 1) Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below > >I was excited, when it came out, that Outkast hadn't compromised their >peculiarities, but after several listens, I strongly feel this is the most >overrated record to come out this year. As in, not just that a lot of >people seem to like it more than me -- that happens a lot -- but that it's >gotten the biggest boost from non-musical factors (critical herd >mentality, tokenism, etc.) of all the records I see dominating lists this >year. I had wondered about this myself, since it's likely to be near the top of my own list, but the thing is...I play one or both of these discs pretty much about every other day, and have ever since they came out. The only record I've played more this year is Sparks' LIL BEETHOVEN. So yeah, a lot of people have jumped on the bandwagon -- I'm not going to pretend to be an old-school fan myself, since I only discovered them with "Miss Jackson" -- but the fact that this is a killer album precludes any carping about that. > >(Re: tokenism, maybe I'm not being fair, but the number of lists I see >where Outkast are the only hip-hop artists...) ...might have something to do with the fact that aside from Outkast, Missy, Common, some but not all Neptunes productions (I've been resisting Kelis' "Milkshake" for a while, but the hilariously over-the-top video put me into its camp) and a couple of songs off the Nappy Roots album, hip-hop is fucking moribund right now. S ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 12:20:47 -0800 (PST) From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Amazon's top 100 of 2003 On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Miles Goosens wrote: > Amazon music editors' picks of the top albums of 2003. Since it mixes > pop, jazz, and classical, I've tried (probably unsuccessfully) to > render the classical titles in the standard pop "performer - title" > format, noting the composer in the title. I guess there was very little of consequence released on the major labels this year...what a coincidence that the best records of the year happened to be made mostly by indie rockers! Joe Mallon jmmallon@joescafe.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 16:16:46 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Amazon's top 100 of 2003 On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Stewart Mason wrote: > ...might have something to do with the fact that aside from Outkast, > Missy, Common, some but not all Neptunes productions (I've been > resisting Kelis' "Milkshake" for a while, but the hilariously > over-the-top video put me into its camp) and a couple of songs off the > Nappy Roots album, hip-hop is fucking moribund right now. Nah, it's not. Maybe chart hip-hop is, but... well, look at the rest of that Amazon list. Critics don't seem to have any trouble reaching into the top layer of indie labels for their 'rock' or 'pop' records, so why aren't they touching Def Jux? Or Anticon -- Sage Francis certainly got enough press when his record came out earlier this year. Or all those records MF Doom put out (not my thing, but loved of plenty of hip-hop critics)? Or the imprint of Warp Records that was formed to release blippy hip-hop? I'm not saying there's no reason *except* tokenism to like the Outkast album. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either, and in any case I disagree with critical consensus often enough that my disagreement on its own certainly doesn't mean anything fishy is going on. a ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 17:04:08 -0500 From: "jer fairall" Subject: Re: Re: [loud-fans] Amazon's top 100 of 2003 glenn says: > [Ballboy are]the band I wanted Belle and Sebastian to be. Heh. Only a few weeks ago in IRC I was describing CLUB ANTHEMS as the album that I kept wanting Belle and Sebastian to make after "This Is Just a Modern Rock Song" (the thing of theirs that, even though I did like IF YOU'RE FEELING SINISTER and parts of THE BOY WITH THE ARAB STRAP, really caught my attention) but which they haven't. It's the only Ballboy album I have so far, but I will have to order the new one (ones?). And this is indeed an impressive list! Of the albums they list, GIVE UP, HEARTS OF OAK, FAILER, THE BEAUTY OF THE RAIN and WORLD WITHOUT TEARS are all strong candidates for my year-end Top Ten and I would have never expected Amazon.com and I to ever have that much overlap. Jer Your help is urgently needed to save ENDANGERED SPECIES. Go to: http://www.care2.com/go/z/9509/1008 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 17:37:53 -0500 From: Jenny Grover Subject: [loud-fans] compensation for the missing lanegan track Just got this very good news today, and thought I had better pass it along to you. Anyone who bought a US copy of the new Mark Lanegan EP "Here Comes That Weird Chill" likely received a defective pressing that is missing one of the tracks. (There should be 9 tracks on the CD. If yours only shows 8 when you put it in your player, you are missing a track, and this offer applies to you). http://www.beggars.com/us/marklanegan/track8/ Jen ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 17:44:54 -0500 (EST) From: dmw Subject: [loud-fans] late contenders two late 2003 releases of material not recorded in 2003 required and rewarded a little extra effort to obtain ... not sure that these ARE on the proverbial list, but some parties might want to go through the effort to check em out. minus 5 - i don't know who i am -- recorded not with "down with wilco" but with "let the war against music begin." if you hate the minus 5, this will never change your mind, but it just might be my favorite record of theirs, and, perhaps not coincidentally, their grimmest (i can't be sure -- i can't find my copy of "down with wilco." ah, moving.) miles of music can hook you up. television - live at the old waldorf san francisco 6/29/78 -- only one song ("the dream's dream") that's not on _the blow up_, but that's completely beside the point, because _the blow up_ is a crappy recording of incendiary performances -- flat, distant, muddy -- and the sound of the waldorf show is an absolute revelation, crisp, detailed -- especially those famous dueling guitars -- very in-your-face. the packaging is nicer too. www.rhinohandmade.com ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V3 #366 *******************************