Do Not Adjust Your Browser/Revisionist History

Yes I know, it's been almost two weeks since I last posted here, arguably the longest period of inactivity I've displayed.  I have my reasons.  First and foremost, 10 month-olds get around.  Gone are the sedentary days where Abby would stay put.  She's a crawling maniac now and is starting to pull herself up on any and all vertical surfaces, she's also quite good at unfiling CDs, as seen at left.  That leaves me with less time to write (and be a good parent).  I've also joined the 'Y' and dropped 11 pounds thus far in 2010.

In addition, I can't say too much about it until it's in full effect but I have a begun a lengthy freelance writing assignment which also takes up what little free time I once had. So, apologies for my scarcity.  I wanted to come back with a non-music post but have been involved in a small project that might be fun to write about. As some of you know, I make a 'Best Of' CD every year for friends and family, pre 2001 it was a cassette.  What I've been doing is compiling iTunes playlists that are comprised of the selections from my annual CDs/cassettes.  I then compare what were ostensibly my 'favorite' songs of that year against iTunes to see if the songs from that year have held up for me and continue to represent my faves from a given year, based on iTunes play count data. 

So, here's a reproduction of the first ever 'Best Of' CD (not on cassette tape) from 2001.  I had just gotten a component CD burner as a gift from Carla.  And this was before I had a computer that could burn CDs, so each and every CD I made for people was burned in real time. As I look at the selections, there are a few that haven't aged as well--'Where's Your Head At? burned out for me--but the bulk of that stuff still enjoys play on my iPod.  What's most curious for me isn't what on the CD, it's what iTunes reveals as my favorites nine years after the fact.  For instance, Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American record came out in the fall on 2001 (a few weeks after 9/11, prompting them to change the title) and it was and still is among my favorites from that year, yet somehow the title track "Bleed American" didn't make the 'cut' of my Best Of, neither did the outstanding Dolly Varden song, "I Come To You", which is in my iTunes Top 5 songs (as far as play count is concerned) of 2001.  Also curious, The Shins making a retroactive splash in my 2001 songs, though I wouldn't fully embrace their music until 2002 or 2003.  The one song from 2001 (that made the cut) that instantly takes me back to that era (where I was living, what I was doing) is "Do the Math", Girls Against Boys side project whose song hasn't diminished one iota, despite many dozens of listens.  I was DJing at two bars in 2001 as well and it was always a favorite with the patrons.

There seems to be a lot less disparity between what I publicly chose as my favorite music of 2002 and what iTunes data bears out.  There are a few stragglers from other years since I count only their domestic release year which is why Neil Finn appears in 2002 for an album which came out in 2001 in his native New Zealand but didn't see domestic release until 2002.  Conversely, we get an appearance from the future as Johnny Marr + The Healers Boomslang album wouldn't come out until 2003 but the single "Down on the Corner" was released to radio in 2002.  2002 was also the year I became aware of Spoon but Merge Records didn't do a very good job of indicating which year an album came out, so a song from 2001's Girls Can Tell made it instead of one from Kill The Moonlight.  Truth be told, both records were mainstays in our household, so it mattered little which one ended up on my Best Of. The undisputed heavyweight champion of 2002 was "Tiny Spark".  You're welcome if you've never heard it, and you're nodding if you have.

What were your favorites of 2001-02?  Is what you liked then from those years the same as what you like now?  Share with us.  If this actually makes sense and people respond to it, I'll post about subsequent years, if not, I"ll try to come back next week with a non-music post.

Comments

[dj]

Hey Ken, congrats on the freelance gig.

As far as my favorite records from 2000-2001, I just did a check through iTunes found some of my favorites from that time -- some that I still return to and a few that I don't.

Here are six in no particular order. I'm sure there are a ton that I've just forgotten about.

1. Badly Drawn Boy - Hour of Bewilderbeast - I really loved this one. And I still listen to it occasionally.
2. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot -- I heard it streamed and had a burned copy in 2001. Never stopped listening to it.
3. Radiohead - Kid A - Loved it then and I just listened to this last week. It's still amazing.
3. Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica - Loved it then but haven't gone back to hear it more.
4. Crooked Fingers - Crooked Fingers - Haven't listened in a long time. May have to.
5. White Stripes - White Bloods Cells - Haven't listened recently.
6. Cat Power - The Covers Record - Wow, what an album. I still listen to this one quite often.

dj

[drcastrato]

I wasn't making year-end mixes at that time, but a few of my faves from 2001 were:

Mercury Rev - All Is Dream. Released on September 11th, and purchased on the same day, this album holds a lot of haunting memories for me.

Radiohead - Kid A & Amnesiac. I spent a lot of time listening to these albums trying to figure them out.

Strokes - Is This It. Heard this in my friend's car on the way to see (ahem) Oysterhead. I thought they were from the 70's

Royksopp - Melody AM. My wife bought this while we were in London. It didn't do anything for me at first, but it certainly grew.

Frank Black - Dog in the Sand
Jim O'Rourke - Insignificance
Tomahawk - Tomahawk
Sloan - Pretty Together
Beulah - Coast is Never Clear

In 2002 there was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, The Postal Service (which I can't stand anymore), Kill The Moonlight, and of course, Vapor Trails, the big comeback album from Rush.

[Brian]

Hey Ken -

I meant to get this out there earlier, sorry...

As far as what I was listening to, back in 2001, I also burned a copy of "YHF" and couldn't stop listening to it. I even saw them play at the HoB in Vegas that year where they played basically all of YHF to a crowd that knew most, if not, all of the songs. Pretty cool.

Radiohead's "Amnesiac" and Beck's "Sea Changes" were a couple of discs that I listened to a lot.

I was still playing "ATYCLB" by U2. I saw them twice in concert that year, one before and one after the 9/11 attacks. The one post 9/11 was an incredibly moving show with the names of all the people killed in the attacks being shown during the song "One". It was a pretty intense moment. Garbage and PJ Harvey opened up these two shows and I was blown away by both. And in turn, I was playing a lot of PJ's "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea".

The first White Stripes disc, "White Blood Cells" I bought was that year. And, I think it was the first Bob Dylan disc that I ever bought, "Love & Theft". First but not last.

And when I heard "Last Night" by the Strokes, I remember thinking that it was so nice to hear that sound again. And it was a great album. I really liked that disc.

Ryan Adams got a lot of play, too, with "Gold".

In 2002, I really liked "Murray Street" by Sonic Youth. I remember buying "Anthology" by Uncle Tupelo and just playing that over and over again.

I remember hearing "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" on XRT and Brehmer said something about it being on a best of disc by Richard Thompson and I went out and bought the disc and it still gets a lot of play now.