The Best 100 Songs of 2000-2009: Part 5/10

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Penitentiary Philosophy (Erykah Badu): the first track from her underrated Mama’s Gun sees Badu’s foray into the ether of funky third-party consciousness. Whereas her previous work dealt with her rebirth, the new direction sought to tackle other stuff and it all started here. ()


There, There (Radiohead): not quite about the state of the environment but more the profit from it, There, There centers on human greed and our inability to just leave things alone. When Yorke warps his lo-fi vocals around the hallowed ending chorus (‘we are accidents/ waiting to happen’) you know doomsday approaches. No wonder Yorke reportedly got teary-eyed when the completed version was played for the first time. He was simply in awe of its brilliance too. ()



Mama, Won’t You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning?(Clap Your Hands Say Yeah ): the detached, cold sound of a star burning up in the estimation of others and the backlash wielded as a response. ()



One Armed Scissor (At The Drive-In): not directly evolved from Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust days but the loneliness of space exploration features heavily in this punk-pop romp. There are no hallowed days here though as this is a trip to the ether gone horribly awry and sequenced as such. Utterly devastating. ()



Notorious (Turbulence): a paean to Rasta beliefs and the King Haile Selassie but Turbulence straddles the line with an almost fanatical demonstration that would turn one into a disciple as well. ()



The Way I Am (Eminem): the most biting social commentary put on record this decade, Eminem unleashes his serious side and in the process we see the depression behind the bravura. When he lets loose, ‘…the always keep asking the same fucking question.’ one can hear the jadedness chilling in his voice. ()



Work It (Missy Elliott): ‘I’m not a prostitute/ but I can give you what you wants’, raps Missy and in the process straddles the line of heterosexual male fantasy. The age-old maxim of what a man wants/needs in a woman is funnily explored with her unpretentious style. ()



Go-go Gadget Gospel(Gnarls Barkley): booty-shaking in a can. ()



Handle Me(Robyn): if Bjork ever revisited conventional pop then it’d sound like this brilliant mess. ()



Never Let Me Down(Kanye West feat. Jay Z): Jay spins this wicked retrospection on its head like no other hip/hop joint this decade. ()

THE 100 BEST ALBUMS of 2000-2009:

Modest Mouse – The Moon And Antartica (2000): Isaac Brock is not a man to underestimate. When the album was finished he immediately pulled it in dissatisfaction. The point is that as an artist one needs to trust one’s own intuition. The indie rock world is better for it because The Moon and Antartica is a stunning achievement. Dark centre of the Universe floats as if on air but is peppered with a blissful chorus and guitars. This is the first track of many where the band uses the genre as a tool to make a statement. Unlike Interpol well after them, Modest Mouse never allowed major label induction to allow their message to seep away. Life like Weeds creeps along with Brock’s nasal twang more pungent than ever. The Moon and Artartica allowed us to witness something very rare in rock: the sound of a band growing up. ()

THE 100 BEST ALBUMS of 2000-2009:

Joanna Newsom – Ys (2006):

if Bjork was for you the most difficult pop entity in the 90s to appreciate then welcome to this decade’s most enchanting enigma. Newsom is more than a musician; she’s an artist and a medieval poet. Five songs clocking nearly an hour of music gives you some idea that Miss Newsom is here to unfurl some epic yarns and does she ever deliver: “Emily” is a blissful tongue-twisting tale of well, only Newsom knows (‘The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow/ Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport over the pharaoh…’). How does one assess the value of a line like, ‘and the meteoroid is a stone/ that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee…’, that’s right, she said ‘thee’. To top it all off, she reels off “Cosmia” into the stuff that befits the fabled location in France that gave the album its title. ()

The Best 100 Songs of 2000-2009: Part 4/10

The Bachelor (Patrick Wolf): by even his lofty standards, The Bachelor represents a triumph of passage that not even Wolf could’ve expected given the tumult that surrounded the album of the same name. Fed-up with his own securities and an expressive sexual tone that was proving worrisome to market, Wolf unfurls a ballad, somber in its own admission of that highest ideal of heterosexual bliss: marriage. Or more precisely his exclusion from it given the global prop 8 stance that hinders gays to get hitched. This is a personal lament too however, one where the true Wolf, finally sheds his accustomed excess to strip himself bare and vulnerable. ()


A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger (Of Montreal): if this is the results from the musical therapy Kevin Barnes must go through then let’s hope he never returns to normalcy. ()


Violent Stars Happy Hunting (Janelle Monae): Cindy Mayweather on the run after committing the cardinal rule of alien life: falling in love with a human. ()


Roscoe (Midlake): old Americana blues from a band that knows how to evoke weary soul. Lead singer Tim Smith buttresses it all with a wall of ebullient sound and escapism into emotional reality. ()


We Share our Mother’s Health (The Knife): a Scandinavion swipe at Bjork…who knows the song’s real meaning but it’s clear that The Knife has unearthed new methods to present European dance music. ()


The Bleeding Heart Show (The New Pornographers): a throw-back to the heyday of indie ballads, especially Fleetwood Mac. The track swells with each member adding a significant touch. However, the song picks up steam once Neko Case and A.C Wonder trade vocal barbs towards the end (‘we have arrived/ too late to play the bleeding heart show…’). ()


Pagan Poetry (Bjork): while the fact that Bjork is Matthew Barney’s lover has somewhat stymied her creative output for the rest of us, it is apparently a rich ground for her personally and spiritually. Never mind the mind-blowing music video that accompanied it, Bjork’s most vivid imagination has always been interpretation and interpolation of her lyrics upon music. Pagan Poetry gives an intricate and detailed account of the age-old maxim of “love at first sight” (he offers a handshake/crooked/five fingers/they form a pattern yet to be matched’). If her poetry wasn’t that enchanting enough then witness the human ending, the repeated plea which she seems set to live or die by (‘I love him, I love him/ She loves him, she loves him…’). In one word: perfect. ()


Hey Ya! (Outkast): only Andre 300 could dare mimic The Beatles and get away with it quite frankly. The reasons are many but Outkast have always been best at merging the various electro-funk shifts in hip/hop and coming up with tremendous results. ()


Cosmia (Joanna Newsom): for sheer artistry, this is perhaps Newsom’s finest. The opening lines paint the cryptic incision of her observances ( ‘When you ate, I saw your eyelashes/ Saw them shake like wind on rushes/ In the corn field when she called me/ Moths surround me/ thought they'd drown me’). Cosmia is to a point obsessive over its object of affection but fussy details points to the care Newsome has taken to sculpt such a masterpiece. ()


Let My Shoes Lead Me Forward (Jenny Wilson): a smart toe-tapper. ()

THE 100 BEST ALBUMS of 2000-2009:

Deerhunter “Microcastle” (2007):

Bradford Cox makes repetition the most fun thing in music. You hear his mastery in “Never Stops”, a trance-like number that oozes his specific skill. Ditto “Agoraphobia”. The title track though varies its pace to the point of total fragility and tenderness before ripping it to sheds. Things sag a little bit in the middle but then comes the stomper, “Nothing ever Happened”, to rescue it. Cox has been perfecting his electro-funk approach to ambient for some time now but Microcastle is his apex. The album turns for the better (and weirder) after that. “Saved by Old Times” features an arcane vocal that warbles genially. “Neither of Us, Uncertainly” is a symphony of luscious sounds that is perhaps the strongest here but within such a medley of excellence that is always a mere excess of luxury

THE 100 BEST ALBUMS of 2000-2009:

Badly Drawn Boy – The Hour Of The Bewilderbeast (2000):

the 2000 Mercury Prize winner saw Badly Drawn Boy aka Damon Gough unfurl a sonic wonder slowly that reverberates to this day. Maybe that’s the reason why he hasn’t been able to scale such heights again but by the time the jazzy Once around the Block springs itself, all Elliott Smith comparisons are off. Whereas Smith was more wrought in emotional evocations, Gough is the production junkie that had been license to simply create. Magic in the Air shifts tenses with base piano and unearths fresh results. Cause a Rockslide cocoons itself into a rollicking groove and his falsetto. The last half is strongest because it seems he grew in confidence of following the own intuitiveness of his heart. That’s all real indie geniuses need to shine.

THE 100 BEST ALBUMS of 2000-2009:

The Shins “Chutes Too Narrow” (2003):

once The Shins made the switch from keyboards to guitars they unleashed this glorious wall of sound on an unsuspecting public. There is a indie swagger here that tips a track like So Says I into the authoritative mode that resounds throughout. Lead singer, James Mercer is a man in control of not only himself but his musical output. You hear it juxtaposed with a symphonic sampling of Saint Simon, where guitars are used to paint a position of vulnerability. Fighting in a Sack then reverses the trend with a sing-along chorus and sheer aggression. Musically, even if a track like Turn a Square doesn’t spin much lyrically, the pummeled beats are a great treat. Ditto the tight harmonies that wrap Kissing the Lipless and Mine’s not a High Horse.

THE 100 BEST ALBUMS of 2000-2009:

Brian Wilson “Smile” (2004):

I don’t think anyone can truly appreciate this album fully without first hearing its successor, Animal Collective’s sprawling Merriweather Post Pavillion. To think, Wilson had this material assembled all these years and only this decade would it bear fruit and flourish. It’s quite a glorious mess too but the main difference with this work to all that has happened musically since, is the formative spills that technology has learned to clean up before the finished product becomes available. Kudos for Wilson though because for all its flaws, “Smile” remains an admirable touch from a man who has had many admirable musical touches. On a Holiday trips into the 60’s vibe that commenced the lengthy gestation period of the album. The acoustics of Wind Chimes utterly lifts it from being just a mere experiment. It is the album’s last quarter (the ending six tracks) where the stunning vision that Wilson was continuing after “Pet Sounds” becomes most obvious. In Blue Hawaii is a delightful pop romp that expertly uses the subtle chorale effect that modern lo-fi bands still are trying to perfect. Of course it ends with an exquisite version of “Good Vibrations”, which is spooky yet irrefutable fun.

THE 100 BEST ALBUMS of 2000-2009:

Metropolis Suite 1: The Chase EP (Janelle Monae) (2008): she’s been fascinating purists for years now, a-la Joi in the 90s, but finally that female hanging out with Outkast (high praise in itself) has emerged with a name and music bold enough to distinguish herself solo. She is Janelle Monae and here is the EP-length collection of songs before her debut-proper. Immediately with the intro (March of the Wolfmasters) we are privy to her alien love concept, something totally fresh and new to American hip/hop. The album tracks the rebellion of Cindy Mayweather as she has committed the cardinal alien rule: falling in love with a human. The brilliant songs track her every move: Violent Stars Happy Hunting is the chase sequence where Cindy becomes the hunted. Many Moons is her capture and auction for termination. Metropolis is the recollection of her attraction to the human in question (Anthony Greenland from Sector 9) and Sincerely, Jane is the overview of her humanly observations, especially the victimization of women. If the concept was so radical and brilliant then the sheer artistry of Monae would still win you over. Framing her concepts in a R&B base is a risky venture but the only woman who could currently hold any comparison is Erykah Badu. In fact, Monae is a potent combo of Badu, Lauryn Hill, Bjork , Aaliyah and Andre 3000. I need not go on any further after that impressive name-dropping. ()

THE 100 BEST ALBUMS of 2000-2009:

Hissing Fauna, are you the Destroyer? (Of Montreal) (2007): lead singer, Kevin Barnes decided to record an entire album around a separation from his wife after scurrying to Norway. The air there must be conducive because Hissing Fauna—the band’s eight release—easily surpasses anything they’ve done before. Besides, who knew men could do such a bitchy, insane break up album?! The album shamelessly parodies so many funk concepts but when Barnes suffuses the songs with his wry sensibilities and catty glam intent, all is forgiven. Amid all this lashing out though lies lyrical pain; ‘oh no/ she’s a rejecter/ I must protect myself/ there’s the girl that left me bitter’, he shrieks viciously on She’s a Rejecter. Gronlandic Edit slows the tempo down to a whisper, uttering a haunting refrain. Cato as a Pun is the cry out of help wrapped up in self-doubt. Labyrinthian Pomp is dead-on the Bowie vibe that is so omnipresent in male pop fabulists. A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger (‘I spent the winter/ on the verge of a nervous breakdown/ while living in Norway’) and We were born the Mutants again with Leafling ( ‘we love to view unfortunate passions…’) rotate their fabulousness while pandering to pain. Toss in the best white-boy Prince funk of the decade (Bunny ain’t no kind of Rider, Faberge falls for Shuggie) and garnish with Beatles flavor and voila, this tasty treat is done just right. ()

The Best 100 Songs of 2000-2009: Part 3/10

You are a Runner and I am My Father’s Son (Wolf Parade): the immediate one chord drum, Krug’s emotionless vocals stretched taunt and the creepy lyrics…a stunning yet irresistible treat. ()


B.O.B (Outkast): A shape-shifting funk track that morphs endlessly, B.O.B toasts goodies a mile wide. In the process, Big Boi and Andre 3000 prove that they have no true equal because they no longer create hip/hop…they mutate the genre with whatever proto-funk ideas pop up in their collective genius. B.O.B features a stunning liner guitar base then mutates to a one-drop then morphs into its funky chorale ending. The entire thing swings as classy as it is innovative….surely the song of the decade. ()


Frontier Psychiatrist (The Avalanches): a mad mash-up of comical dialogue, spooky effects and, quite frankly, the most arcane production for anyone not named Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, The Avalanches melt all their electronic leanings into this one fantastic solid outfit. ()


Fight Test (The Flaming Lips): who would have thought a coming-of-age sonic ballad from The Flaming Lips?! ()


My Love (Justin Timberlake feat. T.I): who says lightning doesn’t strike twice spectacularly? Four years after the Timberlake/Timbaland combination rewrote the rules on contemporary break-ups, they returned to funk up the next step: the next hook up. Whereas Timberlake was just emerging in 2002 on a solo career that was still questionable, here his maturity is the most stunning thing. A smooth falsetto compliments Timbaland’s shimmering beats. T.I. steps in with a cameo that highlights the reality of relationships, hitting the stuff fabulously out of the ballpark. ()


Sunshowers (M.I.A): at the height of her emerging notoriety, Maya dropped this sweet-sour ballad that featured the provocative line (‘like PLO/ I don’t surrender’) but highlighted, more importantly, her ability to chew up anything Diplo would throw her way. The beat is a down/tempo dancehall skat and she never registers more than two decibel levels but her ultimate grasp on control is never allowed to be in question. ()


Stupid Girls (Pink): We all should believe in beauty with a purpose, right? That politically-correct mantra aside, Pink hit the music industry upside down with this sugary yet totally relevant ode to the female hyper-sexuality that dominates it. Dressing up her critique in pop was an ingenious idea because people will rock to music one a nifty beat is in it. More than just swiping at her contemporaries, Pink is lamenting a lack of positive female role models in the industry as well as the levels of immodesty women have to go through just to be visible or even viable. In one swoop, she has castigated all parties involved: us, them and even the victim themselves. But the track deals with an even bigger issue: female/feminist identity issue. The second line (maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back) runs parallel to this stark reality…one which not even Pink can successfully dissect in under four minutes. ()


Wait for the Summer (Yeasayer): hippie rock revivalists? Who knows the true aim of Yeasayer’s music but in this track—the best of 2008—the band achieve that type of cathartic sweet-spot that usually takes decades to perfect. Wait for the Summer swells with optimism and the little intricacies that make human relationships so icky yet necessarily sticky. ()


Waves of Rye (Department of Eagles): no one swells so much grandiose chorale production like Daniel Rossen and here was his non-Grizzle Bear experimentation working blissfully, rotating itself until just well-done. ()


Jigsaw Falling into Place (Radiohead): spare as a sigh and just as intricately fascinating, Thom Yorke yet again wowing us with such tenderness that we had forgotten still existed in rock. ()

The Best 100 Songs of 2000-2009: Part 2/10

Many Moons (Janelle Monae): 2008’s sweetest surprise was the strong showing by Monae, a woman dubbed the unofficial third member of Outkast. High praise indeed but one that is deserved. Many Moons is a space caper, replete with riffs and jazzy horns. But it is the sheer artistry of her concept that is so damned amazing. The song’s persona, Cindy Mayweather is a renegade robot who has fallen in love with a human, thus, freeing her own self from the homogeneity that her race runs on. Observing from a distance, she starts to list all the maladies that hound mankind while espousing hope. ()


Back To Black (Amy Winehouse): Say what you will about Winehouse but one can literally feel the pain from her voice and the mournfulness of her lyrics on this stunning title track of her sophomore. Not that melancholy music juxtaposed to a voice in bittersweet refrain is anything new---Motown perfected the art in the 1960s with the likes of Aretha Franklin. What Winehouse does add though is the British hardiness and sass that allows lines like, ‘kept his dick wet with his same old safe bet’, to slither through her sweet yet forked lips. ()


2+2=5 (Radiohead): The opening song from Hail to The Thief is one studded with the type of intellectual authority that makes critics wet their underwear for Radiohead. Volumes of fan-based thought has been put up on the internet on it’s cryptic meaning, ranging from Thom Yorke reading Orwell’s "1984" to it being an outright critique of the second Bush presidential term. Both of these ideals are apparently seconded here because “1984” expounded on double think, the replacing of one’s own conscious beliefs for another. Orwell, through the book’s protagonist, arrived at the famous mathematical equation. Lyrically, the track is riddled with Bush references (‘don't question my authority or put me in the box’) as well as a silent judgment of the American people themselves (‘because/ you're not there/ payin' attention/ you have not been/ paying attention’). Juxtaposed to all this intellectual discourse is the harshest rock groove Greenwood has ever constructed so as always it’s a classic. The most devastating rock song of the decade. ()


Gossip Folks (Missy Elliott): Missy Elliott’s repertoire of being a cool cat has never been in doubt but when she started slimming down then she knew tongues would be wagging for different reasons. Never one not to mimic or slide in sideway commentary, Elliott decided to spoof her detractors by simultaneously calling them out and getting them to jive in the process. ‘girl, is that Missy Elliott/ she lost a lot of weight/ girl, I heard she eats one cracker a day…’ goes one of the crisp opening lines before Missy steps up and grabs Ludacris for an amazing cameo. Towards the end of the dazzling performance, the aforementioned ‘haters’ are now eating out of her hand and, with her victory restored, Missy castigates them. It seems like mere puppetry but the format of Gossip Folks is highly copious. The relationship between musician and fan is an immense one but it is fickle too. Missy sizes up this state of things and rocks the night away. ()


DVNO (Justice): After striking gold with D.A.N.C.E a year earlier, Justice was supposed to fade away under the banner of ‘one-hit wonder’ but somehow they didn’t get the memo. Thankfully, the French duo, Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay had more tricks up their collective sleeve. The brilliance of the track is in realizing that one can rock the masses without blasting their ears to pieces. DVNO rotates synths and lyrical samples along with shards of punk attitude. Not that these ideas have never been presented before but it took these trendy outsiders to sift all the angles to luxuriously. ()


Twinkle (Erykah Badu): Hidden behind the other brilliant tracks from her New Amerykah album lays this gem, a heavy-hitting examination of the African-American experience. Just like her awesome Penitentiary Philosophy earlier this decade, Badu is giving a gut-check to ‘progress’ of the races amid the natural evolution going on. Written and conceived before there was President Obama, Twinkle foresees such a time when racial conflict can no longer be used as an excuse for continuing a slump (‘They say their grandfathers and grandmothers work hard for nothing/And we still in this ghetto/So they end up in prisons’) or allowed to simmer on the brink for too long (‘if we have no choices/then we’re gonna fuck up’). ()


Sugar Assault Me Now (Pop Levi): A smartly contrived three minute pop gem, Sugar Assault Me Now is how most of us would have been introduced to former Ladytron bassist Levi. His skill is in constructing a mathematical groove around his quirky lyrics. The track is not mere gloss though as Levi positively corrals the ending, achieving a fanatical overdrive to his visual imagination. ()


Neighborhood #2 (Laika) (The Arcade Fire): according to lead sing Win Butler, the track is about Laika, the first animal in space by the Russians. One doesn’t immediately glean that from the lyric sheet but the alienation of the song’s persona is obvious. Given the shroud of gloom that hung around the making of Funeral, one can surmise that the group wanted to expand on that central theme, with this track’s aim being to literally bleed the feeling away. Swirling with organ music , violins and accordion, Butler rattle off quixotic lines (‘our older brother bit by a vampire/for a year/ we caught his tears in a cup/and now we're gonna make him drink it’) to absolutely high form. ()


Boyz (MIA): Defined as a urumee/soca mash up, Boyz best demonstrates the global feel MIA had drawn on for her sophomore. Both musical styles outlines are mainly Hindi, one based in India and the other in Trinidad. The video was shot in Jamaica, with local dance groups like Sample Six providing the moves. With all the glorified beats and cultural sampling involved it’s easy to miss the feminist intent dissected by MIA’s politics. Boyz here is used not as dire as, say Anne Rice’s doomed Akasha to vanquish mankind, but still, MIA moves a crooked yet manicured finger in our face, assigning blame for so many ills right where it belongs. ()

Try Again (Aaliyah): No one really remembers the soundtrack this came from (Romeo Must Die) but who doesn’t get exhilarated by the opening horns and Timbaland’s metallic crunk sprinkling so much funk right through the track? One doesn’t even have time to realize the opening lines are in ode to Eric B and Rakim but Tim and Aaliyah had long been the funky gift that never stopped fulfilling. Her soft, silky vocals ride the waves of grooves sent her way. Here was the pop/hiphop hybrid Jay Z would later duplicate with Umbrella. ()

R.I.P Wayne Brown

Two remarkable giants of the local (Jamaica) literary scene died Wednesday, September 16th: of course Trevor Rhone, that great playwright and story-teller. I didn’t know him personally, just saw him a few times around the capital but by all accounts, Mr. Rhone was a real ‘yardie’…as reflected into his stunning interpretative plays. The other giant lost was the Trinidad-born Wayne Brown. I’m sure many read the literary pages on Sunday (both Gleaner & Observer) without being aware of Mr. Brown’s contribution towards both dallies wizening up to the fact that there is (was) a huge swathe of literature lovers, hungrily waiting to devour any worthy local talent being unleashed. Note I said ‘worthy talent’….to get that call from him, telling you that your submission (poetry, short story, ect) was earth-shattering…you felt that you were worthy of The Literary Arts, thus publication would ensue. That was the secondary thrill actually because in this small writers pool that in Jamaica, Wayne Brown had found a way to unite a group that is notoriously hermetic. He didn’t just involve those writers who were already established but also those just on the fringe of such success. Also, he made new, emerging writers like me feel not so tentative at experimenting wildly with styles not inherently used locally. He had the workshops that unfortunately I could not be a part of and I’m sure I have missed out on a huge slice of camaraderie there but Mr. Brown understood and always encouraged. He gave me my break into the literary scene in 2002 and my first international publication in Kunapipi (for a poem I thought no good but he thought had ‘umph’)

Of course his own work inspired me greatly…..the ‘In our Time’ column was a staple of my Sunday reading because along with John Maxwell one was witness to the finest, most stubborn minds that local print had to offer. He wasn’t just an intellectual for the sake of being one but he used it in print to challenge age-old positions. That is the truest form of opinion journalism and, finally, a writer. Alas, one on of my local writing mentors has left the stage but he has played his part well. Now, I’m sure he’d want everyone whom he touched with his gift to continue playing their parts as well.

THE 100 BEST ALBUMS of 2000-2009:

Silent Shout (The Knife) (2006):

from obscurity in Sweden to incessant blog hype, The Knife emerged in 2006 to rapturous praise for juxtaposing their cool soundscapes and wry lyrical content. The title track runs a tight gamut with a brilliant production and Karin Andersson’s vocals tagging along for an exhilarating ride. Neverland ups the funk and ditches more cheese simultaneously. Marble House is an arcane in-house tempo that works. What surprises here is how varied and great the results The Knife unearth. Like Bjork before them, they know that electronic music is more than just beats but there can be a connection to something real and danceable at the same time. The centerpiece though is We Share our Mother’s Health, an unrelenting collage of beats mashed up with vocals warbled and set in at the most appropriate places.