Metro Pulse/Platters

Comment
on this story

This Week: Our picks for the best of 2002

"White America," Eminem

The most radical song of the year—and somehow, no one noticed (except, presumably, for the 6 million-plus people who bought it). Even after Eminem hired the left-wing Guerrilla News Network to make the video and showed it at every stop of his tour (you can see it at www.guerrillanews.com), the cognoscenti preferred to obsess over his movie and whether or not he really hates his mother. Whatever. "White America," astute and funny and primordially pissed off, is as potent and timely as the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen." And it was the first track on the biggest-selling album of 2002. The kids are all right.

Other things I never got sick of: The Private Press, DJ Shadow; "Hot in Herre," Nelly; "Work It," Missy Elliott; Deadringer, Rjd2; springtime is for the hopeless and other ideas, Dixie Dirt.

—Jesse Fox Mayshark

Diorama, silverchair

Amidst the outpour of releases this year, I've found real sincerity in few. They weren't really the sort you fall in love with, the sort you let yourself be consumed by. My favorite, for that reason, is silverchair's Diorama. Through headphones, with eyes shut, or against the long horizon of the highway, no matter how cheesy it sounds, the CD works best when simply allowed to be there without being over-thought. Its lush orchestrations, beautiful, uplifting lyrics, and sedate vocals, form an album, that, if allowed, can sweep you away. It's not the album you were expecting.

Runner up: Hayden's Skyscraper National Park finds its honesty in sparseness.

—Liz Tapp

The Infinite, Dave Douglas

At turns sensitive and explosive, The Infinite has classic written all over it. An appreciation of Miles in the most inspired and constructive sense, Douglas explores contemporary pop melodies, immaculate original conceptions, and varieties of tension and release. Contrast Douglas' trumpet, boundless and vital throughout, tentatively probing the melody on Wainwright's "Poses," yet crackling with invention and fire on the original "The Infinite." Superbly recorded, a virtuoso and moving performance readily matched by sidemen equal to the task.

—Jonathan Frey

Original Pirate Material, The Streets

My vote goes to vaguely hip-hop one-man-band The Streets, a U.K. artist that doesn't seem to have made much of an impression on these shores. While he's been called "the British Eminem," Mike Skinner really doesn't rap at all. His words drift across the room at a pace more akin to spoken word, his voice soft and languid like that of a perpetually stoned friend who's always spinning out remarkably cogent social theories. Borrowing strains from ska, reggae, house and most notably the electronica-rap hybrid known as U.K. garage, Skinner's debut album Original Pirate Material details the lives of upwardly immobile Birmingham youth.

Other favorites: The Judybats show at Blue Cats; The Dar Williams show at Blue Cats; Title TK, The Breeders; "Lessons Learned From Rocky I to Rocky III," Cornershop.

—Tamar Wilner

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco

At first listen, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot could easily be written off as a psychedelic romp into the pages No Depression magazine. Like a good book, Foxtrot pleads for patience, attention and a time investment to appreciate its subtle charms. The intricate recording bends genres into an amalgamous rock 'n' roll hash by deconstructing musical standards and pairing the outcome with introspective lyrics. A scuffle between the band and its record label spawned an insightful documentary into music industry practices to dazzle the likes of big-business agitator Michael Moore. Despite the hubbub, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot succeeds as an indispensable release for the year 2002.

—Clint Casey

Home, Dixie Chicks

Home proves that, sometimes, the pop music charts are correct. This long-anticipated disc hovered in the top 10 for the better part of the summer and is full of gems—like the radio-staple "Long Time Gone," the three-part harmony ode to life-changes "Landslide" and the heartbreaking closing cut "Top of the World." It helps that Natalie Maines and company are aided by some of the sharpest country-esque artists—like Emmylou Harris, Tim O'Brien, Radney Foster, and Patty Griffin—currently producing. Home brilliantly captures the Chicks contagious spunk and recent hard-won maturity with catchy hooks and enviable skill.

My soundtrack to 2002, the top five: "You Know You're Right," Nirvana; "World Inside the World," Rhett Miller; "I'm With You," Avril Lavigne; "Die Another Day," Madonna; "White Trash Wedding," The Dixie Chicks.

—Adrienne Martini

Footprints Live, Wayne Shorter

Wayne's return to an acoustic setting was most welcome. His sparse, urgent phrasing on both tenor and soprano is still one of the most distinctive sounds in jazz, and his ace rhythm section (Perez, Patitucci, and Blade) transfigures several Shorter classics into modern touchstones. Brilliant interplay, great program.

Other favorites: Footloose and Fancy Free, Bill Bruford's Earthworks; Ballads, Derek Bailey; Monk's Dream (reissue), Thelonious Monk; Live at the Apollo DVD, Roxy Music.

—Chris Mitchell

Blacklisted, Neko Case

A lot of artists reflected ambivalence and doubt in their music this year (Wilco, Springsteen, Beck), as the world struggled to find its bearings and worried about the blood that will apparently soon be spilled. Others just kicked out the jams—Eminem, Nelly, the Liars, Sleater-Kinney. I gravitated between these two camps, depending on my mood, and was never really certain where I felt most comfortable (which, is probably why I ended up retreating to '50s and '60s soul music). One album, I didn't have doubts about was Neko Case's Blacklisted. Case's sultry voice was for me a specter, serenading lost souls, the powerless and the innocent damned. I didn't like what she had to tell me, but if we're indeed all doomed (a feeling I couldn't shake last year), I want Case singing to me as I let go.

Other stuff that made life better this year: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco; "The Seed (2.0)," The Roots with Cody Chesnutt; "Kaleidoscope," Dixie Dirt; "One Beat," Sleater-Kinney; "White America," Eminem; geogaddi, boards of canada; Finally We Are No One, Mum.

—Joe Tarr

Drive-by Truckers Blue Cats show

It's easy to overstate the transcendent power of rock 'n' roll, but when I saw this show I had just moved from Knoxville to a crappy little town in North Carolina and hated everything in my life. By the time the Drive-by Truckers got to "Let There Be Rock," an anthem about a kid who grew up in Alabama in the 1970s and never got to see Lynyrd Skynyrd, I was transfixed. I forgot about everything that sucked, stood at the foot of the stage (where the band's three guitarists were playing harmony leads to rival Thin Lizzy), sang along, and pumped my fist in the air. Looking back it seems silly. At the time it made perfect sense.

Other favorites: I Get Wet, Andrew W.K.; Turn on the Bright Lights, Interpol; Kaito at the Pilot Light; Moe Tucker at the Pilot Light; "Lose Yourself," Eminem.

—Matthew T. Everett