If not for Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man, I’d have gone with Johnny Cash’s remarkable The Man Comes Around. These late American Recordings albums with Rick Rubin are all great but this 4th one, the last one to be released before he died in 2003, is the pinnacle, imo.
His cover versions of Hurt and Personal Jesus are on this one, the original Johnny Cash title track and his Grammy winning new recording of Give My Love To Rose are brilliant too. For me, the best is I Hung My Head which takes Sting’s wild west storytelling original (for me, pretty forgettable) and gives it the Johnny Cash treatment so it becomes this heartbreaking tale of a tragic accident and facing the consequences.
El-P at the top of his game. As much as I love RTJ, El’s solo stuff will always mean the most to me. Def Jux changed what I thought about hip hop and this and The Cold Vein are at the very peak.
Been going back over some old stuff since this thread (& The Strokes thread) - my 2001 to 2005 playlists in particular and, I suspect I’m just getting old but ‘pop’ music just seems so different now to how it was then. Felt like the last time people rallied round similar things, everything is just so disparate now. Like, I’m not sure that Sufjan, or The Strokes, or something like Madvillainy, would get anywhere near that kind of traction if they came out now.
I’m all for progress, but makes me a bit sad. Not sure what the ‘landmark’ records have been recently. Have there been any?
I’ve been having a little look through my 2002 diary to see what gigs I went to. This wasn’t a big gig-going year for me, I was in Sheffield and most of my Uni friends had moved away after graduating and I didn’t really have new gig-going buddies in town. Still some good uns on my calendar though. The highlight was probably Flaming Lips on the Yoshimi tour supported by Bob Mould at the Leadmill.
Trail of Dead and 80s Matchbox, both at the Leadmill, I remember being good uns. And I went to the NME Tour at The Foundry, (The Coral, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Lostprophets, Andrew WK) and my main memory is having an absolute blast down the front partying hard when Andrew WK was on.
Also, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and The Vines at the Leadmill were good. I also went to Leeds festival, which was the year of the Guns n Roses late late shitshow, and I have very hazy memories of that weekend.
Not the Zorb ball that he’d get in and go out into the crowd but there were big balls on stage - glitterballs I think though my memory’s hazy, and possibly a giant balloon getting batted around the crowd, and the dressing up in animal costumes thing. I remember it being quite a spectacle though, in stark contrast to Bob Mould who was absolutely solo, just him, a guitar and a speaker stack either side of him.
I’d seen the Flaming Lips before at the Leadmill (with Sonic Boom’s Spectrum) and the two gigs tend to blur. My abiding memory was seeing the transformation of Bob Mould. The last time I had seen him was with Sugar and he slightly portly and balding whereas at the Leadmill it was clear that he’d really got into working out. He also played a great Husker Du medley including my personal favourite ‘Celebrated Summer’.
Yeah, I saw Flaming Lips with Mercury Rev at the Octagon 2 or 3 years prior to this, and I’m not entirely confident which details belong to which gig.
I didn’t know Bob Mould was the support beforehand, not sure why I didn’t. But it was therefore a lovely surprise and I remember exclaiming ‘fucking hell, it’s Bob Mould’ too loudly when he came on, to the amusement of those around me.
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Boards of Canada - Geogaddi
Sigur Ros - ()