Medialoper

We're Not Who You Think We Are

Foo Fighters – One by One

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(RCA)

Their continued success — both artistically and commercially — is one of the most bittersweet stories in rock and roll. They’ve done some fantastic stuff, but … sigh. And on their last album, I thought it finally caught up to them: for the first time, nothing special. But Dave Grohl’s recommittment to rawk, as evidenced by his works with Queens of the Stone Age and (especially) Tenacious D, has been good for his heart. So he sticks it out on the album cover as he wears it on his sleeve — you can hear it in every vocal and every riff. Bittersweet still, yeah, but on this record, he’s earned the right to call himself a “new day rising” in what might be his best song ever, “Times Like These.”

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Part of my 2002 Top Ten list as published by Neumu on Jan 17, 2003

Bruce Springsteen – The Rising

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(Sony)

Part of my 2002 Top Ten list as published by Neumu on Jan 17, 2003

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Sure, it’s got its overly mauldin bits, and too much earnestness can weigh on a soul, but luckily, Bruce knows that, so he balances it with soul workouts like “Mary’s Place.” And, as always, what he’s saying is more ambiguous than you might assume: why else would his “dream of life” image on the title track — that catfish dancin’ at the end of his line — actually be an image of death?

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… and you will know us by the Trail of Dead – Source Tags & Codes

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(Interscope)

Almost too perfect in all of its white-noise crazy-drums bliss. In fact, they’ve got their thing so together that after nearly a year, I still don’t know which songs go with which song titles. Until the end, that is, when they make with “Relative Ways,” which takes perfection and ups it a notch.

Part of my 2002 Top Ten list as published by Neumu on Jan 17, 2003

Rhett Miller – The Instigator

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(Elektra/Asylum)

The last two (or three, I won’t argue) Old 97s albums featured as- good-as-it-gets songwriting, and so if this is a letdown, it’s only just barely. It experiments more, to the detriment of the speed factor, I suppose, but speed hasn’t really been much of a factor since he declared himself a serial lady killer. Lyrics still are, though, and I hope that it doesn’t mean anything bad that this time, instead of my favorite lyrics being about his cat running away or proposing, they go like this: “Uh-ah, uh-ah, uh-ah, uh-ah.”

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Part of my 2002 Top Ten list as published by Neumu on Jan 17, 2003

Paul Westerberg – Stereo/Mono

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(Vagrant)

Finally giving up on his dream of mass acceptance 10 years after everybody else knew that it was impossible, Paul relaxes and delivers his best music since he first started trying for it. Sloppy rockers and shameless tear-jerkers, all aimed squarely at his cult. I’m one, and he can release records like either one of these forever.

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Part of my 2002 Top Ten list as published by Neumu on Jan 17, 2003

Wilco – YHF Demos

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(Bootleg)

Speaking of mythology, I know that declaring that the hard-to-find demos for this album are better than what was eventually released just adds to the overwhelming mythos already surrounding the album. But they are, they are! Songs like “Venus Stopped The Train,” “Not For the Season” and the Badfinger version of “Kamera” have more punch and immediacy than what was released. None of this demeans the final album, which I like a lot (and should have put on my 2001 list, as instinct told me to). The upcoming DVD of the movie and accompanying EP should just finally close the chapter on all of this, and I can hardly wait to see what Jeff Tweedy does next.

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Part of my 2002 Top Ten list as published by Neumu on Jan 17, 2003

Drive-by Truckers – Southern Rock Opera

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“FREE BIRD”

Calling out “Free Bird” at a show is one of the most ubiquitous running tropes in all of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s something that you yell out as a joke to your friend’s band in a club. But in “Days of Graduation,” the opening number of the Drive-By Truckers’ tremendous Southern Rock Opera, the band darkens the joke several shades by associating it with one of the other great running tropes in rock ‘n’ roll: the deadly teen auto crash. And thus begins one of funniest, smartest, truest, saddest and flat-out rockingest (in the very best way) albums I’ve heard in a very long time.

[Read more…] about Drive-by Truckers – Southern Rock Opera

The Strokes – Is This It

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(RCA)

Yes, they are too pretty. No, they aren’t too hyped. (Compared to Michael Jackson or Britney or even Pete Yorn.) Yes, the production is awful. No, they don’t sound like Television or even Lou Reed. (The guitars remind me of That Petrol Emotion, of all people, and the white-boy rock ‘n’ roll soul rhythms remind me of late-period Jam.) There is no way, of course, that any band could withstand the hopes and dreams and attention of a million frustrated rockers looking for the next great band to lead us to the nirvana of a pop scene where a great rock and roll band has the attention of the world. The idiots of the year, of course, were the indie purists who dismissed the band without hearing a note, but if 2001 taught us anything, it taught us that purists of any persuasion should be exposed for the narrow-minded idiots that they are. And where does that leave the Strokes? With a debut album that feels like just the beginning.

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Part of my 2001 Top Ten list as published by Neumu on Jan 11, 2002

Guided by Voices – Isolation Drills

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(TVT)

Robert Pollard’s strategy remains the same: record everything that his muse spews up. Lately, though, he puts the songs that were written 15 min after they were recorded on his Fading Captain Series of solo projects, and while there is the occasional gem (“Pop Zeus!“) on those records, for the most part, they are for his ever-dwindling cult. Because he still has dreams of Rock ‘n’ Roll glory, he puts the great stuff on the GBV records, and Isolation Drills is full of it.

Songs like “Fair Touching,” “Glad Girls,” and “Run Wild” are the shit, all full of chunky guitars, rumbling drums (courtesy of ex-Breeder Jim McPherson, one of the secretly great drummers of our time) sing-along melodies, and, as an extra added bonus, lyrics that nearly make sense! It also feelsAnd when celebrated onstage beer-chugger Pollard stops to ask “How’s My Drinking?” you not only get sense that while he still dreams of Rock and Roll glory, its also beginning to seep into his nightmares.

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Part of my 2001 Top Ten list as published by Neumu on Jan 11, 2002