Vikings & Beekeepers

60. Godspeed You Black Emperor! Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (2000)

No one knows how to work a crescendo like Montreal’s Godspeed You Black Emperor! The band’s screeching strings, bubbling drums and winding guitars build and build past a point you would have thought even possible. Sure, at some point, after more than one Godspeed album, you start to get the idea, but taken in a singular setting, their isn’t much that manages to be as transcendental (the build to the 16-minute mark of “Static” is insane). Lift Your Skinny Fists, a double album comprised of four songs with no track titles, is their finest work. It also might be the high point of post-rock. Pairing raging dissonance with moments of hushed grandeur, chilling drones and heart-wrenching (“Sleep”) and discombobulating (“Storm”) spoken word samples, GSYBE! created an album that is huge, terrifying and emotionally wrenching. Plowing through these two discs in one setting could result in your demise. The notoriously media-unfriendly collective would fragment into smaller factions soon after the release of this, their magnum opus, thereby slightly diminishing their prominence in the soon-to-be-huge Montreal music scene. Without this multi-member, chamber rock collective, the Arcade Fire probably wouldn’t exist. Listening to Lift Your Skinny Fists, you can hear the dramatic sensibility that remained in that scene, although the Arcade Fire would condense these stretched out compositions into bite-size chunks and add a distinctly emo element to it. But even without its influence, even though post-rock had no room to go after GSYBE! charred the landscape, Lift Your Skinny Fists remains one of the most emotional and emotionally draining experiences ever put to tape. And notice how I didn’t use the word “Apocalyptic” even once?

 

 

 59. Joanna Newsom The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004)

Joanna Newsom makes something more than music. She sets a scene, paints a picture and dazzles with her words. For those who couldn’t get past The Voice – a mix of Bjork, Tweety Bird and Manic Pixie Dream Girl - there are always her words. Like a catalogue of Donald Barthelme poems, Newsom’s lyrics are vivid, onomatopoeic and full of feeling, even when you can’t discern exactly what she’s talking about (it’s probably forest creatures or something). Admittedly, the combination of Newsom’s childlike voice, her wide-eyed words and her spritely harp playing makes for an almost impossibly whimsical listen. For a guy that shies away from whimsy, that would be a bad thing, but The Milk-Eyed Mender manages to constantly err on the right side of things. Unlike the direction Newsom would go for her expansive Renaissance Fair follow-up, YS, the songs on The Milk-Eyed Member are actually songs. And they’re great songs at that (it’s hard to pick a favorite, actually. The album’s first half is just dynamite). With The Milk-Eyed Member, Newsom become the least likely candidate to shoot up the chain of indie rock royalty. It’s this winsome, wonderful and, yes, whimsical debut that remains her most palatable moment.

“The Book Of Right-On”  

 

58. Harvey Milk Special Wishes (2006)

After releasing three uniquely strange, uniformly powerful albums in the mid-90s, Athens, GA’s Harvey Milk kind of disappeared for a while. It’s easy to forgive that near-decade long absence, however, because Special Wishes is just a crazy good comeback. Combining the crusted over sludge of their first two albums with the muscular classic rock throwbacks of their divisive, but excellent 1998 album, The Pleaser, Special Wishes captures a band that hasn’t lost an ounce of their power. Starting with the rumbling, careening “I’ve Got A Love,” Special Wishes only gets weirder and better as it moves on. “War” shows military precision on abnormal riff rock, “Instrumental” keeps the listener on his (at least it’s most likely his) toes with constant stops and starts, “Once In A While” and “The End” hit the classic rock pleasure centre with their “Free Bird” leads and “Mother’s Day” is the most deranged and sincere tribute a mom could ever want. Special Wishes shows that even after years of absentia, Harvey Milk remained a striking and disconcerting presence, giving the band a stranglehold on a new generation of metal fans.

“The End”  

 

57. Plastic Constellations Mazatlan (2004)

Four goofy Minneapolis high school buddies with an equal love for angular post-punk and party rap decide to form a band where they sing silly DC-style call and response punk songs about battling dragons and knowing karate. When high school ends, the four friends decide to put the band on hiatus for college, returning four years later to discover that during their time apart, they only got better as a band. They re-group, only to realize that as awesome as they’ve become, they still want to play songs about battling dragons and knowing karate. The boys have become men, but they still have overactive imaginations and an overabundance of energy. The story is best summarized in Mazatlan’s opening song, “We Came To Play”: “We wrote this and laced up our shoes / We came to play, it’s what we do / Refocused, time to follow through / We can’t complain, it’s nothing new.”

Mazatlan is a total party album. The songs are energetic, funny and the boys play the shit out of their guitars. And even though the band’s two vocalist approach is sometimes more Linkin Park than Fugazi, the urgency to pogo and sing along is overwhelming. On a high-minded, fancy pants, critical level, The Plastic Constellations may seem like kid stuff, but I should have been so lucky to have had a band like this in my life when I was a kid. The Cons drape their angular post-punk with a cheery disposition and a rapper’s delight. Mazatlan tastes like junk food, but it’s actually quite good for you.

“Davico”  

 

56. Radiohead Kid A (2000)

I guess I have to just come out and admit it. I’m not a Radiohead fan. I never was and I doubt I ever will be. Something about their twitchy and dramatic critic-baiting just rubs me the wrong way, and it especially did during their OK Computer days. But before you make me hand in my music fan card, you need to hear me out. For a kid who spent the 90s listening almost exclusively to punk, Radiohead didn’t rock hard enough for me, even when they were rocking out. They were simply too “digital,” somber and emotionally downcast for a kid who didn’t have much room for sad, serious music with a foot in the world of electronic music.

This all holds true to this day, but for some reason, I still have a lot of love for Kid A, perhaps Radiohead’s most downcast, foreboding and “digital” albums. Contradictory, I know. Even in 2010, Kid A seems like such a confounding and desolate album, but I like it. While most critics would have it in them to write their Masters’ Thesis on Kid A, my responses to the album are all from the gut. “Everything In Its Right Place” is a haunting start that wraps its icy fingers around you and sucks you completely into the album’s sound; “The National Anthem” is tantalizingly chaotic and finds a way to legitimately rock in an unconventional fashion; “In Limbo’s” hungry guitar prowl captivates; and “Motion Picture Soundtrack” effectively pairs sweeping string flourishes with Thom Yorke’s lifeless mumble. And then of course there’s “Idioteque,” the chopped up and jittery masterpiece of the album. Chances are that if it weren’t for me seeing Radiohead perform this claustrophobic piece of stress on SNL in 2000 I would have never made any room for Radiohead in my life. That performance still stands as the most transfixing thing I’ve seen on TV. Truth be told, even if Kid A had been more of the same old, same old from Radiohead (and admittedly, some of it is) I would have still sought the album for “Idioteque” alone. While “Idioteque” and the rest of Kid A failed to fully convert me to obsessed fandom, it went a long way in justifying the existence of a band that I’d spent years trying to backlash against.

“Idioteque”  

 

55. Sonic Youth Murray Street (2002)

When you’re in a band that’s been around for a couple decades, there comes a time when every new release is hailed as a “return to form.” Time allows for perspective, however, and perspective would show that Murray Street is Sonic Youth’s bona fide return to form after spending a large part of the 90s in the wilderness. Their first album with producer Jim O’Rourke on board as an official member, Murray Street is far from a retread, but instead an expansive and comfortable work by a band that has re-ignited their muse. A sexy, sophisticated album built around icy guitar lines and economical psychedelic flourishes, Murray Street catches Sonic Youth in a wonderfully restrained mode (Kim Gordon’s ranty “Plastic Sun” notwithstanding). Perhaps O’Rourke’s influence tempered some of SY’s more obtuse moments (I remember seeing the band in 97 and that hour of squall was a far cry from this comparatively contained album), but what’s certain is that Murray Street was the beginning of what ended up being a very fruitful decade for a band who had been teetering on irrelevance for years.

“The Empty Page”  

 

54. Robyn Robyn (2005)

In many ways, Robyn is the perfect pop star. She has the pipes and affability of a Kelly Clarkson, but with a better back-story; the out-of-this-world weirdness of a “Toxic” era Britney, but with none of the baggage; the boldness of a solo Gwen Stefani, but with less missteps; the indie darling credibility of Annie, but with better filler. Not content with late-90s has-been status (her 1997 hit, “Show Me Love” was one of the more delightful pop trifles of a particularly dire period), Robyn opted to come out of hiding with a string of songs so strange, so perfect, that they could sustain her for not just one album, but for the entire remainder of the decade - Robyn is the album so nice they released it twice (the 2008 American release tacks on a handful of essential singles, but the rearranged track listing and use of crossfade do it no benefits. Get the original UK version and download the other singles). In a decade where the pop and indie worlds found a comfortable co-existence, this Swedish princess proved to be the ultimate uniter.

“Be Mine!”  

 

53. Young Jeezy Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101 (2005)

Young Jeezy is a lousy rapper. But we all knew that, didn’t we? When Jeezy describes himself as having “Psycopathic wordplay, schizophrenic flow” on “Standing Ovation” we know he’s not just exaggerating, he’s lying. His rhyming is redundant and unimaginative – the most popular Jeezy line would be either a grunted, celebratory “Jyeah” or a guttural, murderous “Ha haa.” But no one cares about that because “flow” is not Jeezy’s wheelhouse. What has made every Young Jeezy album up to this point (and especially Let’s Get It) so successful is that Jeezy’s wheelhouse is the best: heartless, synth-heavy horror beats that hit huge paired with Jeezy’s weathered growl and unparalleled sloganeering. Jeezy might be a meh rapper, but he’s got the best voice and grimiest production. Let’s Get It is like an unending cycle of coke rap showstoppers, from the dead-eyed menace of “Thug Motivation 101” and “Gangsta Music” to the soulful swagger of “Go Crazy” and “Talk To Em” to anthemic bangers like “And Then What” and “Bottom Of The Map” to polychromatic head-snappers like “Last Of A Dying Breed” and “My Hood.” Young Jeezy is the perfect example of how emphasizing your strengths and downplaying your weaknesses can be the key to success and longevity.

“My Hood”  

 

52. The Wrens The Meadowlands (2003)

The Wrens are a slow moving band. After releasing the indie rock near-classic Seacaucus in 1996, the band kind of pittered away, back to their daily lives, the occasional label dispute and the continued refrain of “new album coming soon – we promise.” That promise was kept, albeit seven years later, with The Wrens long past rocking age (that would be the 30s). But while Seacaucus shows a spry young band with all the promise in the world, The Meadowlands sounds legitimately tired – a band beaten down by a near-decade of break-ups and bad gigs. But The Wrens’ hardship is our gain, as this ridiculously confessional album continues to resonate with people who suffer with insecurities about not doing what we love in life, or simply doing it unsuccessfully (read: all of us). The Wrens stories of disappointment and regret are pretty emo, but it’s grown-up stuff, there’s no whining here. That it’s been seven years since The Meadowlands and The Wrens are back in “new album coming soon – we promise” mode is painful to even think about. But imagine how good that next album’s going to be.

“She Sends Kisses”  

 

51. Songs: Ohia Magnolia Electric Co. (2003)

Whether this is the last Songs: Ohia album or the first for Magnolia Electric Co. album is of no bearing, it’s all Jason Molina, anyway. And this one stands as his best work to date. Molina’s whole thing has been to recreate the mood and feel of Doom trilogy era-Neal Young, which is just fine by me. I love that shit. Molina isn’t necessarily doing a tribute, but the sonic similarities are there. Molina’s quivering voice is all cosmic Americana and the grooves established on tracks like “Farewell Transmission” and “I’ve Been Riding With The Ghost” are loose-limbed and ready to be expanded into a tortured jam if need be. Molina takes to the mic for six of the album’s eight ragged, but glorious tracks (some more ragged than others - like “John Henry Split My Heart” - and some more glorious than others - like “Hold On Magnolia”), but it’s the two tracks where Molina hands off vocal duties that further add to the album’s lasting intrigue. Scout Niblett has a go at “Peoria Lunch Box Blues,” a haunting waltz that utilizes Niblett’s broken wail to wonderful effect. Lawrence Peters gets to play the old codger role on “The Old Black Hen,” a song that is fully immersed in whiskey-soaked country and is all the better for it. The two songs provide a break from Molina’s reedy tones, but the interruptions work to the album’s benefit, as Magnolia Electric Co. fully immerses itself in rustic, broken down Americana - sad, poignant and beautiful.

“I’ve Been Riding With The Ghost”  

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