About a month late (sorry), my contribution to Ishbadiddle is my complete panoply of 2000 Music Top 10 lists. I do these every year and usually e-mail them to a friend or two in the industry who care about such things; thanks to Ishbadiddle, I'll be able to widen the circle a bit. I say these are late because I really wanted to time them for February and the Voice's Pazz & Jop poll, the Grammys, etc. But hey, it's not like these albums went out of print in the past month. So if you're looking for buying-guide-type thoughts, here they are.

But first, while we're talking music...

Mike asked about what we've been downloading on Napster. I wish I could say I've been digging deep and discovering lots of rare, amazing music, but really the bulk of my downloading has consisted of replacing, in digital form, my cassette collection, including some frankly embarrassing mixes I compiled in the '80s. (Anyone who needs to hear Def Leppard's "Photograph," let me know...)

What has been great about Napster, besides the obvious free-music and cassette-replacing innovations, is the ability to scratch the itch when you're just curious to know what something sounds like. Seen an article about some up-and-comer or forgotten music veteran and wondering what they sound like? A song is minutes away. (After reading a number of obituaries for out-there guitarist John Fahey in the last couple of weeks, I downloaded several tracks by him, including rare Christmas songs that might just make one of my future holiday compilations.) Just finished watching a movie and dying to hear the rest of that song Kevin Spacey keeps babbling over? Download it. (I never would have bought Annie Lennox's 'Medusa,' but I had to download her cover of Neil Young's "Don't Let It Bring You Down" after hearing it as background in 'American Beauty'.) Finally, for a chart junkie like me, it's a godsend to finally hear records my chart books tell me were big hits in the '60s but never get played on oldies radio anymore. Fifteen years I've been wondering what "Winchester Cathedral" by the New Vaudeville Band (#1, 1967) sounds like. Now I know. And hey, it sucks -- anyone who thinks the '60s was one long parade of classic songs needs to hear this crap -- but it's good to know that for myself.

I'm still downloading from Napster, despite the supposed crackdown on copyrighted material that went into effect this weekend. But I suppose we might as well start the 128-kbps dirge now. Alas, dear Fanning, we hardly knew ye.

Now, without further ado, here are my Top 10s (and a few Top Fives and Threes)for 2000.

Albums
1. Badly Drawn Boy, 'The Hour of Bewilderbeast'
2. Radiohead, 'Kid A'
3. the $5 street-bootleg copy I purchased of Eminem, 'The Marshall Mathers LP,' thereby depriving the talented but homophobic little twerp of royalties
4. PJ Harvey, 'Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea'
5. Shelby Lynne, 'I Am Shelby Lynne'
6. Coldplay, 'Parachutes'
7. Outkast, 'Stankonia'
8. Lambchop, 'Nixon'
9. Aimee Mann, 'Bachelor No. 2'
10. Idlewild, '100 Broken Windows'

Top Three Soundtracks/Compilations
1. 'High Fidelity'
2. 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'
3. 'Machine Soul-An Odyssey Into Electronic Music'

Top Five Perfectly Okay Albums That Are Either Overrated or Should've Been Better
1. U2, 'All That You Can't Leave Behind'
2. Belle and Sebastian, 'Fold Your Hands, Child, You Walk Like a Peasant'
3. Elliott Smith, 'Figure 8'
4. Steely Dan, 'Two Against Nature'
5. Madonna, 'Music'

Singles
1. Eminem featuring Dido, "Stan"
2. Outkast, "B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)"
3. Outkast, "Ms. Jackson"
4. Coldplay, "Yellow"
5. Madonna, "Don't Tell Me"
6. Aaliyah, "Try Again"
7. BT featuring M. Doughty, "Never Gonna Come Back Down"
8. Third Eye Blind, "Never Let You Go"
9. Wyclef featuring Mary J. Blige, "911"
10. Mystikal, "Shake Ya Ass"

BONUS: Best Stuff I Dowloaded via Napster
1. Peter Gabriel, "In Your Eyes" (rare extended mix)
- I spent 14 years looking for this in record stores; one week on Napster, I found it...and the industry wonders why we love this thing?)
2. Daniel Johnston and Yo La Tengo, "Speeding Motorcycle"
3. Negativland, "U2 (Casey Kasem Mix)"
4. Coldplay, "Trouble (Big Beat Remix)"
5. Lindsay Buckingham, "Go Insane" (great forgotten single)
6. Mary J. Blige, "Everything (Stylistics mix)"
7. Erik Satie, "Gymnopedie #1," the most beautiful classical piano piece I've ever heard
8. Automatic Baby (U2/R.E.M. members at 1993 Clinton inaugural), "One"
9. Yarborough & Peoples, "Don't Stop the Music"
10. every song I purchased on cassingle from 1987 to 1993

BONUS: Worst Single
Britney Spears, "Oops...I Did It Again," for its give-'em-what-they-want cynicism

-- Chris Molanphy

CMM posted this on March 07, 2001
It is filed under Sounds

It is also indexed with the following tags: Napster | P2P | Lists |