17
Dec
2002
What a season under the cult of celebrity! Moby takes a beating, Lisa Marie Presley is single again, David Lee Roth is suing Van Halen, and Kid Rock is firing guns with Carson Daly on TV. Any assorted boyhood home of Eminem sets off a multi-million-dollar bidding war on eBay's real-estate site! Future Slim Shady Gracelands are popping up all over gritty Michigan hamlets.
As Mojo Nixon once said, "Elvis is everywhere," from Anna Nicole to Kelly Osbourne. As a music enthusiast, what flavored the year for you? Were you plugged in? Were you a downloader, a file-sharer, or Internet-radio listener? How many CDs did you buy? How many CDs did you burn? Record-label accounting practices and artist contracts are under fire, racing headlong into slumping CD sales and brilliantly simple record-label concepts such as iMUSIC. With upcoming releases from Johnny Marr, Monty Python's Eric Idle, and Folk Implosion, iMUSIC is attracting attention as an artist-friendly label at which musicians retain ownership of their own masters and reduced financial exposure. ... And so, dear readers, welcome to 2003. As Christmas-card lists make way for "top-10 of the year" scribbles, here are some of my favorites of the past year.
Best DJ Compilation Mix CD and Series of the Year: Gilles Peterson - Desert Island Mix (Journeys By DJ)
An early pioneer in releasing DJ mix CDs, the Journey by DJ label earlier this year re-issued one of its own lost classics of the art of the scratch, Coldcut's 70 Minutes of Madness from 1998. This tripped-out tumble down the rabbit hole is a hypnotic masterpiece, chasing the perfect beat through the "wikki-wikki" shimmy of staccato snaps and rolling loops, with Plastic Man, Mantronix, DJ Food, and Jello Biafra poking their heads up in the mix. With other turntable artists such as John Selway and The Wiseguy's DJ Touche releasing their own albums on the imprint, everything the label releases is pure gold. Most enjoyable is the latest in the series, Gilles Peterson's Desert Island Mix, a heady, jazzy mix from 1998. As the label name implies, Peterson crafts an aural journey, slowing gliding over acid-jazz beats and trip-hop landscapes with tracks by Roni Size, Lo Quatros Diablos, and Breakbeat Era. Highlights include his selection of Blaze's "My Beat," the Ballistic Brothers' "Love Supreme," 1970s African R&B siren Letta Mbulu and her classic "What's Wrong With Groovin," and Mark Murphy's "Dingwalls," a spoken-word blur on those crazy days of London jazz dancing. Afro-funk and other pop psychedelic from the past three decades float in the mix as well, such as the Rotary Connection's "Black Gold of the Sun."
Most Amazing Musical Mockery of the Year: Jimmy Fallon - The Bathroom Wall (Dreamworks)
As a shining star of Saturday Night Live's faux news desk, Jimmy Fallon has followed Adam Sandler and other SNL alumni who've slipped us a peak at their clever musical talents. If you haven't caught his studio-produced single "Idiot Boyfriend" on MTV or heard his youthful lob of "Snowball" this holiday season, both are among the many musical satires scattered within this live concert. Dead-on and wickedly clever, these blistering live solo-guitar impersonations of U2, Dave Matthews, Coldplay, and the Counting Crows - singing troll-doll jingles - are simply wet-your-pants funny. Also under his "troll doll" knife: 4 Non Blondes, R.E.M., and Alanis Morissette. The campus crowd loves his stand-up, but it's this nonstop array of music masks that steal the show. 1980s nostalgia pundits are encouraged to size up his "Hammertime!" thesis - that every popular song of the day can be effectively sung to MC Hammer' s "Can't Touch This." Other musical highlights include the laid-back flannel folly of "Drinking in the Woods" and the manic "Road Rage."
Next week: more favorites of the year!
Television Alert:
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno features the Brian Setzer Orchestra on Thursday, and Kylie Minogue on Friday; The Late Show with David Letterman hosts Phish on Thursday and Darlene Love on Monday; Late Night with Conan O'Brien presents the Dave Matthews Band this evening overnight, John Mayer on Thursday overnight, and The Strokes on Monday overnight; and The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn welcomes Tori Amos on Thursday overnight and The Goo Goo Dolls' Johnny Rzeznik on Friday overnight.
Best DJ Compilation Mix CD and Series of the Year: Gilles Peterson - Desert Island Mix (Journeys By DJ)
An early pioneer in releasing DJ mix CDs, the Journey by DJ label earlier this year re-issued one of its own lost classics of the art of the scratch, Coldcut's 70 Minutes of Madness from 1998. This tripped-out tumble down the rabbit hole is a hypnotic masterpiece, chasing the perfect beat through the "wikki-wikki" shimmy of staccato snaps and rolling loops, with Plastic Man, Mantronix, DJ Food, and Jello Biafra poking their heads up in the mix. With other turntable artists such as John Selway and The Wiseguy's DJ Touche releasing their own albums on the imprint, everything the label releases is pure gold. Most enjoyable is the latest in the series, Gilles Peterson's Desert Island Mix, a heady, jazzy mix from 1998. As the label name implies, Peterson crafts an aural journey, slowing gliding over acid-jazz beats and trip-hop landscapes with tracks by Roni Size, Lo Quatros Diablos, and Breakbeat Era. Highlights include his selection of Blaze's "My Beat," the Ballistic Brothers' "Love Supreme," 1970s African R&B siren Letta Mbulu and her classic "What's Wrong With Groovin," and Mark Murphy's "Dingwalls," a spoken-word blur on those crazy days of London jazz dancing. Afro-funk and other pop psychedelic from the past three decades float in the mix as well, such as the Rotary Connection's "Black Gold of the Sun."
Most Amazing Musical Mockery of the Year: Jimmy Fallon - The Bathroom Wall (Dreamworks)
As a shining star of Saturday Night Live's faux news desk, Jimmy Fallon has followed Adam Sandler and other SNL alumni who've slipped us a peak at their clever musical talents. If you haven't caught his studio-produced single "Idiot Boyfriend" on MTV or heard his youthful lob of "Snowball" this holiday season, both are among the many musical satires scattered within this live concert. Dead-on and wickedly clever, these blistering live solo-guitar impersonations of U2, Dave Matthews, Coldplay, and the Counting Crows - singing troll-doll jingles - are simply wet-your-pants funny. Also under his "troll doll" knife: 4 Non Blondes, R.E.M., and Alanis Morissette. The campus crowd loves his stand-up, but it's this nonstop array of music masks that steal the show. 1980s nostalgia pundits are encouraged to size up his "Hammertime!" thesis - that every popular song of the day can be effectively sung to MC Hammer' s "Can't Touch This." Other musical highlights include the laid-back flannel folly of "Drinking in the Woods" and the manic "Road Rage."
Next week: more favorites of the year!
Television Alert:
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno features the Brian Setzer Orchestra on Thursday, and Kylie Minogue on Friday; The Late Show with David Letterman hosts Phish on Thursday and Darlene Love on Monday; Late Night with Conan O'Brien presents the Dave Matthews Band this evening overnight, John Mayer on Thursday overnight, and The Strokes on Monday overnight; and The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn welcomes Tori Amos on Thursday overnight and The Goo Goo Dolls' Johnny Rzeznik on Friday overnight.
