A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
As I mentioned in the original entry for the 2001 list, 75 percent of the year was actually really decent, especially where music was concerned. The Favorite 10 from that year remains unchanged.
AJICO, Fukamidori
fra-foa, Chuu no Fuchi
Quruli, Team Rock
eX-Girl, Back to the Mono Kero
ACO, Material
the brilliant green, Los Angeles
Cocco, Sangrose
Res, How I Do
Utada Hikaru, Distance
Onitsuka Chihiro, Insomnia
Other favorites from the year:
Hajime Chitose, Kotonoha
MONO, Under the Pipal Tree
Fugazi, The Argument
Low, Things We Lost in the Fire
Death Cab for Cutie, The Photo Album
bloodthirsty butchers, Yamane
Kicell, Yume
Shea Seger, The May Street Project
Rufus Wainwright, Poses
Semisonic, All About Chemistry
Missy Elliott, Miss E … So Addictive
Gillian Welch, Time (The Revelator)
The Shins, Oh, Inverted World!
soulsberry, The end of vacation
Sigur Rós, Agætis Byrjun
Guided By Voices, Isolation Drills
Like 2002 and 2003, the extended list for 2001 overruns with quality stuff, and I’ve only added to it.
I got Gillian Welch’s Hell Among the Yearlings as part of a gift bag from a Waterloo Records holiday party. I didn’t get around to listening to it till about 15 years later, and I had to play catch-up.
I’ve known about Low for years, but I didn’t hear them till MONO shared a bill with them in concert.
The annual Friends of the Library Book Sale hooked me up with Fugazi’s End Hits for $1, so I sought out The Argument to round out my collection. I vaguely remember the news of Fugazi’s hiatus upsetting my Waterloo coworkers. I hadn’t yet jumped on the bandwagon.
Semisonic’s 2001 album All About Chemistry was an early entry in my Favorite Edition list that year. By the end of the year, it had been crowded out by a lot of really good Japanese indie rock. (AJICO’s Fukamidori and fra-foa’s Chuu no Fuchi would top the list.)
It ended up on the chopping block when money got tight a few years later.
This glowing review attempts to capture my enthusiasm for the album, but it reads pretty clumsily. “Blip on the proverbial pop music radar”? How did I find such phrasing acceptable?
Most reviewers I read at the time would use lyrics to explicate a songwriters’ state of mind, but I tended to write about what’s happening musically. I don’t do so on this review because Dan Wilson is a clever lyricist, and I actually paid as much attention to the words as the music.
That’s not to say I did a very good job of explaining how.
It’s tough to remember how prevalent the likes of Limp Bizkit and Korn were at the start of the 2000s, but my description of Wilson’s voice is a reaction to that. It also looks like a take a dig at Wayne Coyne, but in a way, it’s a dig at Wilson for having a smooth voice.
I’ve actually missed having this album in my collection. In the years since letting it go, I would crave hearing the title track.
But I also have to find some amusement in my naive enthusiasm for it. As voracious as my appetite for music was, I can’t say my knowledge ran deep nor wide. All About Chemistry seemed revelatory for its wit and melodic sense. I may have even played it on a shift at Waterloo and got some questionable looks from co-workers.
It’s an enjoyable album, but it’s not as profound as I thought it was.
Rewind takes a look at past Musicwhore.org reviews to see how they hold up today. The albums featured on Rewind were part of my collection, then sold for cash only to be reacquired later.
![[Onitsuka Chihiro - Insomnia]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/OnitsukaChihiroInsomnia217451_f.jpg)
![[Fugazi - The Argument]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/FugaziTheArgument2001185734_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Semisonic - All About Chemistry]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/SemisonicAllAboutChemistr193604TNKL_f-300x298.jpg)
![[Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/janelle-monae-dirty-computer-300x300.jpg)
![[Jayne Cortez - Everywhere Drums]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/JayneCortezandtheFirespitt1932925TZU_f-300x297.jpg)