Republican Music Police

71: Sunny Day Real Estate - LP2 (The Pink Album) (1995)

This was both the high point and the turning point for SDRE – right before Jeremy Enigk spiraled so deep into Christianity that his music could no longer be desperate. They’d come back and release the acutally pretty good “How It Feels to Be Something On,” an album that, like Weezer’s Green Album but on a far smaller scale, capitalized on their retrospective reputation. It was played on Q101. LP2 would probably not have been played on Q101 under any circumstances. But that’s a damn shame because this is probably the pinnacle of emo lyricism, dynamic shifting, and stuttering drums. Songs like J’Nuh, 5/4 (written in motherfucking 5/4 time!!!), and Friday were awesome but it was Rodeo Jones that really took the cake. The absolute embodiment of the enjoinment between Fugazi and the “emo” punk bands that would come after it, the song features Enigk, already a powerful vocalist, realizing his singing abilities completely. Alas, the album itself is a little too droning to merit serious consideration at a higher spot.

72: Modest Mouse - This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About (1996)

Of all the ececentric indie rock bands of the late 90’s/early 00’s, Modest Mouse was certainly the most astute and least self-aware. Or maybe that’s backward. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say they made the most interesting music. While the roots are apparent to a certain extent (The Pixies, Pavement, Built to Spill come immediately to mind) this album was like nothing else I’d ever heard when it came out. A lot of the songs, especially at the early middle (Might, Beach Side Property, Head South, Dog Paddle) drag but it’s best to focus on what this album does right. And it does a lot of things right. Though the group would find its niche later, all the elements are there – the jam ethic within structured song, the complex rhythm section, Isaac Brock’s yelping vocals. Dramamine is, dare I say it, accessible. Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset and Exit Does Not Exist rank among the best songs MM ever recorded and the albu’s closer, Space Travel is Boring is a blast of noise rock that slows down nicely into a sensitive meditation. Not their most complete album, but certainly one of the most interesting albums to come out in years.

73: Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville (1993)

Let’s get two things out the way. First: I don’t normally like female singers, with a few exceptions (Tori Amos, Jewel, Alanis Morrissette, Fiona Apple, Jenny Lewis [hardly high art]). Second: I want Liz Phair to have about seven or eight of my children. That out of the way, I think it’s safe to say I ought to hate this album by now. Girl’s from Evanston, which is like hellspawn incarnate. She made some of the syruppiest pop crap I ever heard on her last two albums (using AVRIL LAVIGNE’S songwriters...WHAT?) I ought to hate this album with the kind of hate reserved for bad ex-girlfriends. Of course I don’t. There are three things this album is NOT:

1.) a blow by blow of Exile on Main Street (despite Phair’s consistent pleas otherwise)

2.) subtle (except for that one “blowjob queen” song. The definition of subtle

3.) a bad album. Or even not a great album.

Because this is a great album. It’s a pop album with curse words, yes. Hyper-feminist curse words, or perhaps the opposite of hyper-feminist depending on whom you ask. Nevertheless, deconstructive debate doesn’t interest me. I don’t care what Fuck and Run says about culture. I care that it, Divorce Song, 6’1” and a host of other songs are some of the most heartbreaking pop gems written in the 90’s. The caliber of “Stay” by Lisa Loeb, and that’s saying a motherfucking lot

74: Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand (1994)

I don’t know how I feel about Bob Pollard. I don’t know if I like his songs. I really don’t. They seem like they might be bad for you. They’re like potato chips. I know I’m not the first person to make that analogy and there’s probably a reason for that: his songs are like potato chips. They’re gone too quick, you’re not filled up, and there’s this greasy film on your fingers. You feel like he ends his songs too early in a way that you don’t feel like when you listen to Wire or Husker Du or any other band with really really short songs. They’re like potato chips. You buy a bag of potato chips and all of a sudden they’re gone and you’re not full. Just out $1.50 or whatever. But they did taste good. Bee Thousand is like eating the most delicious bag of potato chips you can imagine. Cracked black pepper and sea salt or something like that. And then you can eat it any time you want. But then you might get fat or something. I’m not sure where that fits in the analogy, but this is a pretty damned good album.

75: The Pixies - Doolittle (1989)

Honestly, I never really got into the Pixies. I mean, that’s not true. I really really fucking got into the Pixies junior year of high school. But I don’t count much about high school because I was a moron (and perhaps still am). The point is, I don’t really get as excited about the Pixies as most people do. Don’t get me wrong, I think they do a lot of cool shit and I dig Black Frank’s voice but I can’t listen to Surfer Rosa that much. If I could have (and I suppose I could have) I would have put Death to the Pixies, the greatest hits album, on this list, and it certainly would have ranked a lot higher than 75. I don’t like them as an albums band, but this is their best album. Debaser is such an awesome avant-garde piece of noise rock and even the non-singles hold their own, like Crackity Jones and La La Love You. Do I think the Pixies get a little too much credit for their alleged importance? Perhaps. Is Doolittle a very good album? Undoubtedly.

76: The Promise Ring - 30 Degrees Everywhere (1996)

There is something in the indie rock canon that permits guitars to be out of tune from time to time. This seems like something that would be just another annoying piece of shit cut your hair point about indie rock but somehow it’s not. Bee Thousand thrives despite blatantly off-key guitars and this album too seems to benefit from slightly out of tune strings. I guess the easy answer for why this is would be “it adds to the charm.” I guess that’s possible, but a better guess would it be it completely matches everything else on the album: just a little off. From the lyrics, which are a little off-kilter with their excessive repetitions and puns to Davey VonBohlen’s voice, which seems lispy and throaty (to be kind). Yet, this is one of the more powerful emo albums and The Promise Ring’s only truly emo album. Were they a Sunny Day ripoff band? Perhaps, but there’s a lot of other stuff too, as A Picture Postcard and Everywhere in Denver prove. They were inventing a type of indie rock that was, at least for a little while, infinitely interesting.

77: Ice Cube - The Predator (1992)

This should come as the biggest surprise of this entire list. Unfortunately it probably won’t. There’s going to be a Beatles-related incident later that’s going to ruffle some feathers and it’s just going to hammer home the point that people don’t care about Ice Cube as much as they ought to anymore. If people did care about Ice Cube the way they ought to, they’d bristle that this is the Cube album I picked for this list, not Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, or Death Certificate. While those albums have the reputation, this is so consistent and powerful an album it demands consideration. Fiercely political, charged by the Rodney King trial, it motors through at the pace of a steamroller. Even the singles, like Wicked and It Was a Good Day reflect the concern of the LA riots, the latter talking about a good day involving no cops harassing and no helicopters looking for a murder. But it’s not all serious as he says in the same track, “even saw the lights of the Goodyear blimp and it read: Ice Cube’s a pimp.”

No question.

78: At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command (2000)

Like we needed another Rage Against the Machine. Except maybe we did – one to correct the political bullshit spewed by Zach and Tom. Cedric and company stamped through 10 hard rock tracks and one ballad. Their ability to shift dynamics at will and combine hardcore instrumentalization with (shockingly) melody makes songs like “One-Armed Scissor” and “Arcarsenal” classics for the few who’ve heard them. Also noteworthy is the fact that this album was released on Mike D of the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal records. I’m not sure what, if anything, that means. Also worth noting is that when this album first came out it was considered emo. That is a fact and denying it will not prove anything but ignorance.

79:Bright Eyes - Fevers and Mirrors (2000)

The only album Conor recorded that, as an album, was really worth much of a damn. If he had chopped this album in half it would have been worth a real goddamn (even despite the inordinately long and pretentious opening track). Songs 2-6, along with “Haligh, Haligh, a Lie, Haligh” and too a lesser extent “Sunrise, Sunset,” are very good songs and that success rate of over 50% makes this the most consistent Bright Eyes album ever recorded (and most likely ever TO be recorded). It’s not just the consistency (you know, that whopping 75% consistency) that makes this a good album though. Some of the tracks are flat out demolishing. The Calendar Hung Itself is a song whose power seems to grow to a thunderhead as the song progresses into its climactic breakdown of Conor coopting the formerly benign “You Are My Sunshine” into some bizarre paranoid death chant. If only Conor could find a way to have his albums implode into the selfsame singularity he might be on to something.

80:The Silver Jews - American Water (1998)

David Berman can sing or maybe he can’t sing. I can’t tell if he’s an atonal Non-ny Cash or a certified alt-country legend. Either way he car write a damn good song. While no one will ever hospitalize his albums for approaching perfection, they might hail them as being pretty damn good. Pitchfork compared Steve Malkmus’ guitar playing on this album to Tom Verlaine’s. I don’t appreciate hyperbole and I don’t appreciate that comment. However, Stevey plays some pretty good steel on this album and it contains some of the best Berman lyrics in his canon, especially on “Random Rules.”