Best: Albums, LP's, Records, EP's, et cetera, ad nauseum
By Chris Meyer
A&F Writer
Most Fuckedest-Uppedest EP:
The Streets - Original Pirate Material
Lots of weird music is released every year, though the sheer variety of 2002's weirdness is pretty startling. The Fire Show's swan-song cover of "You are My Sunshine" was bizarre as hell, but in a cool way, while Sigur Ros decided to redefine pretentiousness by refusing to name their new album or any of its songs. Out Hud's S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D. defied categorization by mixing so many styles in a glorious forty minute collage, while Primal Scream's Evil Heat puzzled many with its uncharacteristic sheer lack of quality. In spite of all of this, though, the Weirdest Fucking Album of 2002 Award belongs to the debut album from The Streets, Original Pirate Material. Not because Streets mastermind Nick Skinner attempts to break down musical boundaries, samples Nintendo music or sings about a Japanese girl fighting colorful automatons, but rather because, quite frankly, hearing a Brit with a thick Cockney accent rapping deadpan over synthetic Europop beats is just a baffling experience.
That's right: it's British White Boy Hip-Hop, and the result is even odder than it sounds on paper. Skinner raps about life on the, well, streets of the G to the B, covering all the bases from weed and Playstations to drunken yobs and take-away food; "geezers", by the way, is apparently the British equivalent of "homies." In "It's Too Late" he even tackles a subject taboo in most mainstream hip-hop today: romantically courting a girl. But it's not the subject matter that qualifies the album as "weird"; it's the delivery. Skinner doesn't flow rhymes as much as he states lines; he'll deliver punchlines in careful English pronunciation with as much expression as an oak tree (no, make that a dead oak tree) and pause between lines like he's turning the page on a book of lyrics he's reading aloud. There are some pretty cringeworthy moments, too, like the poorly-paced chorus for the hit single "Let's Push Things Forward": "You say that everything sounds the same/ Then you go buy them/ There's no excuses my friend/ Let's push things forward." Meanwhile, on his other single "Has it Come to This?", Skinner does a perfect imitation of a lifeless, monotone radio voiceover by looping his own announcement "Original pirate material/ You're listening to The Streets/ Lock down your aerial" over the song so many times you'll never want to see another street as long as you live.
Despite these complaints, Original Pirate Material isn't necessarily a bad album; it's just really fucking weird, in good ways as well as bad. If nothing else, give it a listen- might as well be prepared for next year, when the British Rap Invasion will probably begin in full force with artists like The Notorious N.I.G.E.L. and Her Majesty's Upright Thugs of East Kensington dropping like it's hot. Hey, it could happen.
Best Album that Nobody Liked Except Me:
Local H - Here Comes the Zoo
Yeah, grunge is dead. Alright, so it's been dead for years; the better part of a decade by this point. It's probably not very surprising, then, that Local H aren't finding popularity despite releasing consistently strong albums: they found a sound they liked (yes, grunge) and decided to stick with it, through thick and thin. The thickest, of course, was when their single "Bound for the Floor" made it big back in 1996; you might even remember "All the Kids are Right" from 1998. But since then, it's been pretty thin: the band was dropped from Island during the big Universal merger a few years back, and founding drummer Joe Thomas left under mysterious circumstances-a big deal considering Local H is a two-man band - singer Scott Lucas has been through a lot, so it's no surprise that their latest, Here Comes the Zoo, contains more vitriol than their entire back catalog. He's pissed at the industry, he's pissed at other bands - "Rockin' for dollars! Rockin' for real estate! Rockin' for lawyers, baby!" he yells on "Rock and Roll Professionals." He's pissed at complacent Middle America ("all the Thai food and the Must See TV/ Keep us subdued and unable to breathe"); perhaps most of all though, he's pissed at himself.
Okay, so a lot of lead singers are angry people, but that doesn't make them good or interesting musicians. But Lucas at least has a sense of humor, embracing irony (which may be a dead scene as well) instead of frustration. That, and the band's really got their chops. You'd never know they were a struggling two-piece from their sound, which at times feels like indie rock and at other times like the successor to AC/DC, though guest appearances from friends like Josh Homme and Jerry Only help things as well. Homme appears on "Rock and Roll Professionals," itself better than most of The Queens of the Stone Age's new album; elsewhere, Lucas enlists female vocals for "5th Avenue Crazy" and pens "Keep Your Girlfriend", a song so stupid it's fun (or is it the other way around?), while "What Would You Have Me Do?" is a 12-minute honest-to-God rock epic, the likes of which haven't been seen in mainstream rock for years.
Here Comes the Zoo isn't particularly inventive. It doesn't sample Run DMC or enlist a backing symphony or even rely on some sort of "concept" to keep the album going. What it does is rock, no frills; and sometimes, that's all you need, especially after your three minutes of interest in Andrew W.K. fizzle out. And after you listen to this, go drag out your old Tripping Daisy and Smashing Pumpkins albums and remember that grunge wasn't so bad after all.
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