#345 2001: My Recent Favorites
Hey folks!
I’m going to assume you saw the last email that went out a few hours ago. (If not, click here.) Since right now all I’m essentially doing is waiting until I can leave in the morning, I might as well put in the work and get this email out, which I thought I wouldn’t publish until next weekend.
What is this? This is a list of 2001 albums that I’ve ranked Like/Love or Love after one listen. Previously, I gave you a list of albums from 2001 I Like/Love or Love that I’ve been listening to consistently for the last ~24 years (you can find that here) and then I gave you a list of readers’ favorites that they thought were obscure (and you can find that here). Some of those readers’ favorites will appear below, marked Reader’s Favorite, because I lack imagination. (I have currently listened to all of the readers’s favorites save Boom Boom Satellites, Kofy Brown, Firewater, Robbie Fulks, Margo Guryan, Hem, Jan Jelinek, Ozma, Skitz, Tracy + the Plastics and holy shit I didn’t realize I had so many left. I will hear them before all is said and done.)
In case you didn’t know, my rating system goes: Love, Like/Love, Like, Interesting/Like, Interesting, Lukewarm, Leave. I will generally nominate anything Like or higher. It’s pretty easy for an album to get a Like after a single listen; most albums are pretty like-able. Like/Love is tougher, but with a big enough sample size, I can get good list of them going. Going straight to Love is very rare. I should note that there is a bit of… faith involved in giving these albums such high ratings. None of these (at this time) can compare to the Like/Love or Love albums that I’ve been playing for over two decades. Instead, I’m basically taking the feeling it’s giving me, and extrapolating how I might feel about it after listening to it for 24 years. It’s possible, even likely, the shine will wear off after even a second listen. But I don’t have time for a deep dive; this is about casting the net far and wide.
Anyway, my hope is that you’ll use this bye week to check out some of these albums, all of which I think are terrific and all of which I’m nominating.
THE LIKE/LOVE LIST
Aphex Twin, DRUKQS (Spotify, YouTube)
It’s pretty long, but after really listening to AT’s earlier stuff, I think he’s just a great composer and uses the time well. BTW, this is the one with “Avril 14th,” one of his most famous and beloved tracks. Also:
Cake, COMFORT EAGLE (Spotify, YouTube)
Let me be clear: this isn’t a special Cake album, it’s just a Cake album. You already know if you like it or not. But with their funky metronomic rhythm section, trumpet, and spoke/sung vocals, I’m picking up what they’re throwing down. (It’s also the one with "Short Skirt/Long Jacket.”)
One thing I really like in metal is when the guitars almost sound like samples and/or synthesizers and the drums sound like drum machines and it’s vaguely industrial and everything feels like it’s snapped to a grid. Static-X fall in this category, and their 2001 album MACHINE gets a Like. Dope, though, understand songs like this need to deliver a hook then get the fuck out after about three minutes. Advantage: Dope. [Aside: Rammstein are kind of like this, only they add actual keyboards. Except they have the Max Martin “this never goes to ten” problem, they rarely provide a real hook. Still giving MUTTER a Like.]
Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, MISS E... SO ADDICTIVE (Spotify, YouTube)
This is the one with “Get Ur Freak On” but rest of it is great, too.
Godflesh, HYMNS (Spotify, YouTube)
If you didn’t dig STREETCLEANER (and checking the stats, 51 of you did, which is a lot more than I realized), then I’d like you to give HYMNS a try. STREETCLEANER has a lot of meandering, ambient-metal stuff in it, and by HYMNS, Godflesh had boiled their attack down to a crushing repeating riff over a stark drum machine beat, only this time the stark drum machine beat is played by a human. You can even detect a bit of swing to Ted Parson’s playing! Anyway, I’m saying it’s a bit more accessible, so think about it, won’t you?
Gorguts, FROM WISDOM TO HATE (Spotify, YouTube)
This is death metal, so it’s already DOA with a lot of you. Would it help to explain that early in their career, they played “normal” death metal, and the album previous to this, OBSCURA, was an avant-garde atonal masterpiece that everyone hated at the time but went on to be so influential a band named themselves after it, and this album finds the midpoint between the two? No! I’ve made it worse! Anyway, if you can get on its wavelength, it destroys.
Gotan Project, LA REVANCHA DEL TANGO (Spotify, YouTube)
Reader’s Favorite! This is a melding of tango and trip hop/electronic elements, and it’s just a smooth, early-Sunday-morning listening delight. What it most reminded me of was Tipsy’s TRIP TEASE, just with tango replacing that album’s 60’s lounge vibe. There’s a bunch of you out there who haven’t heard this who are going to flip for it, I’m sure. I’ll even go so far as to say this could be a Juana Molina-esque sleeper hit.
Illogic, GOT LYRICS? (Spotify, YouTube)
Reader’s Favorite! If you’re on Bluesky, you might recall me saying there was an album that I was considering giving a Love rating. That would be this. Ultimately I put it here because it ends with a 15 minute spoken word piece that is actually quite good, but it really ends the album on a low-energy note. Anyway, I’m burying the lede. HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS GUY IS AN INCREDIBLE MC. He should be a lot more well-known.
Jimmy Eat World, BLEED AMERICAN (Spotify, YouTube)
So back in 2001, I ran away from this as fast as I could, even though I had to admit that “The Middle” was catchy as hell. I had a real issue with the video, with its decadent teen underwear parties. I found it alienating. (I was 28 in 2001.) Now that I’ve listened to it, it’s just a great pop/punk/rock album, deserving of its accolades. However, this brings up another issue: just what in the ever-lovin’ fuck is emo, anyway? I’ve never understood. My understanding is that both this and Thursday’s FULL COLLAPSE are emo, which is like saying Fugazi and Green Day play the same genre of music. Which, on a macro level, sure I guess, but really, no. This is Green Day, I like Green Day, I like(/love) this. [FULL COLLAPSE gets an Interesting/Like.]
Josie and the Pussycats, JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS: MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE (Spotify, YouTube)
If “That Thing You Do!” didn’t exist, then “3 Small Words” would be the best fake hit pop song from a movie. If nothing else quite reaches the height of that, it’s still very good power pop. It also includes the two songs from Du Jour, the funniest boy band parody ever.
Opeth, BLACKWATER PARK (Spotify, YouTube)
Death metal as prog. But it has clean singing, too! (“Clean singing” is what us metalheads call “singing.”) In recent years they’ve moved away from death metal to almost entirely prog, so if you like that aspect, check out, say 2014’s PALE COMMUNION. But if you’re pro-prog and death metal-curious, this is a great introduction.
Radiohead, AMNESIAC (Spotify, YouTube)
Yeah yeah yeah, I know I know. Just understand I’m generally only mildly pro-Radiohead, and I think this is their best post-BENDS album. (Haven’t heard anything after this. Yet.) I guess I would say if you liked the vibes of KID A but wanted actual tunes, this is your huckleberry.
Slayer, GOD HATES US ALL (Spotify, YouTube)
This one surprised me, as I don’t hear it mentioned often, and it’s well past Slayer’s heyday, but it rocked my socks off. For the longest time, I didn’t care for this cover — so simple, so basic, so what. Then it finally registered that the four crosses make a gunsights/crosshair, which, combined with the title, is a baller move.
George Strait, THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED (Spotify, YouTube)
Just ten dependable tracks coming in at around 30 minutes, something Strait did every couple years for decades. This one is notable in that, on the track “Stars on the Water,” the producer (somehow) got Strait to add just a teensy weensy bit of auto-tune to his vocals, which, in the context of Strait’s career and ethos, makes this his cyberpunk album. Today’s trap-country purveyors could never.
Akira Yamaoka, SILENT HILL 2 (ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK) (Spotify, YouTube)
Reader’s Favorite! So this one also surprised me, since when I see “original soundtrack,” I immediately think it’s going to be a bunch of orchestral pieces that lose something without visuals. But the first track on here could easily have been the end credits music for some Adult Swim anime, and then the genre keeps switching. Don’t like something, wait ’til the next track. Also, and I don’t mean to say this to put my thumb on the scale or anything, but the Best Album tournaments have never had a video game soundtrack compete. Just sayin’.
THE LOVE LIST
Again, these are albums I fell head over heels for after one listen. If you’re going to try any of these, may as well start here.
Arch Enemy, WAGES OF SIN (Spotify, YouTube)
Reader’s Favorite! This is melodic death metal, which in this case means, yes, the vocalist (Angela Gossow) does the Cookie Monster thing, but the music is a lot closer to Iron Maiden. If you can embrace, or at least get past, the vocals, this is shockingly catchy, fully earning the “melodic” tag (which in my opinion, a lot of so-called melodeath bands rarely do). If you’ve never listened to death metal, this is a great starting point.
Guided by Voices, ISOLATION DRILLS (Spotify, YouTube)
Holy shit, if you give songs decent production, they’re even better! Who knew?
Melechesh, DJINN (Spotify, YouTube)
This is black metal, another metal subgenre that hasn’t seen much play in the tournaments. If you dig when System of a Down add Middle Eastern-inflected sounds to their nu-metal, here Melechesh do the same thing to their black metal, and it is crazy melodic and catchy, maybe the most I’ve ever heard in this genre. If you’ve never heard black metal before, this is a great starting place, but it may ruin you for the “““real””” thing.
IT'S CALLED "BLACK METAL," COOP. IT'S EXTREMELY BAD, ON PURPOSE. I'M LISTENING TO "LIVE IN LEIPZIG" RIGHT NOW AND IT SOUNDS LIKE TWO ROBOTS HAVING VIOLENT SEX DURING A SATANIC MASS. RECORDED ON A BOOMBOX, THEY SAY. VERY POPULAR WITH THE TRANSSEXUALS.
— Abbath Doom O'Lantern (@wolvendaughter.bsky.social) 2025-09-08T00:36:26.907Z
Happy listening!
Kent