#4 The Top 16 Seeds of 2000, Four Ways (repost from Substack)
The Top 16 Seeds of 2000, Four Ways
Everything in its right place?
As long time Best Album Bracket Buddies know (that’s what I’m calling you, Best Album Bracket Buddies, maybe Bracket Buddies for short), the seeds for a tournament are determined by you folks, the people that vote. I detailed the reasons here (short version: Digable Planets beat Green Day), and I’m pretty happy with the current system. If there’s one drawback, it’s that the resultant seeding is a little too good, a little too rugged, making genuine upsets rare. This leads to a kind of “seeding is destiny” feeling, that an album’s final score is set in stone. There’s a tricky balance to attempt to maintain here, between results that make sense and results that aren’t a complete bore.
This is all an attempt to talk around the elephant in the room, a little album called Kid A. Based on what my readers have already said, and my own observations, Kid A, like nearly every other Radiohead album (sorry Pablo Honey), is expected to be both the number one seed and eventual winner of the Best Album of 2000 tournament. That’s only a problem in so much as it can smother enthusiasm; no one wants to go through the motions for a predetermined outcome.
But let’s step back here. We create the motions, and we create the outcome. (The motions here means “seeding.”) This isn’t science, we aren’t excavating material reality to uncover objective facts. It is what we make it. And if we want to make it something different, it can help to have alternate visions to investigate, interrogate, and inspire.
To that end, let’s take a look at what the leading(?) music website says are the sixteen best albums of 2000.
Welp, the Kid stays in the picture. That said, while there are quite a few of the usual suspects, there’s also some artists I don’t recall having come across while soliciting suggestions from the Best Album Bracket Buddies, like King Biscuit Time, Les Savy Fav, and Summer Hymns. (Also, please listen to and nominate Internal Wrangler, thx.) Imagine if these were the seeds. A top sixteen with Pop would be cooking with Gas. (Please don’t click away.)
Let’s take a different tack. There are Bracket Buddies who believe that commercial success should be a factor in both seeding and voting. What, then, did people actually buy, with real money, in the Year of Our Lord Two Zero Zero Zero?
A number of these would likely get disqualified for being compilations and “best ofs.” Still, please note that the only Kid here is Kid R(ock). While I can’t imagine anyone seriously suggesting that the Baha Men should be in the competition [1], what about NSYNC? Britney? Backstreet Boys? While these albums were/are considered product, not art [2], it’s been 23 years; has enough time passed to re-evaluate them in a different light?
A third alternative: Album of the Year (AOTY). It’s my understanding (which could be wrong) that AOTY is a site that collates user ratings, which makes it a lot like the Best Album Brackets community, writ larger.
No Radiohead? Surely you Kid. What makes that even more interesting is that the rest of it are mostly the usual suspects, lending credence to the idea that AOTY is like a larger version of Best Album Brackets. That said, while I haven’t checked, it wouldn’t surprise me if Kid A is like, 17th or something. Still, can you imagine Asian Dub Foundation as the 10th seed? If you can imagine it, you can create it, just saying.
Finally, let’s look at what the Bracket Buddies [3] currently think are the frontrunners. Months ago, on Twitter, I solicited your recommendations for year 2000 albums, and collated them into a “most recommended” list. Here is the top sixteen:
This, of course, is no different than how I normally do the seeding, making it a kind of seeding straw poll. Unsurprisingly, Kid A leads, but is only two votes higher than the next two vote leaders, Stankonia and Stories from the City. Something else worth noting is that the famously metal-averse Bracket Buddies have three metal or metal-adjacent albums in this top sixteen. Let’s keep that energy going into the real thing [4].
If there’s a lesson here (and let’s face it, there might not be), it’s that there is no destiny. I’ve given you a peek into the future of the Best Album of 2000, as determined by you, and a glimpse at alternative outcomes. Nothing is set in stone until you make it so.
This Week’s Five Albums from 2000
A quick note on ratings: my rating system goes Love, Like/Love, Like, Interesting/Like, Interesting, Lukewarm/Interesting, Lukewarm, and Leave It. (There is no Lukewarm/Interesting or Leave It/Lukewarm because we don’t need various gradations of "guy taking off headphones in disgust jpg". Generally, I nominate anything with a rating of Like or higher, and don’t nominate anything rated Interesting/Like or lower. However, it’s my choice and will violate those “rules” whenever I feel like it. Albums marked with an asterisk (*) are albums I’ve heard before, whether that was 23 years ago or last week.
Something I didn’t say last week but should’ve: while I definitely would like you to listen to anything I give a “Like” or higher, I’d really prefer it if you listen to everything I highlight, if possible. My taste is a singular as anyone else’s, and my trash might be your treasure. And it’s all about finding you some treasure.
King Crimson, The ConstruKction Of Light
Yeah, hard pass. I’m certainly not against prog by any means (I’m a big Tull fan, and I love the Yes comp I own) but this ain’t it. A good deal of my annoyance are the drums; they sound like they’ve been replaced with bland samples, like if the late Michael Lee (Robert Plant, The Cult) turned into a Futurama robot. Maybe if there were some compelling guitar workouts, but they come across as a kind of sonic muslin draped across those damnable drums; now eventually you might have prog on your, on your prog album, right? Hello? Yes? And then there’s Adrian Belew’s lyrics, who, as a lyricist, is a great guitarist. At one point he actually says “get jiggy with it!” and imagine the cringe of that moment with 23 years compound interest. It’s possible this is King Crimson’s version of Wire’s Manscape, an album that initially thought I wasted my money on that later became an all-time favorite. But honestly, I’m not going to give it the 15+ listens to find out.
Rating: Lukewarm
D’Angelo, Voodoo
Here’s one of the things you need to know about me, a blind spot that may disqualify me in your eyes as ringleader, or whatever I am, of this odd musical venture: I am insensate to “standard” R&B or soul. Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Freddie Jackson sipping a milkshake in a snowstorm, it all bounces off me. It’s definitely a me thing; I’ve listened to these artists, and their artistry, their genius, their place in the canon, is self-evident. Yet, I remain unmoved. I’m more likely to be awestruck or hornified or brought to tears by a skeletal, wiggly, skinny-tied New Wave guitar line than I am by strings or vocal acrobatics or self-conscious sultryness. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the parts that wake me up here are the ones that are hiphop adjacent. (I feel hiphop is connected to New Wave as much as other traditions of Black music; that’s probably historically wrong and just another reason why you should probably ignore me.) Anyway, if this is your thing, though, I imagine it’s a mindblower.
Rating: Interesting/Like
The Delgados, The Great Eastern
Mid-tempo indie rock, with a light layer of dance aesthetics and production trickery over the top, hiding the chunky songwriting like a stone covered with vanilla frosting. Should be boring, especially with these extended run times, but just isn’t; maybe it’s the muscular drumming that keeps me hooked. (Reminds me of Final Straw, the one good Snow Patrol album. “Thirteen Gliding Principles” shows that the Delgados can rock when they want, similar to what Snow Patrol does on “Wow.”) God, imagine if this album took off and became a sensation instead of Parachutes. (And I think Parachutes is good!)
Rating: Like/Love
Michael Penn, MP4 (Days Since A Lost Time Accident)
Thought I’d amuse myself by listening to Aimee Mann’s 2000 album (see below) and then follow it up with her husband’s effort. I did not expect to be blown away and think it was better than Mann’s, which is terrific. The phrase “Beatles-y pop” gets thrown around a lot, and I’m throwing it around some more. (I mean, opener “Lucky One” has a ending breakdown clearly inspired by “She’s So Heavy.”) If you’d asked me which one of these was produced by Jon Brion, I would’ve been so very wrong. (Actually, I couldn’t find the credits for this album; maybe Brion did this one as well.) If “Lucky One” grabs you (and you find the phrase “the luckiest in luckydom” quietly hilarious), keep going, because it’s just one hook-filled pop gem one after the other. What a fucking crime that this album was ignored on release.
Rating: Like/Love
Kittie, Spit
Goddamn, where has this been all my life? Kinda death, kinda nü, kinda grunge, excels at all while swearing fealty to none. Arguably does the flipflopping between hardcore/death vocals and cleaner-yet-grungy vocals better than, say, Code Orange. If you need to rock the fuck out this week, here’s your huckleberry.
Rating: Like/Love
[1] That said, you folks always find a way to surprise me.
[2] People often ask me what “best” means in terms of “Best Album of X Year.” While I usually demur with a “it means whatever you want it to mean,” I do, personally, consider it a question of art. Now: what does “art” mean?
[3] Are you loving this name or what?
[4] Kent, The Real Thing is 1989.