Hey folks!

Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:

#37 Röyksopp, MELODY A.M.

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vs.

#92 Weezer, WEEZER (GREEN ALBUM)

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To vote, follow this link to the Google Form. You will need a Google login to vote. If you can’t or won’t have one, let me know ASAP (either through this newsletter, my email [kentmbeeson@hey.com] or on the Best Album Brackets Bluesky account) and I’ll see what I can do.

We have dueling Designated Cheerleaders today! First up, for MELODY A.M., it’s @mostech6502.bsky.social. Take it away, Greg!

Melody A.M. is the debut album from Röyksopp - that is, the Norwegian electronic duo (and childhood friends) Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge. The group's name is taken from the "røyksopp" puffball mushroom, though they did swap out the slashed O for umlauts instead. Take it up with Mötley Crüe, I guess. After some years of working together they finally struck gold with "Melody A.M." a downtempo / chillout / trip-hop / etc. album that combined diverse styles with some local-ish guest vocals and somehow landed international acclaim.

There's a good chance you heard them from an ad: "Eple" used to play on first startup of new Mac OS X Panther installations, and "Remind Me" was in some of those Geico caveman commercials. Many of the songs are instrumental, but the album also features lyrics from Anneli Drecker (Bel Canto) and - familiar to 2001 Best Album voters - Erlend Øye (Kings of Convenience).

There are three things I want to point out for listeners.

The first is the warmth of their sound. It's electronic music, but never cold, clinical, or overpowering: the pair are, in the end, a couple of analogue synth-heads. The layers of old samples, vintage 70s / 80s keyboards run through vintage gear like the Roland Space Echo or, in their words, "an old Danish tube compressor that doesn’t really have a name" gives it all a decidedly organic sound. I always liked that the drums sound "real", with ringing metallic hi-hats and slightly humanized, and with a little edge. Röyksopp is not afraid to get a little saturated and noisy with it. This is a lush album to sink into.

The second is the variety. Over the "downtempo" backdrop is an upbeat synth bop in "Eple", a chill R&B in "Sparks", some solid house in "Poor Leno", cinematic excess in "Röyksopp's Night Out", spacey jazz with "She's So". The stand-out track is the introspective quasi-indie-but-bleepy "Remind Me" which I think you MUST hear, if you listen to nothing else on this album. Röyksopp themselves were not content to sit on their laurels - 2003's album "The Understanding" goes much more pop and dance: "since we’ve already
made Melody A.M., we thought that’d be a bit wrong to make it all over again. We wanted to do something different." I really appreciate that they're willing to experiment and branch out with everything they make.

And, finally, the fun. They're clearly having a good time making thi album. The samples are a little off-kilter. "So Easy" ends with a clip of the pair sharing nonsense "good frequencies" rattling off numbers until one of them just says "I'm coming over" and hangs up. "Röyksopp's Night Out" is infused with swagger: look what we can do! check out these sounds! There is longing and nostalgia in everything they've made here, but really, there's no pretense or confusing message to all of this. They just want you to enjoy hearing the music, as much as they enjoyed twiddling the knobs to make it. And they make it really easy to do so.

There's this knee-jerk reflex to make genre comparisons whenever some album comes up - "oh, this is just Air" / "Zero 7 but pop-less" / "re-heated Massive Attack" / "Daft Punk did it better" - I get it, yeah. But those always seem reductive. There's a lot more to reviewing an album than just pointing at who else you think it sounds like. I came to electronic music by a sort of enemies-to-lovers relationship: for years I mocked its "soul-lessness", until I came to really listen and know it better, and ended up learning just how much depth and emotion there is in the field. My introduction to Melody A.M. was in my second year of college. This was after becoming familiar with the biggest names - I played Paul Oakenfold's "Tranceport" mix on loop for hours, interspersed with Infected Mushroom and similar goa bangers. Cheesy vocal trance club hits and Pete Tong's Radio 1 "essential mix" on RealAudio streams. And then, Melody A.M., bought based entirely on the strength of a remix of "Remind Me". Here were two guys turning the same tools of the disco into a wistful, gorgeous soundscape, and opening up a whole new world of electronic music to me. They didn't sound like anything I'd heard before.

This album will probably lose to Weezer. That's fine. I hope you listen to it anyway.

PS - I was fortunate that my CD was the US Special Edition, which includes the Ernest St. Laurent "Moonfish Mix" of "Remind Me" - a driving synth house odyssey that I absolutely adore and suggest checking out if you're at all interested.
PSS - Also check out the music video for "Remind Me", a cool trip through an Ikea-style infographic world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF-7TRy7Ylg

Thank you, Greg!

Next up, for WEEZER (GREEN ALBUM), it’s @atcl.bsky.social. Take it away, All The City Lights!

You all probably know this already, but the lore goes that when PINKERTON came out in 1996, it alienated the fanbase Weezer had built over the previous two years. The album was too abrasive. Too confessional. Too concept-y. Many people were hoping for THE BLUE ALBUM, PART 2 and did not get it. A disappointed Rivers Cuomo took a few years off to work toward a Harvard degree. And during that hiatus, a bunch of emo kids discovered the sophomore album so that, by the time Weezer was ready to put out the long-awaited follow-up, the band’s most committed fans were all hoping for PINKERTON, PART 2 … and did not get it.

What they got was lean, scrappy album that ventured even more heavily into power-pop territory than the BLUE ALBUM had. We’ve all had some fun joking about this album’s refreshingly short run time, but 10 songs in less than a half hour is pretty remarkable. The effect of listening to it in 2001, however, after you’d just dropped $15.99 on a CD, was: “Is that it??” Releasing the two goofiest songs as the singles did the band no favors, either, as far as I’m concerned. All told, I distinctly remember that the reaction among my college peers quickly coalesced into a consensus that Weezer’s GREEN ALBUM was disappointing, forgettable fluff. I don’t think it has shaken that reputation in the ensuing 25 years.

That’s a disservice to the things that THE GREEN ALBUM does well. You’ve got Rick Ocasek back behind the controls, keeping the sound polished and focused. The first two tracks come roaring in with some of the decade’s best power-pop. And then, yes, you’ve got “Hash Pipe” and “Island in the Sun,” but those are not without their charms now that they’re not constantly playing over every radio. Right? Right???

Are there cringy lyrical moments? Of course there are! It wouldn’t be a Weezer album without some boogies getting out of control. But the whole thing is fun and brisk and over before it wears out its welcome.

And that’s the whole deal, really. It checks all the slick, hooky guitar-pop boxes, and does it well. Compared to the way Weezer would loose its way in the pop wilderness over the next decade, THE GREEN ALBUM is downright respectable. And the melodies are still firmly lodged in my brain after all this time.

Thanks, ATCL!

Click here to see the current results for the entire tournament, and click here to see the current results for the prediction bracket contest.

Yesterday, #28 Andrew W.K., I GET WET defeated #101 Garbage, BEAUTIFUL GARBAGE, 113-96-5.

Thanks,

Kent