#6 The Very 6th Issue of the Best Album Brackets Newsletter
Hello folks, and welcome to another issue of the Best Album Brackets newsletter!
There’s actually not that much to report his week. If you somehow missed the last newsletter, then you need to know that nominations are now open for the upcoming Best Album of 2000 tournament. Go here to fill out a nomination form, and/or go here to read the last newsletter where I talk about it. Nominations will be open until at least February 1st, possibly longer — I would like at least 100 ballots and, a week in, I have (checks site) 37. Pretty good!
I do have some mini-reviews of year 2000 albums for you, and just a general update of what I’ve been listening to in prepping for this upcoming tournament. As always, I encourage you to listen, or at least sample, as much as you can, from this list and any other appropriate list you can get your hands on. Next week: we’ll test out Buttondown’s polling function!
Standard boilerplate on my 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.
Don Caballero, American Don
Biggest surprise since the last newsletter. Indie rock jazz? But more my style of jazz than Karate. Sounds like a group of genius toddlers going at it, like it’s trying to be intentionally annoying (especially with those glib song titles), but somehow all that makes it more adorable to me. (Or possibly I’ll give anything with big drums a pass.) A lot of you out there will hate this and I won’t necessarily blame you.
Rating: Like/Love
Sonic Youth, NYC Ghosts & Flowers
I get why this is their worst for a lot of people, but I think leaning in to their New York boho avant garde hipster side -- I mean, more than usual -- really suits them. Or maybe I’m just finding out real late in life that I think Sonic Youth is really good? Like Stories from the City, would've assumed this was their post 9/11 album.
Rating: Like
*Clinic, Internal Wrangler
Currently stands as my 3rd favorite album of 2000, behind two Modest Mouse entries (Antarctica and Building Nothing). Whips from noisy garage rock to hypnotic motorik-y dance rock to “Distortions,” for my money the “Heartbeats” before “Heartbeats.” And it’s done in 31 minutes. Diggy diggy demom-menom.
Rating: Love
Gas, Pop
I suppose if there’s one album to listen to this week before nominations, it’s this one, as there’s nothing that I know quite like it. Sixty-nine minutes of swirling, repetitive, ambient synths and rhythmic gas-leak noises, hence the name I imagine. According to Wikipedia, Gas’s project is to “bring the forest to the disco, or vice-versa” and well, mission accomplished. If you can’t get out and touch grass, get out and touch Gas. (Please don’t unsubscribe.)
Rating: Like
Isis, Celestial
Lot of great metal and metal-adjacent material in 2000, and this is likely one of the best. Bonus: it’s pretty welcoming for the non-metal-enthused! (Apparently it’s considered “post-metal” so you don’t have to call it metal if you don’t want.) (Stop saying the word “metal.”) Anyway, heavy, rhythmic, epic, anthemic, depressing, industrial, atmospheric, introspective… you know if you’re in or not.
Rating: Like/Love
Other albums I’ve heard in the past few weeks:
Animal Collective, Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished (Like)
Binary Star, Masters of the Universe (Like). Do you like 90s style hiphop? Sure we all do.
*Decapitated, Winds of Creation (Like/Love). Does what it says on the tin: takes your head off.
The Distillers, The Distillers (Interesting/Like)
Sarah Dougher, The Walls Ablaze (Like). Kinda like a Sleater-Kinney folk album? Not accurate, but it’ll get you started.
Idlewild, 100 Broken Windows (Like)
Lil’ Kim, The Notorious K.I.M. (Interesting/Like)
Limp Bizkit, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (Interesting). First quarter I thought I was going to have to give this a Like. Thankfully Fred Durst came through.
Mirah, You Think It’s Like This But Really It’s Like This (Interesting/Like)
MxPx, The Ever Passing Moment (Like). “Like,” sure, but made me realize that while I think pop-punk is great in theory, “Like” might be the best the genre can do for me.
Napalm Death, Enemy of the Music Business (Like/Love). By all reports this is one of their least-accomplished albums, which says incredible things about the ND discography.
Papa Roach, Infest (Interesting/Like)
Trans Am, Red Line (Interesting). Will Trans Am ever make an album I like or even Like? Stay tuned.