It was a year of acronyms: non-existent WMD, PR-stunt POWs, 99-cent MP3s, a 50-cent P.I.M.P. (okay, so weâre reaching here), and both the U.S.A. and the RIAA went from victims to villains. Just as Bush dropped his B.O.B., the music biz dropped a bomb of its own, continuing to wage war against P2P file-sharing by suing its own customers. Sales were down for the fourth straight year, so what better way to encourage kids to buy your low-quality, high-priced product, right? Universal Music did drop their CD prices by 25%, a smart move for a corporate monster that dominates over 30% of the market, but few others have followed suitâŠyet. Liz Phair and Jewel sold out (with good-to-excellent results), while Madonna, the queen of commerce herself, made her most self-lacerating, least accessible album to date. Oh, how the times (and the rules) have changed. Divas who once ruled the charts were nowhere to be found: Mariahâs shoulda-been comeback single, a bombastic cover of Def Leppardâs âBringinâ on the Heartbreak,â didnât break any hearts (or charts), and, sadly, the Annie Lennox revival produced no music videos. There were no visible trends, unless you count hip-hopâs ongoing dominance of the singles charts (music might be the only industry where youâre more likely to reach the top if youâre black) and big music stars with penchants for small children (sorry, we couldnât resist). Last yearâs teen pop starlets seem to be faring better on the small screen (Jessica Simpson) and the silver screen (Mandy Moore), or, if youâre Hilary Duff, the small screen, the big screen, and the Billboard charts. Turns out âgarage rockâ and âelectroclashâ are great buzz terms for magazine covers but theyâve yet to live up to their respective hypes. So what was good about 2003? What follows is our, um, 50 cents. Remember: Tuna is fish, not chicken.
ALBUMS
1. Damien Rice, O
When a rather nondescript promotional copy of Ireland-born singer-songwriter Damien Riceâs debut, O, arrived in my mailbox sometime during the first half of 2003, I felt instantly compelled to place it in my 5-disc changer rather than on top of my leaning tower of To Be Listened To. It had been years since Iâd had an all-out physical response to an album, and O delivered the goods. The album plays out like a Shakespearean love tragedy (though its title is presumably culled from Pauline Reageâs The Story of O, and not the bardâs own Othello). Rice and angelic guest vocalist Lisa Hannigan duet as lovers, at first singing of a love that isnât bashful, but private and intimate and filled with discovery. While the first half of O bristles with the anticipation of newfound love, its latter half finds that love crumbling and even calls its very existence into question. Rice houses his Grecian drama in tidy, form-fitting folk structures reminiscent of the great singer-songwriters of the 1970s. His melodies are timeless and familiar, yet they land where you least expect them to.
2. Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man, Out of Season
Itâs been several years since the one-two punch of Portisheadâs Dummy and the groupâs equally astonishing self-titled follow-up, so itâs difficult to imagine what a new record by the Bristol natives might sound like after all this time. Perhaps the answer lies in Out of Season, the solo album from the trip-hop trioâs head mistress Beth Gibbons. Geoff Barrow may have been Portisheadâs sonic backbone, but Gibbons provided the humanity, the heart, the soul and the softly wrenching sorrow. As versatile as Gibbonsâs vocal is, you wonât find her wailing in the sinister Portishead style, and she rarely draws on the killer-kitten coquettishness of Dummy. Instead, Gibbonsâs folk and jazz influences float skillfully to the surface. With the help of Paul Webb, bassist of â80s band Talk Talk, and Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley, Gibbons has created an album as subtly rich and rewarding as any Portishead release.
3. Kenna, New Sacred Cow
Kennaâs debut album, New Sacred Cow, landed on the desks of music journalists across the country way back in early 2002. Then signed to Fred Durstâs Flawless imprint, Kenna, who hails from Virginia Beach by way of Cleveland and Ethiopia, struggled to get the album in stores after its dark lead single, âHell Bent,â arrived and exited quietly. Eventually the album was released in 2003 via Columbia Records. Recorded in 1999 with Chad Hugo of the Neptunes, New Sacred Cow still sounds as fresh as ever in â03. The album has a decidedly retro quality, drawing on the â80s synth-pop/new wave of bands like Depeche Mode and Soft Cell, but it never imitates any one artist in particular. Instead, it captures the essence of an era while remaining firmly planted in the present and, more importantly, residing somewhere in the future.
4. Goldfrapp, Black Cherry
In the early â80s, disco splintered off into dance-pop and house, but the newest incarnations of electronic music seem to have forgotten one vital element: the hook. On her second album with Will Gregory, Allison Goldfrapp made the seamless transition from trip-hop lounge chanteuse to disco siren. Just as the duoâs debut, Felt Mountain, was a masterful concoction of elegant melodies and spooky theatrics, Black Cherry combines the belching electronic synth chords and dramatic strings of Disco with bursts of melodic color and simple yet ominous lyrics. Goldfrapp have successfully channeled Blondie and Donna Summer (as well as their former dewy selves) to create a collection of soothing techno ballads and custom-made club tracks that draw you in and, more importantly, hook you.
5. André 3000, The Love Below
To Big Boiâs socially-charged yin is Dreâs horny yang. If Speakerboxxx hints at the pop-friendly funkadelic stylings of Prince, Dreâs The Love Below fully channels his purple majestyâs libido, not to mention his sometimes-sexy, sometimes-irksome falsetto. âLove in Warâ is Dreâs response to Big Boiâs âWar,â while âVibrate,â a sly ode to masturbation disguised as a pro-environmental ditty (âMother Earth is dying and we continue to fuck her to deathâŠThe future is in your handâ), suggests that the cure for loneliness and despair can be found in the battery-operated self-massager in your top drawer. Whether heâs imagining his two-timing girlfriend crashing into a ditch while applying make-up in the car or re-imagining Cupid as a gun-toting thug on âHappy Valentineâs Day,â humor is key to the success of Dreâs half of OutKastâs Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. While the album probably should have been whittled down to the best of both discs, Dre not only trumped his pal, he made the most subversive and inventive hip-hop album of the year.
6. Carla Werner, Departure
Itâs truly startling how much of an impact the late Jeff Buckleyâs music has had on an entire generation of musicians, most of whom are still scribbling song lyrics in science notebooks and building fresh calluses on their fingertips. Even more impressive is his widespread geographic appeal; his music has reached the ears of European followers like Travis, Coldplay and Starsailor as well as a growing number of female singer-songwriters like New Zealandâs Carla Werner. Wernerâs debut, Departure, draws on a multitude of influences that range from Zepplin to Kate Bush to, of course, Buckley, and even hints at her country music roots. Werner, though, is not a mime. Departure resounds with the purity and ingenuity of a seasoned original, with just a touch of earnest self-deprecation. Itâs not unusual for artists to be expert spectators, but Werner is a remarkable kind of sponge: what she absorbs seems to drip out in strikingly unique forms.
7. Teitur, Poetry & Aeroplanes
Emotionally engaging, ornately arranged and expertly sweetened with shades of optimism, Teiturâs solo debut, Poetry & Aeroplanes, plays like a sonic postcard from a nomadic artist. Teitur, who hails from Denmarkâs remote Faroe Islands (nestled somewhere between Iceland and Scotland), grew up loving American pop music, and his own songsâembellished with organs, strings and the likeâare plainly informed by early influences such as James Taylor and Suzanne Vega. Veteran Rupert Hineâs production is lush, yet more importantly, intimate. By albumâs end, itâs difficult not to forget that Poetry & Aeroplanes was created under such lovelorn conditions and that, perhaps, Teiturâs creative home is one of such (seemingly) emotional deficiency.
8. Postal Service, Give Up
Give Up, the debut album from the Postal Service (the mail-order side project of Death Cab for Cutieâs Benjamin Gibbard and Dntel mastermind Jimmy Tamborello), is an arresting fusion of emo indie-rock musings and DIY laptop electronica. Call it smart pop, or semi-intelligent dance music. The album alternates between dazzling, revelatory out-of-body love songs and universally eco-aware ruminations on the state of the world, the binding thread being Gibbardâs often potent stream-of-consciousness and bright, jangly guitars and Tamborelloâs infectious ambient house beats, faux strings and video-game bleeps. Whether itâs love or the worldâs problems, Gibbard, despite what he says, seems incapable of âgiving up.â Like on Death Cabâs equally stunning Transatlanticism, he ardently builds castles in the sky because, like he says on the albumâs first single, âSuch Great Heights,â everything looks perfect from far away.
9. Alicia Keys, The Diary of Alicia Keys
Once you realize thereâs nothing new about neo-soul, itâs easier to appreciate the music for what it is and what it honors, rather than what itâs supposed to represent in the current not-so-grand scheme of R&B music. Perhaps thatâs why the arrival of Alicia Keysâs 2001 debut Songs in A Minorâthough slightly overrated amidst all the anti-pop excitementâseemed like such a vibrant beam of light, and perhaps thatâs why her sophomore effort, The Diary of Alicia Keys, will undoubtedly prompt slightly overblown expectations. But the fact of the matter is, Diary builds on the promise of Songs in A Minor and, in many ways, trumps that albumâs achievements. Though thereâs nothing as immediate as âFallinâ,â or anything as empowering as âA Womanâs Worth,â the album is a deft mix of street and class. Sonically, Diary Of Alicia Keys is like the younger sibling of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, rummaging through her older sisterâs vintage record collection and discovering what modern R&B has been missing all this time.
10. Missy Elliott, This Is Not a Test!
An artist as prolific as Missy Elliott is bound to stumble. This Is Not a Test!, her third album in as many years, pales in comparison to the steely, futuristic club thump of 2001âs Miss EâŠSo Addictive and the warm, old-school vibe of Under Construction, but even Elliottâs missteps are infinitely more graceful than most of her contemporariesâ slam-dunks. In many ways, Elliott and longtime producer Timbaland can only be outdone by themselves, and Timbo, as always, saves his best beats for his lady, who never fails to bring them to sweating, heavingâif not cartoonishâlife. Though the album doesnât live up to (or hardly addresses) its war-meets-blaxploitation cover art, Elliott comes off like the Maya Angelou of hip-hop, waxing poetic on the state of the genre and sounding like a 21st century post-feminist on tracks like âToyzâ and âLet Me Fix My Weave.â In the end, itâs all about sloppy sex, self-gratification, and good hairpieces. And in times of war and exploitation, thatâs what truly matters.
SINGLES AND MUSIC VIDEOS
1. BeyoncĂ© featuring Jay-Z, âCrazy In Loveâ
BeyoncĂ© Knowlesâs first solo outing, last yearâs soundtrack cut âWork It Out,â a post-disco/funk work-out that positioned the curvy bottle blonde as an MTV generation Tina Turner, wasnât exactly a smash, but it hinted at what was to come. Enter âCrazy In Loveâ: Armed with a horn-y Chi-Lites sample, several pairs of hot-pants and some neon Barbie Doll pumps (not to mention that voice, which puts Mariah to shameâalmost), the lead single from BeyoncĂ©âs debut album was hands-down the song of the summer and easily the best single of the year. The bootylicious video, directed by newcomer Jake Navaâwho went on to direct the baby-oil-logged follow-up âBaby Boyâ and Kelisâs âMilkshakeâ (see #6 below)âpairs the singer with thug-toy Jay-Z, who seemingly blows up BeyoncĂ©âs carâŠwhile sheâs still in it. BeyoncĂ© rises from the flames like a pimped-out phoenix and closes out the clip with some inventive runway-inspired choreography in the hottest alleyway Iâve never seen. BeyoncĂ© is allowed more room to experiment vocally on Dangerously In Love, the best mainstream R&B album this year, exploring softer registers and lathering on the coquettish persona that was only hinted at in her work with D.C. Added guilty pleasure points for a sexed-up, promo-only [insert sad face] redo of 50 Centâs âIn Da Clubâ (see #7).
2. Madonna, âAmerican Lifeâ (Directorâs Cut)
The sad sequence of headlines went something like this: February 14, 2003, âMadonna Defends Her Violent âAmerican Lifeâ Videoâ; March 28, 2003, âMadonna Edits Controversial âAmerican Lifeâ Videoâ; and, just two days later, âMadonna Yanks Controversial âAmerican Lifeâ Video.â Sure, sheâs made better videos, and sheâs caused bigger controversies, but to release âAmerican Lifeâ during the lynch-mob mentality of Bushâs war on Iraq would have required bigger balls than even Madonna has, and she knew it. The video, directed by Jonas Akerlund, juxtaposes images of war with the most capitalistic, materialistic, and seemingly superficial industry in the world: fashion. Models dressed in military garb and gas masks (one male model sports a half-shirt that reads âFashion Victimâ) and three Middle Eastern children strut down a runway while Madonna and her troupe of decidedly unconventional beauties prepare for their fashion terrorism in a backstage restroom. Madonna carves âProtect Meâ on the partition of a stall, giving the otherwise militant proceedings a sense of desperate humanity, before she and her disciples engage in some fiercely aggressive choreography (intercut with images of a detonated atom bomb), and crash the fashion show and pummel the photographers with an industrial-strength water hose. Madonna may have never actually been on the frontlines of a battlefield, but sheâs been spotted in the front row of more than a few fashion shows. Itâs this hypocrisy that makes the video so damn intriguing. Itâs the same contradiction that runs through the âAmerican Lifeâ song itself: the Material Girl is denouncing material things? You mean she was being ironic back in 1985? Madonnaâs made it clear sheâs not anti-American, just pro-peace: The new Madonna writes morality tales for infants, not bomb-making manuals for infidels. Disappointing for sure. In a time when most pop singers are too afraid to stand for much of anything at all, seeing the most famous woman in the world pull a grenade pin out with her teeth and toss the bomb into Bushâs lap (the typical, Madonna-style twist is that the grenade is actually a lighter, the moral being, presumably, that something destructive can be turned into something useful) is nothing short of explosive.
3. Queens of the Stone Age, âGo with the Flowâ
âWe collide and divide, go swimming and trailblaze into the sunset,â Queens Of The Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri told MTV earlier this year. That more or less describes âGo with the Flow,â the award-winning video clip directed by visual artist collective Shynola. Inspired by the bold comic book images of Frank Millerâs âSin City,â âGo with the Flowâ is a combination of live action and rotoscopic animation (the kind made famous in a-Haâs âTake on Meâ). Silhouettes of the band barreling down a desert highway in the back of a pick-up truck toward a rival gang of âskullsâ are juxtaposed with a blood red sky and overtly sexual metaphors (including a slow-motion collision that results in an explosion of animated sperm cells and a squirting slurpee).
4. Sigur RĂłs, âVaka (Untitled #1)â
Unveiled at the Sundance Film Festival in January, this Floria Sigismondi-directed clip won the Best Video trophy at the 2003 MTV Europe Awards (evidence alone that America has a long way to goâno offense, Missy). The video opens with the sullen faces of grade school children being inspected before rushing outside for recess. Donned in gas masks (a quaint new pop-culture fixture in the wake of recent chemical warfare advancesâsee #2 above), the children play as if the scorched, red sky and falling ash are everyday occurrences (frighteningly, in Sigismondiâs post-apocalyptic creation, they are). Because it was released just prior to the U.S.-led war on Iraq, the video has been criticized for being propagandistic, even manipulativeâa symbolic dead white dove is seen rotting in the ash early on in the clip. In the end, though, the powerful âUntitled #1â (a.k.a. âVakaâ), from last yearâs ( ), adds another notch to Sigur RĂłsâs impressive video belt and is easily Sigismondiâs most evocative work to date.
5. Jewel, âIntuitionâ
If the definition of âselling outâ is changing your music to sell records, then Jewel has been guilty of the charge since her first album, a folk collection of coffeehouse recordings that were completely re-recorded for radio consideration. Jewelâs fourth album, 0304, may have disappointed some of the singerâs fans and confused much of the public, but the album presents one of the most startlingâyet oddly fittingâtransformations in pop history. In many ways, Jewel is simply fulfilling her destiny: sheâs become the pop tart her critics have accused her of being from the very start. But just one look at the cheeky music video for the hit âIntuitionâ and itâs clear sheâs in on the joke. âJewelâs music sounds much better now that sheâs dancing!â reads a fake TRL crawl. Whatâs more, if youâre going to sell out, at least do it with an infectious pop song like âIntuition.â She urges us to follow our hearts but then taunts, âSell your sin/Just cash in.â And thatâs exactly what Jewel did: you could hear the French accordion of âIntuitionâ in a commercial for a razor of the same name all year long. Ah, the sweet smell of contradiction.
6. Kelis, âMilkshakeâ
Though her second album wasnât even released in the U.S., Kelis scored an instant hit with âMilkshake,â the lead single from her new album Tasty. Written and produced by te Neptunes, the kitschy, metaphor-heavy track (Kelis espouses the virtues of concocting the perfect blend of sweet and spicy) features the duoâs standard minimalist beats, grinding bassline and a barely-there âla la la la laâ pre-chorus. Kelisâs pseudo-rap hook is downright irresistible: she knows sheâs got what brings the boys to the yard. Jake Navaâs sexy video interpretation, set in an old-fashioned diner and featuring a cameo by Kelisâs beau Nas as a short-order cook, is all freshly-baked buns and dancing waitresses with two cherries on top.
7. 50 Cent, âIn Da Clubâ
And the award for best gunshot-wound-to-the-face slur goes to Eminem protĂ©gĂ© 50 Cent, who owned the charts with âIn Da Club,â the lead single from his debut album Get Rich or Die Tryinâ (a fixture in the Top 10 of the albums chart all year long). Add to that his successful G-Unit side project and 50 Cent owned hip-hop in â03. Hey, 50: Hereâs hoping your son wonât outgrow his mini-bulletproof vest before you get a chance to cash that next royalty check.
8. Fischerspooner, âEmergeâ
The electroclash boom wasnât so much an explosion as it wasâwell, for lack of a classier metaphorâa fart, a burp, a blip on the landscape of popular music, and Fischerspoonerâs âEmergeâ was its theme song. Okay, so that doesnât exactly sound very appealing, but when VH1 uses your song in their promo commercials you must be doing something right, right? Referencing â80s synth-pop, Eno-esque soundscapes and Giorgio Moroder basslines, âEmergeâ is a sonic retro feast.
9. No Doubt, âItâs My Lifeâ
The 1930s film noir-inspired clip for No Doubtâs âItâs My Lifeâ finds Gwen Stefani doing her best impersonation Jean Harlow (whom Stefani portrays in the upcoming biopic The Aviator). In the video, Stefani plays a femme fatale whoâs on trial for killing off her three lovers one by one. Like âDonât Speakâ before it, the David LaChapelle-directed clip could be a comment on Gwenâs impending band-killing solo career. Culled from No Doubtâs greatest hits collection (get it? Gwen plays a hit-woman), the bandâs cover of the 1984 Talk Talk hit is given some additional pop-cult allusion thanks to a âBillie Jeanâ-style rhythm section.
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