Coldplay live 2003
‘… simply amazing.’
While some argue that Coldplay is Britain’s latest attempt at capturing the Radiohead spirit, I beg to differ. 2002’s A Rush of Blood to the Head earned Coldplay two Grammys for ‘In My Place.’ 2003 saw the release of Coldplay’s first live album, entitled, Coldplay Live 2003 (also available on DVD). This live album is by far one of my favorites out there, as it’s one of the only live versions of studio-recorded songs I’ve heard that still manages to capture and intensify the heart- wrenching lyrics delivered in the studio. On the album, lead singer Chris Martin pleads, ‘Come on in / I’ve got to tell you what a state I’m in / I’ve got to tell you in the loudest tones that I started looking for a whisper / when the truth is, I miss you.’ Coldplay’s lyrics are simple, but the way the band performs each song breathes life into them, rendering Coldplay Live 2003 simply amazing.
Runners-up: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Outkast Room on Fire, The Strokes Take Them On Your Own, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Mai-Ann Duess, Muse Staff
Failer, Kathleen Edwards
‘… sounds like the hard-drinking offspring of Lucinda Williams and Neil Young.’
Twenty-four-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter Edwards may look like a pre-glam Sheryl Crow, but on her marvelously clear-eyed debut, she sounds like the hard-drinking offspring of Lucinda Williams and Neil Young. Edwards’ rootsy accounts of doomed relationships range from mordantly funny (‘If you weren’t so old I would tell my friends / But I don’t think your wife would like my friends’) to devastating (‘Now you’re lyin’ dead on the avenue / And I can’t feel my broken heart’). It’s some kind of small miracle that a love song as anguished as Edwards’ ‘Six O’ Clock News’ made it to mainstream radio at all.
Runners-up: Fever to Tell, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs Welcome Interstate Managers, Fountains of Wayne Take Them on Your Own, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Robert Watson, Muse Staff
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Outkast
‘… separate head trips under a unifying principle of quality’
Welcome to Next Level 101. Please open your CD cases to Speakerboxxx / The Love Below and be prepared to be schooled in the ways of what’s to come. On the fifth original album from Outkast the pride of Atlanta Andre 3000 and Big Boi take the listener on separate head trips under a unifying principle of quality. Speakerboxxx rewrites the book on how to craft a hook; with each song it delves deeper into a colorful swamp full of liquid melodies (‘Unhappy’), swinging brass (‘Bowtie’) and unrivalled breakdowns (‘Church’). The Love Below is Andre 3000 flipping the radio dial in his mind, looking for love in all the unexpected places in a bouncy 60’s-inspired rock gem (‘Hey Ya’), in a folksy dream sequence with Norah Jones (‘Take Off Your Cool’) and in an eerily obsessive space-funk masterpiece featuring Rosaria Dawson (‘She Lives in My Lap’). Speakerboxxx and The Love Below are designed to change the game. And everyone is taking notes.
Runners-up: Worldwide Underground, Erykah Badu Steven’s Travels, Atmosphere The New Romance, Pretty Girls Make Graves
Lauren Pabst, Muse Staff
You are Free, Cat Power
‘Cat Power has preserved the delicate beauty of her soulful predecessors.’
The girl-with-guitar genre has become a glossy, mascara-smeared world rife with Michelle Branches and Vanessa Carltons all sluttier, revamped versions of Sarah McLachlan. In 1973, you could be Joni Mitchell with buck teeth, or Joan Baez with scraggly hair, and still find respect for your simplistic music amidst glam rock and power ballads. Thankfully, Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall) has preserved the delicate beauty of her soulful predecessors. Her latest release, You are Free, her first album of original music in five years, espouses a straightforward ideal freedom from that which holds you back or threatens your femininity in cathartic, multi-layered vocals, guitar and sparse piano. The first cut, ‘I Don’t Blame You,’ finds a musician struggling with the age-old balance between art and pleasing his fans. And as one of Cat Power’s rockier tunes, ‘Free’ with its catchy chorus finds us dancing through the idyllic fields on the album’s cover.
Runners-up: Keep on Your Mean Side, The Kills Mary Star of the Sea, Zwan Concert for George, Various Artists
Courtney Hollands, Muse Staff
Hail to the Thief, Radiohead
‘… political, romantic, melancholy or triumphant.’
Radiohead manages to attain a legendary status typically reserved for bands that have broken up or contain members who are no longer alive. They’re still together, though and while Thom Yorke may write a good deal of songs about a morbid fascination with car crashes and bloody fist fights at weddings, nothing in Hail to the Thief suggests the Radiohead phenomenom is dying. Described by Yorke pre-release as a ‘shagging record,’ Hail is an album that can be classified as political, romantic, melancholy or triumphant, and places the band on a level that, at this point, seems unsurpassable. In 2003, no newbie or veteran of the music scene came close to crafting a record with a more sweeping, graceful magnetism than these five men from Oxford. ‘Something big is going to happen,’ Yorke wails on ‘Go To Sleep.’ Indeed, something big has happened, and this year is all the better for it.
Runners-up: Transatlanticism, Death Cab for Cutie Room on Fire, The Strokes O, Damien Rice
Sharon Steel, Muse Staff
Fever to Tell, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
‘Rages like an uncontrallable houseparty … and hurts like a helluva hangover.’
After courting legions of wayward hipsters and a planet’s worth of slobbering music journalists, the scrappy, sexy art-blues trio Yeah Yeah Yeahs deftly sidestepped the ‘too much hype’ curse this year with their startling debum album, Fever to Tell. Not only that: powerhouse drummer Brian Chase, guitar virtuoso Nick Zinner and vocalist/international hellion Karen O. managed to temper the funhouse fury of their infamous live shows and prove themselves as insanely talented songwriters who can synthesize brazen punk angularity with an undeniable pop sensibility. The first half of Fever to Tell rages like an uncontrollable houseparty, brimming with hormones, high drama and cheap beer. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs demonstrate newfound maturity on the album’s second half, which hurts like a helluva hangover and aches with all the tenderness of dark young love.
Runners-up: Elephant, The White Stripes Speakerboxx/The Love Below, Outkast D-D-Don’t Stop the Beat, Junior Senior
Justin Conforti, Muse Staff