Surely no artist held a candle to the wonderful weird wild Wacko Jacko. I dare Marilyn Manson or GWAR or Karen Finley or Mariah Carey to try to top this wonderful conceptual art guru who has emerged from the depths of a bathtub filled with naked 14-year old television boystars to become the Performance Artist of the Century! Imagine! Producing an album that didn’t sell even though it had a $30million publicity budget! And then to accuse Tommy Mottola of being a bad boy and denying black artists the royalties and respect due them. And then people like Russell Simmons…

The following is not really a top ten, but just a list of some records that I enjoyed. (It’s also not in any particular order.) Starsailor: Love is Here – Similar to Coidplay’s style. Moby: 18 – A very pleasant record. Shannon McNally: Jukebox Sparrows – A promising debut from a local kid. South: From Here on In – Another good record in the Coidplay style. Interpol: Turn on the Bright Lights – Remember Joy Division. Ryan Adams: Demolition – I was not familiar with Ryan Adams, or Whiskey Town. This was a nice find. Coldplay: A Rush of Blood…

1. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN- The Rising: This articulate and compassionate disc is easily the most impressive album of the year. Even the songs that at first blush sound like he could have written them in his sleep 20 years ago have a dark side that take on greater significance. 2. GEORGE HARRISON- Brainwashed: His best work since “All Things Must Pass”. It reveals a man totally at peace with himself and his God (if not necessarily with the rest of the world) who played a mean ukulele. 3. SONIC YOUTH- Murray Street: Their albums are usually hit or miss depending on…

SKIN-CRAWLING KING SIZE SHACKLES, GLAD TO HAVE ‘EM ON: FROM THE MOUTHES OF BROKEN TEETH IN 2002 Junior Kimbrough ­ You Better Run (The Essential Junior Kimbrough) (Fat Possum/Epitaph) Just what you¹d want to hear if you walked into any Mississippi backwoods juke joint in the 1990¹sŠnew blues the old ways, old men broke, versa, a busted make-shift stage wobbling defiantly and without care into the night. Ralph Stanley ­ Ralph Stanley (Sony/DMZ) Like it’s his first album ­ post-mortem; the songs of bluegrass spiritual heaven. Time has made this voice that of the reaper, always on the verge of…

The Hives -Veni Vidi Vicious (Burning Heart) Really it’s a 2000 release but tough poop! This is one of the catchiest CD’s I’ve heard in years. Their earlier releases have more of a straight up punk sound, but Veni is just good old garage rock with some supreme riffs. There are a couple of tracks that touch on the punk flavor…all the better. Hearing them on the radio kinda took away some of the “exclusive”, cool vibe but they deserve all the praise they’ve received. The Donnas – Spend the Night (Atlantic) A band who has shown some real progression…

Top Thirteen Solomon Burke, Don’t Give Up on Me Blind Boys of Alabama, Higher Ground VA None But the Righteous: Masters of Sacred Steel. Dave Holland Big Band, What Goes Around Peter Wolf, Sleepless Dixie Chicks, Home Spoon, Kill the Moonlight Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, The Tyranny of Distance Norah Jones, Come Fly mth Me. She is an average singer who sings pop tunes – not jazz. She makes my list for what she doesn’t do. There are no triple octave leaps, with pretension of hip hop gospel and hands held high. She simply sings the melody without embellishment….

1. Beck Sea Change DGC/Geffen Records Once again, he’s outdone himself. Even Jackson Browne should be suitably impressed with this gloom n’ doom beauty. Take Mutations and remove any semblance of humor. 2. Aimee Mann Lost in Space Superego Records I don’t understand how Bachelor No. 2 got raves and this one seems to fly under the radar for most. If she has more of these in her misery treasure trunk, by all means keep em comin’! 3. Super Furry Animals Rings Around the World Beggars/XL Records A real mish-mosh of Beatle-pop, electronica insanity and 70s cliché-isms. A real feast…

These are a few of my favorite things. Albums of 2002 Fingathing: Superhero Music On their second album, Fingathing make hip-hop fun again by adding cello, long drum interludes and an array of vocal samples. Mum: Finally We Are No One Another sophomore release, this from an Icelandic band whose work recalls Bjork’s “Vespertine.” Music boxes, bells, and crisp layered sounds conjure images of snow and ice-covered lakes. Deadly Avenger: Deep Red An assortment of soundtrack flavors, breakbeats and old school funk, co-starring the Budapest Film Orchestra. The album comes with stickers too! Dom and Roland: Back for the Future…

New Order – Get Ready Yeah yeah, i know, I know… “New Order are a great singles band, but name one full CD masterpiece…” Hell, I dunno. all I know is that this CD feels like a real return to form. The typical bass lines, the sometimes idiot/ironic lyrics, the tentative (to put it charitably) singing, etc. etc. Despite all that, I sang along to it, I enjoyed the noises it made and i’m sure that there at least 3 great songs on it which will only show themselves to best effect when “Substance 3” comes out in 3 years….

Top 10 albums of the year 1. The Strokes – -Is This It 2. Radiohead – –Amnesiac. 3. Bob Dylan – –Love and Theft. 4. Leonard Cohen – –Ten New Songs 5. Travis – –The Invisible Band 6. Gorillaz – –Gorillaz 7. Mogawi – –Rock Action. 8. Stereolab – –Sound-Dust 9. Spiritualized – — Let It Come Down. 10. E.L.O. – –Zoom TOP 10 Reissues of The Year 1 (Tie) The Velvet Underground – –Bootleg Series Volume I 1 (Tie) Ramones – — (Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket To Russia and Road to Ruin) 2. Shuggie Otis – –lnspiration Information 3….

My first contribution to the POOP list- what an honor! My tastes tend to lean towards the harder stuff. Up until October, I worked for the record label, KOCH Records. Some of my picks reflect my work there. Here are my lucky 7 for 2001! 1. Kiss – Box Set The band that turned me on to rock when I was a kid released an awesome box set this fall. They really have included every song a Kiss fan could want. This 5 disc, 94-track box set comes with a 120-page color book, including track-by-track commentary mostly by Gene Simmons…

We all know about the Gillian Welch’s, the Radioheads, the Strokes, etc. I decided that my contribution to the Poop List would be most effective if I shed some light on some other releases which I hope, during some rare period of compulsive, adventurous buying, a few of you may give a chance. And in no particular order… 1. The Other People Place: Lifestyles of the Laptop Cafe Actually produced by Drexcyia under another alias, this album has brought about a murmuring Detroit techno revival to the “four to the floor” masses. It’s perfectly vocoded vocal tracks and futurist, dystopian…

Poop Glorious Poop,….2001 what can be said? too much, that’s what. Let’s get to it shall we? abandoned pools – humanistic (extasy) great peeps, great songs & great production – fans of Ken Andrews & Tommy Walters should invest in this one. It’s always great to find a new surprise and trust me this one came out of nowhere and it reared its’ head up high & stayed there. treble charger – wide awake bored (nettwerk america) 2 words – EAR – CANDY, ok you need more than that? How about 4 – P’s, – perfectly polished power pop. There!…

1. Bob Dylan – Love and Theft 2. Earmight – Monk 3. Avalon Blues – A Tribute to Mississippi John Hurt 4. Loudon Wainwright III – The Last Man On Earth 5. White Stripes – White Blood Cells 6. Rufus Wainwright – Poses 7. Rachelle Garniez – Crazy Blood 8. The Detroit Cobras – Life, Love and Leaving 9. The Derailers – Here Come the Derailers 10. Junior Brown – Mixed Bag Hi Poop people how are you? I almost didn’t make it in, thank god poopster Zip reminded me of the deadline and poopster Lange hooked me up via…

1. GILLIAN WELCH – Time (The Revelator) Gilly continues her less-is-more musical philosophy. Sometimes haunting, sometimes jubilant, always exquisite. For God’s sake, give David Rawlings his due credit. This is the last time I’m going to tell you, Gilly! (See Gillian Welch bootleg below.) 2. RYAN ADAMS – Gold He may be the only guy in America who may have benefited from 9/11 but that really can’t be held against him. The fact that as a person he can be something of an asshole can be. Luckily he sure knows how to tap into that American thang. 3. VARIOUS ARTISTS…

What I Listened to in 2001 There seemed to be a gap from mid-September on, but this is what I remember listening to and enjoying, of course, in no particular order: Nick Lowe – The Convincer • Having turned his attention from rock to sweet-sounding quiet tunes, Nick turned out an outstanding set. I still dig his mood. Dave Edmunds – Hand Picked • The other half of Rockpite self-reteases an eclectic set of (mostly) acoustic songs raging from classical to Elvis to Mason Williams. With a new replacement heart valve, Dave is in good form Bob Dylan – Love…

How the time flies! I can hardly believe it’s time to be compiling the poop again already. Well, as usual, there seemed to be a lot of music that I liked this year, and also a ton that I missed out on. Fortunately, no longer working at a record store, I didn’t have to hear a lot of low grade crap over and over. Here’s a cheer to small blessings. I seem to be getting set in my ways as I age, and I’m going to be a whopping 52 this year, so you’ll probably see a number of familiar…

2001…I have purchased more music during this year than in any other single year that I can recall. Unfortunately for POOP purposes, very little of it was new music. I’d be hard pressed to come up with 10 top picks of 2001 based upon the new releases of this year. It’s not as though I’m jaded. I’m very enthusiastic about the music I found in 2001. So for my purposes and as if anyone really cares, I’m disregarding the original release date of my picks and listing those things that I have truly dug. Obviously dominated by 60s-70s Italian soundtracks….