31/12; 7 hours remaining (cont.):
Favourite CDs of 2000:
- Cocteau Twins - Stars and Topsoil
- A collection of some of the Cocteau Twins' best material from 1982 to
1990. Has some great songs, like Aikea-Guinea and Heaven or Las Vegas
- Radiohead - Kid A
- Yes, it was over-hyped; the press wouldn't shut up about it and your
local Sanity/HMV had stacks of it. And yes, others said it was a load of
wank. But once you get past that, you have an interesting album.
Some have compared it to The Cure's Pornography, perhaps fairly, only
with more of a Warp influence and some odd time signatures.
Favourite track: probably How To Disappear Completely.
- Minimum Chips - Freckles
- An EP from a local act, in a sort of Stereolabish vein;
hope they do a full album soon.
- Baxendale - You Will Have Your Revenge
- Electronic pop (though not synthpop) with tongue firmly in cheek.
Some of the songs get boring after a while, but I Love the Sound of
Dance Music is a classic.
- Stone Roses - The Remixes
- Some great reworkings of the Stone Roses, ranging from Rabbit in the Moon's
acid-rave remix of I Wanna Be Adored (which sounds as if they could
have done most of it with ReBirth) to Kinobe's mellow reworking of
Elizabeth My Dear.
- FourPlay String Quartet, The Joy Of
- Their second album, with some great tracks, including a dub/klezmer
two-part and a vicious-sounding PWEI remake. Their remix CD, slated for
early 2001, will be something to look out for.
- Piano Magic, Artists' Rifles
- Arty and understated and hard to describe, though something I've
been listening to a lot.
With honourable mentions going to Broadcast, Extended Play Two,
Björk, SelmaSongs,
Beulah, When Your Heartstrings Break, Deepchild, Hymns from
Babylon, LTJ Bukem, Journey Inwards, Yo La Tengo, And Then
Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out and
Black Box Recorder's various EPs (mostly for the B-sides),
(Note: this is counting only CDs I acquired this year.)