Part Three 80 - 7180 - The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers - 2006It would be fair to say that Jack White has had quite a busy decade with the White Stripes, The Raconteurs and now The Dead Weather. Controversially I have chosen this album ahead of any of The White Stripes ones because I feel this works better as an album (and also because The White Stripes are a poor man's Royal
Trux - see No. 60)
79 - Billy Corgan - The Future Embrace - 2005I can almost anticipate the comments from Smashing Pumpkins fans. Almost nobody liked this album, only 69,000 sales after the huge success of the Pumpkins. This album got the usual traitor/
Judas rubbish from fans that any musician who dares to do something other than churn out similar album after similar album so often
receives. The funny thing is though is that it is actually a good album.
78 - Laura Cantrell - When The Roses Bloom Again - 2002Cantrell, blessed with a singing voice reminiscent of Lurleen
Lumpkin, is one of the acceptable faces of Country Music. Not alt-Country or Americana (where there are many, many treats to be found) but straight-down-the-line Country. She doesn't over produce her records and isn't a right-wing
uber-patriot which helps of course, but mainly it's the songs and the voice.
77 - Anjali - The World of Lady A - 2003I often wonder what the state of modern music would be now if bands like Voodoo Queens (
Anjali Bhatia's band) Mambo Taxi and
Sidi Bou Said had got the publicity that bands like Oasis, Cast, Northern Uproar and
Stereophonics got. Essentially more people would hear albums like this and maybe there would be no Kaiser Chiefs. If you do like the Kaiser Chiefs then
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I apologise if I
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh offended you with those comments
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh etc.
Oh and I could only find one clip on
youtube and although it was one of the albums finer moments it was being used to accompany clips from One Tree Hill which I found enormously depressing so here is a link to
Amazon instead where you can buy the album for (currently) £1.34.
76 - Jim White - No Such Place - 2001One of the few albums on the list that I can
occasionally get away with playing in the car this is a cracking little album. Jim White has a similar sort of autobiography as Tom Waits (a mixture of fiction and stranger than fiction) and a similar love for the song as tall story. Musically they are miles apart however, White being a sort of cerebral alternative Country kind of guy.
75 - Doves - Kingdom of Rust - 2009I saw Doves live earlier this year in a forest in Cheshire and had the event been the victim of a terrorist attack I don't think there would have been a single school in the North West of England that wasn't missing at least one Geography teacher. It is fair to say that they won't be collaborating with Steve Reich or MIA any day soon but they do what they do very well. They are that little bit more melancholy, that little bit less precious than Elbow and as such beat them to the list.
74 - Stephen Malkmus - Stephen Malkmus - 2001The Pavement 'reunion or not' thing is largely academic as long as
Malkmus is still working in my opinion. Let's face it if he just released his solo stuff as Pavement records the only difference is perhaps more people would buy them. Pavement was all about
Malkmus and his uncanny lyrics anyway so why the excitement? All of which is my clumsy way of saying that this album is as good as the Pavement stuff, and frankly much better than
Terror Twilight.
73 - Muse - Black Holes and Revelations - 2006I was never a big fan of Muse before this album and I don't like the new stuff either. In a nutshell not silly enough - just right - too silly with Black Holes and Revelations being just right. There is the undeniable influence of Queen but without sounding like Queen (a crime they are currently
committing) This album is silly, yes, but a lot of fun too.
Oh, and we'll come back to Britney later of course...
72 - Embrace - Drawn From Memory - 2000Included as a warning. After the success of the first album Embrace decided to be a bit more experimental on their second album. A lot of the Brit-pop/ post-Brit-pop bands did this, and they
all got stamped on for doing so by the critics and the fans. All together now WE WANT MORE OF THE SAME. Embrace went back to ballads and produced a couple more good albums (and one bloody awful one) but this album is the what might have been. Kids, please, let your bands try to do new stuff.
71 - Brian Wilson - presents Smile - 2004Thirty odd years in the making and never about to be the Smile that was lost in a storm of drugs, fire, madness and ego but still, on the whole, worth the wait. Brian Wilson was undoubtedly the Icarus of modern music and we should be grateful that the fall didn't kill him. Be honest - can your grandfather do this?