999. Arular

Arular 
M.I.A.
2005

Tracks
1. Banana Skit
2. Pull Up The People
3. Bucky Done Gun
4. Sunshowers
5. Fire, Fire
6. Dash The Curry Skit
7. Amazon
8. Bingo
9. Hombre
10. One For The Head Skit
11. 10 Dollar
12. U.R.A.Q.T.
13. Galang

I anticipate enjoying Beck and the White Stripes, so this might be our last shaky entry on the List.

M.I.A. is doing some interesting things here, none of which suit my personal tastes. She adds world music to her hip hop, often imbuing the music with political awareness which is something dance music often lacks. I actually found such short tracks hard to get into. As soon as I found my footing, the song would end.

Still, at least she is doing something different with hip hop. 

RATING: 2/5

988. Street Signs

Street Signs
Ozomatli
2004

Tracks
1. Believe
2. Love & Hope
3. Street Signs
4. (Who Discovered) America?
5. Who's To Blame
6. Te Estoy Buscando
7. Saturday Night
8. Dejame En Paz
9. Santiago
10. Ya Viene El Sol
11. Dona Isabella
12. Nadie Te Tira
13. Cuando Canto

The List once again dips its toe into the world music scene. The majority of the albums they select are clearly trying to connect to Western audiences, and I am left with the impression that they are surely better, more authentic options they could have gone with instead. Like I said, this is only an impression, since I am not claiming to be a world music expert.

So this is okay, but it had the feel of music they would play at a vacation resort or cruise, so that American tourists could feel like they are getting a taste of the local flavor. Listenable, but a little obnoxious.

I want to end this List on amicable terms, so I hope the last ten or so albums left are better than this.

RATING: 2/5

979. Destroy Rock and Roll

Destroy Rock and Roll
Mylo
2004

Tracks
1. Valley Of The Dolls
2. Sunworshipper
3. Musclecars
4. Drop The Pressure
5. In My Arms
6. Guilty Of Love
7. Paris Four Hundred
8. Destroy Rock & Roll
9. Rikki
10. Otto's Journey
11. Muscle Car (Reform Reprise)
12. Zenophile
13. Need You Tonite
14. Emotion 98.6

House music is so hard to judge, because if you are just sitting alone in your apartment and listening to it, it's never very interesting. You need to be in a club or festival setting, otherwise it doesn't translate.

Of course, Mylo tries to make it interesting by including jokes and some commentary. I found those bits rather repetitive and obnoxious, but at least it made the album stand out a little. 

This was clearly made with minimalism in mind, and for the most part it worked. But this style still isn't my cup of tea.

RATING: 2/5

977. You Are The Quarry

You Are The Quarry
Morrissey
2004

Tracks
1. America Is Not The World
2. Irish Blood, English Heart
3. I Have Forgiven Jesus
4. Come Back To Camden
5. I'm Not Sorry
6. The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores
7. How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?
8. The First Of The Gang To Die
9. Let Me Kiss You
10. All The Lazy Dykes
11. I Like You
12. You Know I Couldn't Last

Morrissey is true to form in this album, as an unbearably self righteous whiner. According to "America Is Not The World" he will only deign to speak to Americans if we have a female, black, or gay president. Well, we've since checked one of the boxes, but you probably still don't want to talk to us yet.

He's not the worst lyricist, but the character he takes on his music is so obnoxious that you're tempted to disagree with whatever he says on principle. The music feels secondary to the irritating, holier than thou purpose behind it. 

I've relieved that we've finally reached the last Morrissey album.  He is criminally over represented on this List.

RATING: 2/5

973. De-Loused in the Comatorium

De-Loused in the Comatorium
The Mars Volta
2003

Tracks
1. Son et Lumiere
2. Inertiatic Esp
3. Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)
4. Tira Me a Las Aranas
5. Drunkship Of Lanterns
6. Eriatarka
7. Cicatriz Esp
8. This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed
9. Televators
10. Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt

This is a concept album based on a short story that the lead singer wrote. It tells the story of Cerpin Taxt, who overdoses on rat poison and morphine. I got all this from the Wikipedia page, not the album. You can't really get that from the lyrics, so it's a concept album only if you already know the concept.

We are left with a pretty pretentious album with irritating vocals. Even the album cover is annoying, and they aren't even doing anything original.

One month before the album was released, one of the founding members of the band was found dead of a heroin overdose in his apartment. So I guess they knew what they were talking about.

RATING: 2/5

959. Justified

Justified
Justin Timberlake
2002

Tracks
1. Senorita
2. Like I Love You
3. (Oh No) What You Got
4. Take It From Here
5. Cry Me A River
6. Rock Your Body
7. Nothin’ Else
8. Last Night
9. Still On My Brain
10. (And She Said) Take Me Now
11. Right For Me
12. Let’s Take A Ride
13. Never Again

Oh dear. For such a handsome guy, Justin really lacks sex appeal. I am going to chalk this up to him being so young, although 21 really isn't that much younger than me. Really, it isn't.

So yes, parts of these songs had a heavy cringe factor. The songs ranged from catchy to irritating, which is pretty standard for pop albums. The first half of this album was definitely stronger than the second half, with unremarkable lyrics.

And the album cover is a little silly.

RATING: 2/5

941. Melody A.M.

Melody A.M.

Royksopp
2001

Tracks
1. So Easy
2. Eple
3. Sparks
4. In Space
5. Poor Leno
6. A Higher Place
7. Royksopp's Night Out
8. Remind Me
9. She's So
10. 40 Years Back/Come

So another trip hop album. This one seemed to have been created for the sole purpose of being licensed for commercials and video games. I guess it's appeared in everything from T-Mobile and Geico ads, to promoting Spongebob Squarepants.

Which makes for a pretty bland, inoffensive album. It's not danceable trip hop, it's just sounds like stock samples in Garage Band.

Entirely skippable, but you might catch snatches of it if you use Apple products.

RATING: 2/5

940. The Blueprint

The Blueprint
Jay-Z
2001

Tracks
1. The Ruler's Back
2. Takeover
3. Izzo (H.O.V.A.)
4. Girls, Girls, Girls
5. Jigga That Nigga
6. U Don't Know
7. Hola' Hovito
8. Heart Of The City (Ain't No Love)
9. Never Change
10. Song Cry
11. All I Need
12. Renegade
13. Blueprint

My friend who is a bit of a hip hop enthusiast has told me that Jay-Z is the best rapper bar none, but he doesn't even make my top ten list. But I don't think my hip hop opinions are taken very seriously by him, though. This might have something to do with my race, or my sex, or the fact that I don't know how to pronounce RZA. In any case, after listening to this album, I still don't think Jay Z is that great.

For the most part, this is standard peacocking fare, replete with swagger and drowning in hos. His diss track to Nas was particularly obnoxious. Nas is a better hip hop artist and Jay Z has sampled from him before. And he attacks Mobb Deep for taking ballet classes a child. Can you imagine possessing such fragile masculinity? It must be exhausting.

I thought Beyonce deserved better but after listening to that Destiny Child's album I guess they deserve each other.

RATING: 2/5

937. Le Revancha Del Tango

Le Revancha Del Tango
Gotan Project
2001

Tracks
1. Queremos Paz
2. Epoca
3. Chunga's Revenge
4. Triptico
5. Santa Maria (Del Buen Ayre)
6. Una Musica Brutal
7. El Capitalismo Foraneo
8. Last Tango In Paris
9. La Del Ruso
10. Vuelvo Al Sur

I guess outside of the US this is a vastly overplayed album, but as an American I haven't heard It much. So while others' annoyance with it will come from hearing it a zillion times, my irritation comes from hearing it once.

I have resigned myself to my fate of having to listen to hundreds of electronica albums, but I found the instrumentals on this one particularly grating. I guess it might be interesting to some people to see Gotan Project drag tango kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but it wasn't to me.

Skippable.

RATING: 2/5

934. Survivor

Survivor
Destiny's Child
2001

Tracks
1. Independent Women Part 1
2. Survivor
3. Bootylicious
4. Nasty Girl
5. Fancy
6. Apple Pie A La Mode
7. Sexy Daddy
8. Perfect Man
9. Independent Women Part 2
10. Happy Face
11. Dance With Me
12. My Heart Still Beats
13. Emotion
14. Brown Eyes
15. Dangerously In Love
16. The Story Of Beauty
17. Gospel Medley
18. Outro (DC-3) Thank You

"Nasty Girl" might be the single most offensive song we have had on this blog, and that's including every dumb Slim Shady and Butthole Surfers track. You would think a female band would be less hateful towards women. Not to mention how hypocritical it is. It also seems like all the band members hate each other, even with that bizarre "Outro." It's a surprisingly ugly album considering the epic hotness of the women involved.

I guess there are some catchy songs on here, like "Survivor" and "Bootylicious." But the moralizing was so ridiculous that it soiled the entire album. And most of the songs were pretty forgettable, or memorable for all the wrong reasons. It's absurd to have a song as sexist as "Nasty Girl" then turn around and try to create a feminist anthem in "Independent Women." 

I do like some of Beyonce's solo work and she's an amazing dancer. Unfortunately, we don't really get to see that in 2001.

RATING: 2/5

926. Music

Music
Madonna
2000

Tracks
1. Music
2. Impressive Instant
3. Runaway Lover
4. I Deserve It
5. Amazing
6. Nobody's Perfect
7. Don't Tell Me
8. What It Feels Like For A Girl
9. Paradise (Not For Me)
10. Gone

Madonna tried to do something really different with Ray of Light, but it seems like she is less interested in experimenting with trip hop this time. I am not the biggest trip hop fan, so that was okay with me.

She's still integrating electronica into her music (which by the way, might be the laziest title of an album I've ever seen). But I don't really like it, or the electronic voice she adopts for some of these songs.

I think the only song I had heard off of this album was "What It Feels Like For A Girl" which might speak to how forgettable this album can be at parts. Not the quintessential Madonna album by any means.

RATING: 2/5

920. Our Aim is to Satisfy

Our Aim is to Satisfy
Red Snapper
2000

Tracks
1. Keeping Pigs Together
2. Some Kind Of Kink
3. Shellback
4. Don't Go Nowhere
5. The Rake
6. The Rough And The Quick
7. Bussing
8. I Stole Your Car
9. Alaska Street
10. Belladonna
11. They're Hanging Me Tonight

These last few albums haven't been terrible, but they do kind of blend together. This is dark electronica, the previous album was dark electronica/hip hop, and the album before that was hip hop. So we are just revolving around the same sound, which is a sound I'm pretty tired of.

Like I said, this is pretty dark, brooding electronica. So for me, this was a total bore. Others might be able to appreciate the mood of thing, and its effectiveness in bringing you down with it.

But I would take any electronica album over what is coming up next.

RATING: 2/5

919. Welcome to the Afterfuture

Welcome to the Afterfuture
Mike Ladd
2000

Tracks
1. 5000 Miles West of the Future
2. Airwave Hysteria
3. Planet 10
4. Takes No More Than 41
5. Bladerunners
6. No.1 Street
7. To the Moon's Contractor
8. I Feel Like 100 Dollars
9. The Animist
10. Red Eye to Jupiter (Starship Nigga)
11. Welcome to the Afterfuture
12. Wipe Out On the Wave of Armageddon
13. Feb.4'99 (For All Those Killed by Cops)

So after Common's Like What For Chocolate, we get another hip hop album. I think this was worse, even though I wasn't a huge fan of the last entry. Mike Ladd doesn't have much of a personality, or it doesn't translate in this album.

I think he was going for a really dark feel to the album, but it ended up just being kind of dull. I guess there were some electronica elements that might be interesting to some people, but they weren't that fascinating to me.

Even with all his predictions, I doubt he saw 2020 coming.

RATING: 2/5

912. Hybrid Theory

Hybrid Theory
Linkin Park
2000

Tracks
1. Papercut
2. One Step Closer
3. With You
4. Points Of Authority
5. Crawling
6. Runaway
7. By Myself
8. In the End
9. A Place for My Head
10. Forgotten
11. Cure for the Itch
12. Pushing Me Away

This might be the most early 2000-sounding album we've had so far. I can sort of see the appeal of blasting this and giving into the angst. But every song sounds the same.

Which makes it difficult to select a favorite track, but I suppose I would choose "Runaway." After an artist commits suicide, every creation they made takes on a different meaning. But metal music always sounds like a cry for help to me anyway, so listening to this didn't generate much insight for me.

Hopefully we will get back to some good music soon, it has been pretty brutal lately. At least this was short.

RATING: 2/5

909. Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water

Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water
Limp Bizkit
2000

Tracks
1. Intro
2. Hot Dog
3. My Generation
4. Full Nelson
5. My Way
6. Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)
7. Livin' It Up
8. The One
9. Getcha Groove On
10. Take A Look Around
11. It'll Be OK
12. Boiler
13. Hold On
14. Rollin' (Urban Assault Vehicle)
15. Outro

God that was annoying. I know Limp Bizkit has a lot of competition in the irritating metal department, but he outshined everybody with his "Outro," which consists of Ben Stiller laughing for no apparent reason. Maybe they asked him if he wanted to contribute to a Limp Bizkit album, and recorded his response.

I suppose "Hold On" was bearable, but the rest of the album was consistently obnoxious. It's rap metal, so I really didn't expect anything else. I think this has been removed from subsequent editions of the List, if that makes anybody feel better.

At least we have Radiohead right after this to cleanse our palates.

RATING: 2/5

907. Sincere

Sincere
M.J. Cole
2000

Tracks
1. Introduction
2. Tired Games
3. Attitude
4. Bandelero Desperado
5. MJ FM Interlude
6. Crazy Love
7. You're Mine
8. Sanctuary
9. I See
10. Sincere (Re-Cue'D)
11. Strung Out
12. Rough Out Here
13. Slum King
14. Radio Interlude
15. Hold On To Me (Re-Rub)
16. Free My Mind

I really hated this, I guess it's representative of a short lived UK garage trend. The Listmakers don't care that everybody already realized how bad this music is, and are going to make us dwell on it.

It's just obnoxious, it's trying to be smooth listening, but ends up being really grating. Even the not so bad songs end up overstaying their welcome.

Entirely skippable.

RATING: 2/5

906. Tanto Tempo

Tanto Tempo
Bebel Gilberto
2000

Tracks
1. Samba Da Bencao
2. August Day Song
3. Tanto Tempo
4. Sem Contencao
5. Mais Feliz
6. Alguem
7. So Nice (Summer Samba)
8. Lonely
9. Bananeira
10. Samba E Amor
11. Close Your Eyes
12. No Return

A little while ago we had Sao Paulo Confessions, by Suba. Suba died in a studio fire trying to rescue recordings from this album, which he was producing. I had to break it to you Suba, but it might not have been worth it.

I have to imagine that the majority of Brazilian music is a little more adventurous than this. Based on what the List has shown us, it seems to be mostly comprised of lounge music that doesn't possess much of a personality. I am going to chalk this up to the Listmakers' poor grasp of world music.

This is just kind of boring, even if she does have an amazing voice.

RATING: 2/5

904. The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides
Air
2000

Tracks
1. Playground Love (With Gordon Tracks)
2. Clouds Up
3. Bathroom Girl
4. Cemetary Party
5. Dark Messages
6. The Word Hurricane
7. Dirty Trip
8. Highschool Lover
9. Afternoon Sister
10. Ghost Song
11. Empty House
12. Dead Bodies
13. Suicide Underground

I have never seen the movie The Virgin Suicides, but I did read the book when I was going through my Jeffrey Eugenides phase. Middlesex rules. As can be surmised by the title, it's a relentlessly depressing story, so this score suits it well.

Of course, that doesn't mean I want to listen to it. I'm not a big fan of ambient music in general, and casting it in such a gloomy light doesn't help. 

I guess if you are an uber fan of the movie, you'll enjoy this. Otherwise, it's fairly skippable.

RATING: 2/5

897. S & M

S & M
Metallica
1999

Tracks
CD 1:

1. The Ecstasy Of Gold
2. The Call Of The Ktulu
3. Master Of Puppets
4. Of Wolf And Man
5. The Thing That Should Not Be
6. Fuel
7. The Memory Remains
8. No Leaf Clover
9. Hero Of The Day
10. Devil's Dance
11. Bleeding Me

CD 2:

1. Nothing Else Matters
2. Until It Sleeps
3. For Whom The Bell Tolls
4. Human
5. Wherever I May Roam
6. Outlaw Torn
7. Sad But True
8. One
9. Enter Sandman
10. Battery

Another concert album, which means over two hours of Metallica. Either music was really dreadful in 1999, or the List is choosing to punish me for getting this far. It's like a final level in a video game, where you have to defeat all the enemies you've had along the way. I thought we were done with Metallica but I guess not.

Metallica is accompanied by an orchestra for this concert. It felt like they called it a day after the first few tracks, and I forgot all about them until the band acknowledged them at the end. I don't really like recordings of concerts anyway, unless it's part of a larger story, like how you could hear people heckling Bob Dylan.

Avoid if possible. Make it possible.

RATING: 2/5

896. ...Baby One More Time

...Baby One More Time
Britney Spears
1999

Tracks
1. Baby One More Time
2. You Drive Me Crazy
3. Sometimes
4. Soda Pop
5. Born To Make You Happy
6. From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart
7. I Will Be There
8. I Will Still Love You
9. Deep In My Heart
10. Thinking About You
11. Email My Heart
12. Beat Goes On

We are smack in the middle of the unholy trinity of artists: Eminem, Britney Spears, and Metallica. But at least her presence on the List seems justified. It would be odd if the List pretended she didn't have an impact on the early 2000s music scene, for better or for worse. In this case, worse.

Every song on this album sounds the same, with the same vapid lyrics that teach girls their sole purpose for breathing is to be somebody's girlfriend (see the not so subtle "Born to Make You Happy"). The most cringey track was "Email My Heart," whatever that means. But I guess whoever wrote these songs didn't speak English very well. 

It's also nauseatingly produced. I suppose it's to distract from the airhead lyrics, but it would have been nice to hear her actual voice. Not the voice of a sexy robot. There are a few Britney Spears songs I can stand, none of them are on this album.

RATING: 2/5