My Life In Music Part 5

It's nearly over. I promise.

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

Part 4.

Not much further to go, just get this one out the way and we're onto the home stretch...


MY LIFE IN MUSIC PART 5: DEAR CATASTROPHE ROLSTON.

1999 - The Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs.



After the Britpop implosion, I had to look elsewhere for my 27 year old kicks. It was time to try something new, to experiment a little further away from the charts than I'd ever ventured before. Along the way, I learned to love Luke Haines and The Auteurs' How I Learned to Love the Bootboys (I've mentioned the Auteurs in previous installments, but those were retroactive discoveries, Bootboys was my first real exposure to Haines... and though I'd fallen for the first Black Box Recorder album in '98, it took me a while to realise it was the same madcap genius pulling those strings too.) Then there were The Flaming Lips, another band who'd been around for years, but who didn't really catch my attention until The Soft Bulletin.

But it was The Magnetic Fields who offered my biggest departure from the mainstream, my first exposure to the Morrissey-meets-Cole Porter archly camp songwriting genius of Stephin Merrit, a triple album that ranged from showtunes to whimsical folk to hard rock. Hilarious lyrics, inventive experimentation that never once gets pretentious, and Merrit's whiskey-soaked drawl of a voice. 'Papa Was A Rodeo' could well be the last great song of the 20th Century.



Runner-up is Aimee Mann's Magnolia soundtrack - the music that inspired the film, not the other way round... while strong support came from old favourites like the Fountains Of Wayne, Ben Folds, James (as Swiss Toni pointed out recently, Millionaires is an unsung classic) and Echo & The Bunnymen (ditto What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?). Eminem's first couple of albums were amusing at the time and I even rated the first Stereophonics record... though they soon proved me wrong.

Meanwhile, I'll be brutally honest and say that for about five minutes I considered Robbie Williams' solo career a good thing. I even got into an argument with my programme controller at the time who threatened to sack me when I challenged his judgement of Williams as a "one hit wonder" (the fact that he'd already had four hits by that time didn't register). The Ego Has Landed had a certain pop nous that soon got drummed out of Williams once the money started flooding in, and he put on a pretty good live show before the drugs began to work (particularly his rocky pisstake of 'Back For Good').

Sometime around now, I was mercifully saved from the depressing pit I'd been living in when the offer of a houseshare came up with some friends from work. Didn't exactly slow my drinking, but at least I was doing it socially rather than sitting in alone, getting pissed and listening to depressing records as I had during the worst winter of my life. And though I only stayed in that houseshare for 18 months, it was a much happier experience than I'd had of late...

Which takes us nicely to the turn of the millennium, which I spent in bed with the flu. Where were you when the clock turned 2000?

2000 - Everclear - Songs From An American Movie Volume 1.



This is another of those brutal honesty moments. Cool Rol wants to go with Ryan Adams' debut, Heartbreaker, but have I really listened to that record more than the one above from Everclear? It's doubtful, even with its bizarre opening "track", '(Argument with David Rawlings concerning Morrissey)'. Heartbreaker remains my favourite Adams album - there's an argument that if he'd floated off downstream after its release, he'd be as much of a legend as Jeff Buckley by now (while if Buckley had lived, as The Indelicates mused earlier this year...

"He'd have been short on the throne
And counted his life out
In an old rockstar's home
Where they play 'Hallelujah'
Every retrospective
And most wouldn't know him
If Jeff Buckley had lived"

...but I digress). Anyway, Everclear. My knowledge of this band lives in a bubble. I discovered their single 'Wonderful' in the chuck-out box back in '00 and swallowed up the album that followed. They're virtually unknown in the UK, and I suspect they're treated like a cross between Pearl Jam and the Jovi with a splash of Placebo back in the States (though I could be quite wrong). Whatever, they're not exactly muso-cool - but when has that ever stopped me? Songs From An American Movie is just a great pop album, packed full of singalong anthems and snarky lyrics. Successive albums proved them to be a bit of a one trick pony, but the songs on this disc never fail to put a smile on my face. And that's really what it's all about, isn't it?

What was I doing around about the turn of the century? Not a lot. Circumstances meant that I ended up back home on the farm, licking my wounds. All that boozing eventually caught up with me and my health started to take a turn for the worse. I've written about all that before, so I won't go into it again here - but giving up drinking (completely) was one of my proactive responses. I missed it at first, but nowadays I hardly even get a hankering. Yeah, the occasional glass of Jack or a nice Aussie Chardonnay might go down nice... but it's just not worth it anymore.

Other contenders in 2000 included Aimee Mann's Bachelor Number 2, Eels' Daisies Of The Galaxy, Radiohead's Kid A and Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia by the Dandy Warhols. Badly Drawn Boy made a strong debut with The Hour Of The Bewilderbeast, though winning the Mercury Prize always becomes an albatross, while Idlewild and Embrace both delivered greatly improved second helpings. Finally, Johnny Cash delivered his best Rick Rubin set yet - American III: Solitary Man, while the song of the year might very well have been this one, from a returning Black Box Recorder, back when Sarah Nixey was still a brunette...



2001 - Pulp: We Love Life.



Pulp's final album was bought by about three people, and troubled the charts slightly less than a sneeze in a chemists. Yet it remains perfect in my ears, and if it was / is to be the last we hear from them as a band (I'm still holding out for a reunion before the world ends in 2012... or sometime today, if those scientists in Switzerland have their way), then I can't imagine a sweeter swansong. After the darkness of This Is Hardcore, We Love Life does exactly what it says on the tin - it's always darkest before the dawn. Maybe in 2001 people just weren't looking for an indie feelgood record... and that's a shame, because the album contains many songs which might otherwise have become radio standards.

Of course, Jarvis and co. did much to shoot themselves in the foot while promoting this record - from turning down an offer from Coca Cola to use closing track 'Sunrise' in one of their commercials (you've got to admire any band who turns down an offer like that, but principles don't pay the bills) to issuing the (admittedly hilarious) video below... which doesn't even feature the band's own version of the song, just a 'Bad Cover Version'...



2001 was also the year I discovered The Handsome Family, via Twilight and 'The Snow White Diner'; and Rufus Wainwright, via Poses. Stephen Malkmus' eponymous solo debut remains the best I've heard from him (Pavement included), Super Furry Animals delivered their most assured set yet with Rings Around The World, and the likes of Nick Cave, Eels, The Divine Comedy, Mercury Rev, and Ash all turned in memorable... turns.

Runner-up though, from the year of the Space Odyssey, goes to notorious 'Friend Of Shatner', Ben Folds - still Rockin' The Suburbs, just like Michael Jackson did... You better watch out, because he's gonna say 'fuck'...

And y'know, the closer we get to the present day, the less I have to tell you about what was happening in my life. I went to work, I wrote some crappy ads, I read some books, I saw some live music. The quiet life - there's a lot to be said for it.

And then in September, something beyond horrible happened - the only true 'Where were you when?' moment in my lifetime. Where was I? At work, watching slack-jawed on the TV in the newsroom as the world seemed to fall apart before our eyes. If I'd still been drinking, I'd have gone home and downed a bottle of Jack. As it was, rather than watch those awful images over and over on the nonstop evening news, I went to the cinema alone and escaped into Breakfasy At Tiffany's. It didn't work. The horror was still there when I emerged. But at least I got to hear Audrey Hepburn sing 'Moon River' on the big screen.

2002 - Bruce Springsteen: The Rising.



If anything positive came out of 9/11, at least it gave Bruce something to write about again. The Rising was his best album in 15 years, bringing a street-level perspective to the American reaction to September the 11th and the ensuing War on Terror that must forever silence anyone who misread 'Born In The USA' as rightwing propaganda. The Rising is full of heartfelt stories of those left lost and hurt and alone by the events of the previous September, yet it does so with a positive outlook and never once resorts to the sort of jingoistic bullshit that characterised much of the media's reaction. It was good to have him back.

This was also the year I discovered Thea Gilmore via Songs From The Gutter, a songwriter who just gets better with every subsequent album. Other records came and went, but you're probably as burnt out with all these lists as I am... so if I'm only allowed just one more song from 2002, it'll have to be this one, from the Man in Black...



2003 - Fountains Of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers / Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress.





Maybe because the Libertines were busy Dohertying up the UK music scene in 2003, I spent a lot more time over on the opposite side of the pond. The White Stripes, The Ataris, Liz Phair, Rufus Wainwright... all good, rocking stuff. (Yes, Rufus rocks! In his own sweet way.) But the Fountains Of Wayne beat them all with their best geekpop set to date - if they'd just trimmed it by two or three tracks (ironically the ones where they're trying to sound - unbelievably - like Oasis), it would have been unbeatable. After all, Stacy's Mom has got it going on.

Thank heavens for Belle & Sebastian then, also delivering their best and poppiest collection to date, keeping the home fires burning, and clinching the tie. Plus, they had a song called 'Roy Walker'. Say what you see.

They'd both have lost out if Ben Folds had just combined his three internet-only EPs Speed Graphic, Sunny 16 and Super D into one album as he was supposed to. As it was, he held off doing that till 2006...


Which we'll get to in the mercifully final installment of My Life In Music... next week. What will I blog about when that's done? Suggestions in a comment box near you...