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What's the most demeaning way to shut down a friend who is
trying to convince you of the merits of an album or
athlete or restaurant or movie? You tick off as many more
meritorious athletes or restaurants or albums or movies as
you can, right off the top of your head. The premise or
intent being to show your friend or whomever your debating
that the object of their applause is not so hot, so much
so, that I can name X amount of things that are hotter,
without even giving it much thought.
That’s how this whole thing got started. The Hero and I
were instant messaging each other, music came up (as it
often will) and Hero begins extolling the virtues of
Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere. It was an album
that the whole
Musicology Crew dug a whole lot, but Hero always
seemed to have this special attachment and it reached a
peak when he saw Cee-lo and Danger Mouse in concert with
the rest of the Barkley crew. Hero's enthusiasm was
seriously transmitting through the instant message box.
Now, with many passionate people, who have found a new
object to project this passion upon, Hero began with the
hyperbole and it culminated with him saying some version
of, "I think this might be the greatest album of the past
five years."
What? Woa.
For my money, homeboy had taken it too far. So I met his
passion with a similar dose of dismissal and incredulity.
I told him I could count off a bunch of albums better than
the Gnarls within at that time period. Hero said I
couldn't name three. He dared me too. So the albums
started pouring through the message window in type. I
named about 12. Hero was dumbfounded. He called me
negligent, irresponsible and just plain ignorant. I was
dumbfounded. This argument couldn't be settled between the
two of us. We had to bring the rest of the Crew in on the
discussion.
I sent out an email with a list of album names and asked
the Crew to tell Hero and me which of the said albums were
better than St. Else. Everyone responded with a
list of at least ten or more. As days went on and Hero
began his crusade, others would respond with yet more
albums they thought were either better than the Gnarls or
at least debatable. Pretty soon the list was reaching
close to 30 albums. But, Hero wouldn't relent.
We
had to do something. We couldn't just whimsically list
album after album that we thought was better than an |
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album Hero deemed a masterpiece. After a while, we -- as
The Musicologists -- always feel the need to reach some
far-reaching, macrocosmic conclusions once these
discussions get going. So, using that master list of about
30 albums, we wanted to determine which ten were the best
and we all agreed to take some time and really listen to
these, do some serious knowledge and submit individual top
ten lists and then try to come up with a collective top
ten list, a master list.
We say "do the knowledge" a lot. What that basically
entailed, for this exercise, were hours of listening. We
devoted whole weekends to analyzing these albums. It was a
science, a study of music. It took Thesis close to two
weeks to reach a level where he felt comfortable
submitting his Top 10. My list was accompanied with about
4,000-word explanation. Then the back and forth
commenced. And it wasn't a game, either. We're talking
500-word responses fit with name-calling, near unhealthy
emotion and analogies that ranged from sports to
existentialism to civil rights.
What follows this piece is what we agreed -- albeit
through a begrudging consensus -- to be the Top Ten
albums, released since the start of the new millennium up
until the release of St. Elsewhere. We call it The
New Milleni Ten.
They may not be the most popular albums and we're sure
you won't agree with everything and might even be able to
detect a collective bias. Who knows. What we do know is
that these are the albums that we, The
Musicologists, consider the greatest of the past six years
and we feel confident and strongly that the list will hold
up against any scrutiny.
You can also read our list of
snubs. These were albums that featured some sort of
significance or such a high level of excellence, that we
didn't feel comfortable not devoting them some space. And
we also encourage you all to read the Music Dude's column
on what we deem to be a brand-new genre of music, a style
and sonic experience that is burgeoning, evolving and
amazing right before our eyes. We call it Bridge
music -- America's first real, new movement since hip-hop
of the 80s. Several albums on this list are of that genre
or feature Bridge in its embryonic stage. It was this
exercise that really crystallized the fact that we weren't
witnessing a few musical aberrations, but a brand new
steez. The welcomed addition of Bridge to the black music
canon and the bevy of other albums dropped since 2000,
which merited serious consideration, really highlighted
that today's music is in much better condition than the
dire straits that cynics, whiners and apocalyptics like to
place it in. Black music is thriving, people. We even saw
the hop make a comeback in 2006 with Fishscale,
Game Theory, Food and Liquor and other efforts.
And this is while we wait for Mos Def's third offering and
the return of Jay-Z.
Ultimately, there's a lot to digest here, so take your
time with it. But not too long, we already have next
month's epic stewing in the pot.
Music Dude |
