THE NINETIES-IST
Welcome to another edition of Brook Pridemore’s The Nineties-ist. This edition discusses 2001, specifically 9/11/2001, and the significance of four albums released on that day. For earlier installments, go here.

So, our exploration of music in the 1990s has come to a close. Things were “bad” for creative rock music at the beginning of the 90s, then they were “good” for a while, then by decade’s end, things were “bad” again. The modern record industry didn’t die entirely on January 1, 2000, though; things crutched along for another couple of years, and so we’re still here, trying to figure out exactly when the industry hit critical mass.

Rather than do a serial exploration of 2001, as we have about other years in this column, I’d like to talk about one specific date: September 11. Many New Yorkers who were living here on the day have insinuated to me over the years that all things New York City can be divided into two categories: “pre”-9/11 and “post”-9/11. I was still living in Kalamazoo, MI, at the time, staring at my watch through my last year of college, obsessing over alt. country, and doing my small part to run one of the nation’s few remaining freeform independent radio stations, 89.1FM WIDR Kalamazoo.

WIDR’s director’s staff, myself included, were booked and all set to attend that fall’s CMJ Music Marathon, four days of music and conference all across Manhattan’s greatest clubs and shitty bars. Sure, it’s corny now, but we’d attended the year previous (my first visit to the city), and I’d gotten to meet some of my heroes (David Lowery, John Flansburgh), see shows that I still talk about to this day (Low, PJ Harvey, Sean Na Na) and left what was supposed to be my last pack of cigarettes on the bar at CBGB (the actual physical sight of the marquee made my breath stop in my throat). I was hooked, and my (then) girlfriend and I swore we’d be living in New York as soon as we could.

More on #18: 2001

HIDDEN GEM
Royal City
Alone At The Microphone
Three Gut | 2001

The question: how does one qualify what constitutes a hidden gem? There seem a handful of conceivable avenues to pursue. There are those underappreciated albums that exist within a generally, or even wildly, appreciated body of work (Van Morrison’s Veedon Fleece, Bob Dylan’s World Gone Wrong). There are those albums that, while they garner a reasonable amount of attention, don’t seem to excite as much enthusiasm as one might reasonably expect, depending, of course, on the context and current climate. (It seems to me that Bowerbirds should have achieved the status of independent-folk elite by now.) And then there are those albums that simply never really registered at all – they’re  out of print, have little web presence, and have not inspired manifold amateur YouTube covers. I always refer to the Minneapolis-bred Bellwether as figureheads of this latter group. They released what seem to me the unquestionable high-points of “alternative country,” 2001’s Home Late and 2005’s Seven & Six. Both, in my opinion, are perfect albums and absolutely decimate the entire recorded output of Ryan Adams, Rhett Miller, Son Volt, pre-YHF Wilco, etc. And yet, Bellwether just didn’t register. No videos, no tab sites, nothing.

I’d long considered Canada’s Royal City to be Bellwether’s closest companions in this realm of criminal under-appreciation, in this place where incredibly gifted bands release incredibly conceived and performed albums that inspire, for whatever reason, little commercial fanfare. But now, Asthmatic Kitty is releasing a Royal City rarities collection, and I wonder: did Royal City attract hordes of silent admirers?  How much did their dissolution contribute to their falling off the grid? It’s a complicated equation. There’s plenty of retired performers that inspire ceaseless speculation and conversation. Have I simply missed the peripheral murmurings, the longings for Royal City’s reformation? Because Alone At The Microphone, their 2001 sophomore effort, is certainly as idol-worship-worthy an album as I’ve found in my collection. I simply don’t know how this album isn’t considered a fundamental template and cornerstone of contemporary dirty-folk music.
More on Royal City | Alone At The Microphone

HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT…
Alien Ant Farm
“Smooth Criminal”
ANThology
2001 | Dreamworks

The ironic 90s cover of an earnest 80s song came into popularity when, apparently having mined their own creative quarries to exhaustion, a bunch of 90s pop-punk bands realized the cheesy hits of the 80s were almost identical to their own songs – only slower and laden with already-ancient synthesizers (which, in the 80s, seemed like the wave of the future). Sensing a bucket of money at the end of the rainbow, some asshole band (I have yet to determine the first to give an 80s song the 90s treatment, but whoever was responsible will pay big) sped up the tempo, switched the synth bleeps to crunchy guitar, got zany and…

…made a million bucks. I can still see the light bulb going off in a thousand greedy heads. Before long, commercial radio was inundated with punk (or metal, or ska, or whatever) covers of songs you never wanted to hear again. Everybody got a little taste: Reel Big Fish’s second single was a cover of the legit A-Ha classic, “Take On Me,” done lightning fast and seemingly without a shred of irony. The geniuses in Limp Bizkit got their first bit of success with an insipid metal version of George Michael’s breakout hit, “Faith.” (It has always struck me as funny that the new face of macho rapist fratboy bullshit, Limp Bizkit, started out covering a George Michael song.) Some people dallied in ironic covers onstage. (I once saw Bush cover The Doors’ “Break On Through,” unironically.) Goldfinger made an entire EP of corndog covers, the most notable being “99 Red Balloons.” And the list goes on.
More on Alien Ant Farm | “Smooth Criminal”

HIDDEN GEM
Sigh
Imaginary Sonicscape
2001 | Century Media

The problem with black metal, to a layperson, is that there is inherently no sense of humor in the stuff. As someone who couldn’t give a fuck less about metal – a lifelong assessment – I have found this lack of a levity to be a major deterrent in my enjoyment of the genre. Everyone I’ve ever known who’s been into metal has taken the stuff deadly serious: every image of Iron Maiden’s classic Eddie characte, every Metallica lyric, every lame couplet to ever fall out of Dave Mustaine’s mouth, taken as manna from some alternate heaven (i.e., hell), where Satan reigns atop a flaming throne of human skulls casting down foul and unholy judgment upon the unworthy.

These people took metal this seriously, and yet treated me like an outcast with my They Might Be Giants records. I, as a result, turned my back on the genre, and vowed to remain turned ever after.
More on Sigh | Imaginary Sonicscape

HIDDEN GEM
Smog
Rain on Lens
2001 | Drag City

Smog, aka (Smog), aka lo-fi wizard Bill Callahan, came into my periphery in early 2000. His album Dongs of Sevotion, and particularly the song “Dress Sexy At My Funeral,” sounded a little too much like The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs to really grab my interest. Certainly, my musical headspace didn’t have room for another deadpan, impossibly deep, baritone, indie songwriter, with an acerbic wit and a gigantic back catalog. And so I pored deeper and deeper over those Magnetic Fields records, never pausing to give Smog another shot.

But perseverance is key, man, and Callahan has released not-quite an album a year since Dongs of Sevotion. It was only a matter of time until enough people talked about Callahan, and I gave one of his records another shot. This time, it was A River Ain’t Too Much To Love, the 2005 Smog swansong (since 2007, Bill Callahan has released records under his own name) that sounds strangely like a latter-day Willie Nelson record. I’m a firm believer that, if an artist can make one good record, he’s probably made more than one good record (even Weezer made two good records, you know), so I started snapping up the Smog back catalog. Rain on Lens, the 2001 follow-up to Dongs of Sevotion, was acquired in that fit of snapping-up.
More on Smog | Rain On Lens

HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT…
“Get the Party Started”
Pink
Missundaztood
2001 | Arista
A-

The litmus test for the average pop song’s crossover potential from annoying pop song to temporary soundtrack of everyone’s life is a tight-knit group of four bitchy, twentysomething rock chicks. Listen: Summer 2002, I’m enjoying my last few months of Midwestern purgatory, working triple shifts, saving money for the big move to New York, fresh-faced and newly graduated from my mediocre state school of choice. My life that summer consisted of time spent in exactly five places-my tire-changing job, my pizza job, my radio station job, bars I was playing shows at, and bars I was getting shitty at. It was in this latter place that I understood the true ubiquity of Pink’s “Get the Party Started” for the first time.
More on Pink | “Get the Party Started”

HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT…
“Get the Party Started”
Pink
Missundaztood
2001 | Arista
A-

The litmus test for the average pop song’s crossover potential from annoying pop song to temporary soundtrack of everyone’s life is a tight-knit group of four bitchy, twentysomething rock chicks. Listen: Summer 2002, I’m enjoying my last few months of Midwestern purgatory, working triple shifts, saving money for the big move to New York, fresh-faced and newly graduated from my mediocre state school of choice. My life that summer consisted of time spent in exactly five places-my tire-changing job, my pizza job, my radio station job, bars I was playing shows at, and bars I was getting shitty at. It was in this latter place that I understood the true ubiquity of Pink’s “Get the Party Started” for the first time.
More on Pink | “Get the Party Started”