Saturday, December 12, 2009

Twenty-Aught-Two and Tyler Too

Big things happened in 2002 in music. The first season of American Idol happened, so there's that. Also my first band started (as you may know), so there's also that. But there was good news too.


Blind Guardian had become my favorite band some time around 2000 or 2001. In 2002 they put out A Night at the Opera, their first new album since I had become aware of them and I was all kinds of excited about it. This is a huuuuuuuuge album, bordering on indulgent. The songs averaged something like 60 or 70 tracks each. And it delivered everything you might hope for with that size. Not only that, but the songs were good enough to withstand dramatic reduction, as shown by the live versions which I heard when seeing them that December and which were recorded on their subsequent, and cleverly named live album Live.


Along with A Night at the Opera, the other album that was almost always with me to listen to on the bus as I went to South Seattle for band practice was The Sham Mirrors by Arcturus. Garm's voice on this record is one of the all time great vocal performances in rock music. It still kind of pisses me off that this isn't an album everyone owns and listens to all the time. It doesn't help that this was the year that everyone thought Avril Lavigne was such hot shit. Or that Nickelback had the best selling rock album this year.


Another great band I saw this year, another great album being toured on. Natural Born Chaos was maybe the last Soilwork album worth owning. They really were a lot better than the other Gothenburg melodi-death bands. Dark Tranquility's Damage Done and In Flames' Reroute to Remain were both big albums for me in '02, but they didn't have Devin Townsend doing production or backing vocals, now did they?


Isis' Oceanic is an album that lives up to its name. It's massive. It's killer. It kicked my ass then, it kicks my ass now. You can feel this one in all your parts.


Songs for the Deaf may be the best mainstream rock and roll album of this decade. Definitely a major contender. Josh Homme and Dave Grohl know what rock is supposed to be about.


In 2002 I was a big fan of Seattle singer-songwriter Jason Webley. I saw him live a good six or so times between May and October (his standard operating months back in the day). He released Counterpoint this year, which is one of those albums that needs to grow on you at first, and then it never stops growing on you. This is a video of one of his better known tunes - pretty much the essential Webley tune - played a couple years later. I want to say this was at a Monsters of Accordion show. I think you can hear my friend Andrew laughing at the beginning of this one.


Original Pirate Material by The Streets is pretty much all about fun. This was back before the days of nauseating Chris Martin choruses.

Other notables from the year: The Odyssey by Symphony X, Visions from the Spiral Generator by Vintersorg, The Art of Balance by Shadows Fall, Power of the Dragonflame by Rhapsody, Songs about Jane by Maroon 5, and Tuxicity by Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine

Next time: Some other year!

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