100 Albums and Running

In an effort to bestow landmark status on 2002, pundits have dubbed it "year of the producer" or lauded the "return of rock." Never mind that dominance is nothing new for producers such as Timbaland, who conjured 2001's three best singles. Or, for that matter, that the most recent albums by the White Stripes and Strokes came out more than fourteen months ago, and the highly touted Hives disc originated in 2000. Really, this was a transitional year, one in which trends neither surfaced nor became extinct.

Try to find a stunner in this batch of headlines: "Beck, Wilco release acclaimed albums"; "Eminem picks fights, generates controversy"; "Justin Timberlake becomes critical favorite" -- that one seems a bit strange, until you see the "produced by Neptunes" stamp that currently guarantees sales and prestigious coverage. Moving on, "Teen-age girls top charts"; well, now they're writing and singing mediocre adult-contemporary tunes with kiddie lyrics instead of performing impeccably produced, bastardized lite-porn R&B, so that's something. "Nirvana releases year's best rock song"; haven't polished off that one in a while, but thanks to Dave Grohl's rescue efforts, it's again relevant.

A few freak success stories caused pop-chart earthquakes without provoking industry aftershocks: Norah Jones moved millions, but she didn't pull jazz back into the mainstream with her. Rap didn't sell much, either, relative to the recent past, and strangely, people started holding Eminem, one of the only lyricists to remain marketable, accountable. Hip-hop culture's been stolen, ranted the alarmists, and now only white MCs will get paid. Another, more valid way to look at the issue is this: Eminem made some of the best songs of his career -- emotionally complex, poetically precise novellas with backbeats -- while rap as a whole could barely manage ten decent albums. When Ja Rule, who is to wordsmithing what his cinematic costar Steven Seagal is to acting, becomes ubiquitous on urban radio, that's the problem. When Linkin Park does more to assist burgeoning hip-hop talent (by letting a crew of cut chemists and freestylers tag their platinum-selling disc on a remix compilation) than labels such as Def Jam, that's what's wrong with the game.

Rap's biggest enemy in 2002, other than the grim SoundScan tidings, was professional idiot Bill O'Reilly, who successfully pressured Pepsi to drop Ludacris as a pitch person. O'Reilly labeled the harmless entertainer a "thug," based on sexually explicit passages in his songs, which is akin to calling Jim Carrey a thug because he gets a blow job in Ace Ventura. Later, O'Reilly ripped several high schools for letting Jay-Z appear as an honorary principal. Instead of applauding the star for spreading a positive first-person message in his community, O'Reilly again relied on literal interpretations of song lyrics in declaring Jigga unfit to speak to children. Unfortunately, few rappers joined forces to attack O'Reilly on wax, instead wasting time on meaningless feuds (Jay-Z vs. Nas, Nelly vs. KRS-One, Eminem vs. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog).

Pepsi also recently dumped Britney Spears, apparently without O'Reilly's prompting. Her career at a crossroads, Spears must either step up her writing skills ("Dear Diary" won't do now that Pink paints vivid family portraits) or hibernate until the next cyclical twist pushes fluff back to the forefront. Meanwhile, Christina Aguilera, having learned nothing from Mariah Carey's cautionary tale, followed the Glitter girl's lead by stripping down to near-nothing at every public appearance. Her strategy misfired: Randy guys watched her "Dirrty" video many times, but they didn't buy the disc.

With pop flopping and Limp Bizkit still seeking a new guitarist, commercial radio got better in spite of itself. Queens of the Stone Age, Flaming Lips and Jurassic 5 moved into heavy rotation, and even the soft spots (Vines, Avril Lavigne) weren't completely rotten. (The airwaves might be the only place where being a rich, white male means nothing: Peter Gabriel, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty and Elvis Costello put out great albums without earning a single spin on most major stations.) Tech N9ne bypassed and bucked the system with his "Fuck the Industry" commercials; if it works, independent-music ad campaigns might be one of next year's hot topics.

But 2003 won't be the year anything breaks, nor will it be the year any problems get fixed. Like 2002, it'll probably produce about ten great-to-excellent albums in every major category, a handful of sensational singles (our list of 2002's fifty best songs appears in next week's issue) and a few wild cards (party on, Andrew W.K.) to keep things interesting. That won't be enough to pull the recording industry out of its slump, but it should keep music fans satisfied.
-- Andrew Miller

1 Beck
Sea Change
(Geffen)

Following the indulgent, Day-Glo rubber soul of Midnite Vultures,Beck's Sea Change is everything fans of the mellower Mutationshoped it would be: an unpretentious, acoustic-minded album with shy electric guitars, gravely vocals, and desolate strings and bells. Drenched in pain and brilliance, Sea Change ranks with such sad masterworks as the Cure's Disintegration and Lou Reed's Berlin.

2 Wilco
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
(Nonesuch/Atlantic)

It's been more than just a rough year and a half for Wilco. After losing two founding members over creative differences, being dropped by its label and weathering a bidding war that brought it back under the AOL/Time Warner umbrella, Wilco finally delivered its long-awaited masterpiece. Chalk it up as a win for the good guys: It's a sonically stunning portrait of loss and renewal by a Wilco that's left behind all vestiges of alt-country in its bid to restore pop to Beatlesque majesty.