Hosted by Lil Red Fuggin Hood

2001 is over and soon there will be lots of ‘2001 in music” summaries. For me this year was the year of music discoveries. I found out that MTV and VH1 is not everything, bands, which hardly anyone heard about, do make great music, and there is something like alternative alternative music. At first I thought that in this months’ article I should present the year summary in music but I’m sure you’d have plenty of that pretty soon but you won’t find anywhere but here MY very own 2001 in music. So there we go.

I bought or made quite a lot of CDs this year and some of them did disappoint me but the ones I keep listening to are: U2’s All That You…, Everclear’s Songs From American Movie vol 1&2 (yes I do know they were released in 2000 but I loved them through the whole 2001 so for me they belong to 2001), Break The Cycle by Staind, and Tool’s Lateralus. And from the last album Schism could be definetely one of my most favorite songs this year. One of the few I know lyrics by heart and it is quite an achievement as I’m not native English speaker. I was trying to come up with some more songs of the year but I simply couldn’t. There were so many wonderful wonderful songs; impossible to list them all but I’ll put a few songs of the month at the end.

My “new bands” that I am going to keep my eyes on in the future include Coldplay, System Of A Down, Fuel, Travis, Lighthouse, and some more and Incubus cause their video for “Wish You Were Here” made me lust for their lead singer for a few hours. Actually their video for “Drive” made me lust for Brian B but I wasn't sure if it’s the song, him or his tattoos. Writing about the videos; Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon Of Choice” is a work of art, so is “Southside” with Moby and Gwen, and “I Want Love” by Elton John, and Alien Ant Farm’s “Smooth Criminal”. And can someone explain to me what is so great in Chrisina A., Mya, Pink and Lil Kim’s “Lady Marmelade” video? Cause I didn’t notice anything special, I don’t like the song, and the rain of awards for this “piece of art” surprised me big time.

Another surprise was Half Time show at Superbowl, when I heard who’s going to perform I was pretty sure I will just switch the channels but as I like Aerosmith I decided to take a risk and actually it was pretty nice. N’Sync are pretty boys (ummm not sure what they look like but I was told there are always pretty boys in boys bands) and though I can’t say a difference which boy band sings which song N’Sync must be special (even though maybe only for 11 year old girls) as their new album was sold in 1.8 million copies during the first week only. Kind of impressive I’d dare to say. Sad things were the official split of Skank Anansie (who doesn’t know them should remain silent and run quickly and download some songs), closing of Napster (though there are other sites like this, but Napster, no matter how sucky it was sometimes, will always remain for me mp3’s mother figure) and of course famous deaths. Or rather deaths of famous music people. There will be no more “Boom Boom Boom Boom” as we said goodbye to Johnny Lee Hooker, no more pretty Alliyah, punkish Joey Ramone (there is some talk of Rob Zombie heading up a new tribute album for the Ramones, who is planning on collaborating with Ramones guitarist Johnny for his take with Blitzkrieg Bop, also Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rancid and Metallica are said to be intersted in this project. The plan is to release the CD by April 15 since it will be the first year anniversary of the death of Joey Ramone) and George Harrison. Also we had some addictions (one of pretty boys from Backstreeet Boys, and James from Metallica), some weddings (I assume, though no one but J.Lo comes to my mind at the moment), divorces (she hasn’t divorced yet, or if she had, she hasn’t informed me so it’s not official yet), new kids, pets, cars, houses, and spouses.

As for soundtracks, I fell in love with “3000 miles to Graceland”, “Lara Croft” and the soundtracks for “Vanilla Sky” and “Not Another Teen Movie” look pretty intersting as well.

I can’t make up my mind on who I’d the call the best male/female/both artist or group of the year. So maybe we could organize first aural annual awards? You can put your votes on message board and make up categories. A few standard categories:

• Best group
• Best artist
• Best record
• Best song
• Best video
• Best soundtrack
• Best music in commercial
• Best screw up
• I wish I had done it
• I wish you hadn’t done it
• New hope
• Hope I won’t see you next year

Hell, we can have as many categories as readers, so put your vote and next month we can have this huge party with all the infamous famous and famous infamous winners. As for now here are some recommendations of songs which rocked my world this month and which you HAVE to get, till next time take care of yourself, and each other.

Me First and Gimme Gimmes – anything, as they are just awesome in everything they covered
Spacehog – At Least I Got Laid
The Cramps – Journey To The Center Of A Girl
Millencolin – Penguins and Polarbears
Brassy – Play Some D
Bif Naked – Lucky
New Pornographers – Letter From An Occupant
Beulah – Good Man Is Easy To Kill
The Avalanches – Frontier Psychiatrist
The Urge – Too Much Stereo
Rufus Wainwright – Instant Pleasure
Her Space Holiday – The Unbelievable Broadcast
Grant Lee Philips – Heavenly
Idlewild – Roseability
Ruby – Grace
And for something Polish
Kazik – 12 groszy