Category Archives: 2000s

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 5: the Deluxe Editions II

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The second wave of Deluxe Editions surfaced a year and a half later in early August 2006 with 1984’s The Top, 1985’s The Head on the Door and 1987’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. This was the peak of their original 80s fame, when they’d finally broken through that indie barrier (with partial help from the 1986 singles collection Standing On a Beach). But it wasn’t a sudden rise to fame, however…they still had a few ghosts in their closet that needed purging.

I’ve always felt The Top was their psychedelic album, written and recorded deep in their mid-80s booze and drug haze. It’s certainly a head trip and full of high weirdness like the freaky opener “Shake Dog Shake” and the odd “Piggy in the Mirror”, not to mention the Salinger-influenced “Bananafishbones” and the hazy folk of the lone single “The Caterpillar”. Even the darker moments are unsettling, like the mental breakdown of “The Empty World” and the dissociation of “The Top”. It’s not the easiest listen — it’s a band barely holding itself together. Most of the extras on the deluxe edition are demos and a few live tracks, but it also includes a few great outtakes that would become bootleg favorites, “Ariel” and “Forever”.

The Head On the Door, on the other hand, is a much cleaner and stronger Cure with a revived lineup and a focus on shorter and tighter songs. The original album clocks in at just over a tight half hour of ten songs, nearly all of which could have easily been singles or radio hits. The first single “In Between Days” is brisk and swinging and fits Robert Smith’s playful side that he’d too often hide in the past. Follow-up single “Close to Me” is just as fun, trading the energy of “Days” with a light jazz (similar to “The Lovecats”, come to think of it). It helped that both tracks were made into irresistible oddball videos by director Tim Pope, who seemed to instinctively know how to capture the true spirit of the band. There are also wonderful deep cuts here as well, like the freeing “Push” or the dramatic “A Night Like This”. About the only old-school Cure track here is the closer “Sinking”. The deluxe edition features nearly all demos including several tracks that would end up as b-sides.

The double-album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me — the title taken from the first line of the first song, the epic noisefest “The Kiss” — is intriguing as it takes elements of both albums and melds it into a very kaleidoscopic record. For each pop song like “Just Like Heaven” and “The Perfect Girl” there are psychedelic moments like “The Snakepit” and “Like Cockatoos”. There are even literary moments like the Baudelaire influenced “How Beautiful You Are”, and utterly silly moments like the singles “Why Can’t I Be You?” and “Hot Hot Hot!!!” It’s a glorious mess but it’s a clean mess unlike The Top. They’re having fun with this record instead of being hedonistic with it. The deluxe edition also contains more demos and live tracks.

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Next up: A new album (and several false rumors about more)!

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 4: the Deluxe Editions I

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After the promotion of The Cure and the Curiosa Festival had come and gone, the next phase was about to begin: a massive reissue of their early catalog. While this may not have been all that important in the UK where they’d stayed on the Fiction label for years, in the US they’d appeared on several: the indie PVC, A&M, Sire, and eventually an extended stay (complete with minor reissues) on Elektra. This would finally bring the majority of their discography together on one label, with its original packaging.

The new reissues of their back catalog began of course with their debut album Three Imaginary Boys in late 2004. Most Americans knew most of its tracks from the US collection Boys Don’t Cry or via the import. [I’d bought the original version at Al Bum’s in Amherst probably in early 1987 and much preferred this one. It flows much better and the band’s early gloom is much more prevalent here.

The bonus disc of this reissue would of course include the singles “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Jumping Someone Else’s Train”, both post-album stand-alone singles, though surprisingly it did not contain their debut single “Killing an Arab”, though that was most likely due to its questionable source material. Still, it did contain several demos and outtakes that are quite fascinating to hear.

The next three album reissues would appear all on the same day: Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography, in late spring 2005. The first two had been released at different times in the US, including as a double-disc two-fer called Happily Ever After, which I owned on cassette.

Seventeen Seconds expanded on their post-punk sound and added a pastoral feel to their sound, thanks to the melodic bass lines of new members Simon Gallup and the keyboards of Matthieu Hartley. This album definitely feels like something you’d listen to alone, on headphones, sometime around 2am. It was a huge inspiration to my writing in the late 80s and got a ton of play late at night. The extra tracks on this reissue are more focused on live recordings, some of which would show up on the cassette version of the live album Concert.

Faith, on the other hand, was a much darker affair. It too is perfect late night listening, but it leans more towards isolation and loneliness. There are two faces here: the anger and tension of songs like “Primary” and “Doubt”, and the atmospheric fog of “All Cats Are Grey” and the title track. The original cassette had included the twenty-seven minute (!!) instrumental track “Carnage Visors”, which they’d recorded for an animated film that would play before their live shows. This epic is included on this reissue, along with several studio outtakes and live tracks, as well as the non-album single “Charlotte Sometimes”.

Pornography, on the other hand…is not an easy album to listen to. Hartley had left, leaving the band as a barebones trio that only added to the album’s sparseness. They took several steps further down into the bitterly cold abyss, well past the darkness of Faith. Depression, desolation and entropy abound on this record. Is it any wonder that this was in super heavy rotation on my Walkman in the late 80s, then? While it’s not as violently dismal as, say, The Downward Spiral, it could probably be seen as its goth equivalent. Interestingly enough, its closing title track (like “Hurt”, come to think of it) hints at a sense of strained hope. This too features a lot of studio demos and live tracks.

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Are these reissues that you must have in your collection? Well, if you’re a huge fan like I am, then yes, definitely. The remastered tracks sound great, and the extras are all sorts of fun to listen to. For completists they are missing a few things here and there, such as a few single-only b-sides (which, to be fair, were easily available on the Join the Dots box set), but it’s worth checking out.

Coming Up Next: the final three reissues of the decade

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 3: the self-titled album

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Interestingly, this album hardly gets any notice or play on the radio nowadays. Most commercial stations stick with “Love Song” or “Pictures of You” or “Just Like Heaven”, all released during their 80s heights. At the time, however, it was a long-awaited and extremely welcome return for a much-loved alternative band that was now picking up new generations of fans.

The slow-build track “Lost” sets the tone and the sound for the album: somewhat dissonant, a bit uncomfortable, and a lot heavier in sound. Where Robert Smith usually emotes a feeling of detached misery in his older works, this track is more of a primal scream, something he hadn’t really let himself reach since perhaps Pornography (and even then, that album was more a deliberate loss of sanity than the fear of losing it).

A few tracks later with the single “The End of the World”, he embraces that alterna-poppy catchiness the band perfected with 1992’s Wish. While the track seems upbeat and fun, there’s a darker edge to it, both sonically and lyrically. Even the video for it is of two minds: fanciful and nightmarish. This track got considerable play in the summer of 2004 on alternative radio.

The next track, “Anniversary”, is my favorite from this album, and it’s a perfect example of The Darker Cure Sound: a nightmarish crawling through Smith’s gloomier lyrics, driven not by a slow build but by the irritation it causes. You want to know where it leads, whether there will be a major lift in the song, yet it never quite gets there, on purpose.

The next single, “alt.end”, is similar to “The End of the World” in that it’s catchy as hell…and just as dark. It too sounds like something off of Wish, working that light/dark dichotomy as far as it can go.

Oh, and remember that Dragon Hunters song I mentioned in the previous entry? Here’s the original song it was based off of, released in the UK as the alternate to the “alt.end” single. While it’s not nearly as catchy, it’s a solid track that works well.

All told, the album is one of their strongest, and also one of their most unique sounding, considering that they’d chosen Ross Robinson as a co-producer — he’s more known for producing alt-metal bands like Korn, Slipknot and At the Drive In. While the band is no stranger to heaviness (Pornography) or widescreen theatrics (Disintegration), this is the only one that sounds so bare-bones and yet so sonically intense.

They promoted this album via a massive touring festival called Curiosa, a multi-stage, multi-band day long experience that included several other bands influenced by (or were favorites of) The Cure: Mogwai, Interpol, The Rapture, Muse, The Cooper Temple Clause, and more. I got to see their stop at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield MA (still known as Great Woods back then), with a perfect seat just in front of the lawn area. I loved pretty much every single band I saw that day, even ones like Cooper Temple Clause who I’d never heard of (and bought their CD right after their performance). I of course didn’t quite stay for the entirety of the Cure performance as it was getting late and getting out of their parking lot is a nightmare (not to mention it’s an hour-plus drive back to central MA), but by then I was exhausted yet extremely pleased.

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Next up: The Deluxe Editions

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 2: Hits, Dots, and One-Offs

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While Bloodflowers was a great album, it wasn’t my favorite of their latter years. I think part of it was that it came out at a time when my time at the record store was coming to a close, but it was also that it simply just didn’t resonate with me as deeply as some past albums had. Still, this sparked off a slow but steady stream of increased visibility. They were constantly on tour at the start of the decade, and followed it up with a number of collections and appearances.

The band released the Greatest Hits collection in late 2001 as a contractual obligation to the Fiction label. It features many of their best known tracks, chosen by Robert Smith himself, and also two new tracks: the poppy “Cut Here” (the title an anagram of the band name) and the perky “Just Say Yes” featuring Saffron from Republica. It’s by no means a must-have collection, but it’s a good place to start, and also a good mix for those not interested in a discography deep dive. The expanded version features a second album’s worth of the same songs, this time recorded acoustically.

Smith kept himself busy by appearing on a few albums, many of which are definitely worth checking out. He provided vocals on the great track “Perfect Blue Sky” on Junkie XL’s Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin — an expansive two-cd collection of upbeat radio-friendly electronic tracks and expanded house instrumentals. This album is one of my favorites of 2003 and also features vocals from Saffron, Dave Gahan, Gary Numan, Chuck D, Terry Hall, and more. It also features the groovy reimagining of Elvis’ “A Little Less Conversation” which had showed up in 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven. It’s a record worth picking up.

Also in 2003, he featured on…a Blink-182 album?? Sure, why not? The punk pop trio called The Cure one of their influences, and he features on the track “All of This”.

Then in spring of 2004, he featured on the second album by tweaker, drummer Chris Vrenna’s collective project. The album 2am wakeup call is about Vrenna’s wife’s insomnia so much of the record is dark and moody…but not necessarily gloomy. I listened to this album incessantly for most of that year, not just in the Belfry during my writing sessions (I was writing The Balance of Light at the time) but during my commutes to work. I highly recommend checking this record out.

Backing up a few months, The Cure also released the box set Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities 1978-2001. It’s a four-disc collection that proves that these oddities weren’t just throwaways or one-offs. Their b-sides, like “Just One Kiss”, “Breathe” and “The Big Hand”, could be just as amazing and memorable as their album tracks and singles, and even their soundtrack and compilation offerings like “Burn” (from The Crow soundtrack) and the cover of Depeche Mode’s “World in My Eyes” (from For the Masses) are great. It’s worth checking these out.

But wait! There’s one more thing! One that often gets overlooked!

They also did the theme song for the French animated series Dragon Hunters by taking their track “Taking Off” (which would show up soon on their next record) and repurposing it into this fun and boppy theme. This one doesn’t show up on any greatest hits, reissues or box sets (at least not yet anyway), but it’s easy to find online.

Coming up: finally, another new album!

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 1: Bloodflowers

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I stopped listening to The Cure so much probably about the time 1996’s Wild Mood Swings came out, and for a few reasons: one, I’d long grown out of my penchant for sinking into a depressive spiral with Pornography and Disintegration as its soundtrack, and two, WMS was just not a Cure album I could sink my teeth into no matter how much I tried. [In hindsight, I think it was a mix of it being too long and it feeling a bit too overproduced.]

So when 2000’s Bloodflowers was announced — and billed as a spiritual link to those two classic dark and gloomy albums I just mentioned — I looked forward to hearing it. It was released in my final year working at HMV, so as you can well imagine, it got a lot of play in the back office where I worked, as well as in the Belfry where I was just about to embark on writing the Bridgetown Trilogy. To me, Bloodflowers was a long-awaited return to form that I’d missed.

It’s an album that was purposely written to be listened to as a full album, and there were no official singles released from it, although the meandering “Out of This World” and the catchy “Maybe Someday” were both provided with promotional edits for radio play. The latter got significant play on WFNX at the time.

And thankfully, the rest of the album features some absolutely lovely deep cuts that became favorites, like the song “There Is No If…” which Robert Smith had written during his late teens but never tried recording, fearing that it was too cheesy, until he delivered a devastatingly desperate version here.

There’s also the other rarity here: Smith singing about getting older. “39” was written about him slowly approaching his forties. Would he continue down this road of writing his patented doom and gloom, or write something uplifting and trite? There’s also a little bit of concern here: he’s honestly surprised he’s lasted this long, given his drug and alcohol infused past.

I remember the critical response to this album being mixed: some were absolutely thrilled that they’d returned somewhat to form, while some felt a bit like they’d heard this many times before. I can definitely feel its similarity to Disintegration — minus the reverb-drenched echoes on everything — in that it felt like something coming to a close. Whether it was youth, bacchanalia, or goth gloom, it definitely felt like closure.

It would be another four years before their next album, although they would spend most of that time going on extended tours and releasing a greatest hits album with two new songs and a box set of b-sides and rarities.

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Coming up next: The Cure and the Curiosa Tour

Twenty Years On: Songs from the Belfry 2003, Part XI

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Not too many releases to speak of at the end of the year (which, y’know, par for the course at the time), which meant I spent most of my writing sessions listening to all the cds I’d accumulated over the past year or so. In retrospect, 2003 was indeed a stellar year for alternative and indie rock, even though it did kind of feel like a year of change…while there were very few mind-blowing albums or songs that sank deep into my psyche at the time, that’s not to say they weren’t bad per se. Just an interesting mix of bands and sounds changing and evolving. And I always think that’s a good thing, even if the sounds didn’t quite resonate with me.

I did spend a lot of the time listening to releases from 2002 as well — in particular, I’d gotten into Beck’s Sea Change a bit later than its release but it soon became one of my top writing session albums (and still is to this day). Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head was another that I got into quite late. I was very curious to see what the next year would bring.

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Hooverphonic, Sit Down and Listen to Hooverphonic: The Live Theater Recordings, released 1 December 2003. I actually didn’t get around to acquiring this one for a while, which is surprising considering my love for this band, but I mention it here because all of their previous albums were still on heavy rotation in the Belfry, including most of the tracks found on this one. Still one of my favorite bands!

Various Artists/Soundtrack, Live Forever: The Best of Britpop, released 2 December 2003. If you’re curious about the Britpop movement of the 90s, this is a perfect collection to start off with. While some mixes lean heavily on obscurities or label-related releases, this one was inspired by the documentary Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop, which I highly recommend, and focuses more on several popular groups and bands at the time. This one still gets plays here in Spare Oom!

Mix CD, Re:Defined…The Best of 2003, created 30 December 2003. The second year in which my end-of-year compilation is CD-only — I’d bought a CD drive for my older PC late in 2002 and managed to somehow have enough hard drive space to rip songs from my collection then burn them. This was the first end-of-year mix using my new PC, and I think it shows that I’d gotten the hang of making a disc mix, after having made 45-minutes-a-side mixes for the last twenty or so years! I’m quite happy with how this one came out, actually.

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So what would 2004 bring…? I’d continued my weekly runs to Newbury Comics and would continue to do so until further notice, and I’d start writing The Balance of Light soon enough — as well as a vampire novel idea that would pop into my head, serving as a secondary project when I’d started having trouble with TBoL. After three-plus years of writing the Bridgetown Trilogy, I was starting to burn out.

And then at some point during the summer, one of my close friends would hold a get-together with several friends from all around, during which I’d meet for the second time a friend of a friend from New Jersey…

Twenty Years On: Songs from the Belfry 2003, Part X

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I finished The Persistence of Memories in one marathon session on 11 November, having realized I’d started it exactly one year earlier. That’s not something I normally do, but considering that it had been my first novel to be finished in under one year I wanted to see if I could pull it off. It was Veterans Day and I had the day off from work, and if I’m not mistaken it was an extremely lengthy six-hour session (my longest ever to date, with the occasional break for food and whatnot, as well as a few FreeCell games to keep my eyes from crossing).

Thankfully, clearer heads won the day and I didn’t start Book 3 until early January 2004!

Lamb, Between Darkness and Wonder, released 3 November 2003. This duo’s last album before going on an extended hiatus (and not returning until 2011) is a quiet and somber affair, more about contemplation and comfort than their previous experimentations in electronic pop.

P.O.D., Payable On Death, released 4 November 2003. Their follow-up to their mega-selling Satellite may not have been able to reach the same heights, but it certainly had its share of great alt-metal tunes.

Guided By Voices, The Best of Guided By Voices: Human Amusements at Hourly Rates, released 4 November 2003. I’d known about this band for ages thanks to my HMV years but never got around to picking any of their albums up, primarily because they seem to drop four or five records a year! I figured this was a good place to start. And yes, there were a few “oh, that song!” moments upon first listen.

Explosions in the Sky, The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place, released 4 November 2003. Another post-rock band to add to my collection, this one got some considerable play during my writing sessions when I needed background but not necessarily mood.

Loveless, Gift to the World, released 11 November 2003. A Boston group comprised of singer Jen Trynin and members of Expanding Man and Letters to Cleo, their one album is full of crunchy fun indie pop.

Mixtape, Re:Defined 07, created 16 November 2003. This is an interesting one as it’s more of a ‘favorites so far that didn’t make it to previous mixes’ tape than one of new songs. Still, it’s another one of my favorites.

The Beatles, Let It Be…Naked, released 17 November 2003. An interesting compilation that kind of flew under the wire, it’s pretty much all the major songs from the 1970 original minus most of Phil Spector’s, er, mishandling by overproduction. Mostly released for completists like myself, it also contains a twenty-minute bonus track of chat and soundbites from the sessions.

Blink-182, Blink-182, released 18 November 2003. The meathead-punk band of the 90s seems to have chilled out a bit on this record, writing some surprisingly intelligent and straightforward tracks, a few of which have become radio favorites.

Various Artists, Feedback to the Future, released 25 November 2003. A single-disc collection of shoegaze and Britpop I discovered on the pages of CMJ and had Newbury Comics special order for me. This is only a small sampling but it’s a great mix nonetheless. This one got a lot of play in the Belfry.

+/- (Plus Minus), You Are Here, relesased 25 November 2003. The band follows up their fantastic EP with a full record of twitchy indie rock that’s kind of hard to pin down into one style yet worth multiple listens.

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Next up: End of the year releases and mixtapes!

Twenty Years On: Songs from the Belfry 2003, Part IX

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The days at Yankee Candle were already getting busier by October, the sign of Q4 starting with extended hours (aka ‘mandatory overtime’) and larger volume to move. This was the second year with heightened volume thanks to our recent acquisition of Bed Bath & Beyond as a seller. The downside was that YC’s hiring of seasonal help always started a month or so late (they’d come in November when we really needed them earlier), and by then we’d lost one or two members of our team for one reason or another.

And yet at the same time, I was kicking ass writing. I was just about wrapping up The Persistence of Memories and about to start in on Book 3 and I wasn’t about to take any time off in between and lose that momentum. Perhaps that wasn’t the best of ideas in hindsight, but at the time I felt it was better to just keep riding that high while I could.

Mono, One Step More and You Die, released 2 October 2003. This Japanese instrumental post-rock band was a critic favorite from the beginning, and while it took me a bit to warm up to them, I found their music perfect background for writing sessions.

https://youtu.be/a7pw503I2mg

Soundtrack, Lost in Translation, released 3 October 2003. Sofia Coppola’s second movie was a surprise hit and featured quite a few great bands on its quirky and unique soundtrack, including a few rare solo tracks from My Bloody Valentine guitarist Kevin Shields.

Belle and Sebastian, Dear Catastrophe Waitress, released 6 October 2003. These Glaswegians broke out of their bedroom twee sound with this perky and often funny bedsit pop record. The new style fit them really well and they’ve evolved in that direction ever since.

Living Colour, Collideøscope, released 7 October 2003. This band returned for their first record after their 1995 split, and while it’s not as heavy and funky as their previous records, it’s just as topical.

Jet, Get Born, released 7 October 2003. “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” was my favorite track of 2003, containing so much power, swagger and energy that was lacking in so many other songs and records of the day. The entire record is full of fun Stones-y rock with even a few forays into Beatlesque psych pop.

Paul Van Dyk, Reflections, released 7 October 2003. A name I knew for ages as a producer and remixer, his fourth album took him in interesting directions, showing that he wasn’t just knowledgeable in electronic music but in full-band rock.

Death Cab for Cutie, Transatlanticism, released 7 October 2003. Their last album for indie Barsuk Records and a few years before their major-label breakthrough Plans, this album paves the way for their well-loved brand of intelligent, slightly quirky alternative rock, and is considered one of their best.

Laika, Wherever I Am I Am What Is Missing, released 7 October 2003. This may have been their last album, but it doesn’t feel like it; instead it feels like what the band’s sound would have evolved into had they kept going. The twitchy electronics are still there but muted to reveal beautiful melodies just underneath.

Mixtape, Re:Defined 06, created 19 October 2003. This mix in particular got a lot of play in my car as well as its previous volume, containing quite a few of my favorite songs at the time.

The Strokes, Room on Fire, released 28 October 2003. I had a love/hate relationship with this band at the time; I thought their music was interesting and kind of fun, but at the same time I disliked the way Julian Casablancas’ voice always sounded tinny and mixed as if with zero bass whatsoever. I’ve come to appreciate their sounds over the ensuing years.

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Next up: one novel down, one more to go

Twenty Years On: Songs from the Belfry 2003, Part VIII

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September of 2003 was a hell of a fine month for releases, as you can see below. It seems I was in a Loud Music mood, as most of the albums I picked up then certain made a noise. And it definitely made an impact on the scenes I was writing at the time as well, as this was Act 3 of The Persistence of Memories when the stakes were at their highest.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Take Them On, On Your Own, released 2 September 2003. Their follow-up album found them still in that dark and cavernous sound yet still sounding fresh and ready for more.

Soundtrack, Underworld, released 2 September 2003. This might have been yet another ridiculous Goth Vampire Movie With An Alt-Metal Soundtrack (and one with clearly the same color tones as The Matrix universe) but it’s surprisingly enjoyable and well-written. No surprise they made four sequels over the years…

Laibach, WAT, released 8 September 2003. What I love about Laibach is that they can sound and appear so incredibly SERIOUS yet fully embrace the humor lying just underneath. Only they could take what’s essentially a marching rally song and turn it into an infectious dance tune.

Andrew WK, The Wolf, released 9 September 2003. Would the Prince of Party pull off another record full of meathead metal? While this one wasn’t nearly as popular as his previous record, it was still fun and enjoyable.

Starsailor, Silence Is Easy, released 15 September 2003. I was never sure if I liked this band or not as I found some of their songs hauntingly beautiful and others kind of bland, but I’m glad I kept tabs on them over the years. This second album finds them a bit more cheerful than previous.

David Bowie, Reality, released 16 September 2003. Bowie’s last album before taking a well-earned decade off (he’d do a few one-off performances, art shows and recording cameos here and there in the interim) centers on winding down and getting older. There are some intriguing songs — and intriguing covers — on this one, written and recorded to be easily played live.

A Perfect Circle, Thirteenth Step, released 16 September 2003. I always felt this band was a bit like Tool-Lite…an easier project of Maynard James Keenan’s that’s just a bit easier to swallow, and a little less dire. There’s an interesting cover of Failure’s “The Nurse Who Loved Me” that introduced many Tool fans to that band’s Fantastic Planet.

Thursday, War All the Time, released 16 September 2003. I was never much into the Screamo scene, but every now and again a song would capture my interest, such as “Signals Over the Air” which I’d heard on WHMP once or twice.

Muse, Absolution, released 21 September 2003. This band did have a tight following from its first album in 1999, but wasn’t until this third album that they would finally break through in the US and maintain it for a number of years. This one’s got a lot of their best songs on it.

UNKLE, Never, Never, Land, released 22 September 2003. Five years, a few mixes and several singles after their insanely brilliant debut, James Lavelle finally follows up with a much darker and grimmer second record. With the departure of DJ Shadow, the band is less sample-heavy but keeps its chilly atmospheric sound.

Leaves, Breathe, released 23 September 2003. I first heard of this Icelandic indie band through the pages of CMJ, and I wasn’t let down. Very reminiscent of Doves, one of my favorite bands of the 90s-00s, they didn’t quite hit the same heights but they wrote some absolutely lovely songs like “Catch”.

Outkast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, released 23 September 2003. I never got around to picking up this album, but you could not escape “Hey Ya!” that summer. You still can’t, as it still shows up on the playlist of several radio stations!

stellastarr*, stellastarr*, released 23 September 2003. An indie band from New York that had the flash of The Killers and the swagger of Suede, they didn’t quite hit the heights they deserved, but they did manage to get a brilliant one-hit-wonder out of the single “My Coco”.

South, With the Tides, released 23 September 2003. Another CMJ find, I didn’t really know much about this band other than that “Same Old Story” was a great tune that also popped up on LaunchCast. I listened to this one a lot during my writing sessions.

The Network, Money Money 2020, released 30 September 2003. Talk about obscure earworms! The guys from Green Day don masks, channel Devo and write some really weird yet catchy tunes like “Joe Robot.” Noted, in 2020 they returned with a new album: Money Money 2020 Pt II: We Told Ya So.

Ben Folds, Sunny 16 EP, released 30 September 2003. Folds’ second EP follows up with more of his signature piano-driven pop songwriting, including the fun “There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You”.

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Up Next: winding down but not cooling off just yet

Twenty Years On: Songs from the Belfry 2003, Part VII

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By August I was most likely hitting the third act of The Persistence of Memories, where a lot of major plot points I’d kept open were finally getting woven together. By this time I’d also been making time to take a few days off from work to attend both Readercon and Boskone, both Boston-area science fiction conventions. (Readercon had just taken place in July, so I must have still been on that buzz of being a part of the SFF community.) At this point I still wasn’t sure how I was going to get my works published, but I wasn’t going to give up the Mendaihu Universe just yet.

BT, Emotional Technology, released 5 August 2003. I’d been a fan of his since his “Blue Skies” single he did with Tori Amos, so by this point I’d been picking up his newest releases as they came out.

Mixtape, Re:Defined 05, created 10 August 2003. This was one of my favorites to listen to during my commutes home from work.

Dishwalla, Live…Greetings from the Flow State, released 12 August 2003. A great live album from a very underrated band, and from the vibe of the audience you can tell they’re having a great time. A really good cross-section of their three albums to date.

Puffy AmiYumi, Nice, US version released 12 August 2003. A few years before their goofy Cartoon Network show, these two cheerful pop-rockers dropped a super fun album that features some great earworms, some of them co-written by ex-Jellyfish leader Andy Sturmer.

Elbow, Cast of Thousands, released 18 August 2003. While Asleep in the Back showed that this band had the songwriting chops and could write equally beautiful and quirky music, this second album took them so much further and became one of my favorite albums of the year. I highly recommend it.

https://youtu.be/IGFGQ3hUYsM

Client, Client, released 18 August 2003. This was Dubstar singer Sarah Blackwood’s project after her original band went on hiatus. It’s an odd but fascinating mix of retro new-wave and chilly synthpop.

Broadcast, Haha Sound, released 18 August 2003. This strange electronic band was hard to pin down, but I always thought of them as a sort of distinctly British version of Stereolab, only with more tension. Their albums are well worth checking out.

Sloan, Action Pact, released 19 August 2003. As always, I will definitely pick up any Sloan album that drops! By this point in their career they’d nailed the jangly pop sound similar to Matthew Sweet, and just as catchy.

The Good North, An Explanation, released 19 August 2003. A fantastic and almost entirely unknown band from the New England/NYC area, I discovered them while doing one of my Newbury Comics runs. They only dropped one album and a few EPs, but they’re all wonderful.

The Raveonettes, Chain Gang of Love, released 25 August 2003. This band’s early work always reminds me of The Jesus & Mary Chain. They had just as much feedback going on, and the melodies underneath all that noise were surprisingly attractive and melodic. They’ve mellowed out a bit since then, but their early albums are great fun.

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Up next: A lot more noise